The Top Growth Drivers Agencies Need to Focus On with John Hall

Danyel McLellan [00:00:01]:
It doesn’t matter what kind of agency you run, traditional digital media, buying, web dev, PR or brand, whatever your focus, you still need to run a profitable business. The Build a Better Agency podcast presented by 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.

Drew McLellan
Hey everybody. Drew McLellan here from agency Management Institute. Super excited to be back with another great episode of Build a Better Agency. I’m really excited to dig in this conversation. So I have known our guest for a really long time, and he’s one of the most innovative creative thinkers and connectors that I’ve ever met. So I’ll tell you a little bit more about him. But a lot of our conversation today is going to be about sort of big ideas and coming up with bold new ideas and new ways of doing things. And that’s one of the great things about our friends at White Label iq, the presenting sponsor of this podcast. They don’t just crank out code. They actually take your ideas as an agency and they can turn them into something real. So a great example is a project that they called Collage. It actually started as an idea inside the agency, Huebner Marketing. And and the White Label team built it out to be a fully blown commercial web app that ended up being sold by Huebner to a third party. Remember, this is what they do for agencies every day, whether it’s design, dev or paid media. They know how to take your ideas off the whiteboard and make them real. I love that because they’re great thinking partners, but they’re also someone who can help you bring something to life. At the end of the day, agencies are always brimming with ideas, but oftentimes we don’t know what to do with them. And these guys have shown that they can really help you bring that IP to life and do something with it, both for your agency, for your clients, and potentially even to an outside buyer. So many thanks to our friends at White Label. I want you to check them [email protected] ami to learn more about the work they do, the way they build things out for clients, and also they’ve got a special deal there for you if you’ve never worked with them before. So great people, check them out and if nothing else, please send them a note and thank them for being a sponsor of the podcast.
All right, let me tell you a little bit about our guest Today. So I. There was an agency conference probably 20 years ago now, I hate to say that, 15 years ago called BOLO out down in Arizona, and some of you may remember it. And I met a lot of the people that we’ve had on the show at that conference and have just cultivated relationships with them over the years, including my guest today, a guy named John Hall. At the time, John owned a company called Influence and Co, which was really one of the very first agencies that helped clients build out thought leadership and then place them editorially in all kinds of different publications. John has since sold that business and is doing something interesting, which I’m sure he’ll tell you all about. But one of the great things about John is John, number one, is an amazing connector, loves to introduce people to people and help other people serve each other, which I love about him. But he’s also a really big thinker. He loves to sort of notice trends or notice things that are happening and kind of connect the dots. And so about a month ago I saw that he had published an article, I saw it in LinkedIn, I think it started out in Forbes, but published an article about growth trends for 2026. And as soon as I read it, I was like, got to get him on the show because this is a conversation we all need to have. And so with that, let’s welcome John to the show because I want to spend as much time as we can talking about those trends. John, welcome back to the podcast. Thanks for coming back.

John Hall [00:04:07]:
My pleasure, my friend. Thank you for having me.

Drew McLellan [00:04:10]:
For the few people who listen who may not recognize your name, give everybody a little bio on your history. We what you’re up to now, the company that you’re focused on. And then I want to jump into some, some talk about growth in 26.

John Hall [00:04:24]:
Yeah, sounds good. I guess we’ve known each other for well over 10 years now. I mean, it’s probably been more towards 15 than that.

Drew McLellan [00:04:30]:
It was back in the BOLO days.

John Hall [00:04:31]:
Yeah, back in the BOLO days. So what’s funny about my history is I’ve always kind of just fell into identifying value and I’ve never really had a crazy strength in what I, what I do, as funny as it is. Like, so, for example, Influence and Co was a was company where heavily based around content marketing. We ended up being the largest creator and distributor of expert media. And like I joked around, I’m like, I simply like, I think I got like a 17 on my reading score on my ACT. And so I was never super talented in it, but I think that I at an early age understood and had a great team around us that understood the value of content, what can that can do for brands, for profiles and also just how valuable that is to influence and educate people. So we ended up selling that in 2018. Amicable exit. My co founder ended up taking it over with investment group. There was a roll up, now they’re in Tiro Digital and so you know, that was a great story and wrapped that up. Then after that we ended up investing in companies. One of our early investments was Gab Wireless. Those you don’t haven’t heard of that. It’s the one of the larger providers of safe kids technology. So that was one where we just had a passion for the purpose and it ended up turning out to be a very successful company. But one of the ways we grew that is through some of the things we lear in our days at Influence, but then also how we were seeing the future. We saw basically organic trust and growth online as being a big factor. Now we didn’t see AI back there but then we ended up basically buying and acquiring service companies that were all built around building trust online. And what I was telling you before we got on this and started recording is that we just got lucky on that side of things is that we started buying and or investing or starting companies that were all supporting showing up in AI visibility, so showing up in GPT, showing up in Gemini. Like we had a PR company, we had a content marketing company, we had an AI enabled tech company and we merged those together and now we’re on this forefront where we’re pretty ahead on this game, whether it be cloud or GPT or perplexity and we’re kind of running with it. So the service companies are doing well, the portfolio companies are using these tactics and it’s going well. So we, like I said, we kind of got lucky on the timing and everything and we’re kind of excited about this, this upcoming future.

Drew McLellan [00:06:48]:
So the company where you merged the PR firm and the content firm and the AI enabled media firm, do you think of that as an agency?

John Hall [00:06:56]:
Yeah, it’s a service company. I think that I used to, you know, as weird as it is, is that service companies are starting to be cool again. You know, I was, I was just telling a friend is that like everybody used to be, oh yeah, anybody can start an agency. But I’m like, man, like right now with like tech being disrupted, like they used to have these crazy multiples, they’re being disrupted in crazy ways. If you have a solid Service company, your value is very significant. And if you have a solid agency, there’s just value there these days. And so, yeah, I mean, I’m very proud to say that we’re investing in it, we’re growing them and it’s been exciting.

Drew McLellan [00:07:28]:
Yeah, it’s easy to start an agency. It’s a whole different thing to maintain and grow one. Right. That’s anybody with a laptop can start an agency, but having it for more than six months and have it be profitable are two completely different things, for sure.

John Hall [00:07:43]:
Exactly. And we’ve like, we’ve invested across the board. We have tech companies we like. We’re also in manufacturing. We own Lux Pro. If you’ve ever been to a tractor supplier, Home Depot, we’re a big lighting supplier for companies like that. So. But all those portfolio companies, whether it be a GAB or a limited partner in our GP and Lux Pro or we own calendar.com, but we just exited that. We do go by this, the strategy of if you can earn trust online, if you can grow in the right way organically and earn that, then there can be a lot of value there. And it’s worked out really well on our investments, the client side and the service companies.

Drew McLellan [00:08:20]:
Yeah, I think a lot of agencies are recognizing that their agency is not going to look the same in a couple of years. So, you know, we’ve got the summit coming up in May, and the whole focus of the summit is how do you future proof your agency today? How do you know what your agency is going to look like two years from now, four years from now, six years from now, whatever that is. So everyone wants to grow, but the question is, how do I grow? Where are the growth opportunities? And so what triggered this conversation was you wrote an article that you put on LinkedIn. I think you originally wrote it for Forbes about five growth trends that we should be paying attention to in 2026. So that’s kind of where I want to lean into. So talk about the what prompted the article and then let’s, then let’s start talking about what those growth trends are.

John Hall [00:09:07]:
You know, it’s so funny about this is what prompted is that so we, I was lucky enough with the last company to win Entrepreneur of the Year for Ernst and Young was one of the recipients. And they invited, ended up inviting us back every year to help with some of the growth strategies and things for the award winners. So it’s, it’s, it’s an amazing program. They have like a winning women program that supports women leaders. They’ve got a minority alliance program that towards minority entrepreneurs. It’s just a fantastic, great. I highly recommend if you can’t, you know, apply or have friends apply. And so we were there and what’s really interesting this time is that we were asked more than ever to meet with people that I ever like. You know how you have those requests, like, oh, you know, you should meet with me before. All of a sudden I would describe as like, I was the cute guy at the bar, which I’d never been that in my life. And so it was like, oh, what’s going on here? And they, A lot of them wanted to talk about AI and the AI visibility stuff we working on, which was cool. But it put me in this unique and very grateful situation where I was able to talk to probably, I think that I Talked to over 150of the com of the award winners, which is the most I’ve ever spoken at an event. And I was able to just like to have transparent conversations with them. Like, what is working for you? What are you scared of right now? What do we see on this horizon? Because to be honest, six, seven months ago, I was pretty nervous. Maybe a year ago, I was pretty nervous. Six years, six months ago we started figuring things out a bit. But I think that like, the insecurity as an entrepreneur right now has never been higher. And I don’t blame people because things change so much. So I was in this situation where I got to talk to 150 people in a week and talk about what’s working, what’s not working, be surprised that some unique niche company is dominating their industry in manufacturing or I was just blown away by also how people didn’t know really how to utilize AI and the best ways to actually grow their company. So there was just a lot of like, trends that I was able to see. So then when Ernst and Young and I, there’s some of their leaders were talking, they’re like, hey, you know, would it be great if you cover that? Because you’re in a unique position that you talk to this many entrepreneurs. And I was like, happy to. And then I, you know, covered it. It actually ended up being an editorial pick for Forbes, did pretty well, but then ended up getting syndicated a lot of other places. And then so I did to LinkedIn. So it was just a really unique situation where I was able to do that.

Drew McLellan [00:11:25]:
So no surprise, one of the growth trends is generative AI, automation and visibility. So talk a little bit about. I mean, I think that’s all anybody’s talking about. These days. But what were some of the unique takeaways that you had around that particular growth strategy from talking to all those entrepreneurs? And how do you think it specifically relates to agencies?

John Hall [00:11:46]:
Yeah, okay, so one I didn’t know walking in that. That what we knew was gonna be as popular as it was the first speech that went out as a winning women’s speech, that one of the women came out and said, oh my gosh. And she said, it’s like this thing where she goes. She goes, oh my gosh. Does anybody know what’s going on and how you can show up in the. In GPT and these things? And she made a comment about it where I was very surprised that people didn’t know some of the things and how important is like, for example, leads are actually starting to show up very frequently and such a high conversion. Such a high. And so for agencies, I’ll just dive right into that from an agency standpoint. Like, we just had. I don’t know if I can say the name, but like, let’s say two or three agencies or really strong brands that came in through the agency that looked at us through GPT and they just walk through the sales process. And the reason why is because it’s different than Google. You can get so specific here with what you own, what your niche is that and who your audience is that when they find you, they know it. And when they come in, they’re ready for you. And so I think that I was surprised because they’re like, oh, well, like this is in the future. And there’s these comments and I was like, guys, like, we’re seeing across the board. Yeah, we’re seeing, let’s say back then it was 3 to 6% of lead closes. Were there. Some of our clients are up to 6 to 12 already of conversions. And also it’s less marketing and spend because you. They come in, they’re higher leads, so you have a higher conversion rate. And so for agencies, like, I would say, like, definitely understand and the agencies are the. Whatever the saying, the cobbler doesn’t know how to do shoes or whatever. Children have no shoes. Yeah, you know, yeah, there you go. But agencies are known for being terrible at, you know, creating those opportunities. But this is like such a, such a very straightforward thing is that if you’re an agency and you want to show up in GPT and these things, like I now like with relevance, the company that we basically invested in to do this. So what they do is they say, first step, own, like what you truly want to Own like what I mean by that is like be very specific. Don’t say I do everything. This, this because if you’re, if you’re showing up in these engines, assume the GPD or perplexity or whatever feels like there’s not something special. And she like, I mean it kind of takes a step back. It’s like this is too. Because they’re looking for the best solutions because if they get the best solutions and this is the first time ever that Google has not been the best provider of this information. So I think that that was the number one thing I was very surprised by that people didn’t understand the value and how it can bring opportunity for you for a, especially for a healthy agency owner is that if you can start getting these consistent. I’m not saying 100 leads, I’m saying like if you can get 5 to 10.

Drew McLellan [00:14:23]:
Yeah. Can’t take on that many clients. Two or three good sized clients a year is all an agency can absorb.

John Hall [00:14:31]:
I just spoke at an event and the people who were doing GPT and AI visibility, well, their conversion rate was all over 50%. How insane is that? The idea that they’re, they have a lead source that one out of every two people is closing is insane. So yeah, I think that that was one of the early things with AI that I was, I was like, I think and I think part of that was a defense mechanism. It was like some of these people had been around for a while and they, they haven’t jumped in yet and they were just like oh well we’re not that, yeah, we, we got this. And, and so I think that that would be my first encouragement is this is the world we’re in right now. There’s a lot of opportunity. I hated it at first to be honest with you because I’m a very human driven person that I love human connection. But now that I’ve kind of jumped over this hump, I, I, there’s just so much opportunity and if you can see that then you as an agency owner, you can definitely differentiate yourself. You can stand out and do some cool things.

Drew McLellan [00:15:24]:
Well and to me it’s twofold, right? It’s you can do it for your own agency, but you should also be doing it for your clients.

John Hall [00:15:31]:
Right?

Drew McLellan [00:15:32]:
I mean that’s, that’s the one, two punch for agencies is yeah, it works for you and your own business development, but it’s also the opportunity because your clients all need to be findable there too. How do you build, how do you build up that service offering?

John Hall [00:15:45]:
Yeah, yeah. And like I said, we got lucky where we had some of these. I mean, we partner with agencies right now who are missing, like, one of the holes with AI. If they’re missing one, we’ll be like, hey, we’ve got you covered. And I think, think at this point, playing nice with other agencies is great because, I don’t know, I think agencies used to fight each other a lot and be like, well, this is my business, this is mine. And we, we look at it as like, guys, if you can kind of figure out what you’re really strong at, what you can do well in this new world, it’s omnichannel. And actually, like, having things aligned is so important.

Drew McLellan [00:16:15]:
Yeah.

John Hall [00:16:16]:
And if you can align these things, you’re going to be very far ahead on the AI visibility charts.

Drew McLellan [00:16:20]:
Well, on the Right. And you know, at ami, as you know, you know, we are all about, look, there’s plenty of opportunity for everybody, and we get smarter, better, and faster when we do it together. And so collaborative partnerships, where everybody brings their strengths together to benefit a client, really serves everyone well. And the agencies that understand that playing, you know, most clients have three to five agencies, so you got to learn how to play in the sandbox together. Otherwise you’re going to be the odd man out that gets booted because all the other agencies are like, look, they’re not cooperating. They’re trying to throw us under the bus, fill in the blank. And so I think you’re right. I think being able to collaborate is critical with AI and everything else. I think agencies are. You know, I mean, it really is the premise of ami, it’s we bring agencies together to learn from each other and to connect. So I agree. So I also think, though, as we’re talking about AI, everyone is so focused on AI that I think sometimes we’re missing other opportunities. So one of the other growth trends that you identified is innovation shouldn’t be just in AI. So talk a little bit about some of the takeaways you had around innovation in general and our ability to sort of broaden the lens and go, okay, there are other places where we can be innovative rather than just this technology.

John Hall [00:17:42]:
Yeah. As funny as it is, anytime there’s extreme innovation, there’s opportunity on the other side of it, too. And also not necessarily like the. Not innovation, but like something that was very surprising me at that event was the amount of niche, like, innovation that was happening. Like the example RPG acoustics I gave where they took furniture and they’re making it so that it absorbs sound. And so when you think about like Herman Miller products and things like that, just imagine your conference room that’s all echoey all of a sudden. Not because it has the furniture in there that has this technology on it. Super cool. Like when you think about that, like.

Drew McLellan [00:18:19]:
Right.

John Hall [00:18:20]:
And. And the more I talked to and found people that were finding niche opportunities, I was like, it’s just a really good reminder of like, there’s a lot of. There’s a lot of opportunity in innovating in things where they’re not just technology. The idea that that was furniture that was, you know, something that was, you know, pretty unique, that I have no doubt that they’ll end up partnering with some of the largest furniture providers on the planet. That is still very, very valuable and has nothing to do with AI. So I think that a lot of times we can have a blind eye to innovation when we’re just focused in one area. And then that leaves opportunity for others to be like, oh, could we do this here? Now, I’m not saying go and change furniture. That was just a great. An example in the article.

Drew McLellan [00:19:04]:
Well, but it’s a great example of somebody being curious about something that’s frustrating their customers and how could they solve that problem?

John Hall [00:19:15]:
Yeah. And that’s what that cracked me up like years ago where we. Oh gosh, it was. I forgot what maybe it was when mobile was getting really popular and then an agency was like, hey, I’m just gonna go straight in. I forgot what this agency’s in. They’re down in Texas, you might know, but they’re pretty big. But they went straight up hyper targeting with newspapers and newsletters and like, so everybody’s like, go mobile, go mobile. And this agency ended up being like, we’re gonna go do hyper targeting news or newspapers in neighborhoods and things like that. I forgot what they did, but they ended up doing extremely well. And so almost the anti trend. Yeah, I mean, when, when you think about it, because there’s always like, you know, you follow eyes and influence and things like that. And sometimes there’s. When there is such a big trend, in a way there is an opportunity. So I would just say let’s just not forget about that. So when you’re looking at things that are, you know, not AI related but still say, hey, like what is valuable to the client and where. When people are putting budgets towards AI and going this far, what could be the, I don’t want to say evil of that, but the counter effect, the yin to the yang of it. There’s always A counter effect of when something happens and you might find an opportunity going which can be a revenue stream and also valuable to your clients.

Drew McLellan [00:20:30]:
Yeah, it’s interesting. So every year we put together a trends piece that we first introduce in our peer groups and then it becomes usually a two part podcast in the summer. And one of the trends we’re tracking and paying attention to is this digital fatigue that a lot of the large companies are recognizing saying, okay, everybody’s all focused about digital and online and AI. And there’s this backlash from that where people are like, I want to actually be with other human beings. I want to be. So to your point, it is the Ying to the yang, which is everyone is, you know, letting Chad plan their vacations and they never talk to a travel agent, but on the flip side, they don’t want to drive through and grab their coffee anymore. So one of the examples in this trends deck that we put together, Starbucks is starting to close a bunch of their mobile only locations and reopen actual retail locations again, where people can gather that third place because we’re hungry for human contact. So to your point, innovation is about sort of noting what trends are pushing people in one direction and recognizing there’s some fatigue to that too. And so what’s the counter? What’s the solution to that? What is the antithesis to that that would give you a new opportunity that is not driven by technology?

John Hall [00:21:52]:
Yeah. And what I was going number five of this list is about communities and how like yours is an example of a community. Like, I know that. Or when you look at like how I’ve seen your people interact over the years and even from BOLO times, it’s like there is a difference. Like, I mean, I think I met Jay Bear for the first time at BOLO with you. And like, as funny as it is, is that like you saw, like, I’m pretty busy these days, but you reach out to me and I drop. And I think I even said that I go, oh, when you reach out, I will drop what I’m doing.

Drew McLellan [00:22:23]:
Right.

John Hall [00:22:24]:
There’s only certain things that do that and human connection is one of them. When you have good times and good connections. And it’s not just for, I’m sure we helped each other out in the past in some ways, but the idea that 15 years later we’re still doing that, that’s not only good for business, but it’s also good for, honestly, happiness. If your heart good for your heart. And, and so, you know, I was there when it was interesting. I was there at A YPO event at that event. And we were talking about just how important the communities are, and some of these entrepreneurs were really struggling mentally and they were saying how IPO and the forums have helped. Same thing with, like this group and agencies. Same thing with. I mentioned Brain Trust in the article. They’re actually somebody we worked with in the past, but they’re women entrepreneurs supporting other women entrepreneurs that are upcoming that need that kind of extra help. And I think that, like, that’s something to not miss out on. Like, you know, like for a lot of these people, probably already part of your group and. But I would say that go talk to your friends and be like, hey, like, you should join this group. And I’m not. You know, I want people to join your group just because I know you and you’re a good person and you do good things. But I think that it’s also for others is that this is the time to encourage each other that especially people we care about in the industry or whatever. Hey, like, what groups are you part of this? Because especially good people, like, I want the. Like the people that want to serve others want to. We know the difference between an agency owner that’s just in it for the money, and we also know the ones that actually care about the customer. So I would say that, you know, when you see those other agency people that you know, that you know are good humans, treat their customers well, treat their employees well, you know, that’s the ones you want in these organizations. Because the more. More good people that want good things to happen in the industry actually get together, the more that has a viral effect and it’s a spread effect across the industry. So I think communities are going to be a massive key to not only our success in business, but also just, you know, keeping good people in the influential positions we want them to be in.

Drew McLellan [00:24:20]:
And I think it’s also mental health. You know, when we facilitate one of our peer groups or we teach a workshop or whatever, there is a mental health factor in that. Just the ability to share safely, to commiserate about the things that are hard, to celebrate the things that are good, and to just not feel like you’re just in the battle by yourself. And to your point, I think that communities give you that sense of shared strength. And in the keynote I gave last year, I talked about the power of that is like, we as human beings are hardwired biologically to seek the comfort and safety of being in a peer group and being with, you know, our tribe, whatever that is. And again, it could be. It could be a vistage group, it could be an EO group, it could be an AMI group, whatever it is. But there is power in not facing hard things or even celebrating great things by yourself. And to your point, I think attracting people who. So one of our rules at AMI is you need to. Everything you come to, you got to show up as both the teacher and the student, right? So you’ve learned things that you can share with other people as the teacher, and there’s still things for you to learn. So you got to show up as the student. And when people come with that spirit, then now you’ve got this really collaborative, safe space where everybody can get something, but also feels like they’re giving something, which I think is important.

John Hall [00:25:45]:
Yeah, I was just actually pulling up. I had my tech screen at the corner of this screen that I have over here. And two of my messages this morning were from people who. Entrepreneurs have been on top of the world. When, I mean, like, one probably did a hundred million dollars in the last couple of years. Like, the other one did a lot. And they’re both struggling. And as crazy as it was, it was like I was just. I was replying to him, I was like, hey, man, here. And we’re part of a group together. And I was like, here for you. Whatever we can do to support. Cause they had a big challenge. And his response back was like, yeah, like, it’s like, I haven’t hit this on. And that’s. That’s the world we’re in. Like, even people that have. Some of these people, one in particular has won his whole pretty much career with success. And then all of a sudden, we’re in just a different landscape where even people have won for years are. Well, didn’t see that one coming, or this one’s coming up. And so I think that you’re, you know, in my confidence, this person. But. Yeah, but he also has a support circle around him of people are in groups in communities. And, you know, that’s what kind of makes you persevere, because there’s not many people that are in my circle that haven’t had a really crappy time at one point.

Drew McLellan [00:26:52]:
I don’t know, I don’t care how smart you are on a hair, how great you your business is. There is a cyclical nature to business, and sooner or later, it’s your turn, you know, on the downward spiral for a period of time. And especially I think, for people who are normally on the successful side, that’s a scary, lonely place to be when Things are not going the way you’re used to them going. And all the more reason to have a group of people around you that support you, that give you resources, that give you suggestions, that give you the truth when you don’t even want to hear the truth. Like all of that matters. And I think you’re right, I think, you know, to your article. And the point is that community becomes even more critical in a world where everything sort of lives in this digital space and it feels like we’re kind of navigating it by ourselves.

John Hall [00:27:44]:
Yeah. And that’s what I would, I would say that like, if any listeners or people, it’s like just set a goal where you’re this, these are the relationships. I’m going to stay in touch with the next like quarter. Like, I’m not saying like be a social butterfly, but I do think that part of the what we do, we get too caught up in the work, we get too caught up in being behind and we don’t actually or we’re not proactive with relationships like we should. And I think that that’d be my, you know, challenge is like, are you proactive? If you’re not, get a list of 10 people that you’re going to be more proactive with this next quarter. And I don’t care if it’s just a simple text. It’s like, hey, just want to check in how you’re doing. There just is opportunity and, and it’s just not like it’s going to be more and more important because there’s not going to be less tech and less AI. And I think it’s going to be and ended up being a differentiating factor on how your network and how your relationships are in this next like five years. It’s just going to be a massive effect on success.

Drew McLellan [00:28:37]:
Agreed. All right, let’s take a break and then when we come back, we’ll dig into the last two trends that were in your article. So we’ll be right back with John hall in a minute. I want to take a quick moment to reassure you that when we bring sponsors on the show, these are people that we know and trust. And that is absolutely true of our friends at jobrack. When agencies ask us about long term remote hiring, we often introduce them to Noel at jobrack. We’ve spent time with him. We see how he approaches hiring decisions and we’re confident sending AMI agencies his way. That’s why we’re thrilled to have them on board as a paid sponsor of this podcast. If international hiring is something you’re thinking about this year. They’ve put together a really thoughtful hiring playbook with lots of tips and [email protected] AMI Again, one more time, jobrack.com AMI you’re definitely going to want to take advantage of some of the great advice that’s in that playbook. So go grab it now while you can, and let’s get back to the show. Hey, everybody, Just want to remind you before we get back to the show that we have a very engaged Facebook group. It’s a private, private group just for podcast listeners and agency owners that are in the AMI community. And to find it, if you’re not a member, head over to facebook.com groups B, a bapodcast. So again, facebook.com groups Bab podcast. All you have to do is answer a few questions to make sure that you are an actual agency owner or leader, and we will let you right in. And you can join over 1700 other agency owners and leaders. And I’m telling you, there’s probably 10 or 15 conversations that are started every day that are going to be of value to you. So come join us. All right, we are back with John hall, and we’re talking about growth trends for 2026. And we’ve covered generative AI, we’ve covered being innovative in areas other than AI and thinking sort of analog versus digital. And then we went right into what I think. And as all of you listeners know, I have a strong passion around building community and creating a safe place for people to come and be vulnerable and learn from each other and be able to be both the teacher and the student. So the last two trends that you talked about, one of them was about the opportunity in financing. So talk a little bit about that.

John Hall [00:31:04]:
Yeah. And so this could be applied to things beyond financing. So the reason why this was triggered is that, like, I met a person there, company called Film Heads, really nice guy. His name’s John. And I was like, man, you’re just doing, you’re doing well, financing films. I need, like, and I didn’t understand, like, the niche of it is, like, in film financing. And specifically, there’s a lot of, like, Netflix and the streamers that they don’t pay for a film up front. They pay for it. In fact, now it’s committed to, but until it’s done. And so, you know, this is just something where you just was like, I already saw the opportunity in this niche. And, you know, there’s not like hundreds and hundreds of people in this space. But he found it and he’s done pretty well at that. And so I think that rather than just like the opportunity financing, it’s like I’m a huge fan of niches. I think that like, especially as agencies or service owners, you know, as funny as it is, like Iko, we never found our specific niche, we always looked for it and we never really landed, but we ended up luckily doing well. But I do think that there’s a lot of opportunities moving forward with more of the niche things. Also because tying this into the AI visibility trend, if you’re more niche that and you really own and you know what you’re doing and you do it well or to a certain audience with this AI visibility opportunity, I think that like in the next two to five years, the traffic that it’s just going to be skyrocketed. So if it is a niche that you’re, you’re, you have found, I think that you’re going to benefit significantly. And if you look at Google back in the day, like Adobe Salesforce, companies were just dominating every keyword out there. HubSpot, they, they dominated like thousands and thousands and thousands of keywords. That is not how like GPT and these are working. They want to find the best solution. And so you have a chance to beat HubSpot, you have a chance to beat Salesforce, which I like. It’s like agencies going up against those beasts in the past for keywords. I just like, you have zero shot. And we didn’t even try. We saw like HubSpot or somebody was on it. We’re like, all right, we’ll move on. And so I think that now that’s different. And I think that that’s just one benefit of owning your niche, moving forward and really finding and kind of honing in. And, and sometimes that’s hard. As a service provider, trust me, got mouths to feed at influence. We had a hundred or so. And when that happened, it was like, we’ll take what we can get. But if you can plan and be more thoughtful and strategic and lean in a way where you take on what you’re and you focus on that and you grow, then there’s going to be some pretty significant opportunities. Now with this new, like agency or not new, but the current one service provider, the opportunity is we’re honing in on AI visibility as the niche now that, you know, will end up being broad because more and more people. But right now it’s a niche for us. Right. What we do plan to do is we do plan to hone in on Specific verticals as we develop this. So that is the plan even for us. But there can be a niche and opportunity in like the this one I just mentioned financing in an area which I think with what we’re doing, there’s a niche opportunity. But that won’t last too long.

Drew McLellan [00:33:59]:
I was going to say that. So that’s, that’s the interesting thing about niching. When you niche with a deliverable, the window of opportunity is shorter because sooner or later everybody else goes, oh, I can sell that too. But then you’re so far ahead. So then if you add a vertical niche to that now all of a sudden you know you’ve got a game changer combination.

John Hall [00:34:20]:
Yep. Yeah, exactly. And then your value goes up as a service company. If you’re trying to sell in the future, there’s higher multiples. A lot of times when you see a really own niche, they like that. So there’s just a lot of benefits in that evolution.

Drew McLellan [00:34:32]:
Yeah. So the last trend that you talked about in this article in terms of the opportunity for growth was around data. So talk a little bit more about that.

John Hall [00:34:41]:
Yeah, so yeah. And I wrote this even a couple, like even we’ve evolved so much just since I wrote this. But like some of the example I saw here, which was it was a cool aerospace technology company called Pegasus where they were using a technology just to put on airplanes to get data on weather trends, but understand weather trends throughout the whole planet. You can have an airline put on every single. And they have these. There’s some technology now, but it’s just such an evolution where these can basically be put on a whole, you know, airline or even the Air Force or something like that. And you know exactly what the weather is. Exactly. All across the planet. And, and it’s like it could absolutely disrupt weather or weather people. But what, but what was cool about that is like the more that I like heard where this company was going and where their growth plans were, the technology and like the success right now was cool. But then they were just talking about like all the different types of data and how it can monetize it. What different people, like that was just weather. There was also different other forms of data with the US Military, things like that. And so for me, I look at it as data’s never been easier to get at this point because especially with cloud cowork coming out and in the last several weeks with their update, you can gather and process data better than anybody could before. So there’s going to be a lot of value that. And there’s going to be a lot of clients that don’t realize you can do what you do at least for the next six months to a year. And like, I was joking around with a client of the service company last week. I said, I go, hey, we’re gonna, you guys should be using, you know, Claude, this, this. They go, we can’t. And I go, what do you mean? They’re like, we’re only allowed to use Gemini. I’m like, wait a minute. So you’re only allowed, you can’t even like log into these other. You know, because they’re all, all have different strengths. Like, Gemini has a strength, you know, whatever. So even just us saying, all right, we’re gonna use Claude to, you know, and they’re like, wow, how do you do this? Wow, how do you do this? Now, to be transparent, we’re not telling them, like, we’re putting everything in cloud and we’re doing this. They just didn’t know a lot of the functionality and what you could do. So they’re just loving the service and they’re just like. And it’s helping our margins because we’re able to do things quicker. But like, the data that is helping us do things quicker, better, faster, and we’re learning things quicker than, like almost anybody is telling them, then we’re communicating that to them. And so I think that you’re almost being a natural thought leader with your clients, and I think that just builds so much more trust and reliance on you. So I think that there’s a value of data, of gathering it, learning it, having the right tools. I also think in certain cases, selling it in a way where if you can get the right data to help them make better decisions, like Pegasus and their example, that’s what they were doing. But I definitely just think data was what they said data is, came in different things at different times and it was valuable. Now agency service providers have more of a play there. Before, you had to pay a big old. I remember I had a friend who did data surveys that he was charging 150. I haven’t even connected with him in a while. I should. But he was doing like 150, 200,000 research surveys. I’m like, yeah. I mean, a lot of agency owners couldn’t do that before because the what goes in. But now with the technology, you can do it and you can actually have research done. You can include that in and I think you can start packaging that up and big brands and companies will pay more for that. So I think that that’s just a key element that now that technology is there, jump on it now. Now in a year, two, three, it might be different, but I think for this next year, it’s just a huge opportunity. And what I’ve learned about service providers is that once you get this momentum, like you kind of said with, like you going from into the niche, if you end up getting momentum, opportunities keep coming up and they keep coming up and then you have this momentum going. And so I just think data needs to be a part of that. And a lot of times we’re even helping the other agencies that we’re working with. We’re providing them the data and we’re saying, hey, give this to your client. But yeah, I mean, it’s, there’s just a lot of opportunity with the tech now.

Drew McLellan [00:38:27]:
Well, the other thing, the other part of that is, you know, your example is a great one. So one of the trends we’re seeing is that in house agencies are getting smaller and smaller and smaller or shutting down altogether. And when we ask clients why that is, one of the big reasons is they cannot get permission to do the things with AI that they want to. So they’re having to rely on their agency more to do those things. Your cloud example is a brilliant example. And so what they’re doing is they’re reducing their internal costs. So they know they have to be more innovative with AI, but they can’t get it through their corporate legal. And so they have to have a third party, their agency partner, do that work for them because they can’t sell it in house, they need a firewall. And so we’ve been talking about first party data and lots of other things for a while, but the reality is data’s never been more accessible, it’s never been more important. And for us now, it’s far more leverageable than it used to be because we have access to it in ways that our corporate clients can’t get permission to access it. And so we can become, for the first time, we can actually understand their business better than they do because we have access to data that they’re not allowed to go gather. And so if we, again, as we’re good strategic partners to your point, whether you sell it or you share it as part of something bigger, you’re giving them insight into their own customers, their own competitors, their own products and services that they have no other way to get. And so that’s the opportunity for us, is to be a data source. So I think one of the places agencies are challenged is particularly for agency owners who are north of 50 and kind of grew up in the Mad Men heyday of great creative and all of that, that I think this shift to data and information is hard because it doesn’t feel as sexy or creative or other things. But the agency owners who are either younger or more innovative or who are sort of going with the trend, they’re recognizing the creativity. When you have more information and more data and more insight, the creativity that that gives you is pretty powerful.

John Hall [00:40:42]:
Yeah, it is nuts. And yeah, I would say shifting that mindset to from. Yeah, there’s a lot of creatives in this business and I respect them. I have a lot of good friends that are super uber talented. I think that that pride will be a downfall if you don’t just get around it and just say, hey, look like, want to be the most valuable to the clients that we possibly can be. And, you know, even I’ve seen some great creative campaigns. There was. Oh, there was a friend that was using as an agency owner that was basically developed a tool that would automatically stay on trends that. And it would take it, analyze it, and then immediately create pitches for it. They’re from the news for their clients. So it had created this streamline where then they’re like, a lot of times you have to like go to clients this. But like, they were so proactive. They’re like, this is a trend here at the pitch already. It’s already set up. Here’s data that it pulled in to support this.

Drew McLellan [00:41:39]:
And that was something I need a subject matter expert. We’re going to pitch you to. Yeah. So again, it is about leveraging the data to put either your own agency or your clients in the perfect spot at the perfect time. And then it still requires creativity, it still requires great messaging, it still requires great brand stories, all of those things. But the timing of it and the placement of it make all of those things more relevant to the people that you’re talking to.

John Hall [00:42:11]:
Yeah, they. And I wouldn’t, I would tell people, like, don’t discount the skills that you have and the things. Because like, some of the stuff that our, our service companies are doing, they’re still doing some of the things that they’ve been best at for a while, for sure. Understanding it. It’s just I look at it as more a catalyst. That’s kind of like, why, like, you know, when the calculator came out, I was like, oh my gosh, our world’s gonna change. And it did, but it just made us do things better. And we evolved with the calculator. Same thing with the iPhone. This is, this AI jump is the, in my mind the biggest since the iPhone. And then, you know, and so it’s like you look at that as like, this is a 20 year cycle right now where, you know, it’s time to embrace it, evolve and if you do that, you’ll be fine and we’re all going to be all right. Like, it’s like I had the Debbie Downers all the time. But I would tell you that as a service now I’m not as involved because I have presidents and like in place of these companies. But like, I’ll tell you when I’ve seen them succeed and I, and I’ve also seen my own doubts have hurt, you know, growth at different times. And when I change this view and been like, see these opportunities, see these growth trends, see these things and how we can capitalize on, like we went from me being like, man, it’s like, is this going to be survivable? This was about a year ago. It’s like, is this going to be survivable to now I feel more on top of the world and better than I ever have. And we’re on a growth path that we haven’t seen. So I would just say mindset actually persevering through it, that those doubts and you just gotta get after it and, and you’ll get there. It’s like there’s a lot of opportunity out there, especially for established agencies and ones that have been around. So.

Drew McLellan [00:43:43]:
Yeah, agreed, agreed. This has been a great conversation. Thanks for, thanks for making the time to be on the show and, and share your thoughts with us. It was, it’s a lot of food for thought for everybody. And I think that’s, I think that’s where we’re at is I just want to, I want agency owners to see there’s so much blue sky in front of us. If we, if we embrace it, if we, if we acknowledge that change is inevitable and that’s been true for agencies from the very beginning of time. It just is coming faster. And to your point, I do think AI is probably the biggest change, biggest technological change, I think sense computers for agencies.

John Hall [00:44:26]:
That’s fair, right? That’s fair.

Drew McLellan [00:44:28]:
But look at what we’ve all built thanks to computers. And I can remember early, early in my career, I was just a young pup. I can remember working with an art director who was an older guy and he was like, I will never do any of my work on a computer. I’m going to do it all by Hand. And you know what? He was asked to retire in less than two years. So our opportunity is either embrace what’s coming, embrace the new opportunities, and recognize that there are analog opportunities that come alongside that technology, or recognize that we’re going to be irrelevant pretty quick. So I think it’s exciting. I think it’s an exciting time to reinvent the business and find new ways to serve clients and help them achieve their goals. And, you know, it’s cool stuff that we get to do. And we’re. We’re in the fortunate position as agency owners and leaders that we get to decide and embrace this, which is kind of cool.

John Hall [00:45:26]:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and one thing to actually look at as a positive is, like, when we were growing at ICO, we had to hire 30 or 40 butts in a seat and, like, six months or something when we were in the growth stage. That is extremely stressful. People are. And I love people. People are the biggest problems with agencies, if I’m being honest with you. It’s like, they’re very challenging sometimes. And I would just tell you is that, you know, the idea that we were able to, like, scale in one of our areas pretty quickly with only hiring one or two people, that would have taken 20 people years ago. And so I. I would say, like, let’s look at, you know, look at those opportunities and say, wow, like, and also, like, I. I hate late. Like, I’ve never really had to do a layoff myself. And so, you know, the risk of having to do that, if you’re just smart about this technology and how you’re using it, you can grow and see your numbers grow without putting risks. You know, oh, am I to hire five people then? Gonna have to lay them off immediately. Right. And so I think that there’s just. There’s pros there. And, you know, and as you pointed out, they’re just opportunity and so getting the right attitude, you know, being a part of groups like yours and others that can keep you on your head, on straight, I think there’s just gonna be a ton of opportunity.

Drew McLellan [00:46:35]:
Yeah, I think so, too. This has been great, John. If folks want to follow your writing, read the books that you’ve written, do all the things, what’s the best way for them to connect with you and follow you?

John Hall [00:46:48]:
Well, I haven’t. Top of mind. I mean, it was eight years ago, so I don’t know if that would be, like, I haven’t read a book in a while. But I would say the best thing,

Drew McLellan [00:46:56]:
I would argue that there’s a lot of still very relevant things in that book. And if you looked at it through an AI lens, all of it’s relevant. It’s just a new. It’s just a new channel or new path.

John Hall [00:47:05]:
Yeah. I mean, honestly. Yeah, you probably have a good point. But for me, for me, I just look at that. I’m like, God, I’ve learned so much in the last month or two and eight years, you know, but sometimes going back, that’s. That’s great. But I say, I mean, I put content on LinkedIn. I would say that if there’s something like particular where there’s a partnership or opportunity of someone I’m involved in, just reach out my. I’m involved with irrelevance.com and so just reach out through the contact form and it will get to me if there’s something where it’s just questions or something like that that I can be valuable maybe just through LinkedIn or something, just like, hey, you know, I’d love to connect or what. Would you have a suggestion there? I typically, even if it’s like just a one sentence or two sentence or whatever, I try and direct people on the best path possible because that’s where I think I’ve been very blessed and lucky to be in a situation where we learn and we experience a lot of things. And when you are in a position like that, you should share. So I will try and direct you in the right way. So, yeah.

Drew McLellan [00:47:56]:
Awesome. This has been great. Thank you. Thanks for coming back on the show. It’s always good to get some time with you, so I’m grateful. Thank you.

John Hall [00:48:05]:
Lots of respect for you. And yeah, you’re one of those people I drop what I’m doing and would always be happy to jump on a call with.

Drew McLellan [00:48:10]:
Yeah. Vice versa. You know that. All right, guys, so John gave you five growth trends. I challenge you to take those five trends to your leadership team, to a peer group and I and chew on them together. Chew on them about what’s possible from your lens based on what you deliver, who you deliver it for. I do not believe we’ve ever been faced with more opportunity than we are right now. And so it’s really about taking advantage of those growth opportunities. So that’s your homework, is don’t just absorb this and let it be fodder for thought. Make it part of a conversation that you have with other smart people that you surround yourselves with and imagine what’s possible and then start chasing after it. All right, huge shout out and thank you. As you know, to our friends at White Label iq. They’re the presenting sponsor. I talked to you about them at the top of the show. Whitelabeliq.com.com AMI for a special deal from those folks. And I am just grateful, you know, by having a show like this, which I cannot do if you don’t keep listening, I don’t have the excuse to reach out to my friends like John and go, hey, I want a whole hour of your time. I want to just talk to you about what’s going on in the business. So I am, I am grateful that you listen every week and that you afford me the opportunity to have these conversations and keep getting smarter on both of our behalf. So thanks for listening. I’ll be back next week and I’m counting on you to come back too. All right, I’ll see you then. 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] Sam.