He’s Top 3 on Google and Still Can’t Get Clients

Is that not all companies?

Yeah.

So is your niche all companies?

Sure, but I don't want to say that, Dan, because if I say that, then I'm a generalist and generalists are boring.

But is that the reality right now?

Thousands of emails and we got zero back. Private equity branding is our niche. On Google, we're in the top 3 when you type in private equity branding. You know, I'm creating a lot of content around it. I'm creating videos. I'm doing Instagram. I'm doing stuff. But I don't know, man. I don't know. It's tough. It's really tough.

Gonna leave out words like hopefully from now on.

Stop. If you're creative, then be creative. I'm not gonna turn down clients at this point.

So we're talking about PE firms that you need to be in front of.

Geez, that is a fantastic point. Yeah, you got me.

The word agency has 2 meanings. One is the business that you run. The other is having some say over your own life. The whole reason to build the first one is to get more of the second. But most agency owners I talk to have built something that gives them less. It traps them. They feel stuck doing what they feel they have to do. Not the things they really want to do. Today, I'm talking to Mark, who runs the agency Consequently Creative. They're 6 years old and they have 7 people on the team. Their niche is private equity branding, and they're good enough at it that they rank in the top 3 on Google for the term. When I read his application, the word he used more than any other was creativity. Now, on paper, everything looks great. The agency has a lot of experience in their niche. They have great testimonials from clients they've delivered incredible results for, but they're struggling to grow. Something here doesn't add up. I have some hunches though. Let's meet Mark and find out more. You filled out an application and there's a couple things in the application that I want to dive into. You said, I feel stuck when we're doing WordPress redesigns. I feel like we're doing dinosaur stuff when we should be doing stuff that's more modern than that.

Yeah.

Do you remember, do you remember saying that? Do you remember filling that out?

Absolutely. Yes.

Can you tell us a little bit more about what that means? What, what's dinosaur stuff and why do you feel stuck when you're doing WordPress redesigns?

Well, I'm, I'm stuck because I've got clients that say, we don't wanna change. Okay. Um, th— these are often clients that don't necessarily have a marketing department or anything like that. And they're, they're like, hey, we just wanna redesign. We're trying to look fresher. Update who we are, update our messaging, update the UX and all that stuff. Saying dinosaur, for me being creative, you know, I want to do things that are fun. I want to have a blast and I want to give people an experience where you come to this website and it's like, oh wow, this is different. Okay, I'm going to remember this, right? The old agency model is dead, right? 15 years ago, I was creative director at a big agency with, you know, full design team, full development team, sales team, project managers, everything from, you know, interns all the way up to the CEO. That kind of thing doesn't really work anymore. Because anybody can make a website, anybody can make a logo. There's tons of resources. You can go onto Fiverr and get somebody to do a logo. You can hire somebody on oDesk for, for messaging, etc. Pretty easy to do. I'm not saying that that's giving you the most quality work, but it's giving you what most people are okay with, honestly. Um, so, so agencies have to adapt, and I've adapted a lot, and we, we have a focus, we have a niche, etc. And I believe that I have an offering that is unique and other people can't give so easily. In sales, for example, you can't email people anymore. Spamming just doesn't work. That whole idea of like putting as many hooks in the water as possible to get fish is working less and less. How do you feel that a human-to-human relationship, the courtship of, and the romance that makes you choose a product or makes you choose a company. What does that mean to us agency owners who are trying to be original?

When things change is a big opportunity for people to be creative. And right now we're in a very big period of change. And so it's a good opportunity for people. It's also really scary for people too, right? Those 2 things often come together.

Mm-hmm.

You have a niche, you have specific people that you, that you serve, and you're able to deliver to them something that they can't get easily somewhere else. Tell us a little bit about that. Who do you work with generally? What's your niche? Who do you serve? What do you generally do for them?

Our niche is private equity companies. And so these are companies that buy companies, nurture those companies for a while, sell them at a higher valuation, or you know, make them better so they sell at a higher valuation. For those companies to link up with a branding agency is super, super important. We help bring clarity to the table. We help redefine what they are or define what they are. We help celebrate that company. We help show the story that says, hey, you know what? This is not a conventional company. It's a remarkable company. And this is why. And we give all those reasons to believe. We provide that internal alignment. We provide that clarity.

Yeah.

So that's what we do. And, um, my message to our niche audience, which is private equity firms, is that we help increase the valuation of your companies with the magic of marketing.

Everything that you're saying sounds like the playbook that we've all heard, right? Which is have something unique. You have a specific niche of people that you serve. It's not for everybody. You're targeting them. You have a good message for them. You have a good value proposition. Is everything great? Are you killing it?

It's a difficult message to start with that audience because in that they don't talk marketing talk. So, if I go to like a networking event, Dan, I really need to watch out how I position myself. I can't say the word branding. I can't say branding agency because, you know, a private equity person might say, oh yeah, okay, you have fun with your colors and You know, we do real business and finance and all that stuff. So, I've got to speak business talk that says, hey, you have— you are leaving money on the table if you are not delivering a clear message to your internal audience that can then affect your external audience, your sales, your growth, your pipeline, etc.

Let's talk about your side of the equation now. Are you, are you raking in the dough? Are you struggling to get clients? How is that translating back to you?

We're raking in the dough when we have a project going on, because some of those projects are really cool, and they always lead to another thing. However, the sales process is very long, and it is difficult to make a connection. with, uh, with this audience because they, they fail to understand it.

You said the sales process is long. Talk us through your sales process. How long is it and how long would you like it to be?

It can be up to a year. I need to constantly nurture the value along the way, and it needs to line up with when they make an acquisition of a new company.

Sales process takes a year. Are you cool with it taking a year?

I'm cool with it taking— well, I mean, yeah, I'm cool with it taking a year as But the amount of contacts is, or the amount of, how do I say this? I guess the amount of hooks in the water is very weak for us. We don't really have a great way of reaching out to people and making those initial connections because I've tried email and that totally failed.

Failed how?

Well, we— this was like 2 years ago. I hired an email company to send out emails on our behalf and reach out to managing directors of private equity firms and other contacts like that. Thousands of emails and we got zero back. I mean, it was just awful. It was just like one email, the first Day 1, you send out an email, 3 days later, send out a reminder, a week later, you send out another one, that kind of thing. It didn't work at all. And I felt that, hey, you know, my audience is already swamped with emails. I don't— I can't put myself in that spammer category, because there's only so many private equity firms in the US.

Do you know the number? How many private equity firms in the US?

I have an idea. I mean, yeah, it's, you know, like 50K.

Okay, cool. So I imagine that if your agency was to be the service provider for private equity firms, there would be more than enough fish in the sea for you to make the kind of killing of a business that you want to make.

Absolutely. Yeah. And but maybe, you know, Dan, I don't know, maybe I'm also going after the wrong niche. I think I have a great story for that niche. And we have, you know, some private equity clients that we've worked with and done many projects with, and those work great, and it's just, it's fantastic. But maybe, I don't know, maybe I'm going, I'm shooting in the dark here. On the other hand, you know, from an SEO point of view, private equity branding is our niche. On Google, we're in the top 3 when you type in private equity branding. You know, I'm creating a lot of content around it. I'm creating videos, I'm doing Instagram, I'm doing stuff. But I don't know, man. I don't know. It's tough. It's really tough.

What's tough?

It's tough making those connections. It's tough making the— getting more clients in that niche.

You want more clients, which makes sense, right? All agencies want more clients. Do you have a number?

Well, In the private equity space, you're dealing with companies that have many companies that they're buying and selling and buying and selling. And so there's this kind of train of opportunities coming through their door. And if they have a marketing partner that they're working with, well, that partner takes— helps them with their business. So, you know, per year, you might have 3 or 4 projects with one private equity firm.

Mm-hmm.

So, you know, 2 or 3 more firm— firms is all we need.

What I'd like to do here with you is come up with a plan to get 2 or 3 more firms. How's that sound?

Okay. Sounds great.

All right, cool. Let's do some benchmarking right now. So, 2 or 3 more than what you have right now. Tell us a little bit more about what you have right now. How many clients do you have generally? How many projects is that generally? How much revenue does that bring in? And is that enough or is there something lacking in where you wanna be?

Mm-hmm. Well, it's enough in the sense that we're doing great. I mean, pretty much year over year, we've been doubling our revenue. Although this year a little bit less due to not just sales, but other, other personal things in my life and stuff like that. I have pretty significant death in the family. And I've had to take care of that. So, so I've, you know, things have slowed down a little bit. We have one, one big private equity firm we work with, and that one has a group of portfolio companies that they manage. And we've helped them with those portfolio companies. Usually, we'll get 2 to 3 projects a year. PE is our niche. We don't only serve private equity firms, we also have other clients. We have law firms, And, and other smaller, um, you know, um, biotech companies that we, we work with.

There's some duality around some things that you're saying, right? So I wanna point 'em out to you and, and maybe there's a story that reconciled it, maybe not. You say you have a niche, but then you serve a bunch of people outside that niche.

Yeah.

Tell me how that reconciles for you.

Well, it reconciles in the sense that we're doing the same type of work. Companies that are saying the wrong thing, meaning the wrong message, or have a message that hasn't been updated because your audience is growing all the time. If you're not adapting and listening to what your audience is doing, then there will come a point where you're out of sync with your audience's needs. That's across the board for all companies. We can help you with that. You know, in the beginning we talked about clarity. A lot of companies are unclear, so we help companies do that no matter what they are, whether it's private equity or a law firm or what have you. That's the commonality. That's the common thread. With that, we're a creative company, and I believe that we bring this magic.

One of the things that I've found to be the most useful for agency owners is to work from reality.

Mm-hmm.

Right? The, the more we're working from fantasy, the more we can reconcile whatever stories we've got. The more we work from reality, the more we are able to say, this thing works and I should do more of it, and this thing doesn't work, and so I should do less of it. Mm-hmm. Right? And I think we've gotta be honest about, about those things. So you just said something about clarity and being able to speak to an audience with clarity. And then you also say, and we talk to all these different audiences, and, and you mentioned that there's a, there's a through line there, there's a common thread, but that common thread is different than the niche that you described before. So a niche can be an audience, right? It can be a, ICP and an ideal customer profile.

Yeah.

It also can be, we work with a company with this kind of mindset or psychographic profile. You know, all of those things could be.

Okay.

So which one do you think is more true for your agency? Is it that you work with private equity firms or is it that you work with all sorts of companies and clients that have a particular mindset?

Yeah, I, I, I, I, I guess the, yeah, I work with, uh, with companies that have a hard time Defining what they stand for to their audience.

This is a thing that a lot of agency owners struggle with. You said you work with companies that, that have trouble defining it. Is that not all companies?

Yeah. Yeah.

So is your niche all companies?

Sure. But I don't wanna say that, Dan, because if I say that, then I'm a generalist and generalists are boring.

But is that the reality right now?

I guess the reality is that, yes, what I just said, and it has to be somebody who is tuned in to understanding that message.

Generalists are boring. He said that fast and he said it like a joke, but it's the most honest sentence in this whole conversation so far. Every agency owner I've coached who won't pick a niche gives me a business reason first. The market's too small. I'd be turning down money. My work doesn't fit in a box. I like the variety. And underneath almost every single one of them is the thing that Mark just said out loud. I don't wanna be boring. Now here's the problem with that. Boring is something only you feel about your own work. Clients don't care about boring. They don't even buy exciting. They buy results from people that they can trust to deliver them. If you wanna be entertained, get a hobby, then make a boatload of money in your agency by delivering incredible results to your clients, and then use that money to spend more on those hobbies. That's how you live an exciting life. It's often too much to ask the agency that you run to do that job for you. If you were making a killing, what hobbies would you spend it on? Tell me in the comments below. You mentioned there's 50,000 PE firms. Do you think that you could find that kind of profile, that kind of person that you had just mentioned within those 50,000 PE firms?

I think so. Yeah, I think so.

Okay. If you can find that subset of audience within PE, which it sounds like you have a good offering for those people.

Yeah.

Why look outside of that? Niche for other companies that do that?

Well, I mean, my focus has been PE. I wouldn't look outside of it because it's, it's, it's an opportunity, a customer. It's an opportunity to learn more, you know. Um, I mean, one of my— one client that we got this year was a a law firm that I— this person that I met at a networking event and just by shaking his hand, I gave him my pitch and he said, we're looking for somebody like you before the end of— before we stop shaking hands. I mean, you know, and my pitch was, hey, business executives have a hard time explaining what they do. We, you know, run you through one workshop, after which we give you brand clarity. And we tell you, we define a strategy to grow your business. So, and he happened to say, well, I need your help. I own a law firm. I didn't even know that he owned a law firm at that point. You know, so it turned into that. But I guess the driver was that same thread that we're talking about, that desire to To have a better way, that urge to have a better way of explaining what you do.

When this person said, I own a law firm, why didn't you say to this person, oh, that's great, I work with private equity firms, so have a good day?

Mm-hmm. Well, that'd be— that would be ridiculous. Come on.

Tell me why. Tell me why.

Because I love the challenge of understanding something new. I love opening a mystery box and finding out that there was something unexpected, you know. And that's what keeps— that's what keeps me interested in what I do. What we're doing is that we are taking brands or companies and helping craft a remarkable story around them. It just so happens that it's a private equity firm, or it just so happens That it's a law firm. And that's fun. That's awesome. You know, maybe tomorrow it's a bakery.

Why'd you fill out the application?

Because I'm having a hard time growing.

Hmm. So, let's talk a little bit more about that. Part of the fun is the variety is that it could be any one of those and we have something that could help all of them truly, honestly, authentically. And then in the next breath you said, and I'm having trouble growing. I would like to suggest to you that those 2 ideas are very directly related. Do you agree with that idea?

Sure. I'm open to it. Yeah.

Okay. What I, what I would suggest that we try and do here is find a way for you to be able to focus And be able to say a thing that you said is ridiculous, which is when you meet the law firm owner, when you meet the bakery owner, you say, I love your business. I see the problems that you're having. I work with PE firms. I can recommend you to someone if you need help with that. Are you open to that idea?

Yeah, I'm open to it, but explain it a little bit more. I mean, you, you, Why would I say to a law firm that I work with PE firms?

Because you do.

Well, but I also work with law firms.

Do law firms need the same exact thing that PE firms at a very specific level?

I think yes. Yes, all of everybody needs to stand out. In a remarkable way.

But that's a general level.

Yeah.

Stand out at the general level.

Oh, at the same level? No, no, I do understand a, a, a, I, I understand the mix of finance and marketing and business growth that PE requires. Yes.

You have a ton of unfair advantages in that space because you've worked with PE firms a lot.

Yeah.

You understand them, you know the cycles, you know the ecosystem. You, you just explained to me a ton of stuff that I've worked with a PE firm once, And I don't know the stuff that you know about PE firms.

Okay.

Right. Because you've been in that world. It's hard to be in one world. It's even harder to be in 2 worlds and 3 worlds and 4 worlds and 10 worlds. And at some point it becomes a law of diminishing returns. So why would you say we just work with PE firms so that you can go deep with them?

I mean, the reason why is that I'm not going to turn down clients at this point.

Why not?

Because of the opportunity.

What's the opportunity?

To grow the business.

In order to be the PE authority, you probably have to be not the bakery authority. Are you fine with that?

Yeah.

You probably have to be not the law firm authority. Are you fine with that?

Yeah, sure.

Right. So this is what it means to really have a niche. When you have a niche, you go, all of those other things, not for me. Not 'cause they're not fun, not 'cause they're not interesting, not 'cause they're, not 'cause we can't do anything for them. Not for any of those reasons other than the fact that we've chosen to be the agency for PE firms.

Yeah.

You willing to do that?

Yeah. If it works, of course. Yes.

For a lot of people, that's the chicken egg thing where they're like, well, if I knew it would work, I would do that. And what's tough is that it's actually the opposite usually, which is I'll do that and then it'll work.

Yeah, no, no, I understand that. And I'm willing to totally— and I think I've positioned my company as the PE branding agency. It's just that, Dan, the difficulty has been in getting those clients. They're difficult. They're hard to get. And I need help.

I drove by this place once years, years ago, and the sign outside the door was oil change and pizza. You know the story?

No.

Oil change and pizza. And I was like, hmm, oil change and pizza. An interesting combo there. I don't know if I'm gonna get, I mean, I do, I need my oil changed in my car, but I don't know if I'm gonna get it there cuz I don't have confidence that they're gonna do a great oil change. So maybe if they were the cheapest oil change around, maybe I'd consider it, but I'm, they weren't. So I don't know if I'm gonna get my oil change there. And I am hungry, but I don't know that I'm gonna get pizza from there either if they're oil change and pizza. And I think a lot of agency owners don't realize that they have that sign on the door. They have an equivalent of that. They're never, that place is never gonna be the best oil change place in the world because they sell pizza.

Yeah.

Some amount of their focus goes into making pizza, sourcing pizza ingredient, like Whatever it is. And so I don't have confidence as a customer that they're gonna do a good job at oil changes or pizza. So it's really hard for an agency owner to be, I'm gonna be the best in the world with, for PE firms, if you're also for bakeries and you're also for law firms too.

Mm-hmm.

It feels like oil change and pizza to them.

Yeah, that's a great point.

For us agency owners, it's tough because we like the variety. It's a boost to our confidence. It's a challenge for us who want creative challenges and original challenges and unique challenges to hop from the marine biology client to the PE client, to the bakery client, to the law firm client and pattern match all of that. It gets us going.

Yeah, absolutely.

And that's the thing that we often have to reject in order to get, especially to the financial level, but even more so than the financial level, to build a business that we're like, I love this business and I get to go really deep with a certain kind of client in this. Do you buy it?

Absolutely. That is a fantastic point. Yeah, you got me.

Here's my question for you today. Do you know exactly where your next 3 clients are coming from? Most agency owners don't. They know where their last 3 came from, but those aren't the same thing. That's why I built Quest. It's live group coaching where we build the answer to that question together. The offer, the list, the pitch. It's a room full of agency owners. We meet every week and it's application only. You can learn more at the link below. Let's come up with a plan then. If you were to work with a PE client and do the best thing that you could do for them, what do you think the best thing would be?

Helping them quickly preserve value out of their companies. Post-acquisition, because you know with acquisition there's turbulence and people dust off their resume and say, "I don't want to be owned by a new company. I'm gone. I'm out of here." That happens because you're not communicating. Then building, helping them build alignment so they can achieve their institutional goals. of ultimately, you know, looking the part, you know, attracting the right people, selling correctly, etc. I had a managing director say, hey, listen, Mark, we gave you an $80 million company, you made it look like $120 million. That is what we do.

Heck of a testimonial too.

It is. Yeah.

Yeah. Love it. Okay, cool. Anything else that you want to add to that list of like things that you would, you would deliver full on to that kind of client?

Um, you know, we, we said it, you know, clarity, um, and, and, and everything so they understand how to ultimately find a, a suitable buyer for that company, celebrate the company, you know, um, also work in a way that, that that aligns with their values. I think private equity has had a bad rap. And of course, there's some bad people in every industry. But, you know, our clients are not the private equity firms that buy a company, trim the fat, and sell it. That's not, that's not what it's about. It's buying the company, nurturing it, celebrating it, and really bringing it to another level. Hmm. So it attracts a suitable buyer and it might preserve the legacy of that company, the legacy that the founders, the reasons why the founders started this company, all that needs to be preserved.

Love that. That's awesome. And, and I assume this, but I'll, I'll ask it to you directly. You can deliver all that stuff to them. You're confident in doing that?

Absolutely. Oh my gosh. Yes.

Fantastic. Okay, cool. It's 'cause let's figure out how to bring those right opportunities. Okay. So Uh, this is the best thing that you can do for that client. How long generally would it take you to deliver that?

Between 4 and 6 months.

Is that the fastest that you could deliver it without cutting corners?

No, we could go faster. It always depends, Dan. I mean, you have some companies where, you know, it's a, it's an industrial manufacturing company. They, they don't know what marketing is. They, they, they don't have a marketing department or, and they don't have somebody on their side who can kind of be your counterpart on the project. Mm-hmm. So that slows a lot of things down. We gotta figure this out. We gotta get our hands really dirty and get our hands deep in the grease in order to, to help move it forward.

I think that's realistic, which is cool. It's working from reality. It's like, yeah, mm-hmm, we could do it a certain way, but there is also some trade-offs that we might have to make. But I wanna paint a picture for you here first.

Okay.

Which is that let's, let's talk about your agency 1 year in the future, 2 years in the future, 5 years in the future, somewhere down the line.

Okay.

You run an agency that's the best agency in the world for PE firms, right? You have that reputation. You've been able to do that. At that point, you've got PE firms that are waiting in line to work for you, right? Does that seem reasonable? As if you run the best agency for PE firms, you got a line out the door.

Yeah.

Right. At that point, you get to dictate the way that you want to do your work in a way that you know Maybe doesn't guarantee, but increases the likelihood as high as possible that they will get the results that you're promising them if they do it your way. Mm-hmm. So what I'm asking you about is, let's assume that's true.

Okay.

Right. Let's assume you're gonna operate right now as if you're the best agency in the world for PE firms.

Okay.

So now assume there's a PE firm that's like, Mark, we've been waiting a year to work with you. We're so excited. To be able to have that opportunity. We're so glad we're starting the project. Tell us what to do and we'll do all of it. We're ready. How long does that project take?

It could take 4 months. Yeah, 4 months. 3 months. 3 months. We could do it in 3 months. Great.

Yeah. Okay. Um, can you work with one client at a time or can you do multiple clients at a time?

We can do multiple.

How many, how many do you say you can work with at a time without losing quality?

3.

3. Okay. So 3-month projects, you can work with 3 at a time. Uh, what that means is you can work with, I think, 12 clients a year. Is that right?

Sure. Yeah.

Okay. So you can work with 12 clients a year. If all things go well for you, you run the, the highest reputation agency in the world for PE firms. What kind of annual revenue would you like your agency to be making?

Well, I mean, I would love, you know, $2 million would be great.

Oh, great. So $2 million a year, you can work with 12 clients a year. Uh, we're talking about each client paying you about $150K to $170K per project.

Yeah.

Right. Does that sound like a good business to you or is there anything that you'd wanna change?

No, that sounds great.

How doable do you feel like that is right now with what you can deliver to a client?

I think that's, that's very doable.

Okay, great. In line with your current pricing.

And that would allow us to grow a little bit as, as, as well. We would hire a little bit more, but we would, you know, I think our, our model works for that.

Great. Awesome. Okay. So what we're gonna do now is we're gonna build a plan to hit those targets. $2 million agency a year, 12 clients, $150-ish, $170-ish K project for—

Yeah.

Right? Okay. In order for you to get 12 clients, you have to be in front of something more than 12 clients, right? Because if you're in front of 12 clients, you're probably not going to be 100%. So you have to be in front of X amount more than 12, at least 13, probably, probably more than that in order to land 12 clients. You buy that logic?

Sure.

All right. Let's call it, let's say, do you think that You could close 10%? Do you think that's a reasonable rate or do you think probably a little bit lower than that?

Well, I'm gonna be conservative and say lower than that.

Okay. Okay. We wanna call it 1%?

Well, that would be horrible. No.

Okay.

Okay.

5%?

Yeah, sure. Let's say 5%.

All right. Um, 10% would be if you're in front of 120 clients, then you close 12 of them. That's 10%. So we're talking about 240 PE firms that you need to be in front of. Geez. That geez is the sound of a wish turning into a real target. 2 minutes ago, Mark had a wish that sounded like a goal. I want 2 or 3 more firms, but that's every agency owner at any time. 2 or 3 more clients is always a nice to have. It's less of a specific goal than it is a general state of being. It's an easy thing to do nothing in particular about. Now, there are 4 numbers that turn it into action. What you wanna make, how many clients you can serve at once, what you need to charge each client, and how many prospects you need to be in front of. If you haven't run these numbers for yourself yet, I highly recommend that you do that as soon as possible and watch what it does to something Mark said earlier. He told me he wasn't gonna turn down clients at this point, but Mark has doubled revenue most years he's been open. He can afford to say no to a bakery. I can't turn down clients is a sentence that comes straight from fear. And sometimes the best way to fight fear is with math. So run yours, the same 4 numbers, whatever you get, drop them into the comments below. Even if it feels impossible, you can make a plan to get there. Close 5% of that, then you get 12 clients a year. With me so far?

That's, yeah, sure. That's a great way to look at it.

All right. So the question now and the thing that we're gonna brainstorm about and the thing that we're gonna be original and creative about in the sales process, in your biz dev process, 'cause a lot of times we leave the creativity for the delivery, but the creativity can come in the business process too, on the business side. So how can we get you in front of 240 PE firms? You've said, and, and again, we can look up the actual data, you know, if, if, if we need to, but if there's 50,000 PE firms out there, you said in the US, right? Like if there's 50,000 of 'em, Probably we could get in front of 240 of them somehow. You believe that?

I hope, I hope for that. Yes.

Okay, so let me— let's take a step back for a sec. One of the things that I require in coaching is I require the person to believe the best is yet to come.

Oh, for sure. Yes. Oh my gosh. You believe it?

Okay, so we're gonna leave out words like hopefully from now on.

Okay. All right. Damn it.

Because we're built— we're in We're in a future state where we believe the best is yet to come.

Okay?

So if the best is yet to come and this is a version of that, then it's inevitably, not hopefully.

Okay?

You with me?

Yes.

Let's brainstorm. How do we get in front of 240 PE firms? What could you do? Rattle off the worst ideas that you could think of and let's just make a list.

I could go talk at at huge P events. There's this thing called Deal Fest that happens in in Massachusetts. There's in in Las Vegas they have this Deal Max in Las Vegas, which is a private equity. Yeah, I could go talk, just give an awesome. presentation on the value of, you know, how a branding company ignites their business, just

love it,

puts it on its head. That would be awesome.

How many attendees of those kinds of conferences? Like hundreds? Dozens?

Thousands.

Thousands. So if you did one talk in front of that room, probably 240 of the thousands of people that are there would be like, that sounds cool. We'd like to talk to you more.

Oh, yeah, sure.

Okay. And how likely do you think that is that you could get on stage at a, at an event like that? Is that like, oh, that's a pipe dream? Or are you like, no, I could figure it

out? I, I would love to figure it out. Yes, I can figure it out.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

So we're gonna put that one on the list. Yeah. Yeah. Why not? Why not do that? Absolutely. I mean, I've done a TED Talk for crying out loud. Why, why couldn't I do that?

I mean, there you go. Unfair advantage already.

Okay.

Okay, cool. We're gonna put that on the list as like, that's a good, that's a good candidate. And then we might dive deeper into that to see if that's the highest likely one after we make the list. Okay, well, let's, we'll strategize around that. What, what else other than speaking at a conference or an event like that? Anything else?

I'd like to, um, have a podcast that, um, talks to managing, managing directors of PE companies.

Okay.

You know, those people have pretty big egos. They'd love to be on a podcast. I'd like to create The, the private equity creative podcast.

Love that. And, and I wanna, I wanna give you your flowers on something. When a lot of people think about making a podcast, a lot of what I hear is like, yeah, I can make a podcast. And then after X amount of episodes, hopefully people will hear about it. And then that, and what, what you said was different, which I think is awesome, which is like, you understand the opportunity that people love being guests on podcasts. So that is a shortcut to the people who you want to talk to. If you just reached out to them and said, hey, can I have 5 minutes of your time or an hour of your time? They'd be like, I don't know. But if you say, can you give me an hour and be a guest on my podcast? They think of it as an honor. They think of it as something that— and maybe they don't have any other opportunities to be on a podcast. So by you being the host of a podcast, you suddenly jump to the top of the list of somebody that they want to talk to. Love that.

Absolutely. And hopefully, Dan, it turns into something and I haven't done it with private equity managing directors yet. But, you know, I hope that it creates a bond between me and that person and an understanding that is unforgettable.

Yes.

And that they're gonna actually promote as well.

Totally, totally. Because it's win-win, right? They get some glow from it, you get some glow from it. Maybe you work together, maybe you don't. Maybe they introduce you to something like—

I want to say so much tomorrow.

Okay, you want to keep going with the list? Or you want to dive into that?

No, we can keep going with the list.

All right.

You want some other ideas? Okay.

As many as you got.

As many as I got. Um, okay. I'm not saying that any— I'm not doing the easy route. Okay.

Okay. That's right.

Handwritten letters.

Let's go. Tell me more.

To people within— at private equity firms. When was the last time you got a handwritten note?

Never.

A handwritten note that says, hey, this is what I do. Make it personal, okay? And maybe send 2 or 3 per agent, per company. So you can say, hey, because a lot of these companies have several managing directors, right? I could say, hey, Managing Director John, I'm sending you this letter, blah, blah, blah. I also sent one to Managing Director Susan. So when he sees Susan, he says, hey, did you get, did you get a handwritten note from Mark Rust? And maybe they can just kind of talk about it. I don't know. Yeah, that's an idea. I mean, that's a lot of effort to do. But, um,

if you land a $150,000 gig from it, the effort is worth it. You could have a ton of fun with that.

Yeah.

When's the last time you ever did something like that for a client?

Um, I, you know, I said like maybe 2 years ago, I sent out some letters and it just never really landed. And I just, you know, you don't hear back from people. To find the person who appreciates originality, it takes an original person to do that. And it's hard to find that person. But when you do find that person, my gosh, the connection is instant. Years ago, I was working at this agency and we had these BDRs that would call people all day and they would say, hey, if you guys have any companies that you would really enjoy as a client, you know, let us know. And I said, oh yeah, Shure microphones. And this, I was working with this BDR who kept on calling and it just wasn't working and nobody was picking up the phone. He sent an email to the CEO. She opened up the email, but then it stopped and all this stuff. And he's just kind of spamming her. And I was like, okay, stop. This isn't working. Okay. And my love letter at the time was to go onto eBay and buy an AKG microphone, which at the time was their main competition. And we found this company on Etsy that did little pine coffins for Barbie dolls. And we put the microphone in a coffin. And I put like this, you know, cigar band around it that said, hey, let's bury the competition together. And there was a very thoughtful handwritten note saying, hey, when I was 14 years old, I was in a band and my first microphone was Shure. I'd love to work with you. I've got some great ideas. Okay? Put it in FedEx, sent it to the CEO. The good news with FedEx is that everybody opens a FedEx. And you also know when people receive it because they notify you that it's been delivered. It was received on Monday at 9:00 AM. She called me at 9:30.

Let's do one or two more. You got one or two more on the list that you want to add? I'm sure you can go on forever. If we did this for another 2 hours, we'd have a massive list. What else you got?

I mean, I would love the opportunity to be able to show somebody, lift an edge of the lid and allow somebody to look in and be like, oh my gosh, that could be us. I'd love to have a way to show that, you know, and is it, you know, being able to redesign something on the fly or just show them unsolicited work, you know, show them what their company could look like?

Totally.

And allow them to visualize that.

Yeah, that could be as simple as A couple Instagram Reels here and there. It could be as big as doing a whole documentary about, about a, a process, uh, that you've done with a client or, or former clients.

Mm-hmm.

So that one, that one has some good scales to it.

That's cool. Yeah.

All right, Mark, I got one more for you.

Okay.

In your application, one of the things that I asked you was, you know, some amount of years in the future, what's your random Tuesday look like? What would you be doing? And one of the things that you mentioned was, I'd be working on a book. Okay. Tell me about the book.

Well, I've been working on a book for a while. And I'd love to— that's just a thorn in my side. Like, why isn't this thing published? You know? It's finished. I mean, so I wrote this book called Brand Dating. And it compares branding and dating and just shows the analogies. Like, how do you get the girl? How do you stand out? How do you woo somebody? How do you sweep them off their feet? You know, there's so many cool things that you can do. And, you know, in dating, the courtship, you know, when you find that person that you just love and you just want to, you want to make them feel like the best person in the world, you know, and, and you, you tease you, the courtship is this really fun period in a relationship where you can really be playful. And, um, and, and there's a romance, and the, the, there is a written or unwritten guidebook around that, you know, about how, how do you get somebody to notice you? How do you drive them crazy? You know, how do you surprise them? And, um, so the book kind of compares that with branding, how you, you know, what brands have done some great jobs with, or, you know, what's a red flag, what's, you know, all these things in meeting people and developing a courtship. So the book is about that. And it's about our, our need for human-to-human contact, our need for, to relate to each other on a human level.

So why isn't the book published?

Well, because I wanted to— I didn't want to self-publish. I want to have a little bit more help with an actual publisher. And I think that that will help build authority around what I do, you know, because it's totally in line with what I do for companies and what I believe in. And if somebody can come across an agency that has an owner that really believes in something and thinks that, hey, it's all about relationships and building relationships, And your company isn't growing because you've actually failed to build relationships. I can help you with that. Um, hey, read my book while you're at it. You know, that, that kind of builds authority.

Yeah. A book is a major asset for, especially for an agency owner. Uh, it's a great, a great asset to have. Uh, do you think there's a version of Brand Dating for PE somewhere in there?

I didn't think about that. Sure. That, that could be easy. Yeah.

And maybe it's not your big book, but it's an ebook version that kind of gives you some, some of the reps. It's, it's digital only. Maybe it's, you know, something like that that you can do. You can crank out, you get the publish, you hit the publish button on it and it just becomes practice for writing the, the bigger book.

Mm-hmm. Absolutely.

And then you get a lot of the shine of the, you have this great asset that you can give specifically to that kind of customer to show them that you get them, you know, books. I, I read this recently, books are one of the few pieces of marketing material that people actually consider to still be gifts.

That's true. That's great. Yeah.

Right? So it's like, you know, you give somebody a fruit basket, they're like, I know what you're doing. You give somebody a book, they're like, wow, thanks.

That's a great point. I never thought about that. Yeah, you're totally right.

So maybe, maybe there's a brand dating for PE that is on that list of The way that you get in front of 250 people, give out 250 free digital copies of the book that you wrote. That's fun outreach.

Sure. Yeah, that'd be a pleasure.

Right, right. Do a book tour in a couple of cities or something, you know, go to New York City and San Francisco and do a book reading or a book signing or, you know, whatever meetup around your book.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, plus, you know, Dan, it's full of Um, fun stories, the kind of stories that you and I like to talk about. And

there you go.

And we know that people get excited about it cuz they're, they don't think that way. They're not original that way, you know?

Yeah. All right. We, we've listed 7 or 8 different ideas on ways that you can get in front of— 240 is your target, right? To, to land you the 12 clients.

Okay. Yeah.

Get in front of 240 PE, uh, owners, folks who are in the PE circle, um, who really align with your values. Their values align with yours and the values of your agency. Um, do you feel like some amount of these ideas could get you there?

Absolutely.

Yeah. Worth trying at least?

Yes.

What are your favorites?

Well, I love the, the podcast. I love the, the sending letters. I think that's something really cool. I think actually every business owner, uh, if they listen to this, they should start sending a letter right away.

Agency owners spend all their creativity on the work. And none of it on getting the work. The work gets the weird idea, the thing that nobody's done, and getting the work gets a cold email template that you bought for $29 somewhere. That is so backwards. A microphone in a Barbie coffin gets a CEO on the phone the next morning, not because it's brilliant strategy, but because nobody else is doing it. And that's what creativity is. What's the most creative thing you've ever made for a client? Now, what's the most creative thing you've ever made to get a client? If the second answer is worse than the first, you now know exactly what you should be working on. What I'd like to do now is as we start to wrap up is let's start to make some commitments.

Can we add speaking at a PE event?

Yeah. Okay, cool. Great.

That's—

you're talking about, you know, Deal Fest, DealMax, like places like that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Good. Awesome. Those, those are the top 3.

Okay.

Let's start making some commitments. I'm gonna ask you to make some commitments, and then what I wanna do is hold you accountable to, to do those things. And I'll follow up with you in a couple of weeks or months or whatever we set there. Up to you.

Okay.

And I'm gonna be like, hey Mark, how's it going? How'd it go with these things? What did you learn? What did you do? What did you not do? No guilt or shame around any of that stuff, but accountability is usually the thing that gets people to go, yep, I did that thing. Right. And I grew my business as a result of it. Yeah. Okay. So first commitment, this is the bigger one, and then we'll go to the smaller one. The bigger one is, are you going to commit to being only for PE firms?

Yeah, sure. Yes.

Okay. I was half convinced by your answer. Are you convinced by your answer?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's, that, that, that is the, uh, an audience I'm particularly passionate about.

Great.

And I can definitely commit to it.

I love it. I, I think that there's too many agency owners who pick an audience because they think that's where the most money is, and it's a really shallow reason to pick an audience to be working with. But if you really have passion for the space, you have unfair advantages in the insights that you have. You're just like, I love nerding out about this with those kinds of people. That's an excellent reason to have a niche. And you can build a business off of that. Maybe not a $100 million business. Maybe that'll be tougher, but $1 million, $2 million, $5 million a year on that for sure.

Great.

For sure. I would put money on it.

Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm totally willing to do it. Yep.

All right. I love that commitment. Let's talk about the top 3 things. Speaking at an event like that, uh, sending some handwritten letters and launching a podcast. Give me some timelines in your mind for like, okay, I think I could do this by then. I think I could do this one by then. What are you going to start first of those 3?

Let's do the podcast. Let's just frickin do it.

Love it. Let's jump in. When do you want to have the podcast live? First episode live?

Within the next 2 months.

Excellent. 2-month timeframe, Podcast Live. You know that you're going to discover some things in that. You're going to have to get some gear. You're going to line up guests. You're going to, you know, all that's all the stuff. But 2 months from now, Podcast Live. Love it.

Yeah, I might have a few questions for you.

Of course. Happy to share what I've learned for sure. Okay. What else? What else on that list? How about the letters or the speaking? Which one seems most—

Letters. We can do letters. We can do letters right away within the 2 weeks. Let's do it.

Okay. Cool. Next 2 weeks, you're gonna send how many letters?

Let's do, let's start with 2 letters a week.

2 letters a week. I love it. That's great.

Is that, is that, is that too, too, too weak?

I don't think so. I think it might be too aggressive. You know, it's a, it's a new skill, a new habit. So I'm like, I don't know. You tell me that you'll send 1 in the next 2 weeks. I'm like, that's great. Can you send 1 in the next 2 weeks?

No, let's do 2 a week. Damn it.

All right. I love it. Great.

Come on.

Cool. 2 a week. I love it. All right. And then this, the speaking thing, manifest something.

I don't know how to do it. I've tried reaching out to Deal Fest before. Zero response.

Okay. When's, when's the next Deal Fest?

There's one in June in Boston and Deal Max. I don't know when that is.

Okay. June. So we won't do it on this recording, but afterwards you and I will workshop how to get on the speaking roster in, in June.

Okay.

Cool. How does that feel for an action plan?

Awesome.

Do you believe that this is a way that you could at least get closer, if not achieve being the best agency in the world for PE firms?

Yes, I do, because it's not spamming people. It's building value. Every time I come into connection with my core audience, I'm giving them value. And I know that with some people, that will translate to trust.

Yes. Yes. Oh, I have goosebumps about it. That's wild. I just got goosebumps about what you're saying.

Okay, good. Awesome. That's, and I don't, and maybe my, my rule to myself is that I will not reach out to that audience with, if I'm not giving them value. Yeah.

I think it's a great rule.

And maybe the value down the road to what you're saying is giving them a book.

Yeah.

A year from now.

I mean, the, the best value you can give to your clients is to give them everything you got.

Mm-hmm.

Right. And, and a lot of times we're scared cuz we feel like we're giving away too much or the secret sauce or, you know, whatever it is. And the truth of it is that there's so much more that we have to give than we realize. Give it all to them.

Yeah.

Send them gifts, give them the book, get on stage somewhere and tell them all of your tips and secrets, and they will be begging to learn more from you. They're not going to be like, thanks, now I got everything, I can go. That's never the case. They want more from you and you can't give them more if you're working with bakeries. Okay. All right, Mark.

I love it.

We, we got a timeline. I'm gonna follow up with you about timelines. And before we go, anything else that you want to cover in terms of your action plan to be the best agency for PE firms in the world?

No, that's great. This is awesome. No, I really, Dan, I really enjoyed Thank you. You know, you, you're getting me to think in a different way.

Yes. And, and I think that you brought that to the table, so we got to use it. Most agency owners don't apply the creativity that they apply in the work. They don't apply it to the business side. And I'm like, that's the fun, 'cause that's what we do. That's what agency owners do. We get to work on the business while our team or our contractors or whatever get to work on the work. And we just go, oh, I've given up the creative stuff. It's like, no, no, no, the creative stuff goes here too. In a lot of ways, it's, you can be even more original and more unique and more creative here because almost no one does it in this spot. So I love that you brought to the table that from the jump in the application. I don't know if I, I don't know if you know this, but you know what your most used word in the application was?

Oh geez. No.

Creativity 5 times.

Okay.

Original 4 times. Like, so that's in there for you.

Yeah,

that's already there.

I mean, what I, what I'm in for is that I, yes, creativity is extremely important to me. And helping people go forward is also important. And I want to find those clients. And they're hard to find.

This is the way that you do it. You, you show them that Because they don't know that about you. That client does now, but nobody else does yet. So your job is to show them that stuff. Show it to them in the letter, show it to them in the podcast, show it to them in the, in the talk, show it to them in the book, show it to them in your YouTube channel, show it to them in your social media, show it to them like all the stuff that you do. Yeah. They don't know it about you. They, they're waiting for someone to show up. To say, this is what's important to me so that they can go, yeah, me too. We've been waiting for you to be the person who calls our names so that we can work with you.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

So all of this, like, that's what outreach is supposed to do. That's what, whatever, content marketing, that's what email marketing is supposed to do too. It just has turned into a spam version of that. But that's what all marketing is supposed to do, is supposed to show them who you are so that they can go, oh, you're exactly the kind of person we've been waiting for. Oh, Mark, I'm so excited about this journey for you.

I can't wait to see what you do with this stuff.

All right, Mark, thank you for this. This is great. I hope this is helpful to you and, uh, I'll follow up soon on it.

Absolutely, Dan. It's been awesome.

Mark leaves with 3 action items: a podcast in 2 months, 2 letters a week starting in 2 weeks, and a talk at Deal Fest in June. Those are great commitments, but they're also the kind that feel finished the second you say them out loud. Which I think is the real trap. I would put the odds at about 50/50, not on whether he can do it. Obviously he can do it. His ideas are very practical and very doable, but 50/50 on whether it's in the calendar this week. The agency owners I've watched succeed turned the ideas into action very quickly, and the ones who didn't had fun conversations and then a busy month got in the way. My hope for Mark. is that his action on some of these things directly translate into him running the kind of business that gives him more agency in every sense of the word. If you're running a 6-figure agency and you want help getting to a million, I would love to talk to you and coach you live, just like I did with Mark here. There's a link to the application in the description below, and I look forward to hearing from you.