In this episode, Eric Siu and Neil Patel examine how the current weak economic climate is reshaping B2B marketing. They note rising cost‑per‑lead (CPL) and a 30‑80% month‑over‑month drop in lead volume across agencies, citing data from Google, Meta, and LinkedIn. The conversation shifts to pricing tactics: while Neil’s firm isn’t raising rates, they are moving "upstream" by targeting larger accounts that demand more work, effectively increasing ticket size without changing hourly rates. Eric describes a similar approach on his side, raising pricing due to higher average workload. They discuss the challenges of winning mega‑pitches (e.g., $7‑9 M agency fees) and anticipate a future where such large‑scale deals become standard. The dialogue then turns to exit strategies, using the recent 6‑x acquisition offer for Databricks and the story of Mark Zuckerberg as case studies, debating whether to sell or continue building. Both hosts emphasize a love for the entrepreneurial “game,” describing business as a video game that keeps them motivated despite painful moments. A brief plug for Karrot.ai’s personalized ABM solution is included. The episode ends with reflections on resilience, continual improvement, and a call to subscribe.
Chapters
This is how the economy is actually affecting marketing right now. So I feel that general economic sentiment is crappy right now. And so the railroad data is off, right? The restaurant data, Restaurants Performance Index, that's like, you know, kind of going up and down a little bit. So that's how much people are going into restaurants, right? Railroad data is how much traffic's, you know, how many transactions are going to the carts, right?
Yeah.
But, you know, we've seen Google, Meta, and LinkedIn reps, they have reported, at least on our side, I don't know about you, But increased CPLs, cost per leads, and decreased volume. With our client data, I think you're seeing similar stuff here too. We're seeing similar kind of decreases. And then agency businesses, I've talked about with you, other people as well, a lot of agencies, I'm seeing anywhere from like 30 to 80% decrease in month over month leads. So—
But what's happening with their revenue?
I haven't asked about their revenue. I don't think many people are increasing their prices. So I have to suspect that it's going down for most of them.
Yeah, 'cause I told you, I think I showcased on the last episode or one of our episodes, our lead going down and I was breaking it down for you. But if I look at our October numbers, October's not done for us. Last week, I know for a fact October's our second biggest month for new revenue close in history of our company.
So you guys are increasing pricing, we're increasing our pricing too, and that's something I've been—
No, we're not increasing our pricing.
You haven't?
No.
That's what you told me at lunch.
Last week. No, we're not increasing pricing.
Your average price has gone up, no?
No, we're not increasing our pricing. We're going upstream.
So it's more work. Oh, got it, got it, got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right?
So we're not charging more for the same work. It's just we're closing bigger accounts and bigger accounts require more work. So the dollar ticket is much bigger, but it's this, we don't charge hourly, but if you looked at it from an hourly perspective, we haven't increased our hourly.
Yeah, that makes sense. So for us, we actually are increasing our pricing just based on the sheer volume of stuff that we're doing on average, right? You guys, I mean, it's kind of a similar result at the end of the day. If you're going upstream, the prices are probably going to be higher. You're probably going to make more.
They are going up. But our business, not just recently, for the last 3 years, I would say we've been going upstream. And I don't think we're really upstream the way I want. I would say within 2 more years, I think we'll be in a place where I'm happy. But knowing my personality, I'll want something bigger.
You'll never be happy.
Yeah, I'll want something bigger.
But that's a feature. I think that's a feature. If you're happy, that means you've become complacent and then you stop.
Yeah, because right now we'll get included in— like we just lost one pitch. We got eliminated in the first round. We usually make it pretty far. It was a pitch that was $7 to $9 million in agency fees. We got eliminated. Most of our other players got eliminated. It looks like they're going to go with a holding company and they're looking to just use the holding company because it looks like that's who's just remaining. Holding company being someone who's listening with like 100,000 employees or something like that. We don't have that.
Yep.
But I believe, call it 2 years from now, that'll be much more of a standard for us and we'll have a lot more of those. And you're probably right, then I'm going to want the $50 million average pitches or $20 million pitches, and we don't really get included in $20 to $50 million pitches. I'm not talking about spend, I'm talking about in our fees.
Mm-hmm.
It's very rare a customer comes to us saying, here's an RFP for $25 million a year in services. What's typical is they'll pitch us and be here, they'll give us an RFP and be like, you pitch them and be like, we have a budget of X million dollars. And then you have to work to land and expand them and get them to pay $5, $10 million over time. But out of the gate, they're not handing you a contract for $10 million bucks a year.
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Yes.
And that's the same thing with Mark Zuckerberg as well. And we're not saying we're Mark Zuckerberg or Databricks necessarily, But that's the fun of continuing to play. And I think a lot of people think the goal is to sell out, but then what are you going to do after that?
Dude, what is it called? Jay Kron is back at Kajabi.
What?
Yeah.
Why?
Running it, co-CEO.
That's amazing.
That's amazing. And the point I'm getting at with that is it's the same thing. After you sell, what do you do?
You want to get back in the game.
Yeah, you get bored at home after you cash your check.
By the way, unless you hate what you're doing, then absolutely sell it, right? Unless you're like burnt out, whatever. But if you like what you're doing already and you're continuing to learn, you're continuing to compound, like how can you fail over a 10, 20, 30 period? You can't.
Yes, but you and I like continually going because it's fun.
Yeah.
And we always want to challenge ourselves and be better.
Yeah. Maybe secretly we like pain too, but you know, it is what it is.
When we're during the painful moments, there's no exit opportunities really.
Yeah.
Or exit opportunities that we would take.
Yeah.
During the good moments, we're like, this is great. Why would we sell? So we want to keep pushing forward.
Dude, in the bad moments, okay, this will be the last thing, but bad moments, like, Neil would call me and say, hey, I think you should just bankrupt, man. And I was like, that's the logical thing to do. But like, I'm just going to keep going.
And Eric literally said on the phone to me, that is a logical thing to do. And he's like, but I'm not going to do that.
Yeah. And look, we're going to keep going. So anyway—
And look, it worked out for you.
Yeah, it worked out. Anyway, guys, that's it for today. Please don't forget to rate, review, subscribe, and we'll see you tomorrow.
