Podcasts about ugurus

Would you like access to our advanced agency training for FREE? https://www.agencymastery360.com/training What really happens after you sell your agency? Brent Weaver, founder of UGURUS, knows firsthand — and it wasn't the beach-and-cocktails story most agency owners imagine. In this second half of our conversation, Brent opens up about what really happens after you sell a business, why his team stuck around (when they had every reason to bolt), navigating the shift from entrepreneur to executive within a corporate machine. He also lays down a fresh perspective on where agencies are headed in the AI era — and why human advantage is still your biggest asset. If you missed Part One, go back — it sets the emotional stage. This one dives into the raw aftermath. Brent Weaver is a veteran digital agency founder who scaled UGURUS, sold it not once, but twice, and is now charting a new course inside a larger ecosystem. But behind the polished LinkedIn update is a journey filled with doubt, identity shifts, and deep loyalty to team and customers. In this episode, we'll discuss: What no one tells you about life after a big exit How Brent is using AI at scale inside E2M Why “human advantage” still wins in an AI-driven world The risk agencies face if they treat AI like a gimmick How to protect clients from the “accountability gap” AI creates Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service. What Really Happens After the Deal Closes When most agency owners fantasize about the big exit, they think freedom, cash, maybe a beach. But Brent paints a more nuanced picture: “Selling is one of the most emotional business events you can go through. You feel every end of the spectrum — excitement, fear, uncertainty.” And no, he didn't tell the team beforehand because he wasn't even sure himself. Looking back, he remembers asking himself: ‘Is this what I want? What's going to happen to our customers? Our team?' Spoiler: Nobody left. Because Brent didn't cash out and disappear. He pushed hard to give people incentives to stay, rolled up his sleeves, and stayed to help 10x the next chapter. Brent's first acquisition with Cloudways was scrappy, entrepreneurial, and chaotic in a good way. But once DigitalOcean came into the picture everything changed. Some of the team joined a small company where they had a voice — then suddenly, it was all process, approvals, structure. And not everyone loves that. More recently, after staying at the newly-acquired agency, Brent took a step back from a direct client-facing role. At the same time, he had a bigger role in the back office, so despite people not seeing him as much, they also knew he was still around working on the business. To his knowledge, no one left because of the acquisition. The agency saw the normal amount of churn for the business but all clients and team members knew that Brent was trying to provide a sense of continuity after the sale. Why the Learning Curve is Shorter — and Scarier BBack when Brent started learning about the business, he had no idea how to write a proposal. He didn't know anyone in the industry who could orient him, and ended up writing one in the only format he knew: a high school essay. It was bad. It talked about his interests, why he was trustworthy and why they should hire him. Comparing that experience from the early 2000s to now, where kids are doing triple backflips on BMX bikes at age 12 because they can watch the trick 10 minutes after it's invented on Instagram, the speed at which someone can learn anything now is incredible. And even overwhelming. For agency owners, this means two things: There's never been a better time to start. There's never been a harder time to stand out. AI, Meta, and the Future of Agencies Ever since WordPress came out, everyone thought agencies were dead. To Brent, all it did was create more demand for people who knew how to use it. Same with Meta's new tools or any AI platform. Brent's take is clear: The tools will make advertising more accessible. But that will actually increase demand for agencies who know how to go deeper. In his view, there's no world where his old restaurant client — who had a flip phone and a fifth-grade education — was ever going to run his own ads. He just wants to cook. Translation: AI doesn't replace relationships. It just raises the bar on what value you're bringing to that relationship. Infusing AI Horizontally Across a Business: Brent's New Role at E2M The reality is, even in the AI era people still crave trust and connection. Even in a world where AI is analyzing spreadsheets and diagnosing ad performance better than most marketers, the decision to act still comes down to a human being. “I look at a spreadsheet,” Jason says, “and I want to throw up. But I put it into AI, and suddenly I get clarity.” That's the shift—AI can sift through the noise, but humans still make the call. Business owners aren't about to turn over their bank accounts to a voice assistant. There's always going to be a place for a trusted advisor—someone who knows the game, who gets results, and who's got skin in it with you. For agencies, that's the edge. If you can interpret the data and turn it into action, you're still wildly valuable. This isn't about one person nerding out on ChatGPT after hours. AI isn't a tool for the top—it's a mindset for the whole team. At E2M, he's stepping into a leadership role to help infuse AI horizontally across the company. That means operations, creative, sales—everyone using AI not as a crutch, but as a co-pilot. The agencies that survive the next wave will be the ones who stop treating AI like a gimmick and start treating it like a business partner. Brent's advice: don't wait. Start now, even if it's nights and weekends. Fire yourself from every job you're not elite at. And that now includes jobs that AI can do faster, better, and at scale. "Leverage these tools to gut-check your deliverables,” he says. “You owe it to your clients.” The Legal Line and the Accountability Gap But it's not all upside. Brent drops a crucial warning about accountability. AI might be amazing at cranking out contracts, pitch decks, and even deal structures—but if it screws up, who takes the hit? If chat tells you to jump off a bridge, and it goes south, you're not suing OpenAI,” Brent jokes. You're just canceling your $20 subscription. And that's where real coaches, consultants, and experts still matter. There's a human soul to leadership, and a layer of accountability AI can't (and maybe shouldn't) touch. The smart play? Start with AI to generate, then apply your judgment to validate. Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset? Looking to dig deeper into your agency's potential? Check out our Agency Blueprint. Designed for agency owners like you, our Agency Blueprint helps you uncover growth opportunities, tackle obstacles, and craft a customized blueprint for your agency's success.

Would you like access to our advanced agency training for FREE? https://www.agencymastery360.com/training How do you turn a $99 course, launched before it was even fully built, into a 7-figure coaching business? Today's guest did just that. And he's here to share why scrappier beats slick every time. If you've ever second-guessed launching messy, this episode will feel like validation. Brent Weaver is on the show talking about his start with UGURUS, the valuable learning that can come from starting before everything's in place, and why what came after selling his business wasn't exactly what he had expected. Today we kick off a two-parter with Brent Weaver, the founder of UGURUS, who went from building websites in high school to launching one of the most successful coaching programs for digital agency owners. If you've ever second-guessed your “build it as you go” approach — or wondered whether selling $99 courses online could ever turn into something real—this episode will feel like a shot of validation. In this episode, we'll discuss: Launching and selling without a net. The real reason Brent Weaver sold UGURUS. The unexpected, gut-punch part of selling.  Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources Wix: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by Wix Studio, the all-in-one platform designed to help agencies scale without the headaches. With intuitive tools, robust native business solutions, and low maintenance, Wix Studio lets your team focus on what matters most—delivering exceptional value to your clients. Ready to take your agency to the next level? Visit wix.com/studio and discover how Wix Studio can transform your workflow, boost profits, and strengthen client relationships. Building Something Before It's Built In 2012, Brent's agency was building on a tool called Business Catalyst, which led to a side project called BC Gurus, a blog for Business Catalyst users that eventually turned into a full-fledged business. That little blog became a membership site where his team posted business content on how to grow a Business Catalyst agency and, after selling his agency, was the seed for what eventually became UGURUS, a platform offering training and coaching to help agency owners close more deals and scale their businesses. Just as they were preparing to move forward with the site without the Business Catalyst element, as this tool had been discontinued, Brent found the name UGURUS had just gone up for auction. It all seemed serendipitous as they easily won this auction and the new stage of the business began. Lessons in Launching (and Selling) Without a Net Throughout their journey, Brent and his team learned something that every agency owner needs to hear: you don't need everything figured out before you start. And in fact, if you try to, you'll likely never launch at all. The early success of their $200 self-paced course helped them build an audience. But it wasn't until they started offering deeper, high-ticket coaching that things clicked into place. Selling a few $2,000 seats was way more scalable than chasing thousands of low-ticket customers. They did all of this without the luxury of a huge marketing budget or slick automation. Just hustle, relationships, partnerships, and a whole lot of belief in what they were doing. This is something Brent and Jason have both experienced. They agree it's better to go out, execute with what you have, and get feedback, rather than waiting for the perfect moment. Brent Weaver on Building, Selling, and What Came Next Brent and his team didn't start with a fully polished product. In fact, when they first launched their flagship 10K Bootcamp, they spent all their time selling it before creating it. In their view, if they couldn't sell it, they wouldn't build it. But they sold it. About 30 seats at $2,000 a pop. Of course, it did help that they weren't starting from scratch. They had a list of about 10,000 emails from their time running BC Gurus, which helped immensely. And then they had one week to create the first session. What followed was a whirlwind of late nights and Adobe Connect calls (for those who remember what that was) as Brent stayed one step ahead of each week's live session. It was clunky. It was imperfect. But it worked. Why? Because Brent was committed. He responded immediately to the slightest client dissatisfaction. He personally handled delivery. And he overdelivered wherever possible. That scrappy MVP became the foundation for a business that helped thousands of agencies get out of the feast-and-famine cycle. This kind of growth doesn't happen when you wait for the stars to align. It happens when you ship early, listen hard, and iterate fast. The $22,850 Lead Magnet That Took 6 Minutes to Create Let's talk about lead magnets that actually convert. The first product Brent ever sold was a gloriously titled “the $22,850 Website Proposal.” That wasn't a gimmick. It was a real client proposal that closed a big deal—with cross-sells, recurring revenue, and multi-location projects all baked in. Instead of building something fancy, he stripped out client details, dropped it into a Google Doc, and gave it away. Six minutes of work. Hundreds of thousands of downloads. The lesson? Your most valuable assets are often sitting in a dusty folder, not in your imagination. Proof beats polish every time. The Real Reason Brent Sold UGURUS So why sell a successful business? For Brent, it wasn't burnout—it was the pull toward a bigger vision. After buying out his co-founder and riding the COVID rollercoaster, things just weren't lighting him up anymore. Then came Cloudways—and more importantly, a series of conversations with their CMO, Santi. In a way, he was no longer getting what he wanted from the business, and the more he spoke with Santi, and saw what they were doing with their platform, the more he dreamed about turning that into an agency growth community. Hence, what started as co-branded webinars and strategy calls evolved into shared vision sessions. Eventually, Cloudways pitched an acquisition. The appeal? A chance to bring agency coaching to a massive platform with 13,000+ agency users. Brent saw an opportunity to merge purpose with scale and went all in. When the Buyer Gets Bought Here's the plot twist: just ten months after the acquisition, Cloudways got acquired by DigitalOcean, and suddenly UGURUS was a small fish in a billion-dollar pond. DigitalOcean was focused on AI, GPUs, and hardcore infrastructure—not coaching communities. So eventually, Brent's team and vision were sidelined. He stayed on. He fought for his team. But like he says—when you sell, it's no longer yours. And if the buyer shifts priorities, you've got to live with it. That's the tradeoff. Don't Sell Unless You Know What's Next The hard truth here is don't sell unless you know what you're waking up to the next day. Brent thought he had his next chapter lined up. He had a six-month transition plan. A roadmap. But then came the cultural disconnect. Engineering talk at happy hours. Roadmaps that had nothing to do with agency growth. The adventure he signed up for didn't look like what it became. That's the gut-punch part of selling. You can have a clean exit and still feel like you lost something. That's why clarity before the exit is non-negotiable. Next Time on Part Two: What really happens after the exit? Brent pulls back the curtain on post-sale culture shock, why some big opportunities fizzled, and how his next move with E2M caught even him by surprise. You won't want to miss this. Want to Build an Exclusive, Scalable Agency That Clients Line Up For? Our Agency Blueprint helps you identify growth bottlenecks, build community-driven strategies, and position your agency as a category of one.

Aujourd'hui, je rebondis sur le dernier épisode de podcast du digital agency show où Brent Weaver annonce la fermeture de Ugurus et du podcast par le fait même.J'en profite pour leur faire hommage et réfléchir sur ce que leur expérience peut m'amener dans ma nouvelle aventure entrepreneuriale.

In this final episode of the Digital Agency Show, host Brent Weaver gets interviewed by UGURUS Lead Mentor, Jennifer Buzza. They talk about the shutdown of UGURUS after 12 great years, lessons learned from the business and recording 375+ episodes, and much more. Tune in for this Brent's final thoughts on a great run.

Are you struggling to stand out in what feels like a saturated market? Brent Weaver, the founder and CEO of UGURUS, has the answers you need. In this insightful episode, Brent dives deep into the power of specialization for digital agencies, sharing how his team has navigated 13 different niches to find unparalleled success. He also offers a glimpse into the future, exploring how agencies can harness the power of AI to drive capacity, revenue, and profit gains. This week, episode 241 of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast is about embracing specialization and the power of niche focus!Watch our latest video training, How to Take Charge of Your Agency's Future Revenue. During this training, you'll learn how we get qualified appointments every week using tasteful and highly targeted email outreach.In this episode of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast, Brent Weaver shares the importance of specialization for digital agencies to improve performance and actionable steps you can take right now to educate prospects and help them understand their challenges in sales calls. Brent Weaver is on a mission to help 10,000 digital agency owners achieve freedom in business and life by helping them own their market.  Brent is the founder and CEO of UGURUS, a business training and education company dedicated to this mission. He also hosts one of the leading podcasts in the business niche—The Digital Agency Show.  Brent is in partnership with UnlimitedWP—a scalable white label WordPress development team to help digital agencies grow without all the headaches of hiring and managing people. He is also a Brand Ambassador for Cloudways, a WordPress hosting company, helping them evangelize their platform. In this episode, Dan and Brent discuss the following:The challenges of changing specialization, including changing your landing pages and copy.Focusing on where your leads and traffic are coming from, not just your website copy.Providing value to clients through flexibility and reducing the number of hops in communication.The evolving role of sales and helping prospective clients make informed decisions, rather than using persuasion.Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to follow, rate and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!Learn more about The Digitial Agency Growth Podcast at https://www.salesschema.com/podcast/ and our Video training at http://salesschema.com/takecharge CONNECT WITH BRENT WEAVER:LinkedInUGURUSThe Digital Agency ShowYouTubeCONNECT WITH DAN ENGLANDER:LinkedInSales SchemaStop relying on unpredictable referrals and take control of your agency's future growth. Go to salesschema.com/takecharge to access the free training now.

Jonathan Hinshaw is an integral part of the UGURUS business. He's mentored over 500 members, he owned a 7-figure agency called EBWAY, he's produced courses with us, and has also had a very successful sales career outside the agency space, selling over $750 million in products in the car and motorsports space. We're now happy to have him as part of the UGURUS team!

Nate Freedman is the CEO of Tech Pro Marketing, a leading marketing agency in the IT services space. He is also the co-founder of Creative IT Agency, the ONLY IT support and cybersecurity company specifically dedicated to helping digital agencies with their IT problems. He is also a UGURUS mentor and longtime member.

Marama owns Oracle Tree, a digital agency in Australia. She has decades of business experience and has spent extensive time mentoring, including for UGURUS. Her recent best-selling book, Fixing Frankenstein, is available now. In this episode, we discuss how she's built a successful agency that fits HER lifestyle.

This week on the podcast, we're thrilled to have Brent Weaver, CEO of Ugurus. He has been on our list of wanted guests for a long time! Brent Weaver took the learnings from his first successful agency (that he started in high school 

Jeff Couret is the founder and president of SEOak, which helps digital agencies deliver SEO results to their clients, effortlessly and profitably. He is also an amazing UGURUS mentor and previous guest on this show.

Brent Weaver leads the vision for UGURUS and creates educational programs that help agency owners work on their business to drive additional revenues, increase profits, and create freedom in their life. He built his first website at 15 and created his first web-design business at 17. That company grew into a successful, 14-person web agency that was acquired in 2012. Brent has helped thousands of other web professionals master business skills and has made more than $10mm as an entrepreneur. He published the best-selling book, Get Rich In The Deep End, in 2020. Brent is interviewed by his good friend, fellow entrepreneur Marc Gutman.

In this episode, we will be discussing website growth, marketing budgets, the power of hiring an expert in a specific niche market, measuring gaps in your website strategy, understanding your marketing goals, and the importance of organic SEO.First up, we will be breaking down website growth. It's important to have a clear understanding of what website growth means and how to measure it. We also talk about the expectations around what your marketing budget should be, the pitfalls of being a generalist, and how to measure gaps in your website strategy. Joining me for this conversation is Aaron Carpenter. Aaron is the founder of Legendary Lion Creative Agency and Mental Health Marketing. In 2011 Aaron founded Legendary Lion Creative Agency to help small businesses grow and succeed. Since then he has worked with hundreds of mental health clinicians and group practices worldwide to help them grow their practice with his trademarked “Private Practice Growth System”. In 2021, Aaron joined the awesome mentor team at UGURUS to provide support for growing agencies worldwide.Aaron gives listeners actionable tips on: [2:10] Breaking down website growth [3:45] Expectations around what your marketing budget should be [5:35] Pitfalls of being a generalist  [10:50] The power of hiring an expert in a specific niche market [13:40] How to measure gaps in your website strategy [17:15] Understanding your marketing goals [19:05] What is organic SEO [20:15] How to rank on Google [25:35] Having a high domain authority  [29:50] Aaron's book review [34:10] One big takeaway to implement from this episode Resources mentioned in this episode:Start with Why by Simon Sinek Connect with Aaron here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-carpenter-aa982735/ https://mentalhealthmarketing.com  Connect with me Instagram Pinterest Facebook Twitter Karin on Twitter Karin on LinkedIn Conroy Creative Counsel on Facebook https://conroycreativecounsel.com 

In this episode, we will be discussing website growth, marketing budgets, the power of hiring an expert in a specific niche market, measuring gaps in your website strategy, understanding your marketing goals, and the importance of organic SEO. First up, we will be breaking down website growth. It's important to have a clear understanding of what website growth means and how to measure it. We also talk about the expectations around what your marketing budget should be, the pitfalls of being a generalist, and how to measure gaps in your website strategy.  Joining me for this conversation is Aaron Carpenter. Aaron is the founder of Legendary Lion Creative Agency and Mental Health Marketing.  In 2011 Aaron founded Legendary Lion Creative Agency to help small businesses grow and succeed. Since then he has worked with hundreds of mental health clinicians and group practices worldwide to help them grow their practice with his trademarked “Private Practice Growth System”. In 2021, Aaron joined the awesome mentor team at UGURUS to provide support for growing agencies worldwide. Aaron gives listeners actionable tips on: [2:10] Breaking down website growth [3:45] Expectations around what your marketing budget should be [5:35] Pitfalls of being a generalist  [10:50] The power of hiring an expert in a specific niche market [13:40] How to measure gaps in your website strategy [17:15] Understanding your marketing goals [19:05] What is organic SEO [20:15] How to rank on Google [25:35] Having a high domain authority  [29:50] Aaron's book review [34:10] One big takeaway to implement from this episode Resources mentioned in this episode: Start with Why by Simon Sinek  Connect with Aaron here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-carpenter-aa982735/ https://mentalhealthmarketing.com  Connect with me Instagram Pinterest Facebook Twitter Karin on Twitter Karin on LinkedIn Conroy Creative Counsel on Facebook https://conroycreativecounsel.com 

In this episode, we will be discussing website growth, marketing budgets, the power of hiring an expert in a specific niche market, measuring gaps in your website strategy, understanding your marketing goals, and the importance of organic SEO. First up, we will be breaking down website growth. It's important to have a clear understanding of what website growth means and how to measure it. We also talk about the expectations around what your marketing budget should be, the pitfalls of being a generalist, and how to measure gaps in your website strategy.  Joining me for this conversation is Aaron Carpenter. Aaron is the founder of Legendary Lion Creative Agency and Mental Health Marketing.  In 2011 Aaron founded Legendary Lion Creative Agency to help small businesses grow and succeed. Since then he has worked with hundreds of mental health clinicians and group practices worldwide to help them grow their practice with his trademarked “Private Practice Growth System”. In 2021, Aaron joined the awesome mentor team at UGURUS to provide support for growing agencies worldwide. Aaron gives listeners actionable tips on: [2:10] Breaking down website growth [3:45] Expectations around what your marketing budget should be [5:35] Pitfalls of being a generalist  [10:50] The power of hiring an expert in a specific niche market [13:40] How to measure gaps in your website strategy [17:15] Understanding your marketing goals [19:05] What is organic SEO [20:15] How to rank on Google [25:35] Having a high domain authority  [29:50] Aaron's book review [34:10] One big takeaway to implement from this episode Resources mentioned in this episode: Start with Why by Simon Sinek  Connect with Aaron here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-carpenter-aa982735/ https://mentalhealthmarketing.com  Connect with me Instagram Pinterest Facebook Twitter Karin on Twitter Karin on LinkedIn Conroy Creative Counsel on Facebook https://conroycreativecounsel.com 

QUICK LINKS:• The Agency Profitability Toolkit - Get the templates, formulas, and frameworks we've used with our consulting clients to help them double their profitability in under 60 days, absolutely free• For more information on our Agency Profitability Systems and Consulting, check out parakeeto.com• Love the podcast? Leave us a review on the platform of your choice at this link• Want to see/read more about this episode? Then do make your way to parakeeto.com/blogGUEST LINKS:ugurus.comBrent's LinkedIn @brentweaverbrent@ugurus.com (again, if you fancy a free copy of his book, shoot him an email)The Digital Agency Show ugurus.com/podcast/ABOUT: Brent is on a mission to help 10,000 digital agency owners achieve freedom in business and life by helping them own their market. He also happens to be the founder and CEO of uGurus – a business training and education company dedicated to this mission. 

Aaron Carpenter is the founder of Legendary Lion Creative Agency and Mental Health Marketing. In 2011 Aaron founded Legendary Lion Creative Agency to help small businesses grow and succeed. Since then he has worked with hundreds of mental health clinicians and group practices worldwide to help them grow their practice with his trademarked “Private Practice Growth System”. In 2021, Aaron joined the awesome mentor team at UGURUS to provide support for growing agencies worldwide.

I'm excited for you to meet our special guest expert today — Brent Weaver, an expert in teaching how to attract prospects the right way. If you're meeting Brent for the first time — Brent is the founder and CEO of UGURUS, a business training and education company dedicated to helping agency owners learn how to attract prospects and own their market. Brent is also the host of “The Digital Agency Show” podcast and the author of the book, “Get Rich in the Deep End.” Let's start by reviewing a brief excerpt from Page 47 in Chapter 3 of Brent's book. It perfectly frames up the challenge agencies, business coaches, and strategic consultants face when creating content — and — the struggle around the decision to niche down and go more narrow. “We can no longer create random content and hope it gets results. The Internet is organizing into hyper-focused, hyper-specialized niches, and the winners take all. That means you need awareness about what you're trying to accomplish and who you serve.” “You need insight into where your customers are in their business — not where you are in yours — before you publish anything.” “Most agency owners don't realize this—so their marketing is typically ‘me-focused.' Most simply publish once in a while about what they're up to: a recent project launch, a technology they are interested in, or a reference to a trend or method they think is important.” “And I've come to learn that when marketing is ‘me-focused,' the agency itself is very likely the same way. In other words, they either don't have a market, or they're scared to communicate directly to their best clients because they might turn other ones away.” As you'll hear in this interview — Brent and I talk through how to attract prospects within the construct of his 5-A Framework, and we zero in on the audience, attract, and acquire. And — how that belief connects into what he calls the “5-A Framework” and how that framework can help all of us not just niche down — but then once we make that decision — what's the best way to create content that attracts right-fit prospects into our sales pipeline. When we do it right — the content we create should attract an audience because you've focused on your audience and helping them solve their problems — and not being “me-focused,” to use one of Brent's terms again. I promise you — the insights and wisdom Brent shares during this episode will give you and your team what you need to strengthen your authority position and roar through 2023. In fact — Brent fully mapped out the content and methodology he and his team use to attract leads each month. I'm encouraging you to take this framework — and your content — and you will be well on your way to attracting all the right fit clients you need. What you will learn about in this episode: Why niching down is not an instantaneous event — but a process that evolves over time How to identify the right audience — or who — represents your right fit prospects How to uncover the problems, challenges, and business issues your prospects are dealing with everyday What are the 5-As with Brent's 5-A Framework How to go from performing your content in your “garage” to getting on other's stages — where your right fit prospects are hanging out and ready to learn from you How to own your market and attract all the right fit prospects you need Free Resources: Get a free copy of Brent's book, “Get Rich in the Deep End,” by emailing Brent at (brent at ugurus.com) with the subject line: “Heard you on the Sell with Authority Podcast” Get Brent's Free “AGENCY ACCELERATOR PACKAGE” by going here. Download our WHO Framework and replace your dry sales pipeline by attracting a steady stream of well-prepared right-fit clients who want to work with you — and — are eager to pay a premium price to do so         Speaker 1: (00:03) Welcome to the Sell With Authority podcast. I'm Steven Woessner , c e o of predictive roi. And my team and I, we created this podcast specifically for you. So if you're an agency owner or business coach, or a strategic consultant, and you're looking to grow a thriving, profitable business that can weather the constant change that seems to be our world's reality, well then you're in the right place if you want proven strategies for attracting a steady stream of well-prepared right fit prospects into your sales pipeline. Yep. We're gonna cover that. Do you wanna learn how to step away from the sea of competitors so you actually stand out and own the ground you're standing on? Yeah. We're gonna cover that too. Do you want to future-proof your business so you can navigate the next challenges that come your way? Well, absolutely. We will help you there as well. Speaker 1: (01:00) I promise you each episode of this podcast contains valuable insights and tangible examples of best practices, never theory from thought leaders, experts, owners who have done exactly what you're working hard to do. So I want you to think practical and tactical, never any fluff. Each of our guests have built a position of authority and then monetized that position by claiming their ground, by growing their audience, by nurturing leads, and yes, by converting sales. But all the while they did it by being helpful. So every time someone from their audience turned around there, they were with a helpful answer to an important question. So their prospects never ever felt like they were a prospect. I also promise you every strategy we discuss, every tool we recommend will be shared in full transparency in each episode. So you can plant your flag of authority, so you can claim your ground, so you can fill your sales pipeline with a steady stream of right fit clients who again, never, ever were made to feel like one of your prospects. Speaker 1: (02:11) Okay. So I'm excited for you to meet our very special guest expert today, Brent Weaver. If you're meeting Brent for the first time, Brent is the founder and c e o of you Gurus, a business training and education company dedicated helping agency owners own their market. Brenna's, also the host of the Digital Agency Show podcast, and the author of the brilliant book Get Rich in the Deep End. Okay, so before I welcome Brent to the show, I'm gonna share a brief excerpt from chapter three. I have, I, I do have his permission to do this. So from chapter three of his book, because it perfectly, in my opinion, frames up the challenge agency owners and their teams typically face when creating content and when struggling with the, the decision to niche down and go more narrow. So here we go, page 47, chapter three, of Get Rich in the Deep End. Speaker 1: (03:06) So I'm quoting Brent here. We can no longer create random content and hope it gets results. The internet is organizing into hyperfocused hyper-specialized niches, and the winners take all that means. You need awareness about what you're trying to accomplish and who you serve. You need insight into where your customers are in their business, not where you are in yours before you publish anything. Most agency owners don't realize this. So their marketing is typically quote me focused, most simply publish once in a while about what they're up to. So think recent project a technology they're interested in, or a reference to a trend or a method they think is important. And I've come to learn, again, these are Brent's words, and I've come to learn that when marketing is me focused, the agency itself is very likely the same way. In other words, they don't have a market or they're scared to communicate directly to their best clients because they might turn others away. Speaker 1: (04:15) Okay? So end quote there. That's the excerpt. So as you'll hear in this interview, I'm going to ask Brent why he believes so strongly in the excerpt that I just shared with you, and how that belief connects into what he calls the five A framework, and how that framework can help all of us, not just niche down. But then once we make that decision, what's the best way to create content that attracts right fit prospects into our sales pipelines? Because when we do that right, the content we create should attract an audience because you focused on your audience in helping them solve their problems. In fact, you've created content that shows them you may even know their problem better than they do, and you never seem like you're me focused again to use one of Brent's terms. I promise you the insights and wisdom Brent shares during this episode will give you and your team what you need to strengthen your authority position in Roar through 2023. Speaker 1: (05:20) Okay. So without further ado, my friend, uh, welcome to the Sell with Authority podcast. Brent, it's an honor to be here. It is an honor to have you here. And thank, thank you, uh, for humoring me as I went through that really long introduction, but I really wanted, uh, our audience to have great context as to the insights and wisdom that you're going to share. And thank you again for saying yes. Before we dive in with what I'm sure is going to feel like a barrage of questions, uh, coming your way, uh, take us behind the curtain, Brent, and, and share a little bit more about your path and journey. Couple minutes and, and, and then we'll dive in. Speaker 2: (05:56) Yeah. And Steven, I I think if you ever, uh, if you ever need a plan B, you can, uh, you can, you can follow me around and introduce me in every meeting, every uh, event that I present at. Cause um, that was, uh, that was you, you had me enthralled, and I was like, who is this person he is talking about? And, and so I think the, um, you know, I mean, for, for me, my journey started in, in, in high school, I was building websites. I started, you know, got a client in high school Hmm. Uh, you know, paid me $500 cash, like, right. As somebody who's working for minimum wage at the time, at, at like 6 25 an hour. Um, that was a, a phenomenal windfall. Uh, I immediately spent it on things I do not remember. Um, and, you know, that kind of started my like, you know, career as, um, as a, as an agency owner. Speaker 2: (06:46) I mean, I didn't, I didn't know I was an agency owner for almost a decade, right? I was just building websites for people. And, and our first agency, we did everything wrong for probably the first seven years, uh, and started getting some help, mentorship, um, a advice, joined some business accelerators started to kind of figure out how to actually run a business. I'd never been taught how to run a business before. And so, you know, that was really a big inflection point. And actually the, the excerpt that you read, when I think about my history, um, as a agency owner and entrepreneur, you know, there, there truly was this like, inflection point where I thought like my business was about me and about what we were doing mm-hmm. . And at the same time, we were always really frustrated with the, um, you know, the output, right? Speaker 2: (07:31) We weren't getting enough clients. We had no control over our lead generation. We really had no structured marketing. I mean, we were doing stuff, we were, you know, building awareness. We were out in, in the community, out in the network, right? We were getting clients, we were doing great work. Those clients would lead us to other clients. But like, what I understand about marketing now, I mean, when I look at how sophisticated our Legion engines are at U Gurus and the agency that I now own, um, part owner and unlimited, wp, I mean, you know, what took us a year and a half to scale to seven figures for Unlimited, WP took us over a decade, uh, with my first agency. And even then, right? It was like, it was like seven figures of, of like, you know, like splotch together revenue and different niches. Speaker 2: (08:15) And it was like every dollar we were like grasping for, right? It was like, and it was super fluctuating and all that kinda stuff. Whereas when I look at our business now, it's like this, it's like this growth engine that's just like clock, clock clock. You know? It's like we can just see, you know, the consistency and also the, the freedom that's created. Um, now, you know, when, when I, I sold my first agency when I was, um, in, in 2012. Um, I was, I was about 30 years old. I started the, the business accelerator. We have been running now for the last 10 years, Yu Gurus, a couple years ago I started Unlimited WP with, uh, a graduate of our program. Um, last year, you know, we actually were acquired by, uh, Yu Guus was acquired by, um, cloud Ways, which was shortly thereafter acquired by Digital Ocean. Speaker 2: (09:00) Uh, and so now we're, we're scaling the business accelerator in a way that I've never even, um, I never imagined, you know, we've had this mission of helping 10,000 agencies achieve freedom and business in life. And, and now all of a sudden I'm like, wow, this is like happening, right? We're like seeing this, uh, every day in our work. So, so, yeah, I mean, it's, it's been a, it's been a fun journey, not without, its, uh, its pitfalls and pains. And I think most of that content in that book, and most of the content I talk about, uh, is more derived from the lessons that I've learned in business. Some of those, those lessons have been extraordinarily expensive. Uh, and so it's, it's easy to look at like, oh, man, you know, growth story, fun, exciting. But, you know, most of the things that we've implemented now, and most of the things that we do on a regular basis are just from, you know, all the mistakes that we've made. Uh, and so hopefully I'll, I'll share some of those with you today with some of the questions you're gonna ask Steven. Well, Speaker 1: (09:51) And, and that's, but that's what makes this conversation helpful and insightful. It isn't like you woke up one day and said, you know, I need to pick a niche. Oh, I know I'm going to go out and start helping a whole bunch of agency owners, and, and that's fine. I'm gonna read a few books in, in, in order to get the context. And then, you know, after I read the books, I'm gonna be an expert and I'm gonna maybe need to fake it before I make it. That's not what we're talking about here. What, what I love about your path and journey one that you're super transparent in sharing what, what it was and is, but it ties into this last paragraph that, that out, out of that excerpt that I chose and, and or selected, and you, and when you wrote, and I've come to learn that when marketing is me focused, the agency itself is very likely the same way, right? It's because of all of this context and all of this perspective, this path and journey that you've been on for a couple of decades, that gives you the ability to write that it, because you've been in the trenches, you understand it, so awesome. Right? It makes it that much more helpful. Speaker 2: (10:53) Absolutely. And, and too, like, I mean, well, I will probably talk about, you know, markets and, and how people can focus on those things. But when I think of the last 12 months of my life with these multiple kind of acquisitions under my belt, and now we're, you know, we're Scaling Unlimited, wp, which is a brand that is a, it's a white label WordPress shop for other agencies. And, and I look at this like portfolio of, of business that I've been able to create, um, which is really exciting, but a lot of, like, my enterprise value that I bring to organizations is my knowledge of my market. And we can talk about my story all the time, right? We can talk about like, the things that I've learned. Yeah. But like, the journey really starts with us deciding that, you know, being customer obsessed, is it create, like, that decision was the inflection point, Steven. Speaker 2: (11:45) It was like, that was the thing that made everything else possible. Because, you know, for us to start to learn about, you know, what kind of products and services our market wants, what their pains and problems are, you know, I mean, I can, like, it wouldn't surprise me if sometimes I wake up in the, in the middle of the night, you know, shouting the fierce frustrations, want and aspirations of agency owners, right? Because I'm so obsessed about it. My wife's like, what's, you're having a nightmare? I'm like, no, no, no. It's not my nightmare. It's, it's, it's my customer's nightmare. Right? Um, it's because like, it's, it's become this obsession Yeah. Of us understanding how do we solve these problems? How do we help people achieve what they want in their business? And, and through that, we've been able to create a ton of businesses and a ton of value for other people. And, um, and, and it's fun. It's so fun, man. It's, it's like, it, it business is, has, has been a really, uh, an excellent game to be able to play as an entrepreneur. And, and, you know, if I just, if I keep getting to play this game with this market, with these people, you know, for the next 10 years or 20 years, uh, you know, that's, that's a huge win for me. Speaker 1: (12:47) Amen. To that, I'm gonna key in on this, uh, nightmare analogy Yeah. That this, uh, gave us, because, uh, in, in another one of your chapters, uh, in fact, let me quick grab it. Okay. Chapter nine, I highlighted, uh, one of sort of the, the call outs here. And it speaks directly to what you just said and how you make content attractive to a prospective audience. You, you wrote talk about your ideal client's pain better than they understand it, and they will instantly see you as an expert to solve their problems when you have that passion when it wakes you up in the middle of the night and you're super concerned and you're super excited about helping them through their trials, tribulations, problems, business issues, challenge, whatever word that you wanna put that on, that gives you an ability that infuses your content when you mix it with the proper voice, which we'll get to in a little bit. But when you do that, it, it's, it's very easy then to say, as the recipient of the content that, oh, Brent is all about me. Not, not, not him. He's all about helping me, right? Speaker 2: (13:49) Yeah. Well, and, and I think too, a lot of people have a fear of talking about their craft because they see other people out there that are saying really smart things about whatever they do, whether it's building websites or doing Facebook ads, or, you know, creating brands. And so to stand out in a crowd, and, you know, talking about your discipline is really intimidating because we can all go to the internet and Instagram and see people that are doing like, better quality stuff than us. And so, a way for you to, you know, and, and, and honestly, most people don't really care about that stuff anyways, right? But it's, it's, that's the natural inclination is, Hey, I'm gonna, I'm a web designer, I'm gonna publish content about web design. And then you're like, oh, crap, there's all this content about web design. Like, where do I fit in? Speaker 2: (14:36) Right? And so, the thing that I think most of us don't understand is that we, we, we are looking for solutions to our problems. And usually the first thing that we do is we, we search out our problems. And so if you find people that are talking about our problems, um, and they are talking about them eloquently, and they're talking about them in a way that, um, is, is relatable, then, you know, that's like half the battle. Like, you're already, you've already created some really amazing content there that's, that's, that's gonna attract people to you. And so, you know, instead of thinking to yourself like, you know, I'm not as good as a southern web designer, you know, it's just going into your target market and figuring out what are, what are their issues? And, and most people, the most markets out there don't have our agency expertise, you know, that that's readily available. Speaker 2: (15:20) Like, they're just not, you know, that there's, there's a lot of blue oceans out there. And so I think usually it's very, it's easy to go into a market and start to master what they're struggling with and talking about that, that's something that you can usually do in a few weeks, right? Or, or even days. You can go out and, and understand those problems. Go do 10 or 15 customer interviews, you know, and really start to get a grip on those things. And then it becomes kind of this point of leverage or an X factor where you can start to create content and you can feel more confident about it because you're actually hearing these problems from people. And then you just kind of repeat what they're talking about, and then people will start to listen to you. Speaker 1: (15:57) Love that. So let, let's frame up maybe the, the re that's a bad pun, uh, frame, frame up the rest of this conversation with, uh, by, by walking through your five A framework. Um, and then, and then I, I know we're gonna dip into the attract PC authority piece and so forth, but let's go 30,000 foot view for overall framework. If you could take us through the five A's, that would be awesome. Speaker 2: (16:19) Yeah. So, I mean, quick, the, uh, the, the tl DR version, right? Audience, uh, awareness, attract, authority and acquire. So those are, just think about it as the five things that you should be able to write on a napkin, uh, when you go and market your agency, that you should have at least a one or two point bullet, uh, of, you know, each of these things. You know, who's your audience? What channel are you gonna use to build awareness to that audience? What's that path to customers? What are you gonna talk about to attract those people to you? Mm-hmm. , how can we establish ourselves as an authority within that market? And then how are we gonna actually acquire those people into scheduled appointments on our calendar? Is a, is there a literal, like a logistical path to getting that audience to engage with us in some way? Speaker 2: (17:10) And so, you know, my most simple, you know, I mean, on, on a simple level, we might have something like, you know how Yu Guus attracts agencies, right? We use, uh, you know, agency as our audience. We use Facebook ads to drive that, you know, to, to, to drive that audience to us. Um, couple the problems that we talk about are, um, you know, creating proposals, high value proposals, you know, winning high value projects, five, six figure deals. So that's kind of some of the messaging we use to attract. Um, we e established our authority by providing actual one proposals for agency deals. So those are, you know, and people see it. It's like, oh, wow, this is a, this is a real thing, right? Mm-hmm. . So that instantly creates authority. And then we acquire those, those folks through, um, you know, a very basic, uh, marketing funnel, right? A a very basic, like, optin, get the tool, join our Facebook group, have a call with us, and, you know, just for some context, right? So that's a, that's the five A's on an napkin. Like I can draw that in a napkin. It's no more complex than that. And, you know, that funnel for us generates two to 32,000 to 3000 leads a month for our business, right? And so, you know, that, that's, that's the five a's in a nutshell. Um, and then we can obviously, you know, kind of dive into each of those. Speaker 1: (18:24) Yeah. So, so let's do that. Um, so when you think about the five A's on an Appian, love, love the way that you described that, because because it is easy, we sometimes make it overly complicated. So if we're looking at kind of zooming out and looking at the five A's, when, when an agency owner is thinking about maybe adopting that into their business, which a do they struggle with first? Speaker 2: (18:49) Yeah. I mean, they're, it's, it's sequential and, and it should be mm-hmm. . And, and so I think that's the piece that people hit the immediate roadblock on, is they go, oh, audience, oh man, this guy's gonna ask me to niche. I don't want a niche. I don't wanna stop turning away, you know, start turning away clients. Like, what about the person that calls me tomorrow that wants to pay me $35,000? It's not a nonprofit org, it's not a doctor, it's not a dentist. Ah, well, I'm, I'm done. Mm-hmm. . Uh, and so they get, they get frustrated with that. And so I think, you know, the way that we look at it as, you know, the first, the first level of this is, you know, think of it as a campaign. You know, you're gonna invest some time in money in marketing. Um, you're not gonna overhaul your website. Speaker 2: (19:28) You're not gonna start, you know, you're not gonna, because this is how I first niched. I, we decided to focus, you know, we were a general web design firm, and we had a bunch of clients that were nonprofits. Like 30 or 40% of our clients were nonprofit organizations in Denver, my business partner and I went out to a lunch, and we were like, we were struggling to grow the business. We were unprofitable, we were putting all of our, you know, we were putting tons of stuff on credit cards, and I don't, it was a mess. And somebody, people kept told, telling us, oh, you got a niche. You got a niche, you got a niche, right? And I'm like, no, everybody can be my client. Everybody can be my client, right? We're never gonna niche . So finally we hit like a breaking point. We're like, screw it, we're gonna niche. Speaker 2: (20:02) So we were, we were at a Wendy's, right? That was, that was like what the, the, the cuisine was of, of that, um, you know, the dollar menu, right? Double, double cheeseburger, medium french fry, um, and chicken nuggets. Can't forget that, right? Three bucks I could get lunch . Um, and so we, you know, slammed our fists on the table and we're like, we're gonna niche to nonprofits. So we, you know, immediately went back to the office, changed our website homepage, we build great websites too. We build great websites for nonprofits. And then I think we even sent an email out to all of our customers. We said, we're working with nonprofits now, , and of course all the small businesses were like, what about us? Right? Right. And all the, the, the very little website traffic that we had at the time, you know, which was mostly from like some, some random Google searches, which we had no context of. Speaker 2: (20:52) And also just like referral and word of mouth and just general reputation, right? I mean, you know, two thirds of that traffic hit that home page and said, oh, these guys aren't for us anymore. And so our leads actually went like, into the toilet. Um, and so like, I think that, like that kind of surface level nicheing of, and, and again, it kind of comes back to this me focused versus customer focused mm-hmm. , you know, I thought nicheing was about me. Yeah. I thought it was, I needed to change my website home page. I needed to tell all of my clients that I was now, you know, nonprofit focused. And it was like a miserable failure. And I, I don't think it was, it was, it didn't, we didn't really start figuring out until, you know, a couple years later, we obviously changed our website back and we were like, oh, crap. Speaker 2: (21:37) We made a big mistake. And, you know, we, we kept having to have these sales conversations that would come up where people would say, oh, you know, Brian, I saw that email from you guys. It sounds like you're not working with us anymore. We're like, no, no, no, no, no. Like, please, no, no, no, we're fine. We're, we can still help you. Right? So it was, it was a complete disaster. And so when, when we say, Hey, pick an audience, it's like if you had, you know, a thousand dollars in your bank account and you were going to your budget and you were gonna decide how to spend that money, right? Um, that's really all this conversation at first is about, is you've got a thousand dollars, maybe you got 10 hours to invest in marketing this month. Where are you gonna spend that time? Speaker 2: (22:16) Yep. And then, and then once you de decide that, that, who, right? Who, who is that marketing offer? You know, then we can kind of start, start talking about where, like what do we actually do strategically and tactically to get that message in front of the right audience? Yeah. You know, shortcut, it's not changing your reps at homepage. It's not sending out an email to your customers. It's not turning down business. Now, at some point, if you're established in a market enough to where you're just like, like leads and clients are falling out of your pockets in your target market, and you're like, I have so much awesome business. Like, I'm starting to see, you know, the light at the end of the tunnel, I understand what this whole nicheing thing's about, you know, at that time, like, maybe it becomes more of a business identity thing and you start to actually turn stuff away. Speaker 2: (22:57) Um, and so I think that first step for people, like, it's, it's, it's almost like people are trying to jump from, you know, being single mm-hmm. to like married with kids in one step versus like kind of going out and, you know, going to the clubs at the bars or the sewing groups or whatever, right? And trying to meet people, you know, first, right? There's a few steps that happen before, like married with kids, right? Mm-hmm. . And so I think that that first step can become such a hurdle. Yeah. For some people, if they're in their mind, it's that I have to change my entire agency's identity. If they instead reframe that to, Hey, I'm just gonna invest like 10 hours in marketing and maybe spend a couple grand, like all of a sudden it's like, oh, that's not that big of a deal. I can focus on doctors for like a month. Yep. Right? And, and so that, that reframing, I think is, is really important as kind of a solution to that. But like, man, if you can't get past that, if you can't, like, you can't put a campaign out to a target market, you know, the rest of this whole nicheing conversation's gonna be way harder. Speaker 1: (24:00) I, I am so glad to hear you frame the up that way, again, using a bad pun, I guess, or using a pun, because I, I see it in agency owner's eyes all the time. And I, and I, and I'm sure you do too, that when you mention the word niche, they, they immediately make the leap of 10 years down the road, married with kids. And in thinking that that's might be what you and I or someone else is asking them to do, when in reality, that's why I was really grateful that I was thinking, oh, I wonder if he's going to break that down into the small little steps. And that's exactly where you went, which thank you for that, because that is it, right? It's not about firing your clients on Monday, cuz you made a decision on Friday. It's about how you then step into that recognizing that it is a long game, it's peace, after peace after peace. Eventually you'll get there. And, and, and so thank you for that because I'm hoping that that eased maybe some of the stress around the decision that it's not instantaneous, that it is a progression. Speaker 2: (24:57) Yeah. And in, in the book, I use this kind of, you know, the title's called Own Your Market. And so, you know, if you want to use a that analogy of, of owning, right? Before we do that, we might go and, you know, we might, we might be a looky-loo first, you know, we might be a, a Zillow or whatever you call 'em, right? , we might look at those places that we might wanna live. Right? But there's a big difference between looking and then, you know, being a tourist, like, Hey, let's go to like, got a friend that moved down to, uh, Costa Rica. Yep. They've been there for like five years, but like the first step for them was like, they, you know, they obviously had the idea and they kind of like, you know, did some research on it. The second step was, you know, they went down to Costa Rica for a, a quick family vacation to see like what the vibe was. Speaker 2: (25:40) And it was like, Hey, the family loves it. Right? And then they came, they went back to Costa Rica again, um, to, uh, you know, to, with without their kids to start to like actually plot out what it could be like to live there. Hmm. Then, you know, and then they went back to Costa Rica, the, the third time with a one year commitment. They were gonna live there for a year Right. As renters. Okay. And, and now they've lived there for, we're going on five, going on six years. And now the conversation has turned into, you know, do we buy down here? Speaker 1: (26:07) Oh, wow. Speaker 2: (26:08) You know, that same idea within a market. It's like, what can you do to do a little research? Like, hey, we're just looking, and then, hey, can we be a tourist? Can we go out to a, an event in your market? Right. And this is getting into our, our second day a little bit, Steven, of, of awareness. Right. But what can you do that's like a small investment Yeah. To kind of like step in and, and kind of see what's going on. And maybe you're going to a conference, maybe you jump onto some podcasts, maybe you sponsor a, an association or an event, you know, and you go and kind of rub elbows with people in the market, you know? Cause I, I went in an early market, we targeted, I won't say what market it was, was, uh, no, actually I will. Um, so we were, we were in Colorado, and this is back when like medicinal marijuana was like a big, like it was a big thing, right? Speaker 2: (26:53) Sure. And there was all these people like, oh, this is gonna be like the green rush, right? It was like, ah, you know, like we, we couldn't help ourselves but get caught up in it. And so we, you know, I met some people, some potential strategic partners. They were selling advertising, uh, in the local Westward Magazine for these different shops and stuff. And so he started hook me up with, uh, appointments to build websites and do marketing for these folks cuz they, none of them had a websites. And so, you know, I went on a couple of these meetings, we signed a couple deals, and then one day I went on a meeting and I rang the buzzer and they, they unlocked the door and I stepped into a cage and the door closed behind me was like, like, like it locked. And there was like, I'm in this like cage and there's like cameras and I'm sitting there and they're like, oh yeah, we'll be with you in just one moment. . Speaker 2: (27:40) And you gotta imagine this is all this like cash business and like, there's good reason, right? But this is like people that are coming from like the black market, right? Lots of cash still slightly ill, you know, kind of illegitimate in this gray zone cuz it wasn't legal federally and, and whatever. It really wasn't legal at, at a state level fully. And, um, it was, it just like, it turned me off. Yeah. I was like, Hey, there could be money here, but like, this is just not where I want to hang out as an entrepreneur right now. I don't want to be going into buildings with duffel bags of cash and being l literally locked in a cage with cameras on me to, um, you know, while they like took my license. And like, I, I don't know, it was just like, yeah, it felt weird. Speaker 2: (28:20) I drove back and I was like, Hey, , uh, you know, called my partner. I was like, Hey Steve, like, you know, I I was like, you know, we've, we've, we've really come a long way, but like, I just don't see that this is gonna be a path forward for us for, for such and such reason. And he was like, okay, cool. Like, let's, let's work on the next market, right? So it's like, you know, sometimes you find through that kind of exploratory phase in a market that for whatever reason it's not a great, great fit and that's okay, right? We don't have to, you know, commit a hundred percent, but at some point you will find that a market is, is great. And then you might wanna kind of jump in the deep end as, uh, as we talked about in the book. Speaker 1: (28:55) Yeah. That reminds me of, uh, a, a conversation that our, our mutual friend Drew McClellan and I had on a recent episode of his podcast, so episode 3 54. And, and, and he wanted to essentially dissect, uh, predictives. So my agency, kind of our path through various niches and in the evolving of predictive predictives about 13 years old now. And, um, and, and then we also talked about the permanency of niche and that decision and, and how it doesn't, we don't have to think of it as like pounding it into stone tablets and, and from here for the next several decades, it must be this. So that's why I really like your two examples that you've shared because it shows how you're moving into a niche with intentionality. What can we learn? What can we experiment with, what can we discover and all of that. And then same thing like with Costa Rica, um, in, in that example with your friends that, that they weren't pounding it into stone. Speaker 1: (29:55) We like Costa Rica, so therefore we're gonna move our entire family and so forth down there without doing their due diligence and all of that. Do some people do that? Of course. Did they do that? No, they went about it in a very pragmatic way. So all along sort of these milestones, if you will put it in a business context, there were the go no-go decisions. Okay, now we're gonna extend the trip for a year. We're gonna extend the trip for this point. And, and then finally we're all in. That seems like a very practical approach, Speaker 2: (30:21) Right? Yeah. Speaker 1: (30:23) Very practical approach. So let's, let's step into the attract piece. So one, once someone makes that decision, uh, then, then obviously I'm leapfrogging a couple of pieces in the A framework. So I'm going out of sequential order. Um, because the reason why I want to go into the attract piece one, I, I, I love how you structured this chapter because it's, it's very practical and tactical. You, you give high level, but then you go eye level pretty quickly too, which I loved. And, and you recommend some really good tips about how to create attractive content. So, so let's go through that piece and, and let's go through your recipe for creating attractive content and would love to even slice it at a granular level about the various tips that you share. Cuz I think there, again, going back to framework, that's gonna be a great framework. So, so let's go high level with the attraction piece. Um, how do, like, what's your point of view around creating attractive content? And then we'll slice that apart? Speaker 2: (31:23) Yeah, I, I think the, I mean, first is, is getting into your customer's head. Hmm. And there, there's a lot of different ways to do that. I think the thing that has been most impactful for me in terms of the research and understanding stage is to, um, conduct customer interviews. And the faster that you can do this mm-hmm. , uh, within your chosen target market, the faster the learning begins. And this happens, um, outside of the building, okay, this doesn't happen. Uh, you know, in, in Google, like now you can do some great research in Google, but, um, it doesn't happen on a whiteboard. It doesn't happen in a brainstorming document. Uh, you do have to talk to people and there's like a famous saying in, in, I don't know, business that, uh, you know, business would be, uh, really easy and fun if it wasn't for those customers, right? Speaker 1: (32:19) . Speaker 2: (32:19) And, and so like, I found that going out and becoming obsessively focused on, on talking to people in, uh, my target market. And at first it started very informal, like within the first markets that we targeted. It also started originally, like I thought the only time I could talk to people in my market is if, if they called me and asked me for a proposal and, you know, invited me into their office. It, it turns out, uh, that you can call an email pretty much anybody. Uh, you can knock on any door and you can ask them for insights and feedback and, and advice, right? Advice is a great thing to ask people for. Cuz everybody wants to give you advice. Uh, everybody wants to give you advice, right? Um, even about things that they shouldn't be giving you advice about. Uh, and so you can leverage that mm-hmm. . Speaker 2: (33:05) And you don't have to be going, you don't have to go in and ask somebody for business, talk to them. You can go in and just be like, Hey, I'd love to learn about blank. Like, Hey, I'm thinking about targeting this market. I'm thinking about trying to work, uh, with more nonprofits or more restaurants or more doctors, or more dentists. Like, do you have five minutes? Do you have 10 minutes? Just tell me about some of your biggest pains and issues or problems or frustrations or gripes or complaints about, you know, X, y, z about web design, about branding. And, you know, if, if that target market says, what do you mean by branding , that that's gonna be like, ah, you know, aha. Like, right? Like people don't even know what you do. Right? Or if you're like, you know, like, uh, you know, what are your thoughts about, you know, quantum computing and conversion optimization and AB testing and, you know, and your target market is like, what? Speaker 2: (33:54) Like, you know, that's like your first learning is that, you know, they have no idea what you're talking about in some cases, right? Not all cases, but, you know, when I was going after restaurants, for example, um, that was very much the case. Mm-hmm. even just going a layer deeper in a website. Like, Hey, what's your impression of WordPress? Or, you know, what are your frustrations with WordPress? And the, the amount of understanding from my target market of what even WordPress was, right? Many of them had no idea what I was talking about. Um, you know, if I used a term like CMS or responsive, um, they were like, I don't know what you're talking about. And so if my website, right, if my content would have led with, Hey, we build amazing responsive websites and I was trying to reach restaurant owners, I mean, I'm gonna make them feel like idiots. Speaker 2: (34:46) You know, they're, well, first of all, they're probably not gonna feel anything. They're probably just gonna get go. I have no idea what these jerks are talking about. You know, move on. I have a, I have a fire in the kitchen, literally mm-hmm. . And so getting in and talking with people in your target market, and the faster you can do that, the better. Uh, a lot of people like that I, I've talked to over the years, they hear about doing customer interviews and it's, it's this big, like, back to, to reframing things, but it's this big, like, okay, I gotta reach out to, oh my gosh, how am I gonna, you know, well, and they kind of drip like maybe a, a conversation once every week or two, um, when we got really serious about agency. Like, I did 72 customer interviews, 30 minute customer interviews in a week, like I in a week, right? Speaker 2: (35:30) So you can structure this stuff intensely and you can get a lot done. Like when I usually go in and develop a new product or a service, and I know agency owners really well, but still, I have a lot of biases that get in the way. I have a lot of false beliefs, I have a lot of assumptions that get in the way. So every time we launch a new program, a new feature, a new addition, like we always go and talk to our customers. We always, we always get in there and do that. And so we stack these interviews and we'll do, you know, we'll do 10 interviews in an afternoon mm-hmm. . So 20, 30 minutes a piece that's five hours. It, it's a little intense, right? You're like five hours straight, customer call, customer call, customer call. But what happens is you start getting into this mode where you're like, your, your unconscious starts to like, recognize patterns and you start to see like, oh my gosh, there's the thread here, or this thing that I keep harping on, they just don't care about. Speaker 2: (36:15) Um, and so that, that idea of going in, in and talking to your customers, that's, that's gonna be like, you know, one of the biggest things that, um, that we, we, we advocate. And then, you know, from there, it's, yes, you need to organize your content, you know, you need to talk about things that your customers care about, and then you, you need to do it in a way that's modeling off of, you know, good storytelling. You know, having a, um, you know, having a, a hook, a build, and a payoff, right? Having, having, capturing somebody's attention, getting them to listen to you, and building tension around the services and offers that you have, and then telling people, you know, how they can solve that problem. What's the benefit? What's the, what's the, the nut? What's the call to action? Right? What are they gonna, what's the, the juice that they're gonna get from this thing? And, and making sure that they have a, a good path and a good motivation to, to reach you. Speaker 1: (37:03) Yeah. When I think of 72 interviews in, in, in, in a week, and whether somebody listening to this says, holy bananas, I'm gonna do 72 interviews this week. Or they say, I'm gonna do 72 interviews in the next couple weeks or a month, or whatever the timeframe is. Don't miss the point 72 interviews gives you like this goldmine you mentioned patterns, right? You start seeing these patterns, it gives you essentially like your customer or perspective customer gave you, Brent, like gave you, this is the curriculum we want you to teach, right? Speaker 2: (37:35) I mean, the fact that you put it in those terms is mind blowing because that was exactly what we got out of it. We took, like, I took all those interview notes, we, um, themed them. What are the themes that people are talking about? We simplified those with some, you know, some work. Um, we then used actual, like customer quotes. So things that people actually told us, um, that we thought really grabbed people's attention and were kind of like in people's heads because they were literal things that people said to us, right? Yeah. And people email us like, oh my gosh, Brent, you're inside my head. And I'm like, I literally just like wrote you an email with a sentence that you actually told me. Like, you know, it'd be like that customer was like, oh my gosh, Brent, this is, you know, follow up from our conversation. Speaker 2: (38:17) This is so good. Right? And so, you know, going back to that specific investment of time, um, that was actually right before we launched our bootcamp program. Okay? Now, our bootcamp program, we ended up having about 13 to 1400 agencies go through that program. Um, it was about, uh, a $3,500 program. You know, you can do your napkin math, but that intense level of customer development led to, you know, a very lucrative upside. Now that product eventually morphed into, you know, the community and the program. And a lot of that research was still, is still something that we rely on today in terms of our core curriculum from bootcamp. And, you know, all of our new members that, that join us for our one year program go through bootcamp mm-hmm. . And so, you know, that was stuff I did back in 2014. Okay? And it's still paying dividends now. Speaker 2: (39:09) I don't know if, you know, I would tell people, Hey, go out and do 72 interviews in a week. It was a lot of fun. My team thought I was kind of crazy. I was super burned out. I had probably over expressed myself that week. But I mean, even doing five or 10 interviews in a week or in a day, um, can, can, you know, give you huge insights. And then what happens is you start to kind of get this, you almost get this like master's degree in your, in your target market. You start to kind of studying them and you start to have this acumen and just naturally, the more people in your target market that you talk to mm-hmm. , you start to change your language because you, you're gonna start to just self-correct in terms of how you explain what you do. And when that starts happening. Speaker 2: (39:51) It's, it's really magical when you start to look at like, what happens in the sales process, what you put in your proposal mm-hmm. , how you present your offer, what your pricing looks like, how you structure your pricing and payment plans. I mean, just like all that stuff becomes like, it, it just starts to becoming next level just naturally, right? Without having any kind of, you know, this is our 19 point framework for proposals or whatever. Like if you go talk to 20 customers in your target market, you will absolutely make changes to your proposal and to your offer and to your, you know, the language you use when with presenting without any additional sales, coaching or help, right? You'll just self-correct. Um, the more conversations you have. So, so in, in the attract stage, you know, in the book I go through a lot of different tactics in, in, in methods around like ideal customer profile and individual, like specific content frameworks and things like that that you can use. But without that body of work, without that context and content about who your target market is and what they think about, um, really all of that stuff is, is useless. Speaker 1: (40:52) Yeah. O okay. So that, that, um, that inspires me to want to quote you again. So, uh, forgive me here. So th this is, this is off of page 1 46. We're in the attraction piece because about the practicing and about getting in, and this is about like finding your voice, right? We've heard that a lot. Like you gotta find your voice, but what you say about finding the voice or someone's voice in my opinion, is really key here. And here's what I mean by that. So everyone, I'm, again, I'm quoting Brent here. I have discovered my voice by practicing a lot. You don't find it before you begin to write or speak, you find it through writing and speaking. So that tells me as, as a reader, and also now listening to you in this conversation, that the interviews, whatever the number was, you were mentally in, in writing, in notes, keeping track of the patterns, and also then giving it back to people and creating content and writing and teaching and speaking and all of that. And through that practice, not only did you see what was attracting and what wasn't, but at the same time you were gaining your voice and your belief around what it was that you were sharing. Am am, am I tracking with you? Speaker 2: (42:02) Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, I I, not to inception our audience right now, but you know, I would consider this, uh, it's a rep, it's a, you know, I mean, yes, we're, we're, we get to perform today for this audience that you've, you know, so graciously put us in front of, but as an expert and as an authority, you know, this is one more, um, you know, one more rep that I get to, to do, right? I don't, I don't come in and, you know, prescript like, oh, this is what I'm gonna say. You know, I've got my, I've got my platform, I've got my content. But it's like every rep, um, is, is a way for us to help refine that and like, Hey, were we able to say that in a better way this time? Do we have a better analogy or a better story or case study? Speaker 2: (42:39) You know? So every time you get out there in front of that audience, whether it's through your social media posting or, um, through, uh, a platform like this, you know, it's an opportunity for you to refine that message. And one thing that I, I do think is really important is that, you know, there's kind of the, the garage band, uh, metaphor that I give a lot, which is, you know, the equivalent of, of me creating content, you know, on my own platform mm-hmm. , that's kinda what I call the garage band . Right. You know, it's like we're going outta the garage and we're like jam, like, ah, yeah. You know, like stare with, we're doing it right. Like, you know, we're gonna play Thunderstruck next. Right? And it's like, you know, it's like, I, I might be having like, the time of my life, my neighbors are probably calling the cops, right? Um, and so, you know, the people in the world that have become superstars, right? At some point they got out of the garage mm-hmm. , and they had to go start playing it at venues. They had to, you know, the Beatles didn't play in the garage, right? They, they played, they gig seven nights a week, three times a night sometimes. Right. Three shows that's 21 shows a week. Speaker 1: (43:36) Yeah. Two card week. Great. Formative. Yep. Speaker 2: (43:38) Yeah. Like they're, they're refining that sound in front of an audience. So there's that feedback mechanism. And so, you know, one of the things that you wanna do as soon as possible is create content, um, with third party editors and people who are going to essentially kind of, you know, give you very real feedback, um, by either not having you on their program, um, or, you know, they might give you some tips and things like that, or maybe you hear how they sound, or maybe the questions that they ask you and try to get clarification on exposes that maybe some of your content has some gaping holes in it. Um, you know, whatever it is. It's like if you can find those people that can become those filters and those amplifiers for you, you know, that practice becomes a lot more interesting and impactful for you in your market. Speaker 2: (44:24) And so that's one of the things that, you know, we started, we started with really slowly mm-hmm. , um, I would run these, uh, uh, these, uh, luncheon learns in Denver on, you know, social media and . I would send this invite out, like, come learn about Facebook and Twitter and blah, blah, blah, right? And I'd get four people to sign up for 'em, right? And so it's like, you know, in a way that was like feedback, right? I'd like have, you know, but then four business owners would come in and, you know, I'd give 'em this, you know, complete run through of social media and stuff, and they would be like, Brent, this was the most valuable thing I've ever, like, this is the most valuable lunch that I've ever been to. This was so amazing. And they'd invite two people. And then I had to think, okay, why are, you know, they're all telling me this is a life-changing workshop, but nobody wants to come to it, right? And so it's like figuring out that messaging and all that kinda stuff. So the more, uh, the more filter that you can use through other people's lenses, um, I think the more, the faster you'll go through some of those reps and some of that learning Speaker 1: (45:19) Yeah. 100%. And, and, and pushing yourself to get into, like, I, I'm a huge baseball fan, so, so pushing yourself to stand in the box, we gotta get into the box. Yeah. And, yep, A bunch of times we're gonna strike out. Um, I don't know how much of a baseball fan you are, but, uh, for everyone listening, uh, Derek Jeter struck out 1,862 times throughout the span of his career, and, and he is largely regarded is, you know, the best, uh, Yankee to ever play the game. And that's, that's a pretty, that's a pretty awesome list, right? 1,862 times to say that a different way. There are actually only 10 players in the history of the game who ever struck out more than Derek Jeter. He's number 11 on the list. He struck out 1,862 times only 10 players ever struck out more than Derek Jeter because he was willing to do Brent, what you're talking about. He was willing to stand in the box, he was willing to take the practice wings. He was willing to do that in the game and strike out if need be, but 300% of the time he was gonna get a hit because of those repetitions. Going back to your word, the reps. Cuz he knew the value of every single rep. Speaker 2: (46:29) I think, I think I'm gonna put like 8 18 62 on my, uh, wall. I think I'll, I think that's gonna become a new, a new number for me. . Everybody's gonna be like, what happened in 1862 . Speaker 1: (46:40) That's awesome. So I, I know that our, uh, time is, uh, quickly coming to an end. Before we go, before we close out and say goodbye, uh, any final advice, any recommendations you think we might have missed? Uh, and then, uh, please share with our audience the best way to connect with you, Brent. Speaker 2: (47:00) Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, I think the, um, man, is there anything that we've, we've missed? What a, what a big thing. I mean, I think if we, if we close it out though on maybe a choir, because I think that's the other piece that sometimes is, is overlooked. Um, and, and this is just a piece where if you're, if you're on a podcast, if you're on a webinar, you'll give people a really great, uh, way to reach you. Right? Give them something that's really valuable, you know, know, and, and I was thinking about before I came on, I was like, what are the things that I could like give out the resources, the things like, you know, like what would, what would Stephen be like cool with in terms of like what would be okay for his audience and stuff? And, you know, I'm like, man, now you're like, you've talked up my book so much , and I'm like, gosh, wouldn't it be cool if we just said, Hey, anybody that wants a copy of my book will mail one out to you. Speaker 2: (47:51) Awesome. Uh, you just want to drop me an email, brent yu gurus.com and just say, Hey, I heard you on Stevens podcast, I heard you on on the Predictive podcast. Um, you know, and, and I'll have one of my team mail you a copy of, uh, of, of Get Rich in the deep end. And that would be a way for us to deliver ama amazing value to you. And, you know, just do that for free. So it's gonna cost me a bunch of money. My team's gonna like, be like, Brent, why don't you say that thing? Um, and that's okay, right? Because we're gonna get you guys some amazing value. We also have this, uh, own your market toolkit, which some of the things we talked about today, the frameworks, um, you know, we can get that to you digitally, you know, instantly. So if you're looking at like how to niche or how to create valuable content or, um, how to, how to structure some of this stuff, um, we've got some really good worksheets you can use with the Sharpie and kind of map this stuff out and go get a cup of coffee and, and work on the business. Speaker 2: (48:41) So would love to do that. And so to inception, our audience, um, you know, that would be an example of the acquire stage is if people are interested in what you do, is being able to deliver something of insane value that is not a pitch, you know, it's just like, Hey, here's this thing. And the whole point is to move somebody from an audience member who's just listening, um, into somebody who's engaged with you and know your, you know, methodology in, in your intro Steven, about like how do you, you know, sell to people and, and deliver so much value that they don't feel like they're being sold to. And that's like, that's our whole ethos at you grew, is we call it help first. And so, you know, we give people tons and tons of resources. I mean, thousands of people download stuff from us every single month and we'll just be like, Hey, like, you know, tell us about your agency. Speaker 2: (49:31) And then some people do and some people don't. And that's okay. And some people take our free resources and they go in and make hundreds of thousands of dollars with them and they email us, they're like, Hey, that proposal I got from you, I just landed a $200,000 project. Thanks so much. And you know, I wish they'd attach a check to that one . But you know, not always does that happen, right? Um, and so yeah, if you guys want the book, you know, draw me an email, we'll mail you a copy of the book, we'll get you the, the resources and, um, you know, would love to, to meet anybody in this audience that wants to connect. Speaker 1: (50:00) Awesome. And we'll be sure to put, um, the mentions of those resources in, uh, today's show notes, everyone. And, um, no matter how many notes you took, and this is key everyone, no matter how many notes he took or how often you go back and re-listen to Brents word's wisdom, which I sure hope that you do, is you need to take this framework. You need to take the awareness piece and you need to take to the attract piece and the acquire piece. You need to take all five that he broke down and shared with you so generously, and then gave you examples at the end. You can take this example, this free book example that he just gave you, and everything that happens downstream from that reverse engineer it, you put your content into that framework and do the same thing for your niche. And when you do, you'll accelerate your results. And Brent, we all have the same 86,400 seconds in a day. I am grateful that you said yes to come onto the show, to be our mentor and guide to help us move our businesses onward to that next level. Thank you so much my friend. It's my honor.  

Chuck Peters is the father of twins +1, married 15 years, entrepreneur, CEO, and salesman. Chuck 3X'd his agency's revenue in 2022, breaking through a revenue ceiling that had been taunting him for years, and growing his team to over 20 people in the process. He niched down, scaled up, and is now a 7-figure agency. He's worked with UGURUS for a couple of years.

Jesse Brede is the owner of Lion's Share Digital, a full-service digital agency, Gravitas Recordings, an electronic music label, Gravitas Create, electronic music education, and co-founder of Pivotal Agency artist management and bookings. Lion's Share works with world-class brands, festivals, artists, and creatives. Gravitas has released 190 albums, eps, and compilations. He's managed CloZee, Beats Antique, Desert Dwellers, Dirtwire, and Bluetech. Jesse is also a UGURUS client.

It can be challenging to determine if niching down and building a more specialized practice in your agency is the right move. Today, Brent is sharing why you should niche down and get specialized. Episode 162 of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast is about the importance of specializing and getting rich in the deep end! Watch our new recorded video training: Relationship-Driven New Business At-ScaleIn this episode of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast, Brent Weaver is sharing the importance of specialization and actionable steps you can take right now to niche down. Brent Weaver is on a mission to help 10,000 digital agency owners achieve freedom in business and life by helping them own their market. Brent is the founder and CEO of UGURUS, a business training and education company dedicated to this mission. He also hosts one of the leading podcasts in the business niche—The Digital Agency Show. Brent is in partnership with UnlimitedWP—a scalable white-label WordPress development team to help digital agencies grow without all the headaches of hiring and managing people. He is also a Brand Ambassador for Cloudways, a WordPress hosting company, helping them evangelize their platform.In this episode, Brent Weaver and Dan Englander discuss the following:How much easier Brent believes it would be to have agency success now vs. back when he started his agency in High School to pay for his hobby of building websites.Why Brent believes niching down could save your agency or business in the long runHow to know when and what to niche down to as times change through looking at your existing clientele and marketing channels.Brent's suggestions around launching multiple business models at a time, or trying to diversify your agency through multiple business models at a time, and though it worked for him, why he doesn't recommend it for others.Niching down is far better, and far more lucrative, than remaining a generalist in your business model practices, and even pandemic statistics will prove that to be true. Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to follow, rate and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!CONNECT WITH Brent Weaver:WebsiteEmail: brent@ugurus.com for field guide and additional resources for listenersCONNECT WITH DAN ENGLANDER:LinkedInSales Schema

Abby Wood is the founder of The Content Lab, a white label copywriting and content marketing agency that helps digital agency owners get their time back, keep their customers happy, and increase their profits. She serves over 80 agencies with their copywriting needs, has an amazing team, and is also a mentor for UGURUS. She offers support and guidance that agency owners need to help them grow their business and live the life they want.

Jen Buzza is the founder of Web Clio and is the UGURUS lead mentor. She keeps our whole team in line and focused on delivering amazing value to our many members. She's had a huge impact on thousands of agency owners all over the world through our programs and through her own business and entrepreneurial practice.

Marama Carmichael is the founder of an award-winning marketing and brand agency, Oracle Tree, and she's also the author of Amazon best-seller, Fixing Frankenstein: How to Take the Monster Out of Running Your Small Business. Oracle Tree helps SMBs to fix their “Frankenstein”, also known as grow and scale. She's been a mentor with UGURUS since almost the beginning, and has helped around 300 agencies change their business through our program.

Barbara Carneiro is a mentor and senior strategist. She is the founder of Word Revolution, a communication and branding agency for Christian ministries. She's worked with over 250 clients in her niche. She's launched a conference and a course in her niche as well. She has a 5-person agency and only works 10-15 hours per week in the business. She also is a UGURUS mentor and has been working with us for many years now. She's helped over 200 agency owners in our programs.

In this episode of The Remarkable Project Jay speaks with UGURUS founder, entrepreneur and author, Brent Weaver, about why minor tweaks to your niche can have major business impacts, how a killer community is the safety net you need as you scale, and the benefits of building out your own interactions engine.Brent Weaver leads the vision for UGURUS, a platform and set of educational programs which help digital agencies get more leads, win higher-value clients, and delight customers in a way which allows founders and owners to scale their businesses, whilst creating freedom in their professional and personal lives.He built his first website at 15 and created his debut web-design business just two years later. That company grew into a successful 14-person web agency that was acquired in 2012, with Brent since going on to help thousands of other web professionals master business skills and make more than $10m as an entrepreneur himself.Written during one of the most disruptive times in history, with people floundering around where to focus their buying power, his 2020 book ‘Get Rich in the Deep End' looked at how to commit to a niche, own a market and “audaciously” scale an agency. Equally targeted at digital marketing agency owners concerned about how to stay essential and anyone else running a client based business, the book drives home a solution based on becoming a specialist in everything you do, but at the same time knowing what not to do, and why.Married with two sons, Brent enjoys his road bike and swimming laps, and as for his favourite program…Google Chrome.Remarkable Takeaways Why making even minor changes to your niche can have a major impact the downstream elements of your business as well as your marketing position. How finding your core community of comrades and confidants offers a valuable safety net of expertise and emotional support as you scale.The benefits of creating and fuelling an engine which increases ongoing interactions with customers or clients.Connect with BrentEmail him here! Learn more about UGURUS via their website

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Brent Weaver. Brent is on a mission to help 10,000 digital agency owners achieve freedom in business and life by helping them own their market. Brent is the founder and CEO of uGurus, a business training, and education company dedicated to this mission. He also hosts one of the leading podcasts in the business niche—The Digital Agency Show and is the author of Get Rich in the Deep End: Commit to Your Niche, Own Your Market, and Audaciously Scale Your Agency. More About Brent Weaver: Get a copy of his book – Get Rich in the Deep End: Commit to Your Niche, Own Your Market, and Audaciously Scale Your Agency Learn more about Brent's business – UGURUS Brent's Podcast – The Digital Agency Show Podcast Take The Marketing Assessment: Take the Assessment This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network and Semrush.

Does your agency have recurring revenue? In this episode of the Innovative Agency podcast, we are joined by the founder and CEO of uGurus, Brent Weaver. Brent is on a mission to help 10,000 digital agency owners achieve freedom in business and life by helping them own their market. During our conversation, he shares his insights on building an agency with recurring revenue streams. What you will learn in this episode: Why it's important for agencies to have recurring revenue How financing differs from recurring revenue in agencies How to determine what services are great -- and which ones are not great -- for recurring revenue Why customer development interviews are crucial for determining your pricing What should agency owners consider when developing service packages Why agencies can begin to offer fewer services at higher prices over time  Bio Brent is on a mission to help 10,000 digital agency owners achieve freedom in business and life by helping them own their market. Brent is the founder and CEO of uGurus, a business training, and education company dedicated to this mission. He also hosts one of the leading podcasts in the business niche—The Digital Agency Show and is the author of Get Rich in the Deep End: Commit to Your Niche, Own Your Market, and Audaciously Scale. Resources: Website: ugurus.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ugurusweb Twitter: https://twitter.com/u_gurus LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ugurus

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Brent Weaver. Brent is on a mission to help 10,000 digital agency owners achieve freedom in business and life by helping them own their market. Brent is the founder and CEO of UGURUS, a business training, and education company dedicated to this mission. He also hosts one of the leading podcasts in the business niche—The Digital Agency Show and is the author of Get Rich in the Deep End: Commit to Your Niche, Own Your Market, and Audaciously Scale Your Agency.

It can be challenging to determine if niching down and building a more specialized practice in your agency is the right move. Today, Brent is sharing why you should niche down and get specialized. Episode 114 of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast is about the importance of specializing and getting rich in the deep end! Watch our new recorded video training: Relationship-Driven New Business At-ScaleIn this episode of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast, Brent Weaver is sharing the importance of specialization and actionable steps you can take right now to niche down. Brent Weaver is on a mission to help 10,000 digital agency owners achieve freedom in business and life by helping them own their market. Brent is the founder and CEO of UGURUS, a business training and education company dedicated to this mission. He also hosts one of the leading podcasts in the business niche—The Digital Agency Show. Brent is in partnership with UnlimitedWP—a scalable white label WordPress development team to help digital agencies grow without all the headaches of hiring and managing people. He is also a Brand Ambassador for Cloudways, a WordPress hosting company, helping them evangelize their platform.In this episode, Brent Weaver and I discuss the following:How much easier Brent believes it would be to have agency success now vs. back when he started his agency in High School to pay for his hobby of building websites.Why Brent believes niching down could save your agency or business in the long runHow to know when and what to niche down to as times change through looking at your existing clientele and marketing channels.Brent's suggestions around launching multiple business models at a time, or trying to diversify your agency through multiple business models at a time, and though it worked for him, why he doesn't recommend it for others.Niching down is far better, and far more lucrative, than remaining generalistic in your business model practices, and even pandemic statistics will prove that to be true. Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to follow, rate and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!CONNECT WITH Brent Weaver:WebsiteEmail: brent@ugurus.com for field guide and additional resources for listenersCONNECT WITH DAN ENGLANDER:LinkedInSales Schema

Aaron Carpenter runs the agency Legendary Lion, which he founded in 2011, and is also a UGURUS mentor. He has over 300 clients in his niche, has completed over 500 projects, and also created a directory website that sold for nearly 7 figures.

Agency coaching? It can help you avoid common mistakes and challenges and accelerate the growth of your agency. Hear insights about: How Brent started his first company in 1999 at the age of 17 building websites, and how he sold his agency in 2012 and moved into agency coaching Why Brent's goal is to help agencies avoid the same common challenges that he himself experienced growing his agency Why the biggest financial challenge Brent faced was bootstrapping his business and not being able to pay his withholding taxes for three years as a result Why coaching can help you accelerate the growth of your agency by learning strategies from experienced coaches who have already been where you are Why making long-term financial investments in your leadership skills and in your business is a crucial step for the growth of your agency How working with his own coach allowed Brent to see how much agency coaching can move the needle for an agency's success Why being curious, committed and open-minded are crucial traits for getting the most from agency coaching Why Brent believes learning to delegate and developing soft skills are vital and necessary skills any agency owner needs to learn How Brent uses data to project the profitability of his agency and to make key financial decisions Agency Coaching As an agency owner, you probably started your business with the intent of putting your skills and experience to work in your chosen field, whether that's marketing or research, staffing, or IT. However, at a certain point in any agency's growth, the owner must learn to extract themselves from the day-to-day work and instead focus on the profitability and health of the agency. Making that transition from subject matter expert to business leader requires developing many new skills that probably lie outside your area of expertise, and so it can be challenging to shift your mindset and step into a leadership role. That's where working with a great coach can help. This week's guest on the Progressive Agency podcast is Brent Weaver, founder, and CEO of UGURUS. Brent's agency specializes in agency coaching and teaching owners how to avoid common challenges and mistakes and to instead focus on growing their businesses. Agency coaching can help you accelerate your path to success by allowing you access to expert insights and experiences from people who have already navigated the path you're on. During our conversation, Brent shared how he helps his clients level up their leadership skills, learn to delegate the day-to-day work to their teams, and better understand their business financial numbers. The Benefits of Agency Coaching and Developing Your Soft Skills As Brent explained during his visit to the Progressive Agency podcast, the return on investment from agency coaching takes a while to show up; it isn't a magic bullet that will instantly transform you as a leader. However, patience is rewarded in the long term, because your agency will grow significantly faster when you have the voice of experience helping you make important decisions and helping you better understand your role as a leader. Brent says that the biggest thing that helped him boost his agency's profitability and growth was developing his soft skills and leadership. Brent believes that it's crucial for agency owners to be willing to invest in themselves and to approach agency coaching with a committed, focused, patient mindset. After all, Rome wasn't built in a day, and developing your leadership takes time, experience, and trial and error. Why would you want to go through that process alone, when you could instead have an experienced coach helping to guide you and clear your path? To learn more about Brent Weaver, UGURUS, and the coaching programs and services Brent and his team offer, you can visit their website at https://ugurus.com/ or reach out to Brent directly at brent@ugurus.com to request a copy of his book Get Rich in the Deep End. And, as always, please visit me at https://craigcodyandcompany.com/podcast/ for more informative, money-saving podcast episodes like this one. How to Connect with Brent Weaver: Email: brent@ugurus.com Website: https://ugurus.com/ LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/brentweaver/ LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/ugurus/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/ugurusweb/ Twitter:  @u_gurus Additional Resources: Website: https://craigcodyandcompany.com/ Twitter: @CraigC2742 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigcodycpa About Brent Weaver: Brent Weaver is on a mission to help 10,000 digital agency owners achieve freedom in business and life by helping them own their market. Brent is the founder and CEO of UGURUS, a business training, and education company dedicated to this mission. He also hosts one of the leading podcasts in the business niche–The Digital Agency Show. Brent is in partnership with UnlimitedWP–a scalable white label WordPress development team to help digital agencies grow without all the headaches of hiring and managing people. He is also a Brand Ambassador for Cloudways, a WordPress hosting company, helping them evangelize their platform. When Brent isn't working with agency owners around the globe, he enjoys going on date nights with his wife Emily and biking at the local skatepark with his two sons.

Jen Buzza is the co-founder and web advisor for WebClio, a digital agency based in the Los Angeles area. She's also Visionary for a company called WorkSitter, she's a business mentor at Hub 101, and (most importantly!) the Lead Mentor for UGURUS. She has mentored, coached, and trained over 1,000 agencies within our Pro, Elite, and Bootcamp programs.

Debra Scarpa, president, and Ashley Blaesing, operations manager, of Friday Marketing work in the niche of Home Designer Marketing. They help home design professionals such as interior designers transform their businesses and brands to attract their dream clients, sell their projects for more, stay current online, and get their time back with automated systems. Between them, they have over 40 years of award-winning design and marketing experience and absolutely love working with people who value design just as much as they do. Debra and Ashley have been UGURUS members for several years.

Manish Dudharejia is the founder and CEO of E2M. He's a techno-entrepreneur and techno-marketer professional. He has over 10 years of experience in this industry, working closely with lots of different people associated with technology, entrepreneurship, and digital marketing. E2M is a white-label web design and marketing shop based in India and San Diego. They have a team of over 100 and over 150 active clients. Manish is responsible for their overall company operations, sustainable strategic growth, team mentoring and retention, and so much more. E2M is much loved by many UGURUS members.

This week on the show, I have Brent Weaver, the CEO and Founder of UGURUS. Brent is a successful, serial entrepreneur. Brent and I talk about the strategy behind creating a successful Facebook group for your business as well as what not to do. I think you’ll find a lot of value in this episode, so stick around.

Brent Weaver is the CEO and founder of uGurus. He leads the vision for the company and creates educational programs that help agency owners work on their business to drive additional revenues, increase profits, and create freedom in their life. Brent is here to share his insight on referrals and the importance of choosing a niche for your agency. 3 Golden Nuggets Niching helps you fish in the right pond. Figuring out a niche where you can be profitable and deliver the best results is "fishing in the right pond" according to Brent. The key is testing out different ponds in order to find the best fit for your agency. Pareto Principle: 80% of outcomes are from 20% of input. Is worthwhile and valuable to determine if you're spinning your wheels on small clients that aren't helping contribute to your revenue. Going through this exercise is key to being more profitable. There are 3 marketing engines agencies need. These are:  content, partnerships, and paid ads. Relying on referrals is not scalable. It's like sitting on a one-legged stool. You must add these 3 marketing engines into the mix.   Sponsors and Resources Wix: Today's episode is sponsored by the Wix Partner Program. Being a Wix Partner is ideal for freelancers and digital agencies that design and develop websites for their clients. Check out Wix.com/Partners to learn more and become a member of the community for free. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Is Your Digital Agency Fishing in the Right Pond? Jason: [00:00:00] On this episode, I talk with Brent Weaver about why referrals just aren't scalable and why it's so important to pick a niche. I hope you enjoy this episode. Hey, Brent, welcome to the show. Brent: [00:00:13] Good to be here. Yeah, I'm excited to have you on, so tell us who you are and, uh, a little bit about the agency that you're in and what you do now. Yeah. So, uh, my name is Brent Weaver, CEO, and founder of uGurus. We are a business school for digital agency owners. We primarily work with agencies that are kind of 1 to 10 person range, really helping them to track more leads, win more deals, delivering delight for their clients. They can profitably scale their agency and achieve some freedom in their business in life. Before, uh, we're coming on into the ninth year doing this business. But before that I ran HotPress Web, which is a digital agency based in Denver, Colorado for about, I guess, about 13 years. And, uh, grew that from, uh, my business partner and I from, uh, us in our bedrooms and high school to a 14 person thriving agency in downtown Denver, uh, serving over 300 clients. And, uh, we had clients like Dish Network and Anheuser Busch Inbev and all sorts of, uh, smaller and medium-sized businesses across the board. Jason: [00:01:17] Awesome!. Did you sell the agency? Did you were like, Oh, we don't want to do this anymore? What's the what'd you do? Brent: [00:01:23] Yeah. So we did the business did get acquired by another shop in Denver. We had probably about two years before we sold the business. I started to blog and build some training programs for agency owners, and we had done some deals with Adobe. And so we, um, Kind of started kind of riding two horses at the same time we had the agency business, which was growing really well. And then we had this thing that, uh, myself and my business partner would do, you know, a day or two a week. We'd go and, you know, create videos, we'd go do our own thing. And, uh, and so we kind of felt like we were starting to run two businesses at the same time, but also I think just as I'm sure, you know, right. The impact that we had on. Other agency owners that were like following our processes and our methods, like we were getting all of these, thank you letters in all the time for people that we'd really helped them transform their life and their income and their freedom. And after a while, it was kinda like, Hey, we really enjoyed doing this. And we wanted our agency to go and be in a good place. So we had some really great opportunities to get that business acquired. And so we pursued one of them and it turned out really well. Jason: [00:02:24] Awesome. Let's talk about after high school, um, and do an agency, right? Because I think I know how, how it goes in high school. It's like, dude, I can, I can get some money for a year. Brent: [00:02:37] I was basically working uh minimum wage $6.25 I think an hour, at the time, at a fabric store and somebody paid me $500 to build them an order form for a candy store out of Michigan. And it took me about a day and I was like, cool. When I went to my boss at the fabric store and said, I'm going to go ahead and do this other thing. Cause I basically made like, you know, two months wages in a day. So, so that was that. Jason: [00:03:03] That's awesome. And so if you could go back to when you were starting, what would you have done differently? How would you grow the business? Brent: [00:03:14] I think for me, it's, you know, finding that audience, a high-value audience that you can leverage your skills to get really great results. For, as I mentioned, our first project was a candy store in Michigan. The only reason we got that client was because my business partner's dad would go hunting in Michigan and, you know, he'd go buy at this candy store and he'd pick up, you know, they'd order stuff. But then they'd grab these order forms, uh, to order stuff. When they came back to Dallas and they would have to fax the order form in, and Shernis, uh, the woman that owned the store would always, you know, have to call it. Well, I can't read your handwriting, you know, there's this like whole thing, a community that supported this business. And we just happened to kind of be a solution for that business. Right. But this tiny little candy store in Michigan, right. I mean, she wasn't making massive money. And so yeah, we built this thing, but the value of it right. Was great for her, but like, you know, it wasn't like it was worth $50,000 or $500,000, right. Or something like that. But I think that we could've, our same skills could have easily fetched us a lot more money sooner, but because we were fishing from this pond, that was kind of like the local neighborhood pond. Right. Like we only had the network that we had access to. I was making a lot more money than I would at the fabric store. Uh, I think there were other high-value ponds out there. And I think that's the thing that. Um, when we eventually figured that out, right, let's go hang around businesses that are, you know, making millions of dollars or tens of millions of dollars or like Dish, you know, billions of dollars. And it's just a totally different way to do business. Right. I mean, I remember when we got Dish Network as a client, I mean, they'd come in with these like last-minute deadlines, but they'd basically give us a blank check. They'd be like, Hey, as much as you guys can work over the next two weeks like we'll take all of your team's hours for the two weeks, and we'll pay you a premium on that time because, you know, we have some big deadline or whatever, right. And so it was just fundamentally a different type of client to work with versus where your, your skills might not be as valued. So I think that the audience component is something that we eventually learned. And once we started hanging out with businesses who, you know, in the millions of revenue, like budget became not like inconsequential, but it became a much less deciding factor in terms of like who you were, you know, what kind of work you were doing. Jason: [00:05:36] Yeah. I always found that when you first start out and I started out doing websites for 500 bucks too, I don't know why it's always, you know, 500 bucks, but you always think, well, that's the max someone will pay. Or if I charge them twice the amount, I have to do twice the amount of work versus figuring out that audience, like, you know, Dish Network. Like our first one, I think our first big client was like Wter.com. And they were a billion-dollar water brand, like Crystal Springs, Hinckley Springs, Belmont Springs, all these different Springs. And it kind of changed our mindset of going, Oh, there are these bigger companies that will pay for value rather than pay you for the amount of hours that you actually work. Brent: [00:06:20] Like a lot of people, I got convinced that your prospects sometimes start to dictate your mindset a little bit. And when we first opened our office in Denver, we were trying to, you know, we're in a conference room, we were thinking about, hey, where should we get new clients? And we thought, hey, maybe the chamber of commerce, right. Or something like that. And they were running these classes for brand new businesses. We thought that was a prime audience, right? People are like, ah, you know, all these new businesses, they all need websites. Right. But the problem was, they weren't established. They were $0 revenue. They were sole proprietorships. You know, these businesses that maybe had 10, 20, $50,000 a year in annual revenue, which is, there's a lot of businesses out there. There's like, almost 20 million businesses in the United States that are making $50,000 or less per year. So there's a lot of them out there, which is why Wix and Squarespace and GoDaddy and all these major brands are going on volume. Like they focus on that market, but for us as a small services shop, not a huge market like that. And so I was going and teaching these classes and I'd have all these people come up to me and say, oh yeah, maybe you can help me build a website. And so we'd go through the proposal process or I'd go through even qualifying and they'd say, well, yeah, well, we only have $500. We only have $1,000 dollars. And while we had done some projects for $20 or $30K, I started to convince myself that that was the market now for websites that like getting $1,500 for a website was like becoming really, really difficult. And, and I started thinking, okay, well, we should build our business based on volume or this or that. Like we were trying to solve the problem. And the only issue at the time really was. I was fishing in the wrong pond, right? Like, no matter how many cool sales methodologies I could use, no matter how much, you know, value-based language, right? Like if the pond that I'm fishing from literally has businesses that are, you know, $50K a year in revenue, like, you know, selling a $10,000, $20,000 website to them, it doesn't really make sense. Jason: [00:08:13] Very cool. And so how did you figure out the pond that you wanted to the fish after? And like, how would you do that over again? Cause I find that a lot of people struggle with that. And like you were saying, you kind of go to the chamber of commerce, you get a couple of clients and then those referrals actually dictate how your next couple of years are going to go because it's always the same or lower. Brent: [00:08:35] So I think once we sat down in a room and said, okay, this is not working. Right. So we looked at, you know, where was all of our money coming from, which I think is a really good exercise. There's this concept of the pareto principle where 80% of your yield or revenue comes from 20% of your inputs or originally it was like somebody looking at, uh, land ownership. Right. But this concept is, has played really well in business. So somebody had kind of taught us that we looked at our client base and we looked at who you're making the most money from. And yes, we did have a lot of clients that were small potatoes and they were taking up all of our time, but they weren't really getting us the results. So we looked at all of our clients instead of, hey, who's actually driving results for us. And it was, by and large, it was organizations that had, you know, had been established for five or more years. Had over a million dollars in revenue. Uh, for the most part, they had dozens of employees, whether it was a nonprofit or whether it was a business, you know, some of our clients had tons of employees. So we started looking at this and saying, look, let's just at least start saying no to anybody that hasn't been established for more than five years, it's less than a million dollars in revenue. And, um, you know, that has less than, let's say, 30 employees. So that was step one was at least identifying, Hey, here are some qualities, some constraints that this audience has that is actually driving revenue for us. And let's start saying no to all those other things. So which created some capacity for us to look at other types of businesses. The second question to that though is we started asking ourselves well, okay. So these are the clients that are driving all of our money. We know who is helping us make more money. We want more of those clients. So the second question is where do they hang out? Where do million-dollar businesses hang out? Right at that time, I really wasn't super educated on like verticals or really this idea of niching. To me, it was like a foreign concept. And if anything, it evoked a little bit of like resentment or disgust like, Oh, I could never niche. Right? Um, but we at least started asking ourselves that basic question, right? Where do these million-dollar businesses hangouts? And we start identifying organizations, there's organizations like EO. YPO in the Denver area, there were organizations like it was called Diner. It was like Denver Independent Network of Restaurant, uh, something. Right. And we started identifying these groups that these businesses hung out. And so for example, I went and gave a talk at the Diner Organization, which was basically this group of about a hundred Denver-based restaurants that were all roughly over a million dollars a year in revenue, right. There were the most successful restaurants in Denver that were independent. So I wouldn't give a talk at this group about how to leverage their website and social media to get more butts in seats. And there was like the same number of people that were in my old Chamber of Commerce classes. You know, there's about 15 restaurants, right? Except in this instance, I gave this talk, and then, you know, half a dozen restaurant owners came up to me and said, Hey, I love what you're doing. We don't have anybody that can do this. It's great that you're teaching me this, but can you just come in and do it for us? And every single one of those clients turned into a 10 to $20,000 initial project with ongoing, you know, 10, 15, 20K a year in work. So like one talk in the right audience. And it was a fundamentally different conversation afterward. And so that was where a real light bulb I think happened for us, was like, Oh wow. We can go in. Share do the same thing, right? The dynamics are the same, go teach stuff, share stuff, give tons of value. And if the pond is just a fundamentally better pond than, you know, we're going to have different results. Jason: [00:12:02] Yeah. I love to teach how to do it because there are so many agencies that think if they do that well, you're giving away the secret sauce. And at the end of the day, there's no secret sauce, but people will actually decide to work with you if they actually understand the plan. Like, I always tell everybody when I used to race cars and I would teach people how to go through a corner at a hundred miles per hour, like a 90-degree turn. And they'd be like, there's no way. But if I could actually communicate and show them, there is a plan for them not to die and then actually demonstrate it to them. Then they're going to always. Be able to like, Oh, I can do that. And then like, I'd always laugh with my other buddies and be like, oh, now they're faster than me. I was like, crap. I need to tell him, be like, hit the brakes harder there. Brent: [00:12:54] Well, I think that the fundamental, like, I mean the classic agency business model of staff augmentation, where at the time we had, let's say a dozen people working at our agency for a company, even an established company to go up there and hire a team full-time to be a part of their organization is a lot of money, right? I mean, if you're going to go hire three people to be part of a digital department, I mean, that's $50K in salaries a month, plus all the other stuff that comes with having a team. Right. Whereas you can pay an agency, you know, maybe even, it sounds like $50,000 is a lot of money, but when you put it in the context of the alternative for most businesses, or maybe they hire a, a jack-of-all-trades person that has 19 responsibilities within the business, and one of them happens to be maintain a website. Right. And they don't have the experience to, you know, really do like hardcore SEO or pay-per-click or build funnels. Right. Uh, so I think at the core, right, like agencies. Want to showcase their skills, uh, almost like a job interview, right? I mean, it doesn't make sense for most businesses to go out there and hire an entire team. Right. That's why agencies exist. Cause you can snap in those skillsets for a fraction of the cost. I think going out there and teaching what you do showing the results, uh, also is a big part of that showing your potential clients, Hey, this is what you can get with this kind of, to your point, right? Demo-ing, I think is a big part of that pre-sales process. Jason: [00:14:14] When you actually start doing this and you're, you're growing your agency, what's the mistake that you see a lot of agency owners make, or a mistake that you guys made with, you know, in terms of referrals. Brent: [00:14:27] I mean, look, referrals are, referrals are great. I mean, who doesn't love a referral, right? Uh, when, when somebody sends you an email and says, Hey, you got me great results. And here's my friend. You know, Joe and Joe need your results and you should, you guys should talk. Right? Cause then you get that a little bit of that credibility passes on. Right. And so referrals are, are great. Uh, the problem is they're not really predictable. Uh, they're not really scalable. Now I've published content. We've published blueprints about how to create systems around referrals, but even that right is kind of dictated based on the size of your network. Right? How many clients do you have? If you have 10 clients, you probably can't go to all 10 of them every day and be like, Hey. Can you give me another referral, right? Whereas, you know, with something like Facebook ads, right. I can go to Facebook every day and they will take my money and they will put my ads and in front of audiences. Right. So I think that referrals as a strategy, I call it kind of a non-strategy. Uh, it's hope marketing. It's, you know, referrals are table stakes. You should be out there doing good work and that should create referrals for you. And that will be like one leg of marketing, you know, game plan. Right. But you're, you can't really sit on a one-legged stool, right. It's not super comfortable. So we need to have a couple of other legs on that stool. And so I call those marketing engines, right. We want to have a couple of additional marketing engines outside of referrals. To help, uh, your business get those consistent leads that are predictable, repeatable, and scalable. Those are kind of three qualities that we want to see out of them. When I, when I say marketing engine, we should be able to put in a fixed amount of money, money, or time and get a predictable result on the backend of that. So the biggest mistake kind of back to your original question is that I think agencies, a lot of times they're so busy doing the work. And building stuff with their clients that they forgot to go out there and build awareness for themselves because they're so comfortable. With referrals because referrals are so easy. Like it's like the difficulty from relying on referrals, actually building marketing engines, uh, for the first time is actually a pretty big jump because referrals require you just to focus on your clients, which is what a lot of people are used to. Right. But going out there and proactively building a marketing engine feels like a lot of work. And so they don't do it. And I think that that was the biggest shift for us, right. Where we went from being passive, passively engaged in our marketing to going, Hey, you know what we need to actually. Really invest in this. We need to put somebody in the business. That's in charge of this, of the marketing component of the business. A lot of agencies out there treat themselves as they're, you know, they try to treat themselves as their own best client, uh, which is just, I mean, it's a recipe for disaster, right? I mean, we know that, that just doesn't work typically. And so we started this to shift resources, right? Both hiring internal staff members, dedicated to marketing the agency and then also hiring other agencies. To help us market our agency. Jason: [00:17:14] Very cool. And so what's one example of a marketing engine that you see really working well. Brent: [00:17:21] So I think there are three kinds of categories of engines. One is content. I mean, you're definitely awesome at this, right? You publish a ton of content. You're super consistent. You've got the great frequency of it. Another engine kind of category is partnerships. So finding other people that have your ideal client, either as their own clients or on a list. And then the final one is a paid advertising. So I kind of focus mostly on a track-based strategy where we're putting out. You know, the information we're putting out messaging and then the right people are coming to us. I'm not a huge fan personally of operating outbound and no, it's a great strategy out there. But I think for, if you're trying to get into a position of authority with your clients, I think that publishing becoming an influencer in your niche is the way you create raving fans. Right? It's really hard to create a raving fan through, uh, through outbound connection where somebody has never heard of you before. So in those three categories, I mean, one example of a content-based strategy. One of my clients does is they, um, they speak on stages. So it's pretty simple calculus day. Every time they go and speak on a stage where they're virtual or physical. Right now, right now, the physical is not really happening. So they've moved a lot of their stuff to virtual. They get anywhere between five and 15 qualified leads. These are longer sales cycles. But they have found that if they get about 20 to 30 qualified leads a month, that gives them enough energy to like to keep their sales pipeline like over full, right. They always have plenty of opportunities for them. Their marketing engine is really simple. Get on two stages a month and that's a solved problem for them. So their only marketing activities are really. Booking out those stages. So at any given time, they might have four to six months of stages booked sometimes even more now, before COVID hit, I think they were up to like 12 months of stages. And then all of a sudden, a lot of it evaporated and they did have to kind of rebuild that in the virtual space, but you know, that's a marketing engine, right. They know that if they go put their hour or two hours a week into outreach to, you know, other associations or organizations in their niche, that they're going to get that next stage book. Right. And they just keep kind of putting some time into that engine. No, they're not out there doing Facebook ads. They're not out there trying to publish blog posts. They're not out there on social media. Like their whole engine is just getting those stages, uh, booked onto their calendars. And then they're, they're just done. Right? So that's an example of content, right? Where you're out there, gigging in your market. Jason: [00:19:50] Awesome. Very cool. Well, this has all been great. Brent, is there anything I didn't ask you that you think would benefit the audience? Brent: [00:19:58] You know, I think that I mean, just on that last point of gigging, I think that this is kind of back to that. The core of what agencies can be doing for them. It's probably one of the one areas that I spend the most time coaching, which is. Helping people get out there into their market and building that confidence to share their content, share their expertise, start running ads, those types of things. And, um, I think that's probably one of the areas that I think people could always spend more time on or, or spend more money. Right. I've got clients who, before they came to us were like a Facebook ads agency. That's not spending any of their own money on Facebook ads. Right. And so, so trying to figure out how to fuel your engines and being confident that if you do that, You know, you're going to get results. I once had a client that before we started working together, you know, they're trying to attract $50,000 clients and they were scared to spend $500 in advertising. And that's one thing that I think. You have to think about it in the context of your client's value is like, if you're going out there trying to attract $50,000 clients or a hundred thousand dollar clients, right. The amount of effort that you need to put into that engine is probably at least somewhat proportional to, uh, to the output. So that's something to think about as you're starting to build your marketing engines Awesome. And, uh, you have a book out that everybody can go check out on Amazon. Or tell us a little bit about the book. Jason: [00:21:16] Yeah. So the book is called, Get Rich in the Deep End. And, uh, the basic premise is how to overcome that dependency on referrals and word of mouth as a digital agency owner, uh, how to identify your audience, build those awareness channels, attract the right clients, establish yourself as an authority in your niche, and then build systems and processes to acquire. Those prospects and leads. So we walk you through basically those five A's of audience awareness, attract authority and acquire. And the book is a little bit different in that we follow an agency on our story. This is kind of an amalgamation of a bunch of different clients that we kind of created a narrative in the story. So it makes it really easy to read.  It's a pretty simple concept. And, um, yeah, we'd love for you guys to support that it's called get rich in the deep end. I think your viewers would love to read that book. Awesome. Well, everybody go check it out. And if you guys enjoyed this episode and you want, and to be surrounded by amazing agency owners that can, you know, really see the stuff that you might not be able to see, and really know what it's like in order to grow above the eight-figure Mark or beyond. I want you all to go to a DigitalAgencyElite.com. This is our exclusive mastermind where we're always looking for the right. Agency owner that can have fun that can share that'd be transparent. And that really wants to scale very quickly. So go to a DigitalAgencyElite.com, and until next time have a Swenk day.

Brent Weaver leads the vision for UGURUS and creates educational programs that help agency owners work on their business to drive additional revenues, increase profits, and create freedom in their life. He built his first website at 15, and created his first web-design business at 17. That company grew into a successful, 14-person web agency that was acquired in 2012. Brent has helped thousands of other web professionals master business skills and has made more than $10mm as an entrepreneur. He published the best-selling book, Get Rich In The Deep End, in 2020. Brent is interviewed by his good friend, fellow entrepreneur Marc Gutman.

In this episode of The Agency Accelerator Podcast, I am joined by the CEO and co-founder of uGurus, Brent Weaver. Brent and I had similar beginnings in the agency world. In this episode, Brent shares his journey and we look at how your agency can adapt and grow in 2021. [03:55] Adaptability, Specialisation, and Authority In times of global challenge, the only way for agencies to thrive and grow is by adapting (and listening to your clients), specialising, and building authority.  Specialise by finding your niche - the more specific, the better, then broaden out over time. To build authority and awareness you should focus on growing your list of subscribers - so when clients are ready to buy, they reach out because you have stayed in touch and continued to provide value. [07:41] The fear of going niche Niching is the best way of separating yourself from the crowd and winning more business. Generalised agencies tend to differentiate by pricing (being cheaper than the competition) and overpromising. This is not a sustainable strategy.  [13:30] Stay Focused It's easy to get distracted by new ways to bring in revenue. These ‘shiny new objects' will be a distraction from your core services, and if you are not careful you will end up losing income. So get clear on who you are and what you offer and stay focused! [21:17] The Yes Mentality Just because you can do it does not mean you should do it. Think of your business as a system. This system can only continue to run well if it is not interrupted by adding in new services that don't fit in your agency and you don't have a system for. It's always best to refer these clients elsewhere rather than to make a mistake that may later cost you the client and lost revenue.   [29:27] Getting agency owners to let go We often find agency owners continue to want to have their hand in every project or be in the know of every detail, but this is not possible if you're going to continue to grow. The only way to let go is by hiring all-star A-players who can do the task better than you!  [34:05] Trends in 2021 The digital ecosystem is here to stay. Post pandemic companies are looking to shift and adapt, and with everything going digital, those who were resisting it before now have no choice but to evolve and grow ….or fail. Rate, Review, & Subscribe on Apple Podcasts “I enjoy listening to The Agency Accelerator Podcast. I always learn something from every episode”

Janelle Allen helps business owners create and market online courses. As a trained Instructional Designer, she believes that every company is in the education business. She's worked with corporations such as Pearson Education, Potbelly Sandwich Works, Starbucks and Apple to create training and online courses, using principles of adult learning and design. In 2016, she pivoted her mission to help small business owners create profitable courses that change lives. Janelle has helped UGURUS build courses as well.

Brent Weaver from UGURUS joins the show to share how you can get rich by owning your market. Choosing your niche is a bit like dating - you can try a few before having to commit and get married to it. We cover how to choose your niche without alienating your existing client base, how […]

Aujourd'hui, je te parle d'un programme de mentorat en ligne qui a changé ma vie! Le 10k bootcamp de Ugurus. Pour plus de détails sur le programme: https://ugurus.com/bootcamp/ ( https://ugurus.com/bootcamp/ ) Pour me joindre Francis Parent-Valiquette -- LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fpv/ InstaGram: https://www.instagram.com/runningfranck/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/francis.parentvaliquette Strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/runningfranck Varmedia INC -- Web: https://www.varmedia.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/varmedia/ InstaGram: https://www.instagram.com/vmpodcast/ Crédit narration en introduction: Xich-Vê Hô https://www.linkedin.com/in/xichveho/

 Learn how to stand out from the competition and stop being a 'me-too' brand Discover how to stop chasing business, and instead focus on doing what you do best as a way to attract your ideal, top-tier clients Find-out how to charge more than your competitors and still win the business Resources/Links: Get the FREE Price To Freedom mini-course: Calculate your key price that you MUST charge to achieve the life & business you want: www.piasilva.com/badass/ Summary Is your brand message aligned to your key audiences? Why is your brand messaging seem to transcend to be very 'generic'? Do you want that cut-through to happen? A show-stopping moment that makes people crave to know more? Then, you should probably zoom out and step back and assess your business' best opportunities if you are willing to grow and expand. Stop trying to be everything to everyone. Do not become another 'me too' brand. Pia Silva is an entrepreneur, speaker, and author of Badass Your Brand. She helps service businesses badass their brand and business to scale their freedom with profit. She is a weekly Forbes contributor and has been featured on MSNBCs Your Business, Entrepreneur On Fire, and the UGurus and Million Dollar Women Summit. In this episode, Pia shares how she helps creative services business owners uplevel their brand to the point where they have freedom from profits. Check out these episode highlights: 01:38 – Pia's ideal client: "One to three-person creative service businesses who are super badass at what they do." 01:51 – Problem Pia helps solve: Generic, unprofitable business, overworked, underpaid, always looking for clients because they're so generic, and they just fade into a sea of sameness. 02:45 – Typical symptoms that clients do before reaching out to Pia: "Well, they are frustrated that they are so good at what they do and their clients are so happy and yet they're working all the time and they're not making enough money. They're always pitching for work, and they're not always winning it. All their projects go out of scope, they never end on time. They never feel like they're getting paid enough. They can't charge what they need to make cents. And they never know where their next client is coming from." 03:47 – Common mistakes people make when trying to solve that problem: "They are often casting a wide net. So, I need more clients so I'm going to try to work with everyone. I'm going to bend myself to try to pitch to every potential project. I need more clients and more revenue; I'm going to offer lots of services. Here's a menu of services that can do whatever you want, here, pick off my menu of services. Because of either of these things, they don't own anything. So, they are not owning whatever it is that makes them so badass. Instead, they're trying to be whatever they think their potential clients want them to be, which is why they're so generic and so lost in a sea of sameness." 05:17 – Pia's Valuable Free Action(VFA): Look at where you provide the most value and what you love to do most. And look at all your past clients and pick out the ones that have been most successful and see if you can focus wherever that all intersects because that's where you should start looking to focus and niche. 05:51 – Pia's Valuable Free Resource(VFR): FREE mini-course: Calculate your key price that you MUST charge to achieve the life & business you want: www.piasilva.com/badass/ 06:46 – Q: "What's the most important part of having a badass brand and a badass business?" A: Having the guts to go all the way with what...

Brent Weaver is from UGURUS, a coaching company for agencies that teaches you how to attract leads, win bigger deals and scale your business. Prior to that he grew an agency which he went on to sell. For some of us that is the dream. Brent drops some absolute gold in this chat. My favourite […]

Small business owners face some challenges that are shared by all of us. Often times we use the excuse of trying to get something perfect to help us avoid showing our final product to the world. At times the perfection quest can become paralyzing and keeps us from succeeding at what we're doing. A class I took years ago from UGurus addressed this issue. And the owner of the company, Brent Weaver said something that really hit home for me. "Do something imperfect." That's what we're talking about today here at the Airstream Chronicles! •Check out my Drone Photography Course - Only $10 for listeners: https://bit.ly/2Q9Y1Zo •Learn to build websites with X Theme and Wordpress. Only $15 for listeners: https://bit.ly/2LWrnqT •If you enjoy the music check out Soundstripe: https://soundstripe.grsm.io/RichardCharpentier •My YouTube Channel: https://bit.ly/2mI1qkm •Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/livingintin/ •E-mail Me: rich at rlcdesign.net --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/the-airstream-chronicles/support

CEO and Chief Guru Brent Weaver from Ugurus (Ugurus.com) joins the Daily to talk about what makes him personally successful

Discussion - David and Nathan discuss whether or not it's a good idea to automatically update your plugins. Interview - How to get paid more with Brent Weaver - Part 2. Last week we were introduced to Brent Weaver from uGurus. We learned about his business and how he aims to assist businesses achieve higher fees and become more profitable. This week is a little different, because we're delving more into Brent (the man) and not Brent (the business man)! Does that make sense?

Discussion - David and Nathan discuss whether or not it's a good idea to automatically update your plugins. Interview - How to get paid more with Brent Weaver - Part 2. Last week we were introduced to Brent Weaver from uGurus. We learned about his business and how he aims to assist businesses achieve higher fees and become more profitable. This week is a little different, because we're delving more into Brent (the man) and not Brent (the business man)! Does that make sense?

In this episode of the podcast we talk to Brent Weaver from uGurus. He's an exceptionally thoughtful mentor for people who would like to see an upturn in their web design business. uGurus has been going for many years and has helped loads of agencies both big and small to increase their fees. I guess that there is no magic sauce for this kind of thing, but what you'll be gaining is the combined experience of people who have struggled through this problem before.

In this episode of the podcast we talk to Brent Weaver from uGurus. He's an exceptionally thoughtful mentor for people who would like to see an upturn in their web design business. uGurus has been going for many years and has helped loads of agencies both big and small to increase their fees. I guess that there is no magic sauce for this kind of thing, but what you'll be gaining is the combined experience of people who have struggled through this problem before.

I found Brent through this article, where he told us never to say WordPress in our web project negotiations. We want to leave the tech out of the conversation and focus on what we're solving. After 15 years in the business and selling his agency in 2012, Brent has an interesting story to share about his new pivot into an education product over at Ugurus. Join us in episode 38! Interview with Brent Weaver of Ugurus Watch on YouTube Listen to the audio version Matt Report - A WordPress podcast for digital business owners Episode 38: Make more money without saying WordPress Play Episode Pause Episode Mute/Unmute Episode Rewind 10 Seconds 1x Fast Forward 30 seconds 00:00 / Subscribe Share RSS Feed Share Link Embed Download file | Play in new window Don't say WordPress I think we get so excited about using WordPress for a new solution, we spend so much time talking tech we aren't talking about the value we're providing. Why is this important? The customer's don't live and breathe this stuff like you and I do everyday. Basic client's might balk at hearing too much about responsive design, widgets, and custom post types. We want to avoid “the geek speak” and focus on what pain we're solving for them. Setting expectation I know when I started out, I was so excited to land a job that I just wanted to start working on it right away. One of the lessons we learn as young entrepreneurs is to set the expectation with the customer. Be it in the design, the function of the site, or as we talk about in this episode — when to get paid. I couldn't agree more with Brent, that these expectations need to be set before signing on the dotted line. It's not just for the sake of the customer, but for the health of your business and sanity. What did you think of this episode? Do you like it when I bring in people from “outside” of our community? Let me know in the comments and subscribe to the mailing list!     ★ Support this podcast ★