Marketing Agencies Are Feeling an Artificial Uptick in Business

0:28Dude, can we talk about how agencies are struggling right now too? yeah um and then that was the one that uh i told him to merge with you yeah and i was like but but but that's a pretty significant deceleration from 20 he was he was never at 20 yeah so call it what i'm not saying he's lying i don't think he actually was at 20 he's he's never told me he was at 20 i think the miscommunication even if he was yes he has i did hear i did hear at least 14 before you know what i mean i heard that number before yeah right so but down to 5.7 and i'm like okay interesting and then we you and i um you you actually you know sent two two people over i'm just like man a lot of these people are struggling right now and um then that same day an mna firm was like hey are you buying anything right now i was like hey you're reaching out right now like are a lot of agencies struggling he's like yeah they are so did you end up are you gonna do a deal with i'm gonna i'm gonna talk to that i'm gonna talk to that guy so that you haven't talked to him yet no i have talked to him i've talked to him and then now um he's put a data room together and it looks like we might do something.

1:25So I'll give you a nice Christmas gift if we do something. I'll give you a nice Christmas gift anyway. You can just buy me a free water. Okay, I'll buy you a free water. That sounds good. From Erwan. It'll be a nice water. No, no, that's the paid water. I said free. Okay, I'll buy you a free water. You can come to the Mandarin and give me one of their bottles of water. I'll give you one of my nice Korean waters. No, no, it's okay. I don't want anything. Yeah. But yeah, I know. I hope you get the deal because he hit me up late at night and it was a mutual friend of mine. I have a lot of friends that are good friends who are close with him.

1:56So that's a good one. So another Indian dude hit me up on a text thread with him and said, you guys should meet about M &A and all this kind of stuff. And I talked to him that night. And it was late because I remember getting up out of bed like at 9, 10 o 'clock. For some things, I will do a call at any hour of the day, especially for deals. I'm like, oh, let's get up. And I'm energized. I don't ever drink coffee. I'm just energized naturally when it comes to deals. But I knew talking to him right then and there that this would be, I'm not saying that you should do the deal or not. I didn't do diligence.

2:30I only talked to him on the phone for maybe 15, 20 minutes. Because that business has been declining and he started going over his numbers and he started going over what his current customers pay and how you're more B2B and he's more B2C. I'm like, well, if you merge, you'll have B2C better on lockdown than you do currently. You have B2B. It'll open up the door to have a higher win rate for more customers because you have more of a track record. Two, they have a good community. You know how to leverage communities and you can work out a deal with them or figure that out. Three, the deal's screaming from a financial perspective for you, right?

3:08Without getting into too much there. And then three, you're, I wouldn't say struggling, but you're, I would actually use the word struggling. That is the right word. You're struggling to hire quick enough. Yes. And he has supposedly, I haven't done any digging in, really good talent, including video talent. And what I saw was, hey, this can help you with some video stuff for your business. It can help across the board. And it'll offer you new services that you probably don't excel at right now because you're not really a creative shop. No offense. No, no, you're right. They don't do a ton in AI.

3:45So that's great cross-sell. And the other thing is, is what I saw is with their headcount, they don't do tons in AI. And I'm like, huh, how much more money and synergies can you create by leveraging technology? And you can probably improve the margins and you only need so many account managers and stuff like that. And I was skeptical initially, I have to admit. And then once I talked and I started thinking exactly what you were thinking too, I was like, oh, this, this might potentially work. And so I have some reviewing to do this afternoon. I'll just put it that way. So yeah. Yeah. Just when you buy it, my only advice Advice to you is don't buy the corporation.

4:18I won't. It's assets. I would go for assets. Uh-huh. Always. And then you do a DBA. Yeah. So that way you can take over the bank account. But you should explain why you would not go do a stock deal. Why would you do it? Just so everyone knows. Because whatever he potentially has. Let's say a lawsuit, for example. Yeah, liabilities. You're taking that over. Mm-hmm. That's a lesson for everyone, too. But you need to make sure the contracts could be assigned over. Mm-hmm. And you got to look at the contracts for that. But yeah, you would just take over everything. Yeah. Cool. Well, that's good. Just look, agencies are struggling right now, but there are situations where you can make a one plus one equals 10.

4:51The other one that you sent over, I was like, yeah, not good. What was the other one I sent? You sent over. Oh, yeah, I sent over two. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The other one I didn't talk to on the phone. He texted me. Yeah. And then I asked him his numbers on the phone and I already knew it wasn't for us. And he didn't try pitching it to me. Yeah. I was just like, let me just do an intro to you. And like you have there's no I intro to him. and you introduced him back to me. No, but you introduced him to me years ago. Yeah, I know. But you probably don't know his latest numbers today, at least. I knew his numbers from the past and I didn't think there would be much difference.

5:26But it's worth having a chat because what do you have to lose? Even if it's five minutes. I have five minutes to lose. Okay, I'm just kidding. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. You can be five minutes late with a date or something. I'm kidding. If you've ever built a website, you know how tough it can be to keep a strong design while ensuring site performance is fast. That's where Framer comes in, and it totally changes the game. Framer is the design-first, no-code website builder that lets anyone ship a production-ready site in minutes. I recently built a custom landing page in just a few hours. Animations, fast load times, responsive layouts, all without writing a single line of code.

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7:39Go to shopify.com slash marketing school. Shopify.com slash marketing school. Yeah. Anyway, could you? But I have that topic in here. Marketing agencies are feeling an artificial uptick in business. And we're seeing some agencies struggle or a lot struggle. But of the recent months, we've been hearing a lot of agencies say, oh, things are getting better for us. For you and I, at the very least. I don't know if things are actually getting better. So I started doing analysis from all the people who hit me up who said agencies are picking up. The biggest thing that I saw wasn't that their new business has picked up.

8:18Forget leads. Leads doesn't mean you're going to close more, right? Sure, if you get more leads, it is a quote unquote leading indicator, but it's not a guarantee. When most of these agencies have said the last few months have been really good, when I started diving into it, most of that uptick came from older deals that never signed and they're just ready to sign now that's almost the majority of the growth when these agencies the last few months have been really good for the majority that i talked to and i had them dive into it that's where their growth is that what you've seen we saw that as well when we look at going forward leads are up for a lot of people, but people have not seen an increase in revenue from those net new leads coming in.

9:02Yeah, maybe it will. But the increase in revenue is coming from, oh, a lot of these people I pitched right when Trump announced the tariffs, pause and didn't do anything. Now they're signing up with us. I would say it's different for us. So we are getting a little bit of that. So again, case by case basis, right? We're just one case. But there are some situations where they might have signed with somebody else and like, oh, the agency sucks. And they came back to us, right? We had that problem last year. So that happened a little bit. But when I look at the new logos that we brought in, they are net new from net new leads that came in like maybe like a month, two, three months ago or so.

9:34And so it's a little different for us, but also it's, yeah. See, I look at you as a very unique use case. And the reason I say this is you had operational issues that were hindering your revenue growth in the past and you fixed some call it in the last six months. So you're seeing the results of it now because of sales cycle. So your growth, I don't really look at that as growth because of a change in market conditions. I see that as pure growth because you fixed some issues. We had a major bottleneck that we fixed. Yeah. So, and specifically, you rejiggered how you sell. And I think that's helped, but I don't look at that.

10:18And yes, that is growth and props to you for fixing it. But I don't look at that as the economy is affecting your revenue in a positive or negative way. You were wise enough to figure out the issues in the business and fixing those. Do you think we're in a good economy right now? No. Yeah, me neither. I think we're in a terrible economy. Lutnik said the other day, you're going to see crazy job growth sometime early next year, sometime next year. I hope so. Exactly. I don't know what they're saying is if it's going to come true or not, but all I can do is hope and I hope it actually goes that way.

10:50I got someone that, I got one here that's kind of off the beaten path and we can get back on the marketing path. But I just, you know, obviously this week, you know, big thing happened with Charlie Kirk's assassination. And I just thought there's, from a marketing standpoint, this is interesting to me. So this is an example of how celebrating Charlie Kirk's assassination actually destroyed a business. And so what happened here was, if you can see, there's this woman here that's basically mocking his passing, right? Like she's laughing? Yeah, she's mocking it. She's like, let's let's throw a prayer and let's do a prayer.

11:21Oh, wow. She's cheering for his death. That's sad. And actually, on X, you can see a lot of situations where they're showing people on TikTok. She's actually happy someone died. Wow. That's crazy. It's all over TikTok right now. It's all over Blue Sky. It's all over these things. Right. But so she said that or this poster here, Dr. Jebra Fauci. She's a doctor. No, no, no. This this person posted this reveal. So this is like this person after this this woman posted a video celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk. Thousands of people on the Internet found her husband's company and flooded the Yelp the Yelp reviews with one star.

11:55It's got so bad that she had to remove the video. So I'm just saying that there's a lot of these situations where people are celebrating his death right now. And the problem is on X, which is more right leaning. There's they're doxing all these people. Right. So you're better off just not posting and not engaging or you get in this case, she got her husband's business in trouble. Well, it doesn't matter what beliefs someone has politically. You should never celebrate someone's death. You should never celebrate someone dying, kids losing one of their parents. It's just sad. Dude, I actually, for fun yesterday, I decided to engage with someone, one of my, let's call her acquaintance on Instagram.

12:31She posted something about like not celebrating it, right? Or like basically saying that doesn't support the views and like, oh, all you people that were silent before about how he's like, he had violent rhetoric are like speaking about his death. And I'm like, those are like, those can exist in the same world. You can actually agree with him and actually, you know, actually mourn his death. Right. And she was just like going off. And so I've noticed what I've noticed is if you log on to threads and you log on to Blue Sky, which are more left leaning, a lot of people on those platforms. And this is they're celebrating a death.

13:03And I don't like if I disagree with you or whatever, you say things I really don't disagree, don't agree with. That's your opinion. But we shouldn't be celebrating anybody's death. And that's how far we shouldn't want anyone to die. No, that's sad. No. And there's like, but it's gotten so crazy now where it's I think the United States at least has become a lot more polarized. But the key point for this one is celebrating anybody's death and getting a lot of views is actually not a good thing. You don't want to be seen doing that. Just generally, ethically, you should not want someone to die. Yeah.

13:35And by the way, people say like he's had this hateful rhetoric or whatever. He was just talking. I don't know if you've seen his videos, but he was just speaking his views and he's very convincing as he did it. But even though he would let he's hardcore Christian, right? Even if he would disagree with you being gay, for example, he would say, hey, we can still agree on other things and he'd be respectful about it. Right. And so anyway, I don't want to go too far and deep into this, but I think it's just sad, a sad, a sad state of things. Because when I saw it happen, man, I was like, dude, like immediately I was like, this is going to cause a lot of problems.

14:04and it already is. People should just be respectful of others and not wish ill will against others. That's at least what we were taught when we were little kids. Yeah, but what we're being taught now is a lot different. So anyway, we can move on to another one. Have you ever seen Roger Federer's speech? Yeah. On winning? I just saw it for the first time yesterday. What got you to watch it now? It was just random on Instagram and someone sent it to me. Like, you know, like the messages, I check the messages in case there's any leads in there. One of my buddies sent it to me. It was a great speech.

14:35I did not know that he only played 1 ,526 games. That's a lot. He won almost 80 % of them. But when you look at the points in each game, 54%. 54%. And there's two key takeaways that I got from the speech. To win, you don't have to win by a lot. Winning by a little is still winning. And that just shows how competitive it is. And it is like that in business. but doing things 1 % better, 2 % better, 3%, 4 % better can make a huge difference. He has tons of trophies, right? He's one of the leaders when it comes to trophy caps. He was one of the big three, Jokovic and Nadal and him. Although the young players are now starting to come up.

15:19Alcaraz and Sinner. And the other thing that he said in his speech that really resonated with me is you got to control your emotions. Like when you are doing something, you got to go all in 110 % and try to win. But the moment you lose and you messed up, that's okay. Move on. Don't let it bother you as hard as it may seem. And then go on to winning the next point. And if you lose that one, it's okay. Learn from it, move on and go try to win the next point. And just take it, you know, one stroke at a time or one, you know, hit at a time. I don't know the tennis vernacular, but you know better than me.

15:59I don't play the game. But I really did love his speech. I thought it was a great perspective on how you can be great and what 4 % really does when it comes to winning, being 4 % better. Yeah. So, you know, Howard Marks from Oak Tree, right? And so when you look at his fund over time, he's not saying they're the highest performing. They're just a little above average, but they're a little above average for a very long period of time. If you're just above average for, let's say, 10, 20 plus years or so, you're actually a top 4 % fund, right? So you don't need to be that much better than the other people.

16:35And so I think what's kind of the reason why this is connected to two is that Roger Federer is basically saying, as long as you're consistent, you can manage your emotions, and you play consistently for a long period of time, you're going to do just fine. Yeah, I agree with that. And I always forget his name, the Lacoste one, the tall guy, Nokovic. is it no coach yokovic yokovic is right the serbian one serbian one yeah um he yeah i always know because he's sponsored by lacoste he wears that everywhere does he have i don't wear it everywhere for him but uh he says something similar like he's just like you can't dread on when you uh lose what makes a winner so great is they're able to control their emotions and bounce back um the one thing that i like about him from a marketing standpoint is he has a really funny personality i don't know if you've seen like the clips of him oh yeah he's funny yeah he's funny and he is a marketing you know dream for a apparel company because his personality really shines and he's entertaining in a good way um which i think will help sell more clothes dude i mean speak because we're talking about sports people right now did you watch the america's team uh documentary on netflix i told you to watch it remember america's team you told me to watch the dallas cowboy That's what it's.

17:54Dallas Cowboys is America's team. I haven't watched it yet. I just want to talk about some business and marketing lessons from Dallas Cowboys. Dallas Cowboys is America's team. And so, one, you know how Jerry Jones made his money? You told me, but I want you to go with this so you can get your clip. So, this is not going to be a good clip. So, I don't need, I'll just explain it. But just so everyone knows, Jerry Jones, he actually had a bunch of odd jobs coming out of Arkansas College. So, he actually won a national championship. But his dream was always to own a football team. I actually didn't know that.

18:26So he would like sell insurance. He'd be like a door-to-door salesman. He'd be selling all these random things, right? He actually couldn't figure things out. By age 28, he was trying to buy the chargers at the time. And he actually went to the mafia, this mafia guy, to get money. The mafia guy's like, okay, I'll give you money, right? And his dad's like, dude, what are you doing? Like, what if you can't pay the bill? And his dad's like, that basically convinces him to not do that deal. At a certain point, he ends up betting everything. I think he reaches out to his father-in-law, like he scrounges up all the money he has, maybe borrow some money to$800 ,000 at the time.

18:58I think this is in the late 70s, maybe early 70s, something like that. Or maybe 60s. He bets all of his money on one oil drill, one oil well. Okay, that$800 ,000 becomes$100 million. At the time,$100 million is worth way more, hundreds of millions of dollars today, right? Yeah. That's how he gets his money, right? But the key thing as you look through his Dallas Cowboys won three championships in the 90s. They were the team of the 90s. He would not be afraid to try new things. He bet it all. He's known as the gambler. He also bet it on a college coach that had never been in the NFL before, Jimmy Johnson.

19:33He also traded away his number one player, Herschel Walker. So Herschel Walker is a legendary running back. And he got five first round draft picks for that. Right. So he he basically that that is a gamble, too. And so if you look at the Dallas Cowboys over time, I think they're worth like 13 billion now or something like that. If you look it up. But he constantly he did very unconventional things. So he's still the GM of the company or the Dallas Cowboys for better or worse today. 12.5. 12.5 billion. Close enough. But Jerry Jones is I think he's in his 80s now or whatever, but he's still the GM of the company.

20:10There's no other owner who's the GM of the company or the of the team. The other thing, too, is this this one's fun. This will be the last thing. But back in the day for the NFL, Coca-Cola was like the main drink, right? They had all these. Reebok was the main sneaker, right? He partnered up with Phil Knight and he partnered up with Pepsi and he got rid of all the Coca-Cola stuff. And so but when you're part of the team, the league back then, one of the owners, you're supposed to fall in line and everyone's supposed to push Reebok. Everyone's supposed to push Coca-Cola. He's like, screw that. I need to make more revenue.

20:40and that's how he got more revenue to do the things that he wanted to do. Dude, that's crazy to think about. But yeah, I'll have to watch it. No, you have to watch it. You'll love it. He's a good businessman. The way he's cornered all like the food stores and stalls within the NFL stadiums and I think he partnered with the Los Angeles Rams for some of that kind of stuff, the owner there. Stan Kronkite? Stanley, what's his name? Kronkite? Kronkite, whatever, yeah. Yeah, between both of those people, it looks like they've been really good at figuring out how to make more money from all the NFL teams.

21:15All his stuff, like it's a spectacle, right? It's like the largest screen in the NFL. And then it's like America's team or America's cheerleaders. And I think they have this roof so God could watch or something. Is that the slogan or something like that? I think that was the old stadium. This stadium also has an open one, too. But maybe you can look it up real quick. But the other thing, too, is he back in the day, he created shows. So there's like the Michael Irvin show. He would create shows like other spectacles for his players. And it was always a marketing thing. So the saying is Texas Stadium has a hole in the roof so God can watch his favorite team plays.

21:49Refers the actual hole in the roof of the former Dallas Cowboys home stadium, which is a former one. Dude, and you know where he got all this marketing prowess from? His dad. What does his dad do? His dad used to run a grocery store. So his dad used to run a grocery store. And the way he got people to come to the grocery store was he would have like singers at the grocery store. Wait, his dad or him? His dad. Okay. His dad had the grocery store. So he would look at his dad, make a spectacle out of everything. And that's how Jerry Jones made a spectacle out of everything. Biggest screen, America's team, you know, these lawsuits.

22:19The NFL's owner sued him to try to get his team because they didn't like the fact that he was doing things on his own. It worked out for him. Yeah, worked out perfectly. But the point here is that you've got to have the guts to go with it and to do things unconventionally for a very long time. And that's how he got to where he is by being authentically him. It's worked. Sometimes you just got to be you. It doesn't always work, but it works in. I think it works the best long term if you're just you. So, yeah. Let's see. You're seeing there's one here that's interesting. And this is from Ross Hudgens, who we both know.

22:53LinkedIn posts are seeing a surge in SEO traffic. Yeah. So they're just ranking higher. I'm guessing is what he's saying. Yeah. So Ross Hudgens here. So he's saying LinkedIn posts are seeing a surge in SEO traffic. This is a trend to watch closely. It feels like this could be a start of a Reddit Quora type social acceleration trend and a reason to invest in organic social. So you can see here, chat GBT referral traffic drops 52%. But then this down here, this is, I think, traffic to LinkedIn and it's going up. And, you know, LinkedIn used to be more private. Now it's a little more open. And so it's something to watch out for.

23:27I wonder how much of chat GBT's traffic comes from Google. That's a good question. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. So that's it for today guys. Please don't forget to rate, read, and subscribe and we'll see you tomorrow.