Behind the Agency

Episode 38: Why Two Out of Three Agencies Have a Right-Fit Client Problem (and How a Book Fixes It)

David Hoos

Behind the Agency Podcast with Henry DeVries, Head of Indie Books International

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Prefer the highlights? Key takeaways and summary below.

TL;DR – Key Takeaways

• Henry’s core belief: he’s not in the “book business” — he’s in the authority-making business.

• Most agencies don’t have a lead problem. They have a right-fit client problem (he says ~2 out of 3).

• Books work best when they’re built around a super niche + specific problem (general books don’t pay off the same).

• Three book formats that work: proprietary process, essay collection, or a story/fable (because brains love stories).

• His 4-phase process: Plan → Prep (write) → Publish → Promote (and promotion is the real game).

• “Publishing is the starting line.” If you don’t promote, the book “escapes” and nothing happens.

• Biggest roadblocks: time, money, and not knowing the process. His workaround is interviewing you (you talk 10x faster than you type).

• Contrarian take: Giving away the “secret sauce” attracts buyers. Most “secret sauce” isn’t secret anyway.

Does This Sound Familiar?

You have leads. That isn't the problem. The problem is who's showing up: the ones who haggle, who want weekly calls on a small retainer, and who treat your team like a supplier.

Henry DeVries puts it bluntly. Most agencies don't have a lead problem, they have a right-fit problem, and he reckons 2 out of 3 clients on the books aren't the ones you'd choose again.

So his fix isn't more marketing. He's spent years helping consultants and agency owners publish a book, and he's clear that he isn't in the book business. He's in the authority business, and the book is the artifact that makes the authority checkable before anyone gets on a call.

A few practical things from the episode. The books that work are narrow, built around one specific problem for one specific buyer, not a general tour of your services.

Publishing is the starting line, so the promotion after it is the actual job. And if time is what's stopping you, he gets around it by interviewing people, because you talk about 10 times faster than you type.

Take the free Bottleneck Score →

Meet the Guest

Henry DeVries is the head of Indie Books International, where he helps agency owners write and publish nonfiction business books that build authority and bring in better clients.

He and his team have helped publish 170+ books, and he’s built a repeatable process designed for busy founders who feel like they don’t have time to do “one more thing” for business development.

Episode Summary

1. The real reason to write a book

Henry comes in hot with a line I loved:

He’s not selling books. He’s helping agency owners become the obvious authority in a niche.

The logic is simple: if you’re known as “the person” for a specific problem, you stop chasing random leads and start attracting right-fit prospects.

2. The trap most agency owners fall into

Henry calls out the most common trap: agency owners say they’re experts… but don’t publish anything that proves it.

He tells a story: he once asked a room of 50 people who considered themselves experts. Every hand went up.

Then he asked who publishes a helpful article at least monthly.

Only a few hands stayed up.

That gap is where most agencies lose.

“You say you’re an expert, but you don’t have any proof that you’re an expert.”

3. Their unique way of solving it: “Authority-making” through books

Henry’s angle isn’t “write a book because you should.”

It’s: write a book because it becomes a credibility engine you can use to get interviews, podcasts, stages, and conversations with the right people.

And he’s clear: the goal isn’t to get everyone to read your book cover-to-cover.

It’s to get them to say: “Okay… this person gets it. We should talk.”

4. Plan, Prep, Publish, Promote (and which one is the actual work)

Henry laid out two key frameworks:

A) The 4-Phase Book Process

• Plan: decide what the book is (proprietary process vs essays vs fable), outline it, and create the “sloppy first copy” via interviews + transcription

• Prep (Writing): take it through drafts until the author is proud of it

• Publish: editing, cover/interior design, production, Amazon + ebook distribution

• Promote: send books out monthly, do showcase talks, get on stages/podcasts/TV, and create “non-selling zones” where people experience your expertise

He repeated a mantra that’s worth stealing:

Publishing is the starting line, not the finish line.

B) The “Educating Expert” Model

An authority is an educator.

You educate by:

• Typing (articles, blogs, newsletters)

• Talking (interviews, Q&As, live sessions)

And the weird part (that a lot of founders resist):

The more helpful you are, the more opportunities show up.

5. Fake personalization, and why most secret sauce is ketchup and mayo

Henry went straight at the “spray-and-pray” outreach habit:

• fake personalization

• bot messages

• “let’s network” pitches

• “20-minute discovery call?” from strangers

He’s basically saying: that stuff makes people’s skin crawl.

His alternative: be useful in public, consistently, and let people come to you.

He also had a line I laughed at because it’s true:

Most “secret sauce” is just ketchup + mayo.

Meaning: don’t hoard your knowledge. Giving it away is part of what makes you trusted.

6. You speak at 250 words a minute and write at 25

Founders shouldn’t be stuck doing everything… but they do need to be the source of the ideas and expertise.

Henry’s hack for time-strapped founders:

Instead of writing, talk.

He interviews them because founders can speak at ~250 words per minute vs writing at ~25 words per minute.

That’s how you “buy time back” and still ship something real.

7. Founder time spent on $20-an-hour work

Henry touched a nerve that a lot of agency owners need to hear:

It’s basically malpractice for a founder to spend time doing something a $20/hour person could do.

He also mentioned offshoring as a legit lever if you want to lower cost and increase efficiency — not as a gimmick, but as a practical way to get more done without burning out.

Notable Quotes

“I’m not in the book business. I’m in the authority-making business.”

“Publishing the book is the starting line, not the finish line.”

“An authority is an educator.”

“The more helpful I am, the luckier I get in business development.”

Related Episodes

• Ep. 15: Your Best Thinking Is Invisible If You Never Hit Publish

• Ep. 10: If You Market to Everybody, You Market to No One

• Ep. 26: How a Chamber of Commerce Lunch Turned 15 Attendees Into 4 Clients

Learn More / Get in Touch

Visit → Indie Books International (Events + Book Chat options)

Email → [email protected]

Monthly Q&A → Usually first Tuesday of the month (free)

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Subscribe to the show on YouTube →

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Episode 37: Why Clients Rejected the Self-Serve Model and Paid More for a Human

David Hoos

Behind the Agency Podcast with Dawei Li, Founder of Alloa

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Prefer the highlights? Key takeaways and summary below.

TL;DR – Key Takeaways

• Alloa started as college kids building apps… and turned that into a real business by chasing a very real gap: founders struggle to find trustworthy dev teams.

• They tested a bunch of models (freelancer, trial/hire, etc.) and landed on highly-vetted nearshore/offshore teams.

• The “aha” pivot: clients didn’t actually want a slick, low-touch platform — they wanted a human product expert to guide roadmap + product-market fit.

• They validated the pivot fast by changing sales messaging first (before rewriting the website), then watching pipeline stickiness and close rates.

• Vetting is not just “can they code?” — they check design quality, US references, leadership interviews, dev interviews, and even culture (they visit offices in-person).

• Their leverage play: because Alloa sends partners consistent deal flow, clients get treated like a top-tier account (better PM attention, stronger resources).

• Growth evolution: outbound → community networking → content/SEO engine (traffic grew from ~1–2k/month to ~50–60k/month in ~2 years).

• Future direction: build a flywheel across software services + marketing services (Tiny Lever Marketing) + SaaS tools (including an AI SEO keyword tool).

Does This Sound Familiar?

You built the scalable version. Less hand-holding, more self-serve, cleaner margins on paper. And the market said no, not to the idea, but to the absence of a person in it.

Dawei Li ran straight into that at Alloa. They tested freelancer models and trial-to-hire, landed on vetted nearshore and offshore teams, and then found the thing clients were actually paying for. They wanted a human product expert guiding the decision, not a slicker platform.

So the validation step is the part I'd copy. They didn't rewrite the website. They changed the sales messaging first and watched whether the pipeline got stickier, which is a cheap test that most teams skip in favour of a redesign.

And the vetting behind it is heavier than you'd expect. Design quality, US references, leadership interviews, developer interviews. Because Alloa sends its partners consistent deal flow, its clients get treated like top-tier accounts rather than whoever is free.

Now, the growth arc ran outbound, then community, then content, and the content compounded. Traffic went from 1,000 or 2,000 visits a month to 50,000 or 60,000 in about two years.

Take the free Bottleneck Score →

Meet the Guest

Dawei Li is the founder of Alloa, a software development firm that sits somewhere between an agency and a consultancy. In plain English: they pair vetted global dev teams (nearshore/offshore) with a US-based product owner / technical account manager so clients get execution and strategic guidance without paying big-consulting rates.

Alloa started around 2016–2017 as a group of students building apps at Vanderbilt, then pivoted in 2018 into the model they run today. They’re bootstrapped, have scaled to multi-7 figures, and have learned the hard way what actually keeps clients around: not just process… but real humans who can guide product decisions.

Episode Summary

1. The origin story: college projects → real market demand

Alloa started on campus building apps, then local founders and the Nashville startup scene noticed. People began reaching out for design and dev help.

That led to the bigger insight: there’s a gap between “people who want to build” and “people who can actually build well.”

Their mission became simple and ambitious: make it easier for anyone to innovate freely — by connecting founders with strong teams and helping them actually launch.

2. The main tension: founders don’t just need developers — they need guidance

Alloa originally leaned toward a marketplace/platform vibe: vetted teams, a portal, structured process, audits.

But they ran into a painful reality:

• they scaled, but

• clients churned (often on long cycles)

• and they never really hit true product-market fit with the low-touch model

Dawei’s takeaway was blunt: people voted with their dollars… and they wanted more human help.

“They didn’t want something that was really low-touch and really streamlined and really high-tech… they wanted that human interaction to handhold them through the process.”

3. Their unique way of solving it: hybrid agency + consultancy

Alloa isn’t trying to be a traditional agency (just staff you with devs).

And they’re not trying to be Deloitte (expensive strategy + delivery).

They’re in the middle:

• execution from vetted dev teams worldwide

• plus a “lighter” product expert in the US

• at a price that doesn’t feel like enterprise consulting

A simple way to picture it: they sell “build + guidance,” not “build only.”

4. Thousands screened to keep 12 partners, and how they tested the pivot

Here’s the structure Dawei laid out (simple version):

Alloa model (today):

• Rigorous partner vetting (thousands screened → ~10–12 partners)

• Structured dev process + audits (partners work inside their standards)

• Higher-touch layer added recently:

  • US product owner / technical account manager

  • roadmap + PMF guidance

  • regular check-ins to ensure outcomes (not just output)

Pivot validation method (this part is gold for any founder):

• don’t rebuild everything first

• change the sales pitch first

• run 5–15 calls and look for resonance

• watch pipeline behavior:

  • leads “stickier”

  • fewer drop-offs

  • first deals close

• then beta test delivery using existing team

• once retention improves → roll out to broader client base + legacy clients

5. They built the low-touch platform, and clients wanted a person

The misconception they challenged hard:

A lot of founders think the answer is “more automation + more platform.”

Dawei basically said: we built the high-tech, low-touch thing… and customers didn’t want it.

The fix wasn’t better UX.

The fix was higher touch + better guidance.

This is one of those business lessons that feels annoying… because it’s true:

people buy confidence, not dashboards.

6. Bootstrapped means your pivots have to be cheap and fast

This episode had a clear founder takeaway:

If you’re bootstrapped, you can’t afford slow, expensive pivots. You need fast tests.

Dawei’s approach was very “founder mode” in a good way:

• test messaging fast

• prove/disprove hypothesis fast

• adjust before burning months on site copy, tools, and ops changes

He also emphasized they’re constrained by profit reinvestment (not investor cash), so speed and efficiency matter.

7. Vetting as a core competency, and why a short partner list creates leverage

A few scaling lessons popped out:

• Vetting is a core competency (done by engineers with experience from places like Amazon/Google/etc.)

• They vet:

  • design quality (high bar)

  • case studies

  • leadership + developer interviews

  • US-based references

  • culture/loyalty (even onsite visits)

• Partner strategy:

  • keep partner list small (10–12)

  • send meaningful deal flow

  • gain leverage so clients get priority treatment (better PM + stronger resources)

On growth:

• Phase 1: outbound + cold emails + research calls

• Phase 2: in-person community + accelerator/VC relationships

• Phase 3: inbound growth engine (blogs + SEO) driving most leads today

  • traffic grew from ~1–2k/month to ~50–60k/month in ~2 years

Notable Quotes

“We didn’t even do it in a systematic step. We just did it fast… talk to customers.”

“We didn’t change the landing page… we just started pivoting the sales messaging.”

“People voted with their dollars… they wanted that human interaction.”

“We’re kind of between an agency and a consultancy.”

Related Episodes

• Ep. 50: Building Software With Clients, Not For Them

• Ep. 47: Why Most Software Projects Fail Before a Single Line of Code

• Ep. 20: Why This Agency Ditched the Big Reveal and Lets Clients Co-Create Instead

Learn More / Get in Touch

Visit → (Not shared in the interview)

Email → [email protected]

LinkedIn → Search Dawei Li (he said there aren’t many “Daweis”)

Want More Interviews Like This?

Subscribe to the show on YouTube →

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Episode 36: Stop Letting Clients Pick Your Tech Stack

David Hoos

Interview: Travis Caldwell on focus, differentiation, hiring for culture, and why “everyone sells”

Haus Advisors Live with Travis Caldwell (Agency operator, former marketing leader/CEO, 15+ years in agencies)

Watch

Prefer the highlights? Key takeaways and summary below.

TL;DR – Key Takeaways

• A super common agency trap: trying to be everything to everyone, which spreads your team thin and kills delivery quality.

• In dev agencies especially, letting clients dictate your tech stack can leave you supporting a dozen stacks and burning your team out.

• Differentiation usually isn’t the tool or the output — it’s your approach to solving problems (how you think + how you work).

• “Everyone is in sales” doesn’t mean everyone cold DMs people. It means everyone can help create growth through referrals, relationships, and reputation.

• If you’re starting (or restarting) an agency, have a 1-, 3-, and 5-year plan so you don’t build a messy business by accident.

• Hiring is less about skill (you can train) and more about culture + emotional intelligence (harder to teach).

• Ops lesson that hits hard: producers need protected focus time. If you plan for 6–7 billable hours/day and then add meetings, you’re basically planning burnout.

Does This Sound Familiar?

A client asks for a different framework and you say yes. Another wants a CMS you've used once. Three years of saying yes later, your team supports five stacks, nobody is expert in any of them, and every project takes longer than it should.

So the flexibility you sold as a strength turned into an operating cost you can't see on a P&L. Travis Caldwell has spent 15 years in agency operations and delivery, and letting clients pick your stack is the trap he names first.

His view on what actually separates you is the part most dev shops miss. It isn't the tool or the output, because both are copyable. It's your approach, meaning how you think about a problem and how you run the work.

And he means something specific by everyone being in sales. Not that your developers should be sending DMs. That referrals, relationships and reputation are produced by the whole team, and pretending otherwise puts the entire pipeline on one person.

Now, one operations detail is worth the listen on its own. If you plan for 6 to 7 billable hours a day and then stack 2 hours of meetings on top, you haven't planned a day. You've planned overtime and called it a schedule.

Take the free Bottleneck Score →

Meet the Guest

Travis Caldwell has spent 15+ years in agency life across marketing and custom web development. He’s worked in ops, delivery, and leadership — all the way up to CEO.

Right now, he’s exploring launching an agency/services business that supports agencies, especially those in the 10–15 person range, with operations, forecasting/finance, delivery, and people systems.

Episode Summary1. How Travis got into agencies (and why he stayed)

Travis came up through the marketing track — starting in e-commerce, then email marketing, including an early role at Zulily (startup intensity included), then nonprofits, and eventually into agency life.

His first agency “real” experience was at Vermilion in Boulder, where he helped build out the digital marketing practice. That meant doing a little bit of everything (PPC, email, social), managing a bunch of clients, and learning what it means to be billable — where deadlines actually matter because clients are paying.

That was the hook for him. He fell in love with the agency ecosystem.

2. The most common mistake: “Sure, we can do that.”

Travis didn’t call out any single “we totally screwed this up” moment, but he did name a pattern he sees all the time — especially in smaller, founder-led shops:

They take whatever work walks in the door.

And in dev agencies, that turns into a nightmare fast:

If the market dictates your tools, you end up with a dozen different stacks across clients, and suddenly you’re maintaining everything forever while your team gets stretched thin.

His point wasn’t “pick a vertical or die.”

It was simpler: know what your core strength is, and have the self-control to protect it — even when a dream client shows up.

(He basically said: if Nike walks in… you’re probably going to try to make it work. Which is exactly why this is hard.)

3. Differentiation is usually your approach, not your output

This was one of the more grounded takes on differentiation:

In agencies, we’re all solving problems.

The “thing” we deliver can become a commodity.

But your approach — how you think, how you run discovery, how you reduce risk, how you communicate, how you implement — that’s the differentiator.

He gave a great example from his prior world:

Bear Group’s founder had a clear why: bringing CMS capability to non-enterprise clients through open-source tech. That clarity kept the company anchored as the world shifted.

4. If you started over today: be intentional early

Travis’s advice to his past self wasn’t “get a better logo” or “buy business cards.”

It was: stop winging it.

Have a 1-year goal, a 3-year goal, and a 5-year goal so you don’t wake up with an 8-person agency you “didn’t mean to build,” doing random work for random clients, while you’re stuck learning HR tools instead of doing the craft you’re actually good at.

And I liked how you (David) tied it back:

A vision makes you more proactive. Without one, you’ll accept bad-fit work to keep the lights on… and then five years later you’re paying the price.

5. New business: everything works and nothing works

Travis’s take on growth was refreshingly honest:

Agency growth is weird. It’s not DTC. It’s not clean B2B SaaS.

Attribution is messy and delayed.

Sometimes you run an email campaign and the payoff comes two years later. Sometimes a great client leaves, joins another company, and comes back around later. It’s long-game stuff layered with short-game needs.

He referenced the classic paid / owned / earned model as a helpful frame — but also called out that it’s messy because things like partnerships can overlap all three.

His “conviction” was basically:

What you put time and energy behind tends to work.

If you starve a channel, it dies. If you invest, you’ll usually see reciprocity and momentum.

He also called out macro realities (like election years) slowing down decisions — and the need to adjust strategy accordingly (lean harder into relationships, referrals, upsells when net-new is harder).

6. Hiring: culture fit is the real gate

Travis is very “culture first,” and he explained how he made it real:

• He loved being the first call candidates had (even as CEO), because it set the tone and helped assess fit early.

• Skill can be trained. Emotional intelligence is much harder to teach.

• Candidates are interviewing the company too — and if it’s not a fit, you want to learn that fast.

To make culture fit less “vibes only,” he used:

• core values-based questions (one question per core value)

• scenario questions about communication and conflict

• EQ assessments to get another signal alongside gut feel

7. Ops: stop planning burnout into your delivery model

This one is worth repeating because it’s so common:

If you plan for 6–7 billable hours/day and then stack 2–3 hours of meetings… you didn’t “get busy.”

You set that person up to fail.

His point: protect maker time. Sometimes the best work happens after a walk, not in another Zoom.

He compared agency ops to a sports team:

Everyone’s a “player,” but they have different positions and strengths. You don’t move a great left fielder to first base just because you’re short on first basemen — and you don’t need three first basemen.

Ops is putting the right people in the right seats so they can win.

Notable Quotes

“Custom web development… you can write code a lot of different ways… and you can stretch your team super thin.”

“By and large… it is your approach that is the differentiator.”

“Everyone’s a salesperson in agency life.”

“If we stack in 2 hours of meetings… that’s how you end up with burnout.”

Related Episodes

• Ep. 11: Stop Hiring Avengers (Build the Mickey Mouse Club Instead)

• Ep. 43: Why This Mobile Agency Tells Leads They Do Not Need an App

• Ep. 45: Stop Saying Yes to Everything (Before It Kills Your Agency)

Learn More / Get in Touch

Want to connect with Travis?

He said the easiest place is LinkedIn — search Travis Caldwell and message him there.

He’s also exploring a new offering to support agencies (especially around 10–15 people) with:

• operations

• forecasting + finance

• delivery

• people systems / professional development

Want More Interviews Like This?

Subscribe to the show on YouTube →

Subscribe to my weekly newsletter →

If this resonates, here's your next step.

Pick the path that fits where you are right now. No pitch deck. No pressure. Just clarity.

Start with the free Bottleneck Score →

See how the Program works →

Episode 35: How to Win Clients Who Got Burned by Their Last Agency

David Hoos

Behind the Agency Podcast with Brett Snyder, Founder & CEO of Knucklepuck

Watch

Prefer the highlights? Key takeaways and summary below.

TL;DR – Key Takeaways

• Knucklepuck (founded 2014) runs SEO + paid media (LinkedIn ads, Google ads, social amplification), mostly for B2B lead gen SaaS, plus some e-comm and B2C.

• Brett’s big obsession: impact + proof — doing work is nice, but quantifying ROI is what keeps relationships healthy.

• Competitive research is useful… but dangerous when you treat it like a checklist.

  • The goal isn’t “copy what’s working.”

  • The goal is “find white space and figure out how you’d win if you played for the other team.”

• His example: a finance education client copied competitors’ “veterans section”… and it underperformed.

The insight wasn’t “we should copy better.”

The insight was “everyone is doing the same small thing and it’s not enough.”

So they recommended going bigger: a standalone microsite with 5–10x the content.

Selling to clients who had a bad agency experience:

• Harder to earn trust (they’re guarded)

• But often better buyers (they already believe in the channel and have budget/staff)

• You’re selling the relationship first—like convincing someone after a bad breakup.

• Brett’s practical move for those “burned” clients: prove it early.

• Knucklepuck does a free audit as part of proposals to show how they think and to address past pain points.

• But he warns: make sure the last relationship failed because of the agency, not because the client was impossible.

Industry change = opportunity.

• When GA4 was coming, they learned it early, then built a conversion/migration offering to help clients transition.

• His POV: agencies should be the first person in the water, figure it out, then come back with a plan.

“Going against best practices” shouldn’t be cosplay.

• Their real non-traditional move: they stopped accepting resumes to improve DEI and reduce “polished resume bias.”

• Instead, applicants answer thoughtful questions that reveal effort, thinking, and written communication.

What makes a client successful long-term?

• Brett’s #1 filter: having an internal advocate who cares deeply about results and can pull the agency into the right conversations.

Does This Sound Familiar?

The prospect on the call has budget, a team, and a very specific list of things they don't want to happen again. Their last agency sent pretty reports and never tied any of it to revenue. Now every question they ask you sounds like a test, because it is one.

So you slow down and try to earn it, and you're competing against a memory as much as against another firm. But these are often the best buyers you'll get. They already believe in the channel and they've already paid for it once.

Brett Snyder founded Knucklepuck in 2014 and handles this by proving it before the contract. Proposals include a free audit, which shows how his team thinks and lets him speak directly to what went wrong last time.

And he adds a filter most agencies skip. Check whether the last relationship failed because of the agency or because the client was impossible to work with, because you're about to inherit whichever one it was.

His other habit is worth stealing. Brett treats competitor research as an opposition brief rather than a roadmap. When one client copied a section every rival had, it underperformed, and the real finding was that everyone was doing the same small thing.

Take the free Bottleneck Score →

Meet the Guest

Brett Snyder is the founder/CEO of Knucklepuck, a digital marketing agency built around a simple idea:

It’s not enough to “do marketing.”

You’ve gotta show it worked, in a way the client actually believes.

Episode Summary

1) Knucklepuck in 60 seconds

Brett started Knucklepuck in 2014. They focus on:

• SEO

• Paid media (LinkedIn, Google, social amplification)

• Most of their work is in B2B SaaS lead gen, with some e-comm and B2C.

The throughline: impact and measurement.

2) Competitive research: useful… until it makes you average

Brett kicked off with a good nuance:

He’s not saying “don’t do competitive research.”

He’s saying “don’t treat it like a roadmap.”

Because modern tools make it easy to see:

• what competitors rank for

• where they’re ranking

• what you’re missing

• what bids they’re using

And that convenience creates a trap: you start doing “me too” marketing.

His alternative lens: quantify white space.

Instead of only asking:

“What are they doing that we’re not?”

Ask:

“What’s missing across the market?”

“Where is the market failing?”

“Where is there real unmet demand?”

The veteran audience example was perfect:

A client saw competitors all had a “veterans” section. So they built one too.

It didn’t move the needle.

Then they stepped back and asked a stronger question:

“If I worked for the competitor, how would I win?”

And the answer was basically:

“Not with a tiny subpage. Everyone’s doing that and it’s not enough.”

So they recommended going bigger:

• a standalone microsite

• 5–10x the content depth

That’s the difference between “copying the ingredients” and “actually changing the recipe.”

Common misconception he called out (and I’ve seen this too):

People assume “if Nike does it, it must work.”

But you don’t know if it’s working for them.

And even if it is… you’re not Nike.

3) Clients with bad agency experiences: hard mode, but high upside

Brett’s take was super human:

Selling to someone with a bad experience is like dating someone after a rough breakup.

They’re guarded. They’re skeptical. They’re watching everything you do.

That’s the hard part.

The upside is they often:

• already believe in the channel

• already have budget

• already have internal support

• want it to work this time

So if you listen carefully, they’ll basically tell you:

• what they expected

• what they didn’t get

• what would rebuild confidence

His advice: sell the relationship first.

And his tactical move: prove it.

Knucklepuck does a free audit inside the proposal process. Not as a gimmick—more like due diligence.

But he also dropped a truth that a lot of agency owners skip:

Before you blame the previous agency, make sure the client wasn’t the problem.

Sometimes the “bad experience” is because:

• expectations were unrealistic

• no one responded on the client side

• there’s no CRM so attribution is impossible

• implementation never happened

So you have to diagnose the “breakup” before you agree to date.

4) Growth during industry change: be the first one in the water

Brett sees shifts (like Meta privacy changes, GA4, etc.) as opportunities.

His mental model:

You can’t control the tides.

You can control the vessel and how prepared you are.

So when GA4 was rolling out, they:

• learned it early

• learned how to migrate UA → GA4

• packaged that into something they could sell to existing/new clients

I like this because it’s a very “agency as guide” mentality:

Clients don’t just want tactics.

They want someone who knows what’s next.

Also: he was real about it sometimes not working.

Sometimes you launch a change-based offer and realize there’s no margin.

Still worth doing, because now you know.

5) Going against best practices… without being a try-hard

Brett made a distinction I respected:

Being “contrarian” just to look cool is useless.

Their actual non-traditional move was hiring-related:

They stopped accepting resumes.

Why:

• resumes reward polish and coaching

• polish is correlated with privilege (career centers, coaching, etc.)

• it can hide the real signal

So instead, applicants answer structured questions in writing.

This gives them signal on:

• effort

• clarity of thought

• communication (which is a huge part of client work)

They even get positive feedback from applicants:

“This was refreshing.”

Also smart: those written answers become internal context for the team later.

6) The #1 client-fit factor: an internal advocate

Brett’s best “agency reality” moment was this:

The biggest difference between great clients and frustrating clients is having an advocate inside.

Because “we’re an extension of your team” is true…

…but only if the client actually brings you into the right conversations.

That advocate:

• pulls you into the rooms you can’t access

• routes feedback through the right lens

• helps implementation happen

• cares about outcomes because their job is tied to it

And he said something subtle but important:

That advocate doesn’t have to be the most senior person.

Sometimes it’s the person “in the weeds” who will benefit most if the work succeeds

Notable Quotes

“Competitive research isn’t supposed to be an explicit roadmap… it’s supposed to be an opposition brief.”

“Clients coming off a bad experience… you’ve gotta sell the relationship before you sell yourself.”

“Every change is an opportunity… we should be the first person in the water.”

“We stopped accepting resumes… we want you to answer questions that extract how you think and communicate.”

“The #1 thing we look for in a good client is an advocate inside the building.”

Related Episodes

• Ep. 17: Communication Is the Competitive Advantage You Keep Ignoring

• Ep. 61: Win Better Clients by Going Narrow

• Ep. 14: Specializing Is Scary. Not Specializing Is Worse.

Learn More / Follow Brett

• LinkedIn (best place to connect + debate ideas)

• Knucklepuck: knucklepuckmedia.com

(because the punk band won’t sell him knucklepuck.com — which is honestly hilarious)

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Episode 34: How Fan Emails and Case Studies Built a 25-Year Agency

David Hoos

Interview: Warren Wilansky on niche focus, case-study trust, and building an agency that outlives the founder

Haus Advisors Live with Warren Wilansky, Founder of Plank — a website agency for mission-driven creative organizations (arts, culture, nonprofits)

Watch

Prefer the highlights? Key takeaways and summary below.

TL;DR – Key Takeaways

• Plank started the classic way: a little freelance momentum + “let’s rent an office and figure it out.”

• Their “zone of genius” is a mix of:

  • deep industry knowledge (arts/culture + nonprofits)

  • strong design taste and attention to detail

  • high-end technical builds (big, complex projects)

  • unusually deep client relationships + project management

• They didn’t start niche. At first they took whatever walked in. Over time, personal interest + portfolio gravity pulled them into a tight focus.

• Case studies are the main conversion engine: “people see themselves in the story” → instant trust.

• Warren’s best “cold outbound” isn’t cold. It’s a fan email—rare, personal, passion-driven. It works maybe once every ~5 years, but when it hits, it’s huge (Michael Moore, Rush, etc.).

• Hot take: they still do RFPs sometimes—but only when it’s a perfect fit and they can build a relationship before submitting.

• The future goal: make the agency less reliant on Warren, both for culture and biz dev, so it can live beyond him.

Does This Sound Familiar?

Your outbound is a sequence. Seven touches, three channels, automated follow-up, and a reply rate you'd rather not say out loud. Meanwhile the clients you love came from somewhere else entirely.

Warren Wilansky started Plank over 25 years ago, building for arts, culture and mission-driven groups. His version of outbound is one email.

Not a campaign. He writes to a group he really admires, as a fan, because he wants to work on that specific thing.

It works about once every five years. And when it lands, he says, it's incredibly successful, because the person receiving it can tell the difference between interest and a template.

So what carries the rest of the pipeline is case studies. He treats them as the main way deals get won, not as a portfolio page. Somebody reads one, sees their own situation in it, and arrives half-convinced.

Now, here's why this one is worth your time if you're a long way in. After 25 years, Warren's stated goal is to make Plank less dependent on him, for the culture and for new business both, so it can outlast him. And he's candid that he isn't there yet.

Take the free Bottleneck Score →

Meet the Guest

Warren Wilansky founded Plank over 25 years ago. Plank builds websites for mission-driven creative organizations—especially arts and cultural institutions, plus nonprofits.

Warren’s story is refreshingly unglamorous: it started with freelance work, scrappy teamwork, and then decades of narrowing focus through repetition, taste, and relationships.

Episode Summary1. How Plank started (the “scrape together rent” era)

Warren studied communication studies with a focus on “multimedia” (before web dev was even a real category).

After graduation:

• some freelance

• a short stint at a company

• and once he had enough freelance work, he teamed up with two partners

They didn’t launch with a master plan. It was more like:

“Can we pool enough to get an office and survive?”

That became Plank.

2. What Plank is genuinely great at

Warren’s answer here was super clear, and it’s basically why Plank has lasted:

Deep niche understanding

They know arts + culture orgs (museums, performing arts, etc.) and nonprofits at a practical level: what those orgs actually need, how decisions get made, what constraints exist.

Design + detail

Design was the original anchor. They sweat details.

Complex technical builds

They like big challenges and high-end projects.

Relationships + project management

This wasn’t “PM as admin.” It’s “PM as stewardship.” They care about the experience, not just the deliverable.

3. Niche wasn’t a decision — it was a gravity well

This part matters because people love to pretend niches happen from a single brave decision.

Warren said: early on, they took whatever showed up. No luxury.

But because he personally cared about arts and culture (music background, loves the arts), their best work kept landing there, and the portfolio started to reflect it.

Then something interesting happened:

• the portfolio attracted similar clients

• case studies made those clients feel seen

• that reinforced the niche

• the niche got tighter over time

It’s basically a flywheel powered by relevance.

4. “How did you get your first client?” (three defining stories)

Warren told three “first client” stories, and they show the weirdness of early agency life:

1. 9 West Shoes (NYC)

   He picked it up through an early agency situation that imploded. Right place, right time. One freelancer suddenly working with a major brand.

2. A pen company

   Plank’s first “official” client was local and scrappy. It’s the contrast: big-name luck on one side, small local work on the other.

3. The client they actually wanted: Michael Moore

   Two years in, Warren found Michael Moore’s website, thought it wasn’t great, and sent a personal email. Michael Moore called that afternoon. They worked together for ten years.

That was the first “we chose this” client.

5. Their stance on outbound (and why most people do it wrong)

Warren basically said:

They don’t do blast outreach. Ever.

When they reach out, it’s personal and passion-led—more like:

“I’m a fan, and I think we can genuinely help.”

He said it rarely works (about once every five years), but when it does, it turns into major, long-running work—like Rush and other dream projects.

This is a good gut-check for agency owners:

Most “outbound” fails because it’s not rooted in real interest, and the receiver can smell it.

6. The most recent client: yes, an RFP (but they did it the smart way)

Warren knows the agency internet hates RFPs.

And he agreed with the criticism: many public RFPs are stacked, crowded (50+ submissions), and sometimes the buyer already has someone picked.

But they still won their latest client through an RFP because:

• it was a perfect fit (nonprofit, aligned, budget fit)

• they had relevant case studies

• they got on a call first to build a real connection

• they didn’t want to be “Proposal #37 in a pile”

So it wasn’t “pray and spray.” It was relationship-first selling, even inside an RFP.

7. The future: business development can’t be a one-person sport

For a long time, Warren carried most biz dev.

Going forward, they’re shifting to a team-based model:

• PMs more involved in defining projects and sales

• team leads owning relationships

• biz dev embedded in culture, not just founder hustle

And his bigger long-term goal is even more clear:

Build an agency that isn’t dependent on Warren as the keeper of culture.

He wants the team to be able to run it and eventually have a president beyond him.

Not because he wants to disappear—because he wants other people to have the chance to do what he’s done for 25 years.

Notable Quotes

“It’s almost like you’re reaching out as a fan.”

“It’s successful once every five years — but when it is successful, it’s incredibly successful.”

“Case studies… somebody hooks into a case study and sees themselves represented.”

“The culture of the agency has to be reflected by everybody in it.”

Related Episodes

• Ep. 57: 25 Years of Agency Survival (What Actually Kept the Lights On)

• Ep. 42: How to Run an Agency for 20 Years Without Blowing It Up

• Ep. 31: Why "Always Be Closing" Is Killing Your Agency Pipeline

Learn More / Get in Touch

Visit → Plank.co (P-L-A-N-K.co)

There’s a contact form on the site.

Warren encouraged people to explore Plank’s website and values—because values are the real product.

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Episode 33: The Financial Hierarchy Most Agency Founders Skip

David Hoos

Interview: Financial Forecasting + The “Hierarchy of Financial Needs” for Agency Owners

Behind the Agency Podcast with Ryan Watson, Founding Partner at Upsourced Accounting

Watch

Prefer the highlights? Key takeaways and summary below.

TL;DR – Key Takeaways

• Most agencies shouldn’t “forecast” revenue far out if they don’t have a predictable growth engine—stick to what you can actually see.

• Upsourced separates budgeting (known + expected work) from forecasting (imagined future work) to avoid dangerous wishful thinking.

• Feast/famine is basically the default in project work—your real job is matching demand (work) to supply (people) fast.

• Cash reserves aren’t there to fund months of losses—they’re there to bridge timing gaps (like milestone billing).

• If you don’t have work “as far as the eye can see,” don’t burn cash hoping it magically shows up—right-size the team.

• The “Hierarchy of Financial Needs” helps you focus on one KPI at a time instead of staring at a depressing dashboard of 25 red metrics.

• “Retainable revenue” matters more than “retainers”—you need 50%+ coming from existing logos to scale past ~$4–5M reliably.

• If clients pay late: pause work. Your only leverage is the service you’re delivering.

Does This Sound Familiar?

The big project lands and everyone's busy. It wraps, the pipeline looks thin, and you take the next thing that comes along whether it fits or not. You've been calling that a sales problem for years.

Ryan Watson would call it a supply and demand problem, and he thinks it's the hardest part of owning an agency. Your job is matching work to people fast, and most forecasting makes that harder rather than easier.

So his advice is blunt. Most agencies shouldn't forecast at all, because a forecast built on imagined work just manufactures confidence. He splits it in two: budget the work you have and can reasonably expect, and stop there.

He runs Upsourced Accounting, which does outsourced accounting and CFO work for agencies, so these are his benchmarks rather than general ones.

Gross margin of 40 to 50% for a dev shop. Three months of cash reserves. Net profit over 20% after the owner takes a real market salary.

And one number does more work than the rest. If under 50% of revenue comes from clients you already have, you're rebuilding your entire revenue base every year or two, which is why the $4M to $5M mark is where that catches up with people.

Take the free Bottleneck Score →

Meet the Guest

Ryan Watson is a founding partner at Upsourced Accounting, an outsourced accounting + CFO advisory firm built specifically for agencies. They work with around 120 development and marketing agencies across the U.S. and have been doing it for 13 years.

Ryan’s not just an “accounting guy.” He’s been inside agencies too—most recently as CFO/COO of an influencer marketing and media agency that grew to $45M and was sold to a public company—so he’s lived the forecasting and cash flow stress from the inside.

Episode Summary1. Why “Forecasting” Can Actually Hurt You

Ryan starts by drawing a line between two words people mix up:

• Budget = expected P&L based on known work + realistically weighted pipeline

• Forecast = expected P&L based on activity that doesn’t exist yet

Here’s the punchline: if your growth engine isn’t predictable, forecasting is basically a spreadsheet-shaped lie.

“Most agencies don’t have a predictable enough revenue generation engine… so a forecast just creates false confidence.”

If your leads come in “chunky” from referrals, relationships, and random timing, forecasting can trick you into hiring and spending too early… and that’s when things get ugly.

2. The Core Agency Problem Nobody Escapes

Ryan says feast-or-famine isn’t a personal failure. It’s baked into project work.

The hardest job of the agency owner is matching:

• Demand = how much work you actually have coming

• Supply = the team you’re paying every month

His advice is blunt: be objective about demand, then adjust supply immediately so you’re not running an “expected loss” month after month.

3. What Cash Reserves Are Actually For

He recommends 3 months of operating expenses as a starting point, but clarifies what that money is for:

Not: “Let’s burn this for six months and hope sales recover.”

Yes: “Let’s bridge timing gaps between milestones and collections.”

Example: a 6-month project, paid in two big milestones. Reserves get you from Milestone 1 to Milestone 2.

And a line that hit hard:

“These situations never materialize more positively than you think. They always end up less positively than you think.”

4. The “Agency Lifecycle” Trap: Using the Wrong Playbook

One of Ryan’s best points is that agencies keep applying the wrong operating model for their stage.

He uses a lifecycle framework:

• Create mode (0–$1M)

• Build mode ($1M–$3M)

• Grow mode

• Scale mode

  (he lists these as the progression, with the big “brick wall” often showing up around $3–$4M)

In create mode, he calls out “playing business”:

Doing stuff that feels productive (like plans, trademarks, fancy ops work) instead of doing the only two things that matter:

get people to buy deliver with limited resources

Then later, a classic mistake: trying to hire a CRO too early so the founder can “get out of sales.” Ryan says that’s often a scale-mode move attempted in build-mode… and it blows up.

5. Retainers vs “Retainable Revenue” (This Was a Big One)

Ryan agrees recurring revenue is amazing… but also says it’s not always realistic.

So instead he looks at retainable revenue:

“How much of this year’s revenue came from customers we already had before this year?”

His line in the sand:

• If retainable revenue is under 50%, it’s extremely hard to grow to $4–5M+ consistently.

Even for project agencies, this can show up as an “annuity stream of projects” from bigger clients (land-and-expand, multiple departments, follow-on work).

6. The Hierarchy of Financial Needs (His Best Framework)

Ryan shares a framework that’s basically Maslow’s hierarchy… but for agency finance.

The point: stop tracking 25 KPIs. Track the one that matters right now.

The steps:

1. Solvency — Can you make payroll next week?

2. Gross Margin — Are you making money on service delivery? (He mentions dev agencies often target ~40–50%)

3. Cash Reserves — ~3 months baseline (adjust based on business model)

4. Net Profit — “Gold standard” target is ~20%+ after paying the owner a market salary

5. Predictable Revenue Growth — the capstone that unlocks real forecasting

The key benefit isn’t just financial—it’s psychological:

Instead of a dashboard screaming at you, you focus on one “next rung,” build momentum, and the other metrics improve along the way.

7. Late-Paying Clients: The Simple Rule

Ryan’s tactical guidance:

If a client is consistently late, pause work.

“Your only real leverage is the service you’re performing.”

And don’t wait too long to find out if they pay—invoice early, get money in the door, and learn their behavior fast.

Notable Quotes

“Most agencies should not forecast… all it does is create false confidence.”

“The hardest thing about being an agency owner is matching supply and demand.”

“Don’t burn cash reserves to keep looking for work. Right-size the business.”

“Your only leverage in collections is the service you’re performing.”

Related Episodes

• Ep. 7: Profit Is Where the Real Work Is

• Ep. 16: Your Agency Is Not Bad at Marketing. It Is Underfunding Growth.

• Ep. 13: If You Are Not Tracking Time, You Are Flying Blind

Learn More / Get in Touch

Visit → UpsourcedAccounting.com

YouTube → @upsourced

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Episode 32: Why This Agency CEO Caps Every Week at 40 Hours

David Hoos

Behind the Agency Podcast with Chris Manley, CEO of Engenius

TL;DR – Key Takeaways

• Engenius wasn’t started as a “marketing agency dream.” It started as a people-first business idea: care for employees, care for customers, care for community.

• Their “zone of genius” isn’t one tactic. It’s a long-term commitment to small businesses—and bringing big-agency thinking to small budgets.

• They landed their first real clients fast through existing relationships + showing up in the community, and they’ve kept the same sales philosophy since 2008:

  no hard sell → honest guidance → refer out if it’s not a fit.

• Culture isn’t a poster on the wall. Chris built it intentionally because he’d seen a ton of management styles (18 jobs by age 21) and didn’t want the “always on” agency life.

• They aim for a 40-hour week, even for leadership, and they make policies that force rest (like rewriting vacation rules so people actually take time off).

• A practical culture tip: define your values, but don’t dilute them. They started with 19 “core values,” realized that was ridiculous, and narrowed down to 5.

• Values affect client fit too: the question isn’t “are they like us?” it’s “can they adapt to how we work?”

• Hard line: no tolerance for verbally abusive clients. They’ll offboard rather than sacrifice team wellbeing.

• Long-term growth goal isn’t “bigger is better.” It’s role duplication—so one person being out doesn’t create chaos.

• Chris sees the market moving toward a trusted marketing partner model: clients want “one call” even if the agency pulls in specialist partners.

Does This Sound Familiar?

You tell people you care about balance. Then a deadline lands, everyone works past 50 hours, and nobody mentions it because it's just how this week went. The values are on the wall and the calendar is the real policy.

Chris Manley runs Engenius, which serves about 180 small businesses, and he treats 40 hours as a rule rather than a target. His line on it is the uncomfortable one. If someone is consistently over 40, something is broken in the system, and it isn't admirable of the person.

So he writes policy that forces the outcome instead of hoping for it. He rewrote the vacation policy because people weren't taking their vacation, which is the kind of fix that only happens when someone treats culture as an operating decision.

And he learned the hard way that values dilute. Engenius started with 19 core values.

He now sums that up with a question worth asking about your own list. Are they really core if you need 19 of them?

Now, the filter he applies to clients is the useful flip. The question isn't whether a client is like you, it's whether they can adapt to how you work.

Verbally abusive clients get offboarded, which is easy to say and rare to actually do.

Take the free Bottleneck Score →

Meet the Guest

Chris Manley is the CEO of Engenius, a web design, web development, and marketing shop.

But what makes him interesting isn’t the service list.

It’s the fact that he started the business with a pretty rare goal in agency land:

Build a company that’s good for the people inside it… and still great for clients.

Episode Summary1) Why he started Engenius: “utopian,” on purpose

Chris says the original motivation was basically a “utopian” idea:

1. care about employees first

2. care about customers second

3. care about the community third

   …and still be a strong business

Marketing wasn’t the starting obsession. It was just something he’d been doing since the late 90s (self-taught HTML, selling one-page websites for $100 as a teenager).

The deeper driver was seeing what “corporate America” looked like back then (he name-drops the Enron era) and wanting to build a different kind of company.

2) Their zone of genius: small businesses, long term

This part stood out because it’s a choice most agencies say they care about… until bigger budgets show up.

Chris describes their differentiator as a real commitment to small businesses:

• not as a stepping stone

• not as practice

• not as “we’ll graduate to enterprise later”

They serve about 180 small businesses and love it.

The real value they bring isn’t “we can run ads” or “we can build websites.”

It’s the outside perspective small business owners don’t have time to create:

• Who is your audience?

• What are you really trying to say?

• What will make this attractive to your customer?

And the agency advantage is exactly what you called out in the interview: pattern recognition across many clients.

3) How they got their first clients (and how they still sell)

Their first official client signed 10 days after forming the LLC.

It came through relationships:

• a friend connection

• a nonprofit foundation that needed help with messaging and positioning (especially how to motivate donors)

They built a simple website, but the win was the thinking:

“What would lead someone to support this?”

Then within the first month, they landed several more clients—mostly starting with websites.

What’s interesting is what hasn’t changed since 2008:

• get involved in the community

• tell people what you’re doing

• offer a conversation, not a pitch

• if you can’t help, introduce them to someone who can

That’s the opposite of the “close at all costs” stuff that makes agency sales feel gross.

4) Culture: designing the work life you actually want

Chris’s background is unusual: he didn’t do the classic “work in corporate for a while, then start an agency.”

Before 21, he’d worked 18 different jobs. Not because he was flaky—often he had multiple jobs at once.

That gave him a front-row seat to:

• good management

• bad management

• places that cared for people

• places that didn’t

So when he started Engenius, he didn’t have a “default agency culture” baked into him.

He and his co-founder had to ask:

“What do we want this to feel like day-to-day?”

They noticed agencies that were:

• answering clients on Sunday nights

• taking calls during family events

• living in constant “urgent”

And they decided: nope.

So they set a clear target:

40-hour work week (even leadership)

And then they did the harder part:

they made business decisions through that lens, even when it meant tradeoffs.

5) Vacation policy as culture enforcement (this was great)

This is the kind of thing that sounds small until you realize it’s everything.

They rewrote their vacation policy… and added rules that basically force people to take time off.

The team initially reacted like:

“Why so many rules?”

And Chris was like:

“Because I want you to actually use your vacation.”

Even first-year team members.

He paints a normal-person version of vacation too:

If “vacation” is coffee on your back porch on a crisp fall morning — great.

Just don’t work.

This is where a lot of agencies get it wrong:

They say “we care about balance,”

then reward the people who never log off.

Chris is doing the opposite.

6) Values: the “19 core values” mistake and the fix

They tried the classic “core values” thing.

At first, they landed on 17, then realized they were missing two, and rolled out 19.

Someone asked the obvious question:

“Are they really core if you have 19?”

Chris admitted: fair point.

So they split the list:

• some became “principles of good business” (important, but not unique)

• and they distilled down to 5 real core values that actually define the culture

Then they used them like you’re supposed to:

• hiring

• evaluations

• and yes, even separating from people who weren’t a values fit

Also: one of their core values is “be fun.”

And Chris is blunt about it:

If you hate people having fun at work, don’t work here.

That clarity is a filter.

7) Values affect client fit too

You asked a great question: does culture change who you say yes/no to as clients?

Chris’s answer is basically:

yes—and the key test is:

Can the client adapt to how we work?

Not “are they identical to us,” but “will they give us license to be who we are?”

Examples:

• calling employees’ personal cell phones on weekends for basic updates = not okay

• unrealistic expectations = not okay

They’re also transparent about imperfection:

If you want a perfect agency, go elsewhere.

They’ll make mistakes, but they’ll fix them.

That honesty tends to create better long-term client relationships.

8) The one client type they won’t refer out

This got darker, but it’s important.

Chris has a low tolerance for verbally abusive clients.

He draws a clean line:

• swearing casually in the office isn’t the issue

• disrespecting and insulting the team is the issue

And if that behavior is repeated, they’ll offboard.

You nailed why this matters:

Retention goes up when leadership proves it has your back.

Most agencies say “people first.”

This is what it looks like in real life.

9) The future: grow for duplication + become the “one call” partner

Their growth goal isn’t “bigger for ego.”

It’s operational safety:

duplication of roles so there’s backup coverage and less stress.

Then Chris talks about a bigger industry shift:

The old split between:

• “traditional agencies” (print, radio, billboards)

• and “digital agencies”

…is fading.

Clients want:

• one trusted marketing partner

• one call

• someone who can either do it, or pull the right partner in fast

They don’t have time to vet vendors.

They want the “dream team” assembled for them.

So Engenius is expanding:

not necessarily doing everything in-house,

but being the point person who can deliver or coordinate.

Notable Quotes / Moments

• “We wanted to create a business that cared first and foremost about its people.”

• “We serve about 180 small businesses.”

• “We’re not gonna try to hard sell you… if we can’t help, we’ll help you find someone else.”

• “We’re gonna have a 40-hour work week… and then you’re done.”

• “I rewrote our vacation policy… because I want you to use your vacation time.”

• “Are they really core if you have to have 19 of them?”

• “Can a client adapt to the way that we work?”

• “Verbally abusive clients… we’re not doing that.”

Connect with Chris / Engenius

• Website: engeniusweb.com

• Email: chris@engeniusweb.com

• LinkedIn: Chris Manley

Related Episodes

• Ep. 57: 25 Years of Agency Survival (What Actually Kept the Lights On)

• Ep. 34: How Fan Emails and Case Studies Built a 25-Year Agency

• Ep. 30: How a Front-End Agency Grows Without Selling

Want More Interviews Like This?

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Episode 31: Why "Always Be Closing" Is Killing Your Agency Pipeline

David Hoos

Behind the Agency Podcast with Adam Kurzawa, Head of Business Development at Infinum

Watch

Prefer the highlights? Key takeaways and summary below.

TL;DR – Key Takeaways

• Most agencies “get outbound wrong” because they don’t do it at all… until inbound dries up and they panic.

• Mass cold email blasts aren’t outbound. They’re noise. Real outbound is targeted and tailored.

• Start outbound where trust already exists: past clients, past buyers, and close runner-up pitches.

• Follow-up on near-wins creates “boomerang projects” (you lose it… then it comes back).

• His motto isn’t “always be closing.” It’s ABU: Always Be Useful.

• Best relationship accelerator: get out of the digital realm (coffee, office visits, conferences).

• Founders have an unfair advantage: people will take a meeting with a CEO/founder way faster than “head of biz dev.”

• Biz dev is a long game. There are no quick wins—so you build a system that survives slow seasons, elections, and weird markets.

Does This Sound Familiar?

The pipeline runs on referrals and inbound, and it works right up until a quiet quarter. Then you go looking for outbound in a hurry, which is the worst possible time to learn it.

So the first attempt is a blast. You buy a list, write a template, load a sequence, and get a reply rate that makes everyone feel dirty.

Adam Kurzawa's response to that is short. That isn't outbound.

Adam has spent 14 to 15 years doing this inside agencies, and his version starts where trust already exists.

He means specific people. Past clients, buyers who moved to a new company, and the pitches you came second on. Following up on near-misses is how you get what he calls boomerang projects, the deal you lost that comes back a year later.

His motto is ABU, always be useful, which is doing a lot of work in a short phrase. Clients can smell desperation, and the difference between useful and needy is whether you're bringing something or asking for something.

Now, two practical things. Get off the screen, because coffee and office visits and conferences move relationships faster than any sequence.

And use the founder advantage while you have it. People take a meeting with a CEO far quicker than with a head of business development.

Take the free Bottleneck Score →

Meet the Guest

Adam Kurzawa is the Head of Business Development at Infinum, a digital product agency that builds products across B2C, B2B, and even IoT (stuff connected to real-world devices). Adam has spent 14–15 years in the digital agency world and is known for a relationship-first outbound approach that’s patient, practical, and way more human than the typical “spray and pray” playbook.

Before Infinum, Adam helped grow the North American team when it was smaller (he references the team previously as Expand The Room)—including lots of co-selling and partnerships.

Episode Summary

1. Outbound’s “origin story” (why it matters)

Adam’s big wake-up moment was the pandemic. He had agencies reach out basically saying: “Inbound is dead. We’re in trouble. We never built outbound.”

That’s when he saw the pattern: outbound gets ignored because it doesn’t give fast dopamine like marketing metrics do.

2. The main tension: agencies want short-term revenue… but outbound is slow

Outbound is a long game, and that’s the part people hate. You might nurture relationships for years before they convert.

“Outbound is absolutely unequivocally a long game.”

3. Their unique way of solving it: outbound that’s targeted, warm, and useful

Adam draws a hard line:

• “1,000 emails” isn’t outbound (unless you’re selling a very specific SaaS product to a very specific list).

• Agencies sell different things to different buyers—so outreach has to match that reality.

4. Start warm: past clients, old buyers, and the deals you nearly won

Here’s Adam’s approach in plain steps:

• Start warm (inventory first)

  • Past clients who already paid you

  • People who hired your team at previous companies

  • Referrals from people who already trust you

• Work “runner-up” deals

  • If you were a finalist and barely lost, keep in touch

  • Add value, stay present, and follow the timeline you already know from the proposal

  • That’s where “boomerang projects” come from

• ABU > ABC

  • “Always Be Useful” instead of “Always Be Closing”

  • Give without acting like every favor has strings attached

• Move people from cold → hot before outreach

  • Learn what they post on LinkedIn

  • Do deeper research (he even mentions people doing vertical deep dives on Reddit for honest “real talk”)

  • Then try to get a warm intro

• Warm intros done right

  • Don’t dump work on your friend

  • Write the intro note for them and make it easy to send

5. The SXSW conversation that died the moment he said “biz dev”

Adam shared a hilarious (and painfully real) story: he had a genuinely great two-hour conversation with a guy at SXSW, and the moment Adam said “biz dev,” the guy basically wrote him off.

Translation: leading with “I’m in sales” can kill the vibe—even when you weren’t selling.

“Ugh, you’re a sales guy?”

Fix: be a human first. Let the “what do you do?” part show up naturally.

6. Why a founder gets the meeting a head of business development doesn’t

Adam made a strong point: founder-led outbound is a cheat code.

People assume a founder conversation is peer-to-peer, not a pitch. If you’re under ~$10M, this matters a lot because you probably don’t have a big sales team.

“People will take a… meeting with a founder or a CEO before a head of business development…”

7. Land and expand, and getting the learning out of every loss

Two big operational lessons came through:

• Balance short-term vs long-term

  • When a revenue opportunity is in front of you, handle it first.

  • But the moment it’s handled, you have to snap back into outbound mode.

• As you scale, expand inside accounts + learn from losses

  • More clients = more chances to “land and expand”

  • Losing deals is part of the job, but you should squeeze learning out of every loss

  • If you’re a finalist (top 3), keep the relationship alive

He also shared a simple mental model for stability:

• Think of your business like a table with four legs (pillar clients).

• Lose one leg and don’t replace it? You get wobbly fast.

• The goal is constant backfilling—especially when the market is weird.

Notable Quotes

“That is not outbound.”

“Instead of ABC… it’s ABU, always be useful.”

“There are no quick wins.”

“Clients can smell [desperation] a mile away.”

Related Episodes

• Ep. 29: What Happens When Your Inbound Pipeline Disappears Overnight

• Ep. 26: How a Chamber of Commerce Lunch Turned 15 Attendees Into 4 Clients

• Ep. 27: The 4-Direction Partner Framework That Turns 3 Deep Relationships Into a Referral Engine

Learn More / Get in Touch

Visit → infinum.com

Email → [email protected]

LinkedIn → adam.kurzawa (his LinkedIn handle)

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Episode 30: How a Front-End Agency Grows Without Selling

David Hoos

Interview: Why the Best Agency Pipeline Comes From Real Relationships (Not Tactics)

Behind the Agency Podcast with TJ Pitre, Founder & CEO of Southleft

Watch

Prefer the highlights? Key takeaways and summary below.

TL;DR – Key Takeaways

• TJ didn’t “decide to start an agency.” He left a job (Martha Stewart) to freelance… and it naturally turned into a firm.

• The first year was basically one giant client (40 hours/week). Great cash. Huge risk. He knew it.

• His first “new” clients came from a tight network inside digital media—people moving between big publication brands.

• The real network wasn’t built in meetings. It was built after work: happy hours, coffee, being a normal human.

• TJ hates cold outreach. Not because it doesn’t work… but because it feels fake, and people can smell it.

• Their niche held up: front-end design/dev, especially design systems, component libraries, and API-driven front-end work.

• Tech changes constantly, so they focus less on “pick one framework forever” and more on: right tool + who inherits it.

• The goal isn’t hypergrowth. It’s a profitable, boutique team, low stress, and clients they actually like.

Does This Sound Familiar?

You're good at the work and you hate selling. Cold outreach makes you wince, and you're fairly sure the people receiving it can tell. So you don't do it, and the pipeline stays whatever your network happens to produce this quarter.

TJ Pitre isn't going to talk you out of that. His view is that if you go into a conversation trying to sell, most people sniff it out immediately, and the relationship is the thing you actually wanted anyway.

But his own start was riskier than it sounds. Southleft's first year was basically one client at 40 hours a week. Good money, and he knew exactly what it was.

So what replaced it wasn't a channel. His next clients came through a tight network inside digital media, people moving between publication brands, and that network got built after work rather than in meetings. Happy hours, coffee, being a normal person.

Now, the operational piece underneath it is the part that makes a boutique shop profitable. Southleft stays narrow on front-end work, design systems and component libraries, and boilerplate starters handle the first 20 to 35% of most projects. And TJ is clear that he doesn't want 50 employees, which is a legitimate goal that nobody puts on a website.

Take the free Bottleneck Score →

Meet the Guest

TJ Pitre is the Founder & CEO of Southleft, a front-end focused dev + design firm. They help teams build design systems, component libraries, and complex front-end experiences—often integrating with headless CMS setups (WordPress, Sanity, Contentful) and API-heavy ecosystems (CRMs, dashboards, authenticated apps).

TJ’s background blends art + design (he thought he’d be a comic book artist) with deep front-end development. Before South Left, he was Director of Front-End Development at Martha Stewart.

Episode Summary1. The “Accidental Agency” Origin Story

TJ’s path is the classic “I’m gonna freelance” story that turns into… a company.

He left Martha Stewart around 2012, moved back to New Orleans, and Martha became his first client for basically a full year at ~40 hours/week. That stability gave him room to grow—but also created a dangerous single-client dependency.

2. The Main Tension: You Can’t Fake Relationships

TJ’s whole growth philosophy is basically: if you’re trying to “get something,” people feel it.

He’s blunt about it. Most templated outreach feels gross. Even when someone tries to tell themselves it’s “not sales,” the intent leaks through.

“If you’re going into the conversation trying to sell, most people are gonna sniff that out.”

And that’s why his playbook is simple:

• be around people

• be real

• let business be the byproduct

3. Their Unique Way of Solving It: Front-End as a Specialty

South Left stayed focused on front-end when it was more niche, and they kept evolving with the industry.

They’ve done waves of:

• component libraries (the old days)

• Storybook + design systems (current)

• web components (a big focus now)

• headless/decoupled front ends

• API-driven UI: dashboards, authenticated experiences, CRM integrations

The through-line isn’t “we only use X framework.”

It’s “we build the front end right—and we build it so someone else can live with it after we leave.”

4. Start with who inherits the code, then work backward to the architecture

TJ’s decision model is super practical:

Start with who inherits it.

• What skills does the client team have?

• What will they maintain?

• Are they hiring more of that skill set?

Then work backward into architecture.

He also called out a very agency-real approach:

Boilerplates for the first 20–35%

• starter kits for Storybook/design systems

• starter kits for decoupled Next.js setups

• starter kits for WordPress patterns

Then adapt based on:

• the client’s existing tech

• whether it’s augmentation vs net-new

• what teams consume the system later

5. Networking like a vending machine

The big “cringe” is the fake networking / fake outreach thing.

TJ basically says: if you’re networking like it’s a vending machine (“insert friendliness → receive leads”), you’re doing it wrong.

His fix is a hard one for a lot of founders:

• stop trying to force an outcome

• prioritize the relationship even if no project comes from it

“I would rather choose a relationship over the project.”

6. Making Southleft less dependent on TJ’s own network

This part was subtle but important: TJ is actively trying to make South Left less owner-led.

Because if the company is “TJ’s network + TJ’s relationships,” the business isn’t very transferable or durable.

So even though he dislikes outbound personally, he’s willing to bring in help so the company can grow beyond him.

7. EOS, a 10-year plan, and success that isn’t 150 people

TJ uses EOS and has 1-year / 3-year / 5-year / 10-year plans… but not in the “money grab” way.

His version of success is:

• boutique-sized

• profitable

• low stress

• a team where he knows everyone

• a handful of high-end clients who value the work

He’s not chasing 150 people and $150M.

Notable Quotes

“If you’re going into the conversation trying to sell, most people are gonna sniff that out.”

“The relationship in and of itself is the thing that is really what you want.”

“Most of the business comes in through referrals… and stupid stuff I post on LinkedIn.”

“I don’t want to live a stressful life… If we can create that culture and harmony, then that’s success.”

Related Episodes

• Ep. 31: Why "Always Be Closing" Is Killing Your Agency Pipeline

• Ep. 34: How Fan Emails and Case Studies Built a 25-Year Agency

• Ep. 43: Why This Mobile Agency Tells Leads They Do Not Need an App

📞 Learn More / Get in Touch

Visit → southleft.com

LinkedIn → (TJ’s DMs are open; connect there)

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Episode 29: What Happens When Your Inbound Pipeline Disappears Overnight

David Hoos

Behind the Agency Podcast with Bram Van de Ven, Founder & Managing Director of Arfected

Watch

Prefer the highlights? Key takeaways and summary below.

TL;DR – Key Takeaways

• Bram didn’t plan to start an agency. He was deep in augmented reality internships and started experimenting when Snap/Meta opened up creator platforms for lenses/filters.

• His work started getting massive reach with almost no promotion—publish → snowball → millions of views.

• The “agency” happened because:

  • he ran out of hours

  • he needed skills he didn’t have (3D design, creative dev, 2D design)

• First client came from a Reddit post → someone DM’d → googled him → reached out on LinkedIn → turned into a 2+ year partnership.

• For the first 3–4 years, inbound was the engine: people found the work and came to them.

• 2023 changed everything (especially in NL): budgets dried up, and “experimental innovation” gets cut first.

• Bram had to shift from inbound to deliberate outbound—he’s literally in Dubai for a month doing coffee chats and building relationships to grow in the UAE.

• Another big shift: they widened services so much that the value got blurry, so they tightened positioning around a clear promise:

  • Gen Z ignores intrusive ads

  • “playable / engaging” ads earn attention and organic reach

• Partnerships have been a growth shortcut: in early years, building one agency relationship could unlock 5–10 client projects. Split evolved from 75/25 (agency/brand) to 50/50.

• Their internal AR “experiments” are a marketing asset:

  • one Snapchat lens hit 500M views

  • across platforms, internal projects totaled 8B views (yep, wild)

• They also benefit from ecosystem credibility: Meta and Snap list them on partner pages, which acts like instant trust.

• He’s thinking ahead about productizing parts of what they’ve built for stability—spin-off products with separate support teams, while the core team stays focused on experimentation.

Does This Sound Familiar?

The work found you for years. You published, people saw it, and the inbound was good enough that you never built anything else. Then the market moved and the phone stopped, and you realized your entire pipeline was a channel you don't control.

Bram Van de Ven had a better version of that than most. Arfected's augmented reality experiments got enormous reach with almost no promotion. One Snapchat lens hit 500 million views, and their internal projects have totalled around 8 billion views across platforms.

Inbound carried the business for the first three or four years on the back of that. Then 2023 arrived, budgets tightened, and the experimental part of a campaign is the first line anyone cuts. So none of the reach mattered.

His response is worth watching because it's unglamorous. He stopped waiting for requests and went out to find people, including a month in Dubai doing coffee meetings, which is a long way from a sequence in a tool.

And he fixed something else at the same time. They'd widened the service list so far that the value got blurry, so they tightened back to a clear promise. His shortcut for a small team is partnerships, where one good agency relationship can produce 5 to 10 projects.

Take the free Bottleneck Score →

Meet the Guest

Bram Van de Ven runs Arfected, an AR-focused studio/agency. He’s the kind of founder who didn’t say, “I’m going to build an agency.”

He said:

“I’m going to build cool stuff… and if it works, I’ll figure out how to keep doing it.”

That sounds casual, but it’s basically the origin story of a lot of modern creative studios.

Episode Summary1) The origin story (AR internships → creator tools → accidental agency)

Bram’s last internships were in augmented reality, right when platforms started letting creators build lenses/filters:

• Snapchat lenses

• Meta (Facebook/Instagram) AR tools

He started tinkering, publishing, and watching the work “take a life of its own.” The reach created an obvious opportunity.

But then reality hit:

• he didn’t have enough hours in the day

• he couldn’t execute the full vision alone

So he hired for the missing pieces: 3D designer, creative developer, 2D support—then grew into a 12-person team.

It’s like trying to play a full band show when you’re the drummer and the singer. Eventually you either recruit bandmates… or you stop taking gigs.

2) How he got the first client (Reddit is undefeated)

His first client found him because he posted links to AR experiments on Reddit.

Someone from an agency saw it, DM’d him, then found him on LinkedIn—boom, first client.

That turned into a 2+ year relationship.

This is one of those underrated lessons: the first “marketing channel” is often just proof in public.

3) Fast forward: the latest client came from outbound + being physically present

For years, inbound carried them:

“Someone saw our work and reached out.”

Then 2023 hit. Budgets tightened, and the first thing to die is the “cool experimental part” of campaigns.

Brands retreat to the safe stuff:

• basic Facebook / Instagram ads

• predictable ROI

• less innovation

So Bram changed how they hunted:

He got proactive—outbound, meetings, relationship-building.

He’s currently in Dubai for a month, doing business development in person (coffee chats, conversations, partnerships), and it’s been working.

There’s a misconception that “inbound is the only good way” and outbound is somehow inferior.

Real talk: inbound is amazing when budgets are loose.

Outbound is what keeps you alive when the market gets scared.

4) The hidden problem he caught: “We added services… and lost the value”

This part was sneaky and important.

They expanded from:

• Snapchat lenses + Facebook filters

to a wider menu:

• Instagram / TikTok

• web-based AR

• virtual stores

• photo booths

But the value started to get muddy.

So after 2023, they worked hard on positioning that translated the real benefit:

Gen Z doesn’t respond to intrusive ads.

They respond to ads that are fun, playable, and shareable.

Bram’s point is simple:

Interrupting people is expensive and annoying.

Letting them participate creates organic reach.

He gave an example:

• an Oatly filter that turned you into a “campaign hero”

• karaoke-style interactive element

• people could create their own story with it

Instead of passive consumption, it’s user-generated storytelling.

5) Partnerships: the “shortcut” that actually works

Bram said partnerships with other agencies were huge early on.

Reason:

• build one agency relationship

• that agency pitches your capability to 5–10 clients

• you get multiple projects off one relationship

That’s leverage.

Their business mix evolved:

• started around 75/25 agency-to-brand

• now closer to 50/50

He still values agency partnerships (volume + velocity), but he sees brand relationships as more durable long-term.

6) Where clients come from: inbound + referrals + partner ecosystems

Three “organic discovery” engines stood out:

1. Internal AR experiments (their own accounts)

   • one lens got 500M views

   • total internal reach across platforms: 8B views

2. Referrals

   • the usual, but still real

3. Meta + Snap partner listings

   • being listed acts like credibility on day one

   • “If Meta says they’re legit, that means something.”

That’s basically a trust transfer.

7) Looking ahead: productizing AR IP for stability

Bram talked about the founder anxiety that keeps you up at night:

Busy months → quiet months → repeat.

He wants something more stable, so he’s compiling ideas they’ve stumbled into that could become:

• a product

• a scalable service

• its own “spin-off”

He’s imagining a model where:

• core team stays focused on experimentation/building/iterating

• spin-off product eventually gets its own support team

• new entity scales without dragging the creative studio into customer support work

This is the “studio + product lab” move.

And it makes sense in a world where platforms change every five minutes and you need the team experimenting constantly just to stay current.

8) Bonus: internal experiments are now getting monetized

This was a fun little twist:

TikTok and Snapchat are starting to pay creators for filter usage:

• payouts based on volume of videos created with the filter

He said it won’t change their agency revenue dramatically, but it creates a new layer of value:

• case study

• marketing asset

• skill development

• and now… some direct payout

That’s like getting paid to practice your sport.

Notable Quotes

“2023 was an eye-opener… it was time to stop waiting for requests and actively look for people to work with.”

“The first thing that drops off is the innovative tech part of a campaign.”

“One popular Snapchat lens got 500 million views.”

“Across platforms, we’ve tapped into eight billion views… which is nuts.”

“Gen Z—intrusive ads don’t work. Fun, engaging ads do.”

Related Episodes

• Ep. 19: How One Agency Nearly Killed Its Referral Engine by Rebranding Overnight

• Ep. 31: Why "Always Be Closing" Is Killing Your Agency Pipeline

• Ep. 44: Sequencing Your Way Past the $2M Referral Ceiling

Learn More / Follow Bram

Bram said the best places to keep up:

• LinkedIn (to follow him personally)

• Arfected website + newsletter

  He said they send updates only when there’s something worth sharing (not spammy, more like occasional/quarterly-ish).

Want More Interviews Like This?

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