The Marketer's Exit

Deadpan has no employees, runs about four projects at once, and still keeps 40 to 50% of every project. Luke Winter explains how a bench of freelancers, a clear approval process, and a productized offer let him run a video studio from anywhere.

• Why Luke is still haunted by payroll from his old agency
• How a script-to-set process keeps clients out of the weeds
• What a freelance producer and a comedy editor are worth

0:00 – Intro

3:45 – Luke's background and 12 years in B2B video

6:39 – Why Luke did not want to start another company

8:50 – The Too Many Hats ads and the sitcom format

11:37 – Falling into the comedy niche

13:50 – How the team comes up with funny ideas

17:15 – Shooting American ads in the UK

21:22 – The approval process from script to set

22:37 – Productized packages vs retainers

24:32 – Running four projects at once with freelancers

25:45 – Why Luke has no employees

27:52 – Margins on video projects

29:03 – Costumes, props, and who keeps them

31:38 – Pricing and the $7,500 Comedy Kit

35:49 – Convincing B2B brands to go funny

38:09 – Safe brands vs unhinged ads

39:26 – When to turn down risk-averse clients

40:46 – Confessional: the scariest moment in business

43:57 – How a payment scare changed Luke's billing

45:28 – First-year revenue

46:30 – Running a UK crew remotely

50:12 – Underrated advice

53:10 – Overrated advice

54:27 – Where the name Deadpan came from

This episode is sponsored by Unbounce.

If you're running paid media and sending clicks to a generic homepage or a landing page nobody has touched in a year, Tas built the fix for that. Her Core Four framework is the only four landing pages your B2B paid media program actually needs, and she is giving away the Unbounce templates, the Figma files, and other helpful tools for free.

• Unbounce
• Grab the full toolkit here

#AgencyLife #FreelanceTeam #B2BVideo

Connect with the hosts:

• Tim Davidson
• Tas Bober
• The Marketer's Exit

Guest speaker:

• Luke Winter

Fletch started with $300 homepage audits and now charges $10K, $20K, or $30K depending on how much a company has raised. Anthony Pierri and Rob Kaminski explain how they raised prices, why almost nobody pushes back, and how they decide when to bend on a border case.

- How three pricing tiers replaced one flat rate

- What happened when sprints passed $7,500 and then $10K

- Why they now take one project each per week

0:00 Intro

6:29 Nine months of failed cold outreach

10:46 The headless CMS experiment that proved niching works

18:37 Spinning out of Headway

32:30 Why a co-founder matters

38:58 The “big baby” decision rule

50:37 Testing a cohort model

59:28 Revenue and pricing tiers

1:05:44 Underrated and overrated advice for going solo

#PricingStrategy #ProductizedServices #SoloConsultant

This episode is sponsored by ⁠⁠Unbounce⁠⁠.

If you're running paid media and sending clicks to a generic homepage or a landing page nobody has touched in a year, Tas built the fix for that. Her Core Four framework is the only four landing pages your B2B paid media program actually needs, and she is giving away the Unbounce templates, the Figma files, and other helpful tools for free.

Grab the full toolkit ⁠⁠HERE⁠⁠.

Connect with the hosts:

• Tim Davidson
• Tas Bober
• The Marketer's Exit

Guest speakers:

• Anthony Pierri
• Rob Kaminski
• https://www.fletchpmm.com/

The solo Q&A episode. We asked LinkedIn your biggest questions, and the community didn't hold back. Everything from PTO and hiring to referrals, origin stories, and what still feels uncomfortable years in.

0:00 – Intro

2:25 – How do you take PTO as a full-time solo

19:16 – Is there ROI in traveling to B2B events

29:30 – When did you know it was time to hire help

40:19 – How referral partnerships actually start ($50K earned)

48:33 – What made you go out on your own

55:07 – Is your primary offer still the same

1:03:18 – The most uncomfortable part of running solo

1:06:25 – Writing on social while still employed

#FreelanceMarketing #SoloConsultant #ConsultingLife

This episode is sponsored by ⁠Unbounce⁠. If you're running paid media and sending clicks to a generic homepage or a landing page nobody has touched in a year, Tas built the fix for that. Her Core Four framework is the only four landing pages your B2B paid media program actually needs, and she is giving away the Unbounce templates, the Figma files, and other helpful tools for free.

Grab the full toolkit ⁠HERE⁠.

Connect with the hosts:

• Tim Davidson
• Tas Bober
• The Marketer's Exit

Connor Lewis's revenue has gone from $114K in year one to $448K, to $858K, to pacing $1.3M in year four. What the numbers do not show is the year he was crying at Christmas, barely making rent in Boston, and seriously applying for creative director roles because he thought he had made a mistake. His then-girlfriend talked him out of it. He is glad she did. This episode covers all four years.

0:00 – Intro

4:47 – From video intern to a team of three at Predictive Index and the layoff that started everything

8:06 – Going all in on a $10K severance check with no sales skills and no LinkedIn presence

13:57 – Year one rock bottom: $70K revenue, 60-hour weeks, and applying for jobs at Christmas

17:22 – The pricing evolution and why Tas immediately told him $40K starting price was still too low

19:13 – What the full Studio Lewis deliverable actually looks like for a $40K engagement

25:09 – The workshop: $5K to start, applied as a credit, 60% close rate, and why it changed everything

29:09 – Choosing project-based over retainer and building an offboarding engine that drives renewals

40:24 – Iris, the first full-time hire, and what Connor does now instead of running shoots himself

43:05 – The $30K project that was never used, the on-set disaster, and the client who came back

#FreelanceMarketing #VideoMarketing #SoloFounder

Connect with the hosts:

• Tim Davidson
• Tas Bober
• The Marketer's Exit

Dave Gerhardt thought he was burnt out on B2B marketing. He was actually just burnt out on being alone. He had close to $1M a year, a community, a newsletter, a podcast, and nobody to complain to when something went wrong. This episode, live at the Exit 5 event in Stormont, is the most candid version of that story he has probably told.

0:00 – Intro

4:21 – Why the Drift return did not work and why being a disruptor to the existing team was not sustainable

6:54 – Solo consulting, $10K a month from a few companies, and why it felt like the answer

7:01 – DGMG to Exit 5: Patreon, Facebook group, flagship sponsors, and almost $1M solo

9:14 – Dharmesh as an OG Facebook member and the naming advice Dave took seriously

13:38 – Moving the community off Facebook, losing $30K a month, and doing it anyway

15:44 – Burning out and nearly walking away to start something completely different

16:22 – The email to Dan, the offer structure, and what happened when Dan saw the numbers

19:16 – Realizing he was burnt out on being alone, not on the work

21:21 – Building a team of nine and landing close to $5M with no outside capital

22:19 – What the creator plus operator model actually looks like day to day

30:13 – Momentum creates clarity and why waiting until you are ready is the wrong move

#B2BMarketing #CreatorEconomy #FreelanceMarketing

Connect with the hosts:

• Tim Davidson
• Tas Bober
• The Marketer's Exit

Eric MacColl spent 15 years climbing the in-house ladder from a paid search agency to Scripted to Lyft to Atlassian, where he watched his team grow to 60 people and realized he had stopped doing any actual marketing. He was being managed up and out of the work he loved. Four and a half years into running Demand Gen Solutions, mostly from referral business.

0:00 – Intro

0:55 – Agency to Scripted to Lyft to Atlassian and the Tom Brady on the sidelines moment

6:12 – How the first clients came in from former Atlassian colleagues

9:00 – 80 to 90% referral business and the network plays that made it possible

12:58 – Flat rate retainers, four-client cap, and how he manages scope creep

17:20 – Why he struggles to scale and why he keeps choosing to go deeper instead

22:10 – The Emily Kramer recommended contractor list and what it did for inbound

25:00 – The private equity portfolio model and why it reduces how often he has to sell

40:49 – The March gap, the tax bill he did not see coming, and the interview calls he started taking

47:09 – Why he does not post on LinkedIn and what happens every time he does

49:37 – $30K a month, a one-year-old, a new house, and why San Francisco keeps him from slowing down

#FreelanceMarketing #FractionalMarketing #SoloConsultant

Connect with the hosts:

• Tim Davidson – linkedin.com/in/tadavidson41
• Tas Bober – linkedin.com/in/tasbober
• The Marketer's Exit – themarketersexit.com

Eric Linssen spent years running Demand Collective as a paid community that stayed stuck at 80 members no matter what he tried. Then he got laid off, gave himself one quarter to make it work, switched to a free model funded entirely by annual sponsorships, and watched everything click. He is now 700 members in, has 9,000 newsletter subscribers, and runs it completely solo from San Diego. In this episode he tells the full story.

0:00 – Intro

3:27 – What Demand Collective is, who gets in, and why the membership criteria matter

5:22 – Six failed side hustles before this one, including a hot tub rental business and a TikTok analytics tool

8:41 – Why the paid model stalled at 80 members and what the pivot actually changed

11:11 – 700 members, 9,000 newsletter subscribers, and the Demand Day Summit with 1,600 registrants

14:39 – Why sponsorships work inside a community of marketers and how category exclusivity is handled

17:19 – The content philosophy behind the community: practitioner-first, no vendor bias, zero how-to fluff

23:42 – Annual contracts, five sponsors, and why shorter deals are a bad deal for everyone

29:22 – How much work it actually takes to run this solo and what a normal week looks like

59:04 – The camel vs racehorse framework and his advice on surface area for luck

59:56 – Would he go back in-house? The most honest answer any TME guest has given

#FreelanceMarketing #CommunityBuilding #SoloFounder

Links:

• Tim Davidson – https://www.linkedin.com/in/tadavidson41

• Tas Bober – http://linkedin.com/in/tasbober

• The Marketer's Exit – http://themarketersexit.com/

Before you sign your next brand deal, watch for these red flags.

Most brand partnership advice stops at getting the deal. This episode is what happens after: when to send the numbers, how to frame a renewal conversation, what to put in a contract, and the red flags that tell you a brand is going to be more trouble than it is worth.

0:00 – Intro

2:50 – Two-part performance reporting: one week out and one month out

5:13 – Impressions, saves, sends, and the qualitative callouts that make a report stand out

8:34 – When to use a deck versus a screenshot and how to match the format to the partnership

12:09 – Asking for a renewal and the one-sentence framing that keeps the door open

14:02 – How Tas has expanded her Unbounce partnership over three renewals by pitching what she was already going to create

19:09 – Hashtag ad, the brand toggle, and why Tas stopped using both

26:49 – Creative freedom as a non-negotiable and what happens when a brand starts editing your voice

33:00 – The walking billboard problem and how many sponsored posts is too many in one week

34:11 – Contract terms to watch for, payment red flags, and the impression-based pay deal to always decline

#BrandPartnerships #FreelanceMarketing #LinkedInMarketing

Connect with the hosts:

• Tim Davidson – https://www.linkedin.com/in/tadavidson41/
• Tas Bober – https://www.linkedin.com/in/tasbober/
• The Marketer's Exit – https://themarketersexit.com/

If you do not know what to charge for a sponsored LinkedIn post, this episode gives you a starting point and walks you through an actual brand partnership⁠ deck Tas sends to every brand that's resulted in $100k+ in brand deals. This is part 2 of the brand deals series, make sure to check out the others.

Tas' Brand partnership

Timestamp:

0:00 – Intro

1:02 – Starting out: letting the brand set the rate versus setting your own floor

3:46 – Tim's $1,000 minimum, the three-post bundle, and how he frames it as a discount

7:33 – How to use your consulting hourly rate as a filter for brand deal decisions

14:24 – Tas's full deck walkthrough: philosophy framing, social proof, and format options

20:35 – Stats from brand deals

25:17 – Starter, core, and flagship package tiers explained with real examples

1:00:41 – What to charge on top of the post: usage rights, thought leader ads, and resource hub listings

#LinkedInMarketing #BrandPartnerships #FreelanceMarketing

Links:

Tim Davidson – linkedin.com/in/tadavidson41

Tas Bober – linkedin.com/in/tasbober

The Marketer's Exit – themarketersexit.com

Brand partnerships on LinkedIn are not just for people with massive followings. Tas and Tim started landing them before they were big, and together they have made $161,000 from posts alone. This episode is the playbook, including pricing, pitching, the three-post rule, and small talk that turned into a two-year deal.

Timestamps:

0:00 – Intro

0:56 – Why this episode exists and what the $161K number includes

3:22 – Tim's first brand deal: UserGems, three months, $2,500 total

7:12 – The three-post rule and the slot machine logic behind it

11:03 – The Typeform post that went viral

13:34 – How Tas turned a landing page audit into a paid brand content format

17:23 – Four ways to get brand deals and which ones actually work

21:30 – Tas’s Unbounce partnership and how it started in a Riverside waiting room

24:49 – How to price your self

26:22 – What Tim does when a sponsored post underperforms

27:23 – Tas's highest single-post rate and what happened after it went live

This is part 1 of a 3 part series, stay tuned for the rest!

#LinkedInMarketing #FreelanceMarketing #BrandPartnerships

Links:

• Tim Davidson – linkedin.com/in/tadavidson41
• Tas Bober – linkedin.com/in/tasbober
• The Marketer's Exit – themarketersexit.com