Transcribed by AI

Intro 0:04

You're listening to dare to differentiate a podcast for business owners in crowded industries who want to learn how to rise above the noise. In this show, we focus not on doing everything for everybody, but I'm doing a few things for the right people with excellence. So if you're ready to leave the herd, then you've come to the right place. Let's get into the show.

Susan Tatum 0:26

Welcome back. I'm Susan Tatum. And today I'm talking with Jim Whoa. And Lucas Garvin cofounders, of the thought leader, agency and thought leaders Institute. Welcome, guys. Hi.

Unknown Speaker 0:39

Hi, Susan.

Susan Tatum 0:40

Nice to have you here. So, Jim and Lucas, today, we're talking about differentiation and focus, and you have what I think is a really well differentiated marketing firm. Can you tell us a little bit about how you started your business and how you achieved focus and what you're doing at the thought leadership, thought leaders Institute an agency now?

Unknown Speaker 1:05

Sure, this is Jim. And when we started the business, we had another name, it was called visit fi. And we started visit fi as a marketing agency. And we were we were pretty much like a lot of people do in the beginning sort of doing whatever came our way that sort of generally fit within the broad umbrella of digital marketing. So I had a previous business before visit fi that was focused on web design and development. And so just out of inertia, we sort of kept taking on web design clients as well. Lucas had a business, my co founder here, Lucas, had a business where he was doing marketing, but more in the SEO and paid search and things like that realm. And so we've kind of glommed all that together and just said, anybody that wants to hire us, we'll figure it out, we'll make it work. And, you know, honestly, should have known better going into that. But that's really a recipe for disaster. And so we ended up just really overextending ourselves, we had to be involved a few, there's huge, few huge things that happened with that is, we had to be involved in everything ourselves, because there's no way to systematize any of that to really have team take it over. So even though we did start to bring on Team pretty early, they couldn't help us because they needed to know the broad, you know, swath of everything that we knew. So we'd have digital marketing, I'm sorry, we'd have designers who could do the websites. But if we didn't happen to have any website work at that time, and we had SEO work at that time, we couldn't be doing anything. So it was kind of like, it was a little bit of a mess. In the beginning. Yeah. But we slowly decided that we will eventually not slowly but after a year or so of that, we realized that having a really defined audience with a really defined set of services was the way to go.

Unknown Speaker 3:04

And so I was gonna add to that briefly, you know, I think what was interesting about the journey is that it dawned on us in waves. And like, we didn't just arrive where we are today with our current messaging, and marketing and offers actually started with changing our offers, we decided, Hey, you know what, we're gonna stop doing websites, we're just going to go all in on marketing. And we're going to try to corral a specific scope of the type of marketing that we do. So that was like one of the first ways that we started to, to hone in a little bit more. And then, as we started to work with more and more marketing clients, we realized that there was really just a specific type of marketing client that we both enjoyed working with the most and got the best results for and that was, what we call experts and thought leaders. And that's sort of what led us to the direction that we're in today.

Susan Tatum 3:57

Did you go through any kind of formal exercise to in looking at your different kinds of clients across the board and figuring out which ones were ideal for you? Or did it just it just felt right, and you knew they were the right ones?

Unknown Speaker 4:11

Well, as it happened pretty organically at the time, but it's funny, you know, one of our one of our new programs that thought leaders Institute Business Catalyst, we actually just created a whole curriculum around this. And there's a really a criteria we discovered for deciding what we call who you help, right. So the people that you serve, and the first sort of criteria is do you care really and truly about helping that group of people? Are those that type of business and, you know, do they have a problem or a goal that you can help them with and that's important enough for them to pay you all for it? Right? And so like, just some of those kindness

Unknown Speaker 4:57

is all stuff that we'd sort of discovered like Lucas said organically but we've taken it, we would look back at what we did. And realize these are the steps that we actually followed, if we were to, you know, really look at it. And so we've taken it now and put it into this program. So we didn't at the time have a system. But we've we identified that we actually did follow some, some criteria,

Susan Tatum 5:21

something there was a path there. Yeah, yeah. So then now you're using that same sequence to help your clients focus themselves.

Unknown Speaker 5:31

Right? Exactly. Yep.

Susan Tatum 5:34

Okay, so you mentioned, when you were doing this, this somewhat broad array of services, that it was hard to, I guess it's hard to balance the workload and keep your people busy and have the right skill sets. Am I am I repeating correctly?

Unknown Speaker 5:55

Correct? For sure. I mean, we didn't want to have a business of a whole bunch of freelancers, we really that was that that's not to knock that business model at all, or that business structure. But it wasn't what we wanted for ourselves, we want really wanted to grow community, you know, like a company culture, and have a team that was a people that were working full time dedicated for us. And so when we with that philosophy, we kind of had to narrow the skill sets that were required to deliver the work that we do. Because we if we didn't have enough work for a full time designer, for example, it wouldn't make sense to have the full time designer on the team. Or if we were going to have a full time, you know, if we're going to be doing SEO or search marketing, that's a very specific skill set. And it requires it would require a whole person to be devoted to that when we didn't have the need for that. So yeah, yeah.

Susan Tatum 6:50

So what did you What did you end up, narrowing it down to the service of the services that you're focusing on? Are you still doing websites and SEO and all of that sort of stuff or not?

Unknown Speaker 7:03

That is all. Yeah, it was a painful decision to let that go. Because it did was good money and good experience and a lot of fun to do those things. over many years. And we helped a lot of people with it, we just realized that in order to move ourselves out of the doing of the business, we needed to narrow that down. And those were the first two to go first websites, and then eventually SEO and search marketing. And so now, as far as the done for you side of the business, which is the thought leader, agency side of the business, we are really narrowly focused on working with coaches and consultants who are typically at the earliest stages of their business. So under a million dollars more typically under half a million dollars, and who are looking at probably their first foray into online marketing, some people might have tried some, some programs before, and to try to do it themselves, but didn't really get the results that they wanted, or found that they didn't enjoy it. And it wasn't their, their core, you know, zone of genius, so to speak. Yeah, so wasn't really what they were best at the best use of their time. So we help them get really clear on who the things like we just talked about who they serve and how they serve them and, and where their people are, how they can reach them, what is what's the right language to use for, for speaking with them. And most of the work that we do for them in the agency we we actually do, it's a really, but it's a collaborative process. So we do all that foundational work, and then we actually take that and put it out into the market. So what that looks like, at the end of the day, simple terms, building funnels, automating emails, running, at paid advertising on Facebook to bring in leads, there's a lot more to it than that. But essentially, that's the high level.

Susan Tatum 8:53

Are they using just three acetate? Do your clients are you're not in the website business? Do they already have websites that pass your your test when they come to work for you? Or do you have strategic partners that do that for you? Or are you using Facebook a Facebook page as kind of the the home base there?

Unknown Speaker 9:18

I would say most of them either don't have a website or they have one. And it's okay. You know, the kind of work that we do over at the thought leader agency is highly direct response marketing sort of focused. And so the that line of marketing approach doesn't necessarily require you to have a website out of the gate. So we don't always tell our clients Hey, you know, you must have a website to start or, you know, we're gonna have to, you know, get a website built for you or anything, so we don't really focus on that a whole lot. That's more important once it comes time for them to scale and they need to have a Place where all of their what we call undated content are things like blog posts, podcasts, things like that would need to live when they're really scaling and building their audience.

Susan Tatum 10:11

Okay, interesting. So you said it was painful to turn down business, but you had to do it. So how did you make that happen? Where you're calling each other up in the middle of the night and saying, talk me off the ledge?

Unknown Speaker 10:28

Not quite well, Funny enough, you should mention that we actually at the beginning of the business, we were roommates. unintentionally, we Lucas moved to New York from his hometown of Savannah, Georgia, to start this up together, and was planning on sleeping on my couch for just a couple weeks. And it turned into two and a half years of couch to small corner of the living room was a Manhattan apartment. So it wasn't a whole lot of space to go around. Wow, work. So we were definitely supporting each other through that. But I mean, the biggest thing I would say to that is really, yeah, it was it was it was hard, because there was, you know, there were people that needed though, you know, the people that wanted us to do that for them, they needed the work done, and they were willing to pay us. So the combination of that that sort of innate desire to want to help people that I have, and I think a lot of us do in this kind of business. And coupled with the fact that Yeah, I'd love to have that that, you know, revenue. But we really just had to be strong. And I had people trying to convince me on calls, like, you know, just do one more before you stopped doing it. And I just had to say, No, we couldn't, it was it was tough,

Unknown Speaker 11:41

which is not an awful thing to have people trying to sell you on selling them something. But at the same time, I mean, that that was exactly it was it came down to, you know, we really want to run a certain kind of business that, you know, we can systematize and that we can build a team and a culture around. And that can allow us to serve a lot more people. And that, by the way, doesn't require our personal involvement every single minute with every single client.

Susan Tatum 12:14

Well, that, you know, I'm glad you said that, because that's another point you made earlier, one of you did about having to be the the two of you having to be personally involved in everything. Because it was so complex, I guess that there was there was no one else, you couldn't hire someone into the company to take that off your plate,

Unknown Speaker 12:35

not at a reasonable salary. And, you know, to have somebody that's so diverse in their skill set is a very high level person. And we just weren't there. We're still not I don't think we need someone at that level.

Susan Tatum 12:47

Well, but it seems like you thoughtfully eliminated things that were no longer necessary for you to hit your vision and it, it focused it on fewer things so that you you would have I'm just guessing here, you would have enough business to keep some full time people employed or busy in those areas that you chose to keep.

Unknown Speaker 13:12

Exactly, yeah. And in such a way that we can easily scale by bringing on like, we've we've systematized it in a way that that it is possible for one person to manage the work that's done for a single client. So we've set it up in a way that, you know, there's a position we have called a strategist, we also call them sometimes we call them a coach. So they're because they're a little bit of both for our clients. And we've set up also a training process to get them to the point where they come on board, and within two to three months, they are competent, and beyond that they're very talented in the key areas that they need to, to know and be good at to serve as clients. So we've really yeah, set up to scale.

Susan Tatum 14:01

So it's, it's, it's focusing and simplifying the otherwise ridiculously complex with too many plates that you're trying to keep going. Yeah. Do you find with your clientele that they have trouble focusing? Or do they tend to know in their heads what they wanna?

Unknown Speaker 14:19

Well,

Unknown Speaker 14:21

I'd say they tend to think that they're already focused or that they're already niched. But, you know, sometimes their definition of that is, you know, I help women get more healthy. Right, you know, and it's like, really, all women all over the world at any point, at any price point for any reason in any way. You know, like, no, it's not, it's not actually it. And, you know, so what we what we do is we, we help them craft, you know, their niche and we define your niche as basically, who you help, plus how you help, right and so it's not just the who you help. And then on top of that, we go another layer deep, where we say now we need to also create essentially what we call your ideal client persona, which is a very clear description of the exact kind of person who you want to work with, right? So there's who you help and how you help at a high level. And then there's exactly who you want to help, as in the type of person. So these

Susan Tatum 15:25

are subject matter experts, but are you consulting them on what kind of content they're doing? Absolutely. And so you're taking the the personas that they put together, that you've helped them to understand that these are my ideal clients, and this is how I want to help them. And from there, you can, you're giving them ideas or a framework to build the content that they need into that.

Unknown Speaker 15:53

Exactly. I mean, look, marketing in the modern world marketing online, requires focus, there's no way that you can, you can compete by being all things to all people. And on top of that, every market is saturated. So unless you know exactly who you are serving, how you're serving them, and not just who at a broad level, but exactly the kind of people, right, and then on top of that the exact transformation the exact results and outcomes that you intend to create for those people, then, you know, you can't market to them online, it would simply be either ineffective or far too expensive altogether. So what we do is we help them create all of that, and then it just makes everything else so much easier, right, you know, you can't write copy, effectively talking to, you know, 10 different kinds of people, it's just not realistic.

Susan Tatum 16:51

I see the same thing in my, my work with clients on LinkedIn is you get, the broader your target or your focus becomes, the more generic your messaging has to be. And then you get noise, you're adding to the noise.

Unknown Speaker 17:07

Even if you're offering something that a lot of people could benefit from and a lot of people could buy, you still need to speak to each of them separately, each of those audiences separately. You know, just like a car company wouldn't sell the same car to moms that that, you know, with the same message that they would sell it to, you know, 20 year old guys, you know, it's just different, right? I mean, it might be the same car. It wouldn't work, though. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 17:32

And if you think about, you know, in much broader markets, for example, you know, Panasonic made a Panasonic branded phone, would you be willing to pay 12 $100 for it like you would for an iPhone from Apple, probably not, doesn't have the brand. Yeah, it doesn't have the brand. But Apple's built that brand on a specialization and specific kind of devices that they build, and innovative devices that are different from the rest of the market. And that's why they can they can charge the prices that they do. And that's really important to know, you know, for example, when when Elan musk started Tesla, he said, I'm going to go for the high end market. And I'm going to do that by specializing in this specific kind of automobile. And I'm going to build this to a specific specification that this market would like, that's how Tesla was built. And now it's a massive Corporation and, you know, Say what you will about his leadership of the company, you can't deny that he's built an incredible brand around that. And he did it through specialization.

Susan Tatum 18:34

I also like his car.

Unknown Speaker 18:37

Anyone not so bad? No, no,

Susan Tatum 18:40

I used to be a jag fan. And now I'm now I want a Tesla. So you said every market is saturated? I and I that's interesting, because I I find that that's absolutely true. Where do you look for? How your clients would differentiate from that? Is it back? Is it back to the who you serve, and how you do it?

Unknown Speaker 19:04

There's a couple more elements that we would bring in. So one is their unique point of view. So what is it about them? So their message, you know, how, how is it that they are unique in the combination of so who they serve and how they serve them? Plus, like Lucas said before their persona, so exactly the type of person that they want to serve, that you add on to that their message, which is their combination of their point of view. So what is distinctive about that? How they see the world? What is it about what they bring to the table that's different, and then the way that they talk about their work and the transformation that it delivers, really sets them apart. So it's it the way to stand out is the combination of those things because nobody else can have that particular combination.

Susan Tatum 19:52

You know, I I've been noticing more and more of that to the unique the unique point of view, especially in a services Industry business is all about who you are, and how you view things that's going to make you different. Not the color your logo or whatever.

Unknown Speaker 20:11

Yeah, I mean, it's it comes back to point of view, that comes to your story. And it also comes back to how you talk about what you do, right? Like you can, you can go surface level with people, and you can say, Well, I help accountants get more clients. And that, that, that's great. That is, that is certainly specialization. But you could also go a little bit further, you can say, I help accountants get more clients by maximizing the power of LinkedIn messaging, whatever it is, right? And that's just that's different. that's a that's a deeper level of specialization. And what's beautiful about that is people respect specialization, so much, right, like, you know, and I won't get started on the healthcare industry, but I'll just give an example from that, you know, when you go in to see your regular MD, you know, you walk out having paid, you know, I don't know, 25 $50 copay, if you're lucky, you have good insurance, hopefully. But if you go and you have, you know, brain surgery, you paid the brain surgeon many 10s of 1000s of dollars, potentially, why specialization? Yeah, you know, depth of expertise. And not just that, but also, you know, they're solving a much bigger problem. That's another thing that we talk to our clients about as if you're solving small problems, you're gonna get a small pay, you know, and especially if you're in the services industry, right? If you're helping people, I don't know, set up one little thing, or accomplish one small goal, right? You're not going to get paid the big bucks, because you're not doing something that makes a massive transformation for their business or their life.

Susan Tatum 21:55

Yeah, yeah. So small problems are Yeah, aren't as scary or damaged, potentially damaging or even small opportunities are not that great, either. And you probably, there's probably a whole lot of people that can help you solve that problem. Right? goes to the brain surgery, surgery analogy,

Unknown Speaker 22:19

right? It's interesting. Well, this

Susan Tatum 22:22

is really interesting, guys, I appreciate you taking the time to be here. If any of our listeners want to follow up with you, and learn more about what you do. What's the best way to do that?

Unknown Speaker 22:34

I would say the best thing is, if you're looking for someone to help you with any of the stuff that we talked about, you could go to thought leader agency.com or thought leaders Institute calm and both of those have a free training available for you. That gives you a lot of insight into how we look at the world, our point of view, and how we do what we do and how we help our clients get the results that they get in the world. So you could check to either of those sites out.

Susan Tatum 23:06

Can we link to that in the show notes? So they could just go directly there? Absolutely. Okay, cool. All right. Well, as I said, thanks, guys, this has been really interesting. Thank you for putting view and I enjoyed it and I appreciate you, giving the time to help us out.

Unknown Speaker 23:24

You bet it's been great. Hey, care.

Susan Tatum 23:26

Sure Have a great weekend

Unknown Speaker 23:28

at YouTube. But

Unknown Speaker 23:29

a consistent flow of new business prospects is vital to the growth of professional services firms. The conversion company helps you find and engage those who are most likely to become profitable new clients, and avoid those who are not. To learn how we do it. Visit the conversion company.com

Unknown Speaker 23:48

you've been listening to dare to differentiate. To ensure that you never miss an episode, subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast player. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time,

Transcribed by https://otter.ai