Agency Growth Starts with Existing Clients

Agency Growth Starts with Existing Clients written by Jarret Redding read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Max Traylor

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interviewed Max Traylor, consultant, author of The Agency Survival Guide, and host of Beers with Max. Max helps marketing agencies rethink their approach to agency growth by focusing on agency upselling, client retention, and long-term relationship strategies.

During our conversation, Max shared powerful insights on why agencies should move beyond constantly chasing new clients and instead focus on cross-selling strategies and client upsell tactics to generate sustainable agency revenue. From the dangers of relying too heavily on retainer agreements to the benefits of project-based pricing and strategic marketing leadership, Max explains why aligning with clients’ business objectives is the key to profitable, long-term success in today’s fast-evolving digital agency landscape.

Key Takeaways:

• Successful agency growth relies more on deepening client relationships than constantly pursuing new clients.
• Agency upselling and cross-selling strategies should be treated as core parts of the agency sales process, not afterthoughts.
• Agencies should focus on providing marketing leadership services to guide small business marketing strategies, especially when internal leadership is lacking.
• Retainers often lead to scope creep and reduced agency profitability — project-based pricing offers better control and margins.
• Agencies that shift from transactional services to strategic marketing advisory roles build stronger, more resilient businesses.
• Regular client check-ins, focused on business goals rather than marketing metrics, unlock new opportunities for client upsell tactics.
• Pricing confidently — and aligning agency pricing strategies with value provided — helps agencies avoid the race to the bottom.

Chapters:

• [00:09] Introducing Max Traylor
• [01:29] Are Agencies in Trouble?
• [04:25] Leadership is Missing
• [07:00] Growing Revenue with Current Clients
• [11:46] Are Retainers the Right Way To Go?
• [15:36] Productizing Your Services
• [18:01] Advice on Starting a Consulting Service Today

More About Max Traylor: 

• Check out Max Traylor’s Website
• Connect with Max Traylor on LinkedIn
• Read Consultants Survival Guide by Max Traylor

Duct Tape Transcript

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John Jantsch (00:01.009)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Max Traylor. He helps agencies upsell and cross sell their existing clients. His approach centers on building relationships with decision makers and aligning with their business objectives, which ultimately leads to long-term retention and growth. Max is also the host of beers with Max podcast where he interviews other agency advisors and the author of the agency survival guide book.

series. So Max, welcome to the show.

Max Traylor (00:32.11)

Yeah, I didn't realize the intro was so long when I was writing it. But yeah, you nailed it. You got it all. What do do now?

John Jantsch (00:37.273)

I cut some out, believe it or not.

You know what? I stumbled on my name, actually, because this is my third show today. So I think I'm struggling. So did I also see you drink a beer?

Max Traylor (00:49.912)

Yeah.

No, that was water. Uh, well you, you caught me with some, uh, cambocha, you know, cause for the gut. Yeah, me too. But I, you know, I'm on, I'm on 10 and a half weeks, uh, after breaking my foot and I got out of the boot. got out of the big walkie boot thing two days ago and, yeah, beer does not help with the healing of bones. So I'm really trying. Um, I'm really trying.

John Jantsch (00:54.183)

I know, that a runner.

okay. All right. I was kind of hoping it was a beer,

John Jantsch (01:06.727)

yeah. wow. Wow.

John Jantsch (01:14.971)

I'm I'm out, out, I'm out.

Yeah, yeah. No, no, you, got to do it. You got to get back out there. So there's a lot of intrepidation in the agency world right now. I'm seeing, you know, a lot of, our mutual friend, I think I saw you comment on, Marcus Sheridan had a recent post, basically saying the, agency world is over that, you know, AI is replacing a lot of the things that agencies traditionally have done. Where do you stand on, on that? kind of sky is falling.

Max Traylor (01:23.406)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (01:49.255)

approach.

Max Traylor (01:49.856)

Yeah, I I was, I was, I was saying that 10 years ago. and that's when I started is 10 years ago. So I think, I think there's always a healthy dose of one thing going out the door, but you know, I, I was originally, I was seeing what was going on in, in the, in the Martech boost. So you got a lot of, it reduced the barriers of entry for agencies down to zero. So a lot of new entries into the market.

John Jantsch (01:53.925)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (02:11.867)

Yeah, yeah, Sure.

Max Traylor (02:18.786)

They knew how to design things because it was, you know, CMS world of like low code sites. So people could look like they knew what they were doing very easily. And it causes prices. caused prices to drop across the board. Then you had that surge of, gig network websites, which I think was the first sort of chop at the tactical deliverable.

John Jantsch (02:22.961)

Yeah, right.

Max Traylor (02:43.31)

work that agencies were doing and then I think I think AI just gave it the you the one to knockout punch on On that one. So yeah, I would yeah

John Jantsch (02:49.285)

Yeah. you also, I would say a version in there, squeezed in there somewhere, is you had all the folks that had a team in Philippines doing work and that really eroded pricing as well.

Max Traylor (03:04.054)

Yeah, sure. Yeah. just all the but I mean, I've always been in on team strategic work. I think that the the value of a third party is in their expertise, not what they can do. And the the doing of things will always go up and down in terms of you need a specialist to do it or some piece of technology just took that person's job. I think it's very difficult to have a long term sustainable professional service business.

where the service you provide is constantly changing, whether that's being taken by AI or whatever it is. But if you have something strategic, if you specialize in understanding the way people buy, I mean, that might change a little bit over the course of 10 years. And that's where you can really build up some expertise and monetize it.

John Jantsch (03:37.671)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (03:50.821)

Yeah, you you see, I've been doing this for a long time. So I've seen the wave of digital marketing agencies, social marketing agencies, know, that just like kind now you're seeing AI agencies, people just kind of hopping on the latest train, and they eventually all get wiped out.

Max Traylor (04:09.42)

Yes. the train does leave the station eventually and you're caught reinventing yourself. Nobody knows who you are. you're, you're, you're, cutting, cutting prices. Yeah. So, that's, that's sort of the narrative that I keep talking about is like, be careful aligning yourself with the tactical work. will constantly changed. It will constantly be undercut. is low margin. It's volume game.

John Jantsch (04:14.503)

Yeah.

Max Traylor (04:37.056)

And unless you're a volume player, which most of us in this game are not, then we're going get hurt out there.

John Jantsch (04:43.975)

So I have been preaching that because I think what's happening is not only strategy become more important. think especially in the small to mid-sized business that really doesn't have a marketing structure, certainly no marketing leadership, that actually providing marketing leadership as a service I think is sort of the next level of what being strategic means. I'm curious what you think about that idea.

Max Traylor (05:09.474)

Yeah, I agree with that. However, I continue to find that leadership in general and decision making in general is at an all time low. So if the idea is that we're going to provide marketing leadership and come up alongside sales leadership, product leadership, what I'm finding is that leadership just isn't there.

There's rarely a defined decision-making process. There's rarely a delegation of authority to the members of that leadership team. There's nothing that says, this is the information we're going to look at, and we're going to make a decision every quarter for our budget in this regard. So if that's not there, then what are you coming up alongside as a marketing?

John Jantsch (06:01.799)

Well, I guess my point is, is I agree with you. there's nothing to come alongside. So why don't you bring it to them?

Max Traylor (06:10.412)

Yes. And, so with a yes and, because I don't think the, I don't think your task is to bring marketing leadership. I think your task is to bring leadership and you should be prepared for the first time to facilitate a leadership planning session. So I think it's one, I think you need to skip, or just recognize that you're, you're not just leading marketing as the person that

that owns that space, you're also needing to facilitate probably for the first time, a decision making process, a planning cadence. And so you need to be well versed in the other departments in the business and you can't, you can't just assume that everything's going to function the way you think it should function.

John Jantsch (06:57.113)

I think you should assume completely the opposite. Of course.

Max Traylor (06:59.662)

Yes, assume complete dysfunction. is the way. Sometimes I talk to smaller agencies and they believe that going up market, those clients are going to have their stuff together. You and I both know that it's more chaotic the larger the organizations get, which makes it a lot easier to provide value in a strategic way because they're so dysfunctional.

John Jantsch (07:12.773)

Yeah, yeah,

John Jantsch (07:24.391)

Yeah. Yeah. It's just more meetings. It's what I've found. Yeah. So let's, let's get to your favorite topic. Shall we? I know that you have been for some amount of time talking about this idea of here's an idea. You've got a client already. Why don't you get more business out of them? Scale the relationship that you already have. So talk a little bit about, and I know you've got some success stories you could talk about.

Max Traylor (07:27.95)

It is more meetings. That's correct. Yeah. So you got to charge.

John Jantsch (07:52.699)

But talk a little bit about that mindset shift even.

Max Traylor (07:56.386)

Yeah, I mean, we want to make, we want to make revenue. Let's start there. We can all agree. We're at the, we're at the fireplace. Cool. you get revenue from two sides of the business. You get new clients and you upsell cross sell to existing clients. That's the only way to get revenue. That's the only way to grow revenue. And all of the studies are showing a downward trend in the number of new meetings, a downward trend in the number of new logos coming on. is getting harder.

John Jantsch (08:24.005)

Mm.

Max Traylor (08:25.518)

person I was interviewing the other day had some study in his hand. all do. it was meetings are across the board down 30 % in 2024 and it's only getting worse in 2025. The numbers are irrelevant. Just go ask people. You and I talked to enough people. New logos are getting harder. That's the theme of 2023, 2024. Everything was sunshine and rainbows before that. So my question to everyone out there is when new logos are hard,

why can't we look at upsell cross sell as a reliable revenue growth engine. And the reason is, no one's paying attention to it. No one's incentivizing for it. No one's training for it. No one's holding people accountable. We're completely asleep at the wheel. It's as if we hired a bunch of salespeople without incentivizing them or training them. And by the way, they've never worked in sales before. That's what's going on in the agency space.

John Jantsch (09:23.015)

All right, so let's talk about mistakes on this, because that seems like a simple concept, but it also seems like there's ways to screw it up. Because I've seen agencies that have business development folks, and they're like, no, that's my job. But they have no real relationship with the client, whereas the account manager or whoever, project manager, whatever you call them, is working with the client every day.

How do you see that working? Is it a business development function or is it train your account managers to look for opportunities?

Max Traylor (09:53.134)

I think that if it had to be a business account function, that would be better than it is today because I don't see what you've just described where an account executive that is responsible for a revenue quota is going, okay, I could sell to new logos. Okay, my pipeline's a little dry. What do we have for existing clients? Who can I upsell there? That is not the mindset because what typically happens is the principal assigns

And I say assigns in big sarcastic quotes, assigns upsell cross-sell client retention to the services side of the business. And it's actually a no fly zone. It's a no fly zone. It's a don't go there. It's not your job. You won't be incentivized for it. That's the attitude towards the sales team in an effort to, make sure they focus on getting new logos.

And so honestly, if, if we just broke down the barriers and just admitted that our service people aren't willing to aren't willing or able at the moment to pull their weight and upsell clients and you just unleashed the sales team on existing clients, I think they'd get pretty far. I think they do pretty well. But it's not happening.

John Jantsch (11:06.799)

Yeah. Yeah. How, how, are they going to identify the opportunities? mean, theoretically, the account executive is in there going over the way they should do this. We should do this. Here's an opportunity. How does, how does the sales person can identify those?

Max Traylor (11:20.618)

I don't care who it is, but to identify sales opportunities, you ask questions. And right now agencies are spending months, if not years, not asking questions at all. They're delivering reports on clicks and whatever we think the client says is their business objectives, which they're never, we're never delivering against business objectives. We're delivering some marketing metric.

John Jantsch (11:24.881)

Yeah, yeah.

Max Traylor (11:43.722)

We're talking about the things that we have delivered. We haven't had a business conversation since the sales process. That's the reality for most clients. So I don't care who does it. I don't care what dress you put on it. I don't care if you bring in a third party. If it's sales, you come in and you say, hey, I want to ask you some questions about your business. What are you? What are you? What initiatives are you investing in across the board? Let's talk about sales. Let's talk about product. Let's talk about.

finance, let's talk about anything that's not marketing. Like let's, let's just, let's talk about real stuff here. You ask questions, you understand what they're spending money on. And then you say, Hmm, how can I add value, to those business objectives? Like that's what sale that sales. So that's what we got to do.

John Jantsch (12:27.399)

Yeah. So a lot of agencies structure their fees around retainers. I know how you feel about this. So I'm just going to let you have this one. What about, what do you tell that agency says, well, we're locked into this retainer. I, I, I'm, I'll set you up. think you think retainers are not the right way.

Max Traylor (12:38.766)

Did I say that before? I don't know.

Max Traylor (12:52.182)

Well, like, you know, when you go bowling and there's the people with the bumpers? Yeah, yeah. Or or or you're riding a bike and there's training wheels. Yeah. Retainers are for the non confident. Retainers are a trade off. First of all, we all know that any retainer relationship is going to get less profitable as time goes on because the client is incentivized to get more and more from you for what they're paying. Great. So profitability goes down.

John Jantsch (12:58.95)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (13:19.111)

Yeah.

Max Traylor (13:22.104)

The other challenge is it's nearly impossible to grow or expand that account when you're on retainer, because the whole point is we're on retainer and you get whatever you need from us. So there's no upsell. Retainer also breeds this sort of complacency throughout the entire account team. And all they're thinking about is how do I hang on to this? It's a very defensive posture. Ultimately, the client starts to gain control. They start to set

scope and tell agency what to do. You've lost control, you're done, you're going to lose that account. So you see a lot of agencies that are not confident in their upsell motion go after retainers. And honestly, I think it's a false sense of security because if a client is going to cancel after month three, they're going to cancel. The fact that you have a contract that lasts a year is completely irrelevant. They could berate you across the internet and you'll be begging to get out

track. So let's be real. What is much more profitable and naturally breeds upsell is projects. Everybody hates projects because you have to keep selling them. There is a middle ground. I always tell agencies, look, you want to have that long term conversation. You want to create a roadmap that aligns with their business objectives for the course of the year, because that's when they decide how much budget is going to be allocated to say marketing.

John Jantsch (14:23.377)

Yeah.

Max Traylor (14:47.538)

But what I wouldn't do is say, OK, here's exactly what I'm to do with that budget for the course of the year. I'm going to say, look, we as as an as your new marketing leader and I know organization that you don't have a cadence, but as your new marketing leader, I suggest that once a quarter we as a leadership team get together and decide how this budget will be allocated. Will create a plan that says here the goals here are the roles, the timeline, the budget considerations.

John Jantsch (15:08.817)

Yeah.

Max Traylor (15:17.27)

And what that does is it gives you the benefit of a project because you can scope that out very defined. So you maintain your margins and you maintain control of the client account, but it also forces the leadership team, the budget holding decision makers to come to the table once a quarter and you sit and you listen.

John Jantsch (15:33.574)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (15:40.241)

So this sort of relates to that. We work with a lot of, end up, I have ended up having a lot of conversations with agencies that feel like they, you know, they can't get what they're worth or what, you know, they're always in this competitive environment. How do you, a lot of times it's just, they won't charge what they're worth. You know, because they're afraid they won't get the work.

Max Traylor (15:59.446)

Yeah, honestly, step one, you don't even have to you don't have to pay me you don't have to pay john just raise your prices like you'll it's a sobering exercise. There's there's someone there's somewhere in between what you're charging today, and what you're worth and you got to find that but yes, that's that's step one for many people.

John Jantsch (16:05.221)

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (16:17.575)

Seth Godin in his last book, and I never heard this put so succinctly. said, you know, pricing is how you pick your clients and how you pick your competitors. And I was like, yeah, that's, that's very real.

Max Traylor (16:31.212)

Yeah, yeah, my dad always said, you know, if you get a yes, that all you've learned is that you didn't charge enough. No is the beginning of getting to the price that they're willing to pay.

John Jantsch (16:38.627)

Right.

John Jantsch (16:45.243)

We went through a period and I don't know if we're out of it or still in it, know, where a lot of agencies were very much trying to productize their approach, you know, package their approach, their deliverables, you know, that they could say, well, if we charge this for this deliverable, we know what our margin is. Where do you fall on that type of approach? I still see a lot of it. It seems like it's waning a little. Where do you fall on that?

Max Traylor (17:06.956)

Yeah, I mean, my first book was how to productize your consulting services. I mean, I think the term productize gets confused a lot. What I really mean is be an adult responsible service provider. Like you can't just say it's chaos. You can't say it's different for every client. No, grow up. You need a service process. Of course, clients are going to get, you know, different deliverables and things, but you have to decide these are the companies I'm working with.

John Jantsch (17:10.041)

Right. Yeah.

John Jantsch (17:14.789)

Yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (17:23.675)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Max Traylor (17:35.362)

this is the process we're going to use to deliver the value and you have to make some decisions on on what you know, piece of the value proposition that you want to contribute to. So I for years, there's been a general lack of decision making on positioning and on service process. It's been complete chaos. So yes, I've used that term product ties just to say you deliver the same thing to the same people for the same price or you don't have a business. have operational chaos. what I've, what I,

John Jantsch (18:00.945)

Yeah, yeah.

Max Traylor (18:03.35)

I guess what I've seen is yes, more and more companies have done that. let's say 10 years ago, sales consultancy world was very mature in this area. The world did not need another sales methodology, right? There was 25 million books on this is the sales methodology and clients got tired of that. They were like, look, I don't care what, I don't care what your methodology is. Just what are you going to do for me? Marketing was about 10 years behind. had 10 years of taking chaos into these named.

John Jantsch (18:17.339)

Mm-hmm.

Max Traylor (18:33.07)

methodologies and this is our inbound thing. Now every buzzword in the English language has been claimed. Clients are fatigued. Yes, I think there's no longer this. we have this proprietary named thing. So no, I don't think there's that there's that lure to it from a sales standpoint, but you still need to create that product mindset within your services team to get

to get repeatable operations, to be able to set and meet expectations with clients. You still have to do it. It's just not like, it's not, you're not putting it in bright lights and going, look at what we can do. It's like, yeah, I look AI can tell me that too.

John Jantsch (19:13.37)

Right.

All right. So your answer may be don't, but if somebody were listening to this and saying, I'm going to start a consulting agency today, how, would you tell them? Where would you tell them to go? What would you tell them they had to have to be thinking about? What would you tell them they possibly, you know, can't possibly do?

Max Traylor (19:40.642)

Well, the first thing I would do is ask myself, where do I have experience? My grandfather always said, you have to know the territory. And the worst thing that people do, like you have perfectly capable business owners out there that start agencies, but they go through this phase of, we're going to see what works. And, you know, they ask for some referrals and they'll spend years in chaos, not really developing an identity for themselves and whatever identity they do develop.

completely tactical, replaceable, marginalized by people in decision making seats. So they have to just look at their career and say, what business acumen do I have? Okay, I'm going to do that. And they have to make that scary decision. And when they make that scary decision, you got to spend the first year talking to as many people as you can in that space, figure out what they need, do that for them. Those are those are the basics that I just don't see.

people, people do. I think you can develop an incredibly successful business if you A, choose your target market and B, are relentless about speaking to them, understanding what their needs are. those two things. I think you're good. think, I think agency is in a great place. but not for most given the mindset that I encounter, you know, day in and day out.

John Jantsch (20:54.748)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (21:02.053)

Yeah, I said a billion times, people don't care, don't want what we sell. They want their problem solved. I think that's what, that's what we have to continue to focus on. Yeah.

Max Traylor (21:10.188)

Yeah, so you are you are problem finders. So you got to your thing, you got to go figure out what their problem is. And then you got to help them solve the problem. I would I would still say that, you know, there are are two steps to solving a problem. It's helping the client understand how to solve that problem. That I think is where the money is. That's selling knowledge that's selling expertise. Then there's the doing of that thing. That's the commoditized area that's either going to be my AI or, you know, shark.

John Jantsch (21:27.463)

Yeah.

Max Traylor (21:39.278)

Price chopped chum water with.

whatever generation is entering the market now, I can't keep track of it. But those guys, those people.

John Jantsch (21:47.431)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Max Traylor (21:55.197)

Uh-huh. But they're out there cutting prices is what they're doing.

Max Traylor (22:09.046)

As a great new social network, LinkedIn. Yeah. Max trailer, LinkedIn. I'm always saying opinionated things and posting videos.

John Jantsch (22:11.717)

Yeah, okay. Yeah, that's

John Jantsch (22:17.605)

Yeah. No, your, your feed is, is, lively and interesting. How's that? That was a tough one. Okay. That's how it was, man, as well. Again, thanks for stopping by. Hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Max Traylor (22:23.458)

Thank you.

Max Traylor (22:26.978)

Yes, I took it as such.

Max Traylor (22:35.054)

Cheers.

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How Small Businesses Win on Reddit in 2025

How Small Businesses Win on Reddit in 2025 written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Jim Squires

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interviewed Jim Squires, Executive Vice President of Business Marketing and Growth at Reddit. We explored how small businesses and marketing agencies can tap into Reddit’s communities to build authentic engagement, run effective Reddit Ads, and grow their brands through community-based marketing. Whether you’re looking for tips on Reddit organic engagement or want to maximize Reddit advertising for your business, Jim shared actionable strategies every small business owner and digital marketer should know.

During our conversation, Jim highlighted how Reddit marketing strategies differ from traditional social media marketing. With over 100,000 active Reddit communities, businesses can reach highly engaged, niche audiences in ways that simply aren’t possible on other platforms. From interest-based targeting to upvote/downvote dynamics that prioritize authentic content, Reddit for businesses offers a unique opportunity to build community trust while driving both awareness and conversions.

Key Takeaways:

• Reddit is a community-driven platform where users gather around shared passions and interests, creating valuable opportunities for niche marketing strategies and online community marketing.
• Unlike traditional social platforms, Reddit’s upvote/downvote system ensures the most helpful and engaging content rises to the top, rewarding brands that embrace authentic brand voice and transparency.
• Small businesses can launch targeted campaigns quickly using Reddit Ads, benefiting from interest-based targeting that puts their message in front of the right communities without needing large budgets.
• Reddit Pro, a free tool, helps businesses monitor trending conversations, track competitor mentions, and identify new content strategies through the Reddit trends tool.
• Combining paid Reddit advertising with organic Reddit engagement allows businesses to build community trust while driving both brand awareness and sales.
• For marketing agencies, Reddit offers unique reach into hard-to-access communities, especially for B2B marketing and localized small business marketing.
• Successful brands on Reddit embrace transparency, engage directly with users through formats like AMAs, and avoid overly polished or sales-driven messaging, which is heavily discouraged by community self-promotion rules.
• As online conversations and trust become critical to customer decision-making, Reddit offers small businesses a chance to be part of the dialogue in a way that builds long-term credibility and customer loyalty.

Chapters:

• [00:09] Introducing Jim Squires
• [00:56] How Does Reddit Differ From Other Platforms?
• [04:20] Impact of Search on Reddit
• [05:54] Best Practices for Businesses on Reddit
• [08:17] How Does Advertising Fit in on Reddit
• [10:52] Getting Organic Reach on Reddit
• [13:05] Small Business Mistakes on Reddit
• [15:47] How to Measure Success on Reddit
• [18:34] Meeting People Where They Are

More About Jim Squires: 

• Check out Jim Squires’ Website
• Connect with Jim Squires on LinkedIn

This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by

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Duct Tape Transcript

Email Download New Tab

John Jantsch (00:00.981)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Jim Squires. He's a Reddit's EVP of business marketing and growth. He oversees the strategy and expansion behind Reddit's marketing efforts as they relate to our growing advertiser base. So their growing advertiser base is probably what I should have said. Jim, welcome to the show.

Jim Squires (00:23.662)

Hi John, it's great to be here.

John Jantsch (00:25.437)

So I told you off air that I had Alexis on the show about five or six years ago. He's no longer involved at all, In Reddit, Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So let's talk a little bit about, you know, I think Reddit has started to get lumped into social platforms. I'm not sure that's where they started. It certainly has its own.

Jim Squires (00:35.975)

Correct. Yep. Steve Hoffman is our CEO and founder actually from the very beginning.

John Jantsch (00:53.579)

personality, I guess, if you will. So talk a little bit about how the unique culture at Reddit on the platform kind of differ, is different from say LinkedIn and Facebook and some other social platforms.

Jim Squires (00:59.97)

Yep.

Jim Squires (01:05.176)

Yeah, yeah, it is unique. It's a very different platform. It is, I describe it as a community of communities. And so you've got a hundred thousand plus active communities, everything from gaming to gardening, tech to travel, investing to interior design, really anything that you can think of is on there. And so people organize around their interests and their passions.

And it's very different from other platforms in the sense that even the dynamics, there's not likes on the platform. There's up votes and down votes, which means that only the really universally valuable, interesting things float up and get distribution. The stuff that's really divisive or controversial gets a lot of up votes and down votes and then never gets anywhere. So it feels very different. It's anonymous. So people use pseudonyms on the platforms. And so there's a lot of different dimensions, but the biggest thing

John Jantsch (01:38.923)

Yeah, right.

Jim Squires (02:02.318)

to think about is those communities and the passion and how people organize around that.

John Jantsch (02:05.525)

Yes.

Yeah, and really niche, right? mean, like subreddit, subreddit, subreddit of, you know, a very small community, right? But the people that are in that community are not just casual passerbys. I mean, they are like totally into it,

Jim Squires (02:21.838)

Yeah, yeah. I you have massive communities. There's communities like be amazed or which car should I buy that have millions of people in them. And then to your point, you can go super niche and super deep into specific categories as well. So it really runs across the board.

John Jantsch (02:33.953)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (02:41.825)

So in terms of communication, engagement, participation, how would you say, you know, there in the early days, particularly, there was kind of this vibe of like behave here and be a good citizen or, know, you'll get kicked out kind of thing, as opposed to say, I don't know, all comers on Twitter or something, you know, might've been. So I'm sure as Reddit has grown, you know, some of that's probably gone away, but would you say that that, that sort of DNA still exists? Yeah.

Jim Squires (03:10.218)

It definitely does. It is a, part of what I was describing before with this up vote, down vote dynamic that keeps bad behavior from bubbling over because it just, you're just not rewarded for doing anything in that, in that area. You've got moderators for each of the communities that have their, their own rules and they govern how that community is going to, to engage. so,

John Jantsch (03:24.107)

Yeah, yeah.

Jim Squires (03:35.822)

between the rules of engagement and knowing that if you're going to step out of line or behave poorly, one, no one's gonna probably see it, and two, the moderator might ban you or take you out of that community. So it really keeps things positive and helpful for people.

John Jantsch (03:47.445)

Yeah, and-

John Jantsch (03:52.85)

And, poorly is not just calling people names. mean, it's self-promotion too, right?

Jim Squires (03:57.294)

That's exactly right. People, and this is great advice for small businesses as well, is people don't, which is not unlike anywhere, even in our personal lives, they don't like to be marketed to. They want to be spoken to. They know there's humans behind these businesses and the more you can show that humanity of the business and engage with people in a way that doesn't feel like you're just being salesy or too overly polished, that resonates really well, especially on Reddit.

John Jantsch (04:07.809)

That's right.

John Jantsch (04:25.451)

Yeah. So one of the things that it's probably been going on longer, but certainly has been very noticeable maybe for the last three years is that, you know, Reddit used, it feels like Reddit used to exist in its own universe. And now you can't do a Google search that doesn't usually turn up some Reddit conversations. So how has that changed the dynamic of the platform?

Jim Squires (04:45.772)

Great. Yeah.

It has, mean, it's interesting because Reddit's been around for 20 years doing its thing. And there actually is just this rich repository of all these conversations that have happened over 20 years. But it really has become even more important and it's having a cultural moment right now because, and my view on this is because there's so much AI-generated content and search, AI-generated search results pages and

John Jantsch (05:09.013)

Yeah.

Jim Squires (05:18.616)

People have grown tired of paid influencers. They see through that and they're much more savvy on being sold to. And so there really is this desire to have a more authentic connection, really hear from people, hear their real opinions about things. And so many people, to your point, they come in through a search. they're looking for, they're going camping and they're getting into camping. Gear is a really big part of any hobby and passion that you have.

John Jantsch (05:46.849)

Yeah, yeah.

Jim Squires (05:48.268)

looking for something in particular, Reddit pops up in the search results and then they find themselves now in these conversations. So a lot of people discover Reddit through search and then they stay for the community because they realize, wow, there's so much more here beyond just that camping gear I was just looking for.

John Jantsch (06:04.651)

Yeah. So, however, commerce is happening, right? on Reddit. So, so let's talk a little bit about, if I'm in a small business and I thought, I'm playing on all these other platforms. How can I get into Reddit? Or if I'm an agency and I'm thinking, you know, how do I bring my clients, and get value out of Reddit? You know, I'm sure it depends on the business and the niche and what your goals are.

Jim Squires (06:10.188)

Right, it is, definitely.

John Jantsch (06:29.877)

But in general, is there kind of a best practice approach to get yourself up and going on Reddit?

Jim Squires (06:37.004)

Yep. I we keep it really simple and it's relevant for really whatever category you're in or whatever business that you're running. There is a really easy to use ads interface. is the easiest way to, you small businesses don't typically have a lot of time. They want to get to results and find new customers quickly. And so we make it easy to through ads, just quickly get distribution. And so you can take, you know, if you're running advertising on another platform,

make it really easy to import that campaign over. You can use the AI tools to automate things and just get it going really quickly. And really, just with a few hundred dollars, you can start seeing progress and seeing and getting new customers. In fact, we should throw it in the notes, but we have for duct tape marketing listeners, we've got a promo code, duct tape 500 that they can use to get started on ads if they want to. But I recommend that's just the easiest way to dip your toe in is just get

ads going and I can talk more about tactically how that works. And then the other thing I want to call out is we have a free set of tools to also get going. And so we call it Reddit Pro. And through Reddit Pro, you can get your official presence on Reddit, so your official profile, and you can start actually seeing trends. So what are people saying about your business, your competitors? What are people talking about in your category? What's trending? What's interesting?

John Jantsch (07:36.683)

Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (07:58.497)

Hmm.

Jim Squires (08:02.67)

and then actually shows you which of those communities you can go into and learn more. And you can even start engaging as the official business. People love to hear from businesses when they're authentic and they're talking as humans and getting some inside tracks. That's the other thing you can do.

John Jantsch (08:13.974)

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Serving and solving problems, right? So, so let's, I want to get back to organic in a minute, but let's touch on the advertising again. You said it's duct tape 500. that's D U C T T A P E 500. And if you spend 500, you're going to get 500. So that's kind of the way that deal works. How does advertising, I know some platforms that were traditionally very organic and then figured out, we got to make money.

Jim Squires (08:19.812)

I like that, yes, well said.

Jim Squires (08:34.562)

That's right. That's right.

John Jantsch (08:45.069)

we're going to sell ads. The ads, they struggle with how do we get those in? How are people going to view those? And obviously an ad is a call to action quite often, by now kind of thing. So how does that fit in culturally?

Jim Squires (08:57.742)

Mm-hmm.

Jim Squires (09:03.406)

Well, it's interesting. We took the reverse approach. So we started with ads before the organic. And so people got used to it pretty quickly as far as how it fits in. mean, a big part of it is kind of thinking about what communities are going to be most relevant to you. And we made that really easy as well. So for example, health and well-being, there's lots of communities in that realm. So everything from

John Jantsch (09:09.387)

Okay.

Jim Squires (09:32.142)

The communities are always structured r slash. So r slash get motivated, r slash weight loss, r slash fitness. These are all in that health and wellness category. But as a small business, you don't have time to go through and try to figure out which of these communities is going to be relevant to you. So you can just tag health as a interest category that you think is relevant for your products. And then the ad system will go out and pull all the relevant

communities that might be of interest and the people that are in those communities, it's anonymous, so that you can then get your ad in front of them either in those communities or when they're in their feed or they're in some other community on the site. So it's a really easy way to get into those interests and then your product is gonna be very relevant for those individuals because they've expressed interest in that area.

John Jantsch (10:26.155)

So let's say I want to do a combination. I want to actually build an organic presence as well as doing some advertising. What's a, you know, it's probably not an overnight solution, but what is, what's a kind of best practices approach for getting some organic reach on?

Jim Squires (10:43.82)

Yeah, yeah. Well, you would want to set up your official profile. So you get that. This is now my business on Reddit. So people know that you're the official voice of that business. And you really want to start. We just released a new product called Trends that's free as part of Reddit Pro. And I always suggest just quickly jumping in. can actually specify.

John Jantsch (10:48.289)

Right,

Jim Squires (11:09.966)

keywords that you think are interesting or related to your business. And you can start seeing through your category what might be trending, what are people talking about? Are people talking about my business? Are they talking about my competitors' businesses? What are they saying? And that gives you an entree into, okay, do I want to engage yet? Or I just want to kind of check things out and see what the tone is and see what's happening there. Now the businesses that really...

elevate and do really well are actually they start engaging and they start interacting with the community and people really appreciate. We talked earlier about showing the humanity of the business. They appreciate transparency. So having the good and the bad, it's being, it's, you know, talking about things that maybe not aren't perfect, gets you a lot of credibility in a community and across Reddit. There is a

a business that's on Reddit that sells diaper bags, like travel diaper bags. It's called the No Reception Club. And they jumped on there and they're running ads. They also have an organic presence. And people were commenting that the bags were too expensive. They had really high price point. And so instead of just kind of withering away or not addressing that,

John Jantsch (12:11.233)

Yeah.

Jim Squires (12:31.256)

they hit a head on and started talking about why it's a high price point because of all these features, the quality, they've got a lifetime warranty and that built so much credibility with people in those communities and went over a lot of people that were saying, I see, they actually engage in me and explained what is going on and that just gives you a lot of points.

John Jantsch (12:52.479)

Yeah, sure. So what are some of the challenges you've seen or maybe we could even say mistakes you've seen small businesses make, you know, really trying to engage on Reddit.

Jim Squires (13:03.778)

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, kind of the mistakes that get made relate to what we were just talking about. So you cut you come in and you can imagine like, like as humans, we don't walk into a meeting or walk into a party and just start shouting about ourself. You you you ease your way in. You start talking. You get you get a feel for the vibe and what's happening. And then you can talk about yourself and what you're doing. And so the brands that that would show up or businesses that show up and and we coach on this so it doesn't happen.

very often, but if you show up and you are just just shouting with salesy messaging and and not being authentic and engaging that way, it's a you're not going to get shouted away. I you can show up with ads. People are used to ads and they're not going to, know, you can turn off comments and not really worry about it that much. But again, as we were saying before, if you really want to elevate, you really want to have success in the platform. Being aware of that, even turning comments on.

because you want to hear from people and you want to understand your customers, that's kind where you elevate to the next level.

John Jantsch (14:08.289)

Ken, is there a type of content that performs questions, behind the scenes insights, educational posts, AMAs? mean, is there a certain type that you think performs better?

Jim Squires (14:17.486)

Yeah, that's a great question.

I love that. It's not one specific type, but I like where you're going. The angle on this is, within the different formats, what type of content might resonate. And I would say that, in general, that transparency and being willing to engage always does well. So the AMA is a perfect example of that. There was actually Oatly, the oat milk brand. I love they did an AMA and they invited

Big dairy, know, big dairy businesses to come co-host with them and talk about climate footprint labeling. No one from Big Dairy showed up on that and took them up on it. Well, that small dairy showed up and there was a Scottish dairy farmer that showed up and actually engaged and talked through and they had a really good dialogue. So that type of content does well. Behind the scenes content is really, really good. I mean, you can imagine a microbrewery

John Jantsch (14:53.131)

Yeah, yeah.

Jim Squires (15:19.778)

taking you behind the scenes on how they brew their IPAs and people really want to geek out on that. They want to see the technical aspects of it, understand what's behind the scenes. And what it does is it shows when you show, because we all, with each of our businesses, we have a passion for what we're doing. That's why we started that business. And so when you show that enthusiasm, that passion and that craft, these people in the communities, they have the same passion. And so it really resonates with them.

John Jantsch (15:28.715)

Yes.

Jim Squires (15:48.396)

and then they want to lean in and they want to learn more about

John Jantsch (15:52.363)

So imagine the CEO sitting around saying, okay, my agency says I need to be on Reddit. How do I know if I'm getting any return on being there? What type of reporting, what type of measurement is available for somebody to know? Am I having success?

Jim Squires (16:02.359)

Yeah.

Jim Squires (16:09.57)

Yep, yep. mean, that's, that is the key. What am I, what have I accomplished here? So Reddit is a, it is, it's multi objective. So it really, it really goes from, you know, top of the funnel reach all the way down to driving sales with what you're trying to do. And so it depends on where you're at in your life cycle and kind of what you're trying to achieve. But I think about on the, discovery side, so people are showing up and they're really open minded. They want to discover new products and services.

I do look at the overall reach that you're getting inside of these different communities and try to understand that. I think for most small businesses, they want to move faster and they want to just get new customers. And so then I suggest looking at the traffic that is coming off of your advertising and your organic presence. You can measure that directly and see what traffic you're getting. And then ultimately, I look at the conversions and the new customers.

that you've converted and the purchases that you can drive. So as part of the reporting, you have access to all of that to go to instrument it. And then based on your campaign, what you're trying to achieve, that's actually the key thing is a lot of times businesses show up and they haven't crystallized. What am I actually trying to do with this campaign and making sure the creative ties to that? But having that really clear and then looking at the appropriate stats for that is really what I recommend.

John Jantsch (17:22.879)

Yeah, yeah, Right. Yeah.

John Jantsch (17:33.835)

So you mentioned the word creative. Is there a form of creative, you know, maybe that's a little more tongue in cheek, a little more, or a little more cynical or, you know, just rather than just the traditional, we're the best, bye from us.

Jim Squires (17:46.382)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, there's lots of memes on Reddit, definitely. You can play into that, and some brands really do that. My advice on the creative is not unlike advice you would give a friend is be yourself on this. And so if you are a really tongue in cheek, kind of clever brand, then that should come out in your creative. If you're not, and you're doing

John Jantsch (17:50.093)

Right.

John Jantsch (18:01.695)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jim Squires (18:12.858)

You know, B2B is huge on the platform. And so if you're doing some, somebody's B2B, that's more serious and that you feel like that's actually not your thing. you don't want to show up on Reddit and then start doing that. Cause that stands out as well. So I always like to have the, what, what, what are you as a brand? What do you stand for? What are you trying to communicate? And then have that tie in versus trying to, change yourself, to try to fit in or, or feel like it's reddity or something that's, that's, that's going to fit in there.

John Jantsch (18:35.904)

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it's probably no, no faster way to fail than to try to be something you're not right. Right. So one of the things that we've seen over the last couple of years, you know, ties into AI ties into zero click, you know, searches, now is that, advice we're giving people is like it or not. You've probably got to be a few more places where people are choosing to get their information and hang out.

Jim Squires (18:44.866)

That's right. As people in life or on platforms. Yes, exactly.

John Jantsch (19:08.737)

And it's not always search engines. How have you seen that impact Reddit or have you? guess I should ask first. Yeah.

Jim Squires (19:09.005)

Yeah.

Jim Squires (19:13.186)

Yeah, mean, it's absolutely it's a great it's a great point. mean, there is a one one thing that is interesting about Reddit is that it has a lot of unduplicated reach. So people that are on Reddit that are on Facebook or Instagram or other other places. And so that is that's counterintuitive because these other platforms are so big. But there actually are a lot of people that are on those other platforms. So being able

John Jantsch (19:38.581)

Well, and I suspect trust has a lot to do with it.

Jim Squires (19:42.562)

Yes, what they look at, that's a great point. mean, people, it's anonymous as we talked about before, people are sharing their unvarnished real opinions. And so people trust that because they're enthusiastic. Yeah. So I think that ability to get to customers that you can't get to on other platforms is something really to consider and think about when you're looking at it.

John Jantsch (19:43.553)

Or lack thereof. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (20:08.651)

Yes.

Jim Squires (20:08.812)

And so, yeah, so I think it does, that's one of the things on why you would want to branch out. The other reason is that you have on all the different platforms, people are in different mindsets and they're doing different things, which really affects what they may want to be purchasing or the decisions they may want to be making. So for example, on most platforms, targeting based on demo is really the standard.

John Jantsch (20:38.079)

Yeah.

Jim Squires (20:38.274)

If you were targeting me on another platform, you're going to know that I live in San Francisco. I'm in my forties. you may know, you may know where I work. You know, there's like certain things that you know about, about me. Well, you wouldn't know that, know, on Reddit is that I'm really into mountain biking and that I'm in the market right now to get a, a, a heavy duty, bike rack for my car that can hold four bikes. Cause I want to have my kids and my wife be able to go with, with me.

John Jantsch (20:50.315)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (20:55.477)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (21:06.241)

Mmm... Yeah.

Jim Squires (21:08.002)

and that it can go long distances up into the mountains. You wouldn't know that on another platform. And so that's the different dimension. And so as a business, you wanna be where your customers are and you wanna be where they are making purchase decisions. We always say that conversations drive decisions. And so people are making those decisions through the process. That's what I encourage.

John Jantsch (21:21.835)

Yes.

John Jantsch (21:27.553)

Yeah. And I certainly notice a lot of, anybody got advice on, know, kind of post, which is pretty high buyer intent, right? Um, yeah. So by the way, the Thule hitch rack, I swear by it. That's the way I would go. That's the way I have gone. and, and, and so now, now we need to talk about your, your, your setup on your bike. Uh, I'm a, I'm a Santa Cruz guy myself. Okay. Awesome.

Jim Squires (21:34.318)

That's right.

Jim Squires (21:39.162)

Is that the way to go? Okay. Okay, that's enough. I'm down to three right now.

Jim Squires (21:50.401)

I'm a Santa Cruz guy also, so I'll get to 50-10, yes.

John Jantsch (21:54.461)

Awesome. There's probably a Santa Cruz subreddit or at least a mountain bike subreddit.

Jim Squires (21:57.806)

They're 100 % there. I was going to ask you, do you spend time on Reddit? How much do you spend phone?

John Jantsch (22:02.825)

Yeah, we have the, have, we do a lot of training of fractional CMOs and marketing consultants and agencies. So we participate in a few of those conversations for sure. Yeah.

Jim Squires (22:13.966)

Okay, there's a lot of great small business communities, small business marketers. And so you can kind of as business use it in multiple ways. You're using it to get to your customers and potential customers. And then you're also using it for your own benefit for advice and understanding how to run your business along with other small business owners.

John Jantsch (22:35.391)

Yeah. And I mentioned that's actually a pretty, pretty good way to start getting engaged is go in there and just start asking questions, right? mean, of stuff you truly want to know, that probably is going to create some engagement all on its own. Cause people love to give answers. Yeah.

Jim Squires (22:41.806)

Yep, definitely.

Jim Squires (22:48.774)

That's exactly right. There's nothing when you, and I also encourage people to say, people to when they start using it, when you do that first post and people start up voting it and you get literally karma points, that's what we call it. So it shows you feel like, wow, I just added something of value to the universe. I'm getting these karma points. It feels really good. It's like you're contributing to this community. It's a nice feeling.

John Jantsch (23:06.261)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, Jim, I want to thank you for something by the duct tape marketing podcast. is there someplace you invite people to connect with you? Obviously we've been talking about Reddit, reddit.com. we got a special for you listeners, a duct tape 500 to get some ad spend. Is there anywhere else you'd want people to connect with you?

Jim Squires (23:30.382)

We have a young on on Reddit, of course, I'm Jim at reddit.com. I'm happy to connect with people and and yeah, just it's great great being here I'm a fan of the the podcast and love what what you do with small businesses. So thank you for having me

John Jantsch (23:47.381)

Thanks so much again. Hopefully we'll run into you. I've got a daughter that lives out in the Bay area, so maybe we'll run into you one of these days out on the road. Awesome. Take care. Thanks.

Jim Squires (23:53.666)

I would love that. I would love that. Thanks, John. Take care. Bye-bye.

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Weekend Favs March 1st

Weekend Favs March 1st written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.

I don’t go into depth about the finds, but I encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from an online source or one I took on the road.

• Outranking.io is an AI SEO tool that helps create and optimize content to rank higher on search engines. invitations, and a sleek, modern interface.

• Narrato is an AI content workspace that helps with content creation, optimization, and collaboration.

• GrowthBar is an AI SEO tool that provides keyword research, content outlines, and competitor analysis.

These are my weekend favs; I would love to hear about some of yours – Connect with me on Linkedin!

If you want to check out more Weekend Favs you can find them here.

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Why Selling Less Could Be the Key to Earning More

Why Selling Less Could Be the Key to Earning More written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Chuck Blakeman

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interviewed Chuck Blakeman, a successful entrepreneur, business advisor, and author of Sell Less, Earn More. Chuck has built 13 businesses across 10 industries and has worked with top companies like Google, Microsoft, and Apple. His approach to business growth challenges the traditional sales mindset, proving that relationship marketing and trust-based sales strategies can generate more revenue than aggressive selling.

During our conversation, Chuck shared powerful insights on why selling less can actually lead to earning more. He explains how business owners can shift away from outdated sales techniques and instead focus on client acquisition through relationships, referrals, and networking. His strategies help entrepreneurs break free from transactional selling and build sustainable, long-term business success.

Chuck Blakeman’s fresh take on business development and sales strategy provides a clear roadmap for entrepreneurs looking to earn more with less selling. By prioritizing relationships, referrals, and trust, business owners can ditch aggressive sales tactics and create a more sustainable and enjoyable way to grow their businesses.

Key Takeaways:

• Stop Selling, Start Serving – The best way to grow your business is by building relationships and providing value, not pushing sales.
• Leverage Your Existing Network – Your best clients and referrals often come from people you already know, not cold calls or ads.
• Trust-Based Sales Work Better – Consumers prefer buying from businesses they trust. Building trust leads to higher conversion rates.
• The Role of Recency and Frequency – Staying top of mind through consistent, value-driven communication is key to effective small business marketing.
• Find the Right Partnerships – Instead of chasing individual clients, connect with “lumberjacks”—people who already have access to your ideal customers.
• Shift from Pain Points to Joy Points – Traditional sales focuses on problems; instead, focus on helping customers achieve their goals and aspirations.

Chapters:

• [00:09] Introducing Chuck Blakeman
• [02:27] What Does Sell Less, Earn More Mean?
• [03:35] Why Do Business Owners Hate Selling?
• [06:40] Serve. Don’t Sell.
• [013:54] Staying Recent and Frequent
• [15:21] The Four Quadrants of Relationship Marketing
• [17:21] Getting Started in Relationship Marketing
• [18:54] Relationship Marketing on Modern Platforms

More About Mike Ganino: 

• Check out Chuck Blakeman’s Website
• Connect with Chuck Blakeman on LinkedIn
• Read Sell Less, Earn More: Double Your Income in 90 Days with People You Already Know by Chuck Blakeman

Duct Tape Transcript

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John Jantsch (00:00.776)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Chuck Blakeman. He's a successful entrepreneur, bestselling author, TEDx speaker and business advisor. built 13 businesses across 10 industries on four continents and has worked with companies like Google, Microsoft and Apple. Today we're going to talk about his new book, Sell Less, Earn More.

Double your income in 90 days with people you already know. Sounds like an amazing promise. Chuck, welcome to the show.

Chuck (00:32.908)

Thanks, John. Those things always sound like obituaries to me.

John Jantsch (00:35.444)

Well, I've been doing this a long time and somebody found one of mine that like went back to second grade. It was really painful. at any rate, you know, I want to talk about the book, of course, but I can't pass over the 13 businesses, 10 industries, four continents. Do you have like the two minute version of what all that was?

Chuck (00:56.738)

Sure, yeah. In high school, was left-handed, right-brained, ADHD and dyslexic, and they thought I was stupid. They wanted me to be a tinsmith because nobody knew what ADHD and dyslexic was back then. So I went into the Army. While I was in the Army, I stumbled into doing something for somebody else, and they paid me. And fast forward 45 years later, I had started 13 businesses and 10 industries on four continents. And so, yeah, I guess I have something to offer. But when I graduated from high school, I literally thought I'd be the only kid who wouldn't get a job.

John Jantsch (01:26.708)

Well, so what tell us about at least one of those exits. I mean, is it a, you have a, do you have a good sexy story or were they all just all just meat and potatoes?

Chuck (01:34.382)

Yeah, now I'll give you, everybody has good sexy stories. So I'll give you the ugly one because nobody ever gives us, we built a business that we bought it for a million. It was pretty much done. It had been losing business for 10 years. We bought it for a million and we grew it to nine and a half million in two years and had to sell it in a fire sale. Because I didn't understand that when you, the faster you grow, the less money you have. I just assumed that the faster you grow, the more money you have. No, it's called cashflow.

John Jantsch (01:58.982)

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Chuck (02:03.822)

So I had, you know, the books, I've written four books now and the books I've read, I same most of them. This is not a book I wrote, this is a life I lived, you you just bleed over this stuff. So that was one of them. And then we had some more successful stories than that one.

John Jantsch (02:13.348)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (02:19.738)

Awesome. Well, go into the title of the book, sell less earn more sort of counterintuitive a little bit. You want to explain kind of what the core concept you're trying to get across there?

Chuck (02:30.638)

Yes, John, people have accused me of being counterintuitive and I realized I'm actually not, counter logical. It doesn't make sense, but intuitively it does make sense. It's really for this book I wrote because I'm a business owner and I'm a business owner's advocate and I do all kinds of stuff with business owners. This is the anti-sales book specifically written for business owners, not for salespeople. And these are business owners who are looking for a permanent cure to the common cold call. You know, if you want to stop selling,

John Jantsch (02:36.072)

Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (02:50.066)

Yeah.

Chuck (03:00.462)

and still earn more. This is the right book for you. So we teach people to do the things I did, because I didn't like selling. It was a rude awakening for me to wake up one morning. If you're making chairs and they're piling up in your basement, you figure out, oh no, I actually have to sell these darn things. And you end up doing something you didn't want to do. Very few business owners go into business to want to sell. So we teach them how to get out of sales and to stop doing it by building relationships with people they already know.

John Jantsch (03:15.828)

Right, right.

John Jantsch (03:31.252)

So for the, you you hit on a very key point. A lot of people didn't go into business because they were great at selling and actually end up saying, I hate that part of it. Is there a reason they hated and does it really kind of lie in the way that sales is traditionally thought about and experienced and taught?

Chuck (03:49.102)

Yeah, I love your book and I love your approach to things. Absolutely. We inherited this funny thing from the industrial age called selling. Before the factory system, we produced what we needed. By 1850, most factories were producing way more than they needed. So they had to invent selling to sell you stuff you didn't need. And we call it stabbing strangers with your business card. You're doing all this kind of crazy stuff to try and gin up sales that people don't need. Welcome to consumerism.

John Jantsch (03:57.417)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (04:11.806)

Yeah.

Chuck (04:18.74)

Absolutely. goes back to the whole idea that we we were sold this bill of goods, target marketing, selling to strangers, pitching pain points. Why don't we find somebody's joy point instead? A cold calls, know, cold calls, the conversation. This is my favorite. hear this all the time. I can, someone very proudly will say to me, I contacted my database. Why don't you connect with a few people you know?

John Jantsch (04:26.398)

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (04:42.216)

Right.

Chuck (04:47.374)

There's a message in those two statements. One is transactional and the other is relational. So we've inherited a transactional view of business and sales is the worst aberration of that.

John Jantsch (04:50.324)

Sure.

John Jantsch (05:00.116)

So I work with lot of consultants, agencies that are, you know, they need three or four more clients or maybe they're just getting started. And they're very drawn to the, can have a thousand emails and I can automate a funnel and I can use AI to contact all these people. And I do the same thing. I say, why don't you just pick up the phone and call five people and see what happens. But people don't want to do that. They'd rather sit through agonizing days of setting up a funnel.

Chuck (05:18.83)

You

John Jantsch (05:27.208)

you know, then to actually reach out. how do you get people past that?

Chuck (05:30.658)

Yes, so would I. I mean, most business owners, they don't want to talk to strangers. They love talking to customers, but they don't want to talk to strangers. Go to networking events. Nobody wants to do that. So how do we get them past the idea? Well, they get themselves past it. Usually they come to the end of themselves either in time or in money because it takes a bucket load of money and time to get all that stuff moving for you. There's two ways to find clients.

John Jantsch (05:55.956)

Yeah, yeah.

Chuck (05:59.926)

You can buy them, which is extremely expensive in time and money, or you can pick up the phone and say hello to people. But the key here, John, for me is I'm not asking you to go find people you don't know that I hate that. What if you could go to a friend and talk to them? call it finding your lumberjacks. What if you, instead of going to the networking forest and finding the next tree and doing all the seasoning you have to do in that relationship, what if you found somebody who'd been to the forest?

John Jantsch (06:12.116)

Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chuck (06:28.448)

and had 20 years worth of trees in their database, and they could see the value of giving their customers to you. Make friends with that person you already know and show them the benefit, and off you go.

John Jantsch (06:39.346)

Yeah, yeah. So, so...

There are lot of people that that started business and, you know, they really, again, I coach them. was like, look at your contacts in your database. That's your, like, you got a hundred people in there. Probably that's where you start. But then they kind of come to this point of like, yeah, okay. They know me, but like, how do I warm them up? How do I get, how do I get a conversation that actually has something to do with maybe them purchasing or maybe them referring? How do you, how do you do that? How do you get that, that contact who's not really expecting you to call them and talk to you about your new business?

Chuck (07:12.486)

Yeah, the first, the overriding principle of the book, Sell Less Earn More is serve, don't sell, which you're all over that. And we teach people specific ways to get involved in that. We have the four buying questions. When you meet with someone individually, I challenge business owners to never talk about their business again in a one-to-one unless they are asked. And almost always I'm asked because I have four buying questions where I'm,

John Jantsch (07:18.664)

Yeah. Yeah.

Chuck (07:41.888)

asking them about things that have nothing to do with business. I'm showing interest as a human being. And you know, trust is our number one asset. If you don't have trust, you're done. So asking for buying questions, how did you get into this business? Where is it taking you? What do you want out of it? And just simple things like that will give them the idea that maybe this person actually cares about me as a human being. The guard goes down. Jeffrey Gitmer made this famous, but was in 1930s. People were saying nobody wants to buy.

Nobody wants to be sold, everybody wants to buy. The four buying questions flip the script. Don't talk about your business. Ask them about them as human beings or about their business. Show interest. know, Stephen Covey, seek first to understand rather than be understood. I didn't make this stuff up. But we get all that and we all say, I understand, but we don't do it.

John Jantsch (08:29.555)

Yeah.

Chuck (08:35.447)

What if we actually went in with four buying questions and we didn't we never we never talked about our business again Unless we were asked I guarantee you will make more money

John Jantsch (08:44.436)

Do you want to share those? I mean, are they set questions or they it's really.

Chuck (08:47.438)

Yeah, there's some questions. they're really different for individuals, based on whether you're talking to consumers or businesses. I'll give you the business to business version. Past is the first question. So you can say something like, so tell me, John, what motivated you to leave your job and get into this business? That's the past. That's something John hasn't thought about for years. It serves John. Why in the world did I do this? then the second one is exactly.

John Jantsch (09:11.604)

I couldn't get a job, that's why.

Chuck (09:15.79)

And the second one is the future. You got that right. The second one is the future. So John, if this is why you got into business, what do you want out of it? What's your personal long-term desire for this thing? Most business owners never do that. They just figure out, if I make a bucket load of money, somehow I'll be happy. And we know it doesn't work. So that serves them to ask that question. And then the third question is present. So past, future, and then present. If this is why you got into it and this is what you want out of it, what's the one thing?

We call it bottlenecks. What's the one thing standing in your way right now to get you to that place that you want to be when you say, this business has really served me? Most business owners are too busy in the day to day to even think about what is the one strategic thing I need to do? I need more customers. I need more space. I need better training. What is the one thing that's holding me back right now? And then the third, fourth one, if you ever get to, because by then usually they're asking you questions. But if you get to the fourth one, the fourth one is, John, who's your perfect client?

John Jantsch (10:10.568)

Right.

Chuck (10:10.794)

And how could I find, because I want to know who that is so I can send you some of those. So those are the four buying questions. My friend John was a wealth manager. He took our training. We have we've been doing this for 20 years. He took our our fast track sales business development training course. And he had at the time he started he had 2200 clients and he was taking home a quarter million dollars a year. Now he has under 20 clients and he takes home way over a million dollars a year.

John Jantsch (10:37.224)

Yeah, yeah.

Chuck (10:38.062)

because he took the four buying questions and he started using that instead of, me show you what I got. Stop me when you see something like, I got something up the sleeve. got something up. Nobody cares.

John Jantsch (10:44.66)

Yeah. So tell me, how much permission do you need for those questions? And the reason I ask that is, you know, I have a lot of what I would, I mean, we all now have very, we all have networks of people who we know, but you know, we've never met, we're connected on LinkedIn, maybe, you know. And so then I get that question where somebody says, what are you most excited about? I'm like,

Chuck (11:03.426)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (11:12.296)

I'm not telling you what I'm excited about. I mean, how much permission do we need to get into what might feel a little more personal?

Chuck (11:19.406)

Well, and that is an intuitive question because you have to read the person across from you and say, is this a person who gets excited about sharing that stuff? So you might have to go a little slower. But in general, I've never found anybody who didn't want to talk about themselves in some way. So even if they, when you ask them why did you get into this business, they won't tell you because they couldn't find a job. But they will tell you some other really good stuff about why they got into it because then that's fine. So tell me whatever you want.

John Jantsch (11:34.194)

Yeah.

Chuck (11:47.81)

This can sound like an interrogation if you don't respond. So I'm always ready to say, well, let me tell you how I got into business and with somebody who's uncomfortable, I'll do that first. And in one of them, I will say, because I couldn't get a job. And it just opens them up. So I have to be transparent so they will.

John Jantsch (11:50.568)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I think you really hit on this and not everybody has the emotional quotient for this, quite frankly, but the whole goal is to serve, is not to sell, right? And if you're coming from that point of view, it eventually comes across, doesn't it?

Chuck (12:19.842)

Yeah, know, people think I make some of this stuff up and then I remind them, Zig Ziglar, 1970s, you know, if you help enough other people get to their goals, you'll get to yours. You really believe that we all give lip service to these things, but I can show you hundreds, thousands of business owners who have done these things have actually finally actually practiced this with passion and found that, yeah, you know, it actually does work if I just serve other people. I had a one-to-one with a woman once who I was going to do my dog and pony show and she

John Jantsch (12:24.466)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chuck (12:49.922)

She showed up and said, hey, I gotta find a babysitter. We just lost our babysitter for our 20th anniversary and it's four hours from now. We spent 45 minutes finding her a babysitter because that's what she needed. She didn't need my dog and pony show. I never talked to her again. A year later, her sister called me and she became a client for two years. I made a lot of money from that meeting because I served the other person. Do we really believe that that's the way to go?

John Jantsch (13:00.808)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (13:15.144)

Yeah. And I think it really takes, it really takes not only that serving, but a long-term mindset too, right? I you, you, you, you have seen, this play out. You knew at some time in the future, this babysitting job was going to pay off, didn't you?

Chuck (13:20.778)

It... You got it Johnny.

Chuck (13:30.274)

Well, and I know your stuff well, but I don't know if you actually ever said this, but you live it out. You are a you live out the idea of long term decision making, making decisions based on what will actually help you in the long term, not today. And boy, when we take on that that approach, it is actually harder for the first year because that's what people think. I'm going to start to doubt if I actually take note, you'd be surprised. But boy, is it freeing to actually think in the long term and to work with people based on what is their long term

That's my definition of business love, is putting the interest of the other person, the long-term best interest of that person first.

John Jantsch (14:01.182)

Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (14:07.764)

So a lot of times when you're having a conversation with your network, they don't need anything today. They can't think of anybody that they could refer you to. Where does this role of like staying top of mind recency frequency? mean, how, how big are part of that?

Chuck (14:19.042)

There you go. You just know that we use those two words, recency and frequency, to build any relationship, whether it's with your dog, your pet orca whale, or your wife, or your friend, you need to be recent and frequent. How recently did you talk to me and how frequently? So we have to have drip systems and we have to have drip systems they actually want to open.

John Jantsch (14:35.304)

Yeah.

Chuck (14:42.594)

So it's not about me. I have a realtor who sends me something on a regular basis and I open it because it's always interesting, fun stuff that I would want to hear. It's not how great am I as a realtor. And so we have to figure that out and do the recency and frequency. And you put together a simple little drip system. We got Microsoft as a client, $3 million a year client, because for a year and a half, I tickled the guy at Microsoft who was my contact.

John Jantsch (14:42.696)

Yeah, right.

Chuck (15:09.23)

with everything from a phone call to a press release to once in a while coming out to visit him. And he called me one day and said, hey, I got this press release from you yesterday. I'm glad I did, because I'd forgotten all about you. It's like, I've been pinging you forever, but if you're not recent and frequent, it's not going to work. So you got to have that as part of your deal.

John Jantsch (15:20.648)

Right.

John Jantsch (15:25.704)

Plus, mean, you we're all overloaded with information. So it's like, what, what, why one, why did one thing work? Right. It's because they were ready to hear it that day. Right. Yeah. So you have actually, and I love it when people have frameworks for quadrants of marketing that you talk about, when it comes to relationship marketing, you want to kind of unpack that idea for people.

Chuck (15:28.397)

Yes.

Chuck (15:32.94)

Yeah. Yes.

Chuck (15:47.202)

Yeah, so quadrant number one is advertising. That's what the big boys use. And quadrant number two is direct mail. Those two are more, or direct marketing. Those two are more the purview of people with a lot of money and not a lot of time. So you can buy a gecko or a duck or a funny comedian and put them on the airways for millions and millions of dollars for years. And we just love, we fall in love with that insurance company because we fell in love with fill in the blank, that you the guy.

John Jantsch (15:50.792)

Yep.

John Jantsch (15:56.254)

Yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (16:15.57)

Yeah.

Chuck (16:16.952)

Good luck with that. I don't have that kind of money as a business owner. And the second one is direct marketing. That one I can do a little bit more of and a lot more of in some ways, but still it's expensive. The third quadrant is public relations. We told a guy who wanted to do rugby vacations, set up rugby vacations with a guy and his wife and 30 guys and go on a 10 day vacation in Brazil and play two or three rugby games. We told him, go kick a rugby ball across America.

He figured out he could get $150,000 in sponsors, and it would take him like three months to kick the ball across, and he'd get news in every town. It's paid marketing if you do it right. But the one that really works for us is what we call, everybody calls relationship marketing. That's the one that costs the least amount of money and the most amount of time. But I say this all the time, and you say it in your stuff, you just don't say it with this phrase, the closer you get to a hug,

John Jantsch (16:55.694)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (17:02.088)

Yeah, yeah.

Chuck (17:15.202)

the more likely you are to sell something. So sit across the table from somebody and watch what happens. And again, don't do it one customer at a time. Find the lumberjack who has all those customers who will just open their database to you. You got 100 people in your database, you're going to wear them out. He or she has 300, and you have two or three of those, you got a thousand person database. Let's just do it that way. Make friends with a few people.

John Jantsch (17:15.432)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (17:31.368)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (17:39.796)

So let's say I am a somebody getting started maybe in a new business. And I come to you and I say, look, I want to get this. I love what you're talking about. I want to get this going. Like what's the checklist? Like what are the 10 things I need to do to, to kind of set this in motion? I know it's not going to happen overnight, but how do I set it in motion?

Chuck (17:59.15)

Yeah, so we have a, these are all things I did to build my businesses. We didn't make anything up to sell on the internet or any of that kind of stuff. We just feel like people need a specific set of tools. So we talk about what we call the lumberjack buying system. It's a simple way to alliterate the three different places in your database that a person might be living. They're either a new contact or you're in a conversation or they're on the fire or they're a new client.

John Jantsch (18:07.08)

Yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (18:16.456)

Mm-hmm.

Chuck (18:27.758)

And then things like gold veins, where you can show up on a regular basis and you'll see the same people over and over again, very different than networking. And they're all the ideal clients of yours. Catalyst events, tier three listening, the four buying questions, the four walking in commitments. So there's some mindset things that people have to do to shift out of the industrial age mindset guilt trip that we've been giving, you stabbing people with their business cards. That's mindset stuff. And then there's a few simple tools.

John Jantsch (18:36.243)

Yeah.

Eh-heh-heh.

Chuck (18:57.486)

that people have. We have a 10 week training course that we use and there's about six tools that we give people over those 10 weeks. And you don't have to use all of them. This is one of the other problems with sales is that we give people these really rigid sales processes that are built for nobody or 70 % and not for me.

John Jantsch (19:08.092)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (19:16.744)

How do some of the newish, been around for a while now, but newish platforms like LinkedIn, how do they play into this game?

Chuck (19:27.551)

Yeah, well, you know, 10 years ago, somebody in one of our courses said, I'm going to use LinkedIn to develop my relationships. Right after I had said the closer you get to a hug, the more likely you to tell something. but she went in 10 weeks, she doubled her income by just talking to people on LinkedIn that she knew in alphabetical order, and she didn't get past E.

John Jantsch (19:39.132)

Yeah. Right, right.

John Jantsch (19:52.446)

Yeah.

Chuck (19:53.166)

Now, if you looked at what she had, she had a lot of good existing relationships on LinkedIn. So it wasn't a cold call. She was talking to people she already knew. So it doesn't matter what medium you're on. I made $100,000 plus in about a year and a half off of Twitter 15 years ago. So you can do that, but it's still the same principles. Nothing changes. The closer you get to a hug, the more likely you are to sell something. Serve, don't sell. Tier three listening, it's all the same.

John Jantsch (19:58.612)

Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (20:22.708)

Chuck, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by. there a place you'd invite people to connect to you to learn more about sell less earn more?

Chuck (20:29.516)

Yeah, they can find it on Amazon, sell less, more. They can also go to 3to5club.com, the number 3-T-O-5 club.com, or just find me chuck at cranksetgroup.com. I also have a web page, chuckblakeman.com. So any of that stuff, if you look up Chuck Blakeman, you're going to find me, unfortunately, if that's your thing.

John Jantsch (20:31.614)

me.

John Jantsch (20:48.724)

Awesome. Well, again, I appreciate you stopping by. Hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road,

Chuck (20:55.0)

Look forward to it, John. Thank you.

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