Kill the Competition by Dialing in Your Agency Messaging and Positioning
Key Takeaways
- Niching has two layers: the solution you provide and the ideal client you serve. Picking an industry alone is not enough.
- Add the specific pain you solve. Agencies pitch traffic, leads and sales, while the client is buying deals that close at the right value.
- The biggest thing holding agencies back from getting specific is fear: turning away good-fit prospects, not knowing which problem you solve best, and picking wrong.
- Start where you already have success and a case study, then go all in. Narrowing from five verticals to two defeats the purpose.
- Picking a focus is not a tattoo. Try it for a couple of months, then tweak it if the clients or the results are not right.
- Don't crash-test-dummy clients on services you haven't mastered. Learn from someone with a process, or partner with another agency or freelancer.
This AgencyVision segment is Gray MacKenzie and his business partner at the time, Andrew Dymski, recorded live in December 2018 while they ran GuavaBox and ZenPilot together. The first five minutes announce the first Agency Journey Live (January 9, 2019). The niching conversation starts around 5:34: why agencies stay vague about who they serve, the fears behind it, and how to pick a focus without treating it as permanent.
GuavaBox listed five verticals and 19 service pages
Gray had been reviewing new sales collateral from an agency in the Agency Accelerator program, and its niche page reminded him of GuavaBox’s early site. They remember arguing the verticals down to five: healthcare, manufacturing, sporting goods, professional services and technology. Andrew’s take: condense the GDP of those five and you’ve covered most of the United States. Then came 19 individual service pages for SEO.
“It left us very scattered in our marketing. When we finally picked a primary niche, to niche into the manufacturing space, that was a big turning point for us… but the biggest thing that held us back, and it holds everyone else back, is just fear and uncertainty.”
Niching has two layers: the solution and the ideal client
Andrew defines the term first.
“When we say that with niching, what we mean is not just picking an industry. There’s two layers to it. There’s first of all the solution that you provide and the ideal client that you serve… So we’re not just saying go pick real estate agents or go pick healthcare manufacturing companies and offer a suite of services to those people. We’re going even deeper than that.”
The payoff, in his words, is a message that does the selling before the sales call.
“How do you craft a message, how do you craft a story that speaks to a specific group of people, that kills all competition… they’re clarifying fears that I didn’t even know I had, are they reading my mind?”
Gray adds a third piece: the specific pain you solve. Agencies pitch traffic and leads, while the client is buying deals that close at the right value. Andrew’s examples: new patients for a practice, demos for a healthcare software company, RFQs for a manufacturer.
The fears that keep agencies vague
Andrew hears the same objection over and over.
“What I hear over and over again is like, I don’t want to let go the possibility of working with all of these people, because if I say I serve you, what I’m saying is I don’t serve everyone else out there. And how can I grow my business if I’m turning away all of that business? I’m just saying no to all of these checks.”
Gray’s response is the obvious question: why aren’t you getting those checks now? He then names the other fears: not knowing which problem you solve best, and picking wrong, because you end up hating the industry or aren’t good enough at the solution yet. On that last one, Andrew says you don’t need to be the expert today, and points to Ryan Levesque’s book Ask for quick market research with Facebook ads, calls and outreach.
Burn the boats, but the choice isn’t a tattoo
Gray’s practical question: if your solution could work in several industries, how do you pick? Andrew says start where you already have traction and a case study, then go all in. He borrows “burning the boats” from another agency coach.
“There’s a tendency of saying, okay, well, if I narrow from five to two and I just go after two people, I want to do lawyers and I want to do contractors. No, you’ve just defeated the entire purpose. You burn the boats… so there’s no way home, and you become the agency for contractors or the agency for lawyers.”
Going all in doesn’t mean forever. Try it for two or three months, then pivot if the results or the people aren’t right.
“Picking the focus is not a tattoo. This is something that changes and evolves, and it’s going to change and evolve.”
Rebuilding the pipeline after you narrow
Gray plays out the sales objection: today ten inbound leads a month from ten industries, tomorrow one. How do you get back to ten and close three instead of one? Andrew’s answer is old-school first.
“You’re gonna need to go old-school and figure out how do I tap into my network… how do I tap into the past clients that I’ve worked with and ask them for introductions, how can I reach out and do some discount test projects with some people to just get my foot in the door and prove this process works. Not free projects, but test projects.”
For agencies that worry they can’t deliver the whole solution, Andrew is blunt.
“You shouldn’t crash-test-dummy your clients. If you don’t have a strong process, you need to hire someone that has a strong process… or you partner with someone, another agency or another freelancer who can do that for you.”
Gray’s version is a sports analogy: nobody tells a lacrosse player to go play basketball to get better at lacrosse. Get those skills from partners instead of taking on clients that eat up 30% of your time.
The full segment is on YouTube: watch the episode.