Ep 103 – Greg Hickman, AltAgency – Simplify, Productize, Scale
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Featuring: Greg Hickman, AltAgency
In episode 103 of Agency Bytes, I sit down with Greg Hickman, founder of Alt Agency and an expert at helping agency owners break free from the time-for-money grind. Greg shares his fascinating journey from the world of big agencies to building his own seven-figure business—while working just 25 hours a week! We dive deep into the pitfalls of the traditional agency model and explore how the Alt Agency approach helps owners productize their services, streamline operations, and reclaim their time.
Greg and I also unpack the difference between productizing and commoditizing agency work (hint: you don’t have to sacrifice creativity for efficiency!). We talk about scaling smart, building systems that don’t drain your soul, and why redefining wealth goes beyond the numbers in your bank account. Plus, Greg shares some personal stories and life lessons about being present for the moments that really matter, in business and at home.
If you’re looking to run a more sustainable and rewarding agency, this is one you won’t want to miss.
Key Bytes
• Greg Hickman transitioned from traditional agency roles to founding AllAgency.
• The Alt Agency model focuses on monetizing expertise rather than just labor.
• Productization of services can lead to greater scalability and efficiency.
• Wealth is defined not just by money, but by time and health.
• Agencies can benefit from creating multiple service tiers to cater to different client needs.
• The lines between agencies, SaaS, and coaching are increasingly blurred.
• Building a scalable business requires a shift in mindset and operations.
• Automation and systems are key to reducing workload and increasing profits.
• Greg's journey highlights the importance of adapting to market needs.
• The impact of helping 800 agencies showcases the ripple effect of effective coaching.
• Productized services focus on specific outcomes.
• Systematization helps agencies improve efficiency and profitability.
• Lead generation is crucial for agency success.
• Productization simplifies marketing and client management.
• Agencies often lose money due to inefficient pricing models.
• Creativity can thrive within a productized framework.
• Differentiation is key to avoiding commoditization.
• Personal growth involves learning from past experiences.
• Being present in personal life enhances overall happiness.
• Enjoying the journey is as important as the destination.Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Agency Bites and Guest Background
01:30 Greg's Journey in the Agency World
04:21 Transitioning to the Alt Agency Model
07:37 The Evolution of Services and Client Focus
10:40 Impact and Scale of the Alt Agency Model
12:59 Defining Wealth Beyond Money
13:31 Understanding the Alt Agency Model
19:54 Building a Scalable Offer Suite
21:31 Transforming Agency Services into Productized Offerings
24:33 The Importance of Systematization in Agencies
27:52 Lead Generation and Client Retention Challenges
30:19 Differentiating Productization from Commoditization
33:21 Personal Insights and Life Lessons
Greg Hickman helps agency owners and consultants escape the trap of trading time for money. After nearly two decades working with brands like Pepsi, AT&T, and the NY Jets, Greg built his own marketing automation agency and built funnels and systems for entrepreneurs like Dan Martell, Chris Ducker, John Lee Dumas, Jasmin Star, Nerd Fitness, and more. Now through AltAgency, he's helped over 800+ service providers build profitable, sustainable businesses by productizing their services and monetizing their expertise. Greg runs his 7-figure business working 3-4 days per week (most weeks), taking Fridays off for mountain biking, and wants to help others learn how to do the same. His unique approach helps owners ‘scale’ profits without scaling the complexity or sacrificing their lives.
Contact Greg on his website or his YouTube channel.
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Steve / Agency Outsight (00:01.138)
Welcome to Agency Bites, a podcast dedicated to helping creative entrepreneurs thrive. I'm Steve Guberman from Agency Outsite, where I coach agency owners to build the business of their dreams. Today, I am really thrilled to be joined by Greg Hickman of AllAgency. Greg helps agency owners and consultants escape the time for money trap by productizing their services, mastering automation, and scaling profits without scaling complexity. Drawing on his experience with major brands and his own marketing agency, Greg now runs a seven-figure business
in just 25 hours a week. He's here to show us how to work less, earn more, and take back your time. Greg, thank you so much for joining me today.
Greg Hickman (00:38.766)
Steve, such a pleasure, man. Great to be here.
Steve / Agency Outsight (00:40.616)
Yeah, pleasure is mine. I thoroughly enjoy the content you put out, the audience that you build. I just big time admire the way that you run your shop and the operation that you've built and give kind of your backstory. You you didn't just wake up one day as alt agency Greg. So how'd you get to where you are?
Greg Hickman (00:51.768)
Thank you.
Greg Hickman (00:57.934)
Ha
Greg Hickman (01:01.838)
Yeah, I mean, a decade in agency, part of Omnicom and like an agency called Tracy Lock was where I got my start. We represented Pepsi Unilever. You know, I started at the bottom, project management into account management. And that was a huge company. I mean, there was like 220 people in our office, but there was another office of 200 some odd people. And, but I saw how a whole, like the whole agency worked, right?
like what it really meant to be a full service agency. And from there, kind of bounced around to a couple different smaller shops, some startups, then finishing client side for Cabela's, which is like a large independent retailer, outfitter, hunting, fishing, camping type goods. And I was the head of mobile there for a year, brought in a small team. And we also had to work and collaborate with
I don't know, a dozen agencies in just the year that I was there. Uh, and you know, contractually trying to get agencies in and out was really interesting to see how even brands worked with agencies. Um, and a lot of that actually informed some of the things that, um, now we kind of teach in all agency. Um, but I went out on my own in 2014, sucked it up for a year. Didn't know what the heck I was doing. And in 2015, I launched.
what became my first semi-successful agency, I'd say. We were marketing automation, boutique, shop. We were behind the scenes of a lot of online influencers. John Lee Dumas from Entrepreneur on Fire, Dan Martel, who's now huge on the internet, Jasmine Starr, Chris Ducker, a bunch of people. And so we were the team behind the scenes building.
webinar funnels, sales funnels, new client onboarding campaigns, and really saw just like the inner workings of how all of these businesses run. And hit a point where we were, I always forget the exact number, but we were about like 13 or 14 people, like between full-time and fractional. A lot of that was part-time help. But I was like, wait a minute, in order for me to grow,
Greg Hickman (03:24.5)
I'm going to need more team. and I just had this like moment that was like, I got out of the agency world because I didn't want that thing. And like accidentally here I am. I've now recreated it. It was definitely doing stuff that I enjoy doing, but like we were working nights and weekends. We were working really hard and we were kind of like,
being treated like employees and Dan Martell, who was one of our clients, but also a mentor at the time, said to me, he's like, this model is not scalable and I think you should consider something else. And he's like, I say that knowing that you're also a vendor. So just take good care of me. He's like, I'm telling you this as a coach, but don't screw me. And that was kind of a clicking moment for me. And right shortly after that is when we really started.
Steve / Agency Outsight (04:09.736)
Hahaha
Greg Hickman (04:21.158)
kind of falling into what is now the alt agency model, which is really about monetizing expertise and not just labor.
Steve / Agency Outsight (04:29.704)
Hmm. Yeah. Did was the intention as you were building the agency over those first couple of years to get away from brands and move into like personal author coaching, thought leadership space, or was that just kind of where your network was pulling you in?
Greg Hickman (04:42.766)
It's funny when I first went out on my own, I was trying to do the same similar mobile stuff. Like I was a decade in mobile marketing. Like I was known as the mobile guy and had a huge identity around that. And the, when I went out on my own, I was actually doing like mobile marketing consulting. We built like a small text message marketing platform and we were trying to go to independent retail, like the wannabe Cabela's.
and implement mobile couponing and all that stuff. And it was a really slow slog to get that thing going because all these people were just so far behind that they still hadn't figured out email. so mobile was the future and they didn't care. And at the time, I'd been consuming and learning a lot about online entrepreneurship from people like Pat Flynn and Amy Porterfield. And I just started connecting with those individuals.
And they were like, well, can you come on our podcast to talk about mobile? And so I spent like a year and a half talking about mobile at social media marketing world, like on these big name podcasts, John Lee Dumas, like all those things. it was, but I had nothing to really sell any of those people, but they became my friends. and I was like, I would love to work with people like you, not independent retail owners. Like I'm fascinated by you guys.
Um, and at the time is that was just around the time when I was like starting to dabble with, um, Infusionsoft now keep. And I went and got certified because I was using it inside of our mobile, like mobile business. And, uh, I went to, you know, I was having a conversation. I forget with exactly which one of those people, but I think it was John. Um, and he was just complaining about Infusionsoft again, I can't not call it keep. I know it got renamed. Like I was.
Steve / Agency Outsight (06:17.332)
Yep.
Greg Hickman (06:40.406)
I was certified on there. But anyway, just kept hearing everyone talk about how hard it was. And I'm like, what if I just came in and like, try to like make your life easier? And like, he was like, yes, come in. so I figured out what to charge him. And then like in six days, I had seven people that were paying me for Infusionsoft help. And I was like, those were way easier to sell than this mobile stuff that I'm doing. And like, in like 30 days,
my income was from that was matching what it took me a year on the mobile side. And so I was like, I had to have like a real hard look at myself in the mirror and say like, do I care more about being the mobile guy or do I care more about having like a business? And it was the business and then became the funnel guy. And, I'm really good at reinventing myself. And so, yeah. And then we just kind of, that service just blew up. And, I mean, I made so many mistakes. If I could go back and redo it, I probably would have.
Steve / Agency Outsight (07:21.108)
Yeah.
Greg Hickman (07:37.838)
kept it around longer before evolving into what we are now. But it was serving those people. And it's funny that you say the influencer, the author, speakers, coaches, because when we were doing that as an agency, it was easy, building those funnels. We had seen how everyone does it. Everyone's like, I want what they have. And so we were just kind of rinsing and repeating, which is where kind of the productization thing started happening. then we started having service providers come to us.
like agencies and consultants and marketing service providers and they're like, can you show me how you did what you did with your agency? Because it sounds, and at that point I had never even called myself an agency, I didn't even know what I was. And I'm like, oh, okay, let me try to help you. And so they hop in and I was like, let's build an automated sales system. And I was like, what do you sell? And they had no way to answer that question.
Like, what do you mean? Like, well, we do this here. We do that over there. And I was like, what? that's why there's no systems because everything you do is unique for each person. And I had to figure out how to help them productize their service. And then I did that like two or three more rounds with like a couple of different cohorts of service providers. And that thing took off. so it was like,
Steve / Agency Outsight (08:35.731)
Wow.
Greg Hickman (08:58.338)
We started productizing the service so that we can build out, you know, an automated sales funnel, you know, webinar, webinar funnels for service providers. And the thing that was great for me was I had been in service my entire life. Like I was never a course creator at that stage. And so it unlocked so many stories for my own marketing. And it felt so natural that I was like, I'm going to actually serve these people because I can talk about this forever.
Steve / Agency Outsight (09:21.428)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Hickman (09:25.772)
And like, these are my people. Like I know what you're going through. I've been, I've been in it. And, and that was really what kind of was the shift to the kind of avatar switch, if you will.
Steve / Agency Outsight (09:35.676)
And so now you've been kind in this metamorphosis stage for two, three years now.
Greg Hickman (09:40.462)
No, so that actually all started happening at the beginning of 2017, so like probably spring of 2017. Then we rebranded to Alt Agency in 2020. And so once from the flagship curriculum that we built started in like spring of 2017, that curriculum, obviously it's been added and built up and refined, but 800 people have gone through that now.
Steve / Agency Outsight (09:45.296)
wow, okay.
Steve / Agency Outsight (10:03.006)
Sure.
Steve / Agency Outsight (10:07.123)
Wow.
Greg Hickman (10:07.759)
agencies and service providers kind of since that window of time.
Steve / Agency Outsight (10:11.796)
That's amazing numbers. That's very like super impressive, inspirational. The impact that you've had, like for me, the goal is how do I help agencies so that the owners, the employees can all have better lives, their families can have better lives. The work they do is better. So their clients, you know, have better lives, what that means for emotions or whatever. But to think on scale, like I haven't maybe worked with 80 agencies in the five years I've been coaching on scale 800, like that ripple effect, that's just got to be like massively gratifying to know that that's the impact.
Greg Hickman (10:16.522)
Thanks.
Greg Hickman (10:24.654)
100%.
Greg Hickman (10:40.814)
For sure. And I'll be the first to say that I don't think every single one of them, you know, took it as far as I would have liked them to take it in many cases. Like those are not all like probably, you know, awesome success stories, but like we've worked with 800 people like us that have been in the trenches navigating through this change. And it's like, I mean, it's the same stories, you know, like, I mean, these people are grinding, right? Like 80 hours a week, nights, weekends, and
And it's the nights and weekends when they're like trying to squeeze in working on their business. And, you know, that's where they're sacrificing, you know, their relationships and, their health. I mean, we were on a vacation, we always go down the shore in New Jersey, like historically with my family. And, I remember we were down there and we were going to tell my parents that, we were pregnant with our first child. And so we're out on the beach and, you know,
We shared the news. was amazing moment hugs and like literally 30 minutes later, I was like, I got to go back and take a call. And my wife like literally said to me, she's like, we're having a kid. Like this can't be happening. Like when, like we have the child, right? Like I'm going to need you there. And that was, that was like a big moment of just like, I need to figure out a better way to do this. because yeah, I.
I didn't want to have to go take this call like while we're here on this vacation celebrating this like awesome moment. Like it was, was not pretty, but that was another like big moment. That's like, all right, it can't be like this again.
Steve / Agency Outsight (12:16.222)
The flip side of that is I distinctly remember when I had my shop and I go on vacation once or twice a year with the family. And same thing, working, jockeying emails, doing whatever. I remember the first year things went off without Hitch, without me there. And I was like, my God, things kept running. The following year, we won new business when I wasn't there. And that was the, my God, we can grow without me? There's something going on here. We've got the right systems in place, so yeah.
Greg Hickman (12:23.15)
Yeah.
Greg Hickman (12:38.208)
Yeah. Yep. Yeah. That same vacation, that same vacation the next year we were making sales without me. And I was like, this is the coolest thing ever. Yeah.
Steve / Agency Outsight (12:48.26)
Yeah, yeah. The team celebrated without me. I'm like, what's going on? I got back, let's do a quick recap. Oh, we closed so-and-so. I'm like, oh my God, without me? So my ego took a hit, but then I was super proud of them and what we had built up to that point. So that's a massive, I think, win for building something that's scalable when you can pull the owner out of owner-led sales, operations, things like that, the day-to-day.
Greg Hickman (12:54.124)
Yeah.
Greg Hickman (12:59.48)
Right.
Yeah.
Greg Hickman (13:14.211)
Yeah.
Steve / Agency Outsight (13:17.276)
You guys talk about, you know, kind of the alt agency model, monetizing people's experiences, monetizing their expertise, productizing things. That'll work. Will that work like at any scale agency or is that kind of on the come up?
Greg Hickman (13:31.694)
I think so. I think so for sure. And so just for the listeners, of like what that, like if I can put some context around what that means, there are, first of all, it's not the only way to do things. And so I understand that. But for certain people, I think it's probably the simplest and best model to have a legit
wealthy life and not sacrifice your soul to get there. And so, yeah.
Steve / Agency Outsight (14:07.412)
Can I pause you with a quick interruption? I hope we don't lose track. The definition of wealthy is not necessarily, and I know you also subscribe to this, tons of cash in the bank, but it's health and family and time. And so just wanted to be clear about that. So, okay, go ahead.
Greg Hickman (14:17.144)
Correct. 100%. Yeah. love, I love Alan Weiss says, you who wrote the consulting Bible. I can always make another dollar. can't make another minute. and like, will never forget that, forget that quote, but so, all agency, kind of where it came from, because when I was first rebranding, people were like anti-agency, like the un-agency. I was like,
Steve / Agency Outsight (14:41.044)
Ha
Greg Hickman (14:43.33)
I'm like, no, it's like kind of too aggressive for like what I'm trying to say. And it's like, I don't think agency as we understand it is a bad thing. I just think it's changing and it doesn't mean anything anymore. And I think there's an alternative way to go about building what we now call an agency. And it starts with the fundamental understanding that I think the lines between what we know as an agency
and like say a physical SaaS or like a SaaS product. And then in between you have, you know, coaching, the creator economy, you know, courses, like the lines between all of those things are so blurry now. And that's an advantage. People are like, like you're not even an agency. you're like, technically your job is to get someone a result. Does it matter how you get them the result? I don't think so. As long as the client's happy. And so,
it kind of is predicated on that there's different ways in which we can get our clients results and it's not always trading our time for money, aka our labor, and or someone else's labor. And also from the perspective of that there are actually three different types of, four different types of buyers. We call them clients, subscribers, members, and customers. And,
We were doing this at Cabela's, so this is why I know it works at all scales, clients is like, if you imagine a pyramid, at the top of the pyramid is clients, it's the smallest triangle, you can't serve as many of them, it's high labor, low volume, Hopefully high dollars as well, but for a lot of starting agencies it's not, and so the margins are nothing. The next level down is subscribers, where I think is like,
Again, I'm using different words just to draw the distinction. You can really call them whatever you want. But like a subscriber is where I look at a productized service. So you are a subscriber of a prototype service. When I was a customer of Design Pickle, right, I was getting X amount of deliverables per month, every single month for a flat rate. Like I was subscribed to a repeating set of deliverables.
Greg Hickman (17:04.75)
My first video editor, one YouTube video edit per month for a thousand bucks or whatever. I'm essentially subscribing to a specific set of outcomes every single month. Then members, to me, the transition into I'm now doing it with you versus for you. And with you meaning, hey, I might tell you what to do or give you a template or tell you to watch this video.
Steve / Agency Outsight (17:24.5)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Hickman (17:32.598)
and then you're gonna go do it and I'm gonna give you feedback and critique, right? I'm not necessarily the hands to keyboard, you might be, but I'm alongside you. And that's, know, programs, consulting, coaching programs, training programs, which is huge. we paid trainers to come in all the time at Cabela's to just train us on stuff. And that was a revenue stream.
Steve / Agency Outsight (17:55.624)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Hickman (18:00.674)
for agencies that do all of the work, right? Teach us everything you know about social media marketing for retail, like a three-day workshop, right? Where they trained us. That was the only deliverable, right? And so there's tons of opportunity for agencies to expand their income without a ton of like head count.
an incremental amount of expenses going up when you can package up your know-how into those sorts of containers. And then the customer tier is zero to no fulfillment, like a digital course, a book, right? We've all bought books. And so those sorts of things. And Alan Weiss also says, having multiple offers gives not only people different ways to buy from you,
but it also will let them stay longer because we've had clients that have worked with us at our highest level and then left and I still see them buy our courses and then like they'll come back and come back to our high level thing and there's a lot of opportunity for that as well and like there's zero fulfillment on that side. Now we don't do like we don't do that type of thing first because most agency owners have no audience and at the bottom of the pyramid it's
high volume in order to like have any sort of significance from a money perspective and or impact perspective, but it's completely like low labor. And so you kind of need like, we always say, build down that pyramid, build down to scale up, right? Build your offer suite down that pyramid. and then that's going to be allowed to scale up where you're not just having to hire more people. and so that's really what we've done and what we've been teaching other people now really
in some ways not even knowing that that's what we were teaching, but we've codified it a lot more in the last five years. But like we did, like we worked with agencies at Cabela's where they came in, we hired a company to build out our mobile app, rebuild the whole thing from the ground up. And we actually, there was a second line item that we paid the agency and it was to train the developers that we had in-house on their agile mobile development process.
Steve / Agency Outsight (20:24.413)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Hickman (20:24.792)
because we were like, hey, look, we want you to build this thing because we need it live in this timeframe. But our goal is that we will never need you again within like 18 months. So we need you to teach and train our people on how you do what you do and be there like as an insurance policy for a certain window of time when we mess things up so that we're not dependent. like, so that agency could have been like, no, we don't do that. And once the app was live, we'd be like,
Sayonara and that was a year-long engagement, but they ended up working with us for another 12 plus months just on the advisory and the consulting side, which was again hundreds of thousands of dollars that they kept just because they were willing to let us be the labor.
Steve / Agency Outsight (21:08.328)
Yeah, I was curious which dollar for dollar was it the product delivery or the consultancy delivery that was more value to them.
Greg Hickman (21:17.528)
For them? I mean, I don't know the back end of their numbers, but based on how involved and how many people were involved, I'd have to say the margins on the consulting was like 70 plus percent.
Steve / Agency Outsight (21:31.508)
Yeah, I would imagine so. So thinking from an agency delivery model, let's talk about app delivery, marketing delivery, graphic design, whatever, and productizing in the mindset that you bring through Alt Agency. It's not necessarily, so don't recreate the wheel every time. You know, selling instead of hourly rates, you doing packages, things like that. How do you convert those services into what you're talking about?
as opposed to personal expertise from a coaches standpoint.
Greg Hickman (22:01.836)
Yeah, so really what it is from custom all the way to product, the way I think about it is when first, if it's custom, we need to specialize into delivering a specific outcome, right? So a productized service has a specific outcome or a specific set of deliverables that are included. And so figuring out what that is for your prospect,
So positioning it as a product is the first thing. Outcome, transformation oriented. And then it's the, well, what are the steps that I need to do in order to take them from where they're at to get that outcome? And that's basically your to-do list, right? Like in the beginning, your team is doing it. You and your team are doing it. Like, well, we do the website. Then we run this ad campaign and those sorts of things. And so there's a certain way in which you solve that problem.
And each of those ways has a certain number of steps that you follow. And once you've kind of zoomed in on what this one thing is, it's way, way simpler to get it onto paper in like an outline, into a workflow. And that fundamentally is the first stage of your systematized offer, right? You follow the same set of steps every single time a client buys it to get them to the outcome. That same set of steps,
Steve / Agency Outsight (23:25.94)
every single time.
Greg Hickman (23:30.274)
can be codified further to just teach someone else to do it. And so that's like, that's the easy low hanging fruit one. It's like, hey, like, well, I taught my team how to do it. Why don't I just now teach them to do it because they can't afford my labor. So like, they'll be the labor and we'll just show them.
Steve / Agency Outsight (23:34.152)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that too many agencies are like...
Steve / Agency Outsight (23:48.936)
Yeah, yeah, I think that's interesting. Too many agencies are like, here's an opportunity. Let's recreate the wheel every time and without fail every time they do that, whether it's strategic because we want to break into this new delivery model or whatever every single time that's a money loss. And so, yeah.
Greg Hickman (24:04.214)
Yeah. mean, so many agencies that I've come across over the years, you know, they, whether they're selling a retainer that should be a project, oftentimes the way that they structure their payment, they're like not even breaking even on the front end work, like until like month four or five. And depending upon which studies you look at, like agency churn lifetime value is like often six months.
And so some of these people are losing money, thinking they're making money and then they're sitting there like, well, why don't I have the capacity to take on another client? It's like, well, cause you're losing, you're bleeding money out the back because this isn't profitable or efficient at all. And a lot of people think that like productize, you know, takes away, like if you're a creative service provider, everyone automatically thinks that productizing means less creative, which is like actually couldn't be further from the truth.
The challenge that most service providers, agencies have, one is because everything is custom, marketing is almost impossible. so you are set yourself up to have to take whatever money comes your way, which A, makes you desperate. B, is you're just responding to whatever demand comes your way. When you productize, you can actually create demand. Marketing it is simpler.
Selling it is simpler. Maintaining scope is simpler because it is a specific thing, right? Clients that buy a productized service are less likely to ask for things outside of the scope because they bought a product that had boundaries built into it. so from the, know, it's funny, people come in and they're like, like we need all the, like you're gonna teach us all this automation stuff that's gonna make our business run smoother. I'm like.
Steve / Agency Outsight (25:36.766)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Hickman (26:00.14)
Not really. Like, I mean, we will use that at some point, but it's actually just like, have a standard for yourself, pick a product and only sell that thing. And when they say, can we add these other things? You say no. And that's how you actually can start having a systematized business is just do the same thing multiple times for multiple people. And shockingly, the fifth time, the 15th time, the 50th time, you will be able to do it faster. You'll
which means usually higher profit margin, more efficient, which means higher profit margin, and you'll likely be way better at doing it, thus the clients are probably getting better results. So happier clients, less time, more profit, like it is very much a win-win for almost every single agency that does it.
Steve / Agency Outsight (26:51.506)
And less churn because you're getting better at it. You're making your clients happy. They're sticking around longer. They're referring you out. So yeah, it's...
Greg Hickman (26:58.162)
Yes, I have a different take on that. I think yes and no. I think it depends on what the outcome is, right? I think a lot of agencies sell into retainers thinking that the person's gonna stay for life and that's the only reason there's a retainer. But there are certain productized service businesses that have really high churn also. Which brings me to, no matter whether you productize or...
whatever type of service you are, custom, your success and your ability to make more money and grow the company is still always gonna be dependent upon how well can you generate leads and convert demand, right? And most agencies actually suck at that. They can't generate leads.
they do not close enough business, which is why their valuations are so low when they try to exit. And they're always hopping back and forth from sales to fulfillment, sales to fulfillment. Productizing does make the marketing simpler, like at some point, and this actually blends into the reason why I love adding training, because I think agency owners are incentivized to be mediocre because
Steve / Agency Outsight (28:03.849)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Hickman (28:22.08)
If you suck, you're gonna get fired in the first short window of time, right? But if you're too good and you keep raising the price, there is always a price where they will say, I can get this cheaper in-house. And so if you've done your job, most clients should want to bring that function in-house. And I'm sorry, but most agents owners, have to be honest with yourself. There is a time when it does make sense for them to bring it in-house.
and you should be like an advocate for that. However, their team who's gonna do it in house probably is not as experienced as you. So you can train them on how to do it in house for another six to 12 months or plus and extend that LTV just like we did when we were at Cabela's with, know, that consultant with Cabela's with us, right? And so like, that's great because you can keep working with them and do less work. So the training is...
Steve / Agency Outsight (29:17.62)
Interesting, yeah.
Greg Hickman (29:21.642)
awesome because the Done With You, however you want to contain it, it not only works to sell a level above your ICP, so we want to bring this in-house, sweet, let's go through our Done With You offer to help weaponize your team in-house to do it. So it can actually help you when they want to leave out of upward growth, but it also works for the person that's like, want this outcome, but I can't afford for you to do it for me, AKA they don't have the budget.
So you can offer a more affordable price and they be the labor and it works for that too. So it actually expands your market to like two different stages in the client journey that you probably weren't monetizing and turning down. Like when we help our clients add this new offer, usually the first few sales come from someone that was in their pipeline that they turned down that couldn't afford them almost every single time. It's like layups.
Steve / Agency Outsight (30:16.254)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Greg Hickman (30:19.008)
And so it's like, look, we just monetized it because, you you turn down those 10 people because their budget was too low, but this thing fits in their budget now. Let's go sell them that. And it works really well.
Steve / Agency Outsight (30:30.088)
Yeah, I love that. Real quick, can you talk about the difference in your mind between productization because it gets blurred and commoditization in the delivery business agencies?
Greg Hickman (30:43.35)
Yeah, so productized, I don't think I've ever actually articulated this, so let's see how this goes. So to me, when I say productized, what I've been kind of articulating it as is, you're following a repeatable steps and deliverables to achieve a specific outcome. It is framed as a product.
not all products, like now let's step out of services and think about any other product. There is a period of time where many products are not commodities. And so I think a commodity is like, commoditized is I can get it anywhere and now we're competing on price. Like, cause it's so accessible, like it's just, it's everywhere, right? And yes, that can happen to services, but just like physical products,
digital products and services, you should be innovating on what that thing is each and every year anyway. so like innovate, know, make it not commoditized anymore, you know, and, and or learn new skills so that it doesn't become commoditized, which I mean, as you know, from an AI perspective, it's like a lot of agencies are going to have to figure that out real soon and way faster than they probably thought because it's, you know, we're talking single digit years away.
Steve / Agency Outsight (32:06.59)
Picking up speed, yeah. Yeah. Well, to me, that's a super important distinction because I talk to a lot of agencies, yeah, you got to productize, you have to systematize. And they're like, well, I don't want to look like everybody else. Well, that's not what I'm saying. You have to stand out. You still have to be distinct. Your positioning needs to be unique to you and to your audience and the verticals that you serve. But how do you systematize what you do and the delivery methods so you can be profitable and not over-service every website, every social account, every SEO account?
Greg Hickman (32:26.254)
Right.
Steve / Agency Outsight (32:35.152)
And so productization is the key to that. So, yeah.
Greg Hickman (32:37.998)
100%. And it's funny because like the same people that are like, that's going to commoditize me. It's like, well, so then how do you describe what you do now? And they're like, well, we're a digital marketing agency. like, isn't that commoditized? Like everyone says that they're a digital marketing agency. Like, so you're, you just sound and look like anybody else already. So like, it's kind of like moot.
Steve / Agency Outsight (32:46.974)
Mm-hmm.
Steve / Agency Outsight (32:56.2)
Yeah, it's 100 % moot. It's a world of sameness and very few are doing the right work to stand out and be profitable and get the margins that they should be getting. Listen, man, I'm super grateful you got to spend time with us. I want to wrap up with just a couple of random non-agency, alt-agency questions. The first is, what is something that you just can't get enough of these days? We'll skip mountain biking, because we know that's your big thing.
Greg Hickman (33:21.422)
You
Steve / Agency Outsight (33:22.366)
but something that you're binging, a book, a show, a podcast, know, hobby, anything.
Greg Hickman (33:29.13)
I've actually gotten back into photography. I was really into photography years ago. and I got a new camera. went to Disney world the beginning of this year and was just like, couldn't stop shooting. And, now my son's wanting to take photos. So yeah, I'm like, I'm kind of, I'm like watching YouTube videos on photography and like settings of the camera and printing out my own, my own photos. So yeah, I'd say photography.
Steve / Agency Outsight (33:45.054)
nice.
Steve / Agency Outsight (33:54.768)
Awesome. Yeah. And you live in a, you're in the mountains. So it's a great space for that. Great, great, canvases. What is something that you've recently integrated into your life, AKA tool or something that not AI that you look back and you're like, how the heck did I live without this thing? Gadget tool, whatever.
Greg Hickman (33:57.75)
Yeah.
Greg Hickman (34:12.36)
Can give you two? All right, so one, I've always been on and off in my life with journaling, and I've always found value in it, but then I always stopped doing it. And I started carrying this field notes around that fits in my pocket with a pen. And one, I'm writing down way more of my ideas because it's with me all the time. And it's my to-do list, so it goes everywhere. I journal in it.
Steve / Agency Outsight (34:16.158)
Sure.
Greg Hickman (34:44.918)
I draw in it and it's been like super therapeutic. And I just feel like I'm using it way more and it's still early days. So it could still be kind of in like the honeymoon phase, but so far having this with me, I've found like a tremendous amount of value. And the second one, I bought this thing. It's like 35 bucks. It's, and I've gifted it to a few people. It's called Brick App. I don't know if you've seen this.
It's this little square, it's a magnet. I leave it on my fridge at home and there's an app and you can basically, it's called bricking your phone. And so I tap the app and I hold it up against my phone against it and it shuts down all apps that I've set to be bricked. And so I have like a work mode and I have a family mode. And so when I'm on family mode, I get home, I go up to the fridge, brick, boom.
Steve / Agency Outsight (35:31.443)
Wow.
Greg Hickman (35:39.946)
If I want to unlock it, I have to physically go back to that brick and do it again. And so like, I'll be upstairs and I'll like go to check Instagram and I'll be like, you know, you're currently bricked. This is a distraction. And I'm like, yeah, right. So it's different than just the screen time thing, because the screen time, can always say like, ignore, like you like, have to physically get up and then go back and like touch the phone to it. And usually by that time I've realized that that's a dumb idea. And I'm not, I don't, I don't need whatever I was going to do.
Steve / Agency Outsight (35:45.746)
Wow.
Greg Hickman (36:09.67)
so that's really been helpful because I'm super addicted to my phone and I don't like having my phone like in front of me or in between me and the kids when like they're trying to play. I can't imagine that that's a good look. So, I'm not perfect at it, but it's, probably three, four months into using it. Probably a little, little, not as consistent as I'd like, but every time I'm using it, I'm legit so much happier.
Steve / Agency Outsight (36:09.809)
Wow.
Steve / Agency Outsight (36:37.64)
That's fascinating. I love that you're so intentional in being present because like you said, like the moments go away and you can't make more of them. So yeah, that's beautiful. Nobody is.
Greg Hickman (36:45.086)
Yeah. And again, I'm not perfect. It's I'm I'm I have bad moments, but I don't have any discipline. And so like the whole like 45 minute limit, I'll hit ignore for the rest of the day all the time. so having it physically not able to function, is like, have to do that, right? It's or else I'm or else I'm going to cheat.
Steve / Agency Outsight (37:05.97)
Yeah, that's pretty sweet. And then jumping back to your field notes, I mean, I've for years carried notebooks with me. People are like, what are you doing with the notebook, dork? But I love it because I'm a tactile person. I'm an analog person. Do you find that it's more effective jotting down ideas as opposed to just doing a voice memo or opening up notes on your phone?
Greg Hickman (37:27.948)
I do a combination of both. I'm actually a huge fan. There's an app called Day One. And I used to journal on that a lot and upload photos and why I love it. And so like, right, but then I'll come back to the Day One app and I'll probably like take a picture of something or put it there because the cool thing about the Day One app is as you do it consistently, like every time I open up the Day One app, it'll be like, hey, here are your entries from this day last year.
the day before or the year before. And so it's cool kind of going back and be like, wow, like we were in the hospital this day, three years ago, like our daughter being born, you know, or whatever. And so you kind of like, what was I saying to myself? How was I talking to myself back then? What was I thinking about? And some of them it's like, wow, like I can see how far I've come. And then some I'm like, I'm complaining about the same thing, you know, which is I feel like what journals are meant to do, like
Steve / Agency Outsight (37:55.742)
Hmm, yep.
Steve / Agency Outsight (38:18.896)
Yep.
Greg Hickman (38:24.034)
but you have to then go back and like pull it off the shelf, which I was never good at. So I like the digital for that, specifically that app, but yeah, I don't feel happier or feel like I like journaled or did anything of real value when I do it digitally. I could write like a whole Google doc and still not feel as good as writing handwritten two pages about what I'm thinking and what's going on.
So there's something to the tactical piece. One of my mentors always used to say, breakthroughs don't happen on laptops, they happen on paper. And so I find that to be really true.
Steve / Agency Outsight (39:03.976)
Yeah, similar. don't happen necessarily in the office. They'll happen out on a walk or a hike or a bike ride or ski or whatever. So yeah, I'm there too. Yeah. Yeah. Get out of the office, go for a walk. And then finally, you know, looking back to a different younger version of Greg, what's some invaluable piece of advice that you would share with yourself, your earlier self?
Greg Hickman (39:07.98)
Totally. Yes. Stop working, people.
Yeah.
Greg Hickman (39:22.67)
man. Like business-wise, like fall in love with the problem, not the solution. I was so in love with the idea of mobile, but like nobody else saw it as like a solution to their current problems. Like the pain wasn't enough, but like I was trying to force, you know, a square peg into a round hole. So fall in love with the problem because people always have problems, their problems adapt, which means you'll always be in business if you can kind of stay falling in love with that problem.
So from business perspective, that one, the other would be, man, don't be so hard on yourself. I, I'm still very hard on myself, but way better than I was before because what I realized and we've all heard it, but like, you have to have some gray hair to actually really, I think, understand it is just that everything that you want.
will take longer than you want it to take, but not as long as you think. And it's like the...
Steve / Agency Outsight (40:27.348)
Hmm. Yeah.
Greg Hickman (40:32.193)
the willingness to just be in the game. The game is the reward. That's something I would also say is it's like, do you look at winning is just like you enjoy the game that you're playing.
Steve / Agency Outsight (40:40.052)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Steve / Agency Outsight (40:48.51)
Love that. Cool. Greg, thank you so, so much for joining me for always just being such a wealth of knowledge. I really appreciate it. I the stuff you're putting out. Folks, check out Greg Hickman, Alt Agency. He's got an awesome community, tons of really great solutions for agency owners, service providers, coaches, et cetera. Hopefully, he'll get out to Colorado and jump on a mountain with you one day.
Greg Hickman (40:51.96)
Yeah, thank you.
Greg Hickman (41:10.07)
Yeah, look forward to it, man. Really appreciate you having me on.
Steve / Agency Outsight (41:12.34)
All right, thank you.