Shownotes
Lifestyle is a Plan podcast is for agency founders who are done with the growth hustle, and want profitability over pressure instead.
In this episode of Lifestyle is a Plan, Kelly Molson is joined by Buyability expert Joe Daniels.
Joe's helped dozens of agency owners and consultants package up their services into an offer that practically sells itself. His "buyability" model presents a new way of winning work, not by selling harder, but by making it easier to buy.
Joe Daniels and I share the opinion that positioning doesn’t need to be difficult, and that agencies should put their prices on their websites. It also appears we both spend a significant amount of time on LinkedIn.
Joe’s on a mission to help founders win work by making it easier to buy from them - something he calls Buyabilty.
- Your agency background
- The positioning dilemma - why is this so friggin’ hard for agencies?
- What is Buyability? And what is your Buyability Framework?
- Self-service - what’s changed that now makes this so important?
- Who’s doing this well?
- What are the benefits of this approach to often smaller lifestyle agencies?
- What’s next for you and Interim?
- Podcast recommendation - something that keeps you creatively inspired that our agency audience would find valuable.
You’ll discover:
- The positioning dilemma - why it's still so hard for agencies
- What Buyability actually means
- Self-service purchases - why is this so important?
- Why we should all put our prices on our websites
- Who’s doing ‘Buyability’ well
- The benefits of this approach to often smaller lifestyle agencies
Guest details
Website: joedaniels.co
Social: linkedin.com/in/uptojoegood
Newsletter: bemorebuyable.com
Podcast recommendations:
Brought to you by:
Lifestyle is a Plan is brought to you by me, Kelly Molson - an agency advisor on a mission to support solo founders build the agency they want. I’m here to show the agency world that ‘lifestyle agency’ is not a cop out. It’s the future of our industry’s sustainable growth.
You can join my Lifestyle is a Plan newsletter at kellymolson.co.uk
Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, leave a glowing review and share it with your founder friends.
Edited by Steve Folland. stevefolland.com
Transcripts
Kelly Molson
Hey, I'm Kelly. How you doing? Welcome to Lifestyle Is A Plan, a podcast for founders who are done with the Growth Hustle. Joe Daniels and I share the opinion that positioning doesn't need to be difficult and the agencies should put their prices on their website. It also appears we both spend a significant amount of time on LinkedIn. Who knew that was gonna be a thing? Joe is on a mission to help founders win work by making it easier to buy from them, something that he calls Buyability. Joe, thank you for coming on podcast today.
Joe Daniels
Thank you having me.
Kelly Molson
I'm very excited about the Buyability model that we're gonna chat about because that is something I'm very interested in. First, how did you get started?
Joe Daniels
I graduated, worked at a tech startup. I joined as a content writer, but it turns out I was also the only person in the marketing team. So I ended up doing a bit of everything, which is how I got that initial grounding in all of marketing stuff. And then that was acquired. I was kicked out 'cause they didn't need to be anymore. And then I, freelanced for a bit. I mean like a bit like, it was very piecemeal. Like I, I didn't know what I now know, put it that way. And then I met a guy called Roland who founded Treacle. And he originally one worked with me on a project because he, for some reason, he had some sort of tech client come in, they specialize in agencies, right? So that was unusual and he didn't really know what he was doing. So it brought me in to help and we just hit it off. We were like, oh, we both think the same way, both in the same wavelength, both hate the same things, which is always good to bond over that. And then he was like, do you wanna just work on some projects on agencies? And yeah, okay, cool. And I was like, oh, this is way more fun actually. and that was where I started learning a lot more about positioning, messaging.... the agency world generally, right? As an ecosystem. And so yeah, I was there for five years or so, and then left a couple years ago.
Kelly Molson
It's funny, I've never actually met Roland. Very aware of him. I think we've had a few like online conversations, but we've never met, I've definitely never met him in real life, but he is quite prolific within the sector, and Treacle is one of those agencies that just always comes up in conversation. It's obviously, especially around positioning, because it's what they specialize in, so great place to get your kind of agency experience. And obviously because they work with other agencies as well, you are immersed within that world.
Joe Daniels
It's a bit like, a lot of people sometimes ask me like, oh, but you don't really have that much agency experience in the sense of you've not been in... You know, Treacle was more of a consultancy than an agency really in what we did. And I'm like, but I've worked with dozens, if not almost like over a hundred as a result. So actually in a way I've seen loads of agencies and seen the patterns and so on. So I think I think it definitely helps if you've got both sides of the equation. But I think if I had to choose between spending 10 years in one agency versus five years working with dozens. I'd probably choose the latter because I think that gave me a much better understanding of different types, different sizes, different areas and industries and so on.
Kelly Molson
Okay, so big question. Why is it so frigging hard for agencies to do their positioning? Because it's like it's an ongoing debate, isn't it? Like why do they just get it so wrong?
Joe Daniels
I think there are probably two reasons. I think one is that It is quite a complicated thing, like I think, it's easy to simplify it and to come up with frameworks for LinkedIn and so on, but like the reality is that I always describe it as it's like making a jigsaw, but you've not been told what you're making and what the picture is. So yeah, you've got all these pieces, but you don't really know what you're even building with them. And so you've got to figure out as you go along where we're heading and what we wanna do. Which is quite an existential question for a lot of founders. But also, how do we then get there? And it's almost I think that the issue comes from, we naturally try to solve both of those things at once. And actually that's quite difficult 'cause you like building the car as you're driving down the motorway kind of thing. And not knowing where you're going, not knowing which exits take, so there's, a lot of moving parts, which makes it really difficult. But I think because of that, it's also then insanely hard to do it for yourself because you can't see that bigger picture because you are in it, right? You're look, you're in the car looking around going, oh, we're moving pretty quick here. What do we do? And you need someone with the, high level view to go, oh, I can see where the roads going. And I can see the path you need to take. And they also bring that element of objectivity, right? They ultimately like... an external advisor or consultant, someone doing the same sort of thing that we do, doesn't actually care as much as the founder about the outcome of it. Yes, we care about doing the best work for our clients, but it's not our business. At the end of the day, we're not as connected to it, and yeah, it's hard to make those decisions for yourself, by yourself, I think is really the hard part.
Kelly Molson
You're so close to it, you can't see what's...
Joe Daniels
Yeah.
Kelly Molson
Yeah.
Joe Daniels
And it's true of when I was at Treacle, like I mentioned before, like we found it hard to do that for ourselves. And recently I've found it really hard to do that for myself and I've had to get external help in with that because it's a natural thing and also I'd be hypocritical to say, you can't do it for yourself and then do it for myself.
Kelly Molson
Very true. I think what you said there, like being too close to it is a really valid point when it comes to positioning, because I often talk to founders and they don't know what it is that makes them different. They can't pinpoint that one thing. And sometimes somebody else coming in can see it so clearly, but you can't. And one of the things, this ties into to what we're gonna talk about for what you do now, but I think we've become a little bit hung up in the past about what's our methodology? What is the secret sauce? What's the thing that we do that... what's the process that we have that nobody else has? I just don't think in most cases that thing exists. If we are, the web dev agency, you're following best practices. You have to, you've gotta follow certain standards, et cetera, you're probably not doing it in a way that's any different to the next agency. It's all the other stuff surrounding it that makes you different. And that's the stuff that's harder for you to see internally. That's what needs the external perspective.
Joe Daniels
Yeah, I think the difference thing is really interesting. When I first started doing this kind of thing, I very much like bang to the differentiation drum. And I was like, yeah, you've got to find your USP, blah blah, blah. And I came to realize while I was at Treacle and while I was working with all these agencies like, it's very rare as you were saying that there's one major difference. And I think even if there is, that's either a bad thing in that actually no one wants that difference because there's generally a reason that's not a thing. And then also it can be copied, right? Ultimately, nothing's that defendable in the grand scheme of things. Like most things can be copied in some ways. So even if you get a slight advantage by being the first to do something a certain way. Chances are others will just see that success and go, oh, cool. we can do that too. But we'll do it cheaper. And it's oh, now we're back to compete in our price again. I think what I came to realize was that, and I came up with this theory ages ago and I can't remember what I called it, something like differentiation stacking or something like that. And the idea was like, if you imagine all these different levers you could pull in terms of, who do we serve? What do we do for them? Like, how do we do it? What's our personality and brand? All of these different thing, what's our pricing model, what's our delivery model? All these different things. Actually, you can probably pull a certain combination of levers that makes you different, and that's harder to copy because you'd have to pull the same combination of levers to do a direct copy, but also it feels more grounded in what clients probably look at. Because I actually don't think a client goes, what's the most different agency? They go what's the best agency to get the result we need or to solve the problem we have? And yeah, I think having some form of difference definitely helps, don't get me wrong, but I don't think it's as important as I used to think it is and as some people do think it is.
Kelly Molson
I tend to agree. I think what I've been speaking to a lot of my clients about is. The thing that is easier to define is like your point of view. So what, the way that you look at things, what's your take on something? Whether that's your take on the industry that you work in, or whether that's a take on something that you want to make a change about in the sectors that you operate in, for example. Those things, they take a lot more soul searching, I think, but for me, that's an easier way to position yourself differently than it is to think about the method type kind of way.
Joe Daniels
And I think the interesting thing about that is the reason it's often hard is because I think for me, the strongest points of view, are essentially saying, oh, you know this problem, how it's normally solved in solution A, actually that might not work and you should try this solution instead. It's like a redirection of attention from the current solution to the new solution. Which is fine if you are very clear on what the problem is. Otherwise, if you talk to most agency founders that don't have a very clear problem in mind and you go, oh, what's your point of view? Then it will be a very generic high level thing because how can they possibly have a very specific point of view if the problem itself isn't specific? And I think that's often the issue we've coming up with a point of view is... It's almost like actually if you get the problem part right, then it's relatively easy to come up with a counterpoint of view because really you just look at what the solution is now and go, huh, that might not work though. And they go, okay, why? And then, but you're there right? So it's, almost like getting focused on the problem really helps you focus on the point of view. Not that that's easy, but it's...
Kelly Molson
This is a doddle! Why are we not doing this?!
Joe Daniels
I dunno why people don't just do it.
Kelly Molson
Why don't you just do it? Okay. So tell me about 'Buyability'. This is a phrase that you've coined, which I totally get. I love it. Tell our listeners like the journey that you've been on to get to this point.
Joe Daniels
So yeah, speaking of point of view, it's a good segue, maybe that was intentional on your part.
Kelly Molson
Maybe. Who knew?
Joe Daniels
Yeah. It's almost like you've planned this. So, yeah. So this is my point of view, right? And I worked with someone called Caitlin Burgoyne on this. So that's when I mentioned, I brought someone in to help me with, my stuff because like I say that's what you need. And I mentioned it like very off-handedly towards the end of the workshop. So poor Caitlin basically had to run a second workshop, because I was like, oh, also here's a curve ball . And what's funny is Buyability, I suppose for people that dunno what that means... basically, my whole concept is actually instead of focusing how to sell better and how to sell harder and so on. If you can package up what you do so it's easier to buy and easier to understand and so on, then actually you almost don't need to sell it. Or at least not in the traditional sense of selling, right? It's more actually, if you can market something that's buyable, then people come to you most of the way there already. You might need a call to just be like, oh, are we a normal human? Do we get on? Is it the right fit? Is there any specific things you need to know? But ideally they're 80, 90% there on that buyer journey before they ever reach out to you. And that's aligned, I now know, as I didn't come up with a theory because of this, but having then researched it was like actually a lot of studies and researchers show me that's how people nowadays want to buy. They want to be self-service, they want to go and do their own research. They want to come up with their own short list. And they want to get most of the way to making that decision before they ever interact with you. And so I was like, actually it feels like there's a mismatch between how people now want to buy versus how agencies are still selling to them. And so that's where the whole Buyability thing came from. But it's something that's probably been bubbling under the surface of my whole career in the agency world, in like,. strong positioning makes you more buyable. Having clear messaging makes you more buyable. And now what I do is obviously the offer side, but they're all, sides of the same coin. And I think it's, if I came up with a why underneath everything that I've ever done, it's probably, it's probably to increase buyability. I just never really called it that before or had a term.
Kelly Molson
You sent me over a promo shop for what we are talking about now, and it's a t-shirt that basically said, 'I hate selling' on it.
Joe Daniels
Yeah. Available at all great stores!
Kelly Molson
Merch! But the idea behind that is actually if you can position yourself to be more buyable, actually you're selling less, right? Founders that hate that whole sales process don't need to do it as much.
Joe Daniels
And I'm one of those, right? The thought of getting on a call and having to try and convince someone or... like the consultative selling of oh, I'm gonna let you tell me your problem and then devise a solution to it there and then on the call... I would hate that. Like I, I'm not smart enough to think on my feet like that. So like I, almost have always tried to build my own thing in a way that is as possible. And like now for example, when someone gets on a call with me, like a 'sales call' in inverted commas, like they're 80 to 90% of the decision has been made and they're usually the call is them telling me a bit about them. Me saying, okay, that sounds good. It sounds like a real good fit, or not in some cases, do you have any specific questions? They might say yes, or they might be like, no, actually we're good to go. And then it's okay, cool, let's go. And like it means that those calls aren't 'sales calls' in that sense. They're really just a check call.
Kelly Molson
It's a vibe check, isn't it? Yeah.
Joe Daniels
Yeah. And yeah, it really takes the pressure off. I feel better about it. It also, I think, means that inbound works better too. Like I don't do any outbound, for example. And again, I would hate that. Like I, I've tried it in the past, hated it, and oh, just constantly feel like, why am I interrupting this person with something that they don't care about? And I hate it when I get it. It's not hypocrisy, but there's a weird divide between people who are like, yeah, I'm gonna go and do cold outreach, but also hate the idea of receiving it. And it's well, you can't have it both ways. Either you appreciate that people are doing it to you and you put up with it or you don't do it. But like yeah, I hate selling and so I wanted to build a business where I didn't have to do it, and now I have.
Kelly Molson
And now you're gonna teach other people to do that as well,
Joe Daniels
Hopefully.
Kelly Molson
Also, listeners, if any of my clients are listening, you are still gonna do an element of outreach, so don't listen completely to Joe, that you don't have to do none, even if you find it uncomfortable.
Joe Daniels
I think just to clarify on that, just to argue, I think that I do differentiate between 'cold' and 'warm' as well. I think that an important distinction. I will message someone if they interact with a lot of my content and I'll be like, oh, hey, thanks for interacting our content. And that's it, right? If they want to carry that conversation on, great. If they don't, that's also fine. There's no pitch. But I don't ever message a stranger, for example. We have to have interacted in some way before I'm gonna start that conversation.
Kelly Molson
Well rescued 'cause that is what I recommend. Can you tell us about the framework? Can you talk to us about how this works ?
Joe Daniels
Yeah. So I guess when I talk about Buyability what I normally talk about is the offer itself. And I suppose what I mean by that is like, tangibly, what are you actually selling? And the model has three components to it. They all begin with D just 'cause I like aliteration. That took a while and... the three Ds are Desired, Different and Decisive. And one by one... if your offer is Desired, it means that people actually want it, right? And so it means that when they go on your website, for example, they can instantly see, oh, this is a problem that I have. These are the pains that I have. I need to solve it. And so it makes them want it. And you'd be amazed how many times I go on an agency's website and there's no mention of any problem or pains or negativity because no one wants to be negative. And it's like, but people aren't just buying you for the fun of it. They have some sort of problem otherwsie why are they even here? And so it's not about being a doomsayer and being like, oh, it's all gonna be awful if you don't do this. But it's at least acknowledging, it's meeting them where they are, which is, look, you're probably struggling with this thing.... well, then we've got the solution, right? And, so that's part of Desired. And also just making it clear what it is that they're gonna get out of this right as well. So that they can go, oh yeah, cool, I want this thing. Different. We spoke about differentiation before Different is where the point of view bit comes in, right? So, actually it's that reframing of, okay, here's the problem. Now you might have tried this solution, or you might be looking at this solution. Here's why that's probably not gonna work for you specifically. Like it might work for someone else, but it probably won't work for you as my target client. And here is now how I approach that problem differently. And for me, Buyability is my version of that, right? It's actually, you might be trying to fix your empty pipeline by selling more and selling harder. I'm saying that probably won't work. What you need to do is be more buyable. And so that's how I am different. That's my difference and the way that comes in. So I think that's important. Like it's one third of the model, right? But it's where that point of view comes in. And the last one is Decisive. And this is the one that I think gets most overlooked actually, because Decisive, by that I mean can they actually make that purchase decision almost right away. What that means is do they know exactly what's included in terms of the scope? Do they know what the deliverables are? Do they know how that works as a process, like step by step? Do they know what that means? Do they know, how much time it's gonna take them, for example, because that's a factor a lot of the time. Do they know how much it's gonna cost? Because that's important too. And it goes down the lines of productization to a certain extent, but that's a bit of a dirty word in the agency world for some reason. So I don't use it, but yeah, I don't, I dunno. Yeah, I think people like to think that there's always an element of bespokeness and productization just eliminates that completely. And it's not even true, you can productize and still maintain a bit of custom stuff in there, but, but that's a different story. But yeah, so they're the three. So basically the three questions to ask yourself then are, is this offer something that people will want to buy? Is it something that's different to the other solutions that's out there? And is it something that they can say yes to right now because they know what it is? And if all three of those things exist and it's a buyable offer and, that's the model.
Kelly Molson
That is brilliant. And that brings us back to what you said something earlier, which was around this self-service approach. What you've just described, I could go to your site, bring in a problem here. Oh, okay. He understands my problem. Okay. This is the approach he'd take. Okay. This is what's gonna happen on this day, or whatever it is that you sell. That this is what's gonna happen. This is how it works. This is how much it costs. Great. So my then self-serve process is done until the point that I book a call and go, are we a fit here? This is me, this is you. We seem to get on. I think this could work. Done. It's just so simple.
Joe Daniels
And you know it is funny 'cause like, the ideological end point of Buyability is that you could theoretically not even have the call.
Kelly Molson
Yeah.
Joe Daniels
And just have a checkout. The only issue is, it is a service business. So you are working together. So that's important.
Kelly Molson
We would never want that to happen though, would we? Because ultimately we're spending time with people when we, and I think also what you said earlier around, I might not be the right fit. You want to be really genuine with that person to say, actually, I might not be right for this, but this other person would be for example.
Joe Daniels
Yeah. we sold at Treacle we sold an 18 K package once to an LA agency who we'd never spoken to.
Kelly Molson
Wow.
Joe Daniels
Which A suggests that people will spend money if they think that the offer is what they need. But B also it taught me that you might still want to have the call because that project didn't go very well.
Kelly Molson
Okay, awlays include the vibe check.
Joe Daniels
So yeah, I think I would almost say try and build it in a way that you could sell it without the call. But still have the call, and then that's probably the best approach.
Kelly Molson
Yeah. Okay. Yeah, no, that is a good point. What has changed though to make people be in this position where they want to self-serve when it comes to products and services now?
Joe Daniels
I'm not an academic, so I can't tell you conclusively. I would propose that there are two reasons that have happened at the same time. I think one is it's a generational thing, and I do believe that older generations, the old school approach was very relationship heavy. And it was, where's the little black book? And going on the golf course and building those relationships and getting work from each other. And it was probably a bit of a white boys club, let's face it, like back in the day. And that was how sales was done, right? It was like, oh, how are the kids? And... I think over the years, as millennials and now even maybe Gen Z, is that the one after millennials? I dunno. Like they're now doing most of the buying in B2B. Like they're now in the position where they're buying services and I think they just don't see it like that at all. Like we don't, I don't want any of that nonsense. I just want to find the right solution and buy it, and as simple as I can. And you can see that in other things too. Like I always make the analogy of like car salespeople who a traditional slimy sales person was generally a used car salesman who is trying to grease the wheels. Like he is like wheeler dealer. It's very like person focused. And now you can buy a car online. And without ever speaking to someone. And I think that's permeated B2B as well because it's so much easier to buy things now in B2C. And I think B2C buyer behavior influences B2B. The other aspect is along similar lines, which is that I think SaaS and software and tech in the B2B world is a very common purchase to make. And I think people are now used to going on a website for a tech tool, maybe getting a demo or something like that, potentially, or almost getting a free trial playing around with it and going, oh yeah, this is, solving my problem. Cool. Let's go with it. And I think, again, that then permeates through to buying services too, where it's actually, I don't... yes, I'll talk to someone like we've said for the fit check side of things, but what I don't want is to talk to someone who then pitches me on their services and like tries to almost convince me to buy things that I don't necessarily need or want. I'm personally someone that would never get on a call to buy a service unless I was mostly confident in that's the service I wanted to buy. And I believe that to be true for everyone else. Not everyone, but most of the people. I believe that to be true now.
Kelly Molson
I agree. I totally and utterly agree with that. It also then begs the question knowing all of that, and I know that there'll be a lot of founders out there that not along going, yeah, that's absolutely how I wanna buy stuff. But I know that those founders that will be nodded along still probably don't have their prices on their website for the services they offer as well. They're like, what? Why? Why? I just, yeah, that I still don't understand.
Joe Daniels
I would say that people have a lot of good excuses for it, is what I would say. And I think it's not as simple as just put your prices on the website.
Kelly Molson
No, yeah, I totally oversimplified that.
Joe Daniels
And I know you are not saying that, but I think it's easy for them to dismiss it as 'I can't just put my prices on because my prices change depending on what I'm selling' and so on. And I'm like, that's actually the issue, not... and anyone I've worked with to package up their offer has no qualms about putting their price on the website. 'cause why wouldn't you? Because you know how much it's gonna cost. I'll put it on there. And I think it comes down to the custom versus packaged up offers side of things. If you're only selling a custom offer, I wouldn't put the price on either, because it makes no sense because you don't know how much it's gonna cost. You might maybe get away like a 'starting from', that could be useful. That's probably still puts you in the top 10% of agencies. But yeah, it comes down to whether it's a custom offer or a packaged up offer. And I think my opinion is that you're much better off always selling a packaged up offer, at least first. Sometimes forever, fine. But even if you are wanting to then sell a custom offer, that's a lot easier once you've sold them one thing and you've sold them the entry offer, that's packaged up because then it's... then you can do the relationship building. The trust's there.
Kelly Molson
Yeah.
Joe Daniels
They know you, you know them. Then the upselling's sort of the easy part to a certain extent.
Kelly Molson
Agreed. Who do you think is doing this really well, in your opinion?
Joe Daniels
Me. (Laughs)
Kelly Molson
Hang on! I was expecting you to say me! How rude!
Joe Daniels
You do have transparent pricing. You do have a open offer. I know that, I do like that. There's an agency I always refer people to who are called Fletch. And Fletch, they basically specialize in homepage positioning and messaging for SaaS, B2B SaaS companies. They have always been very productized and very transparent, and you go on their website and they even have a thing where, I think just, after you scroll down from the hero, they've basically got a box that says, 'here's the homepage sprint that we do, here's what you get, here's the pricing tiers'. So they charge slightly differently based on the size of company, because it's more complex is their argument. But instantly you could just not look at the rest of the website, right? You could just look at that one box and go, oh, okay, cool, I know what that is. So it started off with two of them co-founders. I think, my timeline might be off slightly, but I think they got it too about, they're US based, I think they got to about a million dollars turnover with just the two of them. And this very productized offer, very scalable offer. And then recently, I think they've hired a couple of others and now are at like 1.7 million turnover, I believe. And that's in the space of three or four years.
Kelly Molson
Wow.
Joe Daniels
And they also don't do any outbound that's purely inbound, or at least our definition . So they're a prime example and it's very much possible to hit revenue numbers that... I've spoken to some 20 person agencies who are barely scraping past a million. And at that point, as a founder, you're barely taking any profit out of that. I think, obviously you have the whole lifestyle agency argument that you make, and I think this is a good argument for that, which is it doesn't mean you have to just earn a hundred, 200 K like you can, scale that if you productize and package up your offer in the right way.
Kelly Molson
Yeah, no, that is incredible. what an achievement with the team of two, four, you said four now, four. Yeah. I'm sure they've got outsourced support, et cetera, et cetera, but
Joe Daniels
Yeah. Yeah, they bring in freelance writers. But yeah.
Kelly Molson
That was one of the questions for you is that like, I absolutely see the benefit of the approach, regardless of whether you're a lifestyle agency, you're going for growth, whatever it's that you wanna do. What are the benefits of this approach to those kind of smaller agencies that are potentially going, we don't wanna grow by head count actually, we'd love to grow and be more profitable, but we don't necessarily wanna expand our team.
Joe Daniels
Yeah. So the first one, you mentioned the profitability thing. Custom work by its nature is just often less profitable, right? Because you are constantly reinventing the wheel, constantly doing new things, like you can't put the hard yards in and get better at that thing. Or you can, but it takes a lot longer. When you package something up, it becomes standardized. It becomes repeatable. Arguably, if it takes you, I don't know, 10 days to do that packaged up offer, the first few times it stands to reason that you should start getting better at that, getting quicker at that. And the nice thing is you're not charging based on the time you're charging based on the package. So ultimately, whether it takes you 10 days or 10 hours, you're charging the same and you're getting the same amount of money from the client. And so as long as you're still doing a good job, then that's great. And so you can either start to do more work, you can start to raise your prices as well. Obviously that's part of it. Or you, you just don't do either of those things, you just take more time for yourself, right? Because that is the other trade off here is that you can be time rich too from this kind of thing, right? So like I could theoretically take on 15 to 20 clients a month and be at capacity right now. I don't want to because, because I don't wanna do that.
Kelly Molson
Because I'd like to be able to breathe.
Joe Daniels
Yeah. But that's the flexibility you get from it, right? If, I'm like, actually I wanna go on a massive holiday, then maybe I'll take on more for the next few months. And and that's fine. But there's a degree of, essentially the more packaged up is the more profitable It's generally speaking if you do it right.
Kelly Molson
Yeah. What you just said there as well is that it feels like it's a bit more controllable too. We talk about pipeline stability in sales and we talk about getting that balance right all the time. But with this, and I guess it depends on like your agency size because of the, I'm just thinking about one or two people, like that kind of level. But you get to turn it on and off, don't you, depending on what's happening because you've got less overheads.
Joe Daniels
Yeah. And like, because it's more scalable, you also have the flexibility of bringing other people in if you wanted to, right? If you decide, actually I wanna just bring someone else in and essentially add all that new capacity, it's a lot easier to train them up when you've got a standardized packaged offer because you can go, here's the process. Here's literally like a dozen versions of this deliverable. You can probably train them in like a few days to be like, oh, okay, cool, I understand what's going on here. Yes, they'll need time to get better at it, but the gist of it will be there in place. So training becomes easier too.
Kelly Molson
And hiring, doesn't it? So just thinking about like the effect that this has on growth itself. You've got a packaged offer, you've gotta train people to do that one thing, essentially. So actually finding people is easier to do. Yeah. Wow. Hadn't thought about that.
Joe Daniels
It also, because, so the Fletch model that I mentioned before. They were very much actually we're really good at the positioning strategy, but not as good or not wanting to do as much the homepage messaging. So they instantly were like, actually we can sell it in as a package here, but we'll just 'cause we know, oh we are getting X amount of money and we can basically go, we'll portion off, I don't know 10% of that. Whatever it is. I don't know what their numbers are. But like we can portion some of that off and basically just give that to a freelancer. It also means the freelancers they work with also get used to it too. So basically, if I did the same thing and you were a freelancer I brought in, I could say, look, here's the output I have from the workshop. Here's the output I expect from you, and here's how I would translate that to that. And you can always train them up to, so you can bring people in and plug them in a lot easier because it's a standardized thing.
Kelly Molson
Yeah. It's brilliant. I hadn't married those two things together until you said that. It's really interesting to think about it. Joe I love this approach.
Joe Daniels
That was good because otherwise this would be awkward, wouldn't it?
Kelly Molson
It makes total sense. I want more agencies to adopt to this methodology. What... like what's next for you?
Joe Daniels
Do more of this. Buyability as a concept whilst it's been gestating inside me, but that's a gross word.
Kelly Molson
That is gross.
Joe Daniels
Gestating inside me for years probably. It's only been out in the world since January. So my aim now is twofold. One is to keep growing my own business and working with more clients. But also, just preaching the gospel of Buyability and like getting the word out there. And I'm sure eventually there'll be a book and so on. Right now I do not wanna take that on. So I'm just gonna write on LinkedIn instead where it's only like a few hundred words at time. And maybe eventually I'll have written a book on LinkedIn. Yeah, that's the plan I suppose, just to keep educating people about it, showing that it's an actual viable approach.
Kelly Molson
But you have launched a Substack about this as well, haven't you? So you are gonna be writing on that. So we will make sure that we link to all of Joe's contact details in the show notes. So website, social, going and find him on LinkedIn. And we'll put a link to your, what's the Substack called?
Joe Daniels
Be more Buyable.
Kelly Molson
Of course it's we'll link to that so that you can go and sign up for that as well. I have signed up for it. I think it's brilliant newsletter. Joe's LinkedIn posts are really insightful actually and I've really enjoyed getting to know you over the past six, eight months now, I think we've been chatting. Thank you for coming on today. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for fighting the good fight, and thank you for agreeing with me about putting your prices on your website.
Joe Daniels
You're welcome.
Kelly Molson
Thanks for listening. I'd really love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this episode, then there's a few ways that you can support it. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a glowing review and share it with your founder friends. You can even sign up for My Lifestyle Is A Plan newsletter at kellymolson.co.uk. This podcast is hosted by me, Kelly Molson, and edited by the excellent Steve Folland. Have a brilliant week.
