Episode 12: Strategy Is the Only Thing That Cannot Be Commoditized
from Behind the Agency Hosted by David Hoos
<p>You spent hours on the proposal. Discovery calls, research, a real plan with recommendations and a budget range. The prospect thanked you, said they needed to think about it, and you never heard back. So you gave away the most valuable thing in the room and charged for the part anyone could do.</p> <p>Max Traylor helps agencies and consultants turn what they know into strategy-led offers they can deliver consistently and charge real money for. He ran an agency young, hated the treadmill of more services and more hires, and later licensed a strategic process to agencies around the world. His framing is the one that sticks: <b>you're either a decision-maker or an order-taker</b>, and most agencies accidentally build an organisation full of order-takers because the whole system is designed to deliver what the client asked for.</p> <p><b>What's in this one</b></p> <ul> <li>Why agencies ignore strategy, and why it is not stupidity: martech companies needed partners to sell and service tools, so they filled the market with training about tactics</li> <li>The tell that you are being price-shopped: a buyer who arrives asking for a tactic is already comparing you with everyone else</li> <li>The supply and demand argument: AI and gig labour keep pushing the price of execution down, while demand rises for someone to say what to do with all of it</li> <li>The gateway move, and the most actionable part of the episode: package the discovery, diagnosis, prioritisation and budget guidance you already donate during sales into a paid planning engagement</li> <li>Then compare dollars per hour on strategy work against dollars per hour on implementation, and follow the money</li> <li>Why a separate consulting entity beats converting the whole agency: it removes the conflict of interest and avoids forcing a strategy culture onto an execution team</li> <li>The honest obstacle in that transition, which is that you hired tactical talent rather than strategic thinkers, and they are good people</li> <li>Productizing means systematising, not turning strategy into a product: same steps, same outputs, predictable delivery, known costs</li> <li>Why strategy is not a mysterious blessing that arrives with grey hair: there is a process, and it can be documented, taught and scaled</li> <li>The question to ask clients this week: what is most valuable and what is least, then start removing things</li> </ul> <p><b>Max Traylor</b><br> He is the author of the <i>Agency Survival Guide</i> and the <i>Consultant Survival Guide</i>. In the episode he also recommends David C. Baker's <i>The Business of Expertise</i>.</p> <p><b>Behind the Agency</b><br> Full write-up and takeaways: <a href="https://www.hausadvisors.com/podcast/burn-the-menu">hausadvisors.com/podcast</a><br> Find out how much of your agency's growth still runs through you: <a href="https://www.hausadvisors.com/score">take the free Bottleneck Score</a><br> Weekly newsletter: <a href="https://haus-advisors.kit.com/8dd478d383">haus-advisors.kit.com</a><br> David Hoos on LinkedIn: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidhoos/">linkedin.com/in/davidhoos</a></p>
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What this episode covers
You spent hours on the proposal. Discovery calls, research, a real plan with recommendations and a budget range. The prospect thanked you, said they needed to think about it, and you never heard back. So you gave away the most valuable thing in the room and charged for the part anyone could do. And the tell is in how the conversation started: when somebody arrives asking for a tactic, they're already comparing you to four other shops on price. Max Traylor's line for it is that you're either a decision-maker or an order-taker. His entry point is smaller than it sounds, which is why it works. Charge for the plan you're already giving away in the sales process. You're doing the strategy either way, you're just doing it for free. And the question you can ask this week: which parts of what we do do you value most? Then start deleting the rest.
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