One offer. One niche. One gap.

Psychologists have a name for the urge to fix someone else’s problem.

It’s called the Righting Reflex.

And apparently, you’re supposed to resist it.

Which would have been useful information about 30 seconds before I looked at Kyle and said:

“Dude… you’re making this WAY harder than it has to be.”

Sh*#!

I’d broken the rule.

But in my defense, Kyle had just spent the last few minutes describing an agency that sounded like 1,000 other agencies I’ve talked with…

And frankly, it’s getting kinda ridiculous.

Selling everything on the menu:

Voice agents.

Automations.

Websites.

A menu of “plug-and-play” features he could make money with based only on what that client needed.

And unfortunately for him… it had worked. (kinda)

“Bro… making the first $100,000 happened pretty fast,” he told me. “But I am completely stuck.”

Now… at this point, Kyle had been standing at my booth long enough to gather a small crowd of eavesdroppers.

And they didn’t gather for funzies.

My sense was that every one of them heard Kyle describe the hole he’d dug himself into… and heard a little bit of their own agency in it.

Maybe you do too.

So after helping 450+ agencies, I hope you don’t mind that I’ve gotten pretty opinionated about what I want an agency to look like.

In fact… I’ve created some pretty hard rules on what to do instead…

So here I go breaking that stupid rule again.

Rule #1: No offer complexity.

If you wanna win… you have to sell ONE thing.

And that one thing has to solve a problem valuable enough that someone will happily pay me at least $997 a month for it.

PERIOD!

It’s pointless to sell a $197 thing, a $497 thing, a website thing, an AI thing and a special thing I invented because Steve from the plumbing company asked if we could do it.

Kyle could sell all that stuff. That was part of what got him to six figures.

But when that happens, every time you sell something… you’re also creating another thing your business has to become good at delivering. Another promise to keep. Another process to figure out.

And that gives you yet another place for complexity to creep in.

COMPLEXITY EATS PROFITS.

There’s a BIG difference between having lots of ways to make money… and actually putting money in your bank account. (where it matters most)

Rule #2: You cannot sell to everyone.

This seems obvious after Rule #1, but it’s hard to get sometimes.

You’ve probably heard me talk about picking a niche approximately 7,000 times (sorry, not sorry)

But my reason why has very little to do with the old “riches are in the niches” thing.

It’s much more selfish than that. (it’s ok to be selfish sometimes)

I eventually want my service to behave like a product.

Because products, my agency amigo, don’t wake up Monday morning wondering what they’re going to do this week. They do the same thing for the same kind of customer over and over again.

It’s magical!

Because if I start selling to everyone, I’ll inherit everyone’s differences.

Different problems.

Different expectations.

Different promises.

Different fulfillment.

And before you know it… you haven’t built a product at all. You just got a job where every customer is now your Boss!

Do you want 50 Bosses?

Hell no!

The goal of your productized offer is to solve the same valuable problem for the same kind of person so many times that eventually the business gets… boring.

Guys… boring is wildly underrated.

Boring is predictable.

Boring is repeatable.

Boring means I’m on vacation getting the occasional text message with a simple question… then it’s back to the beach.

BORING = FREEDOM

But there’s one more rule.

And this is the one I think most “niching” advice misses.

Rule #3: There has to be a gap.

Picking dentists doesn’t magically give you a good business.

You can niche down to dentists (not a niche at all btw) and still become the 4,732nd agency walking through the door saying, “Hey, we run Facebook ads for dentists!”

Wonderful.

Now you’re niched… and completely replaceable.

What I’m looking for is an opportunity inside the niche. A gap between what that market wants and what everyone else is currently offering them.

Without a gap, you have to spend all your time convincing people you’re better.

Better ads.

Better software.

Better service.

Better AI.

Better whatever! And being better sucks.

I’d much rather be able to say:

“We built THIS specifically for people like you who want THIS result.”

It’s not selling some software, or a more proven service…

It’s selling a specific outcome packaged into something that feels like it was built for only them.

I mean they sell tacos at Wendy’s, but I’ll drive across town for Los Betos taco truck any day of the week.

That’s the business I want.

Is it starting to make sense why Kyle’s business stalled out?

I hope so.

I get it… $50k/month sounds awesome… until you realize you’re asking for five times more of a business you already hate running.

But if you build the first $10,000/month the way I’m describing, getting to $50,000/month doesn’t require you to fix anything at all.

You don’t suddenly need to slap on a bunch of features just to close a sale.

You just need more of the same customers.

Sold the same way, again and again.

“Create it once, sell it a thousand times.”

The real reason my convo with Kyle made me wanna lash out with the answer is not just because I’ve shown over 450 people what to do instead.

It’s because I did it in my own agency.

I spent 4 years in the same slog until I finally had my breakthrough. And every rule I’ve created is how I built the agency I actually wanted all along.

And maybe that’s why those four agency owners stopped at my booth to listen to Kyle. They recognized the words he said… but I think they connected with the emotion more than anything else.

That’s my gut.

I’ve mapped out more of my process and exactly what I’d do today if I were to build an agency.

And I could keep going and tell you exactly how…

But apparently psychologists frown upon that. :)

So if you recognized a little bit of your own agency in Kyle’s story, maybe it’s time to start getting the answers you need.

Sam