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Do Good Work is not a label but a way of living.
It is the constant and diligent effort to achieve a new level of excellence in one’s own life.
It is the hidden inner beauty behind the struggle to achieve excellence.
It is not perfect but imperfect.
It is the effort, discipline and focus that often goes unnoticed.
The goal of this podcast is to highlight that drive.
The guests I have on this show emulate this drive in their own special way. You’ll be able to apply new ideas into your own life by learning from them.
We will also have 1on1 episodes with me where we’ll dive into my own experiences with entrepreneurship and leadership.
Every episode is designed to provide you with ideas that you can apply and grow in excellence in all areas of your life, business and career.
Do Good Work,
Raul
INTRO
PODCAST
. Raul: Talking to the founder
and CEO of Blic, Jason Brewer.
He's got 21 years under his belt at
Rollick and their marketing agency focused
on unlocking growth for service based.
Businesses and he's on a
mission to change how small
businesses think about marketing.
I'm so excited that
you're finally on Jason.
Jason Brewer: Yeah.
Yeah.
It's great to be here, Raul, and
yeah, this is a topic I'm, I'm
pretty fond of and I was excited
when you, when you sent the invite.
Raul: We've been having this
conversation in our private calls.
I've been having this conversation about
niching down in coffee chats in mastermind
groups, in my own one-on-ones, and there's
no right answer or wrong answer to niche
down or niche in any sort of sense.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna set the scene here.
People tell you to niche down, but you
can also niche horizontally depending
on the skillsets that you have.
You also can niche depending on the
type of person that you sell into, or
the intelligence of your ideal client.
'cause some industries have higher
rigor, higher performance requirements.
And it can be very difficult with
working with those types of clients.
I'm not saying that it is difficult,
but it could be very difficult for some.
Services or agencies to work
with some clients versus another.
That's another way to niche down.
It could be by your services,
it could be by your industry.
There's a plethora of ways of
niching down, and I would love
your thoughts 21 years in the game.
What are, what is your current state
of thought when it comes to niching
and what's the tension behind it?
Jason Brewer: This is a, this is a
business positioning conversation,
but it's also like a life conversation
because one of my favorite
books I've ever read is range.
I don't know if you've heard of it before.
Raul: on my
Jason Brewer: Yeah.
It's, it's all about the, there you go.
It's all about the benefits of.
Being a generalist in a specialized world
it certainly looks at both sides of it.
But one of the great sort of
examples is Roger Federer, who
did not start at three years old
with a tennis racket in his hand.
He actually played a lot of different
sports and didn't even figure out
that tennis was his thing until
he was like in his late teens.
And they compare that to Tiger Woods who.
You've seen clips maybe where he's like
out looking like a teenager or adult
playing golf, like scoring better than
adults at three years old, four years old.
So it's like the idea of like specializing
from early on or starting as a generalist
and like what are the, the pros and cons
to each, and it's, it's been this thing
where, you know, from, from being a parent
and a coach not just to sports, but in
life in general, like getting a diverse.
Range of, of learnings across different
areas versus like pushing yourself
or your, or your child or, or someone
into like one specialty really early
and just focusing on that forever.
And I think, you know, I've always
been a big fan of, of that generalist
sort of curriculum or like that
expanding and having different
pockets of knowledge that you can
use and sort of like overlap nicely.
So when it comes to business, you
know, I think a lot about positioning
strategy and as, as growth marketers,
you think a lot about like launching
ad campaigns and optimizing and
conversion rate optimization and, and the
technical aspects of digital marketing.
But a lot of our job is making sure
the foundation's right, and that
means making sure that the audience
you wanna reach connects with.
The value you provide and
the proposition you have.
And it's a lot about
positioning and messaging.
So a lot of our work starts there.
And having a, a, a, a range of, of
skills that matches your potential
client or customers like set of
needs, I think is more important
than being that one sort of one trick
pony or that one sort of specialist.
That can only do one thing
and not expand outside of that
to kind of meet the sometimes
ranging needs of, of the customer.
So anyway, that's a little bit
of like my background in terms of
how I feel about the generalist
versus specialist conversation.
I think there definitely is area for
generalists and for you know, more
diverse or, or a range of like skills.
To in terms of business positioning.
And I'm not one of those people
that's gonna like force you into a
very specific specialty in all cases.
Raul: Let's let me dissect
a few thoughts there.
'cause as you were speaking, I was
thinking maybe in two dimensions.
So there's the business itself,
and this is, your grand.
Your bigger picture positioning,
and then there are the offers that
you deliver to the marketplace via
a service package, or it could be a
product type service or it could be
some sort of subscription or software.
So let's just put offers below that.
Then on the background, it's the types of
clients you work with, and then the third
is the types of projects you work on.
So I'm almost thinking that as a team,
as a whole, you do have to have a
wide range of skills and capability.
you would channel
Jason Brewer: Mm-hmm.
Raul: you could channel
those to specific offerings.
'cause one of the things that I started
questioning is what if the organization as
a whole focus is primarily on a generalist
skillset or the I love, jim Collins'
books about what's your flywheel effect?
Are you a product specific type
of company or are you a process
specific type of company?
And a lot of these, a lot of
my clients are process and
even myself, it's more process.
It's agnostic to the industry or to
the, which is not good positioning
'cause sometimes it's what?
Jason Brewer: Yeah.
Raul: help?
But when you look at the process as a
whole, or you look at a team that has
a diverse range of skills, great, you
can tackle a wide array of problems.
I think there should be experimentation
or some sort of r and d or labs to
tinker and figure out what else could we
be solving and creating something new.
But for the sole case of
creating new offerings.
But here's where I think we could actually
differ, is that the offers should be
specialized to a specific outcome.
But that doesn't mean that the
company as a whole has to niche
down just to that specific offering.
So I think that's where there's
an interplay of it, and I'd love
to know your thoughts on that.
Does it create confusion
for the organization?
Does it create confusion
for the marketplace?
Jason Brewer: No, I, I think a very
focused offer, or even like, even if
you know you have a generalist skillset
and there's a lot of problems you can
solve, focusing on one that like gets
a particular audience member persona's
attention and brings them in the door.
And I think that that's really
important because you can't go out
with positioning that just says,
we do everything for, for everyone.
Obviously, both of us would agree that
that's not, that's not the way to go.
But I think there is an approach where
you focus your early conversations,
like the audience instinctively connects
with a specific service line or offer
or productized service that you present.
You knowing behind the scenes that
you can offer them a lot more as they
develop and the relationship grows.
But if you throw everything all at
them at once, it's overwhelming and
you're not gonna get their attention.
You're not, they're not gonna convert.
So I, I agree with you.
I, I would agree with that.
Raul: the
Jason Brewer: Yeah.
Raul: Because a lot of our conversations,
it's almost like a dance, right?
Between commitment full on to one vertical
or industry or problem to be solved.
And then also not wanting to
give up the, I don't know, the
opportunities that could arise.
Is there a tension that
you're seeing that, or how are
you walking that fine line?
Jason Brewer: You know, there's,
there's a way I could answer
that for, for my clients.
There's a way I can answer that for
myself as an agency owner of 21 years.
I think part of it is I've been
in the business for a long time.
My partner Matt and I, you know, we've,
we've been a generalist agency focused,
you know, we haven't had a specific
industry or vertical that we focused on.
We certainly have more experience in.
Say home services, higher ed
manufacturing, there's certain
ones that like stand out where
Yeah, we have, we have a lot
deeper experience in those areas.
There's certain industries
that we don't touch much.
SaaS being one of them, for example.
That's just the way it is.
I, I don't, in terms of tension, I think
it's just, I think it's all about like.
Risk aversion or risk management.
Part of me says my role in the business,
yes, it's business development,
driving growth and sales for the
organization and vision for the agency.
But it's also mitigating risk.
And I think that one thing I often
like that, that causes me to do this
dance a little bit is like we focus in.
Say it's an industry or a specialty
area that we're really good at and
we're really confident in, and we
niche down like, like we're talking
about here in times of like difficult,
difficult economic cycles, for example.
If we were talking about like e-commerce,
some, some smaller e-commerce brands
are having a rough time right now.
If I only had e-commerce clients, or I
was only focused on copywriting or paid
search right now, or SEO, my, the, the
agency right now might be going through a
much rougher patch, you know, so I think
it's a little bit of like diversification
mitigates risk, but it also makes it.
It also like limits growth in
a, in over a shorter timeline.
So I think it's more of like
a choose, choose your path.
Do you have a longer timeline and
are you willing to diversify to
kind of, and, and weather challenges
and grow slower potentially?
Or do you niche down from the beginning
and sort of grow quickly and aggressively.
But then also have, have more
of a, the risk of the rug being
pulled out from under you, I think.
And it's like, what?
What level of risk are
you comfortable with?
That's kind of how I think
about it sometimes I.
Raul: And I haven't thought about
it that way in terms of building
for resiliency a, in relation to
niching down into non niche down.
I remember in 2021 of the agencies that I
was serving, had a plethora of industries.
And thankfully because some
industries got affected harder,
like travel or luxury Airbnb or that
kind of definitely got affected.
But as a
Jason Brewer: Yeah.
Raul: there, it wasn't a huge dip.
It was act obviously busier, but
because of the diverse di diverse
approach, when you're talking to
either younger agency owners or those
in year three, four, or five, I.
How are you?
What, what are, what's the conversation
around like short term versus long term?
Because I feel like here, first of
all, 20 plus years in, in the agency,
that's not, it's not a small feat.
It's a real, there's a real milestone
in the cap there, but second, it's also
an attest attesting that you built for
long term thinking, long term growth.
How are you balancing that out though?
If there's a slower season or
if you want to continue to grow?
What's the overarching philosophy
that you have as a business leader?
Jason Brewer: I, I always have been
more about the long game than, than
the sprint, so that's just my mentality
from when I was, when I was a kid.
I just think I was always
like long-term focused.
I was always thinking a year or two
out with, if I was starting a project,
it, it wasn't always like, what is it?
How quickly is it gonna?
Grab attention or get me
results within a couple months.
It was, it was years.
I was always thinking that way
for investing too, you know?
So my mindset is a little
more over the longer term.
So so, so survival over a longer
term and removing the, the really
low points is, is more sort of like
how I approach business and life.
Maybe I find myself, when I'm talking
to early stage companies, founders,
people who are just starting out.
That I think there is a place for finding
a niche early and like exploding forward
with that niche and then trying to
expand naturally into a slightly a, a
slightly larger like offering base later.
Like I think there is a
world where that makes sense.
I think the danger is, like, I've seen
a lot of companies and even clients
who have added additional services,
almost like this really awkward,
like addition to a house where, you
know, it's like not the original
Raul: what
Jason Brewer: building.
It looks Yeah.
It's like, it it, it's, it's just,
it's just awful to the eyes and you
just know that it's not connected.
It's not.
It's not smooth at all.
It was just like, it was just plopped on,
it was the CEO's idea, and they were just
like, we need to offer this other service.
Our competitor's doing it.
Let's smack it on there.
And you can always tell when that happens.
And so I think it has to be
gradual and smart in the way that
you introduce it to your clients.
I have a, I have a client
that's a great example.
They're for the last like four
or five years, they are like.
Leak remediation specialists.
So they go into residential
leaks, like really complex leaks
where no one can figure it out.
Someone's already hired a
roofer or a plumber, they can't
figure out what's going on.
It's like a really complicated thing and
maybe multiple issues within the house.
They come in and diagnose and figure it
out and they came to us and said, look,
we we're really moisture specialists.
In a residential space, it's not just
about leaks, like plumbing issues
come into our, our purview mold issues
because of the moisture and leak.
So we have to really understand
like how moisture impacts the home.
And so we help them over multiple
years kind of like find that moisture
specialist positioning coming from
a background of like being the leak.
The leak remediation experts, and then
also adding the mold into that whole
story in the right way without slapping
it on, you know, in an ugly fashion.
So I do feel like there is a way to kind
of be very focused at first and expand.
But it, it can also be done in,
in, in the wrong way and, and
be a really ugly add-on too.
Raul: I like how you mentioned start,
exploit the niche first, grow from that
base, but then from there, identify
either how you can go deeper in that
industry with more service lines and or
take that to other industries because
there's multiple ways to expand,
Jason Brewer: Mm-hmm.
Raul: about it.
Jason Brewer: For sure.
Raul: Marketing's having a
moment right now I'm not sure if
you're seeing it, but there's a.
With every cycle there's lower
costs or lower investments in
marketing because they think that's
the easiest way thing to cut.
When in reality it's that's
pipeline generating things.
How are you approaching that with
the agency and your clients and
as well as with generative ai?
What are you seeing?
Because since you're helping businesses
change how they think about marketing,
how is your thinking changing alongside
with what the macro the macro approach is?
Jason Brewer: We, we always see ourselves
as, as an advisor to our clients.
We're working with a lot
of small business owners.
They are not trying to be
experts in technical marketing.
I.
They are hiring us because they want to
do what they do and what they're good at.
They're not trying to build an entire
marketing and web department in-house.
They don't wanna manage seven
or eight different freelancers.
So they come to us.
We kind of centralize
everything and help guide them.
So if we're talking about AI and,
and advancements in technology, in
the marketing space, we are trying to
supplement and compliment what we're
doing, kind of in terms of, of those
types of tools, make our team members
you know, more efficient and slowly
bring those tools into the agency at
a rate in which we can review and, and
really manage quality assurance too.
So like these types of tools
that have exploded sort of.
In the greater marketing space over
the last like six to 12 months.
I mean, we were tinkering and using
a lot of them like two years ago,
and so it wasn't this big surprise.
But communicating how we're using
them and how our clients can use
them in collaboration with us.
To be more efficient.
So we all save time, but without
lowering the value or the quality
of, of the output, I think is still
something that we're working hard on.
We, we don't want everything to sort of
be dehumanized and feel like you know, the
same, the same note over and over again.
Like, and there is a, there is a
concern there still, and I know
that a lot of these tools are
getting better by the day, but.
Raul: into that.
When you say dehumanize
what do you mean by that?
Do the, because if it this is a
macro culture approach of, human
relationships be more transactional
versus actual relationships.
So what do you mean by dehumanizing?
Jason Brewer: There is a certain feeling
you get when you interact with, with
content that is, something's off.
You know, it, it, it feels
robotic and I think that sometimes
you're not even sure why I.
Or what it is, or maybe it's just
that we all, you know, we all
have our sort of like feelers out.
We're trying to figure out what is
real and what isn't at this point.
And so I just, I think what it is,
is just like use the tools, don't
rely on them a hundred percent.
Keep your like voice and your
style there and you'll stand
out over the next couple years.
'cause while everyone else is going.
Completely in one direction.
If you are willing to talk and show
your face and like actually spend
time to like adjust the copy that
is generated or the visuals to be
like, it's 15% more in your style.
It goes a long way.
I think.
So, I think just like not relying
on, on the tools and the output a
hundred percent, but make sure you
put your, like, stamp on it and
your st keep keep to your style.
That's what I mean.
Raul: Okay.
No, that, that makes a lot of sense.
Where do you since you think long
term it's 2030, what's product doing?
Jason Brewer: Yeah.
Raul: I.
Jason Brewer: Brawl is providing
services growth marketing services to.
Service-based organizations.
I think we're focusing more on,
not just specifically just like
HVAC clients, but home services,
family services, consumer services.
So we're, we're starting to realize
we're really good in a certain space.
I think we are also incubating some
of our own products or businesses
which is something that we've been.
Working on for pro the better ha
the better part of like 10 years.
So joint ventures we've invest investing
in, in some of, not so much our clients,
but like some of our own, our own
ideas and products off to the side.
One thing that's really great about
a growth marketing agency of 21 years
is you have a team and processes and
skills and experience to be able to
really launch and grow businesses.
So we just want to have some equity
in those, in those ventures as well.
So I see us being service-based
agency with some of our own
ventures on the side in 2030.
Raul: Like a portfolio, like a studio
Jason Brewer: Mm-hmm.
Raul: studio.
Jason Brewer: Yeah.
Raul: it.
Jason Brewer: Yeah, exactly.
Raul: taking equity with clients
that you're working with or just
building it on house or buying
businesses and just do it yourself.
Jason Brewer: Probably more the
latter buying or starting businesses
ourselves based on our experience.
I think it's difficult when you
mix the traditional agency model
with a client who wants to pay
for your services and wants it.
It's not always.
They're not always like interested
in, in that type of relationships.
You don't wanna force it.
So I think also like not limiting
our portfolio to something that's
coming in, coming in, you know, the
lead pipeline, you know, through
our contact form on our website, but
actually going out and, and looking
for, for those businesses to either
invest in buy or, or launch ourselves.
Sort of like a separate r and d effort.
Raul: With your own money.
So that's the fun part too.
I'll have to connect you with
someone else on the pod who
did that or who is doing that.
But Jason, for everyone listening
out here, where's the best
place for people to go to?
Thank you for being on and learn
more about what you're up to.
Jason Brewer: Definitely
you can find me on LinkedIn.
Jason Brewer Brok.
If you want to go to the site, that's
a great way to connect brol.com
and that's B-R-O-L-I k.com.
Raul: I never asked you where was
the inspiration for that name.
Jason Brewer: It means, it means strength.
It kind of means like badass.
It's, it's a term that was just slang
that the founding, the founders kind of
used early on, like before we launched
the company and just thought like,
this is a great term that just like is
unique and we're just gonna go with it.
Raul: go.
Jason Brewer: it's, it's stuck.
Yeah.
Raul: it.
Cool.
We'll put those links in the show notes.
Jason, thank you again.
Jason Brewer: Yeah, thanks Raul.
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