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We share our thoughts and ideas on how to grow a business.
So basically we're screwed.
On average, every client churns in
12 months, you are losing all of
your clients on average every year.
So that means if we're at 20 and by the
end of the year, we want to get to 30
clients, we need to close 30 clients.
The reason I'm saying we're screwed.
We, I was literally editing.
So when we're recording this, we
were, are still finalizing the
written post announcing this.
Challenge.
And in the process of doing that, I
had to confirm with you and slack.
Okay, let's be definitive on
the exact numbers that we're
trying to hit in this challenge.
So right now, and we've said this in
the previous videos, we were at 17
clients, um, in January so that people
have a round number to like, remember,
we're just going to call that 20.
And we were saying
double the agency is 40.
So we're giving, we're making it a
little bit harder on ourselves already.
17 to 40, but we're calling it 20 to 40.
Okay.
So 20 to 40.
And I said, and, and, and the
draft that you had written had
said like in two to three years.
And I was like, that's too fuzzy.
Let's just pick one.
And of course you being optimistic,
you said two years, January, 2026.
And so I was like, okay, so like
I wrote that in and then I was
like, I did the natural thing that
I do, which is try to quantify it.
And I said, well, so that's.
We're going from 20 to 40 in two years.
So that I wanted to be like,
how many months, how many client
new clients a month do we need?
Right?
So the really zeroth level, like
boneheaded calculation is just to say we
need 20 more and divide that by 24 months.
So it's like 0.
83.
It's like about, about a
client a month, but of course.
Anyone who's been in the business, right?
Anyone who is in the
business knows there's churn.
So then you're like, well,
so then my mind was like.
Oh, so how many clients, what
is our churn rate and how many
clients do we need to make up for
the churn and then add 20 on top?
And I was thinking the first year I was
like, okay, if we need to get to 20 in
two years, that means in the first year
we need to add 10 just like if we do it
linearly, which I know like it doesn't
actually work that way or whatever.
If we just do it linearly, okay.
20 in two years, 10 in one year.
Like if we could, if we could end
this year, adding 10 clients, I
would feel pretty good about our
chances of hitting this thing.
For sure.
I agree.
So, so then I was like, well,
let's go calculate churn rate.
So this spreadsheet that we were talking
about, so I opened up the spreadsheet
and it's like, it's literally the
spreadsheet that's recorded like every
monthly bill we've sent to every client
since the beginning which drives, I
think, the fact that we record this
on a spreadsheet drives Jack, our
accountant, crazy because he says like,
this is what QuickBooks is for, we have
QuickBooks and I'm like, listen man.
Oh, I didn't realize it.
I didn't realize that I, I
thought he appreciated this.
No, I don't know.
Cause I keep it, I keep
it very up to date.
Like when we close a new client,
I'm in there immediately.
Maybe he appreciates it now, but there
was a time before when I, um, had Jack
for growth rock and I was like, well,
I just do this in the spreadsheet.
And he was like, clients keep
spreadsheets on the side.
Like, cause he's like, he's an accountant.
So he like his mind thinks in
QuickBooks and I'm like, no,
QuickBooks is too complicated.
I, the spreadsheet, in my defense,
you can see everything in one shot.
Yeah, no, it's, I mean, it's good.
And of course it helped us
calculate this kind of stuff.
We had to use QuickBooks
or some other tool.
It was impossible.
That, and I will say the spreadsheet's
good for once, once something
changes in the business, I can
just update that immediately.
And that's the notification
that Jack goes off of that.
Yeah.
So.
I had this column, so just so that
everyone can visualize the spreadsheet.
We're not going to show it because
it has way too much sensitive data.
But, um, visualize it.
It's like every row is a client
name and columns are like months.
And it's like, you know, the columns
and spreadsheets are, are letters.
It's A, B, C, D, X.
We're at like, hold on.
I'm going to tell everyone what
we're at, like BZ or something.
We're at CA, meaning we're
just like, we're at like years.
The first column is May, 2018.
And right now, obviously Jan
2024, so years of whatever.
So I have this thing where I can just
add up, well, how many months has
every client been with us by just
saying like, count the number of cells
that there is a non zero number in.
So I have that.
So I'm like, okay, well, I
have the average client tenure.
Let's call it that.
And to cut to the chase, that number is,
depending on which clients you count,
because there's some like, you know,
random stuff in the spreadsheet that
maybe doesn't count as a full client, it's
somewhere around 12, meaning a client On
average for us stays for about 12 months.
So then I went through this wild goose
chase of how do I figure out then how
many clients are we losing in a month?
And I went in circles and realized
it's actually really simple.
Thanks to one of my friends
that actually was helping as
he does some modeling as well.
And I texted him like in theory.
If a, if a business does this
and he was like, what are you
trying to do with your business?
I was like, okay, you figured out
who I was talking about, but, um, he,
he was like, yeah, it's very simple.
Like, and, and, and here's the logic
that I want to walk everyone listening or
watching this through saying on average,
a client stays 12 months is literally
definitionally the same as saying on
average, every client churns in 12 months.
It's the same.
If you stay for 12 months, it
means in 12 months, you churn.
That's the same statement.
I don't know if I have you, you
look like you don't believe that.
No, I do.
Okay.
It makes sense.
So, so he's saying, look, if on average
a client churns in 12 months, like every,
every client you have is like, to some
extent, part of the average or whatever.
Right.
So he's like, you are losing.
All of your clients on average every year.
So that means if we're at 20
and by the end of the year,
we want to get to 30 clients.
We need to close 30 clients because we
need to close 20 just to make up for
the churn that will happen in a year.
Each client is going to
churn in a year on average.
Meaning if we have 20 clients
now when 12 months from now,
when we have this conversation.
Every client on average, wouldn't
that mean we need to close 34?
Why the four?
Sorry.
Maybe, maybe my mouth was wrong.
No.
So, so just forget the 17,
sorry, 32, 12 plus another 10.
Oh no, because one falls off every month.
I get what you're saying.
Yeah.
I mean, the point is every client
is churning on average, every
client is churning in a year.
So in a year from now, the 20
clients we have now are churning.
So we need 20 closed
clients just to stay even.
That's the first thing we have to realize.
So let's take it to the extreme.
An agency that has one client.
Let's take it to the extreme.
Agency that has one client.
If they say, look, our average
client tenure is 12 months.
You say, well, how many clients do I
need to close this year to stay even?
You say one, cause you're going to lose
that one client and the same with two.
If they have two clients and they
say, on average, a client churns
in a year, it'd be like, well, in
a year's time, if you want to stay
even, make sure you close two.
So we have 20.
We've got to make sure we
close 20 just to stay even.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I get what you're saying.
So the we're screwed is, oh my
God, if we want to get to 30.
And we're at 20, we got to close
the 20 to stay even and 10 more.
So we've got to close 30
and that sounds hard to me.
I mean, not crazy.
It's doable.
I mean, if we just think, uh,
actually that does sound hard.
I was going to say two a month, but we
need more than two a month to close.
I mean, even if we did two
a month, that'd be amazing.
Um, so, so here, I think there's
only like a few things we control
can control going forward.
So one, we can lower our churn rate.
Like, how do, how do we do that
to, I think, get more leads.
I think those are the two
variables that we have.
And, and I think we need to solve for
why, like, I know that number is true
averaged across all the accounts,
but I don't think it's actually true.
I think there's, especially this
last year we had, again, I think in
the last video we talked about it,
but we had a couple scenarios where
clients turned after a couple months.
Two months, three months, five months.
Like I can think of all those clients
that churned from someone new taking
over the marketing operation, those were
like a few months in, then there was that
one that churned cause they lost money.
That was two months in.
So I wonder if that's just pulling
our average down and if our churn
rate is not actually that bad.
Well, for sure it is.
So that starts to get to the nuance here.
Um, so then you and I have had this
thing that we've mentioned on here
of, I think we mentioned before,
and if not, we'll mention it now.
Our standard rate, you can see
on our website, public is 10 K
a month for our content service.
By the way, I'm talking
exclusively about content.
We have started offering paid
search and I'm just not factoring
that into this right now.
Right?
Um, exclusively content 10 K a month.
We are offering, uh, 8 K a month,
a pretty steep discount, 20
percent with an annual contract.
Why?
Because anecdotally, without having
done this calculation, you and I
were like, If a client stays for 12
months, they're likely to stay longer.
Turns out that that gut instinct was
correct because I then calculated
this average tenure for anyone
who's been with us 12 years or more.
12 months, 12 months or more,
12 years would be amazing.
12 months or more.
And that's 25, essentially
rounding up 25 percent in 26
months, two years and two months.
So the average of people that's been there
for 12 months or more is actually jumps to
over two years, which totally confirms our
intuition that like it behooves us to have
someone last for 12 months because then
they're likely to stay for a long time.
So that really makes me feel
better that we offer that.
Cause definitely a part of me
was like, are we just taking this
massive margin hit of 20 percent
for no reason on those contracts?
Uh, I'm already thinking
about jumping ahead.
How do we reduce churn?
So could we incentivize
people to stay even longer?
Like what, what if we
have a two year contract?
Or, what if we, what if we changed
our month to month contract
to like way higher in price?
So you, you pay a premium if you want
to, if you want to do month to month,
but then you're very incentivized to
do a year or two years because I don't
want to take away the monthly plan.
Like, I think there's valid
reasons for people not wanting
to commit to longterm contracts.
But if you're going to take that route,
maybe you pay the premium for the option
to get out of your contract at any point.
And that way we're incentivizing
people thinking long term.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm scared to increase
our rate beyond 10k because that
already feels like it's expensive.
Yeah, but, but if you made the, the
regular plan very reasonable to sign
for a year and we just increase the
price of the month to month one.
Let's calculate this.
So if 12 months average is 25.
What if we just, what is the average
lifespan client tenure of six months?
Is that also much higher than.
Yeah.
I mean, I was also, I was also thinking
not to, we just get rid of the.
Month to month.
Oh my God.
Even six months is 17, Benji.
Oh, so if they stayed a six month.
Yeah.
So what did I say?
What did I say before this call?
I said I guarantee 50% of the churn
cancels before six month over 50%.
Is that, yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
Well, I don't know, but yes,
I imagine just based on that,
that number, I'd imagine that.
So, yeah, so it means all of our
churn problem is from that the clients
that stay with us less than six
months, which we've always said are
horrible for our business anyways.
You spend all that time in the very
beginning, getting them up to speed.
And then they just churn.
It's a pain.
So what, like, a couple of things.
So the simple one, without increasing our
regular rate, is, if we're doing 10k month
to month, 8k with an annual contract,
the obvious thing that comes to mind
is, what about 9k to stay for 6 months?
No.
I don't think we lo No.
We don't incentivize people
to stay for 6 months.
If they stay for six months, they're
gonna stay for 17 apparently, on average.
Yeah.
But I, I don't know.
I I, I still, I still think the, the
year is where we should push people
to, but I think a couple things.
So what if, if you didn't want a six month
commitment, you pay a higher premium.
So let's say like, do it again.
I think now in tears.
So I think if you wanted pure month
to month No, like contract at all.
Maybe like 12 k.
Like really?
Incentivize people to, to go down,
then at least get some contract.
And if you want, if you want month to
month, and you're willing to give a
six month commitment, it goes to our
normal rate at 10 K because I think
that's like bare minimum, that's, that's
what we want every client to have.
Like we, we don't, we, we, like
we on our sales calls say we want
a verbal commitment that you're
willing to stay for three months.
I think that just needs to say
it's six months and there's
actually some sort of contract.
Yeah.
Contract around that.
And then if you truly just want month
to month, you pay a premium for it.
Like if you're willing to say I'm going to
churn for in three months or two months.
Like you should pay more.
We don't even want that.
So we should disincentivize it.
It's almost like you're paying a tax.
We don't want people
to choose that option.
So we're taxing them.
Yeah.
I mean, that is what we're doing now.
You're saying make it even
starker, a heavier tax.
Yeah.
Because like, we don't want those clients.
They're bad for a business.
We spend all that time.
Um, in the sales process, getting
up to speed, training a strategist
around it, and then they're
gone in less than six months.
Like, it's just not even worth it for us.
We don't even want that.
Um, someone wants that.
Yeah.
No, I, I was just thinking like,
yeah, I think we really need to think
about our pricing and contract length.
And that, that should help
solve a lot of that churn issue.
I mean, just to put some numbers
onto it, so we said, if it's 12
months, then, um, we need to, you
need to close, and you're at 20.
And you want to add 10, you gotta
add 30 new clients because you gotta
make up for your 20 and then 10.
If that just goes to 18 months,
then you need to 13 to stay even.
It's a lot better than 20 to stay even.
So if the average client 10
year, we go from 12 months to
18 months, that that's doable.
That's too, that's like a
little over, there's 13 to
stay even and 10 more to grow.
Yeah, it's a little over two
clients a month, which is not crazy.
Oh, the other thing I wanted the
audience to be able to hear was this
conversation I had with my friend
who, he, he made a good point.
He said, and by the way, so just
forget what I just said for a second.
So that was, that's true.
That's true, actually.
But just going back to this scenario
that we're at now, which is our
average 10 year right now is 12.
So all, so an average client
is going to churn in a year.
So he said, and by the way, if you do
this, if you close 30 this year, so
you make, you make up for the 20 loss
and 10 more, then, um, He said, you're
just going to life becomes even harder
next year, because then you're at 30
clients and if your churn rate doesn't go
down, now you need 30 to stay even, you
need to do it again just to stay even.
But then I said, there's
something about this.
That's not making sense to me because
the other thing I wanted this whole
thing of like, if a client stays
for 12 months, they stay for 25.
I looked at our top clients
that are still active today.
No, one of them is no longer active.
But our highest, like, tenured
clients, 60 months, I think it's
like 60, 38, 37, 35 or something
like that, 25 or something like that.
It's like something like, like,
like those, like three ish years
and then one of them five years.
So I said, isn't it, like,
statistically, if you keep getting
new leads, it will naturally filter
to some percentage of them will
become those, like, lifers, right?
Grow and convert lifers.
So then over time, the churn,
the churners will churn and
you should start accumulating
more and more of these lifers.
And he said, yeah, that would be, I think
you still need to solve for the, like,
how do we get rid of those bad clients?
So again, I think it's, how do we find
more of those really good ones and how
do we incentivize people to stay longer?
Because then I think that
does solve that problem.
Like you get more of the clients
that stay a longer period of time.
Like if we were to get more clients
that signed a year contract,
our average is going to go up.
Right.
Yeah.
And he was saying, if that's true, that
as you just close more clients, you're
just going to naturally filter to the
people who are having the high averages
because the churners are going to go away.
Then where that's going to
reflect is that next year you
should have a higher average.
And it should keep going up and up.
But, but, okay.
So that brings up another point
then, because then there's
like multiple ways to grow.
We can grow from new clients.
We can also just grow existing clients.
So another characteristic of
a lot of those companies is
they've increased spend with us.
They've increased their content
budget, or they've added on paid.
Let's be quantitative about this.
So I'm going to go to this Slack
channel that both you and I went to.
We're not going to obviously
share it so that we're looking
at the same ones, right?
So I'm looking at.
Uh, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
The top 6.
The 1 is not in my bullets,
but it's higher than that.
So, um, the first one that starts with a
C, yes, they've increased spend with us.
The next one that starts with an S,
yes, they've increased spend with us.
The next one that starts with B, has not.
Oh, no, they just recently did.
Paid.
Okay.
So that's, we're 3 for 3 so far.
The next one that starts with
a V As of potentially today,
but this is also so first one.
How many years and are they already?
Oh, I guess they're already five years in.
They probably increased
spend with us around.
Year two, year three, the second
one, probably also year two, third
year, three, fourth year, three.
But I think I said this to you on
the phone before we decided to hop
on here and record this conversation
is I don't think increased spend with
us is something we can control that.
That is just another reflection of a good
fit client, but that's almost like that's
the, that's the effect, not the cause.
So, yeah, I guess results are going
really well for all those clients, right?
Like you're just seeing really
good growth early on in, in
those first couple of years.
But again, I, I, again, I think for
a lot of those accounts, how they not
stuck through it with, through that first
year, they wouldn't, they wouldn't have
increased spend with us and we wouldn't.
Be in this situation with them.
So again, I, I still think it all
goes back to that first year and
sentimizing as many people to stay
for one year as possible because the
results after that first year, even
that call that I was on this morning,
we're just coming up on the year mark.
They started last February and we're
starting to see the hockey stick take
form both in conversions and in traffic.
And again, I know that
they think long term.
But I think a lot of the other clients
that we have maybe don't think as
long term as them or just aren't as
bought into content or agency as them.
And so let me just be practical.
There is no way to filter for
that at the, at the sales stage.
How do we filter for do, do we think that
their management thinks long term or not?
No, I think, I think it's
done in the contract.
So I think we just push
more people to force them.
Yeah.
Like.
Again, I think if you charge a premium
for month to month and you make
people think more longterm, you say,
Hey, on average, we get really good
results after one year, and so we're
incentivizing you to stay for one year
because we want you to see it through
that full year before making a decision.
If you want to continue, and
if you don't want to do that.
It's fine, but you're going
to pay a higher price.
Yeah.
I mean, we already do that now.
Like I said, you're just
saying make it even sharper.
Yeah.
Like make it way more extreme because
it just doesn't serve our business
to, to, to work with clients that
are going to stay six months or less.
Like think of just all the training
that goes into every single account
and just starting and stopping.
And like now a strategist has to
switch from one account to another.
And it's just like.
It's just a pain and we're charging
those people the same amount as the
people that stay for these years.
So, yeah, I mean, I, I think, um, the
other big takeaway I have here is like.
This is something to think about,
like things we need to figure
out is 12 months good or not.
I think we've heard that that's
actually decent for agencies.
Um, yeah, I would say, especially when
you have a month to month contract.
Two, this is probably why a lot of
agencies don't do month to month
contract because they figured this out.
Yeah.
I mean, maybe we're learning the hard way
that this is not a good business decision.
And maybe we'll, we'll change it.
I don't, I don't know.
I still like what we've told clients for
their, everyone listening is like, the
reason we do month to month is we actually
just kind of hated people who lock into
a long term contract and the one that's
60 months, there was 60 months with us.
Not because we locked them into anything.
They could turn any month.
But they're five years in
because the results are amazing.
So yes, that is a source of pride.
But again, we could just say for the,
we, it could just be for the first year.
There's a contract.
And then after that, it's month to month.
Right.
I don't, we got to think through this, but
I think, I think something to incentivize
people to stay in between zero and 12
months, if it's not six, it's eight, fine,
because even if we look at that, that
post that we have all the client data.
It's that month seven where you
start to see things really take off.
So if we incentivize people
for eight, even, yeah.
Yeah.
If you can't make it to 12 at 12,
eight, eight K if you can at least
go to eight months, nine K I would
be like, I'll take the eight K.
I like that.
Right.
I'll take the, I'll take the eight K.
And then, yeah, we could say month
to month 11, just to make it starker.
I think even higher than that,
like, I'm not, I'm not kidding.
I don't know if it's true what
you said, like they don't serve
our business because it could be
that we're able to maintain this.
Like, I wonder if a lot of
agencies get stuck at a certain
size because they reach a natural.
Limit of how many they can close and
it equals the amount of churn and
that becomes your natural plateau,
like based on your brand reputation,
your marketing channels, your price,
your service, your industry, you have
sort of like this natural limit of
how many new clients you can close.
Let's just say.
You know, like you can close 50 in a year.
And so you're, you're going to plateau
at whatever your churn rate is, plus 50
new clients a year, and then it's going
to be really hard to grow after that.
And I wonder if that's something
that we're seeing for ourselves.
I don't necessarily think so because
I'll argue on the results side.
I think all these clients would stay
like every client should, should stay
barring a couple weird circumstances
if they were getting good results.
And we know that.
Getting good results is
just a function of time.
And so all these clients that are not
staying for the seven or eight months,
they're just not seeing the results.
And so if we can just get as many clients
to get to that point where they see
results, they should stay with us longer.
That should resolve a
lot of the churn issue.
And then in terms of getting new leads,
I think that was the reason for doing
this, this podcast to keep growing
our audience, keep investing in SEO.
And maybe we're closing limited just on
the sales side in our time, and I'm sure
that's when businesses get to the point
of hiring a salesperson because they
need to handle that off eventually, or
just need to expand their capabilities.
But I do think that the 30k, or sorry,
the 30 clients this year is doable or
something close to that level, assuming
that we resolve a lot of this churn
issue now in the beginning of the year.
Yeah, of course you do, because
you're always optimistic.
Uh, another idea that came
to mind discussing this, this
makes me think a couple things.
We used to have this doc, like a written
Google doc, not a spreadsheet, where
if you remember, we had like color
coded statuses of all of our clients.
If they were green, we were like,
these people are never going to
leave unless like five people inside
the organization get hit by a bus.
They're just like, they're,
they're like grown convert lifers.
And then it was like yellow or something.
It was something like
they're on the verge of that.
And then red was like, they could churn.
There's some issues or whatever, whatever.
I think we should bring that
back because of my what?
No, we could a hundred percent.
I was going to say, I think what
replaces that now is our weekly geek bot.
I personally feel like we're pretty good.
If someone is putting either you,
me, or someone on the team is
putting into, what is the question?
Are there any accounts
you're worried about?
Why?
There's usually a, like, a pretty
high chance they're gonna churn.
So then that leads to my second idea.
Is, I think this makes me think, there
is no reason To not, uh, maybe this is
not true, but let me finish my thought.
We can discuss it to not sort
of invest extra spend margin.
If we think that some account
just needs a little bit extra
results to be pushed there.
Do we say, let's not be cheap.
And like, we have a very set service.
We do a set thing, like three articles
a month, all this stuff, but like,
does it make sense if, if we think we
just need a little bit more to be like.
Spend extra than we normally
would on link building.
Maybe do an extra article or two.
Would we usually have like some
writers that are sitting there?
Like, I feel like I do that already,
at least on the link building side.
I just, I just anecdotally know.
From being on a lot of the
calls where a client's at.
And if I feel like we're pretty far
in, let's say three, four or five, six
months in, and we're not where we should
be, I'm already spending more on the
link building side because I kind of
feel the same thing that you do there.
Yeah.
The extra pieces is tough.
It's hard for us to execute a piece.
Like it just takes a lot of effort.
We have this extreme and just the
result, the impact of that piece
would be seen months down the road.
Yeah.
So I, I think links, if we're going to do
something, is the easiest thing that we'll
Way to try to like spend extra to spur
the early results to get them to stay.
That is a good idea though.
Just maybe even being more focused on
that and earlier on in the engagement.
Maybe do we, do we front load more links?
Yeah.
That, I mean, that could be a way
to solve it just knowing Yeah.
That's a great idea.
Why not that first two to three pieces?
We just know we're spending extra and
we're sacrificing that margin because
of this data, that getting them past
the six month mark is a big deal.
Getting them past the 12
month mark is even better.
Yeah.
A lot, a lot of good ideas
though, from this, I had one more.
Oh, I wanted to do what we
started to do on the phone
before we moved to the recording.
Just, if anyone's curious, like these
top six clients, the ones that have
stayed 60, 45, 38, 37, 36, and 35
months with us, it is not immediately
obvious to me that they fit any pattern.
So, there's six of them, okay?
So let's do this verbally so anyone
even just listening can follow along.
Let's count how many of
them are self funded.
The remaining would be, or let's
just count how many are VC funded.
I see, oh, maybe just two.
This one starting with an S and
the one at the bottom starting
with a T were VC funded.
Were they VC funded?
T?
I don't know, but they're
pretty established.
Uh, the G above it was VC funded?
No, I don't think so either.
Oh, then only one out of six is VC funded.
We know that anecdotally you and I kind
of, are we going to say this publicly?
Kind of hate the VC funded clients.
Not hate, not hate.
There are some current ones that are
actually really nice and really cool.
And are probably going
to be life first too.
But we know that anecdotally that has
increased the percentage of clients
that, that just the VC funded companies,
there's issues like they just kind
of like lose track quickly or they,
I think that's more of a function of
stage though, the VC companies, this
is so late stage, so late stage, like I
wouldn't even consider them VC anymore.
So I, I think that that's, that's
also has to do with it there.
They've been doing content for a
really long time and they're really
good at it and they believe in it.
Yeah.
Five out of six of these, the VC
companies that suck for us are seed
companies and maybe series a, for the
most part, I think anything later than
that, that was already a criteria for us.
I feel like now it's like, I'm
going to double down on that.
Although last week, I think this could
be a function of our, of our client list
though, that we already skew more towards.
Self funded bootstrap companies.
Then we do VC wouldn't just be
representative of our clients.
Anyways, uh, five out of six of
these are SAS, but that also is maybe
what you're saying, which is just
a function of who hires us, right?
Only the one and the 60 months is
not SAS price point wise, very low 60
month is like five figure one time.
The next one is what?
Probably five, five, six
figure yearly contracts.
No, the S one is not six figure yearly.
Oh really?
Maybe some.
Yeah, some.
Maybe some.
They have some enterprise.
Okay.
So say mid five, figure average.
This one's probably low five.
Figure average.
This one is under five figures.
Yeah, there's some that are under year.
The B is cheap.
The V is cheap.
Yep.
Yeah.
So even from a pricing
stand, it's kind of a wash.
Yep.
So it's not obvious that it's like
high price clients work the best.
So we say, okay, yes, most
of them are not VC funded.
That could just be who we, who we take.
Yes.
Most of them are SAS.
That could just be who we take, but like
those aren't, even if we're saying like
those aren't teaching us anything, we
already bias towards non VC companies.
We already naturally bias towards SAS.
It's also a reflection of what
we rank for and things like that.
There's not an obvious price point thing.
I was going to say team like is,
do they have a content team versus
working with the founder, but
even, even not, I think it's a mix.
Yeah, it's a mix stage is a mix.
No stages.
Mostly all of them are established
like stuff, but that also doesn't
teach us anything because we're
already filtering for that.
One of them is an exception.
They came early stage and then we
were like, no, it's not going to work.
See also, were they really early
stage of the five year one?
Not, yeah, not really stage, but in terms
of product, the step process and stuff.
Sure.
But they were, they were still early.
They hadn't really used
online marketing to grow.
That's right.
That's the thing is like all of
these, the criteria is like, okay,
so they have established business.
They're not super early VC funded,
but we're already filtering for that.
So it's not teaching us anything new.
So like, I don't know, it's not obvious
to me seeing this list of like the
grown convert lifer clients, it's not
obvious to me that there's a pattern.
I mean, I guess you've got other
than just really good results.
Yeah.
Really good results.
And, and made it past the, like,
again, I think it all goes to.
Making it past a year, like all
these clients increased spend
with us after a year because they
started seeing good traction.
And that's why my mind still goes
back to incentivizing as many people
to stay past a year as possible.
I guess this is our equivalent if
you have like a SaaS business, right?
They say like, there's that magic
moment after which someone upgrades
from free to paid or whatever.
Like you have to figure out what
that is, like that's for us too.
Yeah, I guess you're right.
Ours is like, we don't have a free
trial, but we know if someone trials us.
For eight months or one year.
A trial?
Yeah, a paid trial.
But , I mean, they're, they're typically
getting paid back that second year.
I mean, this is the situation we're in.
Uh, yeah.
We'll have to do an update
in, in months from now.
So one, we'll have to just keep
thinking about what are the
changes that we wanna make?
So do we want to change?
Pricing.
Do we want to change contract length?
Do we, do we want to figure
out ways to get current clients
to increase spend with us?
What else do we talk about?
Well, there's this other thing that I want
to mention that my, my friend mentioned.
He said, you know, the proper
way to model this Davis is to
not do it as a single average.
He's like, you need buckets.
So you need to do like
your high end clients.
What's there?
It's kind of like what we're doing.
So the 12 month clients is whatever.
And then, and then he was saying like,
you, we could then use as a metric, how
many six month clients did we close?
'cause we know those last
for 17 or how many 12 month.
I guess how do you even
use that as a metric?
You have to wait 12 months to
see if that accurate happens.
Um, in other words, there may, one thing I
wanted to say before we close is there may
just be a numbers game here where like.
You take what you take and yeah,
like stuff's going to happen.
The CMO that hired you is going to go
to another job out of some dumb luck.
And the new regime is like, what the hell?
Like, that's not what
we want to work with.
And you're just like,
that's just like life.
You can't control all those situations.
And so you're going to have
those two, three month churners.
Yeah.
I mean, as we've always said,
demand solves all problems.
So do we just.
Grow as quickly as possible like not grow
in terms of taking on clients, but just
grow the funnel as much as we can So yeah,
how do we get way more leads per month?
Right and then statistically speaking
if you get some turn total number of
leads You're gonna get some fraction
of them are gonna be new lifers and
then they're gonna up your overall
average But we still need to solve the
churn issue at the same time, but yes.
Yeah.
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