Matt: Hey John, welcome to the WP Minute.
John: Matt, thanks for having me, man.
Great to meet you finally.
So for folks that don't know, you have, run an agency for quite some time.
You don't do that specifically anymore, but now you have this
sort of like turnkey solution, productized service done for you.
Service called Editor Ninja.
explain like, is that more of like an agency with Editor Ninja, or do you
like really look at it as, productized done for you kind of service?
John: it kind of depends on what your definition is.
Of those, I would say it's definitely, I would say it's probably more of
a done for you service, but when I, but I message it as an agency.
We don't do any strategy or anything like that at this point.
But so we're, I mean, I, I say we're a production shop, so we come alongside
agencies and marketing teams to help them produce more on-brand content.
So kind of an agency, kind of a done for you service, kind
of a productized service.
I don't know, somewhere in there.
Matt: what year did Editor Ninja start?
John: Editor Ninja started in, about five years ago, middle, spring-ish of 2020.
so it, it was kinda a side project for a while alongside another agency that I had.
I went, I start, I formalized Editor n Ninja at the end of 2021.
Started 2022, so we launched January 7th, 2022 is when I
launched, like the initial kind of.
Designed pickle esque, productized service.
and we went from nothing to a thousand MRR the day that we launched.
And, and then, yeah, it was a side project that started taking more
and more of my time through 2022.
I sold my other agency September of 2022 and went full-time on Editor
Ninja a little over two years ago.
January, 2023.
Matt: So, looking at the pricing page of Editor Ninja, there are two letters that
gets everybody's attention these days.
That's ai.
I see two, 50 per AI article.
I wanna get to that.
We're gonna hold the AI stuff for a moment.
What was the name of the agency you ran before?
starting Editor Ninja.
John: Previous agency was called Credo get credo.com.
So basically did lead generation for marketing agencies, really focused on
SEO projects, content marketing, Google ads and Facebook ads are kind of the four
main that we kind of like focus down on.
And, sending them to agencies, paying us for leads.
And we got kind of a cut on the backend.
So I built that for, about seven years.
So I, I used to work, full-time in SEO and kind of digital marketing for an
agency in New York and then for Zillow for a couple of years, I got laid off from
there, September of 2015, went full-time on it was called Hire Gun at the time.
Rebranded it to Credo about four months later, and basically built
that over the next number of years.
the reason why I started Editor Ninja.
Burning out and when you burn out, you start a new company, I guess,
or at least that's what I did.
basically Credo got to the point where like it kind of hit about half a
million in revenue and I just couldn't get it past, get it over that hump.
And I'd been working on it for so long.
I like had a business partner who then stepped away from the
business and just, I just didn't have any energy left on it, man.
So I got fortunate enough to sell it to a, a micro private equity company that
owned one of our largest, customers.
And, yeah, and Editor Ninja was just like, I needed something to kind of reinvigorate
me on work and kind of had this idea and had been blogging for a long time and
knew a lot of content agencies and, yeah.
And so just, and I, I know Russ from Design Pickle and was like,
I wonder if this could work.
Like that model could work in this space.
So I launched it and just decided to see what it could be.
Matt: Do you remember specifically that burnout?
Because I think it hits everybody, right?
Like, hits me multiple times a day.
I just wanna like end, you know, all the content stuff that I do.
but I think it, you know, sort of varies depending on whatever, like
those, it's, it's internal stress, but external stresses in, in terms of like.
It's tough running a business that can get you going.
it's tough building the workflows, finding the product, like optimizing this thing
and repeating that year after year.
So I think these things can be, you know, dealing with clients of course.
So I'm wondering, like, do you remember how this sort of like creeped into
to your entrepreneurial journey?
early on.
John: So this was like, this was true burnout.
Like it took me two plus years to recover from it after I sold that agency.
for me it was basically like, I'm a growth guy.
I mean, I'm a marketing guy.
It's like it's what I do and I spent.
Years and hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to get the thing
to grow, and it just wouldn't.
And basically what I realized after the fact was like we had, and
part of it was like we had so many agencies wanting leads from us, and
I couldn't, I couldn't fulfill it.
Like I, I couldn't figure out how to generate more leads.
What I realized after the fact, after I kind of came out of the
fog of, you know, all of it was.
The economics of that business shifted under my feet through the pandemic,
and I didn't, I couldn't see it.
I didn't realize it, so it just got so much more expensive to generate leads.
People were so much more skeptical.
It got so much more competitive.
I mean, every Tom, Dick and Harry like has a lead generation
company even at this point, right?
So like everyone was saying like, we can do this.
They're promising the world, they're charging nothing.
They couldn't deliver.
And I was, I just, I was just frustrated, you know, constantly frustrated.
We tried a bunch of different things.
I launched a course which added some, like thousands of dollars in revenue.
We launched a low end like lead offer, like all this stuff.
But it was, it was, I was just doing all these things really
just to keep the business steady.
and it just wouldn't it nothing like.
Nothing grew it.
And I just, I couldn't do it anymore.
I was just so, I was so done.
So yeah, so I got fortunate enough to, to sell it and then moved
full-time onto Editor Ninja.
and yeah, it, in the time between like selling Credo and moving full-time
onto Editor Ninja Che, GBT launched.
So it, like, it changed the game, but we can get into that.
Matt: And I definitely wanna get into the chat, GPT and AI stuff.
I think for the folks in the WordPress space, oftentimes like the challenges
of running a business, whether it's like a small freelance agency space,
business or a small plugin, we really kinda like fall in love with the process,
which also makes it really hard to.
The process, the technology, the community.
We just, you know, I think a lot of people just like romanticize this space
because we've been in it for so long.
We've been building this business for so long, whatever.
And, it's hard to recognize when things aren't growing,
when that failure is happening.
We kinda feel it, but we aren't recognizing it.
Or the burnout.
Right.
It doesn't, failure and challenges.
I just wanna make sure there's two distinct paths there.
So do you remember like this distinct.
Inflection point in your journey where you're like, oh yeah, this
is, this is actually hitting.
Was it like you looking at the balance sheet going, oh, this is not like
working as a business, or was it like something else that was happening?
John: I would say it's much deeper than that.
I'd say it's actually when what you want it to be and what you want it
to mean in your life isn't reality.
What I mean by that is like, so there are, I mean, there are a lot of, I know a lot
of developers, I know a lot of the, like the, you know, big WordPress like, you
know, plugin creators and all that, and a lot of 'em, they're like, yo, I'm happy.
Like, this thing's making me 150 KA year.
I don't have to deal with anybody else.
Like, it's pretty automated.
I can build some features and all of that.
I can do a little bit of marketing when I feel like it.
And I'm good.
Right?
And if that, if that's you, like, awesome, guess what?
You've won, like you've won the game.
But if it's at 150 KA year and you want it to be at 15 million a year and
you have no idea how to get it there,
probably time to burn the boats.
You know, and, or, or not even not burn the boats in terms of like, go
all in on it necessarily, but like, might be time to, to do something else,
to like, you know, to shut it down or to realign your expectations, right?
Because, because Credo was like half a million-ish a year in revenue, which was
great, but I wanted it to be 5 million a year and I couldn't get it there.
And so that was like, that disconnect is what really, like did it for me.
You know, I'm not like, I'm, I'm not happy just making 150 KA year.
You know, I wanna be way more successful than that and like that
vehicle wasn't gonna get me there.
So Editor Ninja might, you know, at least like the, the possibility of it
getting there was way more attractive than the, you know, the, the reality
that Credo was not gonna get me there.
Matt: So as a former agency owner for a decade, like I totally can
see like where systems break down or you have no systems at all.
there's no process, there's no optimization of like finding clients,
pre-sell clients onboard, clients start to build a project, iterate on the
support, launch, all of this stuff.
I think this is what's so appealing about a product I service or simply
just like working on the business instead of working in the business.
To use a cliche phrase, but I'm curious how much like going into
Editor Ninja versus Credo I.
Where you felt like, well, if I make this like a product I service, or I at least
build these systems around it, I'll, I'll, I'll be able to be happier and,
and more, successful with this business.
Like when you went into Editor Ninja, how much of that was on your mind?
I.
John: Yeah, it's kind of a combination of that.
And I would actually say that productization is much more about
how you deliver the thing rather than like how you price it and all of that.
Productization also does not, and this is a common misconception, is productization
does not cut off the possibility of doing custom work as well, right?
Like, 'cause we have, you know, we have our pricing set out, but we have
people that come to us and they're like, Hey, I need a quarter million
words a month for the next four months.
I'll quote that.
That's fine.
Right.
And like, you know, and, and we, we've had some of those and so I can do that.
And so I basically, I have like an enterprise like offering, right?
It's like you have something big, something custom, let's chat about it.
So, but for us, but productization is all about just how you, how you deliver
it at scale, but also like your pricing should mean that it's profitable.
I think for a lot of agencies though, it's two things.
One is they need to define.
What they do and who they do it for.
And I'm, I'm, I'll be completely honest, Matt, I'm going
through this process right now.
It's like we've gotten to, mid to high six figures a year with Editor Ninja
right now in just about a couple years.
So I've kind of gotten to the point where Credo got to, and so now
it's like, okay, who do we best serve and what, what do they want
and what are they willing to pay?
So I'm, I'm literally going through that right now over the last couple
of weeks, talking to a lot of like agency owners and marketing
leaders and, and that kind of thing.
so there, there's that, like you need to focus down on like what
specifically do they wanna buy?
How do they wanna buy it, right?
And then how can you deliver that at scale?
But for a lot of agencies, I.
They need to differentiate themselves from others, right?
If you're just a WordPress agency working on, you know, B2B websites, like you're
not differentiated at all, your pricing's gonna become a race to the bottom.
You gotta figure out who do you provide the most value for,
and then your prices can go up.
and so really for most agencies, it's not about cutting cost necessarily.
'cause what I see is, especially a lot of small agencies, they, they
can't, they can't cut people and keep delivering work and all that, right?
So what happens?
You need to raise your prices so you can get that margin in place.
And that comes through messaging changes.
It comes through targeting people that have more budget, that kind of thing.
And I, I get the like, but I wanna help the little guy like, yeah, me, me too.
But like they, they don't really have any money.
And, and I mean, you and I both know, like the people that have the, the
lowest amount of the, the least money they are gonna be, they're gonna want
the most, they're gonna need everything 'cause it's their last dollar.
It has to work.
And they're, they're gonna be the quickest to churn.
So.
As much as like, I wanna help out the little guy as well.
Like the big guys are the ones that can pay the value it the most.
and so, you know, you kind of gotta pick which one you wanna focus on.
Matt: Alright, we're kind of like halfway through the episode right
now and I want, and I realize I haven't defined what Editor Ninja is.
So what is Editor Ninja?
What's the value prop?
I.
John: Yeah, so we're a content editing and writing company.
we started just focusing on editing, so companies that
are already producing content.
so it usually means they're producing 20, 40, 60 plus articles a month.
we've, we have some that are doing more than that and they.
Either have like one in-house editor and they can't handle all the
volume, or they sign on a big client and they can no longer handle the
volume or their editor left and they can no longer handle the volume.
Those are our best customers.
People that come in and they're like, we've never worked with an editor before.
I'm like, I don't, I don't know if we're the right fit for you.
Right?
Like, go hire a couple freelancers and, and, and then come back to us, right?
So we're kind of that middle stage between like freelancers and like having someone
or someone's full-time in-house, and then usually the ones that have someone
full-time in-house then need the support.
That we offer.
so we do that.
It's a lot of like marketing, blog articles, service
pages, that sort of thing.
I layered on writing, so blog article writing mainly, about a year ago.
Just 'cause we, we were getting requests for it and, and agencies kind of want
it all like in one, in one place.
So we offer human written and also, AI generated with a heavy, like human
like editing layer on it as well.
We offer that as well.
and that side of the business has actually grown really well.
So at this point, like.
We mentioned at the start product, I like, you know, started as kind of a
product eyes, like on demand, you know, unlimited, like the unlimited model.
editing got us to, to a certain point, but it was tough.
Churn.
Churn was really high.
and so kind of what we've settled down to is like, we'll do that on like, you
know, a significant volume of content.
but a lot of people want an editor to work directly in their, in
their already established services.
So we have what we call a dedicated editor.
So basically it's.
Kinda an hourly model.
You buy by a chunk of hours.
And then if you go over that, then we basically bill by the hour.
and then on the writing side, you know, very, very similar sort of thing.
So you give us the brief, you give us the keywords you're going after,
give us the style guide, all of that.
and then we go and, and write it and put it to our human editing layer as well.
Matt: Alright, so I have to admit, for all of my WordPress career,
going back to my agency and then working at Pagely and podcast hosting
company, and now at Gravity Forms, I often hear marketing teams, clients
and myself say, I need a writer.
I need somebody to create content.
Put it on a page.
And hopefully that helps us rank an SEO and informs our customers
and our potential customers.
I never hear anybody ask or look for, I need an editor.
To assist.
So what's the value prop to get somebody to say, oh, I need an editor now.
Like you spending time convincing them they need an editor, or are they
coming through the doors these days?
. John: Yeah, I mean, they do need words on a page, so like, I wouldn't, I, I wouldn't
say that that's not a, a thing, and that's actually part of why I, I launched the
writing side, but on the editing side, basically what it comes down to is I.
Is your content, is it correct?
Is it updated?
Is it, yeah.
Is it, is it correct?
Basically is the big thing.
Like is it on brand?
So are all of your headings formatted the same?
Like, you know, is it free of typos, like are commas where they should be?
All of that.
And really those are the details that when you're writing you really don't see.
But those are the ones that can make or break.
basically the, the performance of that content, not necessarily
from like a ranking perspective.
And I think too many people are still too focused on like,
is it going to rank in Google?
Like, yeah, that's important, but like if it ranks in Google and then they come and
it's unclear what you do and it's unclear what the, your arguments are, unclear what
you're trying to say, and you've got typos and unfinished thoughts and all of that.
That content's not gonna convert for you.
And so it's basically worthless.
So that's where an editor comes in and basically about like, Hey, this,
this doesn't really make sense.
We should have an internal link here.
We should get an expert quote here.
Like that sort of thing.
and that's where content really like, goes to the next level and shines.
'cause anyone can crank out like a bunch of generic crap with AI these days.
Right?
So what stands out is the stuff that's actually like first person, you know,
it's, it's, it's clear what you're trying to say, has experts in it, all of that.
And that's where an editor really comes in.
Matt: Again, I'll use the editor ninja page as a, a learning device.
for the, for the listeners, one of the things I really like is
you just can't go to your pricing page and just sign up, right?
There's no, just like, buy now, put your credit card in.
It's, have a call, have a discussion.
Why, why do you have that?
And not just a quick sign up.
John: Because people wanna know who's doing it for them.
and a lot of people have, I mean, everyone thinks that they're
a special snowflake, right?
Like, I've talked to enough people at this point that I'm like, I, there's nothing
that you're gonna come to me with, with content that I haven't heard before.
I mean, I've been in the space for 15 years, so like.
But people want to, they, they want to know, like specifically
like how does this work?
Who am I gonna be working with?
What is my pricing?
Like, that sort of thing.
We have had various, like self signup options in the past, but we just got
a bunch of junk and it was a bunch of spam and it was low quality stuff and
expectations weren't set and all of that.
So we just decided, hey, let's just, let's make it a sales led motion.
Let's actually talk with them about what they need.
And then basically we have these different like.
Kind of modules or elements of what we do.
So like the writing plus editing, we have a few that they're like, we need articles.
And usually it's like we need 20 some articles over the course of a quarter.
Right?
Like I, I thought it was gonna be neater.
One of my hypotheses at the start was like, people are producing
like four or eight or 12 articles a month, and so that's like kinda the
consistent editing that they need.
What I've found is actually like.
It's more spiky than that.
So they'll do a bunch for like three months and then they'll kind of back off
for a few months and they'll do more three months later and, and that kind of thing.
And, but in bigger enterprises, they're also producing other
content that they need edited.
So if they're like, Hey, we need, so we have one, one customer in particular,
I'm thinking of that they need like.
24 articles within a quarter, but then they also have about another 15,000
words, a quarter of content that other teams are producing that th that this
team was responsible for editing.
So like, we're just gonna send that to you as well.
So we kind of create like a custom package for them, you know, so, and yeah, so
it's, it's not as like, as tight as like, You know, 4 95 a month for X article for
X words per month, that sort of thing.
Like, then you get into like rollovers and if they've only used like, you
know, 10,000 of the 15,000, then they're like, well, I'm not using it,
so I'm just gonna cancel completely.
I'm like, but you are using 10,000, like, let's go down to 10,000.
You know?
I'm like, what?
Why are we just quitting?
And it happens all the time.
So, yeah, I'm, I'm constantly trying to like, overcome that and so we
find putting together like the custom package, Based off of like our product
eyes, like delivery and like pricing is what works best for most people and
especially as we go up market, as we go to like bigger companies, we're mainly
focusing on companies that are doing two, two and a half million plus a year.
It's kind of who we're focusing on.
If you're smaller than that, like we, we can do great work for you.
We just know that you're probably gonna churn out in three to
six months when you decide that content isn't what you want to do.
Which is fine, but it's just also reality of my business and it costs us
as much to onboard someone that pays us 500 a month and sticks for four
months as it costs us to, to, you know, onboard someone that is paying us $5,000
a month and stays for three years.
So it's a matter of focus at this point.
Matt: I'm gonna try to find the best way to phrase this, but I like what
you said about, you know, people who are, you have a certain, you know,
million dollar, multimillion dollar threshold that you look at to say,
this is the right client for me.
When I.
You know, somebody could be doing a quarter, a million dollars
a year, and they're like, I need four blog posts a month.
Like, I need that.
Like, why wouldn't you be a good fit for Editor Ninja?
What, what do you think they're missing in their business that
makes you want to work with a multimillion dollar revenue per year?
business.
that, you know, the smaller companies though, they need content.
They, they're, they're missing something.
What's the something?
John: it's a great, it's a great question.
One I've been thinking about a lot recently actually.
And the reason is because the person who's doing quarter million
a year, they two things, one.
They don't yet know what works to grow their business because if they did, they
would be at two and a half million a year.
So they're trying out a bunch of things.
And also kind of depending on who the company is, they're compet,
who they're competing against.
Like usually, I mean, especially like in the WordPress space, let's
just talk about the WordPress space.
They're competing against post status and WP Beginner and all these sites
that like content is their business.
Four blog articles a month isn't gonna do anything for you.
You need like.
400 blog articles published and four articles a month is gonna
take you a hundred months, seven years, something like that.
Six years, seven years, yeah.
To, to produce all of that, content.
It, it, it's just not gonna be effective for you.
You know, there, there are other channels that are gonna be more
effective for you to get you to a million, 2 million a year than content.
And so what we see is people will come in and they're like, I
need four blog articles a month.
We'll do it.
And then after a few months they're like, I'm not seeing an uptick in traffic.
I'm like, yeah, 'cause you're not doing enough.
You also don't have the budget to do more.
And so they turn and they're like, oh, we're gonna go try ads.
So I've just seen this time and time and time again.
And here's the thing, Matt, I do it too.
I do it with my own business.
We're like, you know, five, 600 KA year.
It's like we've gotten like a lot more Google ads at at one point.
And when we try LinkedIn ads and we'll try con like.
We're, we're like an A, DHD squirrel, you know, versus co versus
companies that are at like, I call my 6-year-old that as well by the way.
versus like companies that are at like two and a half, three, 5 million a year.
Like they know what's worked to get them to that point and
they have a defined budget.
They're not like, ah, we're gonna try this thing.
And like, how cheap can I get blog articles?
They're like, Hey, we've got a hundred grand a year to
spend on content marketing.
And it's gonna be some combination of like, content being like shorter
blog articles, top of funnel stuff, middle of funnel stuff,
downloadables, like, like all of that.
And they, and they usually have someone and, and really like, it's
that revenue line, but also they have someone in charge of content.
So it's not a founder that's like doing 12 other jobs, but like they have a
head of content or a content manager or someone like that, that it is their job
to use content to grow the business.
And so if they have that person, that person is focused on that thing.
On that thing specifically.
And so they're gonna be much more reliable, they're gonna have a
better strategy, they're gonna be much more communicative versus
like, we'll get ghosted by founders for like two months, right?
We're still producing account.
We're like, Hey, you're still paying us, but you're also not telling us what to do.
It'd be like having a full-time developer and then, or or a part-time
developer that you're paying a retainer.
And not giving them any work.
It's the same thing.
So especially like more like technical founders and that
kind of thing, they, they just, they don't know how to value it.
They don't know how to like, you know, give direction and all that.
So once a company gets bigger, they have someone who actually does.
So that's why we're focusing down on them.
Plus those bigger companies are willing to sign longer term contracts.
They willing to, you know, pay more upfront.
they recognize they're gonna have to give more feedback from the start.
Like they're not trying to like abdicate it and be like, just
go do my content marketing.
Right?
They're like, you are a piece of our production puzzle.
Matt: Using myself as another prime example of, running an
agency, trying to find ways to do product or productized service.
I think one of the things we fall into is like as soon as you get to
the bigger, well, not everybody, me specifically, you could fill in the lines.
as soon as you go into the, into the bigger clients, there's,
there's more people, there's more departments, there's more staff.
And oftentimes I found that there are more requirements, like more demands anyway,
where, you know, you might have a brand, that you're working with that has like a
whole YouTube side of the marketing team.
Right?
We have a, a team who just does YouTube.
We have a team who just does TikTok and Instagram reels and, and things like that.
We have, we have writers on, on staff.
That's why we're hiring you for editing.
And what I've found is, you know, multi-layers of, of management and,
and marketing, they, they eventually go, well, can we bring on, bring
on Editor Ninja into the room?
I, I wanna make sure that we're all on the same page and I found
that there's just a higher touch.
Right.
You're, you're charging more 'cause you're probably an agency.
So how do you wrestle with that?
Like, has that happened to you when you start working with those bigger customers?
I go, you know, we're glad that you do editing and you do writing, but we, we
need you to be on the all hands meeting at least once a quarter, whatever.
Ha.
Have you run into that and, and how do you deal with it?
John: Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, it's interesting.
We've actually never been asked to like get on a call with our YouTube
person, get on a call with our LinkedIn person or something like that.
Mainly because the person that has hired us is, is the strategist.
Like I.
We are just, we are purely a production shop.
Like we don't do any strategy.
We are not your content marketing agency that's putting together your
keyword strategy and optimizing your SEO and all of that.
Like, no, you give us the requirements and we do it for
you and we send it back to you.
And we do it on time and we do it well and we charge a fair price.
So yeah, we've actually never been, never been asked for it.
I think that's kind of what you have to do as well.
Like if we did say that we did like.
Content strategy or keyword research and that sort of stuff, I'm sure
we would get these requests for, you know, for, for the other areas.
But we haven't just because we, we unabashedly say we are
a production shop, you know?
so, and, and, and this is what I've seen from like successful.
Productized services like Design Pickle and Super Side, and you
know, a bunch of those is there like, or even like, you know, design
Joy like Brett had design Joy.
I don't know Brett personally, but like, you know, he does, he makes a lot of
money and he's like, I don't do calls.
I don't do like any of this stuff.
You add requests to a Trello board and I get it done for you.
Right.
It's like just, you have to set those expectations really tight.
And I'm just, I'm far enough into my journey of like running agencies
and working at agencies and all of that, that like, I'm willing to say
like, we do that, we don't do that.
and I heard, so last week I went to, I bet a lot of the people that are listening
to this, maybe you yourself, have heard of Alex Homo and, and acquisition.com.
So I went to the, one of their scaling workshops last week in, in Las Vegas.
It was great.
One thing that Alex says I really like is.
You're always gonna leave money on the table, and the more your business grows,
the more money you're gonna leave on the table because the opportunities
are gonna be bigger because you are interacting with more successful people.
So it comes down to are you focus is actually the volume and size
of quote unquote opportunities that you're willing to say no to.
So like someone asked me for a strategy or they asked me to like
consult with them on SEO 'cause like that's my background and they're
willing to pay me whatever per month.
Me saying no to them to focus on Editor Ninja is leave is like that.
That is money that I could have made.
But I am choosing to say no to that easy short-term money to say yes to,
like the bigger, long-term money.
So you just have to be really, you have to be really clear about what it
is that you offer and really clear on what it is that you don't offer and
recognize that people are also gonna ask you for that thing that you don't offer
and you have to get good at saying no.
And, and it's not like a like, oh no, I don't do that.
Right?
Like, it's more of a like, you know, that's not something that we offer.
I have some people that I could refer you to, and if you want
me to refer them to you, great.
I refer you to them.
Great, I can do that.
But that's not something that we offer.
This is what we offer.
And if that loses you the deal, it loses you the deal.
And honestly, like if you hear enough of those, like this
is why I layered on writing.
'cause I had people asking me like, can you also write for us?
Can you also write for us?
No, we don't do that.
And I lost a few big deals with like agencies doing six, eight, $10
million a year that they didn't sign on with us because we didn't write.
And then we had a few others that signed on with us and churned because
the writers that they had weren't good.
So I'm like, why don't we just bring all this in-house and offer it as kind of
like a fuller, you know, a fuller suite?
'cause that's what these bigger like clients seem to want.
and it's worked very well.
We've tripled in the last, like 12 months, so like, it's worked very well.
but it needs to be a very strategic thing.
and so for us it was like we're writing, we're editing.
We're writing, you know, and then like we also have our dedicated editor,
like offering to work in their systems.
So we can also like upload it.
And if you give them the, like the Canva templates and all of that, like they could
create a featured image for you, right?
They could schedule it like, you know, like we can do these things.
So we're kind of like expanding, but it's not expanding from like production
to strategy or from production of content to web development.
It's, we're fulfilling more of the full, like the full need of content
production, if that makes sense.
Matt: Alright, I wanna pull you into this, debate that's been going on recently.
Sort of crossed over to more than a debate, unfortunately,
but, the $5,000 website, this is something, or a $5,000 client.
This is something that, you know, I started this podcast like 15 years ago,
is like the $500 website and like, how do you, you know, make money with that?
But over my time, especially working at, at Pagely and, and
selling into the enterprise, the concept of account-based marketing.
I've heard a lot of other agency owners talk about this as well.
Agencies that do, you know.
Six figure deals at minimum to get into, you know, web development for, for a big
brand, you know, going downstream and selling something for like 5,000 bucks,
10,000 bucks just to get in the door.
And then you branch off, into account based marketing.
Especially if this, you know, organization has many brands where many
divisions that you could potentially sell into, kind of feel the same
way with, small businesses too.
Like, I think I.
Small businesses.
It's not that they don't have the money, it's just that they have to be
a lot more reserved with the, the cash on hand to invest into like building
a website or hiring a freelancer.
So I'm getting, what I'm getting at here is like your take on account
based marketing or, or account based selling, maybe selling at a lower
dollar and then adding on the services later without saying like nickel and
timing somebody, but like, here's the offer, here's the entry offer.
It's valuable, we're doing the work for you, but you know,
eventually you could grow this way.
and it's a lot easier to sell to the customers you already have,
obviously than acquiring new customers.
So your thoughts, account based selling and you know, finding
those opportunities that way.
I.
John: No, I'm not fully against it.
I would say that is great if it is done strategically.
So like us for example, you know, someone that comes to us like choose
the example, like someone doing a quarter million a year in revenue.
They're never gonna go.
It's not, they're not Disney, right?
They're never gonna go to, you know, 40 articles a month, 400 articles a month.
It's just not gonna happen.
It's just, it's just not there, right?
And like, I know what my customer acquisition costs are, so it's literally
gonna take me, you know, nine months of creating four articles a month
for them, for us to be profitable on that based off of like my cost
of delivery and my acquisition costs and time spent and, and ops costs and
like all that, all that stuff, right?
So if they churn before nine months, I've lost money on that.
So there's not that chance for expansion.
But if it's like, Hey, and, and we've done this quite a bit and
we're like trying to get a lot better at it, is like agency comes to us.
They're like, we have these three clients that we, like, we
don't have coverage for anymore.
Like our account executive left, or our account manager left, or
editor left, or something like that.
We'll start there, but I also let them know from the start.
I'm like, Hey, let's start there, but in 90 days I wanna have a conversation
about getting all of your accounts right.
That is, that is fine.
and if you're a bigger company, I mean, I know Page Lee Paley sold, right?
Paley got acquired for like a lot, a lot of dollars.
Right?
I mean, I see Josh driving is driving his supercar, so like
sold for a lot of dollars.
Awesome.
Like, I mean, phenomenal.
Like I celebrate that.
That's absolutely incredible.
I'm so happy for you guys.
But, You can probably, you have the funds to do that.
To do that play strategically to lose money for 90 days, 180 days, even like
a year on an account like that because you know that it's going to grow and you
have the infrastructure built to do that.
That is great.
Right.
But like to use your example, if someone box it $5,000 for a
website, don't lower the price.
Thinking that they're gonna bring you a bunch more work.
If it's like one website for an s and b, right?
Like the price is the price.
That what I told people was like, the price is the price.
If you need a, if you need a lower price, we can talk about that.
But you can't get $5,000 worth of work for 2,500 bucks.
You can get $2,500 worth of work for 2,500 bucks, right?
Let's trim back the scope.
So, but if you need all of these things, the price is five grand.
You know, if you pay up front and can give us six months to do it,
maybe I can lower that to 4,500.
Right?
So you can like make some concessions like that.
But yeah, at the end of the day, like this stuff has to be strategic.
So I'm not saying that like we're not gonna go back down market to, like, I
used to message a lot more and I'll see if someone comes to us and they're like,
Hey, I need four articles a month for the next like, you know, six months.
So it's like 24 articles.
I can work it so that it works for me.
So I can recoup a lot of that cash up front, like.
To, you know, totally fine.
like, I'm not gonna turn them away, but we've actually just recently started
messaging bigger, you know, bigger numbers for editing and bigger numbers
for writing and, and all of that.
Because if someone comes to us and they're like, they're doing 10 million,
an agency's doing $10 million a year, and we're talking about four
articles, they're like, I need 400.
Can you handle it?
So some of it is just like the messaging of it that I want bigger companies
to say like, oh, this like Editor Ninja works with bigger companies.
And then you're still gonna get the little guys that are like, well, I
only need four or I only need eight.
Okay, let's, let's chat about that.
Right?
you still get, like, when you niche down, you still get the people that
like want it to be a good fit for them.
And then it's just up to me to be like, okay, are we a good fit or not?
Do we have that capacity?
'cause if we only have capacity for like four articles at that point,
and we're trying to like scale or, or we have someone that like,
you know, could you use more work?
Or we're trying to get them trained up, or something like that.
Like, I might sign that on once again strategically because it's,
it's furthering my business, right?
but.
If I'm messaging that we're gonna turn away our best clients, our
best prospects aren't even gonna contact us because they're like, oh,
you just worked with little guys.
I'm like, oh, we actually wanna work with the big guys, so we have
to message the bigger numbers.
Matt: We've been teasing the AI thing throughout the, throughout the episode.
you sell your agency, you have the idea for Editor Ninja,
you're about to embark on it.
Chat.
GPT comes out more commercially, like more, end user ish, and people
are talking about, man, I can now just make blog posts with ai.
I mean, there were other competitors out there prior to, to like chat GPT
becoming more like of a household name, but now specifically people
are signing up and doing this stuff.
What went through your head?
Did you like, have to rush and like, think about repositioning the, the,
the offering, the, the service?
What went through your head when, when chat PT came out?
John: Yeah, so.
After I sold Credo in September of 2022, then I basically realized I was
super burned out and like kind of worked very little for that next quarter.
And then I was going full-time on Editor Ninja, actually Chris Lima,
who I'm sure you've had on the show.
And I'm sure everyone listening to this knows Chris was my, was my mar,
was my business coach at the time.
And I was like, Chris is, we were talking early January.
I'm like, Chris, this thing isn't growing.
And he's like, you know, you actually need to work on it in
order to make it grow, right?
I'm like, Hmm, fair point.
but before I like started working on it full time, I went to a.
Ma a small like private mastermind in Costa Rica with
about 80 other entrepreneurs.
And when I told people what I did or what Editor Ninja did, they were like.
How does AI affect that?
Like literally every person.
That was the next question.
And at first I'm like, I don't know.
By the end of that week I was like, okay, here's what's gonna happen.
you know, the next like three to six months people are
gonna be figuring it out.
Then we're gonna see some interesting use cases.
and then we're gonna see some companies launch, like around specifically using ai.
And so I suspect within a couple of years, most of the content we're
producing, we're producing and editing is gonna be produced via ai.
I was a hundred percent right Matt.
We went from like 80 per percent, 80, 90% human written.
and then, you know, the balance AI created to now that is flipped.
It's like 70, 80% of the content we edit is generated,
is at least, drafted using ai.
And then probably a human or subject matter expert has worked with it.
And then it comes to us for editing.
And the editing is like.
Removing, like it's humanization is what people call it.
It's removing of, you know, the, the words that AI loves to use.
It's making sure like commas are in the right place, everything's formatted,
and, you know, paragraphs aren't too long and all of that sort of thing.
So it's all like formatting, copy, editing, proofreading, that sort of thing.
We're not seeing that.
We don't see as many typos as we used to see, or your and your, there, there, like
all that sort of stuff like that, that, that's not really like needed anymore.
But it's just like, does this read like a human wrote it?
and so that's a lot of what we're doing, these days.
And it's, it's fine.
Like the work is, it's just different work from like a human writing it.
We also see that, people are relying on editors a lot more to do, like some of
the work that writers were doing that they didn't really recognize that even
like more junior writers were doing.
In terms of like logic and organization and that sort of thing.
So the editing is like kind of a hybrid between like writing and editing, which
is why we charge more for it 'cause it's more work and it's a different skillset.
but that's, that's totally, it's totally fine.
Like, I, I think AI is great.
I mean, I use it as a thought partner.
I use it for like, drafting of ideas.
I use it for working through like logic and that sort of stuff.
But it's like me going and doing the work, and this is the other thing
that people don't realize about.
Like ai, they're like, oh, I can go and create like a hundred articles, right?
I'm like, yeah, but that's still you doing it.
Like it's still gonna take you a lot of time.
And then once you have those a hundred articles.
Are you gonna go through and edit all of 'em?
Like editing is where the magic happens.
that's what Brian Clark from Copy Blogger told me a few years ago.
He's like, editing is where the magic happens.
And so if you think that you can just go, like, create a bunch of, bunch
of blog articles with AI and publish 'em and they're gonna rank, they're
gonna drive results for your business.
You're wrong, basically.
and so what we've found is people be like, they'll launch like an AI content
creation offering or some of some sort.
We, we had one agency that we were working with in legal space
that they were signing on agent.
They were signing on lawyer clients and redoing their website
and creating new service pages and that sort of thing, right?
Personal injury, attorney, Boston, Massachusetts, like that sort of thing.
Creating all that text with ai and now they're like.
We have a quarter million words a month that need to be reviewed
and humanized and edited.
Right?
And they had no way to scale that up.
So they just plugged us in.
I mean, literally within a week we are cranking out 20,
25,000 words a day for them.
so that, that's what we see happen with people and they'll come to us scrambling.
They're like, we have so much content that we need edited.
I'm like, good thing we are here and we can do that for you.
Matt: Alright, getting close to wrapping up here.
It's interesting that you found like this, this shift.
And it's interesting where like the market went where they were like, oh, we need a
writer, content writer, let's hire John.
And then suddenly they were like, well, you know what?
We can make all this content with, with ai, so let's just
keep the content in house.
And then they realized, oh wait, now we need somebody to edit the content.
This is like, we should have just kept John, you know, as the writer to begin
with, but hey, you know, you're, you're doing well with, with obviously Editor
Ninja and the editing services part of it.
But I'm curious, like how you see this, affect the market at a ai, how it affects
the market at a greater volume, right?
For either the freelance writers out there or like insert AI to any task based job.
Like how does the market survive this?
What's, what's your take on how AI is, is reshaping this workforce, I
guess, for lack of a better phrase?
John: Yeah, it's, it's tough, honestly, like I've seen a lot of,
you know, freelance content writers and, and that type that have.
Have gone back in house or they've just like really struggling to find clients.
Like, it's just, it is just a, it's a bloodbath out there.
I think there's two things.
One is if you're kind of a, it's tough for juniors.
I don't know what junior people should do in this.
in this case, honestly, they should learn to use AI to do, to
do better work and do it faster.
you know, and just, just realize they're kind of getting into the volume game.
people that are more senior need to lean into being more senior.
If they need to specialize, they need to lean into being more senior that, you
know, AI can't replace a human brain.
Can't really replace a human strategist and also say that like,
Hey, I'm also using AI to, to make myself more effective, you know,
to make my work more effective.
But just because my work is more effective doesn't mean that it's less valuable.
Like to them, so like to the enterprise.
So I, I actually hold more firm on pricing than a lot of other people do.
And I say like, Hey, like I, I try to go much more towards
value pricing than like hourly.
Like I, I don't like hourly.
I.
Simply because if you're a more senior person and you can do work
faster, you're basically being punished for doing work faster.
You're doing better work and you're doing it faster than a junior person.
and so you're being punished for, for being more efficient.
so I very much try to go towards like value pricing where it's like,
all right, we have this campaign.
And I can do it, or you need this strategy and I can do it for X dollars.
Right.
and if you're, you know, a more senior person then, and you can do it in half
the time, then you used to be able to guess what, you just got a hundred percent
pay raise because you can take on twice the projects, you know, but also like.
You're not gonna be able to do that with kind of the bottom of the market and
people that are nickel and dimming you on like per word, or you know, per hour.
Like that sort of thing.
You gotta go at market.
You gotta target bigger enterprises.
Matt: John Dougherty, editor ninja.com.
Where else can folks go to say thanks?
John: Yeah, editor ninja.com
and then also LinkedIn is where I hang out primarily these days.
I, I quit Twitter, a while ago.
I actually logged in there yesterday for the first time just to post one for
the first time in like four months to post one thing and then log back out.
I'm like, I'm done.
I'm on Blue Sky as well, but LinkedIn is where I'm primarily
talking about business stuff.
and also Editor Ninja has a YouTube channel that I'm really, I'm starting
to get like rocking and rolling.
So, I mean, as you can see, I've got like a good camera.
I've got a good like.
Po, microphone and all of that.
And I actually, did a lot of video editing when I was in high school and college.
Actually went to college initially to do that, didn't get into the program, so went
into writing web development, but I love video, so I'm doing a lot more of that.
And I think there's a, a big space for people to kind of do, for
someone to do a lot more content around, like agencies and pricing
and signing clients and all of that.
And that's what I've done for a long time, especially with my last agency.
So, feel free to find us there.
Just search Editor Ninja on YouTube and give us a follow.