Most Ad Agencies will cost you money and underperform. For example, I recently crushed a “great” Ad Agency’s results by 17%. I don’t say that to brag, but to prove that you it doesn’t always to hire an Ad Agency to run your ads. Here’s what happened.
I took over running the Facebook Ads for a client, and in less than a week, I’d cut the CAC (Cost to Acquire a Customer) by 23.9%.
So, without further ado, here are 101 Reasons You Should NOT Hire an Ad Agency to run your ads. Note, this blog is a work in progress. I’m adding the details to each of the reasons – one reason at a time. So, let’s get into it…
Reason #1 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They Can’t Sell.
TLDR: Most of the people working on your ads at an Ad Agency don’t know how to sell, and have NO real-life sales experience. So, what makes you think they’ll be able to create ads that sell for you!?
Here’s the reality, sales is hard, sales is not easy. And cold sales is even harder, and what I mean by cold sales is, cold sales is getting someone who’s not interested, has no interest in your product, is just a random person living their life, scrolling through Facebook, scrolling through Instagram, watching a video on YouTube, and all of a sudden, they see something new.
Getting that person to go from just living their life to buying your product or service is very challenging, and that’s why if you look at any major company, some of the highest paid people besides the CEO are the sales people.
For example, there’s people who are in the software industry, there’s sales people in the software industry that make a million dollars a year, which is higher than just about any other place in corporate America.
But, the reason they’re making so much money is they’re able to make sales. The ability to make sales is the most valuable skill for a business. So here’s what’s interesting, whenever you hire an ad agency, a lot of times you’re hiring people who have a degree in marketing or they went to college and they’ve learned all this stuff, and they’ve learned all this stuff, but here’s the sad reality, college doesn’t teach sales.
Most people… As an institution, academia is very against sales. They think sales is bad, sales is evil, it’s manipulative, it’s a dirty job, it’s really literally one of the most… It’s the dirty jobs of the white collar jobs.
I don’t think it’s a dirty job, but a lot of people perceive it as such. So here’s the reality, the best way to learn sales… There’s people who are not colleges that teach sales, but real life sales experience. I’ve sold in real life, I’ve done telemarketing, I’ve sold person-to-person, I’ve sold people on ideas, I’ve sold people on products.
The reality is if you have real life sales experience, you’re gonna be able to write better ads, you’re gonna be able to write better sales funnels, you’re gonna be able to put together better sales copy, better webinars, etc.
Everything is going to be better when you have real-life sales experience, because there’s going to be things you’re going to learn and you’ll develop an intuition of what works, what doesn’t work, etcetera.
So I’ve done real life sales and here’s what’s interesting, in addition to that, something that is not taught to sales people is traditional copywriting skills and all the organized stuff, because copywriting in a sense is an organized way to make sales.
It’s an organized way to take people from not interested or kind of interested into a closed sale. And once I learned copywriting, I actually went back out and did sales for about a year and a half, and it made my sales much better.
I had my own little business, and I actually developed a great script and then I was able to leverage that script, kind of almost like marketing in the respect that I was able to hire telemarketers, and they were able to get great results because I developed a great script because of my copywriting experience. They weren’t able to get the same results I have.
I just have a natural advantage, I’ve been in the business, I knew the business so much better than they did, but they were able to get about 50% of the results that I were getting, and it was more effective to just simply hire other telemarketers and have them do the calling rather than do it myself, and then I would just go in and actually do the sales presentation and close the sales.
So that’s the number one reason to not hire an ad agency, is the majority of the people that are gonna be writing your ads don’t know how to sell, can’t sell, have never sold belly to belly, toes to toes, nose to nose, they don’t have real life sales experience, and as a result, they’re not going to be able to make sales for your business. So, that wraps it up. Thanks for watching.
Reason #2 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They Suffer from Mediocrity.
TLDR: Most of the people working on your ads at an Ad Agency are going to be mediocre. They’ll work just hard enough to not get fired. As a result, you’ll usually get mediocre results.
This is kinda harsh for me to say, but it’s a harsh truth. The reality is, most people are mediocre.
Most people are gonna put in mediocre results, they’re not gonna push, they’re not going to strive to achieve, they’re not going to strive to achieve great things, they’re just gonna strive to get by. So anyways, the biggest challenge with hiring an agency is, you’re getting B or C level talent, but you’re paying A level prices.
You could hire an A level person for the same price as hiring an agency, but when you get an agency, you have to pay the mark up.
Anyways, and the challenge is, they’re typical employees, they’re employees who get up, they go to work and they just do the bare minimum to not get fired, they do the bare minimum to get by.
I don’t mean to sound elitist, I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but that is the reality of most people. Most people do just the bare minimum to get by. I’ve worked with co-workers and I was absolutely shocked at how little effort they put into work.
They didn’t want to strive to achieve great success, they just wanted to get by. Okay, so here’s the reality. And that’s the case for the agency, the employees, that’s the case for the owner of the agency. It’s not their business, it’s not their baby.
When you have a baby… I have children, when you have a baby, you would invest your life. There’s such a humongous investment into having a baby and how much you’re willing to invest.
And when you start a business, it’s the same thing, you’re willing to put so much time, energy and effort into growing your business, but if it’s not your baby, it’s not your business. Who cares, if it goes broke, they still have a job.
That agency employee can still find a job somewhere else, they can still find a job in another agency or maybe they don’t care as much.
So anyways, the other challenge is the agency owners, these are often A level people. You have to have a lot more drive and ambition to start an agency, but the challenge is they’re not focused on getting you results, they’re focused on getting more clients.
Okay, so, what’s the solution? I’ve just presented the problem, I’ve just bashed agencies. The solution is to cut out the middle man. The solution is to go around the agency, instead of paying A level prices and getting B or C level talent, get A level talent and pay an A level price.
With the same amount of money that you pay an agency, you can hire an amazing copywriter like myself, you can hire an A level media buyer, you can hire someone that’s amazing at Facebook ads, amazing at YouTube ads, amazing at any sort of different advertising, and cut out the middle man and get much better results for your business.
Because you want people who are striving for success, “I want to win so bad,” I almost said a bad word there. And nothing gives me more joy than when a client sends me a message and it says, “Ben, that ad crushed, we’re hitting record level sales this month,” etcetera.
So I am really competitive, I don’t do a lot of sports, so my competitiveness is brought out in business where I’m competing to achieve, I’m competing to win. I want my ads to win, I want my clients to get rich, because I know if I helped them reach success, I can have success as well. So anyways, that’s the number one reason to not hire an agency and a solution, a recommendation, on how to get better results with your ad, after all, if this is your business, this is your baby.
Invest the time, invest the money, get it to work, and you can have great success. Anyways, thanks for watching this video, hope it was good.
Reason #3 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They often Over-Promise and Under-Deliver.
TLDR: Most ad Agencies Over-Promise and Under-Deliver. It’s just the reality of how they sell. Let me explain to you what I mean by that.
So I know people who have hired an ad agency, they came in, they made all these big promises, “We’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do this,” and they didn’t end up doing it.
In addition, I’ve seen a lot of advertising of ad agencies where they’re like, “I can get you 63 booked appointments a month. I can get you 10 booked appointments a day. I can get you this and I can get you that,” and they’re making these huge promises.
So, they’re making so many promises and they’re what I would call, victims of the promise-cycle. So what does that mean?
So when you’re a basic marketer, one of the first things you do, the first level of the five steps of market awareness according to Eugene Schwartz, the first thing you do is everybody goes to the market, they start to make big promises.
Someone comes out and says, “I can solve your problems,” whatever market’s new, let’s say crypto or something else that’s new, “I can solve your problems, I can do this.”
Then, of course, when other people see the success of that marketer, they jump into the market and then they make a bigger promise. Most businesses, what do they do? They just, “I’m gonna go into business, I’m gonna compete with the established people, but I’m gonna do more, I’m gonna do better, I’m gonna have lower prices,” and you have a race to the bottom.
And, you have a race to the top in the respect of the promise-cycle. So the first marketer comes out, the first ad agency comes out and says, “I can get you 20 appointments a month.” The next one’s like, “I can get you 30 appointments in a month.”
The next guy is like, “Man, screw them, I can get you 100 appointments a month.” Then it just goes, and goes, and goes until they’re completely unrealistic, they’re promising you stuff that isn’t even possible.
So here’s the challenge, they’re not what I would call true marketers because they’ve got limited tools in their tool-belt. There’s many, many different ways to sell, there’s many different types of ads that you can use. In fact, I’ve used ads that are not anything to do with a promise.
I’ve used ads that have data, social proof. And if you’re selling them a basic product where it’s almost a commodity, sometimes you can use, “Us versus Them” as a way to sell stuff. Borrowed proof, this has been hugely profitable, that has been my highest grossing ad ever, use borrowed proof.
It’s a different way to sell, rather than just going into the promise-cycle and trying to compete in that, where you’re not gonna win because someone can always come along and promise better stuff.
The same thing, is going into a business where you ran on lower prices. Someone can always come into the marketplace and offer lower prices. And the other challenge, the other reason I say ad agencies over-promise and under-deliver is they’re charging you A-level prices, because they’re marking up their B and C-level talent.
They’re charging you the prices that would cost for you to hire A-level marketing talent, but they’re providing B-Level and C-Level talent because they have to make a profit. So, they have to hire less qualified people, and as a result, you get lower quality results.
A lot of the great ad agencies, their copywriters don’t know about borrowed proof. They don’t know about Us versus Them, they don’t know about data, they haven’t sold in real life, they haven’t actually been sales-people, they haven’t been telemarketers, they haven’t taken cold, disinterested people and converted them into customers through having a good sales-pitch, a good approach, and ran people through the entire funnel.
They’re just people who went to college, got some sort of a degree and they don’t actually know how to sell. So, that’s the number three reason to not hire an ad agency. They over-promise, and under-deliver. Thanks for watching this video.
Reason #4 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They’re Not Focused On YOUR Results!
TLDR: With most Ad Agencies, the best people will be focused on getting results for the agency, rather than getting results for you. As a result, you’ll be stuck with B-Level and C-Level Players working on your account.
So whenever you’re running a business, your CAC is a very important number, especially in a marketing-driven business. You don’t want to overpay, you don’t wanna spend $200, $300 to acquire a client when you could acquire a client for $150 or $100 or whatever the number is.
Okay? So the challenge with ad agencies is the best people are focused on their results, the best people work on acquiring new clients for the agency, they’re focused on content marketing for their agency, they’re focused on writing the best Facebook ads for their agencies.
And in some cases, some of these agencies, $20 million a year in revenue, but they don’t even run ads. How in the world you can hire an agency that doesn’t run ads is beyond me.
But anyways, the best people work on acquiring new clients, not on getting results for their current clients. So what you need to do, if you’re running a marketing-focused business, or if you want your marketing to work. Marketing can be an expense, or marketing can be an investment.
Here’s what I mean by that. So let’s say, your business, you spend… Let’s say General Motors, they spend $100 million a year on advertising, and the advertising is not directly tracked to increasing sales.
So what if instead of doing that, what if they could spend $100 million and they know we have increased sales by X amount of dollars. That’s what you wanna do with your marketing. You wanna focus, especially as a small business.
Let’s say you’re a wedding photographer. You can go out and just spend $1000 bucks a month and just run ads and continue to get business off of referrals, your reputation, your brand, people you know, etcetera.
Or, you could spend $1,000 knowing that that $1,000 in ads is gonna bring you $5000 in new photography clients. And then you’ll get residual business off of those people and build your business over the long term.
So that’s why if you want your marketing to work, you wanna get the best A-level copywriters and media buyers, and you want them focused on getting you results, because like Tony Robbins says, “Where focus goes, energy flows.”
When I work for a client as a freelance copywriter, as a freelance media buyer, I am focused on how can I get them results? And the reason I know this works is I’ve come in after ad agencies.
I came in after an ad agency, cut costs by 20%, and every day when I’m looking at their account, I’m thinking: “What can I do to increase results, what can I do to improve results? Do I need to cycle the offers? Do I need to write more ads? Do I need to put together new video ad scripts? What do we have to do to get better results?”
I’m not resting on my laurels and just being like, “Oh, well, I came in, I got 20% better results right off the bat, I’m good. They’re gonna think I’m the best.”
No! I’m like, “I need to keep that person’s client, I need to be focused on getting them results.” So that’s the number four reason not to hire an ad agency.
They’re not focused on getting you results, they’re focused on getting themselves results, so you wanna make sure you get the best people focused on your business, on getting you results.
In the time you’re paying them, you want them focused and thinking about getting your business and improving it, bringing in more customers, not focused on themselves. So, that’s it. Thanks for watching this video.
Reason #5 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: Many of them are trying to “Get Rich Quick.”
TLDR: Many agencies are run by people who want to “Get Rich Quick.” They found out about Digital Marketing, think it’s a great way to make money, and launched their agency.
But, they’re not interested in putting in the 10,000 hours it takes to get really good at marketing. Instead, they want to get some clients, work as little as possible, and live the “Four Hour Work Week” at your expense.
I don’t know what the deal is, but the problem is that the Agency Business attracts get-rich-quick people that are looking to show up, they’re looking to work three to four hours a day, and work with the minimum amount of time required and get rich.
In fact, I recently saw a YouTube ad where some guy’s like, “What would it take to have financial freedom and have the life you deserve?” And they’re showing pictures of the beach and just showing people chilling and enjoying life and going to parties, all this stuff.
And what they were selling in these YouTube ads was how to start an ad agency. I don’t have a problem with people starting an ad agency. I don’t have a problem with people doing stuff, but the reality is, we live in a world where the economy demands that you provide value if you wanna make money.
So for whatever reason a lot of people have been releasing courses. I saw Tai Lopez release a course was about how to start an ad agency, blah, blah, blah. And you see people buy one course, started ad agency, get rich, don’t work, go live at the beach, go chill at the beach with your laptop and make two, three, four, $500,000 a year.
Work two or three hours a day, blah, blah, blah, and that’s great if people are able to achieve it. The problem is you don’t want people achieving that at your expense.
I know somebody who hired someone and one of their worst employees in the marketing department was someone who’s like, yeah, I read the four-hour work week, I love the four-hour work week.
Well, it turns out that person had the mentality of four-hour work week, and they didn’t work. They worked 10 hours a week and they cost that person that I know about half a million dollars in missed opportunity because they didn’t do a good job running his ads.
What about maybe people with a marketing degree? Here’s the challenge with hiring people that have a marketing degree. Marketing degrees don’t teach you sales.
Someone with the marketing degree might be a good hire. But, you also want someone who knows how to sell, and those two don’t always come together.
Here’s a little bit about myself. You wanna hire someone who’s done sales, who’s actually gone out and sold, they’ve done to telemarketing, they’ve done door-to-door sales, they’ve done sales presentations, they’ve closed sales. They understand how to sell.
So I’ve been in sales for over 18 years because marketing is also part of sales, but I’ve worked as a salesperson, I’ve done telemarketing before I went into the marketing business, and you wanna have, find somebody with experience or if they’re not getting the experience, you test them out in a very low risk capacity, maybe you have them write sales emails or maybe you have them write different stuff and you test it, but you test them out in a very low risk capacity for your business, don’t spend thousands of dollars on stuff they’re doing.
The other thing. I’ve been in marketing for 10 plus years, I’ve written thousands of different emails, thousands of different ads, I’ve posted them on Facebook, I’ve sent out the emails, I’ve tracked the results, I have intuition that’s been built over years and years of work of what will work and what won’t work to bring in sales for your business.
That’s the number five reason not to hire an ad agency, don’t hire someone who’s looking for get-rich-quick, hire someone who’s working, who’s got the experience.
I’m still working 50, 60 hours a week, I’m still putting in the time, grinding a way, building a business, getting great results for my clients, and that’s the type of person you’re gonna wanna look for for your business to help you grow your sales with great advertising. That’s the end of the video. Thanks for watching.
Reason #6 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: 🤯 Most of them DON’T Advertise.🤯
TLDR: Did you know that most Ad Agencies don’t advertise? It’s true. Before you hire an agency, pull up their ads in the Facebook™ Ads Library and check this for yourself. If they CAN’T get advertising results for their business, what makes you think they’ll be able to get advertising results for YOUR business!?
For example, I recently pulled up the Facebook Ads Library for a $20 million a year ad agency that helps people run their Facebook ads.
They don’t have one single ad, zero, zilch, nada. No ads in their ads library, they’re not running any ads, they’re basically hypocrites. I know that’s a harsh accusation to throw out against people but this ad agency is spending a million dollars a year of other people’s money across multiple clients, but they’re not even running ads themselves.
Do they even believe that advertising works? Because if they could create advertising that works, why the heck would they not be running ads!?
Okay, I get three, four, five, 10 times return on my investment when I invest money in advertising, so I’m happy to invest money in advertising. However, this company, they can’t even create good ads for themselves, what makes you think they’re going to be able to create good ads for you?
So here’s an example of maybe an ad agency, that is a good example, an ad agency that got success for their clients. So he’s no longer around, he passed away in the ’80s or ’90s. David Ogilvy Advertised. If you Google “David Ogilvy Advertising”, then you can see his ads.
He wrote an ad about how to create advertising that sells, ran the ad and got great results. In addition, David Ogilvy was one of the few advertisers who use what’s called direct response, and he said in his book, that direct mail was one of his secret weapons.
Direct mail is amazing, was… I guess you could say like the Facebook of 50 years ago, because you could hyper-target exactly who you were trying to market to, and put your direct mail letter in front of them and get a result, so he say that in one of his books.
One of his most famous campaigns is The Man in the Hathaway Shirt, which supposedly took the Hathaway shirt company from like, okay, they’re doing all right, they were growing, they were building and it turned into 10 or 20X the business and turn it into a multi-million dollar firm, off of the eye patch ad.
If you wanna Google, Man in the Hathaway Shirt, the eye patch ad, it did tremendously well, and it took a small company and turned into a huge company, very profitable.
So, here’s the deal, I spend about $1,200 a month in ads, and that’s just for me, one person. I don’t have a big company, I don’t have any employees, it’s just me creating ads, freelance for clients, but I’m able to spend money on ads and I’ve gotten a huge return on investment.
I’ve since the beginning of 2022, I’ve spent about $6,000 in ads, and I’ve gotten a substantial return on investment, I don’t know the exact numbers, but I picked up clients and I’ll probably get a 10:1, maybe over the next two years, if I continue to work with those clients, I’ll get a 20:1 return on investment.
So that’s why if you’re gonna hire an ad agency or you’re gonna hire someone to help you through ads, then find someone that’s actually advertising. Find someone that actually believes in what they’re selling.
Find someone that actually knows how to create advertising that sells, that gets an ROI, because they’re willing to invest their own money, they’re willing to invest and create wins for themselves, which means there’s a much higher chance they’re gonna be able to create wins for you.
So that’s the number six reason not to hire an ad agency is, the majority of ’em do not advertise. Thanks for watching.
Reason #7 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They’re Too Focused On The Driver (Hacks), Instead of the Car (Ad.)
TLDR: Most Ad Agencies are too focused on hacks and tricks to get results, rather than creating amazing, high-converting ads that work. As a result, your marketing suffers and you get subpar results. Let me explain what I mean by that.
So the driver is the person who runs your ads they’re the media buyer, they’re running the ads, they’re putting them in Facebook, they’re buying the direct mail sends, buying the ads, they’re doing the targeting on YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, wherever else you’re trying to run ads online or offline.
You can even put a flyer on a bulletin board, you can put a billboard on the side of the road, that is an ad.
And they’re so focused, on: “we’ve got the special Facebook ad tricks, we’ve got these special YouTube ad tricks, we’ve got these special TikTok tricks, these special hacks, they’re just gonna crush it!”
The reality is, I’ve spent millions of dollars in advertising on Facebook, I’ve mailed out thousands of different direct mail letters, I’ve put out flyers. I know, have a little bit of experience this stuff, so here’s what I mean by that, the driver is how you run your ads, the car is the ad, and what I’ve found is I can be the best driver in the world, but the car is ultimately the most important thing.
I’ve tried every single thing you know. I’ve tried CBO, ABO, this, that I can’t remember all the different things of the top of my head.
I’ve tried ten different things to improve Facebook advertising results, and I’ve taken over Facebook ad accounts after a 20 million agency ran them and boosted results by 20% within two weeks, so I know how to run ads, but here’s my point.
Let’s just imagine you have me as a driver, a race car driver versus Lewis Hamilton. [chuckle] Lewis Hamilton has won the Formula One race car championship seven times. He’s a damn good driver, I’m an okay driver.
But you put me in him in a Corvette and we race around a track that guy is gonna stomp me man he’s gonna crush me because he’s an amazing race car driver. Okay, and that’s kind of what happens if you have the same ads with lower quality or higher quality drivers.
However, if you put me in a corvette and you put Lewis in a Model T, in other words, he has a way lower quality car, I’m going to crush him, the Corvette has a top speed of 205 miles an hour the Model T has 45 miles an hour. So I’m just gonna be lapping him. I can go 0 to 60 in three seconds.
He can’t even go 0 to 60 so in three seconds zoom, I’ve zoomed ahead of him on the race car track okay. In cornering, I can corner at about 1.03 G’s. I don’t know what a model T corners, but I can probably pass them in the corners, okay, so that’s the reality.
If you want to have success with your advertising, the most important thing that you need is advertisements that work. Sales funnels that work, sales processes that work, because you can get all focused on the driver and all these hacks and tricks, and this and that.
The reality is, what really matters is the car, the ad you put in front of people, people see an ad, they resonate with it, they like it, they’re going to buy, people see an ad and they don’t really care, and it’s just like, “No, whatever.” They’re not going to buy. Okay, so that’s the number seven reason not to hire an ad agency, they’re too focused on the driver instead of the car.
Reason #8 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They Only Have A Limited Number Of “Tools” In Their Advertising “Tool Belt.”
TLDR: Most Ad Agencies are only familiar with a few different ways to sell. If you want the best results from your ads, then you need to work with someone who has 20+ different proven Ad Frameworks that they can quickly deploy for you.
Whenever you’re having a problem with your ads, whenever you’re trying to grow your business, get more sales, whenever you hit a roadblock, they’ve only got so many tools and a lot of times their tools cannot get you past that roadblock.
For example, do they have 20 different proven ad frameworks? So if one of your ads stops working, do they have the ability to create more ads that are gonna convert? Because one of the fastest ways to scale an offer is by creating new ads.
Do they know how to use image scaling?
Do they know how to script out new video ads and either have someone shoot them for you, maybe hire a presenter, or give you the script and help you… Or teach you or help you shoot those advertising videos yourself if you wanna be the face for your brand?
Do they cycle offers?
Do they cycle ads? Everything is going to get fatigued. Offers get fatigued, ads get fatigued, images get fatigued, videos get fatigued.
That’s why you constantly have to cycle through those. Do they understand their job is not just to press buttons, but their job is to cycle offers to get you the best results? This can make a huge difference. You can cycle offers and immediately see a 20-30% increase in sales because you’re putting something fresh and new in front of the marketplace. Okay.
Do they know how to create new front end hooks? If you’ve got something that works. Let’s say you have a webinar that works. Let’s say you have an upsell that works, a tripwire, etcetera, or a core back end offer. Do they know how to create new front end hooks for that?
Either new hooks to get people on a webinar, new tripwires, new lead magnets, etcetera. The list goes on and on and on. But do they know how to create new front end hooks because a new front end hook is in a sense it’s a new offer, but it’s not a new offer because the back end offer is the same.
Do they have a proven system for getting testimonials? You can literally run an entire business, all your ads just based off of testimonials. If you have enough fresh new testimonials, you can just keep playing your testimonials and cycling through your testimonials and have a huge Rolodex library of testimonials if you have a good system for getting testimonials.
I developed a good system for my clients for getting testimonials. We don’t have as many testimonials as maybe we’d like, but we’ve got plenty of testimonials. We can use them, we can use them to create new ads and grow our sales as a result.
So if you’re gonna hire an ad agency, check how many tools they’ve got in the tool belt.
Do they have great media buying strategies?
Do they have great ad creation strategies?
Do they help you create videos that are gonna sell? Do they help you create new video ads? Maybe hire a presenter to shoot the videos and be the spokesperson for your brand, etcetera?
There’s all sorts of different things they can do, but that’s the reason number eight to not hire an ad agency because the vast majority of them only have limited tools in their tool belt. Thanks for watching.
Reason #9 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They can’t close the sale.
TLDR: Most Ad Agencies don’t know how to close the sale. So, they’ll run a lot of ads and may even get you some great advertising results. But, if they don’t understand how to close the sale, then you’ll have a disadvantage compared to someone who understands the entire sales process.
A lot of ad agencies may get you lots of leads. They may get you hundreds of leads, thousands of leads, dozens of leads, it depends. They’re making a lot of clicks, they may be able to create ads that get action, but they don’t know how to turn that action into sales, okay?
Because closing a sale is a completely different process than just getting someone to indicate interest or take action or click or open an email or click the link in an email, etcetera. There’s a lot of different stuff, you gotta have data, you gotta show people the proof of the data, the logic, and why they should buy.
Because there’s three steps to a sale; there’s the emotion where people are like, “Oh my gosh, it sounds cool,” and then they’re like, “Oh, well, you know, I’ve been burned before, maybe I shouldn’t buy. Is this the same as that other time?”
And that’s when you have to use data and logic and show them logically why it makes sense to buy. So people buy emotionally and then they back up their decision to buy using logic and data, okay?
So data, social proof. If they have objections, objection handling, you gotta be able to handle objections either in your sales process if you got a salesperson on the phone, if you have a sales person in person, if you have a webinar, a sales letter, etcetera, you’ve gotta be able to handle the objections. Okay?
Another good way to close sales is case studies, show them other people that have used your product or service, that have went from point A to point B and gotten results with it.
And then the final step in the sales process is urgency and scarcity, so people are like emotional like, “Oh my gosh. That sounds amazing, I wanna buy it. Okay, well, I’ve been burned before. Logically, I gotta make sure this makes sense. And like, you know what, maybe I can procrastinate it, maybe I don’t need to buy. Maybe I can just keep dealing with this problem, and it’s not actually that bad.”
And that’s when you have to use urgency and scarcity, if you’ve got scarcity, maybe most products and services only have a limited supply, you gotta use the scarcity. The urgency, you also gotta sell the pain of what’s going to happen if they don’t buy.
For example, I’ve talked about the mattress, you know the reason people… I run on so many ads that I call pain ads is because people will continue to wallow in misery before they decide to take action and make a change in their life and buy something better.
You know me, I had a mattress that was okay, but it was starting to hurt and I wasn’t comfortable, and I just kept putting it off ’cause it wasn’t important.
And finally, when the pain was so bad, that’s when I made the decision to buy a new mattress and my life has been so much better as a result since then. But it was only when I had the pain became so bad, there’s never a salesperson like, “Look, do you wanna continue suffering, or do you wanna make a change and make your life better?”
Okay, and another part, follow-up, follow-up, follow-up, follow-up. You can follow up with your emails, you can follow up with re-targeting, your sales people should follow up, etcetera. “The sale is in the follow-up,” is a saying that a lot of people have.
And then another part of it is having a great offer, having an offer that reduces their problems, that gives them a better chance of getting their result, you know, all sorts of different stuff. And there’s a lot of things that you can do to prove your offer and make the sale easy.
Okay, so I’m not saying your ad agency has to know how to do all this stuff, they don’t have to, but they need to understand the entire sales process.
They need to understand your sales process, whether it’s to generate a lead, follow-up through email, dripping them with email, and then eventually they buy, you get them onto a webinar and then the webinar closes the sale, etcetera.
You want someone… You want an agency that understands your sales process and it could potentially help you improve your sales process.
Okay, ’cause here’s the thing, I built presentations. I built webinars, I’ve built in-person presentations, I’ve done all this stuff, I’ve sold in person. I’ve sat down in people’s living room and sold them on my product or service.
I even, for one my clients, that is a large multi-million dollar company, I built a presentation and talking points for their salespeople to use on sales calls to close more sales. And the feedback I got from the salespeople was it was helpful, it’s really helpful, and it helped them close more sales as a result.
So that’s the number nine reason why you don’t wanna hire your typical ad agency, and that’s because they don’t know how to close the sale. Thanks for watching this video.
Reason #10 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They don’t care as much because it’s not their money.
Your money won’t go as far with them, because it’s not their money. They’re spending your money, so therefore they don’t care as much.
Here’s an example of this, I remember reading a book where the guy was talking about doing infomercials and doing professional videos, and he talked about how they worked with some sort of video production company, and they had some guy on set filming the videos or helping them set stuff up.
And they were filming a scene with a table, with a table cloth and someone talking about the product that they were selling in the infomercial. And the table was just a standard table, maybe like a cheap table that had a table cloth on top of it.
But the production director, whoever it was that was in charge of it was like, “We can’t use that table, it doesn’t look fancy enough.” And they’re like, “Who cares, no one’s gonna know.” And he’s like, “I’m gonna know that underneath the table cloth is a normal looking table.”
So they had to spend $5000 on a better quality, super expensive table so they can have the posh, classy advertising shoot. And that’s 5000 bucks. Five thousand bucks may not be a lot of money for some companies, but for a small business where money is actually real and we have to work to earn our money, $5000 is a lot of money to waste on something that isn’t necessary.
In addition, there is a very… Not very famous, but a very wealthy business woman who wrote a book, and she was talking about her company and how she runs her company. She’s like, “I don’t use agencies because they don’t negotiate, agencies don’t negotiate.”
And this is… She’s not talking about Facebook ads or Google ads, where it’s negotiated in a bidding system, but she’s talking about maybe billboards or magazine ads or other types of ads, TV ads, and she said agencies don’t negotiate because they don’t care.
It’s not their money, they’re not gonna negotiate as hard. They get paid a percentage of the ad spend, they don’t get paid based on results.
So if you want your money to go far, if you wanna get your dollars worth, if you’re a business person who understands it’s not about how much money you make, it’s about how much money you keep, and money isn’t free, money, it doesn’t grow on trees, then you want to hire someone directly, hire your own media buyer in-house, hire your own copywriters in-house, or work with freelancers, find people who are going to work and squeeze as much value out of the advertising dollars you’ve spent.
In addition, I’ve also seen for some of my clients who have worked with agencies, the cost to acquire a customer tends to go up whenever they are hire an agency.
For example, one of my clients was spending millions of dollars a year on Facebook ads, they had an agency, and the cut was just going up, and they’re like, “Hey, agency, what the heck, what can we do to lower the cost to acquire a customer?” And they’re like, “Oh, well, we’re gonna work on some stuff.”
The cost didn’t go down and they ended up letting that agency go. So that’s my point, point number 10, if you want your money to go far, if you work for your money, if you’re someone who understands that money isn’t free, it doesn’t grow on trees, then you wanna work with people who are going to squeeze as much value out of the advertising that you do so you get the most value for your money.
Reason #11 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They suck at tracking.
Reason #12 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They try to sound professional instead of personable.
Reason #13 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: Don’t do Image Scaling.
Reason #14 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: Don’t do Dayparting.
Reason #15 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: Don’t cycle offers to combat fatigue.
Reason #16 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: Don’t know how to create new front end hooks.
Reason #17 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: Don’t use different page names for better results.
Reason #18 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: Don’t create copy that converts.
Reason #19 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: Don’t understand the 5 step rule to ads that convert.
Reason #20 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: Don’t Yoyo their copy.
Reason #21 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: Don’t accept rejection from the market.
Reason #22 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They write “Reason Why” copy and it doesn’t work.
Reason #23 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: Their ads are boring and won’t convert.
Reason #24 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: Don’t use empathy in their ads.
Reason #25 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: Don’t have a proven system for getting testimonials from your customers.
Reason #26 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: Don’t understand the sales rule: Sell the next step, don’t sell the product.
Reason #27 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: Don’t write ads that are direct and often get off on tangents.
Reason #28 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: Don’t create videos that sell.
Reason #29 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: Don’t hook people in their videos.
Reason #30 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: Don’t create pain ads.
Reason #31 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: Don’t sell to the Dark Side.
Reason #32 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They don’t sell what people want.
Reason #33 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They don’t sell what people really, truly deeply want.
Reason #34 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They don’t sell to the 7 sins.
Reason #35 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: Don’t sell an easier way.
People are lazy. They want the easy solution.
Reason #36 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They don’t sell shortcuts.
People want shortcuts.
Reason #37 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They don’t tell people, “It’s not your fault.”
People don’t want to take responsibility for their problems. It’s not their fault. People feel entitled to what they want. Not just millennials. All humans.
Reason #38 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They don’t create challenge offers for you.
People know they are lazy, etc. So, they love challenges.
Reason #39 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They don’t talk about the Common Enemy.
A purpose, conflict, or fight is one of the few things that wakes people out of the stupor and makes them come alive.
Reason #40 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They don’t use this one simple trick to get better results.
What’s the trick” It’s to plant a belief in your prospect’s brain by starting your ad with a question – rather than statement. For example, “Did you know that _____?”
Reason #41 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They don’t talk about feelings.
Feelings are where you suck people in and get them to buy.
Reason #41 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They don’t write emotional copy.
Reason #43 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They don’t write deep emotional copy.
Reason #44 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They don’t understand Native Ads.
Reason #45 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They don’t understand how to use Data in their ads.
Reason #46 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They don’t know how to scale winning sales emails into winning ads.
Reason #47 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: Confusing or cute ads.
Reason #48 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: Copycat Ads.
Your ads are going to look just like all the other lame ads out there.
Reason #49 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They don’t use a wide variety of proven ad Frameworks.
Reason #50 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They don’t have 10 years of experience writing copy that converts.
I’ve been doing marketing and sales for almost 20 years.
Reason #51 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They think that a good logical argument will make the sale.
That doesn’t work. Emotion is more important than logic. You can lead a customer to water, but you can’t make them drink. Logic helps close the sale, but it doesn’t make the sale.
Reason #52 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They don’t ask for the order.
Reason #53 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They don’t create many ads.
Instead, they just run a few different ads and call it good. I create 10X more ads than most agencies. I’ve created and tested over 700 different ads over the last few years for my clients. I’ve tested over a thousand different ad images. So, I know what works and what doesn’t.
Reason #54 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: Not worried about your profitability.
Reason #55 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They don’t understand the numbers to be profitable: CAC, LTV, Churn, Etc.
Reason #56 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They don’t understand the entire front-end sales process which includes email and managing an email list.
Reason #57 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They sell you views instead of results.
Reason #58 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They don’t want to be accountable for making sales.
Reason #59 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They don’t have long-term experience on your business, industry, ads, funnels, etc.
Reason #60 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They’re not resourceful enough to find old copy that converted in your ad account and raise it from the dead today.
Reason #61 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They don’t scale winners up with new images and visuals.
Reason #62 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They don’t cut bad ads fast.
Reason #63 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They don’t have great tracking and analysis of what’s working.
Reason #64 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They can be sloppy.
A client of mine said they would run ads and the links wouldn’t work. What!? Are you kidding!? That’s so incompetent.
Reason #65 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They don’t save your money for the end of the month.
Why does this matter? Because costs go down as competitors run out of budget. This is especially true for 31-day months. This was true for July 2022. Costs dropped at the end of the month.
Reason #66 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They lean too much on the algorithm.
Reason #67 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They try to run Set and Forget Campaigns.
Nothing is set and forget! I check stuff 3X a week and sometimes every day. You gotta check stuff constantly. I even check the ads on weekends – especially as we get close to the end of the month. It only takes 10 minutes, but it can make a difference.
Reason #68 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They have mindset issues about selling.
They think sales is bad. They think salespeople are evil. They think they have to be nice about their product and only sell it to people who search them out and buy it. This is stupid. You have to believe in what you’re selling. I believe so strongly that I will push through a prospect’s resistance and push them to buy. You can’t be squeamish about selling. If you believe in your product, it’s your responsibility to get people to buy it.
Reason #69 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They often overcomplicate things.
Reason #70 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: Some agencies get kickbacks.
Reason #71 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: Sometimes, they run ads in their account.
Then, if you part ways, they have control over your data. That’s not a good place to be.
Reason #72 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They try to sound smart even though they aren’t actually smart.
Reason #73 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They think that what works for Fortune 500 Companies will work for you.
Reason #74 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They’re People Pleasers, and that will hurt your results.
Reason #75 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They don’t have the confidence and Chutzpah of someone who’s self-made.
Your ads must have both boldness and finesse. Boldness to get attention. Finesse to close the sale without looking like a Schmuck.
Reason #76 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: You’re more likely to let Commitment & Consistency hurt your ad results.
If your ad agency sucks, you’ll continue spending money with them longer, than if you were running ads yourself.
Reason #77 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They’re politically correct, which is going to hurt sales.
Reason #78 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They’re “Vote for Pedro” Marketers.
“If we just tell people why we’re good, they’re going to buy.” That’s not good enough.
Reason #79 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They’re trying to win awards instead of make sales.
The more awards that your agency wins the less likely they are to get you sales.
Reason #80 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They’re often arrogant, and so their ads don’t connect with normal people.
They use big words to sound smart.
Reason #81 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They try to appear cultured instead of trying to make sales.
Ad Agencies are great for people that want to look good. I work for people that want to get rich. I don’t give a damn about culture. I was forced to go to stupid museums as a kid and I hate them. And, most people only pretend to like museums. The reality is they only go to museums to appear cultured.
Reason #82 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They focus on branding instead of sales.
Reason #83 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: Their ads look like an ad rather than native content.
Graphic Designed images have been proven to not convert as well as normal images.
Reason #84 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They use stock photos or graphic-designed photos.
Reason #85 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They’re “basic” with their ads.
This doesn’t work. Stop looking like everyone else. Ads using the “Jealous Girlfriend” Meme. If you want to get noticed you gotta stand out. Fire your graphic designer. I love graphic designers but they suck at marketing. They’re so concerned with making things look good that they stop selling.
Reason #86 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They’re afraid to sell.
So, they write weak, “nice guy” ads that don’t convert.
Reason #87 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They don’t know how to beat the Reverse Hockey Stick of sales.
Reason #88 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They settle for average.
Average copy. Average media Buying. Average images. Average results. You can’t afford to be average!
Reason #89 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: Trying to live the 4-Hour Workweek.
Reason #90 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They’re Overpriced.
You’re paying A-Level Talent Prices, but getting C Level Talent. Why? Because they mark everything up 2-3X.
Reason #91 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: There’s a hidden Ad Agency Tax.
I call it the B-Level Ad Copy Tax. Let me explain. It’s like Gas Mileage. If one truck gets 15 MPG, and gas is $5 a gallon, then it costs you 33 cents per mile. If another truck gets 30 MPG, and gas is $5 a gallon, then it costs you 17 cents per mile.
So, would you rather have a fleet of trucks at 15 MPG or 30MPG? It’s the same way with Agencies. Ad Agencies provide B-Level Talent because A-Level Talent is so good that clients hire them directly and they don’t have to work at an agency.
B-Level Talent actually costs you more because it’s not as effective. You won’t get as many sales per ad dollar spent on B-Level Copy as you would get from A-Level Copy.
One ad gets 1 customer for every $10 in ad spend. Another ad gets 1 customer for every $20 in ad spend. This is why you’re better off investing the money required to get A level talent and getting more sales per dollar spent.
Reason #92 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: Not realistic about what it actually takes to make sales.
50 Cents Marketing Advice. Reality is my drug. The more I get it, the better my marketing converts.
Reason #93 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They’re juggling ten things rather than just one.
In order to run an agency, you have to be good at selling, customer service, operations, human resources, managing employees, hiring people, firing people, training, and holding employees accountable. Office politics. Finances. Taxes. Accounts payable. Accounts Receivable. Oh, and by the way they have to get you results. I wonder where you stack up on this list!
Reason #94 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They think certifications matter, rather than results.
In my last job, I kept my job while 3 other “degreed” marketers got fired for incompetence and lousy results.
I don’t have a degree, but when I worked at that company, I outlasted 5 other employees who ran ads or helped with marketing.
Reason #95 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: Less accountability.
There are usually 1-2 people between you and the person actually running your ads. If you have an employee who messes up, then you can deal with them directly. Multiple layers of accountability, so things can get mixed up.
Reason #96 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They surrender and settle for “average” results.
Instead, they should push everyone for better results. They should push their employees, their copywriters, their media buyers, etcetera for better results.
Reason #97 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: Incompetent.
A lot of Ad Agencies don’t know what they’re doing.
Reason #98 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They’re often lazy and entitled.
Many of their employees are lazy and entitled. They think that since they have a Marketing Degree, they deserve to make six figures and barely work. If you’re a small business owner, these employees might make more than you do!
Reason #99 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They may hold you hostage.
They keep your creative or ad data hostage.
Reason #100 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: Their own Sales Funnel sucks.
Most of them are not good at marketing and selling people on their agency. If they can’t sell themselves, what makes you think they’re going to sell your product or service!?
Reason #101 to NOT hire an Ad Agency: They’re not Discreet.
They put your logo on their website, share your ads in their portfolio, and talk about your results and case studies. Screw that. Have them be confidential about what they do. Notice I don’t openly talk about my clients?
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