The Untapped Differentiator: Your Story - An Agency Story

Company: An Agency Story

Guest: Russel Dubree

Year Started: 2022

Employees: 1-10

Most agency owners underestimate the most powerful differentiator they have, their personal story. In this episode, Russel breaks down why your authentic “why” matters and how sharing it can deepen connection with your team, attract the right clients, and clarify your purpose.

Key Takeaways

• Why your personal story is the strongest positioning tool you’re not using
• How authenticity creates instant connection and builds trust with your team and clients
• The hidden reasons owners avoid sharing their story
• A simple way to uncover the deeper “why” behind your work
• How consistently telling your story makes you memorable in a crowded market

Want a more clarity and control for your agency in 2026? An Agency Story has three coaching spots available for 2026. Let’s see if one of those spots is right for you. Visit AnAgencyStory.com and click “Let’s Talk.”

Transcript

Speaker: 1:16

Welcome to an agency Story podcast where owners and experts share the real journey, the early struggles, the breakthrough moments, and everything in between. I'm your host Russell Dre, former eight figure agency owner, turn Business coach. Sold my agency and now helps agency leaders create their ideal business. Every agency has a story, and this is your front row seat. This is an agency story. What is your story? I'm Russel Dubree, host of an agency, story podcast and business coach for agencies. And today I wanna talk about what is your story? Are you sharing it and are you leveraging it in your business? And I was recently inspired by this topic at the Elevate Workshop I hosted in Austin in early November. I was fortunate enough to have a speaker there that means a lot to me. Rich Allen with Tour to Profit, who was my business coach and running my agency, and even after, for many, many years, I can't tell you the relationship we have, but I was inspired and glad that he was able to share his story again with others, and the focus of his topic was. To help owners create a more concrete vision for what they are trying to achieve, what they want, what are the big goals and dreams with their business, and within that vision, what he talked about is having your story. Not only having it but sharing it anywhere and everywhere, which quite honestly, he is a master at. I honestly can't tell you how many times I have heard Rich's story over the years and so often it's gotta be dozens, if not well, over a hundred times so much that I can tell his story myself. I won't get every detail right and keep it condensed for today's time's sake. But it starts off with him and I think eight siblings total that he has and his dad's window washing business. How him and his brothers and his family lived and breathed this business as oftentimes free labor. He also talked about his dad's struggles within that business, how that impacted his family, how the inconsistency of even having food on the table, that they ended up growing up very poor, and that the culmination of Rich's story is. When he basically shares that why he does what he does today as a business coach. If his dad had someone like him, someone to help him through all the challenges and struggles with his business, that it wouldn't have turned out that way. The things could have been extremely different for his family. After listening that story, you can't help but to not remember it, and you can't help but not to be inspired by that. You were automatically going to connect with Rich and you know that he has a true, genuine passion for what he does. Another example of why this is resonating with me a lot lately is an agency I'm working with, two fellow female founders that are partners in the business, have probably what is the most inspiring missions, uh, goals, what they're trying to ultimately achieve with their business. And every time I hear them talk about it with me, I get jazzed about it. And even more jazzed about what they're trying to create is equally excited about the why. When they share why that's important to them and why they wanna create what they want to create. In talking about this one day, what we uncovered is that they don't really share this story with their team. Just for context, by the way, their inspiration, their mission is that they want to someday create camps for young teenage or young women to get mentorship, to get guidance, to become empowered in what they're trying to do in the world. And equally the reason why this is important to them, their own why, is that they had a lot of relationships in their life and their career that were extremely impactful on them, that helped propel them to where they're at today. They also have examples where they didn't get that, where quite the opposite, where it was disempowerment or being kept at bay from opportunities that were in front of them. But going back to the reality is that they don't share this with their team. Through our conversations while that's going to change, how long have they had this very inspirational, very significant component to their business through their story that they've missed out on? One other example that is top of mind lately is the most recent podcast episode I did with Chelsea Flower, with Scott Social. I have no idea how much Chelsea has practiced or worked on telling her story, but if she hasn't, boy does it come natural. She was sharing things in our conversation about her dad having this near death experience. Going back to she was been sort of a rule breaker. To elementary school and how she didn't believe that the rule of not using adult scissors counted for her to being told by multiple people she couldn't do something to having a crappy first job, all being reasons why she started her business, and that ultimately why she built her business to what it is today. And a big motivation behind that is to create the work environment of her dreams for herself and for others. Chelsea's telling this story. You can't help but to be drawn in, to feel a little bit of connectedness, to really remember these different points that she talked about in the story. It's certainly no secret that today positioning is a hot topic amongst agencies. How can you better articulate you do X for Y type businesses? And that's great and important work. I'm not going to diminish any of that work for a second, but if we take a step back and think about why does that matter, why is that important work? And the answer you might quite easily be able to get to is it's to stand out, to be seen as unique and different, to be remembered, and not just be another name on a list of names. Is there anything more unique in this world than your own story? As much as I help shape polish and help clients with their positioning and tell their story, one of the things I can be honest about is tell you that I'm as bad as it gets when we talk about this subject. That was made very evident to me in a recent conversation with my wife. And our little inside joke is that she has her own small business and that we both fired and rehired each other well over a hundred times in that capacity, where I try to help give her some guidance on her business. This was one unique time where we had a reversal of roles. She was actually giving me some guidance on how to better run my business. What we were actually talking about, she's often overheard is how I share and talk about my story when I'm introducing myself to someone like you would expect your spouse to, that she was, uh, not sugarcoating this, but basically saying stop saying the boring stuff. Say the meaningful real stuff. The stuff I know that is actually true to you. So what that looks like for me personally is oftentimes I mention and share to folks that I had a coach in my business journey that was a pivotal point in kind of us turning the business around, but I kind of just gloss over it. It's just a quick little anecdote in the overall context and that I don't tell them how truly impactful that relationship was in my journey. That this was a person that helped encourage me when not only not being my best, but sometimes at my worst, that if I'm being truly honest in tears that taught me things that I would have never known or been exposed to or learned left to my own devices, or would've encountered those way later in my journey perhaps. Connected me to people that were of like minds or even of different minds, and sometimes that was clients, sometimes that was other business owners. Overall, just being an amazing sounding board for me and helping me just reframe how I was looking at the business, even if only so slightly, and how that could have a massive impact on all the different things that we were trying to do within our business. Perhaps the biggest impact of that relationship was how it's inspired me to do what I do today to help create what I had in that relationship and that engagement, and build that for others to help owners create the success that I had, or even better to create amazing place to work, to have profit and ultimately get to financial freedom or some form of freedom that be an exit or whatever. Essentially to help others get to do something very similar to what I do today, and that I'm living that dream, that I have financial freedom, that I am doing the job I would pick to do if I didn't get paid a dime. So the question I ask myself in light of all this is, why haven't I shared my story? And I'm just wondering if it's maybe some of the same reasons why you folks out there might feel, and hopefully this can be insightful and helpful for you. The first thing I can tell you is that it just feels very personal, and while I'm pretty good at connecting with others, I can admit that there's probably always a little bit of a shell that I don't overly enjoy the spotlight on me, that I generally think myself as a support guy, a behind the scenes guy. Another thing that can get in my own way here is that it might feel like bragging or that I'm being conceited. By talking about the success I have had and why I am excited about what's behind that success and how that impacts what I do today. Then another thought that just comes to mind is that maybe no one wants to hear it or that it'll get old and might get tired of hearing it myself. But if I were to take a step back and eat some of my own medicine. The same advice I do give and would give to another owner is first and foremost, you're right, it is personal. I think in 2025, maybe the more than ever we've just evolved to this point, that there is no separation between our business selves and our personal selves for being true to ourselves. And that ultimately if someone asked or was inquiring about putting the spotlight on me, if you will. I can promise you that they'd rather hear a good story over the same old business jargon. And when we talk about the bragging piece or what might make it seem bragging, really just comes down to one aspect is the why. How you end it, how you make that matter in telling your story. That's the only way that could turn sharing something you're excited about into bragging. We know this from so many other forms of media and different things in our life. Is that a good story never gets old? How often do people read the same book, watch the same movie, or consume other forms of content? The reason they do it is it's'cause it's a good story and it never gets old. No different than Rich. My business coach example that again, I can't count how many times I've heard his story over the years, it simply never gets old. I'm still inspired by it almost 20 years later. Here's the best part of sharing all this with you, is that I don't need to give you a list of tips on how. If you're just inspired and resonate with the idea that you could show up and be more authentic in telling your story that this could be a better leverage point in your business, then all you need to do is just tell it. Maybe like me, you might need your spouse, a friend, or even a coach, help you bring out some of the more real parts, the more authentic parts to keep you from that shell. But one thing you can't tell me is that your story isn't interesting. You're just simply not being real or authentic enough. You're not going deep enough. You're not getting to the core why you are what you are and do what you do. We might have some deep, dark things that might be behind some of what we do, and that's okay. I would far rather have someone acknowledge that. We can always polish the what we need to for a PG 13 audience or whatever. Once we've gotten to the heart of why. But I'd rather start there than start at the surface level and be the same old story. And here's one thing that proves that, is that I can promise you after hundreds of interviews with agency owners and some going very deep into why and what they are trying to achieve in their business. No one's net story or why is to make a lot of money and be rich. And even if they think that for a minute and they say as much when you get to the heart of it, that's not the case. Yes, there is a component of having financial freedom, but the question ultimate comes as the freedom to do what? For most folks, it's to travel, to spend more quality time with family. To be more involved in creative work, creative projects, to be a thought leader, write a book, start a nonprofit, get behind a cause, or just simply invest in personal projects. And while. Yes. Some of those do take finances, that the root of that is freedom and that the financial freedom part is really just the means to achieve those things they want to achieve in their life. That they don't have to wake up and have to do something, that they get to wake up and choose. As we wrap this up, what I'd encourage you to do is right now, if you can. If you've been inspired by this, go think about, write about, say out loud to yourself, your most authentic story, your why, and even the unfinished parts. The raw stuff, the deep stuff. Go all the way. We can always polish it later. Once you have that, just start telling it. Tell it to your team. Tell it to your clients. Perhaps tell it to anyone that will listen, tell it to your family, tell it to your kids. It's gonna take some reps to get it down right, but that's like anything in life. No secret there. And that's it. Some resources that might help you uncover ideas or make this resonate more. One is a great book I'm hearing about from a lot of folks. I've recently read it myself, is made to stick by Chip and Dan Heath. Building a story brand from a little more technical business aspect is another great one by Donald Miller and then the age old classics. Start with Why by Simon Sinek. For the few that want to get help, positioning and living out your true why and your purpose, and how to leverage that within your business, you can visit an agency story.com. Click the Let's Talk button and see if coaching might be right for you. Last but not least. If this has inspired you to tell your story better, I would certainly love to hear it. Send a note, tell me your story if you want. But send a note. Let me know how this has impacted you to Russell. That's Russell with one l@anagencystory.com. Thank you so much for listening. Keep showing up and doing the hard thing you do. Keep doing your best. I promise you've got this. Thank you for listening to an agency story podcast where every story helps you write your own, subscribe, share, and join us again for more real stories, lessons learned, and breakthroughs ahead. What's next? You'll want to visit an agency story.com/podcast and follow us on Instagram at an agency story for the latest updates.