An Agency Story

The Discipline of Reducing Friction - Help.Agency

• Russel Dubree / John Balauat • Episode 173

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Growth doesn’t usually fail because of effort, it fails because of friction. In this episode, Russel sits down with John Balauat of Help.Agency to unpack why forcing outcomes creates pressure, bad decisions, and stalled momentum, and how the discipline of reducing friction leads to clearer sales, better partnerships, and healthier agencies.

Key Takeaways

  • Why forcing growth often creates more problems than progress
  • How reducing friction in sales builds trust and better-fit clients
  • The power of being picky
  • Experiment early and often before going all-in. 

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. Click this link to visit AnAgencyStory.com and click “Let’s Talk.”

Russel:

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 Russel Dubree, former eight figure agency owner, turned 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. Welcome to the show today, everyone. I have John Balauat with Help Agency with us here today. Thank you so much, John, for joining the show today.

John:

Oh, it's a pleasure to be here, Russell.

Russel:

Well welcome to 2026, uh, one of the first episodes of recording. How was All Things New Year's and uh, end of 2025 for you.

John:

Very low key, uh, very, uh, just time with family. We gave the team off for two weeks and, um, the most important things to me are the silent ones, and so just quiet time with family and friends.

Russel:

Always a great way to spend the holidays. Well, if you don't mind, kick us off and just tell us a little bit about what help agency does and who you do it for.

John:

Sure. So help that agency. We are a team of web designers and developers, and we serve other agencies. And so what we do is we try to solve the problem of, uh, the friction that happens when they outsource their web development. There could be a lot of communication gaps. There could be a lot of challenges that make it not only hard for the agency, but also for the client. And so we just aim to be a better white label service, make things smoother, take things off their plate, including the project management, so that the agencies can focus on what they do best, such as SEO branding, whatever it's they do, and make more money Help agency helps agencies. We do.

Russel:

Yeah, love, love a good practical name there. We'll figure out all the different ways you help the folks you serve and what that's looked like over your journey. But I wanna start with John, young John, in fact, and just where he came up in the world and how he came to be. Tell us the young John story. Gosh, that

John:

is, uh, no one ever asked that question, so I love, I love that you did. It'll make me remember. So my beginning came from sales and you know, it was just the first job I was able, uh, to get and that paid me well, professional jobs anyways, after college and everything. And so I sold things I didn't care about. I sold. Uh, like what are we talking here? Like what kind of products

Russel:

are we selling? Ketchup, popsicles, or

John:

telecommunications? Like, uh, cell phones. Okay. At the time. Pagers.

Russel:

Oh boy.

John:

So, um, I, I don't know if like the audience even knows what that is, but it's interesting'cause thinking about it back then, I don't have. The personality for a salesman, I, I would think, I'm not loud, I'm not boisterous. Integrity is really, really important to me, so it's hard for me to stretch the truth. And so I quickly learned that I was at a disadvantage when I started sales, and I had to find a way. To me, it was just like there was no. Option to fail. I was newly married. I got married really young, and I felt like I had to support my wife and I had to find a way to be successful without having that personality. And so I found that I could be really effective by using what I was good at, which was I was able to point out problems I could look at. A problem and say, oh, this is causing stress, or this is causing friction. And then finding a solution and then communicating it in a way that the prospect would understand. A lot of times they didn't even know were aware that something they had was a problem. And so I actually became a really good salesman by doing that strategy. I got into tech back in 2013, I was recruited by a startup company and they liked the way I sold, and so I had to build their whole business development strategy and everything. I guess that is what kind of pushed me into where we're we are now. Because I had to sell to CTOs. That startup company was we created training for web developers and it was unique in that I. We had this technology that allowed people to learn coding in a browser back then, 2013. You wanna learn how to code, you have to download text editors, you have to set up the environment, all these things just to start coding. So that startup actually had this technology where you could log into a website and start coding right away. And we actually gamified. The lessons. And so it felt like they were playing a video game, but they were learning all these new technologies. I, I needed this

Russel:

for like, uh, you know, math class in high school or something. Yeah. How can I, um, gamify my, um, very horrible math lessons that I had to do.

John:

Yeah. We made it fun. We made it super fun and it was a test. To my strategy, because I was not a tech guy. I was the only person in the whole company. There was about 50 of us that I was the only one in the company who was comfortable talking to people. That's why they asked me to come. Everyone was either a designer or a developer and, they just love creating content. They love creating product, and they asked me to come in and talk, and so I had to sell to CTOs. How does a, like a person who doesn't know technology, doesn't know how to code. Sell to CTOs when I don't even speak their language. And so it really was a challenge for me. I got to, I started getting mentored by one of the lead developers there. He took me under his wing. He, he started showing me certain problems that people have. And then I was able to knock on the door of, big companies such as Facebook PayPal, and understand their problems. And the more I talked to these people, the more I saw. Oh my gosh. They, leaders weren't coding anymore. They were busy managing. They were feeling insecure because they didn't have like the actual street smarts anymore because they weren't doing the actual work. So I was able to go, Hey, why don't you like do our training? It's gamified, it's quick. You could do it in spurts in between leading people and then at least, you know. A little bit about the technology that you've applied and you could lead your people better, you know? And so I was able to like do stuff like that, find problems, communicate it, and we sold a lot. That company ended up getting bought. We got acquired by this huge company called Pluralsight, which is a another tech company out of Utah. Okay. And so that's my story is like, uh, yeah. You know, I've always been the business development guy.

Russel:

Nice. It's funny, just at the beginning you say that, and I hope this changes over time, when you were talking about the stereotypical stigma or persona of what a salesperson looks like, and I think that's pretty universal across our culture of how we think of when you hear that term salesperson. But. What do we need to do in this world to change it? More of just like you said, of just have a conversation, right? Identify a problem, help them, guide them to a solution or a problem. We gotta, somehow, we gotta change this persona of what an actual good salesperson or true salesperson looks like.

John:

Well, you know, I was almost always one of the top salespeople of. I worked for and I took kind of pride in that, because I was kind of boring actually. You know, I wasn't, all these people were doing incredible things, like really risky stuff, like sending unique gifts to people they didn't know and getting, an in with them and they being, that wasn't me. I don't do that. I just was really consistent with what I did. I tried to find stuff that worked. I nailed it. I nailed it down until it hit the ground and I was just consistent and it produced results.

Russel:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I, I mean, right. It just comes back to the age old adage of less can be more, yeah. Show up consistently, help people solve problems. And if you do that really, really well, you don't need these, let's call it circus tactics or, uh, any of these other stigmas that we think of in the sales. So I'm sure we'll, we'll gather some more sales nuggets from you as we go. But, um, somewhere along the lines, where's the path to parlaying that initial sales experience and success into getting involved with help.

John:

So the team that, uh, you know, I'm half owner of Help that agency and really the team and the company was built by my business partner, Carlos. And he's been in the game for a little over 20 years and he started just as a freelancer, just taking any work he could get. Um, he got really good at it. He got really good at building things. He built a reputation, a solid reputation, and so the success he had was just. From the quality of work he had. He doesn't like talking to people and he did very little relationship cultivation and, it was just always referrals. And so I think just like about five years ago, he and I were in the right place. He knew I was a good business development guy and we liked each other. We're actually best friends. Were before, before this time period? Or you had been best friends or? Yeah, we had been best friends. I gotcha, gotcha. For a while. And we always said, Hey, we gotta team up for something, you know? And about five years ago he brought up the idea and I said, okay, well I'm not gonna, you're not gonna be my boss. I don't wanna box, you know? And so, what we came up with was like, okay. I know that I hit a plateau. I know I'm not talking to anybody. He wasn't even like asking for referrals, basic 1 0 1, best way to get business referrals. Mm-hmm. And he wasn't even doing that. And so we just joined forces. And when I looked at our clientele, I just saw that we were really good at helping agencies. And I brought it up to him, I said. Carlos, you're really good at systems and processes, and I talked to some of the clients. They all said the reason why they keep sending us work is because we meet deadlines and we're good at communication. Really, really boring things. Again, I guess I, I get attracted to the boring things, but those two things were like really important to them. So I said. Let's go after agencies. Let's solve that problem. Let's make a frictionless process so that they could be successful in what they do. They don't wanna code. I talked to them, they don't wanna code, let us do the coding, but we're gonna have to scale this somehow, get this to where we could help as many agencies as possible. And so helped. That agency was actually, that was the new name. And we actually went through a rebrand last year and helped that agency is the new name for the company.

Russel:

Okay. So you really came in and helped kind of reshape, reform the positioning, right? And then started putting your, your sales skills to work, when you think about John, young John, or even John closer to this stage, did you ever think you were gonna be a business owner or, deep, deep down, what was that process?

John:

Yeah. Deep down inside I knew, I knew, yeah, I, I was gonna be a business owner. I just didn't know when. Um, I didn't know how that was gonna look. I did different things. I remember when I was working for that software company, I dedicated 2016, to. I think it was 2016. I'm mixing up years here. Um, yeah. I to only a decade ago. Right. To find out how I could generate money on my own, you know? So I was working for that software company, but I said, you know what, I'm gonna give up a year of my life. I gave up my social life for 2016, and I just said, if I'm not working for the company, I'm gonna build something on my own. And I, I just didn't know what to do. So I tested everything. I, I opened up an Amazon store. I opened up an eBay store. I did blogging, a. Ads, all these different things. I was just testing to see, I didn't really care how much money I make. I was more concerned, is this real and is it scalable? Is it something I could build? And I guess that's where I started getting a belief like, okay, I'm gonna start going off on my own. Uh, I was able to make money. I was able, like even with the eBay store, I think that. Year. I was only working two hours a day on that, and I made like 30 grand. And so I was like, oh, wow. I actually had to hire a team and they were like doing the actual activities. I was just, working on it. They were the ones actually, making the orders and sending stuff so.

Russel:

I always love hearing the tinkering process, but I don't know, when I'm sitting here thinking of those types of businesses, like how it's not leveraging what your core skillset and talent of human interaction and all these things. It's just a product. So, uh, which all just kind of highlights we end up where we should be and this seems to be such a more fitting spot for you. Okay, so you're coming on board, you're reshaping what the business is going to look like, who it's gonna focus on. What was that process look like? What are some of the things, significant things you did in the early parts of that transition for that business?

John:

So the first half of the year, I think I. Was just trying to learn. I, it's unique in that the team was functioning already. I didn't build the team. Um, I didn't wanna touch that. I wanted to earn their trust. You can't really lead people, uh, without them trusting you. I didn't know how they even felt about me it just came, went in there wanting to serve and I wanted to, let them know that I'm on everyone's side and I'm not trying to, overtake anything and all that. I just want us to be successful. And then learning what we did to. That people would actually pay for. Which is why I said, I talked to every client I could, asking them, what they liked about us, what they didn't like about us. And then I knew we had to find a niche and we went through several, like I thought, maybe it's service companies. I began with service company. It was just. Low hanging fruit. We were doing websites for different plumbers and roofers, and I was just like, okay, maybe this is it. And it was through to testing and it was through the conversations that I started to see no agencies. This is much more valuable. People were willing to pay for it. So that was it. I just needed to find a way that I could build. And anytime I think of business development. I look at it like I'm building a building and the foundation is always what I call essential knowledge. And what I mean by that is I wanna know what are the vital things about the business that make it so we could exist, right? And that includes. Why people buy us. That includes understanding their desires, understanding their frustrations, all these things. So I sp that was, again, the first six months I, I did that. Once I understand that, then the next level for me is how do I present the solution? So I understand the problem. Now I understand why people buy us. Then I go into, well. How can I say it in a way they understand it? Because like what I see is a lot of people, they market and they do all these things. They say all these fancy slogans and all that stuff, but the buyer just doesn't get them. I learn in sales that sometimes it's a word I say. Like for instance, when I was selling to CTOs. I had to learn how they speak. There were certain words that mm-hmm. They understood and they wouldn't talk to me unless I said those types of words. But once they saw, oh wait, he understands my frustration. I'll get this guy five minutes. You know, and so that's the second level. How can I. Present and communicate in a way that the client understands. And then the third level, once I have that language, once I have that communication down pat, then I go into marketing. How can I get more people to hear what I just learned?

Russel:

Love a good framework breakdown. Um, and I just love the, the experimentation part and the, not rush to think you have the solution or build a solution, but really go through almost the scientific process of what's going on here. What's the underlying problem once we understand that, yeah. The power of communication just makes me think of, encountered this a lot in the client process when we were dealing with a client, building a website is the client would say, well, I don't like that. Right? And right. Our, our immediate response would be, well, I don't care if you like it. Right? Does your customer like it? That's who we're building this for and I, I think that's just a common thing that can get in the way in the business world, is being grounded to what we're building and who we're building it for. And then once you have all that solved, that's when you get your bullhorn out and you start spreading that to the world And so I guess get into that is what did you, what you even started going down this path and this is where you wanted to land, what was something surprising that you maybe didn't know before you went down that path that you figured out later as far as that well create that frictionless journey.

John:

It was surprising to me that I didn't know a lot about the agency business, and so I, I didn't know that there was that much friction. The more people I talked, I, the more agencies I saw wanted to get out of the website business altogether, they hated it because. They were so frustrated. I heard owners saying, me, I've had to give so many refunds over the past year, because we didn't deliver. And it wasn't black and white like I thought it was. I thought, oh, you just go overseas and, get an overseas team. But then I start to see like, oh, there's a cultural gap. There's a communication gap. There's what someone in Asia creates in the design may not translate over here. In the United States, you know, United States. And so there were all these nuances that I told my business partner, we could be good at this. We could like be this shield. That they don't have to deal with any of this. We have the team that knows what the US likes. We do use, a lot of the team is in Asia, but our partners don't ever interact with them and they don't have to deal with the communication gaps. We do that, and so by the time our head devs are over here in the United States, we do the quality check, we do the project management, so the partner doesn't have to experience that friction.

Russel:

And it makes total sense. I mean, one, I definitely lived in the website creation process. It's a, especially going back a few years ago, obviously technology's making all things easier. Yeah. But still a complicated process. And uh, if that's not what your forte is, it can be a bumpy road to try to offer and sell that as a service. On the flip side, right? I guess if anytime you're in the marketing space, what's one of the first things you need to make sure looks good, feels good, and Acts good is a website. So it is a very critical function that any agency is going to want to be able to make better for their clients and then there you are alongside, right? Okay, so you're learning about all these friction points and somewhere in there things are working and humming, but what was the first wall you may ran into that, was just a little bump in the road for you guys?

John:

I mean, for me it was just how do I sell, you know, um, first thing I did, like any good knowledgeable. Sales business step guy will do is you ask your existing clients for business. That's, yeah, step one.

Russel:

And a lot of people, hold on, hold on. That louder for, louder for the people in the back. Step one, if

John:

you're trying to build business, go to your clients, go to your existing clients and people just don't do that. My partner didn't do that. So I did that. And yet really quick. Business just because you know, you have that trust and you could leverage that trust. But after a little bit, then I was just like, okay, how do I expand? We tried ads, we tried. Email campaigns. I even did cold calls and I hate doing cold calls. I hate it. Um, I, I still,

Russel:

I still really don't know if I trust anyone that I've met that says they love cold calls. I think that's an instant red flag for me.

John:

No one loves cold calls, so once you say they love cold calls, have. Lied to the themselves so much that they believe it. It's gotta be, there's a chip missing. There's a chip missing. There's no doubt about it. And it was just solving that and, what worked, networking, that's where the business coming from. Everyone is so tired of information. They're tired of interruptions and good old fashioned. Being a good person. Strategically, networking and being consistent is what's bringing into business.

Russel:

Mm-hmm.

John:

How long did that take you to figure come to that? About a year. Okay. Yeah. Not too bad. Not too bad. About a year. Yeah. I was trying different things and I will experiment for a long amount of time. Before I say this doesn't work, maybe I stay too long in something, I don't know. But, um, yeah, about a year of just doing stuff and then seeing, looking back and, and seeing where the partners were coming from and the deals were coming from. It's just meeting people and building trust and some partners. I think when I met them there's like, there's no way I'm gonna do business, with them, but. After months of just showing your face and them seeing like, oh, this guy's for real. This guy has a real company and this guy isn't always selling to me. And then a problem hits and I go, I know John, you know, like Sean might be able to help. And then I get a chance at back, and then we get to see if what we say will work. And so that's how

Russel:

they've been coming in. Uh, such a great, I mean, two things there that I'm just really loving about your journey is one, just the power of experimentation and it probably is a better trait to stand a little. A little longer on something than maybe you technically air quote should Yeah. Rather than the opposite of giving up something too soon before you know if it could, and I could see that being a very strong trait for your journey.'cause I think that just Right, I get it right as business owners, agency owners, et cetera, you know, we've just got a lot of things eaten at our time and our focus and trying to make this all work. But that's what I probably see most often is giving up. Too early on an idea or a concept. Or a strategy, versus just Yeah. Sticking with it.

John:

Yeah. And you know, I, you saying that made me think part of that comes from not being desperate. If we were desperate. I don't know if I would've stayed as long in certain things, but I love being in a position where I'm not desperate and I get to really try. Because you could, like, even in networking, someone could tell. They could tell like, this guy's just trying to get business from me, but like being. You know, we keep our costs down. We're not materialistic. Um, both Carlos and I, that's part of what we like about each other and why we're friends, is because we try to be really good with our money and all that stuff. All that affects, you know, the business development process because if you are under the gun, your emotions are going to be involved and you're gonna. Do some pretty dumb things, I think.

Russel:

Yeah. You're in survival, fight or flight mode. Yeah. And we make survival decisions. We don't make good long-term decisions in fight or flight mode. Yeah. I think that's even a good recognition. I think for folks that you know might find themselves in that place is what is the closest you can get to, and I get when you sometimes just gotta hustle and you just gotta find that next meal. But how can you find the space? To give yourself that freedom, that space. I guess coming back to that word to experiment and to make longer term investments, I think that's a lot of times when I work with folks, it's, yeah, let's just create some, let's just start and create some space. Um, right. And then that space, we can find some of the gold. That's a great takeaway. Now I completely forgot the other thing that I wanted to contact you, that you said that was very prolific, and I don't think it's gonna come back to me. Hm. Oh, well. Oh, well, getting old here. But, you don't look old at all. Oh. Depends on the day, I guess. I guess maybe just coming back to this idea that you experimented long enough and then you found the, and then you went all in on that thing, which you've identified as networking. I'm sitting here seeing this version of you today and just say, well, yeah, that makes sense. I imagine that just you're, you're amazing at that, that comes natural to you. But is that the case or is there some hard work you had to do to hard work to come across this good. Yeah. Hard work. What did that look like?

John:

And it all started with, getting into sales as a young John, I suppose I could've. Retreated back into myself and said, you know what? I'm just not gonna be like them. I'm not gonna ever get their results, because I don't act like them. You know? And I guess a characteristic of mine that helped me was that I just refuse that. I refuse to like, give in and settle that. I can't do something just because I don't have a personality. Someone has, I will at least try to find a way, you know? And so I had to read so many books because I didn't even know how to communicate. There was a book that really opened my eyes by Tim Duncan. It's called High Trusts Selling. And I thought it was such an interesting title because I was like, whenever you told me salesperson, I would think like of a used car salesman. That was immediately what I thought, and I thought all salespeople were sleeve balls. So when I saw that title. I was like, I'm gonna read this. This is interesting. I've never seen anyone say high trust selling and mm-hmm. That would change my paradigm because a lot of it was making sure you ask questions and that you totally understand a person's point of view before you even make a recommendation and back. Then they provided a selling, uh, classes as part of the job, but they were saying something totally different than what this book was saying. They were saying, nah, you gotta, like, just do, don't give up. You know, like go say no. Just like, until, you know, more nos mean yes, it's coming. You know? And it was just all this like weird type of stuff. This was more practical. It was like, oh, you mean I could understand where they're coming from? And so I got to the point where. I would even tell people, you don't need this. You know, like, this is not what you need. I wasn't afraid to tell them to go to a different company. Mm-hmm. And so my next job, um, I worked for this for-profit technology school and I killed it. I broke every record. Um, but like I was telling students. This is not the school for you. They, they would've don't bring John back. They would've fired me if they knew, and I was actually charging, like the school wanted students and they weren't charging the application fee. I was, because I was testing them. The way I looked at it with sales was I looked at like dating, and I haven't dated in a long time. I'm, I'm married, happily married for a long time, but like. In dating, I wanted to find out if they weren't the one, and so like, because I didn't wanna waste any time, and so I looked at sales and so like when I had to do my presentations to the students, if I felt like they couldn't be successful or the, the school couldn't help them, I would tell them no. And even if they were, I would charge them because I wanted to see. I charged a$75 fee just to apply. No one else was doing that. But I wanted to see if they really wanted it.'cause I felt like, okay, if you're gonna get this education, you're gonna need to pay the price. So I wanna see if you're gonna pay 75 bucks. And I not only had the highest sales in the whole organization, I had the highest retention rate. And so that, to me, that just carried. Into any other thing that I did with business development, which is be selective. Don't just sell to anybody. Understand the real problem, not the problem that everyone is telling you, and they may not even understand the problem. So I didn't even trust it that they understood what they needed. I really wanted to use my creative and critical thinking to understand their experience, and then I wanted to show them how the product would live in their world. Their real world, and I felt like if I could communicate that, then I wouldn't have to sell them because they already see it in their life and they're asking me how can I buy?

Russel:

Yeah, man. Beautifully put. And I know that's can be so hard, right? Especially if we go back to this kind of survival mode or if we're just not flush with new business and business opportunities to tell someone and go somewhere else, but that there is such power in that and being recognized, trust, like going back to that word you were saying, that how that builds such trust and if the closer you can move into the realm of being able to do that or just doing that and living that out, that is a powerful place to be.

John:

Right. And it feels, just feels good. It makes you feel good about what you do. You know?

Russel:

Yeah. It's like a self-reinforcing, belief or concept. And the more you can live that out, the better it is what great advice I remembered. One of the things you said that I found very interesting, uh, is this, going back to what you said of just being comfortable. One, probably doing the hard work of polishing so people know exactly what you do and how you help and not letting that be gray, right? That takes some hard work. But once you have that, that sometimes you just have to wait for people to have the problem you solve. And I think that can be hard to, in our world, but really if you can start to get in the mindset that your sales cycle sometimes might be a multi-year process, not, yeah. Not a two week. Conversation and it's yes or no and we go about our lives, but I don't know, I'm sure that might might be hard for people to really grok sometimes of what a multi-year sales process, but that really is what it probably needs to and should look like.

John:

Right. So, I don't know. There's a lot that I'm thinking as you're saying that. Um, and there's a lot of things that I did. I didn't realize I was doing. Um, so the better I got at sales, the more I saw, because I'm also partly lazy. Not lazy, because I will work like crazy. I love working, but. I'm lazy enough to where I wanna find better ways to do things, or at least conserve energy and focus energy. And so I heard someone before saying it was some thought leader and he was saying, whenever you choose a company to work for, don't choose a commodity. He said, for instance, if you go working for. An insurance company. Insurance is a commodity. No matter what company is, they're basically kindly selling the same thing. Mm-hmm. So how do you, for instance, if you sell pencils, there's really only so much you could pump up a pencil at some point. It's like you're just gonna have to like. Push someone to buy it right where he goes. But if you work at a company like that, it's high stress because the CEO's getting it from the shareholders and that pressure's coming down to all the leaders and it goes down to the very bottom rung. And everyone is stressed. But he goes, you go work at Facebook. And I've been to Facebook'cause we, they were one of my customers when I was selling cold school. And it's like Disneyland there. Everyone is like so happy. They had restaurants. They had a barbecue restaurant, salad restaurant, all these awesome restaurants all free. They had laundry drop offs. They did the laundry of their employees. They had doctor's office. They had dentist's office. They had free bikes that you could ride around. They had a free like. Trolley and everything like that. They had snacks everywhere. And I would get tours and the person I would be visiting saying, Hey, if you see any snacks or anything, just grab it. If you want ice cream, let me know. We have an ice cream parlor. I'll take you to it. We'll get ice cream. And I was just like, that's what this guy was talking about. He said, when the company doesn't have a lot of competition, they can make a lot of money. There's no stress. They're not worried if they're gonna be around tomorrow. And so I started being very picky about what I would sell. And so I would pick products that were unique, even expensive, but it was easy to differentiate. And I didn't have to twist somebody's arm. I didn't have some sales director yelling at me, where's my numbers? You know, because like I was solving problems. I'm really good at solving problems. I'm really good at communicating problems. Just let me do what I'll do. I'll get the numbers, I don't need you yelling and micromanaging me. So I guess now that we're having this conversation, a lot of what I did was making sure I am not in the place of desperation.'cause I hate that feeling and not feeling like I have to. Swindle somebody you know. Yeah. So does that answer your question? Because, uh,

Russel:

I, I don't know if it did or didn't, but it doesn't matter because it was still, it was still a, a really great perspective. So, um, I think that's amazing, right? Rather than do a hard thing harder. Yeah. Do a unique thing easier or, or better be picky.

John:

Another book Be Picky was like that. It's How To Be An Entrepreneur. It was a really cool book. It didn't get popular at all. I, I don't know how I found it. Yeah, I have not heard of that. But it said. If you're gonna pick a business, pick a product that will make you money. And it said like, because if you, again, it used the examples of pencils. It says you'll spend the same amount of energy selling a pencil and selling a mortgage. You're gonna make more money with the mortgage, so why not sell mortgages instead of pencils? And so these types of like thoughts help me form my career and eventually. My business, so Yeah.

Russel:

Yeah. Just back to the work. Smarter, not harder. Yes. And sometimes that's harder to do than we'd hope we get in our own way there. For sure. Very fascinating stuff. And you know, I'm just curious. Someone that talks to a lot of agencies, sees a lot of agencies, sees a lot of friction as you mentioned, just. Take the platform for a second, and if you could just give one piece of advice to the agency owners that you deal with out there in the world, what would that advice be?

John:

Oh gosh. Um, so the most important advice that I, and this came from the rebrand by the way. I think everyone should go through a rebrand because it will show you stuff about yourself. That I don't think. You would see unless you go through the process. And basically what we had to do was we had to list the 20 things that we were really good at, that we felt that we were good at. And then we just challenge ourself, let's just pick one. Let's pick one thing we're good at and let's go all in on that. And I really feel that's what created the momentum that is going into 2026, is that we pick the lane. We put everything to go in that lane, and I think nowadays, like it's better to pick a valuable skill, whatever that you provide or service that you provide, and go all in on it and then outsource the other stuff. You could get, help that agency to help with your web dev, by the way. Um, but like go all in on what you do, outsource the other stuff and just, it's actually exponential, the momentum that you could create.

Russel:

I've always said this in the world, if we could all just find a lane focus and stay in our lane and outsource everything else, like why am I mowing my grass? You know, or something like that. I luckily I gave up mowing a grass a long time ago, but there's so many things that we could probably, if, if we felt truly confident in our lane, we'd be far more comfortable outsourcing the rest. Personal or professional life. I think that's great advice. Well, let me ask you one last big question here, John, or entrepreneurs born or are they made, made for sure. Confidently? He says, yeah.

John:

i, you know, so I always felt like I was supposed to be an entrepreneur stepping out. And thinking you're supposed to be an entrepreneur is totally different. And when you step out, at least in my case, in my business partner's case, and I think everyone I know who was an entrepreneur, there are so many peaks and valleys and you're gonna change. The John from five years ago is different now because of the peaks and valleys that have gone through the entrepreneurship journey. And. I don't think we're ever supposed to stop growing. I don't think we're ever supposed to stop adapting and changing and so I am constantly being made. There's always a next level and if you wanna get there, I believe you have to change. So we are constantly made. Wow. I

Russel:

love that. Might be one of the best main dancers I've ever heard.

John:

Really? Ah, man. Yes.

Russel:

I love it. I love that. Yes. That's great stuff. Well, if people wanna know more about help agency, where can they go?

John:

Could visit our website at Help Agency. That's the website. And LinkedIn, you could find me, John j Bau. Uh, also Help Agency is on there as well. I wish I could say we have other social media accounts. Uh, both Carlos and I. Really don't like social media, but we know we're gonna have to. And so we, we hired a marketing guy and he's, he's gonna help. He's, he's waiting on us. We're kind of dragging our feet, but you'll, that'll be coming soon.

Russel:

All right. All right. Well you're a social guy for a platform that's not all that social. Right, right. Or at least some might, might argue. So, makes total sense. And for those listening as well for any podcast episode that is, you go to the website, all of links to John's info and. Business will be there. So go check that out. But thank you John, for taking a little bit of time today to, gosh, just so many nuggets of creating the space to not find yourself in desperate mode, to the power of going through the experimentation process and sticking with it long enough to find out if something truly works or not. And so many other great takeaways really appreciate you taking the time to share those with us today. It was

John:

an honor, Russell, I always thought, you know, uh, you and I met at the Bureau and I always thought like. You had something about you, like really distinguished and, uh, when you asked me to view, uh, on the podcast, I was just really, really honored. So thank you.

Russel:

Well, thank you and honors all mine. I appreciate that. 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.

John:

So I do a lot of virtual meetings and I do a lot of networking, and I think I have a personality where people. Don't wanna tell me if there's something wrong. Uh, and so my business partner had to tell me, take me aside and say,'cause he, he attended a few of my meetings. He's like, your sound is so terrible and your camera is bad. And now you see I have a really nice camera. I have the microphone. But I think, you know, it's just. When you do a lot of networking and if you have a personality for it, make sure that you have the right equipment, just because it looks more professional and I needed someone who wasn't afraid to offend me, to tell me, so that would be my tip.

Russel:

Yes, yes. Well, and a good lesson probably in there. There's probably something, anyone out there listening, you know, something that could help somebody and don't be afraid, tote. Give them that good tip. It'll probably make their life better. So a good, a good lighthearted lesson there to boot.