Why Going ‘Niche or Die’ Paid Off Big for Daniel Moscovitch | Ep #810

Why Going ‘Niche or Die’ Paid Off Big for Daniel Moscovitch | Ep #810 Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, welcome to the show. Speaker 2: Thanks for having me, Jason. Speaker 1: Excited to have you on. Speaker 3: Tell us who you are, what you do. Speaker 2: My name is Daniel Moscovitch, and I run Flooring Pros Marketing. I've been doing digital marketing, predominantly SEO, and now expanding to more services. For the better part of the last 10 years, I started with a generalist agency, definitely an accidental agency owner, as you talk about, and then have transformed into a niche agency over the last number of years here. Speaker 1: What made you transform to a specialist? Speaker 2: Well, I knew that it was the right call based on listening to you and your podcast and being involved in a couple other groups and things like that, that niching down was definitely the right call. What I didn't know was how hard it was going to be to do that transition from having existing legacy clients, existing legacy relationships, and then choosing the niche that we did choose. It turned out to be very difficult. I'm really happy that I stuck with it. It's a wonderful industry. It's a wonderful niche, but this is not something like plumbing or HVAC or roofers or something like that. People need immediately a fix and it's a community that you think of flooring, you think blue collar, but it really isn't, especially the ones we work with. They're mostly businesses, retail stores, locations. They have multiple staff. Sometimes multiple locations. So it's blue collar trade that is run by typically a, you know, more of a retail B2B type of business owner. So they are not really that trust beginning, you know, it took me a while to develop those relationships and that authority and to really break in. But I'm glad I have because it's been a lot easier for me to I clarify our messaging and scale up. Speaker 1: So was the hard part just you were entering kind of good old boy network and it was just harder to get some momentum or took a little bit longer? Speaker 3: Was that the hard part for you? Speaker 2: I would say it was a combination of the authority, like not being trusted and really not really understanding their business too well. Again, it's coming from an SEO background. You think everything can be solved by ranking number one in Google, which at the end of the day, that definitely helps drive more traffic to a business. But it doesn't help them if they don't really have a good sales process or you can attract as much traffic as you want, but people aren't buying floors all the time. It's like, you know, they buy them one time every, you know, it's something like three times in their lifetime. So it's not a purchase that they take for granted. So it's not like a direct response emergency type of service. So not knowing that It took me a while to understand how do we put the best product forward for them? What's the best solution? It can't just be all lead generation and traffic from Google. There has to be a lot more strategy component. There has to be a lot of follow-ups, branding, relationship building, networking, outreach, cold emails, direct mailers, all the things that we have now put together for our clients. It took me a while to understand that we can't just do what we've normally been doing for some other clients because they need more. Speaker 1: I like what you're saying there. It's more of, and I tell this to our agency mastermind all the time. It's about, you have to figure out what's a big pain point for a particular market that you want to go after. And it's not about offering a service to them. It's an offering a solution to solving their pain point. And I like that you started figuring that out of going, all right, it's not about just ranking on SEO. How can we help them on this and this and this area and really build This marketing system. And we're here to, you know, constantly help the clients get to where they're trying to go. Is that right? Speaker 2: Exactly. 100%. I mean, it was a gradual process and that's why it was a challenge. And I'm really glad that I stuck with it because there was times I was like, I don't know if we can do this anymore. I mean, I started niching down with a former business partner probably about four or five years ago, but we only had one client, maybe one client in that niche. And it took a while. And now we're at about 15 niche clients. I have 15 non-niche clients or so and continue to grow the niche side. So, it took me a while and I stuck with it. I was like, okay, well, this client, we brought on a new client. What do they need? Okay, we got them some traffic. What's next? Like, how do we help make their business better now that we have more traffic? Okay, we need to work on this. It's exactly that. It was just a combination of learning for multiple years. And then kind of stacking solutions to put together an ultimate program that I think we've done a pretty good job. Speaker 1: Why do you think you didn't quit that niche, especially over the past couple of years? Because you said you got to moments where you're like, man, this might not be for me, right? Like, for example, sometimes people pick a niche, you know, one of our members, For years and years, he was hearing all the other Mastermind members talk about niching and how it dramatically helped their business. So he was like, all right, Jason, I'm going to pick companies that go to trade shows and trade show organizations. So he picked it. He was real excited, did everything, and then COVID happened. And I was like, you might want to pivot. So what kept you going? What made you think like I was going to quit and kept you going? Speaker 2: I always knew that this was a wonderful niche to be in. I just didn't think that I was ready for it. The timing wasn't right. Speaker 1: How so on the timing? Speaker 2: Okay, so I kept on going because I saw potential. I kept on getting some small wins that I said, okay, you know, I developed a relationship with one of them, a big JV partner and guy who had a podcast had me on his podcast pretty early on. And then he got me speaking at the industry's largest trade show. And then I spoke the next year and I had a booth at that trade show. And then I got, you know, to sponsor a Facebook group. So I had this momentum that I was slowly building one step at a time. I just wasn't ready to take on a whole bunch of clients at the time because I didn't have the right team, backend processes, the things that I have today, which I'm really working on. So I think it was like I knew that if I did stick with it, It would work out. I just was okay taking my time because I didn't want to ruin my reputation because I felt that this industry specifically has been burned by a couple larger players in the industry. There's potential here to be like a really great solution for those looking for a great solution and to not get ripped off and to not get burned. But in order for me to do that, I knew that I needed to take my time. So that was more the answer. Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I like that. I mean, if you can look for those little wins, that little momentum, because it's not, you know, picking a niche is not a silver bullet, right? Like you're not going to pick a particular market and then the floodgates just open up. That's unusual. Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was like a lost cost fallacy, I think, as well for me, like I'd already invested a lot of money into the branding and the work and the YouTube and the webinars and things like that. I was like, okay, well, I could choose another niche, but then I'd have to start over again. So I'm glad that I stuck with it. It's been wonderful. Speaker 1: Let's talk about, you know, a lot of agencies start with a partner and then, you know, partnerships sometimes work, sometimes don't work. What happened in your case? Speaker 2: Well, yeah, when I started, like I said, I was an accidental agency owner. I was working for an SEO agency. I was living in Tel Aviv at the time where there's a lot of people, you know, learning how to do SEO. And I was one of those people. And I said, OK, this is great. I would like to do this for myself because I wasn't getting paid that much at the time. I was planning on moving back to North America. And I said, OK, well, let's start an SEO agency. And I had a friend living there who was an American who also wanted to start his own thing. And that was kind of why we started together. And it worked really well over the first few years. And after a while, we just we were I'm basically playing tug-of-war. He's a brilliant guy, but being on two opposite ends of the world in two different time zones and with competing interests and competing visions, it just didn't work out. That was really a turning point, obviously a really hard time in our business dealing with that. I spent about two years Since then, really picking up the pieces and understanding, okay, well, what do we have still? Who are we? What do we want to be? And in the last six months or so, I've attracted someone else who's come on to be a partner. We're working out, hammering those details out right now, but it's been just the right partner for me at this time. And it's amazing what having someone who comes to the table with the things that the business and I needed the most of that time can make a huge difference. You know, it was hard to work without a partner, but it was nice to not have that conflict. You know, that's a really hard thing to do is run a business while you're fighting. Speaker 3: Hi there, agency owners. Let me ask you, are you ready to scale your agency without increasing your overhead costs? If yes, then you need to know about E2M Solutions. Now, E2M is the number one most reliable white label partner for agencies. They specialize in web design, WordPress development, e-commerce, SEO, and content writing. They basically do all the heavy lifting, which frees you up to focus on growing your agency. Now, here's the best part. E2M is just not another vendor. With over 10 years of experience, their team of over 300 experts has a track record of delivering for more than 300 agencies. They're your strategic partner. They deliver on time every time so you can focus on what you do best. Now, E2M's mission is simple, to help 500 agencies increase their revenue and profit margins with white label services that actually work. And to help you get started, they're offering a special deal, 10% off for the first three months. But act fast because it's only a limited time offer. So head over to e2msolutions.com slash smartagency to check out their transparent and their flexible pricing. Trust me, if you're ready to grow without burning out, e2m is the partner you've been looking for. That's e2msolutions.com slash smartagency. Go check them out and tell them Jason Swenk sent you. Speaker 1: When I started Solr, originally it was called Swenk Technologies, and I did it for like two years, really by myself and one employee. And then it gets so lonely. And especially when you're an accidental agency owner, there's so many things that you don't know. So I felt like, let me bring on this partner that was, I was kept referring, you know, development and hosting work to at the time. And I was doing the design, the sell, the marketing, all that kind of stuff. And I was like, it'd be good, right? Like it complements our services. And, you know, he's a little bit older than me. So I've always been like a 14 year old boy in maturity. So I was like, oh, this would be perfect. And it was for a number of different years until I started gaining clarity like probably you, right? This is the direction I want to take it. These are the clients I want to go after. This is what I want to do. And I was just lucky enough that I can kind of force him a little bit. You know, he wasn't as really nice guy, wasn't as strong minded as maybe possibly me, but it seemed like you two were very strong minded in two different directions. And then I'm glad that you've kind of re-entered into a partnership and you probably learned so much from like, dude, all we need is we need to believe in the same kind of core values and the direction like the North Star. And if they do the complete opposite, add like a compliment to my yin and yang or whatever, then it works out perfect. Is that kind of what the second partner is like? Speaker 2: Yeah, not only that, we're totally aligned and really see I work with the marketing agency and the world in very similar lenses, but he comes from a background of running flooring businesses. So he has that industry knowledge that I just didn't. And I'm a really good digital marketer and strategic thinker, but I'm not a great I'll be the first to admit I'm not a great business owner. The finances and numbers and contracts and things like that and sales processes don't necessarily come naturally to me. Speaker 1: How come natural to most people? Speaker 2: Again, an accidental agency owner, accidental business owner, this guy has a very solid business mind and so he knows how to ask the right questions. And so having him involved not only in the strategy for our clients, but also in the sales process and these sales meetings with our prospects has definitely added a level of credibility that has allowed us to start charging more, attracting more of the right types of clients as well, and just being taken more seriously, which has been awesome. Speaker 1: Yeah, at the end of the day, If you believe in the same thing, believe in the vision, and then as a compliment, it works out. Speaker 2: Totally. And it's about timing and clarity, like I said. Speaker 1: Yeah. No, that's fantastic, man. That's awesome. I'm happy for you guys. And one of the things I always tell people too is once you gain clarity, now you're able to really make strategic decisions. For example, like what your offer should be. In order to attract the right people, what conferences do we need to speak at? What types of clients do we need to say no to? Different types of people we bring on. It makes things so much easier, but that is the hardest thing to do. Speaker 2: It's so much easier said than done, especially at the beginning when you need to take on those things. Like I said, I was trying to stack solutions, so I needed to take on the types of businesses that I shouldn't be taking on. Not only legacy, like generalist agency stuff, but also the types of businesses within my niche. That I shouldn't be working with that I knew were bad. I took them on just to get some more knowledge to understand, OK, well, this we need to work on this. We need to work on. But absolutely, clarity is probably the most important thing. And I'm really, really thankful to AI for helping me with a lot of this stuff, because I basically have my business therapy sessions with ChatGPT to help it under, you know, like ask me as many questions that you want. One question at a time. Interview me so that you can help me I set clear goals, clear vision, clear processes, which helps a lot because I definitely tend to overthink and overcomplicate things. And I know that having a clear path to whatever we're working on is the answer to success. Speaker 1: Yeah, AI has been pretty amazing. Last month, I just put out a video where I talk about creating our little marketing AI agent, even named him Charlie. Speaker 2: Yeah, I heard that. That was awesome. Speaker 1: Yeah, we just loaded up everything in it from brand voice, the book, the playbook, all sorts of data from our CRM. And it's been pretty amazing. And even just a little while ago, you know, we have certain sales KPIs for our pipeline. And so we were tracking that for the past couple of months of like, how many people go to this page? How many people opt in? How many people go to the foot in the door? All these different things. And then I was like, what if I just put that into ChatGPT and going, look at all this data for the past couple of months and give me ideas of what we need to do with it. Man, what it came back with was amazing. It's like, oh, you should segment this and this and this. And I was like, it's so easy to do for other people. But it's almost impossible to do it for yourself. Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been awesome to spend time doing that. I mean, like you said, I think that's the sign of a true marketing agency or marketer. You like to work on other people's businesses. But when it comes time to your own, you kind of get scared because you don't want to see what you'll uncover. Now that I'm in a very, very much a better place, I'm happy to dive into this. And I have actually been spending the last I've spent three days or so working on a conversation with ChatGPT to develop clearer processes for both internal and external communication. We're having issues with expectations in those first three months because we're heavily focused on strategy over implementation right away. We want to make sure that we have clear expectations and communication to those clients. But also that my team understands, you know, if we have a high level strategy, how do they use it to implement things, which has been a big change for us in the last little while. And it's been awesome just to like work through our processes with the chat. Speaker 1: Yeah, well, it just makes you think right. And I just tell people just start using it. And just start thinking about the process. Like, for example, you know, I gave you the example with the KPIs, but think about it on your onboarding for your client. We were talking about this in the mastermind earlier this morning. I asked, you know, all the members, what's your onboarding process that you have within the agency? And a lot of were like, oh, we send the form, you know, people fill out the form. I'm like, well, that's great for you and that's streamlined for you, but the clients hate it. How do you make that first 100 days a huge win where you're ringing the gong bell, going high-fiving everybody because you won the deal, but now they're thinking like, oh shit, did I make the right decision? Did I pick the right one? And then the agency goes dark for two months because they're doing deep strategy stuff But then they never hear from the agency, even though the agency's working really hard. So looking at every single process, like looking at the most impactful ones first, and then really diving deep, whether you use AI, your team, or whatever it is, just to making things better. Because just getting it done and then never revisiting it after years and years is a huge mistake I see agency owners make. Speaker 2: I've listened to your show for many years and I know you talk about ADHD entrepreneurs and things like that. Speaker 1: All of us have that. Speaker 2: For me as well. That's the thing. I always like to start something and then I forget about it. But if you're using ChatGPT or AI, you don't have to worry about that because you're inputting things every time. I'm working on this, put it in there, learn this. So, because there's documents that I worked on years ago that I forget that I've worked on. I was like, oh, I think we've done this before, but, you know, I'll do it again. But now you can continue to stack the knowledge into the AI database, which is really helpful. Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome. Well, cool. This is awesome, Daniel, finally getting on the podcast. Is there anything I did not ask you that you think would benefit the listeners listening in? Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say that I've been in the agency world and now for about 10 years and struggled and succeeded and you know, not everyone has to do everything the same way or the same path. A lot of people say that after I had an unfortunate bad partnership that ended poorly, that I should never have a new partner. A lot of people said I needed to focus solely on sales, sales, sales, sales, sales, and that will solve everything as opposed to building a good product or things like that. That may work for some people, but for me, I was happy to take the longer route and really work on understanding who my ideal customer was as well. So I would just say that Everyone has their own path and success should be defined individually. And it took me a while to realize that because I used to compare myself to everyone else who I saw was succeeding quicker than I was. But I'm really happy that I chose the path that I did because it allowed me to get stronger and. Speaker 1: Clear like I said on who I am why I always look at all of us are all ducks on a pond. We all look calm and cool from the top. But if you look underneath. We're all paddling our ass off. Everyone's trying to figure out something new all the time and constantly experiment and try new things and fail. I learned so much more from my failures than my successes. Even though I don't want to fail and I get mad at it for that instant moment, I'm like, oh, it'll make it better. You just keep moving on. I like that you said everyone has their own path. And that's what I'm always telling people in our community is like, just because Julia did it this way, it doesn't mean you have to. It's just there's so many different options to get to that end destination that you're envisioning. It's just you got to figure out what works for you. Because I was like, like when you mentioned that, you know, oh, you need to focus on sales. I was like, well, probably the person that told you is probably like a salesperson or they do say, you know, whatever it is. But it's like, you just got to take everything with a grain of salt and going, there's no silver bullet. There's only the silver, like little pieces of silver that I can kind of take here and here and here and then make my own silver bullet. That's it. That's all we're doing. Speaker 2: Exactly. Everyone has their own journey. The journey really counts anyways. Speaker 1: Exactly. Well, cool. Well, Daniel, thanks so much for coming on the show and for everyone listening. We put out some really cool free resources for you if you go to swenk.it. We have two masterclasses in there, one for helping you figure out your foot in the door, selling the foot in the door, selling the project, getting the bigger retainers. Another one is really around attracting new leads. So make sure you go to swank.it, and until next time, have a swank day.