selling to the "middle layer"

I was on a call this week with a community member, let’s call him John.

John’s figured out something really smart.

Instead of trying to sell directly to e-commerce brands (which is brutal), he's selling to agencies who serve those brands.

White-label partnerships.

He delivers the work, they handle the client relationship and mark it up.

Here's why I think this is genius:

1. There are more agencies than there are good clients

2. Agencies already have the sales and marketing infrastructure

3. You're one level removed from the nightmare of managing e-com clients directly

John's making great margins on fixed-fee deliverables.

The agency doubles his price and everyone's happy.

The key insight:

Your job isn't to make the agency look smart.

Your job is to make them look good.

When I used to bring in tech partners at my old agency, I wanted partners who would make my life easier and deliver ROI as quickly as possible.

If they could do that consistently, I'd bring them into everything.

The partners who succeeded understood they were helping me, but they were also trying to make me look like a hero to my clients.

If you can pull that off, they'll pay you well and keep you around.

This works across industries.

Find the distribution layer in your market and sell to them instead of fighting for direct clients.

Way less competition.

Way better margins.

Way more scalable.

John's now looking at two different markets using this exact approach.

Tim

P.S. Want to be in and around these kind of conversations every week? Grab a place in my community (must be making min $10K mmr)