Joe Marston 🚀

Co-Founder

Scaling e-commerce brands to 7 and 8 figures 🚀 | LU Entrepreneur of The Year Award Winner | Founder of The Leading TikTok Marketing Agency and an Award Winning Full Service Ecom Growth Agency.

3x Agency Founder.

We scale brands to 7 and 8 figures with creative, paid traffic, retention and funnel optimisation.

In 2024, having a great product is one thing…

But scaling a brand to £10M is a another.

You need a simple roadmap for profitably attracting and converting customers, at scale.

Because when you get that right…

- You stand out from competitors in the market
- You build a community around your brand
- You acquire customers at will (profitably)
- You turn customers into raving fans 

Giving you complete control over your growth.

We help our clients do exactly that with our proven system that guarantees growth.

1. Initial diagnostic to identify bottlenecks in your business
2. Developing a bespoke growth strategy for your brand
3. Creative ideation and production 
4. Unique UGC collaborations
5. Targeted advertising (Meta, TikTok, Pinterest, Snapchat)
6. Email marketing 

And having generated over £100M+ in sales across 200+ brands, we’ve know the ecommerce game inside out.

🚀 Mystery Shirt In A Box grew from £5K to £2.6M in just one year with our help
🚀 The Essence Vault is hitting 7 figure months in its second year since launch
🚀 Vintage Threads tripled their revenue working with us with a 6x ROAS
🚀 AIRfreshh went from 0% to 52% of revenue from email in 2 months!
🚀 Bene Culture saw their revenue grow 6x in 6 months with our help
🚀 The Oodie generated £2M on TikTok alone in their first year
🚀 UN:IK’s first quarter of 2023 was up 88% on 2022
🚀Grew Liam and Co. 500% year on year

Don’t put up with unpredictable, unsustainable or underwhelming growth any more.

If you want to see how we could help scale your brand, send me a DM saying ‘SOAR’

If you're not ready yet, I post daily educational content to give you all the secrets.

Founder

E-commerce growth agency offering bespoke services to online businesses looking to increase their sales and scale their brand.

Some DTC brands are exiting at just 3x EBITDA. Others are hitting 12x. That’s a £90M difference on a £10M EBITDA business.

A few weeks ago, I co-hosted a private event in Dubai with Emmett Kilduff at The Fortia Group, one of the top M&A advisors in eCom.

Room full of 8-9 figure operators. 

One takeaway came up again and again:

The biggest exit premium isn’t from brand.
It’s from how early you start planning.

We broke down:
- Why DTC brands are leaving millions on the table at exit
- What actually moves your multiple (hint: it’s not your ROAS)
- The 8-part framework Fortia use to engineer $100M+ exits

It’s all in the deck. And I’m giving it away.

If you’re doing £10M+ and thinking ahead 12–36 months, this will save you millions.

Drop “EXIT” below and I’ll send it over.

Building DTC brands to 8 and 9 figures | Founder of Soar With Us & For You Advertising | Triple Whale's "Agency of The Year" Winner

We’ve stopped using ROAS and CPA as our north stars. Here’s why.

Since the Andromeda rollout, Meta’s algo is making delivery decisions before ROAS or CPA ever show up.

Which means:

→ If you’re still using CPA to spot winners, you’re already too late.
→ If you're scaling on ROAS alone, you're scaling old data.

We’ve rebuilt how we benchmark creative across every account and replaced the old north stars with these two:

1️⃣ CPMR: Cost Per 1,000 Reached Accounts

This tells us how efficiently we’re reaching net new people, not just blasting the same warm pool.

→ High CPMR = your creative looks repetitive, low-signal, or unengaging
→ Low CPMR = Meta sees your ad as scroll-stopping, high-signal, and worth delivering

We track this by:

→ The account level (trend over time)
→ Format level (UGC vs static vs story-style)
→ Persona level (motivator x demo)

2️⃣ New Visitor %

Cheap reach means nothing if it’s not fresh.

This tells us how well a creative is breaking out of its bubble and unlocking new demand.

→ High CTR but low New Visitor %? You're just retargeting your existing crowd.

→ Low CPMR + high New Visitor %? Signal to scale.

→ High CPMR + low New Visitor %? Scrap it. Meta’s not even trying with that asset.

This metric = your clearest look at creative incrementality.

We’ve now built both metrics into every client dashboard.

They're how we:
- Spot early winners
- Catch creative fatigue before performance tanks
- Scale without flying blind

Most brands won’t adapt fast enough. But Andromeda is live. And Meta’s already deprioritising ads that don’t play by the new rules.

You can build a business with anyone.
But you can only succeed for six years
and scale it to seven figures in profit
with someone you genuinely trust.

Everyone told us that being friends in business was a recipe for disaster.
Yet here we are.
Six years later.
Still good friends.
Still building.
Leading the agency game.
Multiple businesses together.
Nowhere near finished.

We’ve been friends since our early teens.
We failed twice before Soar.
We lived together for two years.
We learned each other’s strengths the hard way.

Then we moved to different cities.
And that’s where most Co-Founder friendships fade.
Not because of conflict.
Because every call becomes a work call.
And the friendship slowly disappears.

So we do the opposite.
We intentionally protect the relationship that built the business.

Olly flew out to Dubai last week.
No heavy agenda.
No rush.
Just space to reset properly.

Half work.
Half downtime.
One of the most productive weeks we’ve had all year.

We hosted a private Ecom roundtable with The Fortia Group.
Shared what we’re seeing in the market.
Answered questions.
Then kept the discussion going over dinner.

We organised a supplier for our new brand launch next year (more details on that soon).

We caught up with agency friends we’d only spoken to online.
Face-to-face made everything sharper and more actionable.

Random conversations turned into strategy.
Breaks turned into breakthroughs.
The quiet moments gave us clarity heading into 2026.

And the friendship got stronger again.
Which always makes the business stronger.

Founder lesson:
If you don’t protect the friendship,
you won’t protect the business.

Keep the relationship alive.
That’s how you survive long term.
And that’s where the real profit comes from.

Feeling overwhelmed with gratitude right now… 😄

This is our agency 2025 Black Friday social.

4 years ago this was a handful of people.

Now we have over 70 people in one room and that’s not even everyone…

So grateful for everyone who’s helped us on this journey

We audit 8-9 figure brands each week and we still see this one common mistake. 

👇THIS is the reason why your ad performance is tanking right now:

Your funnel is misaligned as you’re speaking “Product Aware” to a “Problem Aware” market.

So many brands try to scale on guesswork. They don’t know what their audience knows, so they can’t build creative that actually converts.

📉 Ads fatigue faster.
📉 CPA creeps up.
📉 New customer revenue stalls.

So we’ve built a fix: a Funnel Awareness Framework built around 5 levels of audience awareness—refined through 50+ accounts and decades of classic advertising theory.

Inside the playbook:

✅ The 5 audience awareness stages:
✅ Messaging strategies that actually match where your audience is
✅ Creative vehicles that cut through at each funnel stage
✅ Tactical breakdowns on how to rework your split to unlock scale

If you’re wondering:
- Why scale feels more expensive every month
- Why your top ads burn out in 7 days
- Why your funnel performance is stuck...

Start here.

Like this post
Comment “FUNNELS” and I’ll send over the resource.
(Make sure you’re following so I can DM you).

We’ve scaled 8 and 9-figure brands where one founder-led ad outperformed everything in the account and generated £2million in revenue.

When it’s raw, real, and structured right, founder content becomes a scaling lever, not a brand play.

But most brands get it wrong.

Either they overscript and kill authenticity… Or they throw up iPhone clips with no strategy.

So we built a framework that fixes that.

A simple cheat sheet that breaks down:

- The 9-part emotional arc behind every high-converting founder ad
- The exact storytelling structure that hooks, converts, and builds trust
- Plug-and-play hooks that stop the scroll
- Real examples from top-performing brands
- The best questions to ask to pull founder story gold

It’s punchy, practical, and built for scale.

If you're a founder (or you're running a brand where the founder *is* the story), this will help you turn your origin story into real revenue.

Like this post
Drop “founder” in the comments and I’ll send it over
(Make sure we’re connected so I can DM you).

Meta just launched the biggest creative update in years and most of you haven’t even realised.

We uploaded 20 new ads into an account. Meta grouped 15 of them as the same ad.

→ Same Entity ID
→ Same learnings
→ Zero new reach

Loukas just dropped a masterclass on how to avoid this penalty...

Here’s the biggest takeaways from the episode:

1. Meta now tracks ads using Entity ID
It doesn’t matter how many variations you upload.
If your visuals look similar (same text, same persona, same framing) Meta will group them.
That means one thing: creative similarity = performance decay.

2. Minor tweaks no longer count as iterations
Old method: change the headline, try a new voiceover, maybe shorten the clip.
New method: change the format, vehicle, and persona or don’t bother.
We now run fewer iterations per sprint, but each one is a bigger swing.

3. Visual change is the most important layer
Your first 3 seconds must be visually different.
→ A new creator in the same kitchen? Penalised.
→ Different script, same framing? Penalised.
→ Same product shot on marble with a new caption? Still penalised.

If Meta can’t visually tell the difference, it won’t give you a new Entity ID. And without that, your reach is throttled.

4. Iterate like this instead
We’ve replaced our iterative testing model with this stack:
→ Format: Static, UGC, high-prod, hybrid
→ Vehicle: Reddit native, podcast, founder VSL, testimonial
→ Persona: 40+ men, 50+ menopausal, Gen Z wellness, etc.
→ Hook angle: pain-point, fear, discovery, curiosity, etc.

Every winning message should now be run through 3 - 4 completely different vehicles, not just line edits.

5. Whitelisting becomes even more powerful
Each whitelisted ad uses a different Page = different Entity ID.
Which means Meta treats it as completely fresh.
Whitelisting now unlocks creative reach and performance diversity, not just social proof.

The takeaway? Your creative process needs to evolve.

→ More upfront persona research
→ More vehicle variety
→ Less lazy iteration
→ Higher volume of truly differentiated ads

Catch the ep here: https://lnkd.in/eZPN9sT7

some people wake up at 4am
run 30 miles
ice bath
no excuses

you see david goggins
and suddenly normal feels weak
average feels like failure

when i was younger
focus was impossible
discipline felt like a myth

I bounced between ideas
half finished everything
always distracted
always chasing the next hit of motivation

I thought success meant becoming extreme
superhuman
wired different

but the truth is quieter

you do not need perfect focus
you need daily progress
one small action
one hard choice
one uncomfortable task

not heroic
just consistent
today’s world makes it harder to stay steady
endless noise
constant comparison
highlight reels everywhere

so i stopped trying to be extraordinary overnight
and started trying to be better than yesterday

one focused hour
one hard email
one real workout
one honest decision

done daily
that stacks
that compounds
that changes everything

discipline is not a personality
it is a habit
repeated long enough
to transform into identity

clear lesson
you win by moving forward a little every day
not by trying to become goggins overnight

Last month, GMV jumped from £200 to £6,000/day in under a week.

And the biggest driver? A creative format we didn’t expect to work on TikTok at all. 

High-production, Meta-style assets.

Specifically, the founder answering FAQs direct to cam, layered with an AI voiceover. Originally built for Meta. 

We assumed it would feel too polished, too “ad-like” for TikTok.

But it’s now outperforming everything and driving 90%+ of total paid spend.

Yes, the brand’s also scaling through affiliates, which is bringing fresh eyes. But the real volume? It’s coming from these signal-rich, high-prod assets.

It’s made us rethink our assumptions around cross-platform creative.

What we thought would only work on Meta is now a top performer on TikTok.

We’re 100% testing this across more accounts.

What’s actually converting on Meta right now (Q4 trends from high-spend accounts):

If performance is flat heading into peak, it's probably not your product.

You're just not building for how Meta works today.

Here’s what’s cutting through right now:

1️⃣ Statics still scale

- Bold text, stat-led headlines and timelines are outperforming generic benefit copy.
- We’re seeing AI-style visuals + punchy copy drive scroll-stopping CPMs.
- Think: big numbers, human tone, ad that feels like a post.
- Native-feeling carousels work too, but only if you drop the polished brand voice.

2️⃣ Hooks > polish on HPs

- The best-performing hooks right now feel ripped from organic:
  "Here's what most brands get wrong..." or "Why I stopped doing X..."
- We’re leaning into founder/influencer POVs stitched into scripted flows.
- Objection-led HPs convert, especially “vs” style frameworks (us vs them, old vs new).

3️⃣ UGC is less about format, more about diversity

- The TikTok Shop-style raw look is working, but only when you mix creator POVs.
- Our top UGC ads use 4–5 creators hitting the same problem from different angles.
- Voiceless demo ads are creeping back into rotation too. Worth testing again.

In short:
→ Statics need specificity and visual edge
→ HPs win on story, not polish
→ UGC scales through multiple voices, not one creator

Can’t believe we’re sharing this for free…

This episode is INSANELY valuable.

Listen to how our MD went from employee number 1 to leading a company of 70+ in 6 years.

Shoutout to Matt Lewis 

Give it a watch on YouTube. D2C diaries

This is the difference between an £80k and £500k BFCM weekend👇
(And I’ve got the unlock most brands don’t even know exists).

Black Friday’s 4 weeks out.

Your CPA is down. AOV’s up. Ads are finally cracking.

Then Stripe delays a payout. Inventory’s tight.

And your biggest window of the year gets blocked, by cash.

We’ve seen it happen to 8-figure brands spending £250k+/month. Not because performance isn’t there. But because finance can’t move at the speed of growth.

Wayflyer gets it.

They’ve funded Wild, Cuts, True Classics, Dock & Bay, and 5,000+ others, so they never have to miss momentum.

💰 They’re giving ambitious DTC brands $25K in upfront capital for $1.8K total cost on the run up to BF/CM (that’s 1.2% per month over 6 months). No equity. No hidden fees. Just the fuel to move when it matters most.

Here’s what that unlocks:

✅ Scale your best creatives while they’re pumping
✅ Restock fast movers before they sell out
✅ Get approved in hours, Shopify, Amazon, whatever your stack

The brands that win BFCM don’t have the deepest pockets. They move fastest.

If your ads are landing, don’t let cashflow slow you down.

👉 Apply here and get $25k next week: https://lnkd.in/eJRUWJ-P

There’s a moment every founder hits where growth isn’t the problem - it’s everything underneath it.

You’ve scaled revenue. You’ve built a team. But everything else starts to crack.

That’s exactly where we were 18 months ago.

This week, we sat down with Matt Lewis, our Managing Director at Soar Group, to unpack how we rebuilt the *infrastructure* behind our agency as we scaled to 80+ people.

They talk through:

→ What changed operationally as we scaled to 80+ people
→ Over-focusing on revenue growth
→ How feedback loops were operationalised
→ The forecasting model Matt built
→ Using role-specific KPIs that ladder up to the P&L
→ Matt’s origin story as employee #1

Behind the scenes, Matt’s been one of the most important drivers of how we operate today.

If you’re building a team or running into growth pains, this one will land.

🎧 Catch the full episode here https://lnkd.in/eFkcg6b9

We 3x’d spend in 14 days, by adding one persona.

Most brands hit a wall, not because the product’s capped, but because the person they’re selling to is.

We see it every month:

– CTRs plateau
– Spend stalls
– Everyone’s panicking over hooks and formats

When the real unlock isn’t messaging. It’s who you’re talking to.

That was the case with a health brand we scaled recently.

They were stuck in a loop: iterating on the same 25–35 demo, same UGC styles, same offer.

Solid CPA, but volume was capped. Nothing new was scaling. So we stopped optimising and started diversifying.

We pulled Reddit threads, X searches, Google Trends.

One insight that stuck out: 30% of women going through menopause struggle with severe bloating and most “gut health” brands weren’t speaking to them at all.

We reframed everything around that one pain point:

– Built 3 new persona storyboards
– Validated the angle with live convo data
– Refreshed visuals + format for 45+ demos
– Decreased editing pace by 20–30%
– Layered in soft CTAs every 10s to build trust

Result? 3x spend in 14 days, with CPAs -18% vs BAU.

Meta rewards net-new impressions. That’s why “persona-first creative” is outperforming hook-first testing across most top-spending accounts.

Because every persona = a new pool of distribution, and a new window of scale.

And your best audience might not be who you built the brand for.

Want a deeper dive of this? Head to the podcast where the guys break it down further: https://lnkd.in/e8vS_2Xi

Over the last 3 years, my 2 agencies For You and Soar With Us have collectively managed £40million in ad spend and shipped over 20,000 creatives on TikTok alone.

This guide outlines our creative system that we’ve used to help 150 brands scale predictably and profitably.

We’ve laid out the exact 5-phase flywheel we use to operationalise creative for the most ambitious DTC brands:

1. Research – Trends, AI, reviews = clear direction
2. Strategy – Align creative to product economics
3. Execution – Modular assets built to scale
4. Testing – Isolate what moves the needle
5. Iteration – Build feedback loops that compound

🔄 TikTok isn’t an ad platform. It’s a creative ecosystem where content, commerce and community feed each other. And this guide will show you how.

Want the playbook?

Like this post
Comment “TIKTOK” and I’ll send it over
(Make sure you’re following so I can DM you).

We were too focused on growth, not out of stupidity but out of naivety.

This year we ran Soar With Us completely differently.

We stopped chasing volume.
We stopped hiring reactively.
We stopped pretending top-line growth meant success.

Here’s how we actually ran the business in 2025 and why it's been our most important year yet:

Forecasting became a strategic weapon.
No more gut-feel growth targets.
We built full-funnel forecasting across revenue, client mix, hiring, and profit targets, driven by a balance of commercial ambition and team capacity.
It's removed chaos and clarified decision-making across every department.

Culture got rebuilt from the inside out.
We didn't write values in a vacuum.
We ran a full-day offsite with the entire team to rewrite our mission, values, and behaviours, then operationalised them into hiring, reviews, and even client relationships.
Result? Better people, better work, better culture.

Client strategy > client volume.
We halved onboarding capacity and focused on deeper, higher-value partnerships.
That means fewer clients, more strategic impact, and significantly higher retention.
We’re finally seeing the compounding effects.

Feedback became a competitive advantage.
We built a culture of kind candour, rolled out 360 feedback across the company, and trained every manager on how to receive and close the loop on feedback.
It’s helped us level up faster than ever before.

Revenue came from within.
For too long, we were addicted to new business.
Now, 40%+ of our growth is from client expansion - cross-sells, up-sells, and moving partners through value tiers.
It’s lower friction, higher trust, and way more profitable.

Most people assume the next level of growth comes from more work, more ads, more hiring.

For us, it came from subtraction.
→ Less noise
→ Fewer distractions
→ Clearer intent

We’re ending 2025 leaner, smarter, and more strategic than ever before.
2026 is about scaling with that same clarity.

If you’re in agency leadership and you’re scaling fast, but feeling stretched thin, here’s the blueprint that helped us get here: https://lnkd.in/eFkcg6b9

We’ve scaled pet & homeware brands in markets with 100+ competitors.

Here’s what actually cuts through.
(and it’s not a better product)

→ “Us vs them” outperforms pain-led messaging
These categories don’t trigger visceral problems so instead of selling relief, we’re seeing brands scale by positioning their solution as the elevated choice.

→ Homeware scales when you stop talking about the product and start showing the life it upgrades
Think luxury, ease, or emotional enhancement of a space.
The goal is: “This makes my life feel better.”

→ Pet content is all about aspiration, not need.
The core motivator? “My pet deserves the best.”
Not health stats. Not price. Just pure emotional resonance.

→ Convenience is the untapped lever
Especially for homeware brands speaking to maternal or over-capacity personas. If it saves time, stress, or mental load, say that clearly. It works.

→ Don’t ignore the saturated market reality
There’s no shortage of pet food or homeware options.
What wins is category contrast. Your creative should say:
“We’re not like the rest and here’s why.”

If your pet or homeware brand is stuck explaining the product, zoom out.

Start showing what it means for the person using it.

Working in another niche and want a breakdown like this?

Drop me the category and I’ll tell you what’s converting right now.

Meta just made creative volume 10x harder and this (👇) is the only thing that makes it scalable.

Here’s where creative strategy is heading in 2026

1️⃣ Creative similarity penalties make AI non-negotiable
Meta now groups “similar” ads under one Entity ID.

→ Minor tweaks = same learnings
→ Visual sameness = limited reach
→ Iterations = wasted budget

Without AI, creative cost balloons trying to brute-force variation.
With AI, we’re getting 10x the output at 30–40% of the cost.

2️⃣ AI is solving the creative similarity problem
We’re seeing 70% of ad iterations get grouped under the same Entity ID. That’s a massive waste of output. Using AI helps us inject visual diversity at scale, without tripling post-prod costs.

→ Sora / VEO for visual metaphors and VO hooks
→ Nano for high-scale statics + brand visuals
→ Gemini to analyse video and guide variation strategy
→ Frame 4.0 to organise and deploy assets at scale

You wouldn’t ask an editor to shoot the ad. So why are your strategists still prompting raw?

3️⃣ Asset warehousing becomes your competitive edge
You can’t scale creative if you can’t find it.

We’re building a library of every product B-roll, VO hook, and visual format, tagged, labelled, and instantly promptable through Frame 4.0.

At the same time, we’re warehousing ad performance data, call logs, and internal learnings and feeding that into LLM workflows to automate creative direction.

The better your data layer, the smarter your AI outputs.

The takeaway:
→ Treat AI like a production department
→ Build creative systems that scale visual diversity
→ Train AI with real data
→ Give your strategists new tools, not new roles

🎙 Catch the full breakdown here: https://lnkd.in/eAwJAcMV

One of our best-performing ads came from a menopause stat we pulled off X and it unlocked over £40K in spend.

👇 This is how we got there and it’s the most overlooked step in creative strategy.

Everyone wants to jump straight into execution (more ads, new hooks, new creators), but if you skip the research phase, you’re not optimising.

Every signal you need already exists. You just have to extract it → interpret it → structure it.

We’re using a Grok + X stack to build creative angles from live audience sentiment.

In this case, the prompt surfaced a clinical study showing women going through menopause are 30% more likely to suffer from bloating.

Then it got interesting:

→ Pulled real Twitter convos around the pain point

→ Surfaced the emotional language people actually use

→ Mapped funnel stages (unaware → problem aware → solution aware)

→ Uncovered a totally untapped, high-intent angle

We built around it. New persona. New message. New positioning.

That ad crushed.

Once you understand the human drivers behind conversion (the objections, motivations, and phrases people actually use) you can build creative that just makes sense.

Want the prompt that unlocks different personas like the example in the image?

Like this post
Comment “GROK” and I’ll send it over
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If you can help with hiring the BEST Creative Strategist talent please comment below.

A-players only. Must have experience with D2C.

Joshua Johnston

I scale 𝗱𝗶𝗴𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗕2𝗕 𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘀, agencies, consultants, and more by pairing our proven growth systems for client acquisition, operations, retention, recruiting, AI, with 1-1 advice, unique to your situation.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗱 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗸𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗶𝘁𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳:
🟢 200+ agencies and service firms have grown in the last 24 months.
🟢 Personally built 3 businesses to multiple 7-figures in revenue
🟢 1 successful exit of my own, and 3 among our advisory team.

𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗜 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗽 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀:
1️⃣ 𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝗗.𝗡.𝗔. 𝗗𝗮𝘆𝘀, where you come in person to Nashville, TN and sit alongside myself and our team, where we’ll complete a full audit of your business, establish your goals, and design a clear roadmap to solve what’s holding you back from scaling. Then, we give you our exact systems & processes to make it reality.

2️⃣ 𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝗠𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗺, 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗛𝘆𝗱𝗿𝗮 𝗚𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘁𝗵 𝗖𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲. This is our flagship offering that bundles all our proven systems, lead-gen, ops, and AI frameworks into weekly group calls, a private community, a full curriculum library, and two live, in-person growth intensives each year.

3️⃣ 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗛𝘆𝗱𝗿𝗮 𝗣𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗳𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗼, an invite-only offer for a minority stake of your business where we invest capital and work hands-on as part of your management team until we both win.If you’re running a service business in the $500k–$10M range and want predictable scale, not more theory, fluff, or advice that keeps you spinning your wheels…

DM me “𝗚𝗥𝗢𝗪” to learn more.

Your situation probably isn't as bad as you think. #perspective

Built & exited $4M agency | Now scaling my consulting firm to $5M+ | DM me "Nashville" to learn about our in-person intensives to help you scale 📈

I’ve been in a different kind of season lately.

Not a “grind harder” season.
Not a “stack more goals” season.
Not a “chase everything at once” season.

More like a slow down and take inventory season.
A season of paying attention.
A season of asking better questions instead of forcing faster answers.

What I’m learning is this:
You can move fast and still feel stuck.
You can work hard and still make no progress.
And you can hit every milestone… and still feel like something’s off.

Because momentum without meaning eventually burns you out.

This season has been about stripping out the noise... the extra commitments, the unnecessary pressure, the expectations I never actually agreed to. It’s been about choosing the things that matter and letting go of the things that don’t.

A few reminders that are hitting different for me right now:
✅ Clarity beats speed.
✅ Depth beats volume.
✅ Purpose beats pressure.
✅ And alignment beats ambition every single time.

I’m not trying to sprint out of this season.
I’m trying to learn from it.

If you’re in a similar place... slowing down, recalibrating, paying attention again just know there’s nothing wrong with it.

Sometimes the most productive thing you can do… is rebuild the foundation you’re standing on.

And when you get that right, everything else gets lighter.

Content burnout doesn’t come from writing too much.
It comes from wasting time writing things that don’t land.

I used to overthink every LinkedIn post.

Now, I follow one simple process that keeps me consistent and connected to my audience 👇

→ I start in Slack, checking what questions clients keep asking. If it’s coming up in consulting calls, it’s content gold… because it’s rooted in real pain.

→ I jot down a list of the most common problems we’re solving that week. These become the backbone of my posts… not random thoughts, but problems my ICP actually wants solved.

→ I drop that list into ChatGPT to organize topics and surface patterns. It helps me group similar problems and spot recurring themes across clients.

→ Then I open magicpost.in to turn those ideas into structured LinkedIn drafts in my tone of voice. It gives me the bones, headline, flow, examples, without losing authenticity.

→ Next, I edit for clarity and insight density. Every line should either teach, provoke, or connect. If it doesn’t, it goes.

→ Before scheduling, I ask one question: “Would my audience save this post?” If the answer’s no, I rewrite until it is.

→ Finally, I track performance weekly to find what formats and angles resonate most.

That feedback loop keeps my writing evolving… not repetitive.
That’s how I stay consistent without burning out.
Not through inspiration.
Through process.

Most founders fire SDRs when meetings are low.
Bad move.

Because 9 times out of 10, the SDR isn’t the problem.
You are.

Here’s why:
👉 You gave them a domain that was already torched.
👉 You never monitored reputation or health.
👉 You didn’t check if emails were even landing in inboxes.
👉 And now you’re blaming them for not booking meetings.

That’s like handing a basketball player a deflated ball
and yelling at them for not scoring.

The truth is simple:

If your SDR’s emails don’t land in the primary inbox,
it doesn’t matter how good their copy is
or how many dials they make.

They’re not failing…
they’re invisible.

When I plugged in Maildoso, everything changed:
📈 Reps stopped fighting spam filters
📈 Deliverability stayed healthy
📈 Meetings doubled without adding headcount

The problem isn’t lazy SDRs.
It’s broken infrastructure.

Fix that, and suddenly your “underperformers”
look like all-stars.

Most offers are too safe.
 
They sound good.
They make sense.
They check all the right boxes.
And that’s exactly why nobody buys them.
 
Safe offers blend in.
They feel logical, not emotional.
And logic rarely opens wallets.
 
If your offer doesn’t make you slightly nervous to say out loud,
it’s probably not strong enough.
 
Because strong offers do three things:
 
1️⃣ They make a bold promise.
“Grow your agency” is vague.
“Add $100k MRR in 90 days” gets attention.
You can’t sell transformation if you describe it like a to-do list.
 
2️⃣ They eliminate risk.
Safe offers leave the risk with the buyer.
Strong offers flip it.
Guarantees, milestones, deliverable-based pricing... whatever makes saying “yes” easier.
 
3️⃣ They carry conviction.
If you sound unsure when you pitch it,
why would anyone trust you to deliver it?
Conviction converts. Every time.
 
Here’s the paradox:
The more you try to make your offer comfortable for everyone,
the less compelling it becomes for anyone.
 
So stop trying to make offers that feel safe.
Make offers that feel inevitable.
 
Because in a crowded market, safety isn’t security...
it’s invisibility.

Just got done training with my sales coach and I was working my “Why now?” questions.

Example:
“So you’ve been wanting to reach $100k/mo for the past 2 years and you’re finally reaching out to do something about it… but why all of the sudden is this important now? What shifted for you?”

9/10 times your prospect will give you an apathetic answer like:
“Ya, it’s just time for a change.”

This is where most salespeople nod, move on, and wonder why the deal ghosts later.

You have to go a layer deeper and ask again:
“Ya, I get that you know it’s time to make a change… but why now?”
Then shut up.

If you sit in that silence, you’ll usually get the real answer:
“My team is burnt out and I’m scared I’m going to lose them.”
“My wife told me we can’t keep doing this for another year.”
“My competitor is eating our lunch and I feel like I’m behind.”

That’s the stuff that actually closes deals.
You’re not selling to their goal (“$100k/mo”).
You’re selling to their moment (“I can’t afford to wait another year”).

If you don’t know their “why now,” you don’t have a buyer.
You have a browser.

Start asking “why now?” twice.
The first answer is almost never the truth.

Most agency owners think they need better tools, more people, or more systems.

You don’t.
You just need to pull the right levers.

Almost every operational problem: chaos, delays, misalignment, churn... comes back to just three things.

And if you fix these three, the rest of your business finally breathes again.

Here they are:
1. CLARITY
Clarity answers: What are we doing, why are we doing it, and who owns it?
Most teams aren’t slow… They’re confused.

Confusion looks like:
👉 Tasks stuck in “in progress”
👉 Team members guessing instead of executing
👉 Clients expecting things you never promised
👉 Revisions on revisions on revisions

Clarity eliminates 70% of the noise.

2. ACCOUNTABILITY
Accountability isn’t punishment. It’s ownership.
It answers: Who is responsible for the outcome... not just the task?

Without accountability:
👉 Deadlines slip
👉 Quality drops
👉 Problems get passed around like hot potatoes
👉 The founder becomes the bottleneck

With accountability, your team self-corrects.
No hand-holding. No chaos.

3. VISIBILITY
Visibility makes the invisible visible.

It answers: Where does everything stand right now?
Because you can’t fix what you can’t see.

When you lack visibility:
👉 You react instead of lead
👉 You find problems too late
👉 You operate on feelings, not facts
👉 Your team spends half the day “checking in”

Visibility turns your business into a dashboard instead of a guessing game.

Most agency problems aren’t symptoms of scale. They’re symptoms of missing one of these levers. And the bigger you get, the more expensive those symptoms become.

Here’s the real test:
If your workload doubled tomorrow… would these levers hold or snap?

If you want a starting point:
Clarity → tighten your onboarding + SOPs
Accountability → assign owners to outcomes, not tasks
Visibility → build a simple dashboard your team actually updates

Fix these three, and your agency gets quieter…
and more profitable.

Most founders think scaling means more people.
Myth.

More people amplify complexity... not revenue.

The agencies that grow the fastest…
Hire last.
Simplify first.

Every new hire adds:
👉 More communication.
👉 More management.
👉 More decisions.
👉 More drag.
And drag kills momentum.

Here’s the real move👇 

Before hiring:
✅ Simplify your delivery
✅ Reduce steps, approvals, and handoffs
✅ Automate 20–30%
✅ Document the process
✅ Make the role idiot-proof

Ask yourself:
Would I hire someone to fix the chaos…
or eliminate the chaos so the hire produces real profit?

The next 18 months are going to split agency owners into two groups:
Those who grow faster than ever… and those who quietly disappear.

And the difference won’t be tactics, platforms, or ad hacks.
It’ll be the founders themselves.

Because the agency model isn’t getting harder... it’s getting more exposed.
Everything that used to hide in the background (messy delivery, weak offers, shallow positioning, founder chaos) is being pushed to the front.

Here’s what’s coming and it’s coming fast:

1. Depth is replacing volume.
Shallow content, recycled frameworks, and generic positioning won’t cut it anymore. People want leaders, not info-dumpers.

The founders who can create belief-shifting content will dominate.

2. Retention will matter more than acquisition.
Everyone’s competing for the same cold leads. But very few are competing to keep the clients they already have.

The agencies with strong onboarding + tight communication rhythms → win big.

3. Complexity will kill businesses.
The era of bloated processes, giant teams, and “we do everything” is ending. Lean, simple, specialized agencies will outperform the Frankenstein ones.

Oversimplification becomes a competitive advantage.

4. Offers will evolve or die.
The market is allergic to vague, safe offers.

You’ll need an offer that:
👉 Has a clear mechanism
👉 Solves an expensive problem
👉 Produces a fast time-to-value
👉 Has a built-in upsell path

Safe offers get ignored. Powerful offers get clients.

5. Leadership becomes the skill.
🚩 Not media buying.
🚩 Not operations.
🚩 Not copywriting.

The agencies that scale to 7 and 8 figures will be led by founders who understand:
✅ Energy management
✅ Decision-making
✅ Communication
✅ Identity
✅ Simplicity
✅ Alignment
✅ Follow-through

Most founders don’t have business problems.
They have leadership problems that look like business problems.

Here’s the big question:
Are you building an agency for the next 18 months…
or are you still building one for the last 18 months?

If you want to be on the right side of the split, focus on:
👉 Simplifying your delivery
👉 Building an undeniable offer
👉 Creating belief-shifting content
👉 Strengthening client retention systems
👉 Leading, not reacting

If everything doubled next month... clients, demand, fulfillment... would your agency expand or collapse?

Your answer tells you exactly what to fix.

Everyone talks about “posting more.”
But nobody talks about how much friction it takes to actually do it.

The brainstorming.
The editing.
The formatting.
The scheduling.

It’s not one task... it’s six.

Here’s the exact stack I use to make it effortless 👇
1️⃣ ChatGPT → Deep research for content ideas and frameworks
2️⃣ ClickUp → Organize ideas and track what’s in draft, review, or scheduled
3️⃣ Fathom → Turn consulting call recordings into new content angles
4️⃣ Opus Clip → Repurpose long-form clips into short-form videos
5️⃣ magicpost.in → Turn rough ideas into finished LinkedIn posts in my voice
6️⃣ Canva → Design carousels and visuals that match each post

This setup turned content creation from a “when I have time” task…
into a repeatable weekly system.

Because consistency isn’t about motivation…
it’s about removing friction.

A few years ago, I treated LinkedIn like a side project.
I’d post when I felt inspired… then go silent for weeks.

The result?
👉 Zero momentum. 
👉 No inbound leads. 
👉 No trust built with my audience.

That changed when I got consistent. And consistency has done more for my business than any ad campaign ever has.

Because when you show up every week, people notice.
✅ They start following your thinking.
✅ They start reaching out.
✅ They start hiring you.

Now, I batch 7 days of content in under an hour.

Here’s the system I use 👇
→ 7 posts a week
→ Created in 8-10 minutes each
→ All in my tone, without starting from scratch

I use @MagicPost, an AI built specifically for LinkedIn, to handle 80% of the heavy lifting.

It studies your writing style, drafts posts that sound like you, and helps you stay consistent even on the weeks you don’t feel like writing.

Since I started using it, I’ve saved hours every week and landed more clients because my content stays visible, relevant, and real.

If you want to create a week’s worth of content in 60 minutes,
try magicpost.in - it’s free to test and could be the system that builds your next client pipeline.

P.S. if you want to try out Magic Post they are running a BFCM promo and you can use code JOSHUABF10 for 10% off.

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The Battle

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Joe Marston 🚀's LinkedIn Performance

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