Social Pulse: Agency Edition guest Jason Yormark built Socialistics into a seven-figure social media agency by zigging when another zagged. And he literally wrote the book on it. His bestseller “Anti-Agency” has become the Rebel’s Guidebook to building a thriving agency business as a Forbes-recognized social media influencer. He’s figured out how to complement inbound with strategic partnerships and outbound tactics that work without making you feel like that pushy salesperson we all love to hate.
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Could you share the story of how you built Socialistics and what your lead generation strategy looked like in those early growth years?
Jason Yormark: I’m a 30-year marketer, and everything I did led up to Socialistics being able to become a thing.
Just the short recap is Microsoft. I worked there for about six or seven years, and that’s really where I cut my teeth quite a bit on social media. I got involved in it pretty early, about ‘07, ‘06, right when Facebook was transitioning from college campuses to the public domain.
So I was in the right place at the right time and spent a few years launching social media for a variety of different Microsoft products. Spent another 10 or 15 years on the agency side running social media teams, tried my hand at entrepreneurship a couple of times, and failed. And then, ultimately in 2018, I launched Socialistics.
And everything just came together for me. Everybody’s story’s a little bit different in terms of entrepreneurs. Some figured it out early on, some figured it out later, but there’s no one recipe for that. But for me, it was later in life, and we launched in 2018 and took all of my social media experiences and wanted to run an agency a little bit differently. And certainly, I had a runway. I built a brand. I was still working. And then when I just got so fed up with it, I had a moving train.
So I had a brand and an agency that was in motion, which allowed me to jump from that guaranteed check and benefits to something that felt a little bit less risky, which was huge for me because I had, I still had kids, I still had lots of responsibilities.
Jumping into a high-risk situation could be very hard for people. So I write about that in my book. I have a chapter about creating a runway, and that involved blogging, putting out social media, and taking lower-cost clients to build momentum. I wasn’t focused on making money right away ’cause I didn’t need it to do that. So I was able to take my time and build things up and create some momentum.
So by the time I did want to take that leap, I had some of that momentum. I was starting to get some search visibility. I had a portfolio of clients that I had worked with. And, from there, it just took off. So, certainly, in the early stages, my clients came from my network and referrals. And then it didn’t take too long for the work that I did around content and social media to start to bear some fruit. We started to show up in some directories, more prominently, and then companies would start to find us.
So our inbound strategies drove the business for the first—I want to say, five, six years—we doubled down on making sure that we were putting out great blog posts, we were active on social media, we were a lot of link strategies, making sure we were in directories.
That allowed us to consistently get qualified leads and not have to worry too much about outbound, which I was always banging my head against the wall, trying to figure out and failing repeatedly just because it was hard—not to say that it can’t work, but you have to have the tenacity and the determination, and the strategic ability to navigate that in the right way, and most can’t.
So we lucked out quite a bit by having some strong inbound for quite some time that ultimately has us thinking differently now these days as things have gotten more competitive.
Were there some warning signs?
Jason Yormark: Just increased competition more than anything. We invested in Google Ads for years, and it just became more and more not viable. The ROI just disappeared, and more spam just got to the point where it was almost like we were spending north of $500 per qualified lead, which isn’t sustainable.
That was some writing on the wall. And then also, the directory game, we doubled down on Clutch, and we’ve sponsored on Clutch for quite some years. We made sure that we had consistently good reviews on there, but our success with that has diminished because their search visibility has gone down.
For those who are listening, Clutch can be great, or Directories can be great, but don’t fall into their traps. The only way that those directories can ever return positive ROI is if they are on the front page in the first 5, 6, or 7 listings of the keywords that matter to your business. And for us, for Clutch, they did. They used to be on the front page for social media agencies. Probably the top keyword for obviously what we do, so it made sense to sponsor with them because a lot of people were clicking on that and then looking, and if you’re in the top five or six on their directory, then you’re getting a lot of leads, which we have traditionally, that’s dried up as well because every time Google changes their algorithms and or whatever that search visibility shifts.
So once that disappeared, the combination of that and Google ads. Then, our inbounds started to suffer, and I knew that we had to pivot and we had to figure out a way to supplement that diminished inbound frequency. Unfortunately for me, the negative for me in my agency life is that I am a natural introvert.
I’m not the guy who’s super well connected and can light up a room like I can get on a stage and talk about anything in front of 5,000 people and kill it and love it. But you put me in a room of 10 people, and I have to strike up conversations that terrify me. So I’ve never really been that well-connected per se. A lot of agency owners that come in and get successful right away have a lot of connections, and they’re able to tap into that to drive a lot of business. I never had that. So it was the inbound that replaced that. So now that our agency was put into a situation like last year the economy started to dip, increased competition.
What do we do? Ultimately, we had to shift gears and start getting serious about thinking about partnerships. And we’ve doubled down on organic SEO. Because paid has just been killing us and thinking differently about how to drive leads consistently for the agency.
Was there a psychological barrier to overcome shifting more towards outbound and partnership-focused approaches?
Jason Yormark: A little bit because I know we’re fortunate to be an agency that’s been in business for seven or eight years, so we have some protections in place to survive economic downturns, and that’s not lost on me.
I understand that newer agencies or those that are just starting out don’t have some of the luxuries that an agency that’s been around for a while and has a reputation can lean back on. So that’s not lost on me, but that being said. I also know that you just can’t rest on your laurels and expect to continue to be able to power through those difficult times.
So for me, I knew that whatever we were going to do, it was like turning the Titanic. It was going to take time. Like, we weren’t just going to throw these and snap these things on and instantly have our problems solved. It’s interesting because of what we do. In terms of our clients, we certainly walk the talk. We certainly put out social media content and do the things that we do, but what we sell is only a point-and-click product. It’s not the kind of thing that somebody’s going to see some of our stuff online and then instantly want to hire us. It’s a very long funnel.
Social media for us isn’t a lead driver as much as it’s a lead nurturer. So what we do for our clients nine times out of 10 isn’t quite the same as what would work for us. So we have to think a little bit differently. We have to have a more well-rounded marketing approach to how we position the agency and how we can build a sustainable funnel of leads.
And it’s not one thing that dried up inbound. It’s the rise of AI, which I think is a good thing. But ultimately, we’re still in this ambiguous phase where some people think it’s going to steal people’s jobs. You’ve got some business owners that think, oh, AI will take care of everything, and I don’t need a marketer, and I don’t need an agency anymore. They’re going to learn the hard way that’s not true. But there’s still this volatility in the market where there’s some uncertainty about businesses and what they should invest in.
So, for us, it’s just doubling down on leveraging AI and really creative and unique ways that excite our prospects and our clients being transparent about the use of it and how it allows us to free up time to put more creative horsepower into the work that we do. And just making sure that we’re a thought leader around those sorts of things.
So we have to think very differently about how we treat ourselves than we do our clients, but there’s definitely some trickle-over in terms of what we learn through what we do that is applicable to a number of our clients.
Is there any real future for directories and similar services with AI overviews and that sort of thing?
Jason Yormark: Clutch has been a good partner for us for a great many years, but that’s not without some extreme frustrations. They make their money by agencies and businesses paying them for placements.
For years, I’ve been frustrated. If you go to the social media, their main social media directory, the top ones are up there are these huge agencies that do everything. They’re not social media agencies. They do 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 different things, but they can afford to just throw money at that, and they get what they get. Whereas all of the agencies that are a little bit smaller and are niche-focused do just that thing. It’s hard for them to compete with them. Now, is that the best user experience for the decision maker that’s coming in and looking for a social media agency? No, it isn’t.
And what I would argue—and I think this goes to your question about why Clutch probably finally feels the pinch—is they optimize for dollars, they don’t optimize for user experience. They were optimized for user experience and tried to make some money. I think they would find that the stuff that they’re putting out in their directories might rank better because it’s more relevant. Basically it would be a better user experience so when people use it, they get what they need out of it.
I think they’re going to suffer tremendously. Over the next couple of years, we’re pulling out our sponsorships because the ROI is just not there anymore.
If they don’t pivot, they’re going to feel some pain.
Mike Allton: There are definitely specific categories of businesses and industries like that, even just within marketing, that are going to be dramatically impacted by artificial intelligence. I’ve been saying for a while now that there’s no longer a reason to pay for stock photography, not when you can go to MidJourney or Imagine one of these and simply create the exact image that you need—whether it’s lifelike, cartoonish, whatever you want. You can tell it, “I want diverse people sitting on a beach.” Whatever you need, you can do that at almost no cost whatsoever. Why? I’m sorry, Shutterstock, but why would I pay for a Shutterstock subscription at this point?
Jason Yormark: Businesses that don’t pivot aren’t going to learn the hard way. And we’re guilty of that too.
A lot of what we’re trying to do with AI is to try to stay ahead of the curve, and you can’t keep doing the same thing and expect the same results. You’ve got people that are just innovative. The people who are complaining about AI taking their jobs are the ones who are not. You have to embrace the technology. You have to learn how to use it, and you need to get out in front of that.
The people that just have this blanket opinion: “Oh, it’s going to take over the world, and we’re going to lose.” It’s just lazy thinking, in my opinion.
Look, AI’s not perfect. It’s getting better. And it’s not perfect, but it’s like anything else: garbage in, garbage out.
So how you use it dictates how great it can be.
I think those who embrace it and take the time to understand how they can incorporate it into their offerings are the ones that are going to thrive and succeed over the next five to 10 years.
Do you leverage partnerships from that agency perspective? Is there a criteria for choosing partners?
Jason Yormark: It’s interesting, over the past two or three months our partnership program has exploded. And I’m equally excited and feel validated by the work that we put in, but also frustrated because it took me this long to do it and figure it out.
I always was so frustrated ’cause my agency peers always talk about referrals as the biggest part of their business. And I’m like, how? Like, how are you getting your clients to just proactively think about you and sell you to other people? Like they’re busy. Like, how are you getting them to do that?
I was so frustrated so when our inbound dried up, I sat with my director of ops and my director of strategy. We just took a lot of time and sat down and thought through like, “How can we turn this around? We have a great reputation. We have a great portfolio. We know that we’re good at what we do. Why are we struggling to get referrals?”
Ultimately, what it came down to is we felt like we’re not taking it as seriously as it needs to be. We need to operationalize a partnership program. We can’t just say, “Hey, let’s go out and talk to this agency, and let’s be friends, and let’s agree to be partners and share business.” That doesn’t sustain.
What we realized is we needed to come into those conversations with a plan. So we ultimately created a program with accountabilities, with deliverables with a set way of managing that relationship in a way where it’s mutually beneficial and mutually accountable which makes it more of a selective process. We can’t be partners with everybody.
A couple of the things that make that a reality:
1. You operationalize it.
- Some examples of that are: Do we need a partner?
- Do they have a good history?
- Do they have a portfolio?
- Are they good people? (Like, they have to check all of those boxes.)
- Do they need us?
- Do they come across clients that typically ask for social media? (There has to be mutual interest and need on both sides.)
2. Put meetings on the calendar, whether it’s once a month [or] once every other month.
- It’s a placeholder to ensure that you keep each other accountable. So, when you have that partner meeting on the calendar and you know that it’s there, it’s going to more likely keep you accountable to making sure that you’re putting things in place in your day-to-day operations where you’re planting seeds for them.
So, operationalizing it and making it like this professional relationship, I think, makes a huge difference.
And you have to:
- Be prepared to give them something to work with because then that inspires them to reciprocate. Those things alone have created a pipeline for us that I never imagined possible.
We’ve got some great partners that have started to throw business our way, and it—over the first quarter of this year—has blown up in terms of a pipeline, and that partnership program has been a big reason for that.
We’re going to put a partner page on our website to create some more visibility and it’s interesting; we find that these partnerships evolve quite dramatically over time.
In addition to those partners, when they start to see the work that you’re doing, they start to become interested in probably having you do it for them. So, there are a lot of different ways that it goes. And then oftentimes that partnership even grows further.
How have you structured your outbound approach to maintain authenticity and not feel so pushy?
Jason Yormark: I would say our efforts are more what I would call warm outreach. Instead of spraying and praying, instead of attacking with a machine gun or attacking with a sniper rifle, it’s more about being very strategic and taking more time with who we approach with a very authentic, targeted, educational, entertaining, informative approach, and it’s a grind.
The correlation that I can make is that when we started, our proposal pitch process was nowhere near the level of time and sophistication that it is today. We used to spend maybe a couple of hours, we’re 15-20 hours on a pitch these days. We’re basically delivering a level of strategy and insight that most would’ve had to have paid for three or five years ago. But that’s what we have to do to win business. It’s just getting more and more competitive.
That is the price of admission to be an agency these days for good paying clients.
The same thing applies to cold outreach, especially when it comes to social media, which inherently comes with an emotional tie to it. Like, when you think about business decision makers, when you think about SEO or Google Ads or a website, these are tangible things. I need a website. I don’t have an opinion about having a website or not. Of course, you do. I need to invest in SEO If I want to rank higher, I need to invest in Google ads. If I want to rank. These things don’t come with an emotional opinion. In social media, very often we’ll come across decision-making. I don’t like social media, or I hate TikTok. I think it’s dumb.
So they come with this kind of preconceived opinion about it. So that influences their decision-making sometimes, so that’s very difficult to do.
When you think about cold outreach, and you’re trying to blast out a lot of stuff, we’re already at an additional disadvantage because we’re talking about subject matter that oftentimes people do not have an emotional opinion about it and often negatively. So it especially doesn’t work in my world. So we are specific about who we talk to, how, and what that looks like. We spend a tremendous amount of time with custom landing pages, custom portfolios, case studies that speak to a very specific industry, and then making hit lists of clients we would love to work with.
So I often get our team together and I’ll ask them [to] identify two or three clients that would be your dream clients. And then we’ll dive deep. We’ll put some work in and try to see where are they at with their social media efforts, where are their opportunities, and backing that up with data and then approaching those points of the month with a customized, authentic, entertaining, or informative or educational communication. It could be a Loom video, it could be a visual thing. There’s a lot of depth to it, and you have to go into it understanding that it still, in most cases, will fall on deaf ears or will require just time.
It’s really about timing. You don’t know when putting the right thing in front of the right person at the right time, when you can hit all of those things, it’s very difficult to do, but you have to just grind and consistently do that and not expect a result.
You have to build that into the operations of your business and understand that you’re planting seeds and you’re putting these things out in the world ’cause even that particular prospect who you’ve sent a couple of things to effectively may not need it today. They might need it in three months, and they’re going to remember that impactful thing that you sent them.
Maybe they stuff it away and wait for another day. That’s happened to us time and time again where those efforts don’t bear fruit. And then six months later, we get a lead that comes through and then they’ll mention, “Oh, I actually reached out to you guys because back in February of 23, you sent this awesome thing, and we weren’t just quite ready yet.”
So, it’s not a quick fix. It’s not going to change your world right away. It’s going to require significant time and effort.
But if you want to compete in this world, in this day and age, that’s the type of approach that you’re going to have to take to build a pipeline that inevitably will grow as you mature as a business.
Are there specific metrics you use to track the effectiveness of these different channels, and have you noticed a difference in client quality?
Jason Yormark: For sure. Referrals come in. Referral leads are better. Most people know this already, but a referral lead is stronger for sure. It’s almost like we’re only competing against ourselves in those cases. And if they come in from a partner that’s been working with them for an extended period, that certainly increases the likelihood of that relationship lasting time because that’s a signal that tells us this isn’t the type of decision-maker or business owner that’s quick to, stop something because it hasn’t worked for a month.
They have some patience, which is necessary for what we do. So referrals are always a stronger lead, which ultimately means there’s a higher probability of landing it and a higher probability of them being long-term clients.
Organic as well, is stronger than I would say paid. We were just getting so much spam with the paid organic inquiries that we seem to just be, it’s almost like if somebody puts in a little bit more work to find you, they’re a better lead.
So it makes a little bit more sense if they go a little bit like if they’re clicking you and you’re one, two, or three, you’re just, you’re primed for getting a lot of junk. But if they’re clicking you in the organic listings and they have to scroll up a little bit, they’re probably much more likely to be looking for the thing that you’re doing.
Definitely quality over quantity. The volume of leads that we’re getting is lower, but the quality has risen dramatically, and that’s a great place to be because it means we’re not having to spend as much time qualifying leads. So that’s been super helpful in terms of how our time has been spent and being able to vet folks before we even get on those initial phone calls.
But we’re using Google Analytics and some manual reports that we built for ourselves that help us understand sources of leads, quality of leads, those sorts of things.
What resources or tools have been the most valuable these past couple of years?
Jason Yormark: I don’t know if technology played as much of a big role in it. The biggest thing that I think is my favorite chapter in the book, as I referenced earlier, was this idea of building momentum, like building something. For most people, you don’t have a ton of money sitting around, or you can’t just decide to launch an agency or a business. Like, you have kids, you have a mortgage payment. You’re, you’re wired as an entrepreneur; you know that’s how you are wired and that’s what you want to do, but maybe you just can’t take that leap ’cause you need that paycheck and you need those benefits. And that’s where I was, but I knew that at some point, I had to do my own thing. For me, I had to create something concurrently while maintaining my job.
And that’s the biggest thing.
So that chapter dials into my experience and how I did that. I knew that I needed to build a brand, and I needed to create a website. I needed to get excited about a name and a brand. I needed to create a platform for me to write and to put stuff out in the world and to talk about things and to create some search juice, some SEO momentum start to offer to friends, and family some free either doing some free work or some lower cost work because I had the paycheck to build up a portfolio. I had to do all those things and put them all in motion, and I know if I could do that and build that up. Then leaping from the full-time job with the check and the benefits into something that was already in motion would make it much more likely that I would take that leap because fear is really what had crippled me in my previous attempts.
I had tried to do this 10 years ago, but that fear of failing, that fear of it not working, that fear of not being able to pay my bills always crept up in my psyche. And I never really realized how much that got in the way.
And when I ultimately reached a point where I just got so fed up with my current situation, I just leaped. I said I couldn’t do this anymore. I want to create, I don’t want to be handcuffed. I don’t want my success to be dictated by other people, and ultimately, I want freedom. I want to live a life of freedom. And it just all came together. I leaped, the fear was gone. And because I had that business in motion.
And I was able to conquer that fear. It took off immediately and it sounds really amiable, like it’s like this weird thing. I know some people want a really specific, tangible, measurable concept to help them understand how I was able to do a thing. And it sounds wishy-washy when you talk about conquering fear.
But it’s huge because it does hold you back. And I think the combination of lowering the risk was able to lower, eliminate the fear, to me, that was the number one reason why I am where I am today because I created something that was in motion and had some momentum that allowed me to leap without fear with a high level of confidence and it took off from there. So for me, that’s the biggest thing, more than anything. Certainly, my experience of working at Microsoft learning how to interview people, and being good at assessing talent plays a part. That’s never one thing.
But you also have to be prepared to fail because you’re going to, and you just need to learn from those experiences.
Thanks for reading the highlights from this episode with Jason Yormark. Don’t forget to find the Social Pulse Podcast: Agency Edition on Apple, and drop us a review. We’d love to know what you think. Don’t miss other editions of the Social Pulse Podcast like the Retail Edition, Hospitality Edition, and B2B Edition.
