Why Dev Founders Distrust Marketing and How to Fix It

Chris DuBois1:44

what makes marketing for dev agencies uniquely difficult? I think the biggest thing is, honestly there. Well, I think I would say it's actually easier for somebody with a marketing background, but I think if you're a dev agency founder or someone who just operates in that world,

David Hoos2:03

that's just, it's not a skill set that's as common in that space. So you're going to have a lot more left brain engineer types that are going to be in your agency. And so you're going to think, Okay, well, how do I engineer things? And so marketing is going to feel a little bit more mysterious to you. So what I found is that it's actually without realizing it, I kind of accidentally stumble into that space and my background, like my mom's an English teacher, my dad is a software engineer, and like one of my first agency Jobs was in a conversion optimization agency. So we were this kind of design and Dev combined, and so that's kind of, I feel like I've I kind of bring those two worlds together, and that's kind of why I think I play well in the dev agency space. Yeah, you definitely bridge that, that gap with with your parents, just out of curiosity, what was your best subject in high school?

Chris DuBois3:06

Probably more on the English side of things. I mean, that's probably why I ended up even being a marketer rather than an engineer. But I definitely, you know, like when I was in late in high school and into college, I was, like, making websites and so, like, I also had kind of, like that, you know, building things, sort of pitch that I think a lot of engineers have, yeah, yeah, I got my degree is in English

David Hoos3:33

and but I never expected to get into marketing or anything. So that's a interesting to hear other people's

Chris DuBois3:40

stories as you get in here.

David Hoos3:43

But yeah, I guess so I work predominantly with marketing agencies. I've had a handful of DEV agencies, and yeah, they are. It's way different to market for a dev agency, which is why I generally will market to marketing agencies like stay there. So it's just it's within my wheelhouse because but there is, like, a very different kind of feel, even within the company, how you market their their services, talk about them, like the things you have to just be aware of for like how they operate, are actually different.

Chris DuBois4:12

Was that? I mean, because of your your background, you just go into this field, kind of understanding these things, or is it something you just continuously pick up as you're, as you're working with them. Yeah, I think it's, it's something where I had, I think I had maybe a little bit of more of an aptitude to pick up some of it. And I have definitely learned a lot as I've been doing it as well.

David Hoos4:34

You know, some of the things that I think come up are, like, I think if you're an agency and you're developing a lot of times you might lead with, like, we specialize in particular language, you know, and it's like, I don't think they realize that they're kind of commodifying their cell themselves. If they're just saying, you know, we're

Chris DuBois4:56

we're a Python shop, or we're a rail.

David Hoos5:00

Shop, you know, like, yes, that can be something that you can highlight, you know, if that's a relevant detail. But I wouldn't leave with that, yeah, it's definitely a lot of similarities to marketing. Rather than just saying, like, yeah, we do SEO and ads and this, it's like, I mean, the equivalent is those languages that they're bringing up? Yeah, exactly. But there's a big temptation to just lead with that, and it's like, no, no. Like, what do you do with that? That's what's much more important, right? And what problem can you solve?

Chris DuBois5:34

So, I mean, it kind of alluded to this already, but, like, I think a lot of DEV founders hate marketing. Why? Why is that the case? Is it just hard, or is it that they, they like literally don't enjoy it?

David Hoos5:49

I think there can be. I mean,

Chris DuBois5:53

what's the phrase that like marketers ruin everything? Or something along those lines, in like

David Hoos5:59

marketers tend to have a reputation for being having kind of a tenuous relationship with the truth sometimes. And I think, you know, maybe at least a big part that I've seen is that maybe developers have some skepticism of marketing because of that, like they've been they've seen slimy marketing, you know, they've gotten calls from solicitors, and they've, you know, been on the receiving end of stuff that just didn't match what was said. And so I think, I think there's a justified mistrust of marketing. I don't think that is all of marketing. And so I think what I like to kind of come to the table with is to be like, Look, these are not the only ways to market. You don't have to be some sort of, like, slimy,

Chris DuBois6:48

you know, cold caller or something like that. Like, you can actually do marketing and sales in a way that elevates your reputation, not like, erodes it.

David Hoos7:01

Yeah, makes sense. The something that we had done at the agency I was working at was like, every so we, we did web development

Chris DuBois7:11

and but it was a separate team, and then we had our growth marketers, like running the actual marketing stuff once, once sites were up and all the tech was there,

David Hoos7:19

but we ran all of our tests from like the CRO perspective as the scientific method, right? Like we said, hypothesis. We had our criteria for the test we ran. It is it conclusive? Inconclusive? And I think that was a good way to kind of bridge the gap between the two sides, where we it was like even the nerds understood what, what the marketers were talking about. Obviously, my terminology, you can tell which which one I am, but it was a it was interesting, kind of seeing that from the outside, having talked to, like, some dev agencies, and seeing like, oh yeah, they just don't think that that way, like they're very much on like, this path. And so if we we can find ways to bring this together. It works. Yeah. I mean, honestly, I think there's more in common than people initially realize. But I think, yeah, for me, it's just been like trying to speak both languages and try to translate them for each other.

Chris DuBois8:14

Yeah, so let's talk positioning. How do how do you help dev agencies with nailing down what their positioning is.

David Hoos8:23

I mean, honestly, I would say it's, it's similar to, you know, helping any agency with positioning. The, honestly, the best place that I want to start with any agency, specifically with Dev agencies,

Chris DuBois8:37

is looking at kind of their the people that they've worked with before,

David Hoos8:42

who have they worked with the longest? Who have they had the best relationships with? Who have been the better deals? It's not just quantitative. It's not just like, Who have we made the most money with? Because sometimes those people are kind of the headache clients. It's more holistic. It's who have truly been like the people, where, if you could clone them, you would be a happy camper, and your team would be thrilled, you know, like, that's who you want to focus on. And then think about, okay,

Chris DuBois9:13

what were the outcomes that you were able to drive for them? Like, what worked about that relationship? And then kind of back your way into, okay, you know, is there

David Hoos9:24

plenty more of addressable market if we just focused in this one area? You know, do we like we can use this proof of what we've done before and the results that we got as a way to start

Chris DuBois9:35

kind of attracting and closing more folks like that. But

David Hoos9:41

I think, yeah, I think basically starting with your case studies or starting with your results is the best way to start narrowing it down.

Chris DuBois9:49

Yeah, the going back to the audience piece is

David Hoos9:54

something I realized pretty quick, is that, yeah, agencies will, will go into the like, well, they paid me.

Chris DuBois10:00

The most. So I want to keep working with them. It's like, Yeah, but I think you, you literally said you hate them earlier. So since we are going to be in conferences and meetings and right marketing to these people, talking to them on social media every single day, maybe we find someone we enjoy working with a little more. Like, yeah, well, and it's not just like the CEO, it's like, it's the team too. Like, you, you're in charge of the morale of your team. And if, right, if you're being like, hey, you know what, we're gonna like, we're gonna bring on these types of clients because they are good for our bottom line. But you're gonna have a lot more client turnover, sorry, more employee turnover, which, in the end, is gonna result in, you know, kind of the,

David Hoos10:41

I think the health of your agency overall kind of disintegrate, you know, I think that, honestly, a big part of the health of your agency is

Chris DuBois10:50

being able to attract good talent and keep talent so that you can keep on delivering good work, right? Yeah, I like Seth godin's definition for culture. People like us do things like this and and when you look at your organization, you're like, Well, this is our culture, and people like us do things like this. We have set a standard, and when we're able to, like, bring on people who raise that standard, now we all have to kind of go up in order to meet it. And it definitely does exactly what you just said. Like you you start producing better work. Everybody rallies behind that. Because they're excited. They're like, look what we just did. And yeah, 100% support that. That message, yeah, absolutely, I think too. Like, one of the things that I've realized kind of about myself and kind of like, why I like doing this type of work, is that I've been in agencies where, like, we've been, we've had good positioning, we've been focused, and it's like everyone was rowing in the same direction. The overall climate was a little more it was, honestly, it was a lot more calm. You know, it was just like things felt more sequential and peaceful. And then I've been in other agencies where it's like, hey, we do like, dozens of things, and we're kind of letting all sorts of custom things come in the front door. And so it's like, everyone's kind of running around with their hair on fire. And like, that's that's a recipe for burnout there, both for the leadership and for the team. And I think, you know, positioning is not just a like a good business idea. I think it's also just like a good health idea, if that makes sense.

David Hoos12:30

Yeah, that's one of the pieces that I have probably the hardest time getting across in like initial conversations, where so many, just so many agencies just think that positioning is like a messaging exercise, like, they don't realize that it goes way deeper within your organization, so that, like, if I give you a certain question, I should have a pretty good idea of, like, what decision you're going to make based on your positioning, right? Like, because that's how you show up, that's how your team shows up. And if we really want to, like, talk differentiation, like, if your culture, like the people within your organization, are operating in a very specific way, it's really hard for someone to copy that, right? They can copy your tech, they can copy your your model, like everything, but they can't just show up and copy your entire teams. It's people, yeah? So absolutely,

Chris DuBois13:18

yeah. I think we're pretty well aligned on this, I guess. What are you seeing for, as far as, like, lead gen, for dev agencies, what's working right now?

David Hoos13:28

Honestly, you know, it's a it's a little bit tricky with

Chris DuBois13:33

AI and all the stuff that's happening there.

David Hoos13:36

I think the biggest thing in, I mean, I know referrals is what everyone's leaning on. But

Chris DuBois13:45

honestly, like, you know, I can talk a little bit about kind of how I approach things, but it's positioning is the foundation. So, like, if I'm talking to an agency and they're doing a range of different things, first step is, like, where do they where are they doing their best work, and for whom? And how do we double down there? And then, where do those people hang out? Right? Like, are they on LinkedIn? Okay, great. Then maybe we can explore posting on LinkedIn.

David Hoos14:13

But if they're not on LinkedIn, it's like, Well, okay, maybe you need to be going to more conferences, you know. Like, it really depends

Chris DuBois14:21

based on what your your target clients are. And then, Have you, have you codified what you do into something where it's easy thing for them to say yes to you know? Have you? Have you structure your offers in such a way that people can,

David Hoos14:40

like say yes to something smaller, and then maybe that said, like,

Chris DuBois14:45

transitions into something larger, if they like what you did initially. And then from there, it's like, if you have that offer targeted on a very specific ICP, well, then you can go and find other vendors or providers that.

David Hoos15:01

Also serve that same ideal client, and you'll be like, Hey, here's, here's, kind of our intro offer, you know, low, low barrier to entry. I'd be happy to promote, you know, your services to our audience. Can we promote our services to your audience and kind of cross pollinate and not be competing with each other at all, and then just, you know, keeping at that. You know, it's not going to just gonna be one partner. It's gonna be partners over time, and you're gonna learn what works and what doesn't within that, and you're gonna iterate. So I would say, you know, they're, you know, cold email might work for one dev agency,

Chris DuBois15:40

and partnerships might work better for another agency. Posting on LinkedIn might be a good one. Interview podcasts. A lot of it comes down to also, like the how the founder or whoever, like is leading, is wired. There's some people who are like, Yeah, I'll happily hop on a podcast. And then there's other folks who are like, there is no way I will. You know, I want to, I don't want to be on a screen, you know, I might write, or I might record my thoughts on audio. And, you know, we can do something with that, but it's a lot of it. I try to tailor the go to market strategy based off of kind of the strengths and weaknesses of the founder, whoever is going to be kind of the face or voice of the agency, yeah, pretty similar to the marketing side.

David Hoos16:29

Well, you've probably seen, like, the number of people who just go to LinkedIn and like posting, like, nothing's happening, it's like, yeah, I wonder why, maybe your audience isn't there, or, like, you're kind of lackluster, like in your delivery, like, no offense, right? You're like, maybe you're just not cut out for LinkedIn. So let's bring someone else in who could do that, or find a different platform where your audience

Chris DuBois16:53

is. So I'm also seeing going back to, like, your AI comment, I'm seeing with a significant amount of my clients, actually, they have their clients coming to them and saying, Well, can't you do this faster or cheaper? And like, granted, this is all like, when, when they're coming into me for the first time, people like, they're getting the AI questions, a lot of like, Why? Why does it cost us much when we have aI out there? It's like, people don't seem to realize that the like, you still have to pick speed, quality or price, like AI can only help with so much. I guess. Are you seeing the same thing in the dev side, where it's like the buyers are not necessarily more educated, but they're more aware of, like, some of the tools out there, and so they're asking questions like that.

David Hoos17:37

Yeah. I mean, I think I've heard of that some. I think the best thing that an agency can do is probably

Chris DuBois17:46

kind of turn that around and educate them. Be like, Hey, you know what? These tools are great, but they're not there yet. Like, these are great for prototyping something that, but it's still going to have, you know, big security issues, like all these sorts of things that a real person, a real engineer, is going to be able to build into it so that your your tool is

David Hoos18:08

not just like, you know, clickable, but it's

Chris DuBois18:12

it can kind of withstand some good Like QA. So I would say,

David Hoos18:19

yeah. I guess

Chris DuBois18:22

maybe educating clients around,

David Hoos18:26

hey, like, let's, let's use this to mock something up, but and maybe validate a little bit of like, make sure that there's market demand for something like this, but not have that be like, yeah, we're not going to build a whole thing using these AI tools.

Chris DuBois18:42

I suppose it could work within your messaging as well. When you educate like, when the all the competition is saying one thing with AI, like, you need AI in this and AI in that, and you can say, well, actually, that's not necessarily the best approach, and you actually have a point of view on that. I can see that being a very strong

David Hoos19:01

push for the people who just get it, who are tired of hearing that same message, yeah. Or even, like,

Chris DuBois19:08

you know, if you focus in particular verticals, you know, say you do AI stuff in your dev agencies. Like, well, you know, it's one thing to just say that. I mean, honestly, a lot of that, it's table stakes. Now, like, well, almost every dev agency wants to, you know, include AI somehow in their messaging. But it's like, well, that doesn't mean much if you're just still saying you like, work for anyone. You know, we'll make apps for anyone, and they'll be aI ready or something. It's like, well, no, what if you say,

David Hoos19:41

like, we help create secure healthcare apps or something, you know, like, I know it's a bad example, but

Chris DuBois19:49

just being more specific with the audience and kind of the problems that are specific to that industry, then maybe you can speak a little a little more specific.

David Hoos20:00

Specificity about where the AI can provide real benefit, not just be like,

Chris DuBois20:06

you know, a little doodad that you're attaching onto an app, and that's the key, right? When you can find a problem that you can provide the solution for. Now, people actually care about the solution, not just, you know, the hours and the cost and everything, they basically see their problems say, Yeah, I need what you have. And so it doesn't matter. Like, I mean, the cost obviously matters at some point, but the but it matters less, and then just like, a bucket of hours that they're trying to pay for in order to get something done. Yeah, that's another thing that's really hard, I think in the dev agency space, is value

David Hoos20:41

based pricing versus,

Chris DuBois20:44

like, outcome based pricing, or basically some other pricing model, like, that's a very foreign thing. There's so many dev agencies. It's like, oh yeah, we do time and materials. It's like, this is how much

David Hoos20:57

a junior Dev is. Here's how much a senior Dev is, you know. And then they just turn around and they'll sell it like that to their clients.

Chris DuBois21:04

But I think

David Hoos21:06

given my marketing background and content background, I think that's kind of like saying, Oh, I'm going to hire somebody to write an article, and they're going to get paid by the word it's like, well, you're going to get something that's really, really verbose and wordy, because the more wordy they are, the more money they make. Incentivized, yeah, so it's like, you don't have matched incentives that way. I think,

Chris DuBois21:30

you know, set up your incentive. So it's like, Hey, you want to build

David Hoos21:36

an app that is, you know, $100,000

Chris DuBois21:41

app that, you know, that can make you that much? Well, we can build it for 10,000 like, that's good ROI, right there, you know. Or we can build you a million dollar app for 100,000 like, as long as the math works out, you know, and you as an agency can figure out, okay, yeah, we can build it for this price, these ways, and we're confident in that, I

David Hoos22:05

think that's a much better way to kind of back into a pricing model. I honestly, I think we'll see a lot more of that with AI, because

Chris DuBois22:14

people are gonna realize, oh, you know what? Like, if we just say, we do things by hour, by the hour, we're gonna commodify ourselves, and we're going to, you know, it's to the bottom,

David Hoos22:25

yeah, when I imagine clients are going to say, well, I could code this with AI, right? Like, give it do, was it vibe coding, right? And then, just then pay someone to just come in and clean it up. And now I'm going to pay way less because they're spending time just cleaning rather than writing it from scratch,

Chris DuBois22:42

when, in reality, that's probably still not the best approach, because you don't have, like, an expert creating the strategy, making sure they're, you know, the right framework and infrastructure is there, and then building that out. Yeah, I mean, that's, I feel like that's kind of dangerous too, because it's like, you know, going in, like, being like, well, I could, I can go buy all the stuff for building a house from Home Depot, and I'll start putting things together so it looks like a house from the outside. And then I'll have somebody come in and, like an architect, actually come in and, you know, fix it retroactively. It's like that might actually end up being more expensive, you know, right? And so I think you have to kind of start with, and maybe that's a good way to for dev agencies, to describe it as like, Hey, we're not going to start from the outside in. We need to start from the inside out. Like, what are the requirements that you have? And let's make sure that we're engineering and architecting this thing well, from the foundation on up, not from like, the outside in, right? Yeah. I imagine, once you accidentally remove one of the retaining walls and like, inside your house or a support column or something, it's like, yeah, it's gone. So

David Hoos23:54

what? What metrics, I guess, are you looking at from a marketing perspective when you're trying to help the clients build

Chris DuBois24:01

pipeline? Honestly? Like, the biggest thing this is something that I learned a while back from one of my first agency jobs, was that

David Hoos24:11

the really, really, the only metric that matters is qualified conversations. So, yeah, you can get people who fill out a form, you know, download a ebook, or whatever it is.

Chris DuBois24:26

But I think, you know, there's a lot of ways to gamify or like to gain that system, and that, like provoke produces kind of false lead metrics

David Hoos24:37

and qualified conversations is, more of, like, the, you know, after you've kind of filtered through all the stuff that wasn't that good, like, this is what really matters. And so

Chris DuBois24:49

I'm a big proponent of kind of making main thing the main thing. And that means, like, okay, what are the characteristics of those

David Hoos24:59

leads that.

Chris DuBois25:00

Became qualified conversations. Where did they come from?

David Hoos25:04

Like, what did they engage with? What are their pain points like, kind of really understanding those leads more than just anyone who kind of fits a broader profile,

Chris DuBois25:15

and starting there now, I think you know from there, you can back into some other sort of leading indicator metrics, like, you know, if it turns out that a lot of those folks are coming from an email list, or a lot of those folks are, you know, coming from LinkedIn, it's like, okay, well, you can have some sort of develop some leading indicators that make sense for that. You know, it's like, okay, well, let's get our opt in numbers higher, if it's if email is working really well for you, and let's, let's get our actual engagement for our newsletter higher. You know, let's figure out ways to optimize that. Does

David Hoos25:55

that make sense? Yeah,

Chris DuBois25:59

no. And I can appreciate the simplification of picking that one metric that you want to target and qualify conversations is is ultimately it right. The more conversations you have with the right people like, the better off you are, because even if you don't close them as new business, you're likely going to learn something through that conversation that helps with everything else.

David Hoos26:19

I I grew up, I guess, in the agency space, in a HubSpot agency. And so I always use, we have, you know, lead, well, sessions, leads, MQLs, SQL opportunities, then customers. And in some ways it was great, because I could see where people were falling off. And so now it's like, well, we know we, you know, we're losing SQLs, which means it's probably our booking page, which, which means we got to do X, Y and Z, but in my own business, was like, Do I really need all these things? Like, really, I just need to get on stage and then have conversations and, like, if I do those two things, everything else seems to be working. And so, yeah, the simplifying of the metrics, I think, is something probably more agency should just be considering, like, what is that one thing that focusing on this will actually help you get the result you're after? Yeah, I think, honestly, it seems like it's a little bit of a symptom of,

Chris DuBois27:13

like, in the in the B to B marketing world, there's a lot of SaaS marketing tactics that have bled into Agency Marketing. And so I think, like, I think the metrics that you mentioned are maybe one example of that where it's like, oh yeah, we have to have these, you know, five stages, when in reality, it's like, maybe it's like two or three max for most agencies. And we're over complicating it because it is more of a relationship and expertise driven industry, not, you know, a low ticket, you know, $30 a month software tool,

David Hoos27:53

yeah, well, and I think that's, that's, I think this is one of the results of martech Just having such an influence over everything. And so like, HubSpot metric, if you were a Salesforce agency, you're probably paying attention to those metrics more. And yeah, it's like they're ingrained in my head. I just, it's like, I don't want to use them, but I'm still thinking about them even. And so, yeah, it's an interesting, interesting concept.

Chris DuBois28:22

So all right, as we start winding down here, what? What would you say, looking at we're recording this January, 2026, for everybody who's listening,

David Hoos28:33

what would you say leads to be like 8020 for this year, for dev agencies to just stay on top of their pipeline to nail it. What is that one thing that they should be working on?

Chris DuBois28:45

I would say, no matter how uncomfortable it is,

David Hoos28:49

finding ways to proactively

Chris DuBois28:53

build new relationships. I'm a big fan of podcasts,

David Hoos28:58

but it can also be things like going to relevant conferences, not conferences where your peers are, the conferences where your best fit clients are. That's another thing I see in dev agency space. It's like, hey, we went to this, you know, this industry conference where there's a bunch of other

Chris DuBois29:14

developers all hanging out because we're talking about a particular language or something. It's like, no, no. That's not going to be helpful for you?

David Hoos29:23

So I'd say, yeah, just basically,

Chris DuBois29:27

really focusing on building relationships.

David Hoos29:31

And yeah, I mean, I think that's, that's so key. There's, there's been so much change over the last, let's say, five years. You know, with the pandemic, everything went online. Then people kind of got burnt out on all the online only things. Now we have aI so it's like, what's real, what's not real. And I think, quite frankly, people know that you're real if you're in person, you know, or that, if, like, they can look at you face to face, like I know you're.

Chris DuBois30:00

Real, you know, you're not AI generated, at least not yet. So maybe,

David Hoos30:06

but, yeah, you know, I'm saying, like, I think, especially when people are going to be spending a good amount of money to invest in agency services, they want to trust the person on the other end and know that, you know, know their expertise and that they're relevant to their problems. And so I think the more you can,

Chris DuBois30:27

I don't know, use methods that kind

David Hoos30:31

of show that you're just another human being, that's going to be huge.

Chris DuBois30:37

Yeah, there's definitely a trust gap that's being opened, and because of it, I'm bullish on live events, on like, whether in person or just digital, like live events, so people can actually engage with you, and they know you're not, you aren't a robot.

David Hoos30:53

But we'll see they'll take over eventually, and then we'll just be there. They're peons, whatever they need. So,

Chris DuBois31:01

all right, last two questions as we as we wrap up here, what book do you recommend every agency owner should read?

David Hoos31:10

Honestly, the one that kind of got me passionate about this in the first place is one called Built to Sell.

Chris DuBois31:19

I think it's, it's probably one of the good foundational ones

David Hoos31:25

it, I actually think the example, it's meant for broader businesses, but it's, I think the example in it was an agency that was trying to do too many things, and so it's a great place to start.

Chris DuBois31:37

Yeah, I like so I had someone. I recommend them. I booked someone before, and they said, Yeah, but I'm not interested in selling. And it's like, yeah, but this is one of those things that if you just do, if you prepare to sell, your life gets better, like, one you get the option of selling, but it's like, to have a business that is sellable also means that your operations are cleaner, right? You got, like, more consistent pipeline. You're just doing all the right things. So it's like, why would you not take those steps? Yeah, it's really just like, you're you're streamlining your agency, is kind of what that book talks about, and focusing it. And I think those things are, I think

David Hoos32:17

the agencies that have figured that out have a lot less stress, and the agencies that have not figured that out are still pulling their hair out. You know, yep, it'll be a rough year for them.

Chris DuBois32:28

Last question is, where can people find you?

David Hoos32:32

Probably the best places are on LinkedIn, a lot, so

Chris DuBois32:39

just David Ho's last name spelled H, O, O, S and house advisors.com. Is my website, so H, A, U, S, advisors, all one word.com,

David Hoos32:52

awesome. We'll get all those linked up in the show notes. But thanks for joining me. Man, this fun. Yeah, this is fun talking shop. I know this is kind of also your world, and so it's fun to you know, know that we're both kind of seeing some of the same things from different vantage points. Yeah, it definitely helps to know that you're not just the crazy guy who's like, thank you so much. But Awesome, man, we'll speak soon. Yeah, sounds great. Thanks again.