What Chris talks about
Six talks agency owners actually remember.
Every talk comes with the stories, the exercise, and the hooks already built. You pick the one that fits your audience and I show up ready to make it land.
Delivery Drag: Why Marketing Stops Every Time the Work Picks Up, and the Cadence That Survives It
Every agency owner in the room has done this. They land three projects, marketing goes on pause, and four months later the pipeline is empty and nobody can point to the moment it broke.
What it covers. The predictable points where marketing gets cut, why "we'll restart when things calm down" never actually arrives, and a way to keep something running through the busiest stretch without stealing hours from delivery.
Your audience leaves with. A marketing rhythm built to survive their busiest month, not just their best one.
Marketing didn't die because it wasn't working. It died because a client had a deadline and marketing didn't have one.
Podcast · Keynote · Workshop
Where Your Buyers Already Gather: The Five-Room Map for Agencies Living on Referrals
Referrals close faster and prove the work is good, which is why the agencies living on them keep marketing at the bottom of the list until the referrals dry up. This session replaces "we should do more marketing" with a named list of places their buyers are standing right now.
What it covers. How to name the exact places their buyers already gather, how to tell a real room from a platform they're only hoping works, and how to size the effort against a revenue goal instead of guessing at volume.
Your audience leaves with. A short list of rooms their buyers are already standing in, and a first move into one of them this week.
Most agencies pick a platform and hope the buyer is somewhere inside it. Find the room first and the platform picks itself.
Podcast · Keynote · Workshop
The 11 Levers: Provable Ways to Be Different When "We Do Better Work" Isn't One
"We do better work" is the most common answer to "what makes you different," and no buyer can check it. This session hands the room eleven alternatives they can prove, sorted into the three buckets a real position needs.
What it covers. Why quality claims cancel each other out, the categories a position actually needs to stand on, and how to pick the handful of differentiators they can hold for years instead of the eleven they mention once.
Your audience leaves with. An honest read on where they're actually different, and the gap that's quietly costing them.
Better is a claim and a guarantee is a decision. Buyers can only check one of those.
Podcast · Keynote · Workshop
Score the Field: How to Map Your Market and Find the Lever Nobody Has Claimed
Most agency owners either ignore their competitors or copy them, and both roads end at sounding the same as everyone else. This is the exercise version of the levers talk, so the two pair well without repeating each other.
What it covers. Which rivals are actually worth studying (it isn't the ones they'd guess), how to read a market on evidence instead of feel, and how to spot the position nobody around them has claimed.
Your audience leaves with. A first pass at their own market map, and the opening their closest rivals have all left on the table.
You can't tell whether you're different until you've written down what everyone else already said.
Podcast · Keynote · Workshop
Positioning Is a Trade: What You Have to Give Up to Become the Obvious Choice
Your audience already knows what they should be doing. This session goes after the reason it hasn't happened yet, and it lands as relief rather than a scolding.
What it covers. Why every real position is something given up, the trades owners refuse most often, and how a refused trade hides inside a plateau that looks like a marketing problem.
Your audience leaves with. A clear look at the trade their next level is asking for, and what saying yes to it really costs.
If you're stuck, you're usually not missing a tactic. You're refusing a trade.
Keynote · Workshop · Podcast
Volume Before Polish: Why "Fix Retention First" Is the Wrong Advice Under $1M
Every operator your audience follows says plug the leaks before you pour more in. Chris argues the opposite for agencies under a million, and he can defend it.
What it covers. Why the "fix your leaks first" advice backfires under a million, what volume actually buys you, and the signal that tells them whether they've got a quality problem or a volume one.
Your audience leaves with. A straight read on which problem they're actually solving for, and what has to be true before the popular advice starts working.
At sub-$1M the bucket isn't leaky. It's almost empty, and you can't see the leaks until you fill it.
Podcast · Keynote · Panel
Need something else? Tell me the topic your audience is stuck on and I'll build the talk around it. Start here.
