A Conversation Between Frankie Fihn and Dennis About the Content Factory

Dennis got on a call with Frankie Fihn, owner of Beyond Agency Profits, where he explained his whole process and how agencies like Frankie’s can benefit from it. Here is the condensed version of that conversation.

The Content Factory Explained

Dennis explains that the Content Factory is organized into four phases. He says that the first one, producing content, is the toughest part because it’s the client who has to create the content. It is why Dennis created training on how to do one-minute videos and set up the camera and sound the right way so that the client is guided accordingly. 

After the client produces the content, Dennis and his team will take care of the other three phases, which include processing the content using tools such as Descript. His team seldom uses tools such as Adobe Premier and After Effects because those are only used for transitions, motion graphics, and video editing.

It is crucial to set expectations right from the start so that it’s clear to the client that the content will not come from them.

Right after, Frankie mentions that his biggest bottleneck is figuring out how to get the stuff processed right from processing up to distribution. He also assumes that Dennis and his team use Jasper a lot.

Dennis agrees that Jasper can do a lot of things and is very helpful but says that you still need a human working in the background because Jasper is unable to do other things like rewrite a transcript from a long-form video, for example.

He adds that this is also where a lot of virtual assistants (VAs) stumble because although it’s easy to master tools such as Jasper and Descript, whoever is working on repurposing has to understand headlines, content, and copywriting to some degree.

Dennis continues to explain that the last stage, promotion, is where Dollar-a-Day is applied. And they use this to find the winners, the greatest hits, which become the top pieces of content. They run ads on those indefinitely.

Building Relationships Is at the Heart of It

Frankie explains that was quite a bit of a revelation to him. He says that what he appreciates about it all once he realized it is that this is all about building relationships at scale. He further explains that relationships aren’t made on a single ad. He uses Sam Ovens as an example. 

Sam has over 800 ads that people see every day. That’s his content distribution system. It’s not apparent to people, but that’s his version of Dollar-a-Day where it’s not just one successful ad but lots of them that have populated people’s newsfeeds for a long time.

Frankie shares that it made him realize that if someone launches campaigns that come from multiple angles, it builds relationships faster without needing to change creatives often. Having lots of ads makes it easy to test to find the winners.

Dennis agrees that having a massive evergreen library is much better than coming up with a new idea every week. Unless you’re a pickup artist trying to say something new every time, it’s unnecessary.

Dennis suggests borrowing or reusing templates so that you don’t have to have a bunch of major media. You don’t have to be a big-time speaker, digital marketer, or bestselling author. You don’t even have to know everyone in a particular industry.

Dennis sees that people get the tactical or technical side of things, such as using the tools, running ads, and targeting. But they don’t realize that it is all about relationship building at scale. He adds that he has been teaching and preaching about the Topic Wheel for more than 20 years.

He says that you should consider what you stand for. As for him, he’s known as the million jobs guy. The challenge is, how does he make it happen? How is he going to create a million jobs? It seems like a BHAG or a Big Hairy Audacious Goal for anyone, not just Dennis.

The right way to do it is to partner with people like Ryan Deiss, Michael Stelzner, or Al Casey, who carry more authority. For example, Dennis is very experienced in hiring people since he’s been doing it for many years. But getting with someone like Al Casey, who has managed an army of employees at American Airlines, is even better.

Dennis is also known as an educator since he’s been training and coaching people for a long time. But when he works with someone like Dr. Karen Freberg, the top professor who teaches other professors how to do social media, that carries more weight.

And because Dennis has built a massive library of content, he has a lot of stuff published in multiple channels. It’s easier to find winners when you have something like that to test. From there, he will find hits. With those, he doesn’t have to do anything except let them continue to run using Dollar-a-Day.

It frees him from constantly having to create more content because his topic wheel doesn’t follow a calendar. It’s based on evergreen relationships. If people only understood this concept, digital marketing would be simpler. It will also set the right expectations. If you build a foundation with credible people who says good things about you and you can reciprocate with sincerity, you build mutual relationships.

Dennis also shares that he has the number one bestselling book on social media on Amazon, co-authored by Perry Marshall, who is the top seller of online marketing books. The thing is, they didn’t write the book. It was a ton of interviews with people who are successful on TikTok.

Dennis’ team repurposed them into a book. They’ve been running Dollar-a-Day on it ever since they published it. He explains that this is the four phases of the Content Factory executed repeatedly.

What Dennis Thinks About Cold Outreach

Frankie then shares how he’s seen agencies that do cold outreach, that is, reaching out to strangers and delivering a pitch. There is a preconceived idea that the customer journey starts with outreach and that there is a magic script that instantly turns unbelievers into believers. However, he knows this isn’t true. It’s more about opening a door that starts a relationship.

Dennis says this cold outreach Dream 100 strategy is wrong from the start. It only pollutes the agency owner with wrong ideas. He believes an agency owner should start with authority, just like a surgeon in the emergency room carries more authority than a used car salesperson.

People go to surgeons because they need medical help. People don’t try to negotiate with them or argue about the price because they trust the surgeon, and it’s inbound. They come to you and not the other way around.

People would say to Dennis, “That’s easy for you to say because you already have authority. I don’t because I’m not well-known. I have to go door-to-door to find clients. Otherwise, I can’t pay my bills.” Dennis says that way of thinking is absolutely wrong because it reinforces the belief that they don’t have authority.

Dennis also shares that during an Infusionsoft Conference, someone approached him and arrogantly said, “Hey, go ahead and sell me. Here’s your opportunity to try to make some money. Go ahead and sell me your packages.”

Dennis replied, “Hey, man. With all due respect, I am not here to sell anything to anybody. If you like what I discussed on stage, I welcome you to check it out. And if you have any questions, I will be happy to answer them.”

The old guy replied, “Dude, you are terrible at sales. If you were good at it, you would jump at this opportunity because I could turn into a customer.”

Dennis, keeping his composure, said, “No offense, but there are lots of people who want to work with us. I can’t afford to take on more clients now, to be honest, because we already have more than we can handle, and a lot more want us to work with them.” For Dennis, the two biggest things on his list are hiring and training so that he can meet the demand.

Dennis is not here to convince people to buy something, just like how the hospital is not there to convince you that you’re in pain. Many people need help with their digital marketing. If they want help, Dennis will help them. If they don’t want any help, Dennis is not going to waste his time chasing after them.

Frankie shares that when he started in 2016, he wanted to focus on lawyers but didn’t know one. So he searched on Google to find the top lawyers on the planet. It’s when he discovered Morgan & Morgan, the largest law firm in the personal injury space.

He cold-pitched to the firm, and that got him an interview slot. It amazed him because he was a nobody. He had no following, podcast, show, or proof of anything. Nobody knew who he was. That reinforced his belief that it’s possible to connect with the big players even when you’re unknown. That interview paved the way for him. Now, he is known in this space.

Find Your LIGHTHOUSE

Dennis says that’s the way of thinking that the agency owner needs to understand. If an agency wants to dominate the personal injury space, it should find the LIGHTHOUSE for that category.

He further explains that a LIGHTHOUSE is someone best known in a category. So if it’s real estate, get with the number one real estate agent. That is what the inception model is about, the dream inside the dream, like playing chess multiple steps ahead.

And when you have content about a real estate LIGHTHOUSE talking with you about how to do digital marketing, other real estate agents will pay attention. However, as powerful as it is, if you don’t repurpose the content, post it on multiple channels, and boost it, you will not get mileage from it.

Build Authority

Then, Dennis shows Frankie a video of Perry Marshall, where he explained his if-then-else model. While that was impressive, Dennis explains that it was not what Perry mentioned that Dennis wanted to show.

It was that random moment while eating Mexican food when Perry happened to drop that nugget of wisdom, and Dennis took advantage of it by asking Perry to repeat what he just said on camera. When you capture moments like this and run them through the Content Factory, that’s when the magic begins.

Dennis further asks Frankie to look at the bigger picture. As an agency owner, he should collect content to build authority because it’s based on relationships.

Dennis also adds that he’s spending 90% of his time uplifting people. He’s not focusing on himself but on the other person instead. He’s congratulating them on their success and sharing the knowledge that these people are demonstrating.

When other people talk about seeing great results from what you teach them, that’s more authoritative. It’s way better than you trying to convince the world how great you are by announcing your accomplishments.

Build Relationships

One day, Darryl Isaacs, a well-known attorney in the personal injury space, flew into town. Dennis sent him a pair of personalized socks, and soon after, Darryl sent him a video thanking him for the kind gesture.

Darryl didn’t mention anything about Dennis’ expertise. He just thanked him for the wonderful gift. Dennis explains to Frankie how this is more powerful than telling everybody how good he is as a digital marketer.

Then, Dennis shows a post to Frankie where he commented on one of Darryl’s posts, and Darryl reciprocated by showing appreciation. This conversation had nothing to do with Darryl being a lawyer or his expertise in the personal injury space.

Dennis adds that while it’s always good to demonstrate expertise, building relationships is more important. Clients will choose you primarily because of mutual relationships more than anything else. That is way more powerful.

He also explains that there’s nothing new in what he’s doing. Relationship building has existed long before the invention of the Internet. He just took that and ran it through the Content Factory to get the most out of it and make it visible.

And when you have content like this, and you amplify it, you will never have to look for clients because they will come looking for you. Dennis says that he never had to do an outbound call, cold outreach, or ask to speak at a conference. Clients come to him because of these relationships.

The Dollar-a-Day strategy is effective at driving leads, but Dennis says that the smart approach is to use it to uplift high-authority content created with other people. It is what he did for people like Ken Hardison and Darryl Isaacs. He even spent personal money to do PR for them.

Frankie shows appreciation for what Dennis shared with him, which gave him more clarity about what he has to do to get his agency to the next level. Dennis explains that he’s here to help other agency owners struggling to generate leads.

Many agency owners think that their biggest problem is generating leads. Dennis says that his team can instantly solve that. The bigger challenge is building authority, where most agencies fail. If you don’t have connections, partner with other people who do.

The If-Then-Else Proposition

And to all those agencies that come to Dennis asking for leads such as home services, real estate, mortgage, personal injury attorneys, chiropractors, dentists, etc., Dennis says, practice what we preach, then we’ll help you. Show that you are making one-minute videos about the Dollar-a-Day strategy, the Content Factory, how you do SEO, etc.

Dennis adds that he created the Conquer Local Academy, the most in-depth training for any agency owner, with the help of Brendan King, founder of Vendasta. It is free and shows agency owners how to grow to seven-figure agencies. Anyone who wants to grow their agency will benefit from the training. It is pure gold!

If these agency owners go through this training and take action, then Dennis will give them leads. Dennis has more leads in many categories than he knows what to do with them. Taking action means doing it the right way, the way the steps are shown in the training.

People may think that there’s a catch. Dennis explains that many people have already gone through it, but very few went all the way. Even so, Dennis is happy to partner with those select few because he knows that these people can and will deliver.

And to everyone else who is willing to put in the time and effort to achieve success, Dennis says he will generate leads for them. He’s willing to do a revenue share for as long as he can see that the agency can deliver.

The Revelation

Dennis says most agency owners have a scarcity mindset dwelling on not having enough leads. He explains that he’s the opposite of that. Dennis has an abundance mindset. He appreciates that he has all these leads, and he wants to send these leads to other agencies that can deliver.

That may sound unbelievable, but Dennis reveals that he wants to leave the agency business. However, he’s only going to send leads to the right agencies and the right people. He says, “We send them business because we know they can execute. We know how they track and can see the results. We uplift them because they deserve it.”

He says that he loves uplifting their results which helps grow their brand. It’s the best way to use Dennis powerfully, and he loves being a part of that. He only works with people that he likes, people with the right vibe.

Dennis is not motivated by money. You can’t impress him with your net worth or reputation. Dennis has designed his life around people who are a pleasure to work with, and the funny thing is, he’s making more money this way than he would be as a struggling agency owner, saying yes to everything and booking as many calls as he can.

Retention Matters

Before ending the call, Dennis shares that his friend, Tony Ricketts, who runs Lawnline Marketing in Tampa, is a seven-figure agency owner with no salespeople. Surprisingly, his agency keeps on growing in spite of that.

He is growing at 50% every month because he can retain 99% of his clients. He sells higher ticket packages of $34,000 a month. His retention is so high that he doesn’t need new clients. But new clients keep coming because of his stellar reputation in the industry.

He can close two to three new clients every month without a team. He does it all by himself. That’s the way to run a business. We should all be striving for that kind of success! And for most agency owners who say they need more clients, their problem is client churn, not acquisition.

Dennis Shares a Secret

Dennis tells Frankie that agency owners may be good at selling and getting on calls but probably sucks at fulfillment, the most crucial part. Dennis reveals that he has a list of white-label fulfillment partners that do the work for the agency as the agency.

It is crucial because when you have the right fulfillment partners, you will never have to worry about doing the work. However, it’s not that simple. The agency still has to have a process that integrates with the package. If the strategic components are missing, it won’t matter.

So all those interested agency owners can reach out to Dennis or Frankie to get the list of fulfillment partners. Just know that having these partners in your pocket is not enough. Other pieces also come into play.