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Marketing School - Digital Marketing and Online Marketing Tips

75,000 Person Agency is Doomed

Marketing School - Digital Marketing and Online Marketing Tips

Eric Siu and Neil Patel

Careers, Business, Marketing

4.61.3K Ratings

🗓️ 22 October 2025

⏱️ 25 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode, Eric and Neil discuss why the penalty for "average" has never been more severe and how leveraging AI can dramatically increase efficiency and margins. They share firsthand hiring insights from agency giants, reveal lead and MQL trends, and explain why only 1% of companies truly benefit from AI. Plus, they debate the real impact of AI on agency growth, value-based pricing, and what it takes to close bigger B2B contracts. Tune in for hard data, actionable takeaways, and advice for adapting your skills in the changing landscape. TIMESTAMPS (00:00) Why “average” is getting penalized in the AI era (08:40) Lead and MQL trends: what the downturn means (18:15) Agency giants on adapting (or failing) with AI (28:50) Does AI actually drive more revenue for agencies? (41:30) Rethinking value-based pricing in B2B contracts 𝗔𝗕𝗢𝗨𝗧 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗡𝗡𝗘𝗟 Welcome to Marketing School, one of the top business podcasts with over 61 million downloads. Each episode delivers actionable marketing tips and strategies from two entrepreneurs who truly practice what they preach. The show is hosted by Eric Siu, founder of Leveling Up and Single Grain, and Neil Patel, co-founder of Neil Patel Digital and recognized by Forbes as a Top 10 Marketer. LEARN MORE ABOUT THE HOSTS   Eric Siu – Leveling Up: https://www.youtube.com/@LevelingUpOfficial   Neil Patel: https://www.youtube.com/@neilpatel   FREE RESOURCES   Growth Newsletter: https://levelingup.beehiiv.com/subscribe   Ubersuggest: https://www.ubersuggest.com/   Answer The Public: https://www.answerthepublic.com/

Transcript

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0:00.0

The penalty for average has never been so severe.

0:02.1

So what do you mean by this?

0:03.0

Here.

0:04.0

Okay.

0:05.0

So, Wall Street Journal tweeted this out, not tweeted it's out, they wrote this. It says, why AI will widen the gap between superstars and everybody else. Workplace tensions and resentment will rise if top performers benefit more than everyone else from artificial intelligence tools. But there are things companies can do to level the playing field. So this person, Signal, signal tweeted, the penalty for being average has never been so severe, but the payout for being extraordinary has never been higher. And when you look at some of the things that you're talking about right now, okay, how do you reduce that rate from 60% error rate to maybe like 10, 15% or something? You're probably leveraging some technology. Yes. To help you with that, right? I look at the speed in which we can, you know, the fact that with Clickflow,

0:43.2

our internal SEO tool, initially it was saving our team 20 hours individually per month, right?

0:49.3

Now it's saving 55 hours per month per individual. And then now if we're going to add in these

0:53.7

other workflows, it's going to save an additional 30 to 40 hours a month. And so that means our people, that means gross margins are going to go up. And that means that people that know how to leverage these tools are these products, even our internal product, they're becoming way more efficient. But there's also people on the team that aren't using this stuff, right? So that's why the penalty for being average has never been so severe, but the payout for being extraordinary has never been higher because we as business owners would be stupid not to reward these people if they're becoming 10x or 100 X of themselves. Yeah. Do you want me to, I agree with you on this. Do you want me to get you the lead breakdown? Do it.

1:27.8

Do you want to go back to 625, 625 is what, June?

1:33.9

June.

1:35.1

June was 8,345.

1:38.0

July was 7,549.

1:40.3

Uh-huh.

1:40.9

These are just MQLs.

1:43.1

Eight is August.

1:44.6

So August is 8,018.

1:47.3

September is 8,802.

1:49.8

Okay.

1:51.4

October is 3,703.

1:55.3

The month isn't over yet, but it says pacing for forecasts, because it predicts how much we'll get this month.

1:59.8

It says 6551.51 okay so it's down

2:02.2

it's down yeah so 8800 minus 6600 is that what it is 8802 uh-huh uh it says L-AW average what's L8W

...

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