Dennis Yu

6 agency mistakes that result in client failure (with Alex Berman)

Alex Berman (L) of Cold Email, Leadshark & Taplio With Dennis Yu, CEO of Content Factory

About Dennis Yu and Alex Berman

Dennis Yu, the Chief Technology Officer at yourcontentfactory.com Chats with Alex Berman from Cold Email, Leadshark, and Taplio about what agencies get wrong. Content Factory is a digital marketing company that partners with schools to train the youth. Dennis’ specialty is Facebook ads and mentorship. In this interview, Dennis shares how he grew and continues to grow his digital marketing company. Alex Berman is a successful Youtube Creator, lead investor at A&R Ventures, and founder of Leadshark, Taplio, X27, and more. 

Young employees – the elephant in the room

Agencies are composed of a lot of young adults, especially in New York. They’re hustling, working hard, saving money, and most importantly making sacrifices. We can see three of them sharing this tiny little one-bedroom thing because they want to be in Manhattan. Same thing in San Francisco. As an industry, we should be open about it. After all, we’ve got kids too! And we’ve got smart kids and you’ve got smart kids. However, this is not a comparison of who’s got smarter people.

It’s about the process more than people

We all have smart people, but we should have a process that we must be transparent about. And we hold ourselves accountable to a checklist. So, if you’ve got an agency working on stuff, the first question to ask is – where’s your checklist? Clients should insist on wanting to see it.  And if an agency doesn’t have one, the clients are going to question whether you have repeatable excellence. A client can also doubt whether you can scale getting the same thing done. Furthermore, now the clients know that the agency is not lying to them. It has a transparent process and most clients know what is going on.

Creative freedom for clients is a must

Having a process in place, also allows for creative freedom and transparency for a client. At Content Factory, Dennis harnesses the power of analytics. He allows the client complete creative freedom, whatever their niches, whatever funny video they have, whatever thing they have on TV. They’re so proud of their content. Daddy has got their latest Superbowl commercial. Awesome! You guys be as creative as you want! Creative freedom also amplifies to the different audiences the different projects that an agency may have worked on in the past. And ones that it thinks will work in the future based on what they observe or maybe it’s a lookalike audience. So, at Content Factory Dennis will amplify the content that they create. And that is how they have a creative agency that is awesome at everything they do. May it be SEO or advising clients on using free Google Tools.

Dennis Yu (L) with Alex Berman 

Three rules that are the holy grail of client satisfaction

At Content Factory, rule number one is the client makes all the content. They do not make their content, just don’t. The number two rule at Content Factory is that all the data is owned by the client. Most agencies, on the other hand, hold the client hostage because the ads are running via their account. It’s hard to figure out what’s going on. You can’t switch because if you try to switch, you lose all the audiences and all such kinds of bad things. The third and final rule at Content Factory is that the process should be followed based on a checklist. They execute checklists on ads and analytics and amplify what they are working on for the client. Processes put in place at Content Factory have helped clients with business and digital PR strategies. With these three easy rules, the benefit for agencies is that they can double their prices.

Believe in yourselves and work with the right kind of client

Dennis believes that agencies should believe in themselves – unapologetically, and in what they are selling. They must believe that they are worth a lot. And even if their stuff is shoddy, let’s say the quality stays the same. Agencies think, well if I double my prices, I must double my quality. Not really the clients that pay you more are the ones that treat you better.

There are clients that we do very little for and they pay us an embarrassing amount of money, but they see the value. Because all it takes is a few tweaks and that’s worth millions of dollars. This is all I got, I got $500 a month. I expect magic. And they’re going to call you up like three times a day. No right? So, the first thing agencies must do is double their prices so that they can talk to a different kind of client.

Competition vs partnership

And then there is competition. Dennis says that they’re not out there trying to compete against other people. In fact, the other people that do Facebook ads, they’re his friends, and they often come to them for help. And Dennis goes to them for help on certain things like, for example, professional sports teams and retail and big brands, events, B2B, SAS, etc. So, competition turns into partnership leading to referrals.

Alex Berman (L) with Dennis Yu


Dennis Yu

Dennis Yu is co-author of the #1 best selling book on Amazon in social media, The Definitive Guide to TikTok Ads. He has spent a billion dollars on Facebook ads across his agencies and agencies he advises. Mr. Yu is the "million jobs" guy-- on a mission to create one million jobs via hands-on social media training, partnering with universities and professional organizations. You can find him quoted in major publications and on television such as CNN, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, NPR, and LA Times. Clients have included Nike, Red Bull, the Golden State Warriors, Ashley Furniture, Quiznos-- down to local service businesses like real estate agents and dentists. He's spoken at over 750 conferences in 20 countries, having flown over 6 million miles in the last 30 years to train up young adults and business owners. He speaks for free as long as the organization believes in the job-creation mission and covers business class travel. You can find him hiking tall mountains, eating chicken wings, and taking Kaqun oxygen baths-- likely in a city near you.
I'm a member of Blitzmetrics Academy and a friend of Dennis to boot. Not only is Dennis highly intelligent and full of great and creative ideas, he's also incredibly generous with both his knowledge and his time. Success couldn't come to a better guy. Thank you for all that you do for the world, Dennis! 🙏

Michael Pacheco

Marketer

Thanks 🙏 for being shining light in this industry. Love what your building for works overseas too network for jobs so innovative. Dennis helped me navigate having bad experiences with marketing agencies and doing dollar a day marketing which has helped my personal brand tremendously. Highly recommend.

Eric Skeldon

Founder at Kingdom Broker

Working with Dennis has been a delightful experience. After meeting him in 2015 I got to collaborate with him on countless occasions. His understanding for state-of-the-art marketing, his implementation, and his leadership put him into the top 0.01% of marketers and mentors.

Jan Koch

Ihr kompetenter Partner für innovative KI-Strategien.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Dennis for my podcast in 2021 and since then we have maintained a friendship that grows with each interaction. I have seen Dennis' devotion to his friends and clients firsthand, and our conversations often result in us talking about how we can provide more value to the people around us. He is someone whom I can ask questions on a technical level, and look to on a personal level. If you have any hesitancy about hiring him, get over yourself and do it!

Isaac Mashman

Help scaling personal brands.

Geez, where do I start recommending Dennis? First, he is an absolutely brilliant marketer who understands where marketing is today and where it's going tomorrow. He also has an incredible passion for the International Worker community. The lessons he has taught me from his almost 20 years of experience hiring International Workers have been immense. Most importantly though. Dennis Yu is someone who wants the absolute best for you and is willing to tell you the truth. Dennis sat with me at a point in my business where I was floundering but did not want to admit it. He asked some very straight forward questions to get me to admit my issues, highlighted the issues, and then helped me create a roadmap to success.

Atiba de Souza

International Keynote Speaker | Video Content Superman | Superconnector |

Dennis, which I had the pleasure of working with is one of the most giving, honest and tell you as it is person I ever know. The knowledge this man has is remarkable and he just gives it out freely. He is not pretentious and always entertain anyone big or small in the industry always willing to help. If you ever get a golden opportunity to work with him or mentored by him say YES!. You will notr regret Dennis, which I had the pleasure of working with is one of the most giving, honest and tell you as it is person I ever know. The knowledge this man has is remarkable and he just gives it out freely. He is not pretentious and always entertain anyone big or small in the industry always willing to help. If you ever get a golden opportunity to work with him or mentored by him say YES!. You will not regret

Nixon Lee

The PR Whisperer

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