How to Monetize Agency Knowledge for Scalable Growth With Max Traylor

Running an agency can feel like an endless grind—always chasing new clients, sacrificing personal time, and hitting revenue goals that never seem to ease the pressure. In this episode, I sit down with Max Traylor to discuss the critical shift agencies need to make: transitioning from a service-based to a knowledge-based business. Max shares his journey of realizing that charging for execution alone wasn't sustainable. Instead, he began monetizing his knowledge and selling strategy, not just services.

We explore why so many agencies fail to recognize the real value they possess—their expertise. Max reveals how agencies can break through by charging for strategic thinking, facilitating leadership conversations, and even licensing intellectual property. His practical advice will resonate deeply with agency owners tired of the low-margin grind, helping them see how to scale by focusing on what they know rather than what they do.

From building key relationships with decision-makers to staying adaptable in an ever-changing market, Max gives us a fresh perspective on how to grow without sacrificing personal well-being. If you’ve ever felt stuck in a competitive, commoditized industry, this episode will show you the way forward.

Connect with Max Traylor:
 
Max Traylor has been helping agencies break free from outdated service models and monetize their knowledge for over a decade. If you’re ready to scale your agency by focusing on strategy and leadership relationships, connect with Max on LinkedIn to learn more about his approach and how it can work for your business.

Books Mentioned

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Chapters

• 0:01 Introduction to Monetizing Agency Knowledge
• 2:15 The Journey from Execution to Strategy
• 4:51 How to Monetize Your Expertise
• 8:21 Building Leadership Relationships for Long-Term Success
• 15:29 Adapting to Industry Trends and Disruption
• 21:16 Overcoming Resistance to Change
• 28:25 Practical Steps to Start Charging for Knowledge

Transcript

Dr. William Attaway: 0:00

It is an honor today to have Max Traylor on the podcast. Max grew up with a digital, scalable, residual business mantra that applied that mindset to help brilliant people break through the time for dollars plateau. His clients call him an idea guy, a business coach, a thinking partner and a product creator. He helps agencies productize their consulting services and do some other things better too. He's the author of the Agency Survival Guide and the Consultant Survival Guide and the host of Beers with Max, a podcast where authors, speakers, consultants and agency owners share how they've turned their expertise into a digital, scalable and residual money-making machine. Max, I'm so glad you're here. Thanks for being on the show.

Max Traylor: 0:52

I'm thrilled, and we're actually. You know, it's during today's quiet time, as the kids are in kindergarten.

Dr. William Attaway: 0:58

It's exciting. We timed it perfectly.

Max Traylor: 0:59

Well done, we timed it perfectly.

Intro\Outro: 1:03

Well done. Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed to help leaders intentionally grow and thrive. Here is your host, author and leadership and executive coach, Dr William Attaway.

Dr. William Attaway: 1:20

I'd love to start with you sharing a little bit of your story with our listeners, particularly around your journey and your development as a leader. How did you get from where you started to where you are?

Max Traylor: 1:32

Well, I guess when I was five, I'd walk into my dad's office and ask him where he made the money. This was before people worked from home. But he said no, max, you can't. You know, I'm not printing money. I was looking at his printer thinking it was actually like printing money. He said, no, that's illegal.

Intro\Outro: 1:53

But I have a digital, scalable, residual.

Max Traylor: 1:56

But I didn't know what those were way too big of words. So he said well, you know, I do something once and I get paid forever, and that's why we can go to Disney world. By the way, do you want to go to Disney world? So I had this incredible childhood, uh, and exposure to this mindset of you can, you can put your personal life first and you can build a business around your personal life. Uh, he, you know, play tennis all day, go to Disney world, whatever. And so I, I, when I got into adult land, I didn't see that anywhere. It was like, yeah, you can do what you want, like maybe on the weekends, and if you want to be an entrepreneur, you can kiss that goodbye. Um, so I, I was sort of like stuck between what I grew up with and then what society was telling me was, like, you have to work, you know, you sacrifice, sacrifice, so that one day you can return, uh, you can retire from sacrifice.

Max Traylor: 2:51

And as I was running this marketing agency, which is quite possibly, uh, the the like worst sacrificial business model you could think of professional services, linear growth, highly highly competitive and commoditized in a lot of ways, low margin, extremely difficult on the personal life. Every year I'd hit my goals and revenue and headcount which apparently is how they measure worth that. You know their big conferences when they're shaking their pom poms. Every time I felt like I was supposed to be celebrating my. My personal life was getting worse darker circles, uh, under my eyes. But I discovered that, uh, there was a part of the business that didn't play by the same rules. Strategy, thinking, planning, advisory, consulting all these, all these different words that amount to helping companies make decisions, not not the doing of things, which everyone can do. At the time, it was the gig networks that were coming online, um, and there was, there was this proliferation of training content, so no shortage of people that could do the things, and now has has sort of taken things that it can take and it will continue to do that. So you're left with with this business model of charging for thinking, charging for, for knowledge. That's what we did. I mean, I started charging for knowledge. People were treating people were treating me like a big boy.

Max Traylor: 4:18

I was 23, running this company, I was invited to the decision maker table, and so we started to shift our business model towards strategy and thinking, and then I had the opportunity to license that process that we'd created to other agencies all around the world. That's when the light bulb went off, because a I realized that professional services, businesses uh, business are sitting on the solution but they're not charging for it and they can't see it very clearly, and that is their knowledge. That professional services, businesses uh, business are sitting on the solution, but they're not charging for it and they can't see it very clearly. And that is their knowledge. How do they monetize their knowledge?

Max Traylor: 4:50

That's number one, and then second is you can monetize it in different ways. You can diversify your business model by offering it high ticket, low volume, uh to leadership teams. You can run uh. You can facilitate cohorts or groups of your ideal clients to run through the same process. You can license that intellectual property to hundreds of companies at a time, but it requires that you rally around a single definition of your body of knowledge and then dedicate yourself to conversations and relationships with the people that will pay the most for that. That's where I've been the last 10 years and I've been lucky enough to maintain my focus on designing these consulting services and the other packaging of how to monetize it, and it's been a fun journey and, like you said, I've drank a lot of beer with really, really smart people along the way, and so now I'm basically just regurgitating smart things that other people have said. But you know, aren't we all?

Dr. William Attaway: 5:50

That's I say this all the time. You know so much of of what we share is what we've learned from other people. We're standing on their shoulders, cheers the beers with max podcast, like tell me, why did you start that?

Max Traylor: 6:06

So when I went out on my own, there was a CEO that I really admired and he was one of the first people to hire me and, uh, I went to every month. He would get people together at this bar in Boston and he'd rent out the whole thing. And I went to that and it was all these business owners, you know, and have a couple of beers and talk about business actually talk about business, like the real challenges, like they're you know, lamenting about the employees that they can't stand, and I was like this is a really fun business conversation. So I said that's what I want. I want that's what I want to like organize, but I don't want to leave my house. And so the original beers with Max was like an online get together of uh people in the agency space and we'd have a beer and just and just share what we were thinking.

Max Traylor: 6:55

Uh, I accidentally recorded it. One day. Somebody said, hey, this sounds like a podcast. You should, you should make it a podcast so that you know. Then it was a podcast for a few years. Uh, and now you know there's a lot more podcast material and I, I like using video.

Max Traylor: 7:11

So right now my format is just to interview people, um, and use very short video clips on LinkedIn so that one of my interviews can become, you know, months of content that both they and I can, uh can share and uh talk about some specific things and uh and and grow our network that way. And then maybe five years ago, I started looking at the most popular clips and I turned that into my first book agency survival guide and that's sort of been the yearly. Mo is to take the topics and the people that have been most popular with my audience and stick it between two covers and you know and sound really smart because I have these books, you know, but you open the books. There's just a bunch of other smart people in there and what they've said Don't tell anybody. But yeah, it's a dedication to learning from the people that you want to add value to. That's all. This is whether it's Beers with Max or the books or the studies that I've done. I don't know how else to get good at something.

Dr. William Attaway: 8:21

Well, I think it's brilliant. I mean, I talk a lot about being a perpetual student in your field and you are so intentional about that, and I think the books, the podcast, these are just these are outgrowths of that intentionality that begins with you. This stuff doesn't just happen. You don't just happen to have these conversation and then happen to have a book pop out or happen to have a podcast. Like you've been intentional with this, I'm curious what are some things that you have learned that have been things that you've applied in your own business, in your own practice?

Max Traylor: 10:24

Well, you know, after 10 years, the, the number one thing that I learned is you can be successful with terrible ideas and you can fail with the best ideas. Like I have, I have seen some things take off. They're like, really like that that you're making millions of dollars on that, and so it gives you the perspective of like, why do we spend so much time trying to get the offer Perfect when, like, we're going to live and die by the relationships that we create? That's all, that's all business is. So if you're not out there creating the right relationships, listening to the right people, stumbling on those one or two people that could, that could make, uh, you know, they could turn everything around for you. Um, so, yeah, it, it, uh, it's all.

Max Traylor: 11:10

A game is what I learned and, um, it's how you play it that matters, not the uh, not not how, not how smart you are or the. You know the brilliant idea. We're not inventing the cure for cancer. I mean, we're in like marketing, like you could do anything you want and people would buy it. It doesn't, it's all. You know, it's whatever. Um, some of us actually are able to add value, but the majority are just, you know, I don't know. I don't know what they're doing, and neither do the people that buy the services. It's just like on the budget, there's just we should buy this stuff. Sure Great.

Max Traylor: 11:56

I started picking up little one-liners like 90% of the value, and focusing is focus itself. Only 10% is choosing the right thing. So I think it's given me the freedom to experiment with things. I try to pass that along to the people I'm working with a certain indifference to success, like you just have to choose something and go. That's good, and most of your ideas sorry are going to be trash. Yeah, maybe we stumble upon one that works.

Dr. William Attaway: 12:19

That's so good, you know, we both work in the agency world and see and experience a lot of the things that are going on, and that's an ever-changing landscape, to be sure. Oh yeah, I mean it feels like every week there's something shifting or moving or growing or dying.

Max Traylor: 12:35

I felt like it was just yesterday. I thought inbound was the coolest thing ever. This is it. This is going to change the world. People will come to us and then, yeah, and then I went out on my own. I was like wait a minute, right, I'm hungry.

Dr. William Attaway: 12:53

That's right. I have this amazing habit of liking to live indoors and eat. You know most people do.

Max Traylor: 13:02

Yeah, wild outside, electricity, running water, yeah, it's all good stuff and uh, and you gotta get, you gotta get paid for that.

Dr. William Attaway: 13:10

It's the only way to pay for it. So what, what trends do you see happening? I mean, you've been in agency world for a minute. You've got enough track that you can begin to spot trends. What are you seeing right now?

Max Traylor: 13:24

I mean barely like I still have, like you know, for like I'm, I'm a younger guy. I talked to people that have been in the marketing space for 30, 40 years. I got I got nothing on them Right, but in the in the last 10 years, just as a microcosm, uh, I got in when inbound marketing was the thing and people were really, uh, done with ads. They were like I look, there's too many ads, I don't trust your ads, I don't want to talk to your salespeople. Before that I think it was like direct mail or something I don't know. I wasn't, I wasn't around, but so people were, were done with ads and you had, you know, search content and people wanted to do their own research. And so there's this influx of people doing this one thing content and of course it gets abused, and then the content becomes trash, and then people don't trust the content and of course it gets abused and then the content becomes trash and then people don't trust the content. Now people aren't doing their uh, their own research, and so this trend is almost it's almost predictable. Anything that everyone jumps on, and you can tell they're going to jump on it because the people with that are putting money into education in this space, the software companies are telling you to do it. As soon as a software company tells you to do something as a professional service organization, you should get away from that. So you saw it with inbound, and then there's, you know. Then then the software companies were like, well, we need more features so we can sell more stuff to our existing clients. Then you had all these rev op agency. Like what, what is that? What is what is even that term? Oh, it means we can't make a decision of if we're going to help marketing, sales or customer success or any of these other departments, so we're just going to wrap a buzzword around it. That's software companies saying they want to sell more features and they need an army to do it. Anyway, I get I get a little triggered on that stuff.

Max Traylor: 15:05

The major trend is that people trusted content yesterday. People only trust the people they trust today. Uh, and you know I'm a fan of the buzzwords not really, but you know I'm a fan of the buzzwords. You hear in things like, uh, ecosystem led growth, uh, near bound, uh, partner led, uh, marketing, all of this stuff, to say that if you're not creating content with the people that already have the trust of your buyers, aka their peers, the people that already have trust with them somehow, then you're doing it wrong. They're not going to trust your content. They're not going to trust Mary, the marketer that's in your dark back room writing your blogs or doing your videos, or whatever. Your blogs or doing your videos or whatever figure out a way to be next to work with. Be introduced by uh. Collaborate on projects with the people that already have the trust of your buyers.

Max Traylor: 16:04

That's uh, that's, that's the trend, and, um, I mean, geez, the AI thing. Look this over the course of one year, you saw every agency jump on this, leverage AI to hobbity, and now it's table stakes. Now, everything has AI, and people are already saying, like, get AI out of your positioning. It says nothing, yeah, so you know, I think there's, there will always be a trend. I think it is set by technology. Then there's a wave of professional services behind it, and these things go up and down. What I keep saying, though, is that there will always be disruption, and the rate of disruption is only increasing.

Max Traylor: 16:47

During any time of disruption, the value of being able to make better business decisions goes up. If the answer is clear, you don't need help making a decision Like AI. You should use AI. Great thanks, max. What an opinion. Let's pay you for your consulting. You told us to use AI, very good. No, the value of decisions go up when there's crazy amount of disruption and companies don't know what to spend money on. And so I think we're in that space right now where there's crazy amount of disruption and companies don't know what to spend money on. And so I think we're in we're in that space right now where there's a million things going on. People know there's disruption in the economy, there's an election coming up, there's the AI is a disruptor. There's changing buyer behaviors and companies are sitting there going, hey, everything that we invested in isn't working. We need somebody with an outside perspective to help us make decisions. That's consulting, that's advisory, that's a true business partnership, and that requires some skills and facilitation business acumen, empathy, listening.

Dr. William Attaway: 17:52

And that's what you do.

Max Traylor: 17:53

Yeah, I try to make marketers, not marketers.

Max Traylor: 17:57

But instead make them well, I mean, look, you can be a nerd with your nerds, you know what I mean, but you, but it can't be your whole, like when people say, like, don't make it your whole personality, you know what I mean, right, because then you can't hang out with anybody, right? So marketers have this problem of living in the microcosm of the marketing budget. They don't see churn coming because they don't realize that sales operations hr any weird finance. They could all take budget from you. There's only so much money to go around, and so they're, they're, they think they've got a handle on things because they talk to the cmo, then the cmo leaves or gets fired which, by way, they don't have a very long tenure and you've gotten, you're left with no understanding or relationship with the other decision makers.

Max Traylor: 18:45

So a big problem is that you don't have access to the people that make decisions about budget. You need to get access to those people and you will last about 0.5 seconds in a conversation with a head of sales about marketing. They don't want to talk about marketing, they don't care about marketing. So, even though that's your passion, that's your expertise, you need to figure out a way to hold a conversation with someone that does not care. And it's really easy. All you got to do is listen. You got to ask questions like what's important to you? You know you got to be able to listen and you know you gotta, you gotta, you gotta be able to listen, uh, and you know that's, that's empathy, that's um, uh, you know psychology and these sorts of things, and that's what consulting is is just you're helping people identify what's most important to make decisions about that thing. That's it.

Dr. William Attaway: 19:31

So so an agency comes to you and they want to begin to take a step in this direction. Where do you start?

Max Traylor: 19:37

Show me your account list and point at the ones where you have access to leadership. Like start in reality, Like everything I just said is very, very theoretical. Start in reality, You've got current clients. The worst thing that could happen to those clients is they churn. The best thing that could happen is that you discover some new initiative and you're able to upsell or cross sell your services. So point them out and I guarantee every agency that looks at their accounts will not have access to every member of the leadership team. They will not know their current initiatives that they are committed to in Q4.

Max Traylor: 20:12

I don't know when this episode is going to come out, but it's September and we're just about to get into the most important planning time for any organization for the most part. What is your plan for getting all of them in a room telling you what they are going to spend money on? That is the correct question to ask. The answer can be quite creative. There's a lot of different ways to do it, but the correct question is how am I going to get the decision makers that decide on budget not just mine into a room talking about what is most important to them?

Dr. William Attaway: 20:48

Brilliant. I'm curious, as you walk people through this process and they begin to kind of have the blinders taken off, so to speak, and begin to see what you're seeing, what is the response like as they begin to see what they haven't seen before and begin to look at this differently? How do they typically respond? Your clients?

Max Traylor: 21:10

Look, I'm still attracted to the agency space because of the quality of people agency that. I'm still attracted to the agency space because of the quality of people. We're awesome people. We. We are uh, we're approachable. We like hanging out with one another, we like helping one another um, but we survive on self-manufactured confidence.

Max Traylor: 21:29

Agency owners are like if you talk to an agency owner% of them will be supremely confident that they are the best in the world at doing what they do. And they have to be, because if they don't project that confidence to their clients, who again understand nothing about what they do, what are you buying based off of? You're buying off of the confidence of those leaders. So you go into an agency owner and you say, hey, good try, you could actually be, you could actually be delivering a better service or doing it a better way. Yeah, it's.

Max Traylor: 22:03

It's not met generally with open arms. It's very different than saying, wow, you have such a great service. You're like more people should know about this. That's why you have all these people helping agencies with demand generation or branding, because there's so much pride in what they have and yet they're not getting the recognition that they need. That's poking on pride. I don't think that's the biggest opportunity. I think the biggest opportunity lies with the existing clients and the idea that they're going to admit to themselves that they've been doing themselves a disservice, that they've never hired somebody for help in that area. It's a very it takes a certain type of someone to invest in performing a service better. They hold on to it for dear life.

Dr. William Attaway: 22:56

And yet we know growth only happens on the other side of change.

Max Traylor: 23:02

We know that people don't want to be told how to do their job.

Dr. William Attaway: 23:06

Granted, totally. I get that. I totally get that. But if our perspective is always how do I make it better, how do I do this better? If we keep that mindset, in my view that's a game changer. The minute you begin to calcify and this becomes set in concrete and this is how we do it here, and we're not coming here and tell me how to do it, we lose the teachable spirit that makes, I think, what marketers do so valuable. They're always looking, always learning, always growing, always pivoting and adapting right.

Max Traylor: 23:44

Well, I mean, if that were true, you and I would be out of a job. There would be no show right.

Dr. William Attaway: 23:51

And we can shut it down right now. Thanks for being here.

Max Traylor: 23:54

We can say that all day long, that like sure, we're constantly learning, but when push comes to shove, I've been doing again I've been in 10 years of changing the way they deliver a service, which is the thing that they've never really looked at and said that's the problem. They've always wanted more clients. They've gotten outside help with their marketing, with sales and these sorts of things. The way they help their clients, that's like the foundation, that's like their core skill of of of what they do. So it's. It's just there's a lot of, there's a lot of resistance there.

Dr. William Attaway: 24:31

I've found so when you, when you find somebody who is willing to listen and adapt and put into practice what you're talking about, then what? Yeah, so?

Max Traylor: 24:43

beyond the personal. Okay, so let's talk to the 10% of the audience that's like, hey, man, I get it. Yeah, I'd like to learn. Yeah. Then you're met with a lot of the rationalization or limiting beliefs my clients would never pay for that. We're already getting most of the budget. Basically, every limiting belief that comes from not actually having real conversations with the other decision makers. They believe there's limited budget because they've never talked to any of the other people that have budget and learn what asinine nonsense they're spending money on.

Dr. William Attaway: 25:21

Yeah, absolutely.

Max Traylor: 25:23

So, yeah, I think it's a lack of perspective because they haven't had any business conversations with their clients. They've only had marketing conversations and you're not invited to the decision maker table. If you can only have a marketing conversation and you're not invited to the decision maker table, if you can only have a marketing conversation, you're invited to the vendor table.

Intro\Outro: 25:41

Yes.

Max Traylor: 25:42

Where they come over and they say we're trying to buy these things, Would you vend them to?

Dr. William Attaway: 25:48

me. That, Max, I think is incredibly insightful.

Max Traylor: 25:59

The difference between the vendor table and the leadership table. Yeah, the adult table and the kiddie table with the plastic chairs and the crayons and there's a mental image. Yeah, it's like they might as well. They might as well just give you the RFP and like a set of crayons and you can just like color in the dots. It's already decided. You're wasting your time.

Dr. William Attaway: 26:19

So somebody wants to make this turn. They're in that 10% and they say, hey, okay, this makes some sense. What's the first step?

Max Traylor: 26:30

Call it, call up your client and say, hey, what would be? How can I be more valuable to the strategy work that you're doing, to planning right now in q4? We know they got planning coming up. Yeah, what? Uh, what industry insights? Hey, hey, we're really close to your buyers. We work with a lot of organizations like yours. Is there anything that we would that we could do that would make your planning sessions more insightful, that we could add value? You know what they're going to say Wait, you can tell us about what our competitors are doing. And then you're going to go, ooh, that's a good idea. And then you're going to call up someone like Pete Caputa that has benchmark surveys and you're like shit, can we get some industry information really quickly? Yeah, you do a benchmark survey.

Max Traylor: 27:11

Look they unanimously, regardless of their role, every person on the leadership team will want to know things about their competitors and their buyers. There's not a seat at that table that doesn't care about their buyers and their competitors. Go out there and interview them. Go out there and survey them. Use AI or some data thing, but not to like, cannibalize your communication and make it non-human nonsense. Go and collect information that's usable by the leadership team, but it starts with going and asking them what is most valuable, and that's what people aren't doing. You got to pick up the phone, solid, I was interviewing Pete. Pete Patty, no, steve Patty and you know he talks about this outside-in service design. We're both service designers and you got to start with the fact that I have no idea what your buyers want. I kind of do, because I talk to a lot of them, but why don't you go talk to them and ask them what are they spending money on? What are the budget line items for 2025 that you're focused on and why?

Dr. William Attaway: 28:18

Where's the pain?

Max Traylor: 28:19

Yeah, where's the pain and you know what. You gotta be vulnerable. They might not say the word landing page or blog or email campaign, like that might not be a part of the conversation because no one cares.

Dr. William Attaway: 28:35

They just want to address the pain.

Max Traylor: 28:37

Yeah, so I think there is. You know, in all fairness, I think there's a lack of education, a lack of exposure around this. The people with the biggest microphone and eyeballs on them are the software companies, and they make zero money. Eyeballs on them are the software companies and they make zero money. If an agency is able to go in there and run a workshop with their leadership team and help them inform decisions, nobody makes money. But you convince them that they need 10,000 email campaigns and, and you know, 40,000 marketing contacts someone's making some money Solid point.

Dr. William Attaway: 29:06

So, Max, let me, let me turn to you for a minute. You have to lead at a higher level today than you did a few years ago, and five years from now you're going to have to lead at a different level yet when it comes to the team that you work with, your clients. How do you stay on top of your game? How do you level up with new skills that you're going to need as a leader?

Max Traylor: 29:29

I mean, I think it's the same way. I've been doing it for the last 10 years. Assume I know nothing and continue to talk to people. I probably interview I don't know at least one person a day and then I look through that content. I listen to my own stuff, which is weirdly narcissistic, but I do listen to my own stuff, like on my way to golf. I'll listen to an interview that I did with somebody, but not not because, like I'm saying smart stuff, yeah, but because the stuff that they talk about. Like, for years I went to people that were the head, the pinnacle of their time in business, and I would just listen to them tell their stories. I was the only person under 90 that was sitting at those tables every single week, single week. So I just listen to people and the wisdom that you can pick up just from uh, just from listening to people leading, oh man, leading, leading honestly, is a lot of work.

Max Traylor: 30:41

I'm not, I'm not sure I am a good leader, because I am, uh. I I only have one approach to leading and that is uh doing. You can follow me if you want, uh, but I'm going this way and I try to educate people and and be as open as I can about why I'm doing things. Where I learned that, where they can learn that, um, but I try to set an example of like I still don't know what I'm talking about. Most of the things I do are wrong, but I do them so quickly and and I and I make decisions that occasionally I stumble across something that works, and I guess that's my style of leadership is like stop thinking so much, pull some triggers and if you're, if you're, scared of that, then just follow my lead. How?

Dr. William Attaway: 31:25

do you develop people on your team? How do you develop?

Max Traylor: 31:29

new leaders. Probably not the answer you're looking for, but I don't. Okay, I go find people that are self-motivated, self-organized, um folks that are, are in track. You can find somebody that's a good leader, uh, by finding somebody that, um like my, my business partner uh, basically on her own, raised uh two twins, a girl and a boy. I never have to worry about her Like you've. You've seen some things you know what?

Max Traylor: 32:00

I mean so at this point, like I think you're either born with it and you have that knack for learning, or or you don't, and I'm, I don't. I don't need to invest in those people. It's enough of an investment for me to align myself with them, myself with them, and and spend time together, like, like we are here, I know it'll be a well, uh, well worth investment, but, like I don't have to develop you will, we don't have to work on you together, um, and I think there's enough people out there. If you're having those conversations and if you're expanding your network, um, you know, I'm, I, uh, I try to find people that don't need to be led but will be additive, you know, to your life. And it's the sharing of that expertise and the sharing of motivation, being able to pick each other up when one of them, you know, falls down. Uh, maybe it's an approach of collective leadership.

Dr. William Attaway: 32:59

So so what do you want most in your business?

Max Traylor: 33:02

Oh uh, psychological stability.

Dr. William Attaway: 33:05

And.

Max Traylor: 33:05

I want to be able to wake up and be present. You ever, you ever wake up and not be present a hundred percent happens all the time.

Max Traylor: 33:12

So I really try to to uh measure my progress based on, like, how I feel, like if I can wake up in the morning and okay, I have a couple of calls, but uh, I want to, I want to go to the zoo, I want to take my kids to the zoo. Now I can make that decision, but am I going to be, am I going to be, like, actually there, or am I going to be on the phone and paranoid and stressed, you know, about all these things? And so I it comes back to me having a very clear planning cycle, an annual plan. I really don't go past annual plans. I'm still young. I got a six year old and a three year old. I got no three year plans except to survive. You know I got, I got time. I'm still young. I got a six-year-old and a three-year-old. I got no three-year plans except to survive. You know I got, I got time. I'm young, um, but in any given year, you know we might like.

Max Traylor: 33:57

A few years ago we decided we were going to take every third month off, and so that has a trickle down effect to the business model, um, the the ideal client that we're going after, the types of services that we can provide, how we organize those services, um.

Max Traylor: 34:11

So I try to start with something that's very personal balance, uh focused, like exercising more or eating right. Um, those two things have never been a part of the equation, but I I do hope that someday I choose those, uh more, like playing a lot of golf or, like you know, being around for the first year of of my daughter being alive and um, yeah, those are, those are the things that that I'm prioritizing and trying to measure, uh, measure progress on. But you know, even when you make those decisions and you're not able to be present and and just emotionally uh strong, uh, it's not, it's not worth it. And so you know it takes, it takes a while to figure out what gives you energy, what takes your energy, what you can and can't do, how to set up barriers around those things.

Intro\Outro: 35:01

That's good.

Dr. William Attaway: 35:03

What's the biggest thing you've learned in the last year?

Max Traylor: 35:05

No matter how bad it gets, you'll probably survive. It's not that big a deal.

Dr. William Attaway: 35:13

Good perspective.

Max Traylor: 35:14

It's just a blip on the radar. You're young. You haven't failed like other people have failed.

Dr. William Attaway: 35:21

It's all perspective, yeah.

Max Traylor: 35:23

You can go find somebody that screwed it up way worse than you. You know and you're like well, all right. Well, I either got a long way to go, you know I got some tough road ahead, but you know I we just get. We get so caught up in like, oh my God, look at me and you know I do too. I'm not. I'm not trying to speak from like this altruistic, like I've got it all figured out, but like in in retrospect, like it's fine.

Dr. William Attaway: 35:45

It can be okay.

Max Traylor: 35:52

Is there a book that has made a big difference in your journey that you'd recommend? Yeah, I forget who wrote it, but like a long time ago I read this book called you ink. Uh, all about you know, selling yourself, treating yourself like, uh, it's, it turns out it's like talking about personal branding and, uh, empathy and getting people to like you. Um, so that was like a long time ago. I forgot who wrote it, but we can Google it Right. Um, but other than that, in the agency space, I've always been a huge fan of David Baker and so I'd go business of expertise, the red book for the win, Absolutely.

Max Traylor: 36:26

Um, yeah, I mean there's, there's been some others, but I think well to your point about agency trends or trends in marketing business development. Jared Fuller recently put out this near bound away from using content as a way to do their own research because they don't trust it, because it's probably ai or some marketer in a back room somewhere that's writing that stuff. And all about leveraging partnerships uh to um for any go-to-market motion, whether it's marketing, sales, customer success, like really integrating a partnership first mindset.

Dr. William Attaway: 37:12

You know my uh, my dad started a traditional advertising agency back in the seventies and billboards, radio, newspapers, right, that's what it is and that was as a kid. You know you, you hear the mantras. You know you do business with people that you know like and trust. That hasn't changed and that's what I. That's what I'm thinking of when you're talking about the Nearbound book. I mean, it's still you do business with people that you know like and trust.

Max Traylor: 37:40

But it is harder because there's so much fakery.

Intro\Outro: 37:45

Yeah.

Max Traylor: 37:46

Now it is harder to develop that trust, it's true, but a shortcut is to find people they that trust. It's true and uh, but a shortcut is to find people they already trust.

Dr. William Attaway: 37:56

And if a shortcut is going to help you go a little farther and get there a little faster farther, faster.

Max Traylor: 38:01

Yeah, that's, that's the game we play.

Dr. William Attaway: 38:04

Max, this has been fascinating and, as, as we wrap this up, I mean I know people are going to want to stay connected to you and continue to learn more about what you do and what you're sharing, what you're learning. What is the best way for people to connect with you?

Max Traylor: 38:18

LinkedIn. It's basically the only place I hang out. Linkedin slash Max trailer or whatever it is. Linkedin slash in slash Max trailer, like it's spelled on the video T-R-A-Y-L-O-R. I do live. I do live get-togethers, like once a month. I post a lot of clips. Probably be posting some of these, but yeah, that's the best way to get to know my stuff. Shoot me a DM. All those things.

Dr. William Attaway: 38:46

We'll have that link in the show notes. Max thanks for being here, man, for sharing so honestly and openly. It's just so helpful.

Max Traylor: 38:55

Thanks for asking some deep questions. It's what?

Dr. William Attaway: 38:59

I do. Thanks for joining me for this episode today. As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode, and if you find value here, I'd love it if you would rate it and review it. That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast. Second, if you don't have a copy of my newest book, catalytic Leadership, I'd love to put a copy in your hands. If you go to catalyticleadershipbookcom, you can get a copy for free. Just pay the shipping so I can get it to you and we'll get one right out.

Dr. William Attaway: 39:35

My goal is to put this into the hands of as many leaders as possible. This book captures principles that I've learned in 20 plus years of coaching leaders in the entrepreneurial space, in business, government, nonprofits, education and the local church business, government, nonprofits, education and the local church. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about. And if you're ready to take a next step with a coach to help you intentionally grow and thrive as a leader, I'd be honored to help you. Just go to catalyticleadershipnet to book a call with me. Catalyticleadershipnet to book a call with me Stay tuned for our next episode next week. Until then, as always, leaders choose to be catalytic.

Intro\Outro: 40:19

Thanks for listening to Catalytic Leadership with Dr William Attaway. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode. Want more? Go to catalyticleadershipnet.