Rob Da Costa [00:00:00]:

Hey, everyone. I hope you are having a fantastic week. Now, if you read the title of this podcast, you'll see it's all about how and why I created an AI version of myself. Yes, I know everybody's jumping on the AI bandwagon and there are lots of people pretending to be AI experts, and I'm certainly not one of those people. But two things have happened. First of all, I have been really using AI in my business and I've seen how it can benefit me. And second of all, I got the opportunity to build a tool from scratch. That is using a knowledge base that is purely based on my content and my knowledge over the last 30 years, rather than going to the web to find the information.

Rob Da Costa [00:00:41]:

So I'll tell you more about the product. I'll also tell you more about why I created it and who it's targeted for in this week's action-packed episode. So let's get started. I'm Rob Costa, and this is the agency Accelerator Podcast. As someone who has stood in your shoes, having started, grown and sold my own agency, I know just how it feels in the ups and downs of agency life. So this podcast aims to ease your journey just a little by sharing mine and my guests experiences and advice as you navigate your way to growing a profitable, sustainable and enjoyable business. I always assume that people know a lot about me, and hopefully, if you've been listening to the podcast for some time and we're heading towards 200 episodes, so there's an awful lot of content in the podcast, you'll certainly get a sense of who I am and who I help and what I talk about. But I've worked in the marketing agency world for nearly 30 years, which definitely ages me.

Rob Da Costa [00:01:35]:

Starting my own agency back in 92, selling it in 2003, and then started the cost of coaching in 2007, and since then, working with over 400 SME agencies to help them grow in a profitable, sustainable and enjoyable way. And of course, in that time, I'm having lots of the same conversations over and over again. And that led me to create my signature group coaching programme called the Self Running Agency. And of course, I'll leave links to that in the show notes in case you want to find out more. But basically, in the Self Running Agency group, we are supporting agencies at every step of their journey across seven key success milestones, from having clarity on who you are and who you serve to build a really exciting vision. Creating a marketing plan that's going to keep your sales funnel filled with activities that you feel comfortable doing. Converting those leads into paying clients, retaining and growing those clients, and then building a team and then finally scaling your agency so that the whole world doesn't sit on your shoulders. And we work through those seven success pillars in The Self Running Agency.

Rob Da Costa [00:02:41]:

But I also recognise that not everybody is ready to join the group because either they can't commit the time or they don't have the budget, although it's a very cost-effective programme to join the group right now. And so I wanted to find a way to help those people and then I got approached to help develop a new tool based on my content rather than going to the web, and that led to the creation of the Agency Assist AI tool, kind of like an AI version of me. And we started developing this tool about six months ago and we went into beta in August and now we're coming out of beta and we are just going into our formal alpha launch of the product. And I'm really excited about not only what it can do, but how it can help support people, especially in the early days of their agency. At the end of the day, it can feel really lonely running an agency on your own. And you kind of reach out to people that you know to get some guidance and mentorship, but they're often your partner or colleagues and they don't necessarily have that objective view and they probably don't have the experience of standing in your shoes. So you're constantly looking for answers and solutions to some of your challenges. And that probably leads you to the web, which takes you down a black hole because there are so many different opinions.

Rob Da Costa [00:03:57]:

You can watch lots of YouTube videos and try and source all that content and it becomes super overwhelming. It sucks up tonnes of your time and in the end, you learn through trial and error, through both getting things right and also making mistakes. And that can be painful and of course, that's how many of us do learn. But there has to be a better way. And when I got the opportunity to develop Agency Assist, I jumped at it because I felt this AI tool was a starting point for that better way and a starting point for absolutely everybody. Even if you're right at the beginning of your journey or you're a freelancer wanting to grow into an agency, it would provide you with support at every step of your journey, having a mentor at your side, 24/7 if you like. So we went into beta test, we got lots of feedback and in the meantime, the product got a lot better in terms of giving more detailed answers and more specific guidance, but also it gave me a chance to upload a tonne of content. And of course, the product being an AI tool is going to continually get better, especially as more people use it and more people ask questions.

Rob Da Costa [00:05:01]:

I'll be able to see what questions are being asked and make sure there's content relevant to answering those questions in a very specific, agency-focused way, rather than the general generic way that you'd get from talking to, say, chat GBT or going to the web. So let me just spend a couple of moments telling you how Agency Assist works, how it is different from other AI tools and how it will deliver a huge amount of value for agency owners. So firstly, it's the kind of tool that you're going to want to have open on your desktop every day. In fact, I suggest users set it as their home page. And then when you've got any specific challenge or question about running your agency for anything to do with every aspect and covering those seven pillars I mentioned earlier, then you can just type into the chat box the question that you've got, and then agency assist will provide you with a completely personalised answer based solely on my content and my experience. That's the big difference. It's not going out to the web, it's only trawling through all of the content that I've uploaded in the background in the knowledge base and providing you with a very specific agency-focused answer. But the really exciting thing about this tool is that you can then go and look at the references that it got those answers from and then dig even deeper into those resources.

Rob Da Costa [00:06:19]:

Whether that be a video or a podcast like this, a template or a PDF guide, you'll be able to dig deeper into the answer and actually access that video or that template to use as well. And as I said, being an AI tool, it's continually learning from you every time you type a question in. And literally every week we are uploading more content to the knowledge base, meaning that it will be able to provide you even more broad answers to the very specific questions that you have. And of course, if the answer that you get isn't satisfactory, you can just say tell me more or give me a step-by-step guide and it will do that. And again, you've got access to all the resources. I'm really excited by this. The feedback I've had from the beta testers has been really fantastic and one of the things I asked them about was pricing and they've all told me to put the price higher than it currently is. So that's really encouraging to know that they are really getting value from the tool.

Rob Da Costa [00:07:13]:

So in terms of how it will help you, well obviously I want to help you save time. I don't want you to have to reinvent the wheel, and I don't want you to have to learn by mistakes. And I certainly don't want you to have to be spending hours and hours and hours trawling through the web to try and find an answer to probably only end up more confused than ever because you'll get so many opposing opinions. I want to provide you with real-world tailored agency strategies because the things that I teach are based on years of experience, of things that worked when I ran my one and a half million pounds agency and they are things that I've seen hundreds of agencies implement very successfully. So I know the advice you're going to get from Agency Assist is going to be specific advice that you can genuinely implement into your agency. And of course, one of the big advantages of the tool is that it gives you advice based on proven frameworks, tools and templates. And of course, you get access to all of those frameworks, tools and templates as well. So it's going to help you grow your agency, hopefully in a profitable, sustainable and enjoyable way based on my expertise.

Rob Da Costa [00:08:17]:

And of course, it allows me to reach an even larger audience than I certainly ever could through my one-to-one coaching or even through my group coaching programme, and now a wider audience to anyone in the world, basically. And the great thing about this is it's going to give you 24/7 access to me. Doesn't matter where you are when you're working, if you've got Agency Assist open, you're going to get access to all of the information. And a couple of their beta testers have shared how they've been using the tool, that they're using it every single day. Whether that be to ask a question about a challenge they've got, whether it's an issue with a potential employee, whether it's advice on how to increase their prices, how to move away from time-based selling, what time recording systems they need to put in place, or how to create a plan. They're all getting support on that and they are feeling more confident to move forward, which means that they are able to grow more quickly and more confidently. Now, of course, anyone who joins Agency Assist right now, they're going to be permanently grandfathered in at the price they pay. But the really exciting news is there's a regrade roadmap coming down the line on how this tool is going to keep improving.

Rob Da Costa [00:09:29]:

For example, it's going to suggest further questions to ask based on the questions that you asked and the answers that it gives. It's also going to really help me with some of the analytics in the background that improve understanding exactly the kind of questions you're asking. And there's a whole bunch of other things that I don't really want to go into yet that will make Agency Assist the best AI tool for marketing agencies. Now, I know this whole episode sounds a bit like an advert, and I guess it is, because of course I want you guys to join Agency Assist, but really, this episode is about sharing my excitement about the potential of a tool like Agency Assist and how, at a low-cost monthly fee, it really is accessible to absolutely everybody. So I had my private clients, which was perhaps targeting the sort of top third of agencies. I introduced my group coaching programme, which I think is fantastic because we all want that sense of community and that maybe targets the middle third of my potential audience. And now Agency Assist is well targeting everybody, but specifically that lower 1st 3rd, who may not be in a position to afford the group coaching or private coaching but still want some help from me above and beyond, for example listening to this podcast. So if that's you, I would love you to join me.

Rob Da Costa [00:10:41]:

Just click on the link in the show notes and you can become one of the early members of Agency Assist, get to use the tour at a super cost-effective price and also help shape the future of it. And most importantly, get more one-to-one access from me beyond listening to this podcast or reading some of my content online. So I really hope I'll see you the inside of Agency Assist exciting times for AI and I believe this is a really good application for it. So I hope you will go and check it out. Anyway, onwards and upwards. I hope you have a fantastic rest of your week. Please do share this episode with your colleagues. And of course, please do consider leaving a review on Apple podcasts because it helps the algorithm show it to more like-minded people just like you.

Rob Da Costa [00:11:24]:

But other than that, have a great rest of your week and I'll see you next Thursday for the next episode of the Agency Accelerator Podcast.