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Why The B2B Agency Model Is Broken

Most B2B agencies overpromise and underdeliver. They charge a % of ad spend (so they’re incentivized to make you spend more, not make more), lock you into 6–12 month contracts, nickel-and-dime every new ad or campaign, and take a week to respond when you need something.

They also bet everything on one channel 👎 One ad platform. One cold email sequence. One play. In reality, B2B buyers don’t convert from a single touch, you have to stay top of mind across multiple channels to actually get booked and get paid.

That’s why we built Max’s Team. One flat monthly fee. Unlimited lead gen across Meta & Linkedin ads, Google search (+RB2B), newsletters, LinkedIn content, and DM outreach, and more… all working together. Month-to-month contracts. No “out of scope” excuses. Just execution focused on qualified leads, like 100+ MQls generated in the first 6 weeks at $66 CPL in a notoriously tough ICP for our recent client.

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Marketing + Cough Syrup = 2 Billion $ Brands

There are two types of people in business:

The ones who take the L, move on, and play it safe next time.

And the ones who get kicked out of their father-in-law’s company, take it personally, and decide to go build something bigger out of spite.

Sidney Frank was the second kind.

He started poor. Couldn’t afford to finish at Brown. Married into a family that ran a liquor business. Got a job through his in-laws, but then got kicked out in a very dramatic Jerry Springer kind of way.

He was now out of a job, but with 20+ years of alcohol industry experience and zero interest in backing down. So he walked the streets of NYC at night looking for an idea. One night, in a bar full of German immigrants, he saw a group drinking a weird herbal liqueur called Jägermeister.

It was bitter. It tasted like medicine. It wasn’t cool. But it was different.

He brought it to the U.S. and did something incredible: He didn’t change the liquid. He changed the marketing. And that changed everything. This week’s Growth Hack, is the marketing behind Jägermeister & Grey Goose!

How Sidney Made Jäger Cool:

1. A newspaper once called it an aphrodisiac. He printed copies of the article and handed them to every bar owner he could find. Instant word-of-mouth.

2. He hired attractive women and called them “Jägerettes” … they dressed like party nurses and squirted Jäger into guys’ mouths at bars. It was a spectacle.

3. He invented a bar-friendly cold shot tap to serve Jäger at 5°F, which made it smoother, more drinkable, and more memorable.

When he started importing it, Jägermeister was selling just 500 cases a year in the U.S.

Fast forward to 2016 2016, it was selling over 7 million.

My favorite part of Sydney’s story? Creators can’t stop creating!

Sidney didn’t stop after that win. He was over 70 years old, already rich, and decided to start a vodka brand from scratch.

He called it Grey Goose.

It was positioned as ultra-premium vodka — but it was basically just good vodka, from France, with great branding. And it worked.

How Sydney Built a $2B Vodka Brand From Nothing:

1. Positioned it against Russia by proudly saying it was from France, a place Americans already associated with luxury.

2. Priced it at $30 — nearly double the price of Absolut, the most expensive premium vodka at the time.

3. Spent every dollar of first-year profit ($3M) on high-end event sponsorships and fancy PR: Hollywood afterparties, luxury galas, celebrity tastings.

4. Used phrases like “filtered through Champagne limestone” and “bottled in the French Alps” to engineer elegance, even if it didn’t mean anything.

5. Designed a tall, frosted, smoky glass bottle that stood out from every other vodka bottle on the shelf.

Seven years later, Bacardi bought Grey Goose for $2 billion.

Key Takeaways (Every Brand Can Use)

1. Turn an Unloved Product Into a Cult Classic

Sidney didn’t invent Jäger. He rebranded it with a totally different vibe. He made it loud, sexy, and unforgettable in bars … a setting where drink choice is more about identity than taste.

If your product isn’t naturally amazing, that’s okay. What matters more is how it makes people feel and whether they’d tell their friends about it.

A lot of entrepreneurs I speak to forget: Your job is to build a story that sticks, and then make it spread.

❓Ask yourself: What part of your product is weird, boring, or unappealing… and how can you turn that into a feature, not a bug?

2. Luxury = Perception, Not Price

Grey Goose wasn’t better than other vodkas. It was packaged better.

Luxury brands understand that quality doesn’t win … status does. A smoky bottle. A French origin story. Phrases that sound elegant, even if they don’t make total sense.

People don’t buy a vodka that’s 2x more expensive because it’s 2x smoother — they buy it because it says something about them.

❓Ask yourself: What could I change about the story, origin, or packaging of my product that would make people want to pay more for the same thing?

3. Don’t Tiptoe with Marketing Spend, Bet the Whole Year

Sidney spent 100% of his year-one profit ($3M) on marketing. Most founders would save that money or drip it out over the years. He knew he had a winner and put everything behind it.

The result? Category leadership. Distribution. Shelf space. And ultimately, a $2B payday.

Most brands never make it because they market small. They fear wasting money so much that they don’t make enough noise for anyone to notice.

❓ Ask yourself: If you had to go all-in on one campaign that made people assume you were the best in your category… what would you do?

Summary:

• You don’t need a better product. You need a better story.

• You don’t need a big team. You need bold positioning.

• You don’t need a fancy agency. You need to take real marketing swings.

Sidney Frank built two $1B+ alcohol brands from scratch, one with sex appeal, the other with class. Neither was new. But both were marketed like they were legendary.

You can do the same.

– Max
@ MarketingMax.com