Welcome to The Birdhouse newsletter. It is approximately a 5 minute read.
In today's newsletter, we're going over:
The Twitter tag that exposed a $4,000/month 'agency' as a $35/hour freelancer with a logo
The exact math to run before you renew any done-for-you contract
The one question that separates a real content team from a reseller
A 24 hour audit you can run on your current vendor today
Apply to work with The Birdhouse (link)
Ask your vendor to name the person doing the work
(What) Ask your done-for-you vendor to give you the direct name and background of the team members assigned to your work
(Why) If they hesitate or refuse, you're likely paying a markup on outsourced freelance labor you could hire directly for a fraction of the cost.
(How) Do these things:
Send one email before signing with an agency asking for the name and portfolio of the person handling your account.
If they can’t answer, walk.
Here are some of the best links I have found since last time I emailed you:
Content 🎥
Why we will takeover the Youtube agency game sometime next year (link).
DEBATE: Is LinkedIn Outbound or LinkedIn Content Better For Signing Clients in 2026? (link).
The tag that gave it away
On a sales call last month, a founder told me something that stuck. His agency's editor kept tagging him on Twitter: 'new video I just created.' Except the founder had never met the guy. Not once, not on a call, not in a Slack channel.
That editor wasn't part of an agency. He was a freelancer, hired off a marketplace, given a login, and told to post under the agency's name. The founder was paying roughly $4,500 a month for what turned out to be one person working a handful of hours a week.
Why this matters
If you wanted to hire a freelancer who doesn't have any proprietary processes or data, which is one of the primary benefits of working with an agency in the first place, you could have just hired them yourself.
I just signed a client yesterday and their final question before getting over the line was validating that we are not outsourcing to freelancers. And the first thing I was able to show is pictures of me and my team at our semi-annual company offsites, as well as introducing each of them by name and location and past experience
This is what separates the top 1% of agencies that actually do real valuable work from the 99% who give the industry a bad name
Agency vs. In-House
The #1 reason to work with an agency versus bringing it in-house is getting access to all of the data and proprietary processes that the agency has built
A good agency likely has success across dozens, if not hundreds, of other clients, and you are tapping directly into that data set
The other side of the coin is hiring in-house, where instead of having that data off the rip, they have to do the trial and error and build you from the ground up. And even then, they won't have validated ideas from other clients that they can then apply to you and your accounts
The obvious number two reason why you would choose an agency is you either don't have access to top talent or you understand that the top talent is hardly available for coming in-house without really great incentives. (ironically, this is another great reason to build a Personal Brand - to attract A+ talent).
So before you sign with your next agency, make sure you actually get the benefits of working with one.
If you like this newsletter and want to work with us, there are a few ways we can do so:
or, you can just reply to this email.
I reply to everyone.
Hope this helps.
Cheers.
Marcos
