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Josh Knox posted on a Monday that any business owner using Stripe is in trouble. A few hours later, someone in his feed posted that they had just been booted from Stripe. The next morning, someone else did the same.

This is the first live consult on the show. Josh runs Noomerik, a payment processor that replaces Stripe, and his clients are agencies. He explains how sponsor banks and risk decide who gets cancelled, how he pays agencies up to 70% of the profit on processing fees, and where he is stuck getting his message out. Then I tell him what I would do about it.

Joshua B. Knox is the founder and CEO of Noomerik, a payment processor that agencies can resell to their clients.

In this episode:

• Why Josh says Stripe cancels accounts over risk, and what he does differently
• How sponsor banks and processors sit behind every card payment
• Why Josh spreads one merchant across more than one bank
• How zero percent processing works with dual pricing (a credit card price and a debit price)
• How to build your own checkout on a payments API
• How the agency partner program pays: up to 70% of the profit on processing fees, according to Josh
• The $27 a month backup account Josh wants you to put behind Stripe
• Why a payments portfolio sells for 60x to 120x monthly recurring revenue
• My advice for Josh: one short a day, a lead magnet in the comments, and leading with passive recurring revenue
• Why I would turn his best Facebook post (4,100 views, 74 comments) into a video

Chapters:
0:00 Cold open: what a payments portfolio sells for
0:22 Intro
2:32 What Noomerik does and why people get booted from Stripe
4:56 Sponsor banks and how payments compliance works
10:04 Where Noomerik fits if you build your own checkout
10:55 Why Stripe cancels accounts (it comes down to risk)
14:50 Spreading risk across more than one bank
16:56 How zero percent card fees work
20:55 Building a custom checkout on the API
22:31 The agency partner program and how it pays
27:47 Is Josh worried about LC Payments in HighLevel?
29:07 Agencies moving to their own tech stack
31:43 Josh's challenge: getting his message out
36:49 Why AI removed the barrier to entry for video
38:57 One short a day and why people quit
40:59 Be opinionated and bring your payments expertise
42:26 Give away a lead magnet in the comments
44:48 Turn your best text post into a video
48:24 A $27 a month Stripe backup as the first offer
52:08 Lead with passive recurring revenue
53:45 Payments portfolios and why your own tech stack is worth more
55:14 How basis points and card issuing pay
56:33 Where to find Josh and Noomerik
57:09 Troy's outro: bring your personality online

Connect with Josh:

• Noomerik: https://noomerik.com

Mentioned in this episode:

• GoHighLevel: https://mvrx.link/ghl (affiliate link)
• Leave us fan mail: https://mvrx.link/fanmail
• Be a guest on the show: https://theagencyhour.com/apply
• Work with us: https://theagencyhour.com/headless

Every episode of The Agency Hour: https://theagencyhour.com

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I fired my accountant this month. A firm with a boardroom and a lot of staff quoted me $20,000 to replace him. A remote firm that uses AI and only works with Xero clients quoted about $460 a month for the same job. That is about a quarter of the price.

That gap is coming for your agency too. This week I go through the HighLevel announcements from Level Up in Dallas, what is free now and what still costs money, and what a quote for an empty boardroom tells you about pricing your own work.

I am also starting free live consults on the show. Bring me the thing that is stuck in your agency and I will coach you through it on air. Leave me a voicemail at https://mvrx.link/fanmail and tell me you want a consult.

In this episode:

• What HighLevel announced at Level Up in Dallas, and what is free for agency users now (fair use applies)
• What is still paid: the agents that do the work, and the AI Employee plans per sub-account
• LC Payments, HighLevel's own payment processor, and the goal Varun stated of sharing about 40% of its payments profit with Founder plan agencies (it is in Labs and not live yet)
• Why Managed Agents getting their own computer matters
• Why "we'll set up AI for you" just became a free button, and what to sell instead
• A survey of 279 SEO professionals: 44% are more worried about AI than a year ago, and 43 of 85 agency SEOs fear smaller teams
• The $20,000 accounting quote against about $460 a month, and who pays for the boardroom
• Why a Xero-only niche lets a small firm do the same job for a quarter of the price
• Your homework: list everything in your price that your client pays for and never sees
• How to get a free live consult on the show

Chapters:
0:00 Cold open: I fired my accountant
0:16 Intro and free live consults
1:38 HighLevel says AI is free now. Is it?
6:20 LC Payments and the 40% claim
9:08 Managed Agents get their own computer
11:01 Stop selling the setup
11:42 44% of SEOs are more worried about AI
13:02 The Headful accountant and the $20,000 quote
16:19 The Headless accountant at $460 a month
18:25 Homework: what is in your price that clients never see
21:07 Free live consults, HighLevel and Viktor

Mentioned in this episode:

• HighLevel: https://mvrx.link/ghl (affiliate link)
• Viktor: https://mvrx.link/get-viktor (affiliate link)
• Leave us fan mail or ask for a live consult: https://mvrx.link/fanmail
• Work with us: https://theagencyhour.com/headless

Every episode of The Agency Hour: https://theagencyhour.com

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Somewhere out there, a business is paying a full salary to a person whose job, two weeks of every month, is copying and pasting between spreadsheets. Command C, Command V, lunch.

One of our Headless Agency members told us about it on a call last week. We all lost it. Then I remembered how most agency owners spend their Tuesday, and I stopped laughing. This week I give you one question to ask before you hire anyone, and it tells you whether you're about to pay a salary for computer work that an AI employee should be doing.

This is a solo episode. Three stories from the Feed (AI search traffic, Anthropic's $16.8 billion quarter and what HubSpot's blog team learned from a year of going AI first), what's happening inside real agencies on our client calls, then the big idea: typing on a keyboard is basically free now, and your clients pay you for knowing what to do.

In this episode:

• The D or S test: write every task in a role, mark D if it needs a decision and S if someone could follow it off a checklist
• Why Marie Haynes's data on 145 million sessions shows ChatGPT sending 0.62% as many visits as Google organic, and why those visitors still convert at 13.8% against about 3%
• Anthropic's July to September revenue of $16.8 billion, up from $11.5 billion the quarter before, and why you should sell AI to your clients before they buy it from the lab
• What HubSpot's blog team found after a year of going AI first, and the MIT Technology Review finding that only 30% of managers and owners rate judging AI output as an absolute must
• A Sydney lead gen agency that moved more than 1,000 pages from Thrive Theme to Divi with an AI employee, at about $200, then $60, then $10 per site
• How a New Zealand content writer rebuilt a sales dashboard in a day, and the $78,000 roadmap it helped close at 1.45% of the client's target revenue
• Peter lifting his discovery sessions from $500 to $1,500, plus Jeremy, Candy, Daniel, Bashir and James and what an AI employee did for each of them
• Why more revenue does not need more hands on keyboards, and how the fear of AI comes from 45 years of identity built on typing
• This week's homework: open last week's calendar, mark every hour spent on steps someone else could follow, write the biggest block as 10 plain-English lines and hand it to an AI employee

Chapters:
0:00 Cold open: the copy and paste salary
0:47 Intro
1:08 The plan and fan mail
1:39 The Feed: ChatGPT traffic against Google organic
3:52 The Feed: Anthropic's $16.8B quarter
5:03 The Feed: HubSpot's year of going AI first
7:01 Inside real agencies: client calls
10:41 The big idea: typing is basically free now
15:49 The one question before you hire anyone
16:48 Homework and fan mail
18:38 Outro

Mentioned in this episode:

• Search Engine Land (Marie Haynes's AI search traffic data): https://searchengineland.com
• Viktor: https://mvrx.link/get-viktor (affiliate link)
• Tuesday's video, the three things that get an agency to a million with AI: https://youtu.be/9WeTF557N8g
• Leave us fan mail: https://mvrx.link/fanmail
• Work with us: https://theagencyhour.com/headless

Every episode of The Agency Hour: https://theagencyhour.com

Send us Fan Mail

Eighteen months ago, Darren Rayner's video agency was at about $1 million in revenue. Now it's at $2.5 million.

Darren got there by giving his best ideas away on LinkedIn, putting out a free report for his ideal clients, and booking a pile of 15-minute calls with the people who hire video agencies. Those calls have converted something like $600,000 to $700,000 in the last 12 months, and he hasn't spent a cent on ads for them. He charges clients for discovery before he pitches, which I don't see many video agencies doing.

Darren runs Magnafire, a Vancouver creative studio that makes social-first video and photo for outdoor and sport brands like Red Bull, Meta, lululemon, Arc'teryx and Brooks Running. Full transparency, he's a client of ours. In this episode we get into how paid discovery works, how he lands big brands, why audiences are losing trust in AI-generated content, and what he'd tell every brand to do for social in 2027.

Before the interview, I answer a fan mail question from Jonathan Holborn: how do you decide when Viktor can do the job and when a tool is worth paying for?

In this episode:

• Why a video agency charges for discovery, and how it weeds out pitches that were never going anywhere
• Goals, audience, KPIs: the three questions Darren asks every client
• Giving value away on LinkedIn, and the free Outdoor and Sport Social Report 2027
• The journalist framework: report what's working, add your take, hand over the playbook
• 15-minute calls with ideal clients that converted $600K to $700K in 12 months
• From $1M to $2.5M in about 18 months, and what Darren thinks drove it
• Why entirely AI-generated content costs brands trust, and where Darren does use AI
• The content pyramid: one hero film, eight shoulder assets, and why the shoulder assets reached about 20 times more people
• The one social strategy for 2027: world-building and recurring formats
• Value per second, and what Red Bull and That Pedal Show teach about building an audience first
• Fan mail: how I decide when Viktor can do the job and when a tool is worth paying for

Chapters:
0:00 Cold open: $1M to $2.5M
0:17 Intro
1:10 Fan mail: how do you vet AI tools?
4:42 Meet Darren Rayner and Magnafire
5:36 Why a video agency charges for discovery
7:10 What paid discovery is, and how it filters serious clients
10:14 How clients react to paying for a pitch
12:21 How discovery changes the shoot
13:44 Goals, audience, KPIs
17:41 Who Magnafire works with
18:23 How Darren lands Red Bull and lululemon
19:53 Giving value away on LinkedIn
22:02 The journalist framework
23:29 15-minute calls that converted $600K+
25:18 100 conversations in 100 days
27:26 From $1M to $2.5M in 18 months
28:54 Why Darren didn't go it alone
32:50 AI content and audience trust
36:43 Where AI belongs in your workflow
40:12 One shoot, every platform: hero and shoulder assets
42:37 TikTok vs Instagram vs YouTube Shorts
46:01 The one social strategy for 2027
47:30 Think like a YouTuber: binge-worthy brands
49:25 Value per second: why brands still make ads
53:31 Why big brands are slow to change (and Red Bull isn't)
54:43 Build the audience first: That Pedal Show
56:17 Where to find Darren
56:45 Outro

Connect with Darren:

• Magnafire: https://www.magnafiremedia.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darren-rayner-8b90384/

Mentioned in this episode:

• Viktor: https://mvrx.link/get-viktor (affiliate link)
• GoHighLevel: https://mvrx.link/ghl (affiliate link)
• Expert Secrets by Russell Brunson
• That Pedal Show on YouTube
• Leave us fan mail: https://mvrx.link/fanmail
• Work with us: https://theagencyhour.com/headless

Every episode of The Agency Hour: https://theagencyhour.com

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"No matter how prominently we show the links, users won't click." An OpenAI engineer wrote that in February 2023. It surfaced this month in the New York Times' court brief against OpenAI and Microsoft, and it should change how you report to your clients. If your monthly report leads with traffic, that number is only going one way.

Traffic was never what your clients cared about anyway. They care about what happens after the click. As AI takes over more of the delivery, your job is to sit with the client, understand what matters to their business, and get paid for the thinking. Let AI do the typing.

This is the first episode of the new format: the week's news, one big idea, some homework, and your questions. This week's big idea: twenty years of SOPs and offshore teams are giving way to skill files and AI employees. Here's what to hand to AI, and the jobs you should never hand over.

In this episode:

• The OpenAI engineer who admitted users won't click, and what it means for your traffic reports
• Claude Sonnet 5.5: AI work keeps getting cheaper, so don't drop your fees to match your costs
• "I'll just do it myself in Claude": how to answer clients who say it
• Why you can outsource marketing but not accountability
• From SOPs to skill files: the new way to hand off repeatable work
• The jobs AI won't replace: sales, strategy, relationships and taste
• Keyword research for a few dollars with DataForSEO
• How Viktor runs a 90-day content strategy from keyword research to monthly report
• The litmus test: if the job is typing into a computer, AI should be doing it
• This week's homework: design one meaningful client report, then hand it to AI

Chapters:
0:00 Cold open
0:16 Intro: the new format
3:40 The Feed: OpenAI says users won't click
7:08 Claude Sonnet 5.5 and the falling cost of AI work
10:37 You can't outsource accountability
13:04 The Deep Dive: from SOPs to skill files
16:22 Your three jobs AI won't replace
18:42 What AI is already doing: keyword research
19:50 How Viktor runs a content strategy
24:38 The litmus test: should AI do this job?
26:00 AI employees are vending machines, not chatbots
27:47 Done Beats Perfect: hand off your monthly client reports
30:18 Fan mail: send us your questions
31:24 Outro

Work with us:

• Free AI For Agencies community and AI Employee course: https://www.skool.com/agency-mavericks
• Apply to work with Agency Mavericks: https://theagencyhour.com/headless

Mentioned in this episode:

• Court filing quotes OpenAI engineer: users "won't click" links (Search Engine Journal): https://www.searchenginejournal.com/openai-engineer-users-wont-click-links-court-filing/591303/
• Introducing Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Anthropic): https://www.anthropic.com/claude-sonnet-5-5
• You can outsource marketing. You can't outsource accountability. (Search Engine Land): https://searchengineland.com/outsource-marketing-not-accountability-491648
• Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits! by Greg Crabtree: https://gregcrabtree.net/books/simple-numbers-straight-talk-big-profits/
• DataForSEO: https://dataforseo.com
• Viktor: https://mvrx.link/get-viktor

Leave us fan mail: ask anything about growing your agency and I may answer it on the show: https://mvrx.link/fanmail

Every episode of The Agency Hour: https://theagencyhour.com

Got a question you want answered on the show? Email me: troy@agencymavericks.com. I read every one myself.

Send us Fan Mail

Duncan Isaaksen-Loxton used AI to write a 13-page proposal for an eight-website job. The research that used to take two days took 30 minutes. The proposal was done in a couple of hours.

Then the client wrote back: "It sounds like you did this proposal with AI." The trust they'd built on the discovery call was gone, and so was the job.

Duncan runs sixfive.io, a fractional CTO for small businesses. He looks after the tech so owners can get on with the work they're actually good at. In this episode we get into why business owners DIY their tech until it bites them, what happens when your team pastes client data into personal ChatGPT accounts, why AI without solid foundations just speeds up the mess, and why the human relationship still wins the work.

In this episode:

• The "this will only take half an hour" myth, and what DIY tech really costs you
• Staff using personal ChatGPT accounts with business data (and whose problem that is when it leaks)
• A hospital that handed a government RFP to ChatGPT
• How to sell backups and security without scaring people
• Why you've shared an API key in Slack (yes, you have) and how to stop
• Onboarding, offboarding and why most businesses only need three tools
• Google Workspace vs Microsoft, and the Teams rant
• AI is a power drill: it doesn't make you a tradie
• What to do when a client sends you a 30-page AI document
• The AI proposal that lost Duncan a client, and what he changed

Chapters:
0:00 Cold open
0:25 Intro
2:58 Who is Duncan and what sixfive.io does
7:11 From web developer to fractional CTO
9:33 Why business owners DIY their tech
12:45 Staff putting business data into personal ChatGPT
14:14 Data breaches and how AI amplifies bad decisions
17:00 Selling protection without the fear
21:11 Slack Connect, API keys and secrets hygiene
23:17 Onboarding, offboarding and the three-tool stack
26:09 Google Workspace vs Microsoft
29:31 Techies, builders and designers: where websites fit
31:40 AI content and the power-drill problem
35:09 The 30-page AI document policy
39:40 Human connection can't be automated
43:15 The AI proposal that lost a job
46:40 How to reach Duncan
49:08 Outro

Connect with Duncan:

• sixfive.io: https://sixfive.io (book a 15-minute chat)
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/loxton/

Mentioned in this episode:

• Viktor: https://mvrx.link/get-viktor
• Doppler: https://doppler.com

Every episode of The Agency Hour: https://theagencyhour.com

Got a question you want answered on the show? Email me: troy@agencymavericks.com. I read every one myself.