I'm a designer, developer, Christ-follower, husband, and entrepreneur.

I love helping consultants, creators, and coaches trade in frustration and confusion for a website that brings clarity, confidence, and strategic growth.

When you and I make more money because we work together, that’s pretty sweet.

When I’m not growing my own business, I enjoy well-brewed coffee, reading business books and fantasy novels, playing board games with friends, and losing myself in an unexplored world on my Xbox. Nerd alert.

My wife Kylee and I live in Knoxville, Tennessee, near the Great Smoky Mountains.

I believe that small businesses are the backbone of America—thanks, Dave Ramsey—and I want to contribute to the success of yours by helping you launch a website that you are eager to share.

Building a profitable business that makes a positive impact on others isn’t easy. If it were, everyone would do it.

Too many business owners cringe when look at their own websites because what they see there doesn’t represent who they really are, whom they help, and the value they create. No, what they see is bland. Blech.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

The best websites make a strong, positive first impression. They win trust through thoughtful design, solid copywriting, and artful strategy. They persuade the right people that they have nothing to lose by taking the first step.

Those websites are the ones I build. 

Over the years, I have fine-tuned my process and simplified my packages and prices. 

I share easy-to-understand prices up front.
Website “sprints” keep us focused on what matters most. 
By launching a strategic website sooner, you see ROI sooner.
I even offer a 100% refund with our initial package. If you followed the process and strategy and don’t believe I kept my promise, I will return your money.

That said, I only work with about 20 people each year, so I’m very invested in making your project a success. It’s in my best interest to do so: I want to use your case study to win my new client!

My clients tell me I make them feel like they’re my only client, and a lot of them ask for monthly subscriptions after we go through several sprints. You’ll have that option too.

Whether you work with me or find a better fit elsewhere, I truly wish you all the success in the world and hope you make a wildly positive impact on your family, team, and clients.

-

When you're ready, there's 2 ways I can help you:

1. Download The Homepage Blueprint on my website.

2. Work with me to get a new website!


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Ezekiel Rochat

Ezekiel Rochat

David C. Baker

Owned a marketing communications firm for 6 years, then founded a consulting firm focused on M&A and helping entrepreneurial experts make better business decisions through writing, speaking, and advising.

Have written seven well-received books, typically speak at ca. 30-35 conferences per year, and have done in-depth consulting with 1,000+ independent firms.

Work has been discussed in the Wall Street Journal, NY Times, USA Today, Fast Company. Inc. Magazine, Forbes, MarketingProfs, BusinessWeek, and CBS.

Have spoken at multiple TEDx events, and on the advisory board for the graduate "Design for Social Innovation" program at SVA in NYC.

Hobbies: teaching motorcycle racing with the Superbike School (California); photography all over the world (44 countries to date); flying airplanes and helicopters; and custom woodworking.

Please join the 37,000+ folks who have signed up for my weekly insight emails at http://www.punctuation.com

Principal

Just came across this picture of my podcast partner, Blair Enns, and his wonderful spouse, Colette Enns. The four of us were on a planning retreat on the Turks/Caicos. Took it with a Leica SL and a long lens. There's something pretty special about this picture. Sometimes when you're experimenting with portrait work, a black and white is exactly what's called for, even though you're on the edge of a beautiful ocean. Anyway, just a bit more personal perspective on what's behind the 2Bobs podcast...and my own love of photography.

"The expert's expert"—NYT. Author of 7 books, inc "Selling Your Professional Service Firm" + "The Business of Expertise" + "Secret Tradecraft". I help entrepreneurs build strong, sellable firms. Co-host: 2Bobs.com

This was a blast. Someone asked me recently what kind of firm I would build if I were starting over. The question intrigued me so much that I decided to take two weeks to write it out. Pie in the sky, you say? Maybe. But we've got to do something to do a little bit more leading in this wonderful field. Your thoughts are welcome. Unless they're mean. 😅

View newsletter: Building a Marketing Firm

Someone asked this in a recent round of reader questions: If you would start a professional service firm from scratch, how would you do it and why? I 

Open article: If I Started A Brand New Firm by David C. Baker • 8 min read

I'm recovering from a concussion after slipping on ice and landing on the concrete on my head (I'll be fine after a CT Scan), and so I've just been sitting and reading between naps, and I went back through the SoDA/Webflow report again (link in the comments).

I read lots of research reports about the state of the industry, and this particular one is always in a small group of "reliable" ones.

Here's what my addled, criss-crossed eyes keep coming back to, over and over again, quoting directly here: 

"Lead generation is one of the most common concerns for agency leaders, but lead volume isn’t the only problem. Leaders are nearly unanimous in pointing to pricing pressure (93%), longer sales cycles (92%), and higher client acquisition costs (90%) as a challenge for their business with nearly half stating that these are 'growing challenges.' More than half also agree that growing competition in the market has negatively impacted their pricing power."

To put this in perspective, no other issue was as prominently on their minds than lead generation. Yes, they need to be better sales people and they need to be more sophisticated on pricing options, but nothing is more important to agency principals than getting more "at bats" (opportunity).

If this is an issue at your firm, this is what you should solve in 2026. If you can't solve the new business issue, nothing else matters. If you do solve the new business issue, everything else is fun to fix.

I've been tracking this, informally, for about 4 months, now, and roughly 40% of our leads originate with someone searching for something in AI, leading to me or the firm (Punctuation).

I didn't know AI was going to be a thing back when I first started writing for public consumption back in 1994, but the one thing I've always believed is that a) good things happen to people who risk thinking out loud in public and b) whether you love or hate search engines, you have to give them something to work with.

(In case you're wondering, I have never used an SEO tool and never once done a key word analysis. On the other hand, my writing style is somewhat structured, unintentionally, and the engines like that.)

So why am I saying this? Well, duh, you've got to give the search engines something to work with...and the occasional LinkedIn post or even active commenting are not that. It might be a podcast, a short little book, articles on your website, the LinkedIn newsletter tool (which they do scrape), or something. I love how Gini Dietrich's PESO Model makes these distinctions, highlighting how important "Owned" is in that system.

But I fear that the AI tools are going to focus a spotlight on fewer and fewer people, making discoverability a bigger challenge than it is now. You can buy ads on LinkedIn and Adwords and Facebook, get some mentions in industry rags, be an active social media user, and on and on, but I wonder if there's going to be a decreasing return on that investment of your time. I think you HAVE to be active on LinkedIn if you want the business world to take you seriously, but I firmly believe that should not be the primary activity. Please read that again. Thank you.

To win this game, you're going to have to think long term, and being a factor in AI recommendations is going to be a bigger and bigger part of that I suspect, and LinkedIn participation is not the best way to ensure that you are noticed by the aggregation of fewer and fewer recommendation sources (AI engines).

As an industry, we have over indexed on purpose driven. Purpose driven should relate, first, to how YOU conduct business and not how others do it (as long as they are operating within a reasonable, legal framework).

I'm not sure there are enough purpose driven entities to support all the firms that want to work with them...and also make money.

I kind of wish that people could just accept the idea that we can exchange money for expertise without all the value judgments. And then take that money that you make, honorably, and do really good things with it. The highlight of my week was doing two of those things with money. They were ecstatic moments.

To be clear, nobody is asking me this question. 😅 But if they did, I'd rather see firms be profit driven...and then be purpose driven with that money.

I hesitate to use the word “seminar” for this, because it’s not going to be a bunch of lectures, but more of a hands on workshop where I’ll work through:

/When and why to write a book.

/Developing the concept.

/Filling out the research.

/How to write it.

/Three options for getting it published.

/Technicalities: copyright, cover, design, illustrations, trim size, editing, proofreading, etc.

/Print and Kindle and Audible considerations.

/What promotion avenues work.

/Cost and revenue expectations.

/Making sure it impacts your firm and your personal career.

But it’ll be a small group (capped at 20, but probably 12 there), and each of us will help shape every person’s concept, we’ll start a small group to stay in touch, and will move this forward.

Many of you have a book in you, and there’s nothing quite like spending deep time with a subject to learn more than you could ever dream. It’ll change you, first; forget about the rest of it, because that’s all gravy.

Atlanta, 6:30p dinner on Tues night, April 7, and then 8:30a-4:00p on Wed, April 8. $2,500. Previous authors welcome.

Open article: Write The Damn Book Already by punctuation.com

I was privileged to write the introduction/summary for this report for The Society of Digital Agencies, under Tom Beck's leadership. You can download the report at the link in the comments. It's really, really revealing.

The biggest takeaway for me was this: a majority of firms in the US and Europe experienced growth in 2025. Some struggled, yes, but they were in the minority. This might surprise you because of what happens in the world of "selection bias" where it's easier to talk about struggles on LinkedIn rather than to appear to boast about how your firm is doing. It's human.

I would also add this: if your firm is in the minority and not doing well, figure out what that is: positioning? lead gen? pricing? client concentration? And then fix it. Everybody needs to reinvent themselves (including me) before the market does it for them.

I can't help myself, but I always listen to every episode of 2Bobs after it's released. This last one, out last Wednesday, had me interviewing Blair Enns on how cold plunges and improv can improve your sales conversations. It was fun to record, and I laughed listening to it. Then after I got home, I asked Blair to send me that pix, again, where he was UNDER the frozen surface of the lake where he does a cold swim every morning with a friend. This man is off in the head. Episode link in the comments.

Okay, this is crazy, AI should inspire wonder and not fear. Thanks to Jay Owen for posting this, and thanks to hundreds of you who've interacted with that article I wrote yesterday.  BTW, for those of you who saw it on LinkedIn, I usually (but not always) post it there, too, but the all the original articles come out weekly at punctuation.com if you're interested in subscribing.

CEO @ Business Builders | Co-Founder @ Agency Builders | Helper @ The Church of Eleven22

One email from David C. Baker turned into an entire new business division.

David sent an article outlining how he’d start a firm today. If you know David’s work, you know it’s sharp, opinionated, and deeply grounded in positioning and focus.

Out of curiosity, I dropped the article into Claude Code and asked a simple question:

“How does this compare to my current business, and what would need to change to align with it?”

What happened next is pretty wild...

In under two hours, I had:
• A clear positioning comparison (current vs. future state)
• A 12-month strategic roadmap
• A new sub-brand/division concept
• SOPs, sales docs, onboarding flows
• Internal documentation
• And even a front-end marketing website

This used to be weeks, sometimes months of work.

The real takeaway isn’t “AI is fast.”

It’s this: strong thinking + the right AI workflow collapses time.

David’s ideas were the catalyst.

AI became the force multiplier.

If you’re a founder, agency owner, or leader asking, “What would I change if I were starting today?”—this kind of workflow is worth paying attention to.

🎥 I walk through the full process in this video:

👇

Happy birthday to my little brother, Mark Baker. Not sure why I call him little, because he's a lot bigger and stronger than I am. But we are 9 years apart.

I love this guy to death. I used to invite him to all our events so that he could hang out, get to know people, notice anyone who was struggling, start great conversations, and so on. He's too busy now as a big wig in Memphis.

The thing that strikes me about him is how he is unignorable in any setting. He's ignorable at first, but he notices things, and any team that he's led, at three different big companies now, would die for him. Seriously.

I just saw that he put this website together. I haven't read it all, but I love the image. He also wrote a very good book on tech leadership.

The world needs more people like Mark. Maybe you're one of them, too.

Open article: Mark Alan Baker | Explore Thought-Provoking Stories Today by markalanbaker.com

Mark Alan Baker | Explore Thought-Provoking Stories Today

You should and must involve your leadership team in making deep changes at your firm, but they might be (unconsciously) thwarting your best interests. It's natural, and that's why you have to decide where the input is valuable.

How much should you listen to your team? The short answer to that question is “a lot” but it needs to be filtered carefully and not automatically foll

Open article: An Unconscious Conspiracy? by David C. Baker • 4 min read

I read X several times a day, and then a LOT when big news happens. I know many/most of you hate it. Fine. Don't care. I don't post there anymore, even though I have 21k followers, and I'm not buying any ads.

But geez, what kind of signal does it send when you customize an email like this in the very first correspondence with someone?

Excited to do a webinar on March 4 at 1p ET. I hope you'll join me and Jonathan Baker for this one. We tend to think of M&A in terms of selling our firms, but there is plenty of opportunity to grow via acquisition as well. The benefits are numerous, and it might not cost as much as you think to bring a small firm into the fold. We’ll talk through the ins and outs of this under-utilized strategy and answer any questions you might have.

Open article: Small Acquisitions as a Growth Strategy by punctuation.com

We have an upcoming webinar on growing via small acquisitions, and I'm doing a book writing seminar for new authors who want to workshop their idea with others (both are referenced below), but this article is about how to think about the times when the financial benchmarks you track at your firm seem to be in conflict? What does that mean? There are six examples in the article. Thanks for reading these, and be sure to subscribe at Punctuation.com for the fuller weekly content.

[Hey, join us for an upcoming webinar on using small acquisitions to grow your firm…or take some time to reach up high on that ladder of lead generati

Open article: When Financial Signals Contradict by David C. Baker • 4 min read

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Ezekiel Rochat

David C. Baker

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The Battle

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David C. Baker

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}David C. Baker's LinkedIn Performance

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