Smart Agency Masterclass with Jason Swenk: Podcast for Digital Marketing Agencies

Do you know the importance of building relationships to help your agency scale faster? Brian Cosgrove was doing well at a big agency but felt it kept him from doing what he really wanted to do, which was starting his own business and bringing innovation to the way the services are provided. Once he founded BrainDo, they started scaling and, within a year, had already grown from two to eight employees. In this conversation with Jason, he talked about the important role that building relationships & collaborative culture played in getting his agency off the ground, why he was always confident that they could run a big program, and what bringing value to his clients really means for him and why it is one of the guiding principles for everyone working at his agency. 3 Golden Nuggets What contributed to their growth. Once he and his partner hired their first employee, figuring out how to get benefits for their staff, how to do payroll, and making everything official with the agency made it a lot easier. They ended up going after a big contract, and that led to them getting at least 8 more workers, which allowed them to build out a lot of different services. What contributed to their faster growth? Brian credits the importance he places on maintaining good relationships with past clients, team members, and employers. He left his position at a big agency in good terms and, thanks to this, they still wanted to contract him afterward. Also, they were always confident that they could run a big program and positioned themselves to be ready for it. Building relationships & collaborative culture. Other agencies started reaching out to partner with them because their expertise. This helped them start to build relationships with local agencies that could refer clients. Also, former clients that were working at different companies started calling them. So Brian highlights the importance of these connections to get his agency off the ground. The importance of building the type of network where everyone is willing to help one another and believe they can all rise together. Of course, good work is a big part of it. "Because of that relationship, I don't want to leave the client in a worse place," he says, "I refuse to do it." The chain of value. After signing a contract, the agency will usually deal with the company's manager on a day-to-day basis. One of the guiding principles at Brian's agency is to make sure that that manager is benefitted from this relationship with them. They want to see that person get promoted and fully engaged. They should love what they're doing and help break down barriers within the organization to provide value. "The way I see it," Brian says, "is I need everybody on my team to say everything that we do has provided value." The principle is to make sure that what they do brings value to the customer, but also helps them help their team, their whole company and organization. And make sure all of that ends up helping their end customer. Sponsors and Resources Wix: Today's episode is sponsored by the Wix Partner Program. Being a Wix Partner is ideal for freelancers and digital agencies that design and develop websites for their clients. Check out Wix.com/Partners to learn more and become a member of the community for free. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Building Relationships that Will Help You Scale & The Guiding Principle of Providing Value Jason: [00:00:00] What's up, agency owners? Jason Swank here and I have another amazing guest for the podcast so you can grow your agency faster. We're going to talk about building relationships and creating a collaborative culture within your agency so you can scale faster. So let's go ahead and get into the show. Hey Brian, welcome to the show. Brian: [00:00:25] Hey, how are you? Jason: [00:00:26] I'm excited to have you on. So this is your first podcast. I'm honored you picked me to be your first podcast. But, uh, for the people that have not heard of you yet, tell us who you are and what do you do? Brian: [00:00:39] Yes. I'm Brian Cosgrove. I'm the owner of BrainDo Interactive Consulting, and we do a lot of work across the board, uh, focusing in analytics development and different areas of digital marketing. Jason: [00:00:53] Great. And so how did you get started? Brian: [00:00:55] Interesting story. I was in aerospace engineering and I was looking for as some side money during the holiday season and I applied for warehouse job. And found out I wasn't the best at doing packing boxes, but I was a bit overqualified. And the owner of the company asked if I could help out with some things related to their SEO program. So I read a bunch of like white papers. I read a bunch of like academic papers on people that were actually developing these engines. I tried to figure out, okay, who's the talent? Like how they did it? And then figure out what we should do and came up with a plan. And implemented it and started ranking top. In my ot

Do you know how you can improve client-agency relationships to scale faster? Joe Koufman has worked in the agency world for over 20 years. He was actually a guest on the podcast during its first year. In 2014, he decided to use his experience in marketing, business development, and management to create Setup, a company that works to connect brands and marketing agencies by helping companies find the right agency to meet their needs at a given time. Today he returned to the podcast to discuss what clients look for in an agency, how does a successful client-agency relationship looks like, why you shouldn't be afraid to challenge your clients, and more. 3 Golden Nuggets What do clients look for in an agency? Setup has set out to really understand client-agency relationships and asked several companies what are some of the things that matter to them in their agency partner. They found that most clients really don't care about things like proximity, size of the agency, or awards. Clients were mostly looking for chemistry, transparency, good communication, and creativity. As to the things they wished agencies knew, they wanted agencies to be more strategic partners. They also wished agencies had a better understanding of their business and that they understood that not all ideas could be executed. Building better agency-client relationships. It was curious that, when asked about what they wished to improve in the client-agency relationship, both parties seemed to ask for the same things. The reality is that, in order to have a good client-agency relationship, they need to have shared goals, sharing common KPIs. And, of course, there must also be a high level of transparency between client and agency, even some vulnerability in terms of what they are sharing. A big frustration for clients was when agencies claimed to be good at something that they are not. Agencies have to set clear expectations and be completely transparent and candid about what they do well and what they don't do well. Don't be afraid of tension. "You're not looking for harmony," Joe says, "you're looking for tension in the relationship." Don't strive to be your client's buddy. You can be buddies with your sales rep, but never buy anything from them. The idea is that you push the client and bring them an insight that's not obvious to them. Get them to agree that there's an issue in their organization and then present your solution and the best option. Remember that usually, clients don't hire an agency because they want order takers. They hire an agency because there's an unmet need. "The byproduct of being a real challenger," Joe assures, "is relationship." Sponsors and Resources Gusto: Today's episode is sponsored by Gusto, an all-in-one people platform for payroll, benefits, HR where you can unify your data. Gusto automatically applies your payroll taxes and directly deposits your team's paychecks, freeing you up to work on your business. Head over to gusto.com/agency to enjoy an exclusive offer for podcast listeners. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM The Byproduct of Being a Real Challenger is Better Client-Agency Relationships Jason: [00:00:00] What's up, agency owners? Got another exciting show for you. One of my good friends from Atlanta that was actually back on the podcast the first year we've done this. And we're going to talk about building client relations so you can scale your agency faster. So let's go ahead and get into the show. Hey, Joe. Welcome back to the show. Joe: [00:00:27] Hey! Thank you. It's been a long time since I've been on this show. Jason: [00:00:31] Yeah, I mean… seven years? And that back with the intro in the, in the video with the cup. I was like, oh, I'm here. Joe: [00:00:42] We, uh, we haven't aged a bit in seven years. Jason: [00:00:45] No, I've, I've just gotten a lot more gray in my beard. Um, a lot more gray. Yeah. No, you've always been kind of peppered. I think… Joe: [00:00:56] Yeah. Just more so. Jason: [00:00:57] Exactly. Well, um, tell everybody who you are and tell them a little bit about your, uh, your background of working with the agencies. Joe: [00:01:05] Sure. So I'm Joe Kaufman, I'm the founder and CEO of Setup and we are marketing matchmakers, meaning that we connect brands and marketing agencies together. So from an agency perspective, um, what that usually means is that we connect agencies with potential clients. From a client perspective, they look at us as a search consultant or a, an augment of their team to help them find agencies that can fill gaps in either capacity. Like they don't have enough arms and legs to do the work they need to do. Or capability, they're missing some capability that an agency could fill. Jason: [00:01:43] Very cool. Awesome. Well, let's, let's kinda talk about what people are listening in for is like building better relationships and, you know, and re-engaging. You know their client year after year, you know, because you, you've wor

Do you know the importance of focusing on the who, rather than the how, to get your agency to the next level? Dallin Cottle had a degree in political science and was heading to law school when he started working at an agency and discovered a knack and passion for advertising. He quickly felt that he couldn't continue to grow at that company and decided to branch out and start his own business, Roar Media. Now, after scaling his agency and getting through the many difficulties that COVID brought for business owners, he sat down with Jason to talk about how he got his first clients, how getting his agency to the next level meant focusing on the who, rather than the how, and how he realized when it was time to start transitioning from his role of agency owner to being a CEO. 3 Golden Nuggets Making the first $100,000 from unqualified leads. Coming from many years in the agency world, Dallin already had some contacts and an idea on how to get his first clients. He reached out to some of his connections in local agencies and asked if they could refer some unqualified leads. "There's a lot of them and they were just throwing them out like garbage," he recalls. And that's how he got the first clients for start building his agency and made his first $100,000 from calling up leads that nobody wanted. Focusing on the who, rather that the how. When building and starting to grow an agency, many people focus on how to get to the next level and start to work more and more. Dallin believes that the more you learn, the more you'll realize that you have no idea what you're doing. "This is a pivotal moment for any agency owner," he says. It is at that point when you have to look around and realize where the business is at and where you are going and you have to surround yourself with the right people that are going to help get you there at that moment. Transitioning to the role of CEO. Agency owners typically have many capabilities. They can wear a lot of different hats and this can result in a failure to recognize when it's time to look for experts that can help you scale to the next level, as well as the time to transition to the role of CEO. In his case, our guest understood it was now or never and organized a 6-week vacation. Just the thought of leaving for a long period without answering calls or emails forced him to start delegating tasks he would normally do for his team. At this point, part of your role will be setting the vision for the company and coaching and mentoring the leadership team. Sponsors and Resources Ninja Cat: Today's episode is sponsored by Ninja Cat, a digital marketing performance management platform where you can unify your data, create beautiful, insightful reports and presentations that will help you grow your business. Head over to ninjacat.io/masterclass to enjoy an exclusive offer for podcast listeners. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Focus on The Who To Get Your Agency To The Next Level And Transition To The Role of CEO Jason: [00:00:00] What's up, agency owners? I'm excited to have another amazing guest. We're going to talk about the who, not how, which is real important when you're growing and scaling your agency. So let's go ahead and jump into the episode. Hey, Dallin. Welcome to the show. Dallin: [00:00:21] Thank you. Thank you. Excited to be here. Jason: [00:00:24] Yeah, me too. Tell us who you are and what do you do? Dallin: [00:00:27] Yeah, so I'm Dallin Cottle. I own a marketing agency in Salt Lake City, Utah, Roar Media. We specialize in Facebook ads, Google ads for the real estate niche, fitness and personal development spaces primarily. So, yeah, excited to be here. Jason: [00:00:47] Yeah! Tell us, how did you get started? Like why create an agency? Because, you know, as we all know, it's, it's a hard life for a number of different years. Dallin: [00:00:54] Yeah. So my story is actually really, you know, unconventional. I actually got a degree in political science and I thought I was heading straight to law school. And, you know, I got, I graduated and I was looking around and I'm like… Man, I don't really actually see the type of job that I was thinking I was going to have right here at the end of the road here. And looking at a lot of years ahead with law school I'm like, man, I don't know if this is it for me. So I took this job at an agency and, you know, day one, I was like, man, I, I'm home. Like, this is what I love doing. And a lot of parallels from just human psychology and everything I've learned, I learned in political science of how people vote is very similar to how they respond to ads and different things. So it was kind of a, you know, it's definitely a match for me. And from there I, just about a year later, I realized that I had I've reached my destination at that company. I had… making the six figures. I bought the Beamer. I bought the house. Bought the 4runner. I mean, we had a kid, I felt like, wow, this is, this is a great life,

Would you like to land big retainers of $50,000 to $100,000? Spencer Brooks is the founder and principal of Brooks Digital, an agency that empowers health nonprofits to build engaging digital platforms that improve the lives of patients. He has worked to create an agency that brings a new perspective to the nonprofit sector, which is very one-time project-focused, and tries to bring a more agile approach to help them adapt to changes in online health information. With this in mind, Spencer has created a system where the agency looks for opportunities for a longer-term relationship with the clients in 12-month retainers. In his conversation with Jason, he talked about choosing a niche, how he goes about offering retainers, and the point at which the working relationship can lead to bigger retainers. 3 Golden Nuggets Choosing a niche. As it tends to happen, this agency stumbled upon its niche after hearing many times that he should choose one. At first, it was just about realizing that 60-70% of their clients were nonprofits and making the move to start focusing on those clients. It was fairly easy because as a niche it was still quite large. Another look at their client roster revealed that most of those nonprofits worked with health issues. The decision to focus on those clients was much harder because it was scary to move into a much smaller niche with about 20,000 nonprofits. However, it was the right move for them and they've made it work by bringing a more agile approach to the sector and working with the perspective that their digital presence is a product, not a project. Landing big retainers. Of course, there are agencies that can get six-figure retainers from day one, but in Spencer's experience, the agency's biggest retainers have come from a working relationship with a client that matures to that point. It usually starts with a client that has a very specific project or something that they want to do. Spencer will then evaluate whether there's an opportunity for a retainer with this client. What are their challenges? What are the organization's goals? It usually goes beyond just building a website. He informs the client that there's an opportunity for a longer-term retainer with their project and makes sure to have a roadmap for the post-launch of the website. Timeline to get a retainer. When working on the initial foot in the door project, Spencer and his team are usually looking for ways to craft a winning strategy. After that, he says, it's usually either simple and takes just a few weeks or it'll take months and months and never come to anything. It's the ones in the middle, the ones that take up to six months that are more complicated because, in his experience, they are always tied to trying to sell the retainer upfront. The idea is that the client can make that decision in a few weeks or on the spot. Because the foot in the door offering is an opportunity to build trust, as well as for the agency to evaluate that client and decide if it's worth it to commit to them for the long term. Gusto: Today's episode is sponsored by Gusto, an all-in-one people platform for payroll, benefits, HR where you can unify your data. Gusto automatically applies your payroll taxes and directly deposits your team's paychecks, freeing you up to work on your business. Head over to gusto.com/agency to enjoy an exclusive offer for podcast listeners. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Choosing a Niche and Creating a System to Land Bigger Retainers Jason: [00:00:00] What's up, agency owners? I'm excited for another amazing episode. We're going to talk about how to land bigger retainer. My guest on the masterclass today is going to talk about how he sold 30,000 to 100,000 dollars plus retainers, which all of us want to do. But a lot of times we're doing it the wrong way. And, uh, so let's go ahead and get into the show. Hey, Spencer. Welcome to the show. Spencer: [00:00:32] Hey. What's up, Jason? Glad to be here. Jason: [00:00:34] Yeah, I'm excited to have you on. So tell us who you are and what do you do? Spencer: [00:00:39] Sure. So, like you said, my name is Spencer Brooks. I run Brooks Digital. We're a digital agency. We do a lot of strategy, like user experience, as well as design and development for nonprofits. Specifically, those nonprofits that focused on a health condition like cancer, diabetes, something like that. We take the perspective that their digital presence is a product, not a project. Because there's certainly a lot of one-time project-based thinking in the nonprofit sector. So we try to bring a more agile approach to help them adapt to changes in online health information and things like that. Jason: [00:01:15] Awesome. And so how did you get into doing this and how did you wind up picking this niche? Spencer: [00:01:21] Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I, I stumbled into it to be honest, I think as many people do, or at least other agency owners I talk with. I sta

Are you looking for ways to boost your team's productivity while also improving your work-life balance? Jason Berkowitz was working as a personal trainer in NYC when he discovered SEO and decided to become a freelancer. He grew his business and started hiring and building his team to create a legit agency, Break The Web. Now that he has a team, he has been implementing a few ways to boost productivity and morale. In this conversation, he talks about the key roles he hired to start growing his agency, why offering unlimited PTO has worked for his team, and how a special summer schedule allows the team longer weekends 3 Golden Nuggets On growing his agency. Jason found success learning about SEO practices and how to help people implement them in their websites. However, freelancers have to take care of different aspects of the business like admin, selling, project management, execution, client management. Some people are comfortable with that, but he wanted to delegate certain aspects of the business to increase his income. For this, the first strategic hire was an account manager, which was the first step to start building a legit agency. This way, he didn't have to spend so much time speaking with clients, relaying information, and setting expectations and could focus on other aspects of the growing business. On unlimited PTO. More and more people are deciding to offer employees unlimited PTO. It is an ongoing debate and, in his particular case, Jason decided to do this at his agency. The main reason has to do with fairness. "If I wanted to take unlimited vacations, it was only fair to allow that as well in the team culture," he says. But there was also the matter of allowing people to enjoy their time off and see how that affected the way they enjoyed work. There are still rules, it is based on performance, employees have to put in requests for PTO at least 10 business days beforehand, and it can be approved or denied. But it has been a success at his agency. Boosting his team's productivity. Other than offering unlimited PTO, another strategy introduced this year at the agency to boost the team's morale was working half-day Fridays in the month of June. It was a way of letting them enjoy their summer weekends, but it actually ended up improving team productivity from Monday to Thursday. Work was being executed much faster and more efficiently. It also helped Jason maintain a better work-life balance. Overall, it was a success for this team and something that they may continue to do every year. Sponsors and Resources Wix: Today's episode is sponsored by the Wix Partner Program. Being a Wix Partner is ideal for freelancers and digital agencies that design and develop websites for their clients. Check out Wix.com/Partners to learn more and become a member of the community for free. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Growing Your Agency, Work-Life Balance, and Boosting Your Team's Productivity Jason Swenk: [00:00:00] What's up, agency owners? Jason Swenk here and I have another amazing guest and, uh, his name is Jason. He's also from New York. So don't get confused. He's probably better looking than me, but, uh, we're going to talk about growing his agency, life balance, and a lot of cool stuff. So, uh, I'm excited to have him on. So let's go ahead and get into the episode. Hey, Jason. Welcome to the show. Jason Berkowitz: [00:00:29] Hi! Thank you so much for having me, Jason. It's a pleasure and, yeah, best name ever. Jason Swenk: [00:00:34] I know. I was like, don't get confused. You're the newer and better version of me, I guess. But tell us who you are and what do you do? Jason Berkowitz: [00:00:42] I am the founder of the search marketing agency Break The Web, and we specialize primarily in SEO and paid search. We help in-house marketing teams, integrate SEO, which is always nuanced and confusing and annoying, into their existing marketing practices. So it's seamless all around. Jason Swenk: [00:01:00] Very cool. And so how did you get into this space? Jason Berkowitz: [00:01:03] It was probably by accident. I used to be a personal trainer, way back when in New York City. And I was tired of working for a gym and basically working off the leads that they gave me, which were new membership signups. And I had the idea of what if I can get people to come to me? Is there a demand? So of course people are going to Google typing in personal trainer NYC. Saw the acronym, SEO started implementing it on my website at the time. And then I was like, screw personal training. Uh, this SEO stuff is fun. Of course, SEO was way different back then anyway, but it was kind of a paradigm shift. That's where the journey started. I worked as a freelancer for a while, but that's where it started. Jason Swenk: [00:01:39] How long ago was that? Jason Berkowitz: [00:01:42] Around 2009, 2010 is where I started actually getting into the practices of SEO what's involved? What does everything mean? What's

Do you think that growing and scaling your agency means always going for more in every aspect? Will Russell is the founder and CEO of Russell Marketing, an agency focused on product launch marketing, crowdfunding, e-commerce, and Amazon. Through his experience with his agency, he created a five-step launch process meant to enable anyone to validate and pursue an idea in an affordable manner without taking a massive amount of risk. In this episode, he'll talk about how to prepare for the launch, why you should never ask family and friends what they think about your idea, and how he approaches the idea of scaling his agency while staying lean. 3 Golden Nuggets Pursuing an idea. There are no guarantees when it comes to ideas. If there were, major brands like Apple wouldn't launch products that fail. This is why Will's process is all about swiftly and, and affordably pursuing an idea. Lots of people have big ideas, but not everyone has the right feedback. Preferably don't lose time asking your family and friends if your idea is good. You won't know for sure until you start selling. Sometimes the market will tell you that the idea is not good, Will's system is all about preparing as much as you can and anticipate some of the possible hurdles. The five-step process. The mistakes made when pursuing a bad idea or pursuing an idea in the wrong way can be very costly. This five-step system was created to avoid those mistakes. 1. Validation, which is understanding how a product resonates in the market. 2. Build an audience, 3. Engage your audience, a key here will be resolving sales objections by trying to understand as many of those objections as possible and getting them resolved in advance of the launch, 4. Focus on audience conversion, 5. Scale and optimize. Not more but better. Something that really describes Will's philosophy and the direction he wanted to take with his agency is "the goal should not be more, the goal should be better" and how he wanted to continue to scale his business while staying lean. This applies to pretty much everything. From the number of clients you have, the number of employees you need, and the number of hours you're working to get your agency to the next level. The answer doesn't always have to be more, more, more. Sometimes we should ask ourselves how we could work better or smarter. Gusto: Today's episode is sponsored by Gusto, an all-in-one people platform for payroll, benefits, HR where you can unify your data. Gusto automatically applies your payroll taxes and directly deposits your team's paychecks, freeing you up to work on your business. Head over to gusto.com/agency to enjoy an exclusive offer for podcast listeners. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Continue to Scale Your Agency While Staying Lean With this 5-Step Process for a Successful Launch Jason: [00:00:00] What's up, agency owners? I'm excited to have another amazing guest in the masterclass. We're going to talk about the five-step launch system that you can follow for yourself or for your clients. We're going to talk about how Will's actually grown and scaled his agency while staying lean. And having a lifestyle that he's always wanted, where you have the freedom to pick and choose to do the things that you love doing rather than being forced to do everything. So let's go ahead and get into the episode. Hey, Will! Welcome to the show. Will: [00:00:39] Hey, Jason. Thank you for having me, pleasure. Jason: [00:00:42] Well, um, thanks for coming on. Uh, tell us who you are and what do you do? Will: [00:00:48] Absolutely. My name's Will Russell. I'm the founder of a launch marketing agency, Russell Marketing. We specialize in product launches, idea launches, uh, such as crowdfunding, Amazon, e-commerce, and so on. Essentially we have a five-step system that we, we bring to our clients and help them successfully launch their, their big ideas. Jason: [00:01:12] Awesome. Well, let's go ahead. And, um, you know, before we kind of jump into it, how did you start the agency and why? Will: [00:01:21] I used to… About six years ago, I, I was working at an organization and the organization relocated. That would have meant a kind of a 19-minute commute, either way for me. And that was not what I wanted to be doing. You know, my, I created this business and I wanted to always wanted to have a lifestyle or life outside of work. And so three hours every day commuting wasn't my cup of tea. So I decided if there was ever a time to pursue something myself, then, then that was it. I went ahead, just kicked it off with some freelancing work. So, if, if the business was viable, if I could start bringing in clients like that and. And it was able to, and we successfully just continue taking steps since then really. Jason: [00:02:07] Very cool. Well, let's go ahead and jump into kind of the five-step launch process. Uh, tell us a little bit about that and walk us through it. Will: [00:02:17] Absolutely. So this f

Hollis Carter is an entrepreneur and avid skier who, after founding many companies in his career, recently became the co-founder of the Baby Bathwater Institute, a membership-based community of entrepreneurs with a focus on cultivating natural, mutually beneficial relationships. Since his business relied on many in-person events, it was quite affected by the Covid 19 pandemic and subsequent restrictions. During this time of cancellations and being stuck at home, Hollis thought of a way to add value to the members during this new situation and started to offer a series of services with a performance-based model. This model quickly grew and he ended up selling it before actually having to fully build an agency. In this interview, he talked about the process of building and growing an agency to over $4 million and then selling it, all during a pandemic. 3 Golden Nuggets Growing an agency during Covid. Before the pandemic, Hollis was organizing many in-person events. Once they were canceled because of this new situation, he realized he had a perfect opportunity to offer a new service that would offer value to members of his mastermind. There was already a business relationship and he knew their products and believed in them. So he got ready to work under a performance-based model. "It was really very simple," he says. The offer included podcast interviews, email lists, and content sites. He spent on setting up all the automation and tracking and found someone to handle that. And of course, under this model he was working with clients, not for them. Simplifying the offer. How can you make things simpler for you? First of all, don't just take a good deal. This agency had the advantage of having a group of companies whose product they trusted. Even then, our guest says, they took people who were so product-focused that we were going to get the content and the angles they needed. People who knew they needed to be told how to market this product. They also let clients use the work they were creating and focused on the 10% that drove revenue. However, there are some things they would do differently a second time around: setting a flat fee and, instead of complicated spreadsheets just telling the client "here's the number that came in, this is our cut," would save a lot of time. Finally, figuring out how to set expectations of timeline, having a written document with a timeline that the client can reread instead of emailing you questions. Pulling from other industries. Hollis believes in taking knowledge from other industries into your own. He makes sure to have participants from different types of businesses in his masterminds and sustains there's always nuggets that you can pull from other industry practices that might not exist in a niche that you're opening, like what he has learned about hiring from the hotel space. He encourages others to give themselves a chance step outside what they know and learn something new that they can implement in their business from an unexpected source. Sponsors and Resources Ninja Cat: Today's episode is sponsored by Ninja Cat, a digital marketing performance management platform where you can unify your data, create beautiful, insightful reports and presentations that will help you grow your business. Head over to ninjacat.io/masterclass to enjoy an exclusive offer for podcast listeners. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Growing an Agency Fast to Over $4 Million and Selling Quick Jason: [00:00:00] What's up, agency owners? Jason Swenk here. I have another amazing show guest. We're going to talk about how when COVID hit, they formed an agency and ramped it up to over $4 million and sold it, during COVID. So it's a really cool episode and you're going to enjoy my guest. So let's go ahead and get into it. Hey, Hollis. Welcome to the show. Hollis: [00:00:29] Hey, man. Thanks for having me. Jason: [00:00:30] Pleasure to have you on. So for the people that have not heard of you or met you at one of your cool events, tell us who you are and what do you guys do? Hollis: [00:00:39] Yeah. My name is Hollis Carter. Living in Boulder, Colorado, but originally from Georgia, where I kind of got my first start in internet marketing stuff. I was like early in college and built a couple of online businesses and luckily had one that did pretty well and sold that. And then I moved to Colorado and did this skiing thing for a while and, uh, living in the mountains and it was great, but I could only talk about skiing and snowboarding and mountain biking with people. So, I'm now a front ranger living in Boulder and enjoy it and got back in the mix of things. Our main business is called the Baby Bathwater Institute. You've come out to one of our events that we had at out mountain. And, uh, I started, my other businesses based on the thing that I use to learn… Like no one was really teaching relevant stuff in the late nineties, early two thousands. So to do it, I thought let's s

Do you want to know how to land major brands? Bill Durrant had been working for a big agency for years when he decided to leave and work freelance for a while. That's when opportunity knocked and old Nestle client asked him to work on his new account, Clif Bar. This is the client that really started his agency Ex Verus, which helps brands develop a paid media strategy that drives visible sales growth and merchandise those results to leadership. In today's episode, he sits down with Jason to talk about how good timing has as much to do as being good, what is it like to work with major brands like Coca-Cola, why it is so important for him to develop a relationship with clients, and 3 Golden Nuggets How to get in with the major brands? For Bill, getting a major brand's attention was all about timing and also making a good impression. He had been working at a big agency and worked on the Nestle account. He eventually decided to leave and start working freelance when an old Nestle client called him to handle the marketing for his new account, Clif Bar. What tells people who want to land a major client is that within these same organizations there are many brand managers in charge of growth stage brands that need creative input and are willing to work with smaller agencies that can bring some new and interesting input. Work on your relationship with clients. When his agency got their first client, they set the goal to start building relationships with as many people within the organization as possible. They also started getting introduced to people from other departments and other products, with the possibility of working with them too. Also, the same people that he worked with during those years eventually went on to other companies and called them to start growing those brands. Good clients will take you everywhere they go. This is why Bill values his relationship with them and even makes it a point to fly out every once in a while and touch base with his most valuable clients. The three-tier approach. With client relationships being such a core element of business, you have to make sure that clients build this relationship with the agency more so than with a key member of the team. Team members will leave sometimes for different reasons, and the client shouldn't feel like their communication with the agency will change for the worst because of it. This is why Bill has established a three-tier approach where there's a senior leadership level, junior planners, and associate planners. In case someone in one of those levels leaves, there's still two other points of contact that have developed a relationship with the client. Gusto: Today's episode is sponsored by Gusto, an all-in-one people platform for payroll, benefits, HR where you can unify your data. Gusto automatically applies your payroll taxes and directly deposits your team's paychecks, freeing you up to work on your business. Head over to gusto.com/agency to enjoy an exclusive offer for podcast listeners. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Landing Major Brands and How Good Clients Will Take You Everywhere Jason: [00:00:00] What's up, everybody? Jason Swenk here. I am excited I have another amazing guest on the show. We're going to talk about the landing big well-known brands. Because a lot of you have been reaching out, how do we get these big brands? Like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and all these major brands? Well, on today's episode, we're going to talk about that with this amazing guest. So let's go ahead and get it. Hey, Bill. Welcome to the show. Bill: [00:00:34] Hey, thanks so much for having me, Jason. Jason: [00:00:36] Yeah, man. I'm excited to have you on. So for the ones that have not heard of you yet tell us who you are and what do you do? Bill: [00:00:47] Alright, I am Bill Durrant and I'm the president and founder of Ex Verus Media. We're based out in Los Angeles and we are a paid media agency focused in that space, uh, really designed to create culture, creating growth-stage brands. Um, to work with those brands, to build them, to grow them from a media standpoint. Uh, and not just their brands, but also immediate demand as well. So the performance side of the world as well. Jason: [00:01:12] Awesome. Well, tell us, how, how did you get into this space? I'm always curious and like, what was your first project or deal? Bill: [00:01:20] Yeah. You know, I think our origin story is a little… You know, it's a little funny. It shows you how important it is to be a lucky and good, not just good. Um, I had worked for a number of years at a big agency and worked on, uh, the Nestle accounts. I worked with a number of grants from Nestle and, uh, I had decided to leave, um, just start doing some freelance work. And while I was doing that, I got a phone call from a former Nestle client who said, hey, I'm running a part of the marketing organization at Clif Bar now. And we'd love to know if, uh, you might be able to be a one-person medi

Are you thinking about the ways you could use NFTs for your digital agency? After working in nine agencies, Kent Lewis decided to start Anvil Media in 2000, which is nowadays one of the oldest search engine marketing agencies in the Pacific Northwest that specializes in analytics, SEO, paid media, and organic social media strategy. Last year, during the NFT boom, Kent wrote a not so serious press release about this phenomenon and got the attention of companies wanted to learn how to use these one-of-a-kind digital assets. Just like that, he got into the NFT world and is developing some projects around them. Today he joins Jason to talk about what are NFTs, how some companies started using them, the possibilities to further develop their potential, and how can digital agencies get in on the action too. 3 Golden Nuggets What are NFTs? There's been a lot of talk about non-fungible tokens since their boom last year. In essence, it is is a unit of data stored on a blockchain that certifies a digital asset to be unique and therefore not interchangeable. We've seen sold for hundreds of thousands, but how can companies use them? Some early adopters saw success from selling digital items to create brand awareness (Pizza Hut selling digital pizzas, Pringles selling a golden chip). But there's still much room to continue innovating. How brands are using them. If the first step was brand engagement the future of NFTs for companies includes brand engagement and brand perception management. In this post-pandemic world of much more remote work and remote communication, it makes sense to add digital products to your offerings. The future of NFTs includes its gamification, meaning tokens, rewards, exclusive access, and more. How can agencies get in on the action? As we've seen, agencies can help their clients jump on the NFT trend to create brand awareness and engagement. But some agencies are themselves starting to use NFTs. Access to exclusive rewards is a good way to create interest in your brand. Some agencies are starting to do this by the tokenization of their time. For example, someone that gets a good deal on one of your agency's tokens could get a good deal for an hour of your time. Kent also recommends paying close attention to how Gary Vaynerchuk is innovating with NFTs. Sponsors and Resources Wix: Today's episode is sponsored by the Wix Partner Program. Being a Wix Partner is ideal for freelancers and digital agencies that design and develop websites for their clients. Check out Wix.com/Partners to learn more and become a member of the community for free. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Using NFTs Like Gary Vee To Create Brand Engagement Jason: [00:00:00] Hey, what's up, agency owners? Jason Swenk here and have another amazing guest for you. We're going to talk about how your agency can use NFTs. That's right. And we're going to tell his story and so you can do that. So let's go ahead and jump into the episode. Hey, Ken. Welcome to the show. Kent: [00:00:25] Pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me. Jason: [00:00:27] Yeah, man. I'm excited to have you on. So tell us who are you and what do you do? Kent: [00:00:32] So my name is Kent Lewis. I am based in Portland, Oregon since 95, you know, marketing PR background. But in 96, I got involved in the internet, started optimizing websites before Google was a thing. And I've been a part of nine agencies, founded two, co-founded two. But when I was fired the second time from an agency that I was a key manager in, I decided I'm probably unemployable. Better do my own thing. So started out in 2000 with Anvil Media, as a consultancy and started bringing in employees in 03. And have been active and keeping it a relatively boutique-sized digital marketing agency since then. And when I'm not doing the agency thing, you know, I'm trying to get outside. That's the great thing about Portland, we're an hour and a half from the ocean, from the mountains from rivers, you name it. Jason: [00:01:20] Awesome, so are you a fly fisherman? Kent: [00:01:23] My first ever fly fishing experience was on the Deschutes River in Central Oregon, about three months ago. Gal, one of my friends, she gave me the rod and said Kent, and one just keep throwing it. And I caught a least solid three and a half-inch steelhead. So I didn't eat it. It was probably good for a pizza. And I guess you could say I was maybe hooked. So I think I might try more of that later, but I'm mostly like bike cycling, snowboarding, skiing, kind of guy. Jason: [00:01:50] Very cool. We'll get along very well. That's, that's all me. That's why I live in the mountains. But, um, we're not here to talk about the mountains. Let's talk about… I'm curious, because I've been fired from almost every job. Why were you fired from that one agency? Kent: [00:02:05] Well, so the first time I was fired was an agency I co-founded in 99. And by fall of 2000 we had a disagreement about equity and our role. Ther

Are you wondering how to go beyond the six or seven-figure mark and continue your agency growth? After graduating college with a Liberal Arts degree and an interest in advertising, Ben Wiener jumped at the opportunity to work at Wongdoody, an advertising agency that specializes in UX, as well as customers experience and employee experience. He continued to work there for 28 years and is now the CEO of the recently sold agency. He sat down to talk with Jason about the importance of the pipeline to keep your agency going beyond the million-dollar mark, how he goes about building the leadership at his agency, how to recalibrate your ambition to keep going after reaching eight figures, and his current role at the company. 3 Golden Nuggets Beyond the million. Many agency owners that reach the million-dollar mark have a hard time going beyond that level. In Ben's experience, this entails a mind shift. It's a point where you will need your new clients to be as big as your biggest client. Making the decision to stop taking small clients may be difficult and requires a lot of confidence on your next step, but you need to recognize that small clients take as much time as big clients and keep you from reaching that next level. This pipeline piece is key and you need to have a clear vision of what you want your client roster to look like. Building leaders. Hiring is one of the most important things agency owners do once their agency starts to see a certain level of growth. Once you've hired people t start doing the things you used to do you will need to start hiring people that do things you can't do? How can you ensure they really know what they're doing? Our guest believes sourcing talent from companies that are ahead of him in the growth curve is the best way to go about it. It provides credibility and, at the very least, they will be well trained. After you hire your leadership and empower them to make decisions, your job will become clearing the path for them to be able to focus on their jobs. Recalibrating your ambition. Getting to seven figures is the number one goal for many agency owners, and it might be so overwhelming to get there that you just think "I can't believe I got here". Ben argues that continuing your growth will require recalibrating your ambition, thinking how do I use eight figures as a platform to get to 10 figures? And what are the next set of changes that we are going to make? Of course, not everyone has eight or nine-figure ambitions and that's ok. The things you love about your agency at $5 million will definitely not be there at $50 million. You have to be very clear on what you want going forward. YOUTUBE AUDIO LINK Gusto: Today's episode is sponsored by Gusto, an all-in-one people platform for payroll, benefits, HR where you can unify your data. Gusto automatically applies your payroll taxes and directly deposits your team's paychecks, freeing you up to work on your business. Head over to gusto.com/agency to enjoy an exclusive offer for podcast listeners. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Building Leaders and Recalibrating Your Ambition Will Help You Continue Your Growth Jason: [00:00:00] What's up, agency owners? Jason Swenk here, and I have an amazing guest on today's show. We're going to talk about what is the milestones that you'd go through in order to build an over $80 million agency. Yes, $80 million. I want you to sink that in because a lot of you are trying to get to the eight-figure mark or the nine-figure mark. So we're going to talk about the milestones that you go through. And I have an amazing guest who's been in the industry and been with Wongdoody for over 27 years. So let's go ahead and get into the episode. Hey, Ben. Welcome to the show. Ben: [00:00:45] Hi, how are you? Jason: [00:00:47] I'm excited to have you on, so tell us who you are and what do you do? Ben: [00:00:52] I am Ben Wiener. I am the CEO of Wongdoody, which is, as you pointed out a 28-year-old at this point, um, former advertising agency that has evolved into a global experience design company. Jason: [00:01:09] That's incredible. And so we were talking in the pre-show that you were employee number four. So talk about the progression and you know, how did Wongdoody get started? And first off, just tell people how you guys came up with the name. Uh, cause I'm sure people, you know, I was very interested before. Ben: [00:01:31] Um, it's a really funny name. It's a really boring story. Um, Wongdoody was founded by two people. Mr. Wong and Mr. Doody, otherwise, why would you ever call a company that? And for the most part, you know, we've survived the credibility problem that we start with. But there's still a couple of clients that we've had over the years that have said, you know, there's no way our board of directors is hiring Wongdoody. Can we just call you WD? And we're like, sure. Whatever it takes for you to get Ben Wiener from Wongdoody employed. Jason: [00:02:09] That's j

Are you willing to start saying no to wrong customers to see real change for your agency? Kerrie Luginbill is a partner and Chief Strategy Officer at Old Town Media, a Colorado-based agency that since its beginnings offered a unique and agile approach to web design, development, and marketing by providing customers a business-driven approach. Now they partner with companies to create and implement marketing strategies that connect with their audience and inspire action. Kerrie discusses how she increased revenue by 4X in under one year. And now, after 15 years in the business, her agency crafted a "no-fly" list for customers, identified their target client, and the growth that resulted from this move. 3 Golden Nuggets Saying no to wrong prospects. Kerrie and her team really noticed a difference once they identified the right target customer for them and started to say no to the ones that did not fit that target. It was what catalyzed the growth, she says. Of course, it's not easy turning down business, but they found that saying yes to the wrong kind of customer really reduces the amount of space you have for the right ones. Especially when it comes to clients that are disrespecting your team. Learning to say no can be a way for you to protect your team and a catalyst for growth. The no-fly list. With that in mind, Kerrie and her agency began creating a no-fly list, writing down all the similarities that made some customers not fit in the target customer model. They started identifying red flags, like referencing another company's vision to explain their own. They wanted to work with companies that had a clear vision of where they wanted to go. Their biggest focus was value, because ideal clients must have a lifetime value customer that can afford them the margin to have an engagement with them that's large enough for them to drive value. Shifting to value-based pricing. It's very hard to get to value-based pricing when you're working with a small margin. Once you start saying no to low-margin clients you will start to identify people that share your values and with which you can form a strong engagement and a strong relationship. You can find that those clients are even easier to work with. This way, you start to reduce stress on your team, which helps reduce turnover. This is when you can start shifting to value-based pricing. Sponsors and Resources Ninja Cat: Today's episode is sponsored by Ninja Cat, a digital marketing performance management platform where you can unify your data, create beautiful, insightful reports and presentations that will help you grow your business. Head over to ninjacat.io/masterclass to enjoy an exclusive offer for podcast listeners. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Saying No to the Wrong Customers and Shifting to Value-Based Pricing Jason: [00:00:00] Welcome, agency owners. I'm Jason Swenk and here's another episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass. And on today's episode, I have an amazing guest who went from $500,000 in revenue to over $2 million in just under a year. And we're going to talk about the one thing that she actually did at her agency in order to accomplish this. Now, before we jump into the episode. I want you to do me a favor. I want you to take a screenshot of the podcast. And then I want you to upload it to social media and tag us so I can give you a shout-out for listening to the show. Let's go ahead and bring Kerrie on. Hey, Kerrie. Welcome to the show. Kerrie: [00:00:43] Hello. How's it going? Jason: [00:00:45] Awesome. I'm excited to have you on, so tell us who you are and what do you do? Kerrie: [00:00:50] Yeah, my name is Kerrie Luginbill and I am a partner and the Chief Strategy Officer at a creative agency in Fort Collins, Colorado. So just about 45 minutes North of Denver. Jason: [00:01:03] Awesome. I'll uh, we, we just moved to Colorado in Durango, so I'm starting to just try to figure out where everything uh is, but, uh, uh, I'm… Let's go ahead and jump into it and talk about what's the one thing, you know, that took you from 500,000 to over 2 million in less than a year? Because there's a lot of people that spend years, sometimes decades. Um, and they hit that plateau and they can't figure out what do they actually need. Kerrie: [00:01:34] Yeah, and full disclosure. It was more than one year. It was a couple of years, but there was a really distinct difference that we, we took a different direction that we took with the agency that really catalyzed a lot of that growth. And it was really identifying the right target customer for us and saying no to the customers that were not in that target. It's really hard as an entrepreneur to say no to business and to work. But what we found over the last couple of years is that when you say yes to the wrong kind of client, you are really creating, you're reducing the amount of space that you have for the right client. And that was really inhibiting us. And so we had to kind of fi

Do you want to create a machine that ensures agency growth? David Butler was working as a special ed teacher when he decided to try his luck in the real estate business. He later created an agency looking to reinvent himself during the 2009 financial crisis. With Jason's help, he was able to grow and ultimately sell his business. David now enjoys a new lifestyle and focuses on his family. He joined Jason on the podcast to talk about how he implemented the "Netflix model" to prevent client cancellations, how he streamlined the company's hiring process to put the right people on the right roles, and how making a white label agreement with a larger company was the key to really grow his agency. 3 Golden Nuggets Creating a machine. Once David started to see his agency grow organically from his first apartment management company client, he implemented the "Netflix model" where he charges a very competitive fee to make sure the agency won't lose customers. How did he keep it profitable? "I figured property managers would be so busy they wouldn't utilize us all the time," he says, "But they would still need us." Of course, he made sure to estimate how many clients they could handle. Streamlining the hiring process. Being a big believer on the principle of hiring your weaknesses, David hired a local company to take care of the customer service and clients are continually amazed by how quickly they get a call back. He also believes in the importance of putting the right people on the right positions and made sure to create a hiring process that would eliminate unfit candidates. "It's stupidly simple," he told Jason. The big change. The Netflix model failed when it came to hiring a highly paid sales team. This is when he started considering a white label agreement with a larger company. It was not easy, the entire process took about two years. However, this company had 350 sales agents and this was the key to the growth. Now, his agency was taking 100-200 new clients each month and he could continue to focus on hiring the right people. Gusto: Today's episode is sponsored by Gusto, an all-in-one people platform for payroll, benefits, HR where you can unify your data. Gusto automatically applies your payroll taxes and directly deposits your team's paychecks, freeing you up to work on your business. Head over to gusto.com/agency to enjoy an exclusive offer for podcast listeners. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM White Label Your Sales Team to Create a Machine and Streamline Your Hiring Process Jason: [00:00:00] What's up, everybody? Jason Swenk here. And I got one of my friends that ran an amazing agency for a number of different years. Now he went from being a special ed teacher to owning apartments, to owning an agency, to selling it. And now he's financially free and just travels and does what he does and has a ball doing it. And today we're going to talk about his journey. So possibly you can learn a couple of little nuggets from him and do the same thing. So let's go ahead and get into the show. Hey, David. Welcome to the show. David: [00:00:38] Hey, Jason. Good to see you. Jason: [00:00:39] Yeah, man. I'm excited to have you on and uh, and tell your story. So, you have a pretty fascinating story that always amazed me and everyone else that heard it. So, and I'm not going to give you justice on telling it. So tell us kind of who you are and tell us a little bit about that trajectory from special ed teacher, apartment, to owning an agency and then selling it. David: [00:01:02] Gosh, I'll try to keep it into a nutshell. I was a high school special ed teacher for about 10 years and coaching high school sports and then a good friend of mine gave me the, um, the really famous old infomercial Carleton Sheets… Uh, how to buy real estate with no money down. And, uh, I listened to it on cassette tape in my car as I drove to work and I use the basis of that to buy my first house in England of all places. And it was a real, uh, let's just say fixer-upper. And, uh, so we fixed that up and we sold it, I was teaching special ed there. Came back to the US and bought my second house and bought another three houses with that and a fourplex. And I was still teaching high school. Then my buddy said, hey, think you got some skills here. Let me introduce you to some people. So I got a couple of angel investors together and, uh, we start buying apartments in 2004 or five. Bought apartments for about three years, all in Arizona. Bought a few thousand apartments. And that's where I, through the process of buying and owning and asset managing the apartments I kind of... Well, and then the 2008, uh, downfall, right? 2009. You know, we were doing amazing until then and then, uh, everything crashed. I distinctly remember 2009 with my friend who got me into everything. He was like, man, I'm really sorry I got you into all this. As we were talking about our loan workouts and stuff. And I said, yeah, I said, I got to

Drew Hendricks was a philosophy major who started in the agency world after building his first website in the 90's and never looked back. Today, he owns Nimbletoad, a full-service digital marketing agency that specializes in website design, SEO, and PPC. Recently, Drew expanded by founding Barrels Ahead, an agency where he adapts his love for wine and developed an organic growth marketing framework to address the unique needs of the wine and craft industry. Drew's conversation with Jason is filled with useful tips from all his years as an agency owner. He shares his secret to convert more proposals as well as why you should be quick to respond when potential clients reach out to you. Agency Owner vs Entrepreneur. The mastermind has really helped Drew understand the difference between being an agency owner and being an entrepreneur. Most agencies come to be as the result of a problem and he has seen that many agency owners focus on being an authority on that problem, instead of being an authority on your agency. Too many people are stuck in actually doing the work rather than kind of treating the agency as the project, he says. If you want to be a business owner then that needs to be your top priority. You can't do both. The secret sauce for proposals. Over the years of writing proposals, Drew has learned something that worked really well to help position the proposal, defray the pricing, and justify it through very objective terms. In the pre-talk process, you will usually ask the client who their competitors are. Then use tech tools to assess competitors' spending on SEO or PPC. When you show this data to your clients you can say, this is how much you need to spend to compete with them. And if they don't want to spend that amount? Then you let them know that maybe they should be playing in a smaller pond. Show enthusiasm. In a world where showing genuine excitement over something is supposed to make you uncool, dare to be different. If a potential client contacts you, call them as soon as you can. Don't be afraid to look too anxious. They'll appreciate the quick response. And that goes for other aspects of the business too. Our guest says he has interviewed many people and forgot the last time someone mentioned they were excited to work with the company. Sponsors and Resources Agency Dad: Today's episode is sponsored by Agency Dad. Agency Dad is an accounting solution focused on helping marketing agencies make better decisions based on their financials. Check out agencydad.money/freeaudit to get a phone call with Nate to assess your agency's financial needs and how he can help you. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Become an Authority on Your Agency and Use This Secret Sauce for Proposals Jason: [00:00:00] What's up, agency owners? Uh, excited to have you listening to the show today. I have one of our long-term mastermind members who has grown several agencies over the years, and really has taken… Today, we're going to talk about the amazing things that he's learned over the years and applied them to his current agency that he's doing right now. I think you're really going to love this episode, so let's get into it. Hey, Drew. Welcome to the show. Drew: [00:00:35] Thank you, Jason. Thank you for having me on. Jason: [00:00:37] So you're the first guest to, uh, actually be in the intro on the mountain, waving back to the drone. So I was just watching that. I was like, oh, there's Drew. So well I digress. Yeah. So tell us who you are and what do you do? Drew: [00:00:58] Yeah. I'm Drew Hendricks. Right now I'm running two agencies. One's Nimbletoad, which is a generalist agency. And the other one is a brand new venture called Barrels Ahead, which is sort of the culmination of everything I've learned over the last 30 years of running agencies. Jason: [00:01:12] Yeah, that's awesome. Uh, and you actually started an agency before me. So tell us kinda how did you get into it? And, uh, it tells us kind of the origin story. Drew: [00:01:24] Yeah, it's, uh, it's, it's kind of an interesting story. So in college, I majored in philosophy and ancient Greek with the goal of becoming a professor of philosophy. And upon graduating, I ended up, um, finding myself in San Francisco and, um, kind of biding my time until I could go get a PhD. And ended up getting a job as a stock boy at a winery and realized I had a really good palate for wine. And from then on, I just sort of started reading everything I could about wine and learning everything I could and figured out that, um, it's super interesting, and there was just so much knowledge that could be done there. So I ended up sticking around for 10 years in that wine store, revamped it to, um, change the name, rebranded it. Wrote one of the first, um, websites back in '90, '95 or so. Wrote a wine auction site. And from there in '98 started the first, um, agency, which was, um, Intellect; which helped independent wine stores compete with, um, bett

Are you creating a solid recurring revenue stream for your agency? Dan Sundgren has been involved in the digital marketing industry since he became one of the first employees at Google around 2003. After years of witnessing the rise of that tech giant, he eventually started his digital agency, FreeGren, which specializes in SEM, SEO, SMM and Website Development and Maintenance. He sat down with Jason to talk about the lessons he learned at Google about breaking the rules and how there's always a different way to look at things. He also talked about his decision to work with contractors rather than having employees, and why recurring revenue is the goal. 3 Golden Nuggets Breaking the rules. Working at Google for many years since its beginning Dan had the opportunity to witness how that company grew, broke many rules, and created a new paradigm for corporations. One of the lessons he carries with him from that time is that you don't necessarily have to follow hard and fast rules. There's always a different way to look at things. And it's good to remember that you can flip things on their head and think about it differently. Working with contractors. Another learning experience with Google was the way they took care of their employees. However, Dan and his partner decided early on that they would work with independent contractors. To do this, Dan spent years building a network of trusted partners that have now worked with him for years. He relies on them to do the heavy lifting. It has its own complications, as Dan admits, but he exclusively works with people he can trust. After all, it takes years to build a reputation and a name and he doesn't want to sabotage that by doing crappy work. Recurring revenue is the goal. Like Frank Kern a few weeks ago, Dan talks about how he chose to scale slow and make sure his agency had solid recurring revenue streams for PPC, SEO, website maintenance, etc, where it is very repeatable. Now this gives him the tools to make pretty accurate forecasts, to the point that he can tell where his agency will be in 12 months. Sponsors and Resources Wix: Today's episode is sponsored by the Wix Partner Program. Being a Wix Partner is ideal for freelancers and digital agencies that design and develop websites for their clients. Check out Wix.com/Partners to learn more and become a member of the community for free. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Contractors vs Employees and Remember that Recurring Revenue is the Goal Jason: [00:00:00] Hey, agency owners. Welcome to another episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass. I am Jason Swenk and I have an amazing guest, Dan. We're going to talk about his building his agency over the past four years. But also what he's learned. He's one of the very first employees at Google. Um, I think he was telling me back in 2003 or 2004, he can correct me in a, in a second. Um, and we're going to talk about really amazing things. So I can't wait. Um, but before we get into the episode, I want you to do something. I want you to take a screenshot of the podcast and then upload it to your favorite social media. Tag us, so I can give you a shout-out for listening to the show. And let's go ahead and jump into it and talk to Dan. Hey, Dan. Welcome to the show. Dan: [00:00:53] Thanks for having me, Jason. Jason: [00:00:54] Yeah, man, excited to have you on. So tell us who you are and what do you do? Dan: [00:00:59] Uh, my name is Dan Sundgren. Uh, I started an agency over four years ago with a partner of mine, Scott Freeborn. The Genesis of our agency is FreeGren. After a long and laborious naming process, we mashed our names up at five o'clock and decided to call it good. And we named our company FreeGren because we're a 50-50 two-headed beast. And we've just had a blast last four years building our little agency up here in the Northwest. Um, Scott came from Dexcom Media. Um, my experience was with Google, and AOL, and Merkel. Uh, worked in-house and built teams for 20 plus years. Done quite a few things. And, uh, managed, in my estimation, over a billion dollars in paid advertising. Which at the very least gives me some scars on my back to figure something out, uh, you know, in the future. So, so that's what we're doing. Jason: [00:01:58] So I have one question that I have to ask, are you the one that would send out the AOL CDs to us? Dan: [00:02:04] Yeah, no, I, I think, I think, yeah, those were the… Jason: [00:02:09] For all the old people. Uh, for us to get on the internet, AOL literally used to send out CDs so we can get on the internet and they give us like 50 hours. Dan: [00:02:18] Yeah. The stacks of CDs, just carpet bombed in, in the mailboxes. Yeah. Jason: [00:02:24] I love it. Well, um, tell us, uh, you know, what, what did you do for Google? Um, and tell us a little bit about the early days. And did I get it right in the intro? Was it 2003 or four? Dan: [00:02:39] Yeah, I started, um, towards the end of 2003. Jason: [00:02:4

Brian R. Johnson has served as a leader in online advertising and conversion rate strategy for nearly two decades. He had been offering professional training courses in the Amazon ad space for years before opening his own agency with his partner. Now, Canopy Management is an eight-figure agency and the leading A-to-Z, full service Amazon agency. He joins the podcast to talk about how he built his platform and community before being an agency owner, how he learned the importance of documenting processes and giving new team members access to them from day one, and how he encourages everyone in the team to build each other up. 3 Golden Nuggets Building a platform. Many agency owners start their business by offering training courses, advising others on how to solve problems in their niche. This was the case for Brian, who admits he has trained some of his biggest competitors, but also says that this is what helped his agency grow quickly in the first year. People already knew him and wanted to work with him, either as clients or as employees because he had spent years building up a reputation and a community. Learn to get out of your own way. Agency owners can get in the mindset that they can do everything. In reality, you are crippling your team if they don't have access to a documented process. It's no good to the agency or the team if you only have it in your head. You need to document it and you'll be surprised to see how the team can then take that and improve it. Encourage your team to build each other up. Our guest recommends doing "daily huddles" to build a more united team. These are 10-minute daily minutes where he will ask "who had a win yesterday?" "What are some problems that we should all be aware of?" And "who got caught being awesome?" This way, he encourages the team to celebrate their own wins and highlight their teammates' successes. It is a highlight of the week at this agency. Sponsors and Resources Agency Dad: Today's episode is sponsored by Agency Dad. Agency Dad is an accounting solution focused on helping marketing agencies make better decisions based on their financials. Check out agencydad.money/freeaudit to get a phone call with Nate to assess your agency's financial needs and how he can help you. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Create a Platform and Build an Eight-Figure Agency Jason: [00:00:00] What's up everybody? Jason Swenk here. And I have an amazing episode with Brian who runs an eight-figure agency. Um, and we're going to talk about what it's like to run operations for an eight-figure agency. Cause I know a lot of you are trying to get to the summit to get to that next level. And so we're going to dive into this in this episode, so let's get into it. Hey, Brian, welcome to the show. Brian: [00:00:30] Thanks for having me. Jason: [00:00:31] Yeah, man. I'm excited to have you on. So, uh, tell us briefly who you are and what do you guys do? Brian: [00:00:37] Of course. So my name is Brian R. Johnson. I throw that in there cause there's a lot of Brian Johnson's out in the world. So, um, yeah, Brian Johnson out of, uh, based here in Austin, Texas. I am currently traveling on the West Coast with my family. So I am in the Amazon space, uh, running an agency, actually co-running an agency, uh, that handles, um, multimillion-dollar sellers brands that are brick and mortar brands, as well as, uh, sellers who sell on the Amazon sales channel. And so we handle all their advertising and, uh, quite a bit of their marketing that goes into moving more product for them. So, that's kind of the short version of what I do. Jason: [00:01:24] That's awesome. And so why would you partner with someone else named Brian? It's got to be so confusing. That's the first question I got for you. Brian: [00:01:34] Yeah. He actually recruited me. Because he tracked me down because I happened to be, um, I was the subject matter expert in, in my subject, you know, in the advertising space, within Amazon. You know, the niche within the niche, right? And, um, he tracked me down a number of years ago and hired me to consult for his own account. And he says, okay, you obviously know a lot more than you think you do. I want to partner with you and work on… We originally came out with, cause I had already created like a community and… software. He's like okay, next thing you need to do is produce, you know, a professional training course. We did that. And that eventually evolved into the agency because everyone said you guys obviously know what you're doing. You've got a huge success record. Just do it for me. It's like, okay. Obviously that, you know, that kind of begs the need for the agency level of service, which is, as you already know, a huge learning curve by itself. Jason: [00:02:35] Yeah. Well, I love how you guys, I didn't know, um, how you got your start that way. And that's actually a really good… Thinking about a lot of other agencies in the mastermind and people I've worke

Chris Leone was playing drums in Japan trying to figure out his next step in life when a keynote by Gary Vaynerchuk inspired him to enter the agency world. He ended up working an entry-level position in a small agency and worked his way up to being president and CEO of WebStrategies Inc, a multi-million dollar agency that focuses on mid-low funnel, lead generation, SEO, PPC, social advertising, and inbound marketing. Chris sat down with Jason to discuss how he worked his way up from the bottom of the totem pole. He also shares his experience with an agency acquisition just as he was named CEO and how he built a culture of learning. Chris's team is encouraged to speak up and take ownership of their ideas, which goes a long way. 3 Golden Nuggets The power in saying someone's name. Our guest is not afraid of a challenge. His first day as CEO came right after an acquisition and he was asked to handle the first meeting between both teams. This is an important moment, as the first impression on a new team is critical and may determine whether or not the acquisition is a success. He decided to spend time before the meeting making sure that his team knew everyone by name before they arrived. That way, they would feel welcome and less hesitant to give the new company a chance. Attack ideas, not people. Chris has worked hard to create a work environment where employees feel safe to speak their minds and be themselves. "It's not a performative culture" he says "It's a learning culture". He builds on the belief that leaders who are open to test an idea, observe and then implement from there greatly outperform the ones who are much more rigid in their thinking. Adapting to the online office. The past two years have brought many changes and, right now, many are still not ready to go back to the office. Regarding his agency's decision to go virtual, Chris says he continues to learn and adjust to the situation. But does not consider this will be a permanent change, nor one that will work for everyone. In his case, it made sense to go virtual if his team did not feel comfortable going to the office yet. For the future, he does not dismiss the idea of going back to an office. Gusto: Today's episode is sponsored by Gusto, an all-in-one people platform for payroll, benefits, HR where you can unify your data. Gusto automatically applies your payroll taxes and directly deposits your team's paychecks, freeing you up to work on your business. Head over to gusto.com/agency to enjoy an exclusive offer for podcast listeners. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Rise to the Top of the Totem Pole By Building a Learning Culture for Your Team Jason: [00:00:00] What's up, agency owners? Jason Swenk here and I have another amazing show where we're going to talk with an agency CEO and also owner who started out at the ground level couple of years ago as an entry-level employee. Worked all the way up to a CEO. And we're going to talk about what they did. How did they become a multi-million dollar agency? Lots of amazing things. And also talking about how they went virtual in the past year. So it's packed, it's packed and let's go ahead and get into it. Hey, Chris. Welcome to the show. Chris: [00:00:38] Hey, Jason. Thanks for having me. Jason: [00:00:40] Yeah, I'm excited to have you on. So tell us who you are and what you do? Chris: [00:00:44] Yeah. So my name is Chris Leoni. I'm CEO of WebStrategies. We are a digital marketing agency based out of Richmond, Virginia. We focus on kind of mid-low funnel, lead generation stuff, SEO, PPC, social advertising, inbound marketing, that sort of thing. I got about, 30 employees that are located, uh, both in central Virginia and, uh, increasingly scattered throughout the world as we start to shift towards more of a full remote model over here at WebStrategies. Jason: [00:01:15] Awesome. So let's kind of back up to where, when you started with the agency. You know, as probably the low guy on the totem pole, it sounded like, and walk us through how you went from that to CEO. Cause it's fascinating. Chris: [00:01:29] Yeah, it's been quite a, quite a long journey. So that was, we're going back 13 years here, so 2008. I was actually a year out of school. I was playing drums in Japan in a marching band, as kind of crazy as that sounds, trying to figure out what I wanted to do next. And I stumbled across a keynote that Gary Vaynerchuk was giving. This is 2008. This is like Wine Library days for anybody who follows Gary V. And I was like, yeah, that's what I want to do. Jason: [00:01:55] I remember that. I remember going to see stuff that he did. Chris: [00:01:58] Yeah, I was at, I was at web 2.0 in, in like late 08 when he kind of made his big break onto the scene. But I found him on big.com when that was like the place to go to find interesting things on the internet. And I immediately clicked. I'm like internet marketing is place I want to be. And so I started kind of figuring out

After working on his own using his experience in the agency world, Chris started specializing in the project management side of the business. Eventually, he decided to form Genius Digital Marketing with a partner and they have been growing ever since. Now, they work with growth-focused companies to accelerate their digital marketing strategies by operating results-driven campaigns. He talks a bit about how to make the jump from being a freelancer to having his own agency, how breaking sales and breaking operations is a normal part of growth, and how sales fix everything. 3 Golden Nuggets Making the jump. Like so many agency owners, Chris worked in the agency world for a while before deciding that he could do the job on his own. After working together on some projects, he and his partner decided to "make it legit" and he went from freelancer to agency owner. By this point, he knew that his expertise was on the project management side of the equation and was clear about what he was bringing to the table and how his partner complemented that, which made the transition a logical next step. Sales fix everything. You never want to talk about losing a client. But if you can just get more sales, then you can afford more people and you can afford to potentially lose something. It's about being confident in trying new things while you grow. Sales will fix everything while you solve your next bubble of growth. Don't be afraid to increase prices. Sales will fix everything, yes. But don't forget to raise your prices. Bringing on more sales, you're going to have to bring on more levels, more people. And if you do that and don't raise prices, you may find out at the end of the year that you worked a lot more and still earned less. Sponsors and Resources Agency Dad: Today's episode is sponsored by Agency Dad. Agency Dad is an accounting solution focused on helping marketing agencies make better decisions based on their financials. Check out agencydad.money/freeaudit to get a phone call with Nate to assess your agency's financial needs and how he can help you. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Keep Growing While Sales Bring New Opportunities Jason: [00:00:00] What's up, everybody? Jason Swenk here and I got another exciting episode about how an agency owner went from freelancer to bringing on a partner to a thriving agency. So it's a really good episode and I hope you enjoy it. Hey Chris, welcome to the show. Chris: [00:00:26] Hey, Jason. How's it going, man? Jason: [00:00:27] Yeah, man. Excited to have you on, um, and, uh, talk about, you know, your journey as a freelancer to agency owner, to, you know, successful agency owner. So tell us a little bit about who you are and what do you do? Chris: [00:00:41] Yeah, sure. So, uh, my name's Chris. I work out of, uh, our office here in, uh, the Dallas area. And, uh, I didn't always live here, actually. I just moved here six months ago. And the reason I moved here was, is for this business and for this partnership. I had been living in Las Vegas before that it's kind of where I'm from and where I grew up. But, uh, Aaron and I, Aaron's my business partner, we formed an agency about a year and a half ago. And have been working on the agency this whole time, you know, kind of forming the partnership, getting all the business stuff going, and earning clients and new business. And, uh, eventually it got to the point where we were like, hey, you know, let's actually own a building. Actually, we bought a building and let's run our, our office out of the Dallas area. That's where he lives, where his family's at. And I moved down here. So, um, yeah, that was about, you know, like I said, about six months ago and you know, we've been, we've been doing pretty good work since then. So it's exciting times, you know, moving around doing different stuff and trying to grow the agency and, and deal with all those hurdles and, and having fun while doing it. Jason: [00:01:46] Yep. What, uh…? Kind of take us back kind of… what made you think about transitioning? Cause there's, you know, we have, uh, quite a bit of probably, I would guess, you know, freelancers that listen to the show that want to go into creating an agency one day. Um, where were you at? Like in like going well, let's, let's make this legit. Let's, you know, let's kind of like, let's start hiring people. It's like bring on a partner. Where were you at? Chris: [00:02:18] Yeah, sure. Great, great question. Um, you know, we were… Well, I was, recently out of the agency world. I had worked for a couple of different marketing agencies, a few different people. And realized that, you know, I could do all this stuff on my own and, you know, get to keep all the money as opposed to splitting it with somebody else or only getting paid a commission or something like that. So I, I did, I did freelance for a couple of years after, uh, my agency world. You know, it got to the point where you kind of start to feel like

Have you had a few failures in the agency world? Everyone is afraid of failure. But when you change perspective and treat it like a lesson instead of a defeat. That's the lesson from today's guest, Frank Kern, a well-known marketing consultant and agency owner who has ventured to start several agencies over the years. In this episode, Frank discusses some of his failures from these past businesses, the lessons learned, and what he would do differently. He offers valuable advice for anyone starting a digital marketing agency. He offers an honest and upfront take on every stumble, from starting in the advertising world without really knowing the rules, not listening to his own advice, and taking on every client, even the bad ones. Don't be afraid to start over. Frank shares the knowledge he has gained over the years starting different agencies and learning from the mistakes made in each new venture. He has never been afraid to start over. "That's what I love about the advertising business," he says, "it's never going away". So there's always a new opportunity waiting for the ones who dare to take that step and learn from past mistakes. He is now enjoying his most successful venture and is very glad everything happened as it did. Don't try to grow too fast. This is the first lesson Frank has taken from his past agencies. Where in the past he used to take as many clients as he could get, now he sets a target. Five clients a week. This enables him and his team to not be reactive and build out operations. It's been a learning curve for them. Drilling into the process, making sure there are checklists, getting better at inner team communications. But Frank says it's been worth it and that he's definitely seeing the results. Take accountability. Having a business partner is not easy and takes serious commitment. Some prefer to not even attempt it. Frank has been lucky to have a few amicable separations from past partners. The secret? He doesn't really know, but he shares the importance of taking accountability for your mistakes. "If things are your damn fault, you have to realize they're your fault". YOUTUBE AUDIO LINK Sponsors and Resources Wix: Today's episode is sponsored by the Wix Partner Program. Being a Wix Partner is ideal for freelancers and digital agencies that design and develop websites for their clients. Check out Wix.com/Partners to learn more and become a member of the community for free. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Don't Be Afraid to Start Over in the Agency World, Just Like Frank Kern Jason: [00:00:00] What's up, agency owners? Jason Swenk here, and I have another amazing guest, Frank Kern. If you guys haven't heard of, uh, he is amazing. I've learned so much from him over the years on writing copy and marketing and direct response. Kind of the godfather of direct response marketing. A lot of you guys know Frank Kern and he's done a bunch of agencies in the past, so we're going to talk about his experience with marketing and his agency. Let's go ahead and get into the show. What's up, Frank? How's it going? Frank: [00:00:40] Dude, I was just watching the intro roll. I love the just two seconds of pensive staring off into the distance. Jason: [00:00:47] Well, I don't want to lose anybody's attention. Especially people with ADD like us. So, you know, you got try to keep them there. Frank: [00:00:55] I didn't tell you this pre-interview. So if I don't make any sense today it's because I have dyslexia and ADD and I woke up at 12:52 and… No, or 12 something, and my dyslexia… I mean, I have the biggest font size ever on my watch. And I thought it was, I thought it said 4:52. So I took my ADD meds, which I keep right beside the bed. And they kicked in. I've been awake since 2:00 AM I'm just like… so stupid right now. Jason: [00:01:24] There you go. Well, that makes it fun for a podcast. Frank: [00:01:28] Yeah, that's my disclaimer. Jason: [00:01:30] Awesome. Well, um, for the people that have lived under a rock for a little bit… Tell us kind of a little bit of your origin story about how and why you've wanted to create an agency over the past couple of years. Frank: [00:01:45] Uh, okay. I'll be mercifully brief because this isn't even remotely interesting for anybody. Um, sold credit card machines door to door. Hated it, very bad at it. Um, Googled or there wasn't Google back then, it was 1999. Did a search for how to sell credit card machines on the internet cause I didn't wanna have to talk to people. They were all mean to me because I was going door to door and interrupting their, uh, place of business. Discovered direct response marketing and advertising that way and started selling courses. Sold one that got me in trouble with the government. Um, it's important to learn the rules of advertising if you want to do advertising. I did not learn them, but, uh, after that I did. And um, then, sold stuff about dog training and kind of cut my teeth on that and sold a lot o

Is your agency as profitable as it could be? Are you successfully forecasting agency finances? Nate "Agency Dad" Jenson has built his business around helping agency owners drive profitability. Nate is a certified management accountant and internal auditor who focuses on offering the tools and accounting practices necessary for a thriving agency, with his business Agency Dad. On his second visit to the podcast, Nate talks about forecasting and the importance of managing the future, instead of wishing you could change the past. He explains why you, as an agency owner, are very in tune with your business and can make a pretty good forecast of where it will be in three months. He also offers valuable advice on how you can take that first step to start managing the future. 3 Golden Nuggets Having a plan is the 1st step. One of the questions Nate gets the most from agency owners is "when should I hire a new team member?" You need to do your forecasts, he says. What are your sales going to be in the next 3-6 months? There are a number of methods you can use to make that forecast, like linear regression. He recommends the Dilbert method, where you sit down and write down what do you think sales will be in the next months. Most agency owners are pretty in tune with their business and can make a pretty good estimate of what a few months in the future will look like for their business. You'll never be exactly right. The important thing is to be looking forward. Have a line of credit. Even with forecasting, you can find one month you don't have enough money for payroll. Of course, no one wants that, but you have a lot more options if you catch it weeks in advance. You have more time to make some adjustments, reduce expenses, or take a loan. Jason always advises mastermind members to get a line of credit, even if they don't need it, for those cases. You may think you don't need it, but things may not be that good a few months ahead. It's better to have it than to go through the embarrassment of missing payroll. Your team may start jumping ship, and finding the right talent is not easy. Fixed vs. variable. You should really understand the difference between fixed costs (payroll, rent) and variable costs (sales commissions, direct media spend). Nate advises moving your fixed costs into variable costs. The more you do this, the easier it is to be profitable. Basically, if you can change those fixed costs to variable, your breakeven number goes down. And so as soon as you hit this number, you're going to hit that profitability sooner each month. So your sales can be lower and you're still going to make more money. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Stop Focusing on the Past and Start Managing the Future Jason: [00:00:00] What's up, everybody? Jason Swenk here. I am excited for another episode. On today's episode, we're going to talk about why it's important for you and how you can actually forecast your agency so you can actually be more profitable. I have a repeat guest, Nate, who is amazing at all of this, and let's go ahead and jump into it. Hey, Nate. Welcome to the show. Nate: [00:00:29] Jason, thanks for having me on again. I appreciate it. Jason: [00:00:31] Yeah. I'm excited to have you back. Uh, so for the ones that haven't checked out, the, the first episode that we had you on, uh, tell us a little bit about who you are and what do you do? Nate: [00:00:43] All right. So I'm Nate Jenson, uh, the owner and founder of Agency Dad. Our, we're an accounting firm. We focus on helping, uh, marketing agencies become more profitable. That's really, that's really, our niche is how do we, how do we drive profitability? Uh, we don't do any tax work. We don't do anything like that. We do bookkeeping. We do, uh, financial reporting. So everything we do is geared to make you more profitable. Jason: [00:01:06] Well, we all want that, right? Because I think too many agency owners always focus on, you know, just top-line revenue. Hey, Jason, I want to make it to the million mark. Then I want to make it to the eight-figure. Mark. I'm like, well, what's the profit? Nate: [00:01:20] Yeah. If you could work less and make more, I would rather just have a lower top line and more profitability. So… Jason: [00:01:28] Exactly. Well, let's, let's talk about like, are there, like, how can we create forecasts? Because, you know, I think a question I get asked often, and I think as you do as well, like, can I afford to hire someone? Or what does it look like when I need to hire someone next? Like how do I figure that out? Nate: [00:01:47] Yeah. That's, that's probably the question I get more than anything else. Can I hire somebody to, when do I hire somebody? And if somebody asked me that my, my response is, well, what are your sales going to be in the next three to six months? And if we can't, if we can't answer that, then we really don't know if we can hire somebody. So, so for me, the forecast is where you start. Ja

Can you identify some services that might be holding your agency back? Maybe it's time to consider getting back to the basics. Phil Blackmore and his agency Create Health are really passionate about bringing back something the world of health marketing was really lacking: creativity. Recently the pandemic helped him reflect on the agency's true core and what they should be focusing on. This is how the agency recently re-launched with the motto "creativity is the cure". Phil joins the podcast today to talk about how that move reenergized the team and made running an agency much easier. 3 Golden Nuggets Getting back to the basics. We tend to fall into the trap of going after what's novel and trying to come up with something cool that hasn't been done before. That can get you a bit of exposure, but it's not the backbone of your business. Phil explains that the pandemic gave him a chance to really reflect on what it is that his agency was really good at. To think about what they enjoyed doing for their clients. Get rid of what may be holding you back. It became clear that his agency shined the most when it came to bringing creativity to the health care sector. And so, they made the decision to shed other services, like tech, to focus on what really mattered to them, and what they were best at. The entire process took about six months, but Phil says it was definitely worth it. They could now focus on what they were better at. Clients were delighted at the results and the team seemed happier. Fewer HR headaches. According to our guest, another advantage of having a very clear focus for your agency is that it makes some things much easier. It has allowed the agency to change culturally and clearly identify the opportunities for growth in the future. Also, this simplifies the task of knowing exactly what sort of talent to look for to make that happen. Sponsors and Resources Ninja Cat: Today's episode is sponsored by Ninja Cat, a digital marketing performance management platform where you can unify your data, create beautiful, insightful reports and presentations that will help you grow your business. Head over to ninjacat.io/masterclass to enjoy an exclusive offer for podcast listeners. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Getting Back To The Basics And Figuring Out The Backbone of Your Agency Jason: [00:00:00] What's up, agency owners? I'm excited for another episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass. Now, before we get into it, I want you to do me a favor. If you're listening, obviously you're listening to the podcast, take a screenshot. Upload it to your favorite social media channel and tag us, so I can give you a shout-out for listening to the show. Today we're going to talk to an amazing agency owner across the pond over in London. Um, because that's the only city I actually know over there. He said he was outside of it and he was trying to explain it to me. But we're going to talk about getting back to the basics and a lot of things that we're ignoring and we're not doing for ourselves, but we're doing it for our clients. So let's get it to the episode. Hey, Phil. How's it going? Phil: [00:00:54] Really good. Thanks, Jason. How are you? Jason: [00:00:55] Hey, man. Awesome. Well, I'm excited to have you on, uh, so briefly tell us who you are and what do you do? Phil: [00:01:03] Yeah, so my name is Phil Blackmore and I'm one of the agency owners of Create Health, which is a specialist advertising agency that, uh, yeah, by the name, as you can probably guess, does everything in health care. Jason: [00:01:14] Awesome. And so in, in kind of pre-show we were talking about really, you know, getting back to the basics. And so what, what have you found in scaling your agency? You guys have been doing it for a while, um, and... You were telling me a little bit beforehand about when COVID happened, it kind of made me rethink something. So what happened? Tell us that story. Phil: [00:01:41] Absolutely. So, I mean, we obviously spoke, I think, about 14 months ago. And, um, I think we felt we were doing pretty well as a business. But obviously COVID, I think is certainly the most, testing period of time I've ever been through as an agency owner. And, you know, as I'm sure anyone listening to this can empathize. You know, a lot of things, I didn't think I'd have to face I have. With regards to decisions on staff, services, all kinds of things. But I suppose, through all the darkness, there was a real opportunity to actually reflect on what it is I'm trying to build and what it is we're trying to do as an agency. And I think one of the things I found really interesting was I've always believed that we're really good at what we do. Um, but actually we were probably guilty of hiding that by trying to come up with a clever way of explaining that to potential clients and prospects. So yeah. The, the pandemic and the last 12 months has given me a real opportunity, I suppose, to reflect back on what is it

Every agency owner needs solid negotiation skills to feel more confident when dealing with clients. Mori Taheripour is an executive and award-winning educator who focused her career on negotiations. She currently teaches at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and works privately with entrepreneurs, corporations, foundations, and universities. She wants to make negotiations more accessible and help people realize it's a skill we all have and are better at than we realize. In this episode, she discusses why negotiations make people anxious and how you can get better results by being prepared and understanding motivations and your values. Mori also explains why you should be curious and avoid just wanting to be right, plus her new book, and much more. 3 Golden Nuggets Making negotiations accessible. Most people get really anxious about negotiating and think about it as a mere transaction. Somebody wins, somebody loses and that's it. Mori believes that is just a small slice of the pie. Negotiations are more than that. People maybe link them to negative experiences or think they are not combative enough to be a good negotiator, but we actually negotiate every day. It's a skill that we all have and could get better at if we change our perspective. And the first step is to be prepared and understand yourself, your motivations, and your values. Be curious. The fact that most people think about negotiations as a win or lose scenario means they're not thinking about long-term solutions that focus more on the relationship. Think about a divorce or a separation from your business partner. Those negotiations don't necessarily have to become a conflict. You need to be able to clearly explain your why's and be curious about theirs. Don't assume that you have all the answers. Don't come to the negotiation just expecting to be right. Especially if listening can lead to a solution that benefits both parties and preserving a relationship. Not all about prices. If negotiations were just discussions about pricing, Mori says she wouldn't be teaching it. It's not fun, it's dreadful. It should be about educating your client about what you can offer them and why you do what you do. Tell them how passionate you are about your mission. Make it a conversation so you can also get to know their motivations and their whys. At the end of this, now it's time to discuss pricing, and by then your value and the benefits they will get from contracting your services should be very clear to them. If it's not, it doesn't mean you should now start lowering your prices. It's ok to not want to negotiate that point. Sponsors and Resources HighLevel: Today's episode is sponsored by HighLevel, an all-in-one marketing platform that will give you the tools, support and resources you need to succeed with your agency. Head over to gohighlevel.com/swenk to enjoy an exclusive 30-day free trial. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Learn to Negotiate Successfully and Never Have to Lower Your Prices Jason: [00:00:00] Hey, what's up, agency owners? I'm excited to have you back for another episode. I have an amazing guest and we're going to talk about negotiating, which is always a fun topic, and I'm really excited to get into it. So let's go ahead and start the episode. Hey, welcome to the show. Mori: [00:00:25] Hey, Jason. How are you? Thanks for having me. Jason: [00:00:27] Yeah. I'm excited to have you on. So tell us who you are and what do you do? Mori: [00:00:32] Um, so Mori Taheripour. I teach at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, uh, for part of my life. I teach in legal studies and business ethics department, and largely I focus on negotiations. So, um, apart from Wharton, which is where I do most of my teaching, um, I've worked with entrepreneurs and, um, corporations and foundations and universities. And spend most of my time focused on teaching people how to negotiate successfully, um, and, and doing so from a very different perspective than most negotiation classes. So that's, that's really the focus of my work. I do some work in sports. I'm also focused on teaching, um, working with athletes and, and helping them as they think about transitioning out of the sport. And some diversity and inclusion work. Jason: [00:01:22] Very cool. Awesome. Let's talk about negotiating and kind of, you know, everyone listening is obviously done negotiating, you know, their whole career. Um, so talk about kind of the first step in negotiating. How can you set up where you're positioned better? Mori: [00:01:41] So let me go back just a little bit. I think it was funny when I heard the intro and you said we're going to talk about something fun: negotiating. Most people don't think about negotiations and think it's fun. Um, in fact, a lot of people are very anxious about it. And that's because, um, they have bad experiences. They think about that one negotiation that they had, that they thought they did reall

Having your own agency and the responsibility for people's livelihoods can be an isolating experience. Darren Fox says he fell into the agency world unexpectedly. After a while of offering freelance web design services, it became clear he could not continue solopreneur. So, Darren founded Idea Marketing Group. and started building a team. Even though he loves building relationships with his team, as the agency grew, he had to separate himself to maintain his leadership role. "You definitely feel like you're on an island," Darren says. In this episode, Darren is candid about the loneliness of agency ownership. He also talks about ways to overcome isolation in order to grow a successful agency. 3 Golden Nuggets It can be very isolating. Something that is not discussed much but agency owners should be prepared for is just how isolating it can be at the top. As your agency grows, so will your team. You may find that, as the leader, it's better for you to put some distance to maintain respect and avoid favoritism. You can't be everyone's best friend because you may be in the position of firing them at some point. It's difficult and it will leave you excluded from fun lunch outings with everyone, but Darren agrees it's for the best. Turn to people that can relate. Darren and many other mastermind members have agreed that one of the best remedies for the loneliness of agency ownership is sharing in a group of people who relate and offer advice. As an agency owner, you can feel burdened with the pressure of being responsible for people's livelihoods and the future of your business, which you can't really discuss with your team. However, other agency owners will understand those concerns and offer new perspectives. Find the right pace. We're all impatient about the success we want to see for our company. We want to scale fast and take on every project we can get. But, that kind of thinking can lead to burnout for you and your team. You don't have to take on every client. Learning to say no is an important part of the process. Our guest recommends talking with your team to be sure that they can handle the workload. Set expectations for each project and be realistic about deadlines. After all, you're counting on them and they have to know that you've got their back. Sponsors and Resources Ninja Cat: Today's episode is sponsored by Ninja Cat, a digital marketing performance management platform where you can unify your data, create beautiful, insightful reports and presentations that will help you grow your business. Head over to ninjacat.io/masterclass to enjoy an exclusive offer for podcast listeners. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Learn to Deal With the Isolation of Agency Life and Find the Right Pace to Grow Jason: [00:00:00] What's up, everybody? Jason Swenk here. And I have an amazing guest coming on the masterclass to talk about the doom and gloom of owning an agency. The things that not many people really talk about that you need to be aware of and to make sure that, you know, look, it's not all sunshine and rainbows. So we're definitely going to have a lot of fun. Um, but let's go ahead and jump into it. Alright, Darren. What's going on, man? Darren: [00:00:33] Hey, thanks for having me. It's awesome to be here. Jason: [00:00:36] Yeah, man. I'm excited to have you on. I was, I had Drew on last week and he was one of the other ones on top of the mountain with us. That was in the intro. So you're the second guest on the intro. Tell us, uh, before we jump in and talk about, you know, all this amazing stuff that we wish we knew about, tell us who you are and what you do? Darren: [00:00:58] Sure. So, uh, Darren Fox, president and founder of Idea Marketing Group. Uh, we're a full-service agency that is known for custom web development. So that's been our core focus and we work with all types of industries, but we've really been, you know, narrowing that down to food and beverage within the last year or so. Jason: [00:01:19] Awesome. Well, I'm excited to have you on, so let's, um, let's go ahead and jump into it. Let's talk about what are some of the things that you didn't expect, you know, creating an agency. Because a lot of times we come in and we think, you know, creating an agency there's low barrier to entry and we're going to have all this freedom, uh, you know, to do whatever we want and have all this money. So let's, let's talk about what did you not expect? Darren: [00:01:45] Oh, yeah. So, I mean, I guess a lot of it is time initially of like how much time it really takes. Everybody thinks that, you know, because you have your own business, that you're just going to be, you know, going out, doing whatever you want, getting the work done. And I feel like when I first started, I was probably working almost double the hours that I was previously for like a fraction of the price. Probably like my first job, like pushing shopping carts at a retail store is essentially what I was ma

Ever wondered if you could make money on performance-based pricing? Kyle Sulerud was a Google ads expert with many years of experience in the space. He even had a training program teaching others his Google ads methodology. That was until he was presented with the challenge of running YouTube ads. Today he runs AdLeg, an agency specialized in this niche. Kyle joins the podcast to talk about his experience with the pay-per-performance model, how it has worked for him, how he refined his criteria to work with clients that he could ensure success, and the hurdles he has found in his learning experience. 3 Golden Nuggets An unbelievable model. The pay-per-performance model may not be for everyone, but it has worked for our guest, whose model has evolved to charging a percentage of the profit. Clients jump at the chance of getting the service and paying only if the ads work and bring the expected results. They may not be as eager once they start sending the payments, but Kyle trusts his model and is confident that it gets the best results. Refine your criteria. At first, this agency didn't necessarily know what the criteria for working in this niche had to be. They thought that working with companies that showed promise was good enough to ensure success. But with time and experience they have adjusted that to working with companies that have a certain monthly revenue from the product that they want them to advertise and have a sales team. Now clients practically audition to work with them and not the other way around. Maintain communication. Each client thinks about things a little differently and some may not understand why it's better for them to pay an agency an amount that they would gladly pay to Google. To address this, Kyle and his team realized the importance of maintaining communication with them to present the progress they had made and how they stay on top of things. Hence, the email-only communication with clients turned into monthly or bimonthly meetings. Sponsors and Resources HighLevel: Today's episode is sponsored by HighLevel, an all-in-one marketing platform that will give you the tools, support and resources you need to succeed with your agency. Head over to gohighlevel.com/swenk to enjoy an exclusive 30-day free trial. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Refine Your Client Criteria and Profit With Pay-Per-Performance Pricing Jason: [00:00:00] Hey, what's up everybody? Jason Swenk here and I have another amazing episode for you. An amazing guest coming up, he's in the mastermind, Kyle. And his agency is all based on pay for performance, you know. And we're going to talk about how you can do it. What are the benefits? What are the disadvantages? And let's go ahead and get into it. Hey, Kyle. Welcome to the show. Kyle: [00:00:29] Hey, Jason. Thanks for having me. Jason: [00:00:31] Yeah, man. Excited to have you on. So tell us who you are and what do you do? Kyle: [00:00:37] Yeah, so, uh, the names Kyle Sulerud and I live in the great sunny state of North Dakota. Um, and I run an agency called AdLeg. We, uh, did Google ads for a long time. About seven and a half years, um, in the space. But for the past couple of years, I've really been focused on YouTube ads. And, as you mentioned in the intro, we focus on pay for performance, meaning we only get paid when our clients get paid. And, um, it's been a great model. I've been able to grow the team pretty quickly with that model. So I'm excited to talk about that today. Jason: [00:01:15] Yeah. So tell us kind of… How did you discover this model? Or why did you choose this model? Because there's a lot of different models that, you know, you could have done, you know. What was… What attracted you to the performance model? Kyle: [00:01:33] So, when we were just doing Google ads, it was all retainer-based. And I'd kind of always wanted to do performance-based. I've heard Dean Jackson talk about thinking about if you only got paid for results, what would you get paid for? And I've always thought about my agency that way, but when you're running Google ads for roofing companies, that's, that's pretty hard to do. Um, obviously there's certain pay-per-lead models that can work for that, but. Um, it just never really worked out. Once I got into YouTube ads, I found that it, it could work out. For starters, because I didn't know what the results were going to be. And I really didn't want to get paid for my first couple of clients unless I was bringing them results. So they knew that, they knew that I was, I was fresh with YouTube ads and they were willing to give me a shot. Um, especially since they weren't going to have to pay me if it didn't work. They just had to pay for their ads. So we worked out a percentage of profit and because they are selling digital products, that was easy to track. And, um, from there it worked, the profit was there. My percentage was there. Everyone was happy. And that's the model that I've stuck with. Ja

Do you have the crystal clear vision needed to take your agency to the next level? John Quinton-Barber describes himself as a visionary and accidental entrepreneur. He had 30 years of experience in the media and communications industry when he decided he wanted to set up his own business. After eight years, Social is now a top 20 UK agency. He joins Jason to talk about how he remained focused on the future and the crystal clear vision needed to continue growing your agency, some of the hurdles he has found along the way, and the importance of investing in leadership to focus on the key aspects of your agency's past, present, and future. 3 Golden Nuggets Invest in the right people. The first years of a digital agency are about survival. John focused on keeping the agency running but, after hitting one million pounds, he realized it was no longer necessary or efficient that he took care of every aspect of the business. He started to invest in people to take care of yesterday (the processes, HR, IT, legal), someone to take care of today (making sure the agency creating great quality campaigns, working with clients, giving them the best service), and then focused on taking care of the future, which is about strategy, vision, and where you want to go. Crystal clear vision. After deciding that he was not running a lifestyle business and getting serious about making something really special, John said he never looked back and never experienced doubts. A crystal clear vision will help your business thrive in hard times. If you don't have that vision, you won't get to the next stage. John admits he made many mistakes and that, by year four of his agency, he was barely making any profit and plowing every penny back into the business. But now, in year eight, he is reaping the rewards of investing in his dream. Build up leadership. Finding the right people was key to keep the business running, but empowering them was crucial to keep the business growing. John's mantra is "if you weren't in the business for three months, would it run? And would it grow?" Recruiting can become difficult when you're searching for leaders that can make this mantra happen, so John focused on building leaders within his organization. He makes sure that every director completes a year-long leadership course and has the tools to succeed as a leader. He no longer is the only one focusing on the future, on the vision, and that is the key to continue growing. Sponsors and Resources Ninja Cat: Today's episode is sponsored by Ninja Cat, a digital marketing performance management platform where you can unify your data, create beautiful, insightful reports and presentations that will help you grow your business. Head over to ninjacat.io/masterclass to enjoy an exclusive offer for podcast listeners. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Trust Your Crystal Clear Vision Begin Investing in Leadership Jason: [00:00:00] What's up, agency owners? I'm excited to bring you another episode of the Smart agency Masterclass. I have an amazing guest all the way across the pond in the UK. And he's going to talk about how he's been scaling his agency over the past eight years and some of the trials and tribulations. Now, before we jump into the episode, I want you guys to take a screenshot, tag us on Instagram. And we'll give you a shout out, um, when the episode, uh, when, when you actually do that. So we can, uh, recognize you. So let's go ahead and get into the show. Hey, John. Welcome to the show. John: [00:00:42] Jason, pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me. Jason: [00:00:44] Yeah, man. I'm excited to have you on. So tell us who you are and what do you do? John: [00:00:49] My name is John Quinton-Barber. It's quite a posh name. It's a UK name, John Quinton-Barber. And I'm the founder and chief executive of a marketing digital agency called Social, here in the UK. Jason: [00:01:00] Awesome. And so how did you get started? John: [00:01:04] Well, I've always… I'm 50 years of age. So about 30 years in media and communications and PR. And when I hit about 43 years of age I had this urge that I wanted to set my own business up. And probably quite a few of the listeners will be relating to this quite now. I had this urge but in the back of my mind I felt, I can't do it. I can't do it. And I just took the leap and did it. So eight years ago I set up Social. Um, and what I wanted to do was just bring a different type of agency to the UK market. Because the agency world had gotten a little bit stale. It was offering PR, but it wasn't offering much else. Social was just about social media was just about emerging as the next big thing, next best thing. So I took the plunge and set up the agency, um, with not, not, not a lot of money in my pocket, to be honest. Um, but a whole scope of confidence. And yeah, eight years on, we've gone from what I said about, talking about the dollars, about $10,000. To now about $5.5 million dollars after eigh

After the life of digital nomad led to the failure of his first company, Dean Dutro started Worth eCommerce. Since then, found the Digital Agency Elite mastermind, learned the importance of having a mission and values, and grew an amazingly successful agency that helps eCommerce stores drive new and repeat sales with email & SMS marketing. He recently sold that company and today he's here to talk about how his early failure led to having a strong belief in the agency's values and mission, the process of getting ready for an opportunity to sell your agency, and what he advises everyone to do in order to enjoy a successful agency acquisition. 3 Golden Nuggets It can be lonely at the top. One of the things mastermind members learn is the importance of having a mission and values, in order to surround yourself with people that you want to work with. This a foundational step to elevating your business. You can succeed with a self-centered business, but it can get lonely at the top. It's better if you're thinking about elevating your team and having an end goal with your mission. Prepare yourself for acquisition. The end goal for every agency owner should be to exit at some point. If you're thinking about selling your agency, Dean shares some key parts of the process, including how he discovered some accounting and business terms that were key to the process and he had never even heard of before. He mentions that the two most important pieces that buyers look for is EBITDA and the age of the company. Get a Broker. With so many things to consider and prepare before even being ready for buyers, Dean recommends a broker. It may seem expensive, but they will get better deals and find good fits. A good, broker, lawyer, and accountant working as a team will get you through this process successfully. Sponsors and Resources HighLevel: Today's episode is sponsored by HighLevel, an all-in-one marketing platform that will give you the tools, support and resources you need to succeed with your agency. Head over to gohighlevel.com/swenk to enjoy an exclusive 30-day free trial. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM How to Prepare for the Opportunity to Sell and Enjoy a Successful Agency Acquisition Jason: [00:00:00] Hey, what's up agency owners? I'm excited to have another great episode. I have a good buddy and a Mastermind member, Dean, who just recently sold his agency. And we're going to talk about the process of how to get there, how to get to a point where you have the opportunity to sell. And then also, what is the process like and what is life like after? Uh, so let's go ahead and get into the episode. Hey, Dean. Welcome back to the show. Dean: [00:00:36] Hey, Jason. Thanks for having me. Jason: [00:00:38] Yeah. Well, for the people that haven't checked out the first episode, uh, tell us who you are and what do you do? Dean: [00:00:44] Yeah. Um, my name's Dean and I am the CEO of Worth eCommerce, which is an email marketing and SMS marketing agency for e-commerce companies. Jason: [00:00:56] Awesome. And let's kind of jump into it because I was so excited for you. You know what… You know, I know we were chatting for a long time about the opportunity to sell and the process there. Let's talk about kind of getting to that point. What do you feel…? What's the level you are? What are were the things that you had to do in order to get you to the point where people wanted to buy you? Dean: [00:01:22] Yeah, that's a great question. I think there's a lot that, that went into it. And a lot that's happened over time and, you know, kind of going all the way back to the start of my agency career. You know, the first agency that I started in and kind of co-founded with my current business partner, um, was a UX design agency. And we had this idea that we were going to be like digital nomads travel worlds. Go to Thailand and Australia and Asia and all these places and make a lot of money and live on beaches and drink beer. Uh, and we did that for like a year, but then we ended up just essentially broke and in debt. And both of us ended up living at our parents, or in my case, my grandparents' house for about six months to a year, um, on and off afterwards, cause we just failed. And at that point that's actually when I discovered you guys, the Jason Swenk masterclass. I ended up stopped, stopped doing business with Ryan who's my co-founder and went on my own path. And one of the things that you guys taught was you got to have a mission and values, right? To get people to join you in order to work with the people that you want to work with. And that, to me, it was like the first foundational step. You know, before it was like very selfish and self-centered, and there was no sense of like community anywhere I went. So when I moved back to Oregon and kind of decided like, hey, I want to build something where I can have a team around me. I have a mission, there's people I want to impact. And my mission was very per

Would you consider having a laser focus niche in a way that you create such a demand you have a waiting list? This agency did just that and has grown more than they ever imagined. When Ryan Redding and his agency DP Marketing.Services built a website for a plumber who suggested that he should only work with other plumbers, he could have never guessed how that would change his business. Today he joins the podcast to talk about how having a laser focus agency makes everything else easier. Ryan also shares why he has felt bad about turning away business and the customer loyalty that has helped him grow his agency. 3 Golden Nuggets Laser focus. Once Ryan's company found its niche thanks to a client's suggestion that they focus solely on plumbers, they've only become more and more focused on this particular side of the industry. Ryan even mentions that a lot of his fellow agency owners freak out at that level of exclusivity. However, in his opinion, that very streamlined laser-focus, even with the way they do referrals, absolutely makes everything else easier. Benefits of saying no. When it comes to being niched the way this agency is, you'll probably end up turning down companies that want to work with you but don't fit into the model of business you've committed to. How to say no? Ryan explains that taking those clients at this point would break the agency's process and momentum. He's never found that turning away business is bad and argues that it actually gives him the clarity to maximize that momentum moving forward. Taking care of clients. Exclusivity has become a very important part of his agency's model. The agency only works with one contractor per service area. This has created a waiting list of people wanting to work with them. In many cases, they have to reject candidates and they cite their clients' interest as the reason. This creates a sense of respect for the way they do business and loyalty from their clients, who get notified when a competitor in their service area contacted the agency and reassured that the agency will not work with them. This has resulted in more referrals for them. Sponsors and Resources Ninja Cat: Today's episode is sponsored by Ninja Cat, a digital marketing performance management platform where you can unify your data, create beautiful, insightful reports and presentations that will help you grow your business. Head over to ninjacat.io/masterclass to enjoy an exclusive offer for podcast listeners. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Improve Client Loyalty With a Laser Focus Niche and Exclusivity Jason: [00:00:00] Hey, what's up everybody? I have another amazing episode coming your way. We're going to talk about how one agency owner had a pivotal moment where a client actually told them something changed everything for him. Where, you know, he was kind of figuring out no one's opening up my emails. But now everyone's calling them, which is pretty cool. We all want that. So let's go ahead and jump into the episode. Hey, Ryan. How's it going? Ryan: [00:00:33] Hey, man. It's going good. Thanks for having me. Jason: [00:00:35] Awesome. Well, thanks for coming on the show. So, uh, tell us who you are in. What do you do? Ryan: [00:00:42] Dude, I am Ryan Redding. Most people probably don't know or care, uh, but I, uh, have founded and run DP Marketing.Services. We are a full service digital agency that specializes, uh, for home services companies. Jason: [00:00:56] Awesome. And so take us back about how did you start the agency and why did you jump into running an agency? Ryan: [00:01:04] Yeah, it was entirely not on purpose. So I, uh, I have a background working at a big boutique advertising agency in St. Louis. Did that for a while and learned a lot of experience, but kind of got out of the marketing world for almost a decade. Um, it was just kind of out of sight, out of mind and moved on to a different life. Got more into business consulting and in the process started realizing that all these guys were like main street, small businesses. And so think of any main street USA, you know, bakers and chiropractors and whatever. They all had really crappy websites. They were like awful. And some of them just didn't have the knowledge. Some of them didn't have the budget. So originally it was, hey, we'll just do websites that don't look crappy for a really affordable price for these guys. And so it started off doing web design, um, and trying to do like super, super low, low dollars. And frankly, I'm embarrassed to say it out loud. Like, our, our, we still have some of these guys in the book at a hundred dollars a month to get… Jason: [00:02:07] For, for hosting or for maintenance. Ryan: [00:02:09] For, well, there's not really much maintenance cause these are guys are gonna like set and forget. So it essentially becomes hosting and nothing? Um, but yeah, a hundred bucks a month and these guys got a website that didn't look awful and just really basic, but i

Shaun Clark is the co-founder and CEO of HighLevel, a company that offers an all-in-one sales and marketing platform for agencies and marketers. HighLevel gives the tools, support and resources marketing agencies need to succeed all in one place. Today, he joins the podcast to talk about how marketing agencies can reduce churn rate by becoming an all-in-one solution. And, how the future for agencies will be to tack on software to the services they already offer. 3 Golden Nuggets Tack on software to what you're already doing. If you're an agency working with small businesses, no matter how great of a job you do, your clients will often have a problem with the price point. Working in this space, Shaun has found that there's a massive opportunity for agencies to tack on software to they're already doing. That way, you can add to your revenue and also reduce your churn rate. Because what if they decide to fire you? Now they have to find someone that can implement what they need using your software. So it's incredibly sticky. Offer an all-in-one solution. Think about it. Your clients are looking for you to solve a problem and make their lives easier. Not to learn how to use their tools. As an expert, you can come in and say, I can solve your problem, and these are the tools that I use for that. What if you could say that you can offer all the services your clients need in one spot? No need to go outside your agency. The future for agencies. Our guest believes that agencies are the ones who should be offering this technology because the agency can not only provide the expertise they need on that software, but they also can provide all those other services that client truly needs. So now you can have a price point for the services and a price point for the software. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Tack on Software to Your Solutions and Reduce Churn Rate Jason: [00:00:00] What's up agency owners? Jason Swenk here. I have another amazing guest today, where we're going to talk about how can you add more revenue to your agency as well as improve the churn rate of your clients? Because, look, if we lose clients, you know, it's going to be harder to scale your agency. But it's going to be a lot of fun episode. Let's go ahead and get into it. Hey, Sean, welcome to the show. Shaun: [00:00:34] Hey, thanks for having me, Jason. It's great to be here. Jason: [00:00:36] Yeah, I'm excited to have you on. So tell us who you are and what you do? Shaun: [00:00:40] Yeah, absolutely. So I'm Shaun, I'm a co-founder and CEO of a company called HighLevel. Um, so we work with over 10,000 marketing agencies and we have a software platform that's sort of a combination of marketing automation, CRM, uh, calendaring. Pretty much every, uh, sort of, if you're stitching together six or seven different apps for your agency, we kind of bring them all together into one platform. So that's, that's kind of what we do. Jason: [00:01:03] Nice. Awesome. Well, let's go ahead and jump into it. Let's talk about how can agencies and implove…? Implove? Did I make up a new word? I think I made up a new word. How can… It's been a long day. How can they improve their churn rate? Shaun: [00:01:21] Yeah. So, um, I think that we've, you know, working with so many agencies now, what we've discovered is churn is often a function of, uh, of, of price point. You know, if you're working with a lot of small businesses and you're trying to run on a retainer model, for example, and you're charging thousands of dollars, every month. What we find is no matter how great of a job you do, oftentimes the client just can't get over this perceptional problem of, hey, wait a second, two or $3,000 a month is a lot of money to us. And so what we did at HighLevel is that we looked at all of the different companies that are out there serving the same space. And we looked at it from a software angle, cause that's the kind of people we are. What we realized is there's this massive opportunity out there for agencies to tack on software, to what they're already doing. What I mean by this is if you think about the types of tools that exist out there. And it could be, there's like the Podiums of the world, the Bird Eyes of the world. These are functions like reputation management, two-way text messaging, all of this stuff. Imagine that you tomorrow could add a $300 a month software-only product to what you're doing. And you would, you would very quickly find that as an agency, you're going to be able to sell this into your existing client base. So if, and when they decide that they're no longer going to be using your services because they're, they can't get over that price point issue, you're not going to lose them as a customer. And then you're going to add a $300 a month recurring software product to your revenue stream. And the effect is really simple. Let's say I'm running Facebook ads for you as the dentist office, and I'm running the software and I've

How can agencies prove value to their clients and eventually charge more? That's the solution Paul Deraval offers in this episode about founding NinjaCat. After entering the agency world later in his career as a software developer and finding the competition was everywhere, Paul shifted his focus. As Paul says: Who makes money in a gold rush? It's the guy selling the pickax." So he decided to offer his unique data reporting technology to agencies and created Ninja Cat in 2014. They are a digital marketing performance management platform built for agencies, media companies, and brands and help agencies create a . He joins the podcast today to talk about how agencies can prove their value to retain customers and the benefits of having automated reporting. 3 Golden Nuggets The crack in the fortress. Paul found that many agencies were using big black box algorithm platforms for reporting capability that was very limited in scope. Not really designed for that use. And paying a ton of money for it. He decided to focus his business on solving this problem and be the best in the world at helping agencies prove their value to clients by knocking their client reports out of the park. Deliver a story. Know your clients and know their appetite for data. More data isn't always better. So, before delivering an 80-page report that they may not even read, ask what they would like to know and then deliver to them on a silver platter a data story that says here's what we did for you, here's the impact that had on your business. And don't forget to be clear on the point "here's why you should continue to do business with us." Focus on the meaningful. What do agencies get from using Ninja Cat for their client reports? They get to focus on the meaningful instead of the monotonous. Instead of data chaos and data wrangling and client reporting they automate that process and spend more time actually optimizing campaigns and building client relationships. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Using Data Reporting to Tell the Story of Your Agency's Value Jason: [00:00:00] What's up, agency owners? Got another great, amazing podcast interview coming right up. This guest has a really interesting story and we're going to talk about how can you really prove your value, prove your worth, your ROI? So you can actually charge more and hold onto your clients better. Because a lot of times, if you don't know the value your clients don't know the value and you're probably not going to hold onto them. So let's go ahead and jump into the episode. Hey, Paul. Welcome back to the show. Paul: [00:00:36] Hey, Jason. Thanks for having me. Jason: [00:00:37] Yeah, man. I'm excited to have you on. So, uh, tell us who you are and, uh, tell us a little bit about your background. Paul: [00:00:45] Yeah, sure. Uh, my name is Paul Deraval. Um, currently I'm the CEO and co-founder of a company called Ninja Cat. We help, uh, large scale agencies and media companies prove value to their customers through, um, automated and highly effective, um, data stories as we call it dashboards as well as, uh, automated PowerPoints and PDFs that really help you as an agency prove value to your customers. Jason: [00:01:11] Awesome. Very cool. And so tell us, how did you come about starting this? And, you know, I know it's an interesting story. Paul: [00:01:21] Yeah. So, long story short. Um, my background is a software entrepreneur. Prior to this, built a SAS company called uh, Easy Facility, an all-in-one platform for health and fitness clubs, like a YMCA or yoga studio. The one tool you needed to get all your different jobs done from member payments to personal trainers, scheduling, mobile apps. Everything. Very big product. Um, was fortunate enough in, did that from 2003 to 2009, uh, when we got acquired, and that, enabled me to do some angel investing. And, uh, one of the investments I made through a, a referral from a, a family friend was, uh, to two brothers starting, um, a digital marketing agency primarily focused on auto dealers. Uh, I'm a software entrepreneur and was looking to make software investments. I was like, ah, you know, I don't understand the agency business. Um, you know, really shouldn't invest in what you don't know, but, I'll take the meeting. Um, but what caught my eye during the meeting was, uh, a digital marketing agency focused on auto dealers, but had their own unique selling proposition, which was two parts. One was an ad creation technology that would scrape an auto dealer's website, find out what inventory they had in real-time. Take that 2010 Honda civic and create a Google ad for it and take it down when the, when the, um, car was removed from the site. I thought that was pretty nifty. Um, and another component of some technology that they built to help them differentiate was, uh, some really nice reporting dashboards. Uh, that basically offered transparency to these auto dealers. Showing them exactly here's where yo

Vasa Martinez is the founder and CEO of Growthbuster, a remote marketing agency that has helped food and beverage brands reach new heights with community, creative, and innovation. After years of CPG experience working with many brands, Vasa started building his own company focused on the outsourced marketing department. Today he joins us to talk about his experience with brands, how he positioned his agency as the solution clients need, and why you need to follow your north star. 3 Golden Nuggets Bet on yourself. A lot of times a company might be really attached to "vanity metrics" and turn to buying followers. This is a really ineffective measure, as they usually find out when they hire an expert. Trying to steer clients away from shady practices like bots or buying clients, this company started making bets that they would grow their social media in four months. Trusting their methods has helped them win many of those bets. Follow your North Star. As a rule, Vasa and his team make it a point to work with companies that are solving a problem in the world. This aligns with their core value of "human first, business second". That has led to saying no to brands that could bring in a lot of revenue but don't really fit with the agency's values. For his part, Vasa says their north star is not growth if it comes at the cost of his values or his team's mental health. Don't compromise your team's mental health. This is a very demanding industry but running a solvent business, working with some really cool brands, and scaling your agency shouldn't come at the cost of your team's mental health. Respect people's rest time. As agency owners, we sometimes end up working weird hours but don't expect everyone on your team to do the same. Follow Your North Star and Position Your Agency as a Solution Jason: [00:00:00] Hey, what's up everybody? Jason Swenk here, and I'm excited to have another really good episode, a really amazing guest. He's going to talk about how did they position their agency as an outside marketing solution for companies coming in. So let's go ahead and jump into the show. All right, Vasa. What's going on, man? Vasa: [00:00:25] What's up. What's up? How are you? Jason: [00:00:27] I'm excited to have you on, so tell us who you are and what do you do? Vasa: [00:00:30] My name it's Vasa Martinez. I'm the founder and CEO of Growthbuster, an outsourced marketing department. I'm also the CMO of Outer Aisle, which is a food brand that creates cauliflower sandwiches and pizza crust. Jason: [00:00:43] Very cool. And so with the agency, how'd you get your start? Why did you guys jump into this world? Vasa: [00:00:48] Well, I found that I had some ideas that I wanted to see brought to life, and working as an employee wasn't the best way to do that. So in the back half of 2017, I started consulting rather than being a full-time employee. And that turns into, uh, you know. At the beginning of 2018, I incorporated what became Growthbuster and started building from there. Jason: [00:01:06] Awesome. And talk about kind of, why did you choose to kind of position? Or why are you guys going after the outsource marketing department? Vasa: [00:01:17] For me, it's, it's nice to have a group of specialists and a group of generalists all on the same team when we work with different brands. I'm typically running point on, on the account. So we never pass it off to an account manager that's just out of college or anything like that. So having that team behind you, that support, is the most helpful. You know, having the graphic designer or having, you know, an email marketer or a copywriter, uh, rather than just focusing on being a paid agency or a social media marketing agency. It just wasn't enough for me and part of it was, you know, I treat GB as a CPG company. We work mostly with CPG companies, food and beverage, and I was listening to a lot of our potential clients, what they wanted. And wherever we could, we solely tacked on, you know, those, those resources. Jason: [00:02:00] So, how do you position yourself different than all the other agencies out there? Vasa: [00:02:04] Well, I don't really look at too many other agencies, to be honest. I, I focus on what we do and what we do best. Um, you know what my background is at Quest Nutrition and creative and community was one of our main focuses in the marketing department. We also, you know, as my first stint in marketing, I left a previous industry. Really enjoyed it, and we had our own creative department as well. So we never worked with any agencies. So I've kind of learned like the project management systems, you know, all the copywriting, everything as a generalist at first. And I went into content marketing for one of the arms. That's kind of why we went in that direction, is simply because it's what I started with. It was nice to have and I love it. Jason: [00:02:40] Very cool. And so what are some things that really you guys do really well that you've figured out ov

Jason Yormark realized the job stability he always hoped to find behind a desk was waiting for him as an entrepreneur. That's when he decided to take the risk and founded Socialistics, a B2B social media agency. Three and a half years later his agency, based in Seattle, helps tell businesses stories in ways that not only drive audience and engagement; but more importantly, real business results. Today, he joins the podcast to talk about how you should treat your agency, the benefits of long vs. short-term contracts, and more. 3 Golden Nuggets Don't be afraid to disrupt. When Jason started thinking of ways to disrupt and help get his new agency noticed, he thought about offering clients an option that would get rid of something that they typically hate. Long-term contracts came up as something that clients don't usually love about their experience with marketing agencies, and so he started offering monthly contracts and got good results. In time, many of his clients have opted to change from a monthly contract to a long-term contract. Treat yourself like a client. A lot of agencies don't dedicate enough time to building their brand. They get so busy with business development and clients and that it is the first thing to get pushed aside. Building your brand takes time and consistency when it comes to putting out new content, blog posts, social media, etc. Jason's advice is to make sure that somebody in your team is responsible for treating your business as a client. You can still outsource if you're doing the content. Are you a good writer, or maybe a natural in front of a mike when it comes to recording a podcast? Great! However, that doesn't mean that you have to take care of every step of the process. Get an SEO editor or a video editor that will take on the heavy lifting. This way, you can focus on your expertise and putting that content out there. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Don't Forget to Build Your Brand and Treat Yourself Like a Client Jason Swenk: [00:00:00] What's up everybody? I have another amazing guest coming for you in just a second. We're going to talk about why you should treat your agency as the number one client. As well as we're going to talk about long-term or short-term contracts, the benefits, the disadvantages. We're going to argue back and forth. This is going to be a really good episode. Now, before we get into chatting with Jason, our guest, I want you to do something. I want you to take a screenshot off your phone of listening to the podcast and upload that to Instagram and tag us because I want to thank you for listening to the show and do a big shout-out to you. So let's go ahead and get into the episode. All right, Jason. Welcome to the show. Jason Yormark: [00:00:44] Thank you for having me. Jason Swenk: [00:00:45] Yeah, man. I'm excited. So let's start fighting. No, I'm just kidding. No, tell us who you are and what do you do. Jason Yormark: [00:00:53] My name is Jason Yormark. I'm the owner and founder of Socialistics. We are a B2B social media agency. Jason Swenk: [00:01:01] That's awesome. And so how did you get started? How'd you fall into this crazy-ass world? Jason Yormark: [00:01:06] Well, I thought, I mean, I've always had an entrepreneurial spirit my entire life. But, uh, I was always searching for stability in my life professionally, and I always thought that that was, you know, a nine to five or sitting behind a desk with my paycheck and my benefits. All that good stuff. But, uh, marketing is a pretty volatile career path, I learned. And once I started to kind of see other folks experiencing the same thing I wasn't. So I didn't feel so bad about myself, you know, jumping around job to job, whether by choice or not. So that's stability I was always looking for was right in front of me all the time. Which was doing my own thing, controlling my own fate. And I just reached a point in my life. You know, I was a little bit later for me, where I could make that leap, take that risk. And get it right. And that happened about, uh, three and a half years ago. Jason Swenk: [00:01:52] Awesome. I love it. Well, let's talk about long-term contracts and short-term contracts. Tell us kind of how you started, where you're at now and what have you seen work? Because, you know, I have my own point of view and we'll see is we come together. If not, that's good. That's probably… that builds interests. Jason Yormark: [00:02:10] I've always been hesitant to admitting this to my other agency, friends. But, and this is going to be a little bit cringy, but, uh, we predominantly up to this point, we've done month to month contracts. And for me, it was a couple of things out of the gate. Number one, everybody's got a different agency story in terms of how they start and what they have to work with. I, you know, I had nothing, you know, I had to. And a lot of folks, I'm not the only one, a lot of folks, you know, start with nothing. You have to scrap and yo

Mike Poznansky was still in college when he started working at Red Bull's college marketing division. Since then, he realized the need for agencies that understand students and deliver at the scale and quality necessary to keep up with large consumer brands. That's why Mike founded Neato and now works alongside the world's best brands to design and run creative marketing programs that bring new value to both brands and students. He's here to talk about pre-qualifying leads so you can separate the good ones from the ones who are just fishing. 3 Golden Nuggets Separate the fishers from the rest. Sometimes clients come in and say "give us ideas" and you may have to if you're a beginner and want to earn their respect. But there will come a point when you need to consider how much work that entails and come up with other options. Mike recommends telling potential clients the agency will interview the target audience and put together a scope. This research involves a payment to make sure that it's at least worth their while. It's a way to separate the fishers from the ones who will actually pay for your services. Involve the client in the process. The times of coming up with an entire concept and presenting that to the client are over. It's better to involve the clients in the process. This way, you can understand their reasoning when they reject something and have a better chance at getting them to believe in your vision. You also have better insight on important things not reflected on a brief. Have real human conversations. This goes for both your audience and your clients. Take the time to regularly speak with your audience to really understand what they need. Also, talk to the people on the brand side, on the client-side. Try to figure out what they're challenged with, because it could be something that they haven't even considered. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM How to Qualify Leads and Stop Wasting Time on the Wrong Ones Jason: [00:00:00] Hey, what's up, everybody? Welcome to another great show. The smart agency masterclass. I have a really good episode today coming up with Mike, who's built a really amazing agency and we'll get into that in a second. Now, before we jump in, I want you guys to take a screenshot of the show. And then I want you to post on Instagram and tag us so then we can give you a shout-out for being a loyal listener. So let's go ahead and jump into the episode. Hey Mike, welcome to the show. Mike: [00:00:33] Hey! Thanks for having me, Jason. Jason: [00:00:35] Yeah, man. I'm excited to have you on. So tell us who you are and what do you do? Mike: [00:00:39] Yeah, my name is Mike Poznansky. I'm the founder and managing director over at Neato. We're a full-service marketing agency that helps brands connect with young audiences with a focus on gen Z and college students. Jason: [00:00:51] Awesome. And so how did you get started in doing this and how did you connect to that particular niche? Mike: [00:00:59] Yeah, I actually was pre-law. When I was in college, I had the, I had every intention of going to law school. I was thinking about being a sports agent or maybe working in intelligence. And through a strange set of circumstances, I connected with Red Bull. My passion work was in the action sports world and a company I was working with partnered with Red Bull on an event. And the employees over at Red Bull said, we have a job for college students that we think would be perfect for you. So, I was a senior, I became a student brand manager for Red Bull. At the time, I wasn't a big fan of marketing. I just saw it to be as something that was too disruptive or annoying, you know, kind of pestering. And through my work with Red Bull, even as a student, I discovered that it could be something that actually doesn't take away from your experience, but adds value to your day or to your life. And I ended up continuing with Red Bull and working for them full time. I spent, uh, over a decade there and eventually was running their college marketing program for North America. While I was at Red Bull, we were one of the first brands to invest in marketing to college students. We had a, a really large program that was very scaled. It was a well-oiled machine. So a couple of things happened that inspired me to get in the agency space. One, we started saying, how could we utilize this program to not only build the brand, but build the business? We had over 300 really capable well-connected students across the country. So we started experimenting with ways we could utilize them. And some of the programs we add to drive traffic into retail or pull product off the shelf or support our business in the on-premise. We were really blown away by the results. And then as we scaled, we needed some external help. And just, I realized that there weren't any agencies out there who were focused on the space that understood our business and that had high standards of quality. So just reali

Kevin Daisey works hard to stay on top of changing trends in digital marketing. He is the founder & CMO of Array Digital, a digital marketing agency specializing in search engine optimization, social media, and digital advertising; and also Rival Digital, a digital agency niched in the HVAC market. Today he joins us to chat about how to create a recurring revenue machine. And also how establishing tight processes will not make you lose clients if they're the right clients, and how his agency benefitted from eliminating the least profitable services. 3 Golden Nuggets Becoming a recurring revenue machine. After his accountant asked what he was predicting for next month's revenue and he had no answer, Kevin realized they needed to get serious about the business. So, he and his partner decided to implement 12-month payment plans and started converting clients to that plan. Clients pay for 12 months, even if the project was done in four months, and they can forecast on collecting that revenue. Figure out which services are bringing in more clients. Investigating all the services that they offered and identifying which ones were recurring and which ones were not, helped our guest make some changes in his agency. A lot of agencies try to do too much and think that to double in size, they need to do double the amount of services. And that's actually very incorrect. In the end, they figured out which services they could eliminate and which ones they should go all in. That helped them grow their recurring revenue in just eight months. Have a tight process. Establish a very solid outreach and communication process to establish clear payment options for your clients. If checks are just not convenient for your business, you can establish other options, like ACH, and offer a discount to encourage customers to use that method. You can also establish penalties for delayed payments. If you clearly communicate the benefits and downsides of each payment method, there are no excuses. Kevin and his team trusted their vision and were happy to see that customers started to comply with this new process. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Secrets to Becoming a Recurring Machine Jason: [00:00:00] What's up everybody? Jason Swenk here and on today's episode I have an amazing guest from our mastermind who runs a really amazing agency. And we're going to talk about creating a recurring machine, but before we get into it, I want you to do me a favor, take a screenshot of listening to the podcast. And upload it to Instagram and tag us, because we want to reach out to you and give you a shout-out. So make sure you go do that now and let's get into the episode. Hey, Kevin. Welcome to the show. Kevin: [00:00:36] Hey, Jason. Thanks for having me. Jason: [00:00:38] Yeah, man. I'm excited to have you on. So tell us who you are and what do you do? Kevin: [00:00:42] So my name's Kevin Daisey and I run two agencies, one called Array Digital and, Array Digital is a full-service digital marketing agency that primarily focuses on working with law firms. Also, I have another agency that we started in September of 2020, which is niched in the HVAC market. So HVAC contractors, companies around the country, uh, with websites, SEO, social media, and on, on advertising. Jason: [00:01:12] Awesome. I love it. Well, let's go ahead and get into it. How can people listening, how can they create a recurring machine? Kevin: [00:01:21] Well, let me, uh, I guess start with kinda what led to where we are and obviously where we are is a far cry from where we want to go. But, uh, in order to get there, we had to have recurring revenue. And so back about a few years, my business partner, Eric J. Olson, who's actually a member of the mastermind as well. Me and him formed Array Digital together, after both running our own agencies for quite a few years. And we both struggled with one thing, which took us a while to figure out, by the way. We didn't have predictable recurring revenue, we had lots of projects. Now we have some small services and hosting and maybe some support to some degree. But it was never enough to actually operate the company, pay payroll and things like that. So it was really just kind of a way to supplement and maybe have recurrent customers in the future. But on a monthly basis and cash flow, we didn't really have a lot to stand on. And so we were really focused on software and mobile apps at one time and we had a lot of software developers that had $100,000 salaries and up. And we just really saw, when we had a slowdown at one point in sales, which was Eric and I at the time, how are we going to have the payroll is massive and how are we going to pay this if we don't have projects this month? Around the same time, we were meeting with a, an accountant who actually ended up being the worst accountant we've ever had… ever. Like we fired the guy, his, it was a terrible experience. But he did this one life-changing thing, w

Anna Shcherbyna is the CEO of Remotivate. And, leveraging her decade of experience in Business Operations and International Recruitment, Anna's recruitment agency helps online businesses hire remote staff worldwide. They handle all the due diligence relating to candidate communication, arranging interviews, discussing salary expectations, and conducting reference checks. Today, she joins us to talk about how to find and attract your agency's dream team. She shares why some job search platforms are better than people may think, why it's better to invite candidates to apply for your agency, and why you should never hire for the fire. 3 Golden Nuggets Create a process. After going through profiles in some of the job search platforms (our guest recommends a few good ones) instead of going straight to interviewing the candidates, try to have a process in place. Identify 5 requirements for success in the position. You can incorporate that into a questionnaire, a skill test. This weeds out candidates who don't care enough. Finally, ask them to create a video. This will answer so much, from their motivations to what do they say in the video and how they say it. Be in control of the narrative. Something that can really help you be in control of the type of candidates that will go through your hiring process and subsequent interviews is to not just post and wait for candidates to apply. Instead, after searching through some profiles, you can invite some candidates to apply for the position. This way, you'll have much more control over the type of candidate you'll be interviewing and filter out the ones who maybe have the wrong motivations or are just not good quality candidates. Don't hire for the fire. Take the time to truly understand the position you're hiring for. Try to have a clear idea of what success looks like in that position. What kind of background are you looking for? What level of experience would you prefer candidates to have? This will help filter candidates and speed up the process. Anna's advice is "don't hire for the fire, hire for the long term." Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Jason: [00:00:00] What's up everybody? Jason Swenk here and I have another amazing episode for you where we talk about re, remote recruitment. If I can actually get that out, I don't know why that's so hard. But we're going to talk about how to find the right senior-level managers and hiring them remotely, as well as how can we evaluate and make sure that the right one. So, it's a really good episode. Let's go ahead and get into it. Hey Anna, welcome to the show. Anna: [00:00:32] Thanks so much for having me, Jason. It's a pleasure to be here. Jason: [00:00:36] Yeah, I'm excited. I almost wasn't able to say remote recruitment. I don't know why it's such a tongue twister this morning for me. But for the people that don't know who you are, tell us who you are and what do you do? Anna: [00:00:48] Yeah, absolutely. So my name's Anna Shcherbyna. I'm actually originally from Ukraine and I help online businesses all over the world, help them hire remote staff internationally. Uh, it's been an incredible journey and the experience to work with companies that have all kinds of needs. And I believe, as you mentioned, we do focus on managerial and leadership positions, but we've always get some fun roles and fund requirements. So it's kind of the, uh, the new age of headhunting, so to speak, uh, at times that's what it really comes down to. Jason: [00:01:17] Awesome. Well, let's go ahead and dive into it. Let's talk about where can we find these people, right? So, you know, we're, I'm an agency owner. I'm looking to get some more help, so I don't have to make all the decisions. I need, like I already, I'm maxed out at managing these people. I want to build my team up. I think a lot of times people just default to going to LinkedIn or Craigslist or wherever. So what is your recommendation for people listening of how can they find some of these amazing talents? Anna: [00:01:46] Yeah, absolutely. I do think that a lot of people, when they're transitioning, especially into hiring remote staff, that's where the challenge comes in because they still go back to the old websites. As you mentioned, LinkedIn is very popular Craigslist, things like that. And it just doesn't work for remote stuff. You want people who know what they're doing and really have the right skills and abilities and understanding of the remote space. They're not going to be there. I mean, you can find amazing people on LinkedIn, don't get me wrong, but in terms of what we love to do, Upwork is actually one that surprises everyone. I'll say this because a lot of the times people assume that Upwork is for projects, just for projects for short term. But actually if someone's new to the platform, they haven't really realized how it works properly, and so you can find some incredible people who are just looking for that opportunity. And a lot of

As co-founder and creative visionary at Harmon Brothers, Daniel Harmon uses storytelling and humor to create ads that convert. Since 2014, he has helped create videos that changed the way we do advertising today, and that at the time were confused with funny sketch videos that had to assure audiences "Yes, this is real. This is a real ad." Now, he joins us to talk about how the Harmon Brothers found their comedy niche, how they find the right creative thinkers to write their unique ads, and how the company teaches their entire system through the Harmon Brothers University. 3 Golden Nuggets Hiring unique thinkers. The Harmon Brothers have developed a very unique style of advertising that stands out for its comedy. To build this style, Daniel says they have focused on getting very creative people with comedy backgrounds in the writing room. You're going to be much better off teaching a comedian to be a marketer than a marketer to be a comedian. Creating ads that convert. When it comes to creating great ads that convert, the starting point will always be finding a product or service that you're passionate about, that is offering real value, solving a real problem and on which you're already sold as a customer. That way, you'll me much more effective at communicating the benefits of that product, as opposed to doing it just because that's your job. Stop copying the big agencies. Smaller and medium-sized agencies look at bigger companies and decide that they have to do what they're doing, which is a mistake. Depending on the stage of the company, there's different ways to focus your advertising. Try to model how someone actually got there rather than looking at where they're at now and try to duplicate that, because you may end up looking silly. Sponsors and Resources SweetProcess: Today's episode is sponsored by SweetProcess. If you're looking for a way to speed up processes in your agency, SweetProcess will provide the systemization you need to scale and grow your business. Check out sweetprocess.com/smartagency and get your productivity up. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM How to Create Amazing Ads that Convert More Clients Jason: [00:00:00] What's up everybody? Jason Swenk here and I have an amazing guest on the show. One of the Harmon brothers who is going to talk about how you can turn your poop into gold. Literally. Their videos are so funny and their ads reach so many people. And I'm happy to have them on. So let's go ahead and get into the show. Are you frustrated with how long it takes you to get stuff done in your agency or tired of your team missing steps or falling through the cracks? You know, you may be looking for an easy way to capture SOPs to scale your agency faster and easier. Now, our partners that Sweet Process have created an amazing tool to help you overcome all these frustrations. Sweet Process really lets you create a step-by-step instruction from every task in your agency. From writing proposals to executing client work and responding to client requests. So everything gets done more easily. No more mistakes or missed steps. Plus you'll have a central place where everyone employees, contractors, or even VAs can access your procedures anytime from anywhere. The best way to learn about how suite process really can streamline your agency is to start using it. So exclusively for the smart agency masterclass listeners, you can try it out for 28 days free of charge. No strings attached. Just go to sweetprocess.com/smartagency. To start your free 28-day free trial today. That's sweetprocess.com/smartagency to get your SOPs down and your productivity. All right, what's going on? Welcome to the show. Daniel: [00:01:49] Thanks for having me, Jason. Glad to be on. Jason: [00:01:51] Yeah, man. So for the people that have been kind of hiding under a rock a little bit, tell us who you are and what you do. Daniel: [00:01:57] I'm Daniel Harmon. I'm Chief Creative Officer at Harmon Brothers, and we're known for ad campaigns like Squatty Potty, Purple, Chatbooks, Poo-Pourri, FiberFix Lumē, Kodiak Cakes, Camp Chef, all these different campaigns that have, um, helped companies generate over 1.5 billion views and over $400 million in sales. And anyway, that's, that's kind of what we're known for is mixing some elements of sort of direct response advertising stuff that gets people to act and buy immediately with really traditional branding elements of storytelling. And that's kind of our sweet spot. Jason: [00:02:36] Yeah. And I love that. How did you guys kind of fall into that sweet spot? Because a lot of agencies, they start off and it takes them forever. So how did you guys progress through that? Daniel: [00:02:49] Sure, for us it started a little bit with a company called Orabrush. My brothers were co-founders of Orabrush, Orabrush is a tongue cleaner that, um, helps remove the gunk off of your tongue. And that's where 90% of bad breath comes from is the, uh, is the gunk ou

Duncan Alney made the decision to focus his agency on social media back in the late 2000s when MySpace was still a thing. Now he's running a 7-figure agency and is has niched it down even further. As founder and CEO of Firebelly, Duncan juggles the roles of catalyst, program overseer, problem solver, and strategist within the organization. Today he joins us to talk about how he accelerated his social media agency, the benefits of letting go of your fears, and why you have to let go of your ego to reach the next level. 3 Golden Nuggets Letting go of your fear. When Duncan made the decision to focus his agency on social media, he started rejecting other types of work. It was a scary moment, but he had a "burn the boat" mentality. They would succeed in this new space or they would go down trying. In the end, they committed to following their own compass. Shortly after, they started winning awards by having a clear point of view and claiming their spot in the industry. The phases of running an agency. If you look at running an agency in stages, the first stage will be building. After that's done, the next phase is all about direction, in terms of the values that you will set up for your business and will guide you in the decisions you make in the future. Once you established your direction, you will need to put some systems in place. Many people like to skip this part, and they will regret it. The combination of the direction and the systems is what will help you scale and get to the next phase of delegating. Get past your ego. A lot of agency owners want to be needed, and that can be a problem. Remember that your clients go to you to solve a problem. They are not necessarily reaching out to you because they like you or feel you're the only one that could solve that problem. Learn to delegate. A sustainable business has to be able to run without you. Even Apple was able to continue its mission and vision without Steve Jobs. Sponsors and Resources Agency Dad: Today's episode is sponsored by Agency Dad. Agency Dad is an accounting solution focused on helping marketing agencies make better decisions based on their financials. Check out agencydad.money/freeaudit/ to get a phone call with Nate to assess your agency's financial needs and how he can help you. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Getting Past Your Ego and Put Clients in the Middle Jason: [00:00:00] Hey, what's up everybody? Jason Swenk here, and I am excited to bring to you an amazing agency owner who's going to talk about how he accelerated his social media marketing agency. He's in the mastermind. He's always a bundle of joy and always makes me laugh when I chat with him. So welcome, Duncan. So, for the people that have not experienced the Duncan effect, tell us a little bit about who you are and what do you do. Duncan: [00:00:28] I am Duncan. Much like Prince or Madonna or, you know, with this Duncan nothing else is needed. I'm the founder of Firebelly, and, um, we were a social media marketing agency. I'm also a dad and a husband/partner and a son. And yeah, I have a lot of joy in my life, so I try to bring it to everyone else around me. Jason: [00:00:51] Awesome. And so talk about how did you get started with your, uh, social media agency? Duncan: [00:00:57] So we started doing social media marketing in the late 2000s, really like 2007, because we were a branding agency and there wasn't any real differentiation. And I already had noticed at that point that SEO was moving very quickly. You know, websites were becoming more and more technical and I really wanted Firebelly to own a space. And so we decided, hey, this social media thing is new, let's, let's jump into it. So that's how we got into it initially and then over the years, you know, my business has, has really gone from being a lifestyle with some employees to being a real business in the last really two to three years has been, you know, with profit incentives and a social impact and thinking about ourselves seriously as a business, as opposed to, hey, get some people in here to do some work. Jason: [00:01:50] So let's kind of dive into that a little bit. So what were you going through at the time when you said, hey, I want to make a switch? And then what did you do? Duncan: [00:01:59] At the time, the company was sort of an extension of myself. You know, I had been like a lot of people a solo player with a bunch of freelancers and contractors. And what I was really good at at the time was actually doing the work. And so I did some exceptional work for brands. You know, whether it was tactics or strategy, well, probably mostly tactics, but you know, if someone wanted PR done for a launch or a trade show, or they needed a video made or email marketing campaign or a website like I was the guy I brought the right people to the table. But what I realized is, with all of that there's a reliability issue when you're working with freelancers and contractors. I mean, I do

Stephan Spencer made himself too essential in his agency, resulting in working to exhaustion. After a much-needed break, he was able to gain clarity on the best way to scale his agency. In the 1990s he founded the SEO agency Netconcepts and in 2010 it was acquired by Covario. Stephan invented an automated pay-for-performance SEO technology called GravityStream. He is co-author of "The Art of SEO", co-author of "Social eCommerce", and author of "Google Power Search." Today, he joins us to talk about how he scaled his agency to the point he could take a sabbatical. Learn how he intentionally worked himself out of a job by building a leadership team that could take over the thought leadership role. 3 Golden Nuggets Figure out what can be automated. We've talked about the importance of getting rid of the more tedious tasks to focus on what you really want to do. One way you could do that is by figuring out what can be automated or scaled with some artificial intelligence technology. For example, GPT-3 is a game-changer that you can incorporate into your product to have a real competitive edge. Don't work yourself to exhaustion. It's important to work yourself out of a job. By being indispensable, you become the biggest roadblock to the growth of the agency. Stephan wanted to be the visionary, not the integrator or the implementer, so he brought on a COO, VPs, CFO, CEO, and built his team to make sure he no longer was the company's only thought leader. Establish authority in a powerful way. You can make a huge impact and put yourself on the map if you can find a niche where you can author a book. Another thing that can make a big impact and get you your first big clients is find a big company and offer your services in exchange for testimonials and the use of their logo on your website. It communicates to other clients that you are preapproved by this larger company and more clients are sure to follow. Sponsors and Resources SweetProcess: Today's episode is sponsored by SweetProcess. If you're looking for a way to speed up processes in your agency, SweetProcess will provide the systemization you need to scale and grow your business. Check out sweetprocess.com/smartagency and get your productivity up. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Avoid Becoming Indispensable and Working Yourself to Death Jason: [00:00:00] What's up everybody? I have an amazing show coming your way. If you want to know how one agency owner built an SEO agency over $6 million and sold it. And even before that got to a point where they could actually go on a sabbatical and the agency keep running without them. Which is total freedom. And, and to come back. This is the episode for you. So let's go ahead and get into it. Are you frustrated with how long it takes you to get stuff done in your agency? Or tired of your team missing steps or falling through the cracks? You know, you may be looking for an easy way to capture SOPs to scale your agency faster and easier. Now, our partners that Sweet Process have created an amazing tool to help you overcome all these frustrations. Sweet Process really lets you create a step-by-step instruction from every task in your agency. From writing proposals to executing client work and responding to client requests. So everything gets done more easily. No more mistakes or missed steps. Plus, I have a central place where everyone, employees, contractors, or even VAs can access your procedures anytime from anywhere. The best way to learn about how Sweet Process really can streamline your agency is to start using it. So exclusively for the Smart Agency masterclass listeners, you can try it out for 28 days free of charge. No strings attached. Just go to sweetprocess.com/smartagency to start your free 28-day free trial today. That's sweetprocess.com/smartagency to get your SOPs down and your productivity up. All right, welcome to the show, Stefan. How's it going? Stephan: [00:01:52] It's going great. Thanks for having me. Jason: [00:01:54] Yeah, man. So, uh, tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do. Stephan: [00:01:58] Yeah, well, I've been doing SEO since, uh, the nineties. If you can believe it. Even before Google existed, I dropped out of a PhD. Jason: [00:02:07] Yeah. That was probably back when we could, uh, put all the keywords in the background and put it the same color. Stephan: [00:02:15] Yeah. You know, I never did that. I always thought that was a little sketchy, but yeah. That did work kind of for a little while, uh, back in those days. But the idea of having eight or 10 different search engines that you had to optimize for was a little nerve-wracking back then, if you recall, there is Infoseek and… Jason: [00:02:35] Lycos. Stephan: [00:02:36] Lycos, AltaVista Dogpile, MetaCrawler, Web Crawler, Excite. Yeah. It was just… Jason: [00:02:43] I remember all of them. Yeah, it was crazy. Stephan: [00:02:46] Yeah. That was an interesting time, but then Google changed ever

Roger Bryan has worked with some of the world's largest companies as an SEO consultant. He sold his first website in 1998 before he knew what SEO was, and spent years working with nonprofits. His agency Enfusen was recently acquired by Growth Foundry and now he joins us to talk about how he has led agencies to great success and failure, and analyzing both. Roger also explains why generating revenue is the real focus of SEO. He also shares tips from his book and even a few crappy jokes. 3 Golden Nuggets Rebuilding the team is key. After resetting his entire team, Roger started from scratch by filling three major roles. First, he hired an office manager that would handle HR and systematize everything they were doing in the business. After that, he hired a general manager to take care of hiring both divisions of the business. Finally, he looked for someone that could assist him in marketing and sale for tasks like managing outsource vendors and content teams. Pay people what they're worth. As Roger's first mentor used to say, the salary you pay someone is what keeps them at their desk and the money that you pay them after that is what you pay them to help you earn more. Some people will take their salary and sit at their desk, but a few will work very hard to make you money and you should compensate them in return. SEO is not all about ranking. If you're in SEO and you think your job is ranking websites, you've already failed. SEO is about generating revenue, so any task has to be correlated to a data point that leads to revenue. Anything that is not revenue-related it's just busy work and so much of what SEO professionals are doing is busy work. Sponsors and Resources Agency Dad: Today's episode is sponsored by Agency Dad. Agency Dad is an accounting solution focused on helping marketing agencies make better decisions based on their financials. Check out agencydad.money/freeaudit/ to get a phone call with Nate to assess your agency's financial needs and how he can help you. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Why Did One Agency Owner Fire His Entire Team? Jason: [00:00:00] All right. I have an amazing interview with one of my old clients who has sold a couple of agencies in the past. And we talk about a lot of the mistakes he made in running his SEO agency. Then we go into a lot of different tactics about how he fired his whole team in one meeting and then a year later he was at $3 Million. And what are the three major roles that he brought in to help? What did he pay them? What was the framework that he used for success and how he really positioned his agency from just being an SEO agency, to being a revenue agency for his clients? And that was a huge, huge thing. You're not going to want to miss out this episode. It's really great. Roger did an amazing job. So let's jump into it. Hey, Roger. Welcome to the show. Roger: [00:00:54] Hey, thanks for having me. Jason: [00:00:55] Yeah. I'm excited to have you on, you know, we were reminiscing about how many years ago was when you came out to Atlanta for a workshop with me. Can't believe how long ago that was. But, uh, for the people that don't know who you are, tell us who you are. And, uh, tell us a little bit about the agency. Roger: [00:01:11] Perfect. Uh, my name is Roger Bryan. I'm an SEO consultant. My former agency, Enfusen, was just acquired by a company called Growth Foundry. We do enterprise-level marketing, a lot of multi-location, franchise marketing, a lot of lead gen, SEO pay-per-click, specialized in healthcare, nonprofits, all across the gambit on the different industries that we work with. Jason: [00:01:35] Awesome. Well, let's kind of jump into it and we're kind of trying something new and you're the, you're the first guinea pig. So welcome to being the first guinea pig. And it's really kind of a thing of like a how-to series to figure out, you know, if you're an SEO agency because your agency that you sold was that, talk about how did you specialize in that? Because a lot of times people will start an agency and they start trying to do everything. You know, design pay-per-click, everything under the sun. How did you pick SEO? Let's start there. Roger: [00:02:10] I sold my first website in 1998 and it sold pagers in long-distance service. And what I found was is then I didn't know, I had never heard of SEO. I don't know that I even had met someone that had ever said the term before, but you're putting on content onto those pages to try to get people to find them. Uh, to me, it was no different than making your company AAA in the phone book a hundred years ago, so that people knew, would find you first. It was just as kind of simple. I got into the auto auction industry after that, and we had a website and we were working with nonprofit organizations and it was like, well, how do I get us to come up first so more people find us? I didn't get into paid traffic until 2005. So I spent seven or eight years just living off o

Michael Begg began as an Amazon seller and quickly saw an opportunity in e-commerce marketing. He figured how to successfully sell products online. That led to the idea of creating their own agency, AMZ Advisers, full-service, e-commerce, and digital marketing consultancy partnering with brands to evaluate and develop their e-commerce strategy. Today he joins us to talk about how he started scaling his agency, how he used third-party platforms to get his first clients, and how he stays on top of his niche. He also shares tips on how has had great success near shoring his team. 3 Golden Nuggets Play to your strengths. After establishing an agency and getting your first clients, you are probably thinking about scaling. Agency owners should always play to their strengths by figuring out the high-value and low-value tasks. Hire people that can start taking care of the low-value tasks. The importance of the first 100 days. You got a new client, great! Celebrate, but also make sure to have a plan for the first 100 days to ensure retention. Joey Coleman speaks about the importance of the first 100 days when onboarding a client. In Michael's case, his agency has set up an internal structure where the first 90 days are dedicated to the basics. That will give them enough information about the next steps and will give the client the first results to decide if they would like to continue the relationship. Staying on top of your game. Platforms like Google, Facebook, and Amazon are constantly changing and if you take a step back from the implementation, you'll fall behind, which will negatively affect your ability to train other people. Michael's agency avoids this by selling products on Amazon themselves. This allows them to use their company as a guinea pig to learn things that they can apply to clients. Sponsors and Resources SweetProcess: Today's episode is sponsored by SweetProcess. If you're looking for a way to speed up processes in your agency, SweetProcess will provide the systemization you need to scale and grow your business. Check out sweetprocess.com/smartagency and get your productivity up. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM How Near Shoring Your Agency Team Helps Scale Jason: [00:00:00] I have a great guest today and we talk about how he's grown his Amazon agency. And really he moved down to Mexico, created a team down there, and is really scaling it very fast. Really interesting episode. I hope you enjoy it. Are you frustrated with how long it takes you to get stuff done in your agency or tired of your team missing steps or falling through the cracks? You know, you may be looking for an easy way to capture SOPs to scale your agency faster and easier. Now, our partners at Sweet Process have created an amazing tool to help you overcome all these frustrations. Sweet Process really lets you create step-by-step instructions for every task in your agency. From writing proposals to executing client work and responding to client requests. So everything gets done more easily, no more mistakes or missed steps. Plus you'll have a central place where everyone employees, contractors, or even VAs can access your procedures anytime from anywhere, the best way to learn about how Sweet Process really can streamline your agency is to start using it. So exclusively for the Smart Agency masterclass listeners, you can try it out for 28 days free of charge. No strings attached. Just go to sweetprocess.com/smartagency to start your free 28-day free trial today. That's sweetprocess.com/smartagency to get your SOPs down and your productivity up. All right, welcome to the show. How are you doing? Michael: [00:01:42] I'm good, Jason. Thank you for having me here. Jason: [00:01:44] Yeah, I'm excited to have you on, so tell us who you are and what do you do? Michael: [00:01:48] Sure. My name is Mike Begg. I'm one of the co-founders of AMZ Advisers and we're an agency that specializes in the Amazon marketplaces. We help brands increase their sales, manage their advertising, and just maximize their visibility on the Amazon platform. Jason: [00:02:04] That's awesome. So how did you get started? And then tell me kind of the origin story about how did you transition to Amazon. Michael: [00:02:11] Yeah, so we actually started as, uh, myself and my two partners, we actually all started as Amazon sellers ourselves. Before that, I was actually working in retail. I was working at Sears in retail real estate development. And this was in like 2014, 2015. So it was a very interesting time for the business because a lot of things were, you know, the stores were really struggling, trying to figure out ways to make money. And at the same time, we kind of saw what was happening in e-commerce and saw an opportunity there. So originally we just started selling products for ourselves to make some money on the side. And we found out we were really good at doing that. And we realized that a lot of other companies, a lot of big

With around three decades of experience running professional services firms, Don Scales understands first-hand how to make them successful. He is currently the Global CEO of Investis Digital, a global digital communications company that helps world-class businesses manage their corporate brands. Today this industry veteran joins us to talk about his experience in the business, the reasons behind failed mergers and acquisitions, and share some funny stories. 3 Golden Nuggets If you continue to have to do it all, you'll never scale. So many agency owners are at the million-dollar mark and wanting to get to the eight-figure mark. Don's advice is to learn to delegate. Find people who are great at what they do and then get out of their way. You may make some mistakes if you do, but you'll move on from that. Building a team with staying power. Consistency is the key when it comes to leadership. Your employees won't want to come to work every day if they don't know which version of you they might encounter. Be consistent with your leadership style and make your decision-making process transparent, so they will learn to make decisions in that way as well. Why do some mergers fail? If you look at what people really examine when they look at potentially buying a company, you'll find that they don't spend a whole lot of time looking at the value set of these companies that they're looking to buy. So many times when a merger or acquisition ends up failing you find out afterward that the cultures were off. You need to spend some time analyzing whether there is compatibility and if the values align. Sponsors and Resources Agency Dad: Today's episode is sponsored by Agency Dad. Agency Dad is an accounting solution focused on helping marketing agencies make better decisions based on their financials. Check out agencydad.money/freeaudit/ to get a phone call with Nate to assess your agency's financial needs and how he can help you. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Avoid a Failed Merger by Staying True to Your Agency's Values Jason: [00:00:00] What's up, agency owners, Jason Swenk here, and I'm excited to have an amazing guest. Now, this guest has been in the agency world for a very long time. He started when he was one and he's grown several agencies and the current agency that he's, a global CEO has over 500 employees. They're approaching $90 million in revenue and they've done over 40 acquisitions over the, his lifetime. And I'm really excited to get into it. So let's jump into the episode. Hey, Don. Welcome to the show. Don: [00:00:39] Hey, good to see you. Glad to be here. Jason: [00:00:42] Awesome. Well, I'm excited to chat with you and learn from you because you've been in it for a long time and you have a lot of experience. So for the ones that have not heard of you yet, tell us who you are and what do you do? Don: [00:00:54] My name's Don Scales. I am the global CEO of a company called Investis Digital, which is a UK-based company. It's private equity-owned by Investcorp. Uh, we just recently exited from, uh, a six-year relationship with the company called ECI out of London. Uh, so we're very excited about our Invest Corp relation. Then prior to that, I was CEO of a company, I'm sure you heard of, called iCrossing, iCrossing, we managed to take that to, um, some $140 million, exited several years back. So I was there for a good eight years, nine years. And then prior to that, I was CEO of a company called Agency.com, which is a pioneer in the web development space. And it's one of the, if you will, one of the founding companies of web development. So that takes me back all the way to 1999 in the digital age, that's kind of like dog years. So I've been around a long time. Jason: [00:02:00] I started our agency in 99 and yeah, I used to love those days. It was kind of like no one knew what websites were, and I could literally go through the yellow pages and go, oh, you don't have a website here, so. Don: [00:02:10] And in fact you'll, you'll get a kick out of this. Back in the day, people would send us RFPs and we, we'd send them an invoice for 50 grand just to read their RFP. Jason: [00:02:25] I love it. Don: [00:24:10] And that was good business. Jason: [00:02:25] I love it Well, I think we're going to get along well, because I always looked at RFP as, um, you know, stands for a couple of things, Request for Punishment as one of them. Other ones, I probably won't name on this show right now. I don't know if I can talk to you that way. But, uh, let's jump into that because that's interesting. Why would you send an invoice for 50 grand to respond to their RFP? Don: [00:02:47] Because, like you said, you could go to the yellow pages. It was just such a demand, and we had very limited resources of people who could do those kinds of work. And so we had to make sure that, uh, every, every minute of every day was, uh, paid for in some way, shape or form. And so if the market would take it, and

Todd Taskey has over twenty years of experience as a founding investor, board member, and management team of several business ventures. Now, as M&A at Potomac Business Capital, he helps CEO's and entrepreneurs develop a successful exit strategy by understanding the mid-market investment banking process. Today he joins us to talk about roll-up strategy, the mergers and acquisitions red flags you should avoid, and what you should be offering as an agency if you're thinking of selling. 3 Golden Nuggets Thinking about selling? A lot of agency owners are thinking of selling at some point in the future. How can they be sure to get the most value? Our guest agrees that you should pay a lot of attention to your EBITDA. A lot of times, buyers won't even consider you unless you have $1 million in EBITDA. Specialization is the key. If you own a small agency and are looking at roll-up mergers as a possible strategy for the future ask yourself "am I providing a really specific piece?" "Am I really, really good at providing that to folks?" There are lots of opportunities out there and, if you're smaller, it's easier if you can solve a specific issue. Red flags you should avoid. The most important aspect that sometimes determines the failure of a merger is culture fit. You should always have that in mind. Another mistake is to think of it not just as two identical companies coming together. If they're smaller, they should add certain capabilities. Sponsors and Resources SweetProcess: Today's episode is sponsored by SweetProcess. If you're looking for a way to speed up processes in your agency, SweetProcess will provide the systemization you need to scale and grow your business. Check out sweetprocess.com/smartagency and get your productivity up. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Secrets to Implementing a Successful Roll-Up Strategy for Your Agency Jason: [00:00:00] Hey, what's up everybody. Jason Swenk here and I have an amazing guest today. A repeat guest, Todd, where we're going to talk about a roll-up strategy because there's a lot of things out there right now that are going on and this market is growing very quickly with, uh, mergers and acquisitions and, Todd is going to provide a lot of value to you. So let's get into the episode. Are you frustrated with how long it takes you to get stuff done in your agency? Or tired of your team missing steps or falling through the cracks? You know, you may be looking for an easy way to capture SOPs, to scale your agency faster and easier. Now, our partners at SweetProcess have created an amazing tool to help you overcome all these frustrations. SweetProcess really lets you create a step-by-step instruction from every task in your agency. From writing proposals to executing client work and responding to client requests. So everything gets done more easily, no more mistakes or missed steps. Plus, you'll have a central place where everyone employees, contractors, or even VAs can access your procedures anytime from anywhere, the best way to learn about how Sweet Process really can streamline your agency is to start using it. So exclusively for the smart agency masterclass listeners, you can try it out for 28 days free of charge. No strings attached. Just go to sweetprocess.com/smartagency to start your free 28-day free trial today. That's sweetprocess.com/smartagency to get your SOP is down and your productivity up. Hey Todd, welcome to the show. Todd: [00:01:50] Happy to be here, Jason. Thanks for having me. Jason: [00:01:52] Yeah. So for the ones that have not checked out our other interview, which we'll actually link in the show notes, make sure you guys all check that out, but, uh, tell us who you are and what do you do? Todd: [00:02:04] Yes. My name is Todd Taskey, T-A-S-K-E-Y. You can find me on LinkedIn. I'm happy to connect Potomac Business Capital is our group and we do, uh, investment banking primarily in the digital marketing and digital transformation space. Jason: [00:02:18] Awesome. Well, let's kind of jump right into it. You know, there's a lot of crazy things going on at this moment with, you know, different deal structures. What are you guys seeing since you're in the mix of it with a lot of digital agencies? Todd: [00:02:32] Yeah. You know, it's interesting. We've got one client. I'll give you just a couple of anecdotal pieces. I've got a client right now that is small, you know, they're actually under a million dollars of EBITDA, which is usually an important cutoff, but these guys are very focused in terms of the work that they do. They provide email marketing in a very specific vertical. And that becomes a, a really good bite-size piece for an acquirer. And in fact, both of, we expect two LOIs this week for them, and both of those are very sizable companies, but I think they viewed this opportunity as, like I said, a bite-sized piece that they can build out a practice from and then cross sell across to their other brands. We've also

As a Certified Management Accountant, a Certified Internal Auditor, and certified in Strategy and Competitive Analysis, Naten Jenson, co-founder of Agency Dad, is certainly the best person to help you establish a strong business and drive your agency's profitability. Today, he joins us to talk about scope creep, a topic that many agency owners struggle with but should definitely learn more about. Remember that if we can get a hold of scope creep, we're going to increase our profit. 3 Little Nuggets What gets measured gets managed. Many agency owners get so focused on that next client that they forget to measure and they are not managing the profitability of existing clients. First mistake, because you cannot identify a problem when you fail to measure. If you don't have the data, there's nothing to analyze. How to get those numbers. There are three numbers that you need to know. The first one is your bill rate. The second thing you need to know is your gross profit on a client, and finally, you need the number of hours that you spent on a client. The formula you will need is: gross profit ÷ bill rate. So let's say your gross profit on a client in a month is $1,200. If your bill rate is $120 an hour, you get an answer of 10. Now, what if we had 10 hours budgeted and we use 17 on a client? Well, we've now measured our scope creep. It was 7 hours, and 120 x 7 is $840 of revenue that you've lost. Is the problem coming from the client or the agency? Before doubling your rates, you could look at the origin of the problem. If you do this scope creep analysis over three months and clients are consistently using too many hours, then it's time to look internally first and see if the problem is with the agency. Do I have an employee who actually doesn't know what they're doing? Do they need more training? Is it the wrong fit? Are some questions you can ask yourself before taking this to the client. Sponsors and Resources Agency Dad: Today's episode is sponsored by Agency Dad. Agency Dad is an accounting solution focused on helping marketing agencies make better decisions based on their financials. Check out agencydad.money/freeaudit/ to get a phone call with Nate to assess your agency's financial needs and how he can help you. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Understanding Scope Creep Will Help Drive Profitability Jason: [00:00:00] Hey, what's up agency owners, Jason Swenk here. And I'm excited, I have a repeat guest and a repeat guest where we're going to talk about scope creep. Right? You should hear that tun-tun-tun on scope creep, because a lot of us, we struggle with this and if we can get a hold of scope creep we're going to increase our profit. And we'll be able to afford those people to really come in and do the things we don't want to do anymore. So this is a really important episode and let's get into it. Hey, Nate. Welcome back. Nate: [00:00:34] Thanks Jason. Glad to be back with you again. Jason: [00:00:37] Awesome. Well, uh, for the people that have not checked out the first episode, tell us who you are and what do you do. Nate: [00:00:43] My name's Nate Jensen. Uh I'm with Agency Dad, our website is agencydad.money. And we are an outsource CFO firm, bookkeeping firm, accounting firm. And our focus is really helping agencies to drive their profitability. We do that by good accounting where we can actually measure profitability, measure what's going on and those metrics drive action, drive decision-making that leads to greater profitability. Jason: [00:01:08] Awesome. Well, let's go ahead and talk about scope creep and how to identify this, because I know there's a lot of agency owners. We're busy at bringing in new business and we really kind of take our eye off the ball a little bit. And there's a lot of, uh, what I call profit leaks in scope creep. So tell us how can we identify these? Nate: [00:01:33] Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. What I, what I see is when, when someone's in growth mode, they're, they're so focused on that next client, that next client. That they're not measuring and they're not managing the profitability of existing clients. Peter Drucker is famous for saying what gets measured, gets managed. So identifying scope creep, the first thing you've got to do is measure it, where's it happening with clients is that happening with? And, and how bad is the problem? And so I want to talk today a little bit about how do we measure it? What are the numbers that we need to know? And, uh, after we go through that, we'll get to, what can we then do about it? Jason: [00:02:09] Cool. So, yeah, let's get into how do we measure it? Nate: [00:02:12] Ok, First, how do you measure it? There's three numbers that you need to know. And most accounting systems you should be able to pull at least one of these numbers out of there. You need to know your bill rates, which is, hey, if we think we're going to spend 10 hours on a client project, we're going to bill them, let's say

After deciding to leave the mean streets of LA, where he worked as a police officer for 13 years, Jason Smith started working at the leading Facebook and Instagram advertising agency Tier 11. He eventually moved to create his own company Spotlight Social Media Consulting in 2016. Today, he joins us to talk about the key factors that have helped him grow his team and making the decision to bring a VP of Operations. 3 Golden Nuggets Having a good foundation to grow your agency. For Jason, an integral part of growing an agency is having a great team that have your back and know what they're doing and are team players. People you can trust with the tasks that you're delegating and also, why not, people that you like. On hiring a VP of Operations. Many people are afraid of this step because of the cost it entails. But Jason has seen his agency really evolve since hiring his VP of Ops. Now his agency has SOPs, there are clear steps to bringing new employees and clients onboard, and a new project management system. Definitely worth it. The right Facebook ads agency will be a great partner. Make sure you ask the right questions when looking for a Facebook ads company because the right one will help you triple and quadruple your business and become a great asset to your brand. Sponsors and Resources Oribi: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by Oribi. Check out Oribi.io/smartagency for a free trial. Plus when you sign up for Oribi get 20% off the first three months with promo code: Smart Agency Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM How Hiring a VP of Operations can be the Best Call to Grow Your Agency Jason Swenk: [00:00:00] On this show. I talk with an agency owner who talks about how he has grown his team, how he's grown his agency. And when is the right time to bring in a VP of Operations and how did he do it? So let's sit back and check out the episode. Hey, Jason. Welcome to the show. Jason Smith: [00:00:24] Hey, how are you doing? Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. Jason Swenk: [00:00:27] Yeah, man, I'm excited to have you on, I've gotten to know you over the past couple of years, but for the people that have not heard of you yet tell us who you are and what do you do? Jason Smith: [00:00:35] Yeah, my name is Jason Smith, owner and CEO of Spotlight Social Media Consulting. We're a, uh, Facebook and Instagram only, I say only because we're not an all-in-one, we're Facebook and Instagram only ad agency. So we do paid media for Facebook and Instagram. Jason Swenk: [00:00:52] Awesome. Now you have a quite interesting story of how you became an agency or really even what you were doing beforehand. So, yeah, I think it's interesting just to tell people kind of where you came from. Jason Smith: [00:01:05] Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Crazy story, actually. When I tell it, people take a 360-degree turn and they're like, wait, what? So I was a, a policeman for the Los Angeles Police Department for, gosh, just about 14 years before I became an agency owner. And the reason why it's kind of crazy is because I went from getting shot at, chasing gang members, getting into shootings, all this stuff, and the mean streets of LA. And literally, I mean that literally, I mean, we're talking about 250 homicides in six square miles in a year, and very violent places in, in Los Angeles. And, uh, went from that to, you know, the thing that kinda drove me to look for something else was number one, I was never home, was in court all the time. My days off were filled with court and overtime and it was just, you know, I never get to spend time with my family and I just, it was getting old, real fast. And it sounds cool when you're up on the stand testifying as a gang expert or weapons expert and all this stuff. But in hindsight, personally, it's not that fun. So, and you know, I've been involved in tons of, and literally tons of stressful situations. I've been in shootings and been shot at and all that stuff. And, man, for making $80,000 a year doing that. I just wanted to start looking for something else. And I stumbled across an opportunity where, you know, running Facebook ads was a core part of one of my friend's businesses originally, like with a supplement company. And he just kind of asked me buddy to buddy, like, hey dude, do you want to help me do these Facebook ads? I'm like, yeah, I don't, I'm a dumb policeman. I don't know how to do this, but let's try it out, you know. So I ended up getting some good results and then I did a little bit more research and ended up finding a certification course. And gosh, the rest is history. And next thing you know, I have, I had 10 clients, not even a year later and making, you know, 30,000 a month, which I never thought possible from home. And yeah, it was pretty cool. Jason Swenk: [00:03:05] So which is more stressful running an agency or getting shot at? Jason Smith: [00:03:09] Man, I don't know. I'm just kidding. Well, it's funny because

True to his gambler style when it comes to making business decisions, entrepreneur Eric Siu bought a failing marketing agency for $2 back in 2014. By refocusing the agency's vision from an SEO agency to a full-service digital marketing agency, Single Grain has grown into a full team of expert marketers who share Eric's vision and passion for constant growth. Now he joins us today to talk about how you can use a game mentality to grow your agency by constantly leveling up. 3 Golden Nuggets Lack of vision leads to making mistakes. Eric talks about the time when he almost lost everything. He says that, at the time, he had no notion of culture and no vision, and it almost cost him everything. Luckily, he was able to turn it around. The game of life. The philosophy he shares in his book and has implemented in his agency is to look at it as a game. You need to be constantly leveling up. There are always new challenges and, if you're not where you wanted to be yet is because you haven't beat the current level. It's a game of resources, he says, you decide how you want to use your resources. Going back to the basics. Sometimes we need to go back to the basics. Some of the smartest agency owners are really good at SEO and use these tools to find websites in their niche that's ranking for all the keywords they want, buy it, and then have that advantage. And let's not forget that these tools can also help grow your agency on a small budget. Sponsors and Resources Wix: Today's episode is sponsored by the Wix Partner Program. Being a Wix Partner is ideal for freelancers and digital agencies that design and develop websites for their clients. Check out Wix.com/Partners to learn more and become a member of the community for free. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM How to Grow Your Agency By Constantly Leveling Up Jason: [00:00:00] On this show, I bring on a past client where we talk about how he's grown his agency and he has a great book called "Leveling Up" and going through the stages and talks about e-sports, and we talk about sports and how you can use this in order to really grow your agency. We talked about Clubhouse, all kinds of stuff. It's a really cool episode. We jump all around and we talk about a $75,000 Pokemon card. Crazy stuff. So, you're going to love this episode. Let's get into it. Hey Eric. Welcome to the show. Eric: [00:00:36] Good to see you, Jason. It's been a while. Jason: [00:00:38] Yeah, man. It's been a while since we worked together. So tell us, uh, for the people that haven't heard of, you tell us who you are and what do you do? Eric: [00:00:45] Yeah, thanks. So my name's Eric Siu. I helped level up the world through marketing. I have a couple of marketing businesses. I have an agency called Single Grain, a software company called Click Flow. And then, uh, we got a whole, you know, marketing education stuff and marketing school and the events tied to it. So a bunch of stuff. And I also invest in different MarTech SAS companies, which is my background. And then, um, other than that, I have a podcast called Leveling Up. I have a book called Leveling Up right here, coming out, and then I have a podcast called Marketing School and that's basically it. Jason: [00:01:12] Very cool. And so how'd, you get started in all this? You haven't been in the agency world too long. And so how did you kind of jump into it? Eric: [00:01:21] Yeah, so it's pretty unconventional. So the agency that I took over and, you know, the story already, I bought the company for $2 out of pocket because it was a failing SEO agency at the time, because the Google algorithm updates basically made the business model invalid overnight. And I was brought in as a number two to help save the company. Because I'd previously had helped turn another company around, which is a startup. And so this was a different challenge, you know, different service, like the plane's going down, right? Like, can you put the plane back together while flying it? I was like, okay, this will be an interesting challenge. About six months into it, the four other co-founders said they wanted out. And Neil Patel was my podcast co-host he was like, hey Eric, you should get out as a friend. There's no brand equity. There's nothing here. And I was like, okay, why don't we do this? I'll give it a shot. I'll buy it. I'll pay $1 for 10% of your shares and another dollar for another 10% of another partner's shares. The rest through the profits of the company, with contingency that the company failed and owned nothing. So asymmetric bet, you know, I'd have unlimited upside with my downside would be it's basically an MBA, right? And so fortunately it worked out, but I almost lost everything. I'm happy to go in that direction, but that's how I got started. First year, had no idea what I was doing dropped all the way down to one employee. Jason: [00:02:28] And so, you know, a lot of people are listening. They're like, what was the point where

With just a little over two years as the CEO and co-founder of The Influencer Marketing Factory, Alessandro Bogliari and his team have built an amazing global influencer marketing agency. They help brands and companies launch influencer marketing campaigns on TikTok, Instagram, and Youtube. Alessandro joins us today to talk about how to identify trends and what to do in order to really separate your agency from everybody else. 3 Golden Nuggets 1. Starting on a budget. Growing his company from just two workers to 20 in a short amount of time, Alessandro highlights the importance of being able to grow your agency on a budget. You can still get amazing results on a budget rather than spending money you don't have. 2. Don't just hop on a trend. Every time you create content for social media you should always take into account the specific medium, demographics, and type of user experience. Don't just hop on the new hot thing before you understand it. 3. Be curious. Dedicate some time to research, listen, and read about what's trending right now. Engage with the new generations and given let them show you how they use social media. You have to keep up. Don't just read about the new thing in the newspaper, because by the time it gets there, it's already been happening for a month and it's old news. YOUTUBE VIDEO AUDIO LINK Sponsors and Resources Oribi: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by Oribi. Check out Oribi.io/smartagency for a free trial. Plus when you sign up for Oribi get 20% off the first three months with promo code: Smart Agency Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM HEADLINE Jason: [00:00:00] On this episode, I talk with an amazing agency owner who's grown his agency to really big and in a very short time for really looking at the trends. And so we go through, how can you identify the trends and what do you actually need to do in order to do that major land grab and really separate your agency from everybody else? It's a really cool story. I hope enjoy it. Hey Alessandro, how are you doing? Welcome to the show. Alessandro: [00:00:30] Yeah. Thank you so much for having me, Jason. Jason: [00:00:32] Yes. I'm excited to have you on and tell your story. So tell us who you are and what do you do? Alessandro: [00:00:39] Sure I am the CEO and co-founder of The Influencer Marketing Factory. We are a global influencer marketing agency. We specialize mostly in TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. Um, we are based in the States, but we also have people in Europe I'm from Italy originally. So I understand the importance of having people both in the US and Europe. And we mostly help the brands and companies from Fortune 100 up to, you know, direct to consumer stuff of companies, get in front and engage with gen Z and millennials on like major social media. So that's what we do. We help them from the beginning of the like, understanding the KPIs up to reporting and digital analysis. Jason: [00:01:17] That's awesome. Now, how did you get started? Alessandro: [00:01:20] Uh, I started a couple of years ago. So the agency is like, you know, fairly new. Uh, started no funding, no VC, just a couple of people. Uh, both Italian and because we started that as a new journey and we understood before I'd say anyone else I think is like, you know, one of the few agencies that understood the potential of TikTok, back in late 2020, early 2019. Although other agencies and companies were still thinking that like, you know, TikToK was a kids app. It was just something for lip-sync and dancing, but I was a big fan of Vine and it was discontinued, but I was so love with it. When I saw TikTok and I was watching so many videos on YouTube about TikTok compilations, it was a different environment. It was a little bit more cringy, let's say that, you know, with furries and gamers and everything, but I saw the potential. I was seeing Instagram going down in terms of organic creation. And TikTok was giving the opportunity in a really democratic way to give like in a meritocratic way for everyone to get the spotlight that they did deserve. And so we said, let's really focus on that and invest on that. And we, we, we have done that. We started growing, we started getting amazing clients on like Sony Music, Universal, Warner Music Group. And then we got Google and some others. And these friends. And yeah, from two people now we're 20. Again, between Europe and the States. And, uh, so again, it started like, you know, uh, just totally like organic and we're actually growing in that way. And I'm so proud of what we have achieved so far. Jason: [00:02:51] Tell me a lot of people listening want to understand, because there's always new shiny red objects out there. Okay. And so kind of what you described is going after the shiny red object and it actually working, which is amazing. And there's always, you know, new apps coming out like clubhouse is out and everyone's talking about it and you know, saying, o

When Ben Childs founded Digital Reach in 2011, his mission was to create an agency that operated with integrity, honesty, and skill. Over the years, he has grown to become a leader in the B2B digital marketing space throughout the country, leading a team of 38 people. Today he's here to talk about the things he wishes he knew in order to scale his agency faster. 3 Golden Nuggets Raising prices is terrifying, but necessary. Ben recalls a time when he thought that raising prices was a risky move. But when a new Director of Sales doubled the company's prices, he found that clients would take them more seriously and expected a higher value service. A little outside perspective makes all the difference. Having a network of other agency owners, like the mastermind, can help you get some perspective. Sometimes the answer you're looking for is right in front of you but you're too close to see it. Sometimes you did not do your due diligence and need to be held accountable. Competition and differentiating yourself. Ben has never considered himself to have competitors. If he's going against others that are too similar to him, then he tries to be different. He asks himself if they are doing what he's doing, how are they different? YOUTUBE VIDEO AUDIO LINK Sponsors and Resources Wix: Today's episode is sponsored by the Wix Partner Program. Being a Wix Partner is ideal for freelancers and digital agencies that design and develop websites for their clients. Check out Wix.com/Partners to learn more and become a member of the community for free. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM How Does Ben Solve Big Agency Problems? Jason: [00:00:00] On this episode, I chat with one of my mastermind members that has grown a really nice size agency. And we talk about culture. We talk about some of the things that he wished he knew about in order to scale his agency, to close to 40 people, and really still enjoy it and create that freedom that he wants, rather than that prison. So. Let's get into the episode. I think you'll enjoy. Hey Ben, welcome to the show. Ben: [00:00:32] Good to be here, Jason. Jason: [00:00:33] I'm excited to have you on. We've known each other a while, you've been in the mastermind. So tell us who you are and how did you get into this crazy agency life? Ben: [00:00:42] Yeah. So my name is Ben Childs. I'm the president of Digital Reach Agency. We're a revenue-focused B2B digital marketing agency focused on SAS, tech, startups and enterprise, search, marketing automation, design development, and Account-based Marketing. How I got into it is not too dissimilar than I think most people. I had a job at an agency that was pretty crappy. I kind of woke up one day and realized they were pretty churn and burn. So I moved up to San Francisco with a lot of my buddies and I got a job, this is dating myself, at a Daily Deal startup back when those were a thing and they ran out of money and didn't have a lot of prospects. So I took the, uh, computer. That was my severance package from that job, went to RadioShack next door and got a Magic Jack. And just started calling people from my grandma's dresser that I used as a standing desk saying that I could do their digital marketing. I had sold it before, but I had never done it, so just, I knew the holes in the market and just said, "Hey, I'll be doing the work. I'm going to undercut everybody on price. And you can trust me because I need the money for rent." Sold my first few people without a website, cause they were like, yeah, I love it. Let's do it. And that was nine and a half years ago. And now we're 38 people and. Doing bigger stuff than that. Jason: [00:02:00] I love it. I always tell everybody when they come to me about starting an agency and they're like, what do we need? I'm like, you need to know how to do something really well. Ben: [00:02:09] Yeah. One of the things I like about the podcast is there's no real like service kind of education, because if you're not good at what you do, there's not a lot that you can learn from an operations or client management standpoint. And so I think that's something that, you know, when I talk to people about starting businesses, I'm like, well, are you like good at it? And they're like, yeah, I guess it's like, well, maybe you should. Look, I learned on the fly and I was up at 12:00 AM, blowing up Adwords accounts, learning on the fly. And I, you know, I wished I had known better, but the fact is, is you're going to learn some hard lessons along the way, either way. Jason: [00:02:44] Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, you never do it perfect. And especially too, when we look back and we go, oh man, I wish I knew this before I hit the million mark or before I hit the 2 million mark. So, what did you wish you knew back then that you know now. Ben: [00:03:02] I wish I knew that I can raise my prices. Raising prices still is terrifying, but I hired a Director of Sales from a bigger agency. Gosh, like five years ago. An

Chris Dreyer is the founder and CEO of Rankings.io which is an agency specializing in SEO for personal injury law firms. Chris believes in being super niched in order to be successful for his clients. He says it takes extreme focus to deliver great SEO results and therefore his agency does not offer any other services or work with clients outside the legal industry. Chris is on the show to talk about how he's grown his agency beyond the first million and is now looking at an 8-figure revenue. 3 Golden Nuggets What got you to 7-figures won't get you to 8-figures. Referrals aren't scalable. Realizing this, Chris focuseds on marketing and has an employee dedicated to marketing for the agency, rather than just relying on referrals. Revenue doesn't mean anything if you're not profitable. As the agency revenue grew, so did expenses netting the same profit. Chris implemented the principles of Profit First and the agency's profitability has improved because of it. Get and keep the right people in the right seats. Whatever work is being done in-house, constantly evaluate whether those team members are actually contributing to the bottom line or causing a financial leakage. Sponsors and Resources Oribi: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by Oribi. Check out Oribi.io/smartagency for a free trial. Plus when you sign up for Oribi get 20% off the first three months with promo code: Smart Agency Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM How Did One Digital Agency Grow to 8-Figures? Jason: [00:00:00] On this episode, I bring back a repeat guest, friend, member, client on the Masterclass, and we're going to talk about how he went from a million in revenue all the way up to eight figures in the past couple of years. And we go over all kinds of really amazing stuff. So I think you're really going to love this episode and let's get into it. Hey Chris, welcome back on the show. Chris: [00:00:30] Yeah, thanks for having me, Jason. Jason: [00:00:31] Yeah. I'm excited to have you back on. It's been a while since you've been on the podcast. Obviously, we chat all the time in the mastermind and back and forth about Star Wars and all goofy stuff. But for the people that haven't listened to the first episode, tell us who you are and what do you do? Chris: [00:00:49] Yeah, my name's Chris Dreyer. I am the CEO of Rankings.io. We own a personal injury law firm SEO agency. So very hyper niche, both horizontally and vertically, and yeah, just excited to be here and happy to discuss it. Jason: [00:01:05] Yeah. So last time you were on, you were just kind of cresting the million in revenue, and now you're a much further, so kind of take us through that journey a little bit about where you're at now and what are some key things that kind of looking back of going I wish I knew this time and I could have even gotten to your level now faster. Chris: [00:01:30] That's a great question. That's also a really loaded question. Jason, still try to talk about all the areas. I feel like I had my white belt and then I put on, I don't know the jujitsu levels, but I felt like I had my white belt and then you kind of get your brown or whatever the next level is at a million. And I think, you know, we're, we're approaching that. I don't even know that I would say black belt, but. Yeah, we're probably on target for our goal. This year is $9 million, stretch 10. And so it's, it's been a huge change across the entire company. I feel like we have a real business now. I think the difference is when you go to that million mark. The owner can wear a whole bunch of hats and really hustle and get to that million mark and just fill, you know, use their, their sphere of influence and kind of depend upon referrals and get there. But I think that you actually have to do marketing, have to generate your own brand, your own inbound leads to really transition towards that, that eight-figure mark. There are, if you think about the main components of a business, so you've got finance, you've got marketing, you've got sales and you've got operations. Finance wise. We implemented Profit First because I found out the hard way. I took my licks. The first three or four years of my business, we kept growing a hundred percent, but my revenue wasn't increasing now, it was investing back in the business. But for me, it was becoming more stressful in those times. I'm like, well, why do I need a $2 million business when I'm making the exact same? So I had to learn how to be financially healthy. And as we grew, also, our profitability would grow. That was a big one. It took some time. Anyone that's read the book Profit First, it's this lean mentality of working off of less and considering profit. And when you're don't have any profit to create those percentages, it takes a lot of work. So I would say that was a big learning lesson. The second on marketing again, we were depending upon referrals, our entire staff. I think I had one marketing

Brent Weaver is the CEO and founder of uGurus. He leads the vision for the company and creates educational programs that help agency owners work on their business to drive additional revenues, increase profits, and create freedom in their life. Brent is here to share his insight on referrals and the importance of choosing a niche for your agency. 3 Golden Nuggets Niching helps you fish in the right pond. Figuring out a niche where you can be profitable and deliver the best results is "fishing in the right pond" according to Brent. The key is testing out different ponds in order to find the best fit for your agency. Pareto Principle: 80% of outcomes are from 20% of input. Is worthwhile and valuable to determine if you're spinning your wheels on small clients that aren't helping contribute to your revenue. Going through this exercise is key to being more profitable. There are 3 marketing engines agencies need. These are: content, partnerships, and paid ads. Relying on referrals is not scalable. It's like sitting on a one-legged stool. You must add these 3 marketing engines into the mix. Sponsors and Resources Wix: Today's episode is sponsored by the Wix Partner Program. Being a Wix Partner is ideal for freelancers and digital agencies that design and develop websites for their clients. Check out Wix.com/Partners to learn more and become a member of the community for free. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Is Your Digital Agency Fishing in the Right Pond? Jason: [00:00:00] On this episode, I talk with Brent Weaver about why referrals just aren't scalable and why it's so important to pick a niche. I hope you enjoy this episode. Hey, Brent, welcome to the show. Brent: [00:00:13] Good to be here. Yeah, I'm excited to have you on, so tell us who you are and, uh, a little bit about the agency that you're in and what you do now. Yeah. So, uh, my name is Brent Weaver, CEO, and founder of uGurus. We are a business school for digital agency owners. We primarily work with agencies that are kind of 1 to 10 person range, really helping them to track more leads, win more deals, delivering delight for their clients. They can profitably scale their agency and achieve some freedom in their business in life. Before, uh, we're coming on into the ninth year doing this business. But before that I ran HotPress Web, which is a digital agency based in Denver, Colorado for about, I guess, about 13 years. And, uh, grew that from, uh, my business partner and I from, uh, us in our bedrooms and high school to a 14 person thriving agency in downtown Denver, uh, serving over 300 clients. And, uh, we had clients like Dish Network and Anheuser Busch Inbev and all sorts of, uh, smaller and medium-sized businesses across the board. Jason: [00:01:17] Awesome!. Did you sell the agency? Did you were like, Oh, we don't want to do this anymore? What's the what'd you do? Brent: [00:01:23] Yeah. So we did the business did get acquired by another shop in Denver. We had probably about two years before we sold the business. I started to blog and build some training programs for agency owners, and we had done some deals with Adobe. And so we, um, Kind of started kind of riding two horses at the same time we had the agency business, which was growing really well. And then we had this thing that, uh, myself and my business partner would do, you know, a day or two a week. We'd go and, you know, create videos, we'd go do our own thing. And, uh, and so we kind of felt like we were starting to run two businesses at the same time, but also I think just as I'm sure, you know, right. The impact that we had on. Other agency owners that were like following our processes and our methods, like we were getting all of these, thank you letters in all the time for people that we'd really helped them transform their life and their income and their freedom. And after a while, it was kinda like, Hey, we really enjoyed doing this. And we wanted our agency to go and be in a good place. So we had some really great opportunities to get that business acquired. And so we pursued one of them and it turned out really well. Jason: [00:02:24] Awesome. Let's talk about after high school, um, and do an agency, right? Because I think I know how, how it goes in high school. It's like, dude, I can, I can get some money for a year. Brent: [00:02:37] I was basically working uh minimum wage $6.25 I think an hour, at the time, at a fabric store and somebody paid me $500 to build them an order form for a candy store out of Michigan. And it took me about a day and I was like, cool. When I went to my boss at the fabric store and said, I'm going to go ahead and do this other thing. Cause I basically made like, you know, two months wages in a day. So, so that was that. Jason: [00:03:03] That's awesome. And so if you could go back to when you were starting, what would you have done differently? How would you grow the business? Brent: [00:03:14] I think for me, it's, you

Fran Biederman-Gross has grown her firm Advantages from a local printing business to a global end-to-end communications agency. As the CEO and founder an Inc. 500 company, she leads her clients on an invaluable journey of brand discovery that reveals their 3 keys: Purpose, Values, and Story. She joins the Smart Agency podcast to get really deep with understanding your purpose and communicating it in a way that gets your team and clients behind it. 3 Golden Nuggets The quickest way to become profitable to attach it to your why. There is an overarching commonality in everything that you do. Understanding it and harnessing it for your business is where profitability becomes possible. Company core values don't exist. Values are very individual. They can be shared within an organization or community but not dictated. You want to align yourself with a team that shares your values and can contribute in a way that supports them. Knowing your why will win more agency business. As Simon Sinek puts it, "people don't buy what you do. They buy why. you do it." Don't take the easy way out. When you're identifying your why, go five levels deep and get to the real core of it. Sponsors and Resources Oribi: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by Oribi. Check out Oribi.io/smartagency for a free trial. Plus when you sign up for Oribi get 20% off the first three months with promo code: Smart Agency Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM How to Unlock the 3 Keys of a Values-Based Agency Jason: [00:00:00] Hey on this episode, I talk with an agency owner friend who talks about the real importance of having that North star, that why. And what are some of the things that you can do in order to figure your why out. Or make sure that your North star is the real deal. And then you have that complete clarity to make the right decisions that your team has the right decision. So I hope you enjoy. Hey Fran, welcome to the show. Fran: [00:00:32] Thank you Jason so much for having me today. What a fun time we're gonna have. Jason: [00:00:36] So, uh, tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do. Fran: [00:00:40] My name is Fran Biederman-Gross. And I am the CEO of an agency called Advantages. I'm a co-author of How to Lead a Values-Based Professional Services Firm, wife, mother, all those other titles that go in there. But most proud of my professional work on the Three Keys and the agency that we have that in this demand generation bringing ROI to close the gap between marketing and sales. Jason: [00:01:07] Awesome. Well, the mother is the hardest job. Uh, that's what I've learned. And, uh, the thankless job. Fran: [00:01:17] You know, it gets better as they get older. I'm going to say not easier. Just better. Jason: [00:01:21] Yeah. Well, I'm still waiting for the easy part. Fran: [00:01:26] Yeah. I don't know when that comes. Jason: [00:01:28] Exactly. So tell us, how did you get started in the agency life? Fran: [00:01:32] Oh, in short, my late husband and I started a printing company pretty much out of college. It actually started as like a stationary business of taking overruns and pedaling, if you will, all over the streets of Manhattan and Queens, because there was a stationary corner virtually in every store, you know. There was a store on every couple of corners, if you will. And in the back, there was a printing company where you could order stuff that you need. And then in the early nineties, I'm going to say that Staples opened up and really revolutionized how we bought things and then the internet exploded and how we bought things. So there wasn't really that need, but we really evolved into this incredible agency because I asked a lot of questions. Like, why do you think you need that? Or why do you want that print quote? Or what are you going to do with that? So that whole curiosity of why really resonated, especially when I met Simon Sinek back in 2004 or five. And really, and pretty much as an innovator of taking the golden circle and bringing it to life. And that's how the agency, of course, I bought one and took that apart and created this really phenomenal Inc 500 agency in New York. That's very, purpose-driven. Jason: [00:02:48] Let's talk about why did you buy an agency? You already had a business because you know, I'm always very curious on why people buy when it's pretty easy entry to get in. But I'm also on the flip side, like the agency that we're running now is like, that's all we do through growth is buy. Fran: [00:03:04] So it's, you know, it's actually a really great question and I'm going to say that. If you just isolate my life experience just as a matter of fact, not to get emotional in any way, but my late husband passed in 2001 and he was the debonair, very suave, very emotional, very friendly salesperson, and he would walk all the buildings. We went through 5,000 business cards, literally in every three months and he passed his card out and was so

Mark Sullivan is an agency owner who has also spent over 22 years in public safety. He has seen people in the best and worst of times. When he's not working as a firefighter, he is the founder and creative director of the 7-figure agency he started in 2014. Mark is on the show to talk about the similarities between fighting fires and running an agency. He's also sharing the #1 lesson he wishes he had known much sooner. 3 Golden Nuggets Running an agency can be like fighting fires. Your clients are trusting your agency with their livelihood, the same way firefighters rely on each other to get out of a fire. Everyone has to have trust in order to be successful. Trust your gut when a client doesn't feel right. One thing Mark wishes he had known sooner is that it's OK to walk away from a client that is a bad fit. You don't have to take on every prospect. It's better to take a chance at offending them than add stress to yourself and your team. Empower your team to make decisions. Stand behind your team on the decisions they make. When they feel supported and appreciated, they will make smart decisions that support your agency vision. Sponsor & Resources Wix: Today's episode is sponsored by the Wix Partner Program. Being a Wix Partner is ideal for freelancers and digital agencies that design and develop websites for their clients. Check out Wix.com/Partners to learn more and become a member of the community for free. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Is Owning an Agency Like Running Into a Burning Building? Jason: [00:00:00] On this episode, I talk with a firefighter who also has an agency and has built a really amazing agency. And we talk about one of the number one lessons that he wished he could go back over. He actually learned the lesson from listening to the show. As well as what you can do in order to really keep and build an amazing team and really be that right leader and what you should really focus on in your agency that can make all the difference, not only in your agency but also in your life. So I hope you enjoy this episode with Mark, the firefighter slash agency owner, and now let's get into it. I'm excited to have you on, so tell us who you are and what do you do? Mark: [00:00:45] Well, my name is Mark Sullivan. I'm the founder, creative director of Lime Biscuit Creative. We're a branding and design agency, just outside of Atlanta. We do a lot of web design, logos. We love to do startups or total rebrands for companies. Have been doing that for six years now, working on year seven. And I also serve full-time as a Lieutenant at a fire department, just outside of Atlanta and been doing that for 23 years. So stay pretty busy. Jason: [00:01:11] Yeah, it's a definitely interesting story. So what made you want to kind of do the agency biz? How'd you get into it? Mark: [00:01:19] Well, it was kind of a backward, a way that we got into it. I ran a music agency where we basically would help bands and speakers get events and get into like car shows, where they would sign autographs and stuff and get reimbursement for it. They would do a concert, or stuff like that. That kind of rolled into us, working with some talent from A&E and the History Channel. And through that process, we learned real quick that, uh, those guys become divas really fast and it's not worth the hassle to work with them. But in that process, we learned that so many of them didn't have any kind of brand awareness. They didn't have any kind of design, uh, understanding of how it worked. And so we pretty much started learning on our own, how to create a brand for someone, a personal brand, a company brand. And from that, we started doing what we're doing today and as they got more difficult to work with, uh, we decided we were just going to kind of abandon that part of our business and strictly focus on the agency side. And, was turned out to be a really good decision for us. Jason: [00:02:23] Very cool. And what made you get into the fire department? Mark: [00:02:26] Well, I was, an ADD sufferer from day one. I knew the traditional school route was not going to work for me. And, uh, I'm one of the kids that, you know, from kindergarten, my mom's got these books. What do you want to do when you grow up? And mine's been a firefighter ever since I can remember being in school. It's always just been attractive to me as something to do. And I love the whole idea of you never know what's coming next. So for somebody with ADD, it works really good. It keeps you changing up things on a regular basis. And, uh, just set out to do that. And I got about two to four more years of that hopefully I should be able to retire from that. So looking forward to that now, especially my body is. Jason: [00:03:07] I bet. I remember when I sold my agency, I didn't know what I was going to do after. And I went to, you know, I was talking about it to my cousin-in-law, being a firefighter is what I've always wanted. I thought that would

Steve Pockross has been the CEO of Verblio for nearly five years. As CEO, he applies leading marketplace and SaaS principles to create an industry-leading content creation platform with 3,000 U.S.-based writers supporting the creation of premium content at scale in every niche. Verblio has grown over 400% in the last four years. So, Steve is sharing his insight on why it's important to lead by putting people first and how that contributes to your agency's growth as a whole. 3 Golden Nuggets Exhibit your agency's values. Don't just say what your values are but actually exhibit them. Lead by example and personify the company culture you wish to set. The key to finding great talent is marketing to them. Treat your recruitment like you would a client. Write a unique job description that appeals to the right person and then market to them. Attract agency talent the way you would attract customers for your clients. Three keys to putting people first: (1) willingness to sacrifice other areas, (2) constantly seek feedback, (3) reward people who identify holes in the culture. [smart_track_player url="https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/jasonswenk/How_to_Lead_Your_Agency_Team_By_Putting_People_First.mp3" ] Sponsors and Resources Verblio: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by Verblio. Check out Verblio.com/smartagency and get 50% off your first month of content creation. Our team loves using Verblio because of the ease in their process and their large pool of crowd-sourced writers. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Leading Your Agency Team By Putting People First Jason: [00:00:00] What's up beautiful agency owners! I'm excited. I have another amazing podcast guest who actually has been back several times. I don't know why we keep inviting you back. No, I'm just kidding. He's a good friend of mine and, uh, we'll provide lots of value. And we're going to talk about leading with people first for your agency. Now, before we jump into the show, I want you to do something. I want you to take a screenshot off your phone, listening to the podcast, upload it to Instagram, tag us. And give us a shout-out on Instagram. And then I can shout you back and say, Hey, thanks for listening to the show. So let's go ahead and get an episode. Hey Steve, welcome to the show. Steve:: [00:00:40] Hey Jason. Good to be back. Jason: [00:00:42] Yeah. I don't know. Like I said, I keep inviting you back, I guess you do well each time. So now we'll welcome back for the people that have not checked out the other episodes and we'll link those. Into the show notes of the episodes to make sure you guys go to JasonSwenk.com and check those out. Tell us who you are and what do you do? Steve:: [00:00:58] So I'm Steve. I am the CEO of Verblio. Oh, we are a Denver-based marketplace, content creation platform. So we have a network of highly curated, fantastic writers that we put together with our unique business model and put it on our platform so that we can do high quality content at scale for any niche. And we work primarily for agencies. Jason: [00:01:19] Awesome. Well, welcome back. And let's kind of jump into it, right? So, Let's talk about what does it mean to lead with people first and a growing company? I mean, you guys are, I think, 30 plus employees on your team. And I think a lot of agencies will relate to this. Steve:: [00:01:37] We've been fortunate to have some really high power growth in the last. So I took over as CEO four and a half years ago, and we were talking about what are some of the lessons that we could really pass on to agencies to help them with their growth as well, that can relate between the type of business that we do and the type of work that agencies do. And so one of those big strategies is putting people first. And that might sound like the most cliche strategy of all time. Going back to "Good to Great." Put the right people on the bus first. I think we took a really, well, we think about it and brought it to every aspect of our business. And so I think bringing it to life is really interesting. And hopefully, some of these nuggets that helped us can really help others. And has helped us grow 400% over four and a half years as a bootstrap startup. So with no investment in order to fund that growth, all being organic growth. And it's also helped us grow when I first started, we were 11 people for the first three years. And over the last two years, we've gone from 11 to 30. So how do you accelerate that growth with the right people strategy? And then also, how do you ensure that it continues to build, even as you're expanding rapidly? Jason: [00:02:38] Yeah. A lot of times I see kind of people, they get to certain stages of climbing the mountain, and they kind of backtrack. Right? And like, I'm looking at growing any business or really growing an agency. And it kind of like six phases, right? Like you got staging base camp, the climb, the crux, the crest, and then obviousl