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

If one of your goals for your agency this year is to have doubled business and client numbers, this is the advice you need. In this episode we'll cover: How one agency doubled business in just six months by giving work to other agencies. Building a network and being a trusted client resource. Why you should join a mastermind group to help you grow. My guest today, Ian Garlic is one of very few two-time guests on The Smart Agency Master Class. He's the owner of authenticWEB, which he founded 8 year ago. You might also know him from my "I Will Never Do This" Agency Pledge video as the naked ukulele guy. (Don't worry, he's not actually naked :) ) In this interview, Ian shares how his agency business doubled in 6 months… check it out. How to Achieve Doubled Business: Not All Competition Is Bad I don't know about you but when I owned my agency I was always very guarded about who and what we were working on. I would never have even considered working with other agencies, let alone idea sharing with them and especially when I wanted to work towards doubled business for my agency. Ian says he comes from a place of abundance and believes there's enough work to go around. So share and share alike… Easier said than done though, right? It's our natural instinct to seek and destroy. But…. [clickToTweet tweet="This is how one agency DOUBLED business in just SIX MONTHS!" quote="This is how one agency DOUBLED business in just SIX MONTHS!"] 3 Steps to Growing A Referral Network If you want replicate the steps that Ian took to double his business here's what you need to do: Change your mindset. Agency ownership can be very lonely. No one really 'gets it' besides other agency owners. If you look at them as part of your agency family instead of the competition it will open you up to a ton more opportunities. Specialize. You can't be awesome at all things, so pick one and rock it. You can build a reputation for being the best in a specific area, and when another agency needs that specialty you'll be the one they call. Do favors without expectation. As you meet other agency owners, build relationships and get to know their areas of expertise. Naturally, you'll be able to refer your clients to other agencies when their services are needed. Over time, these relationships will evolve into a referral network. I know what you're thinking… You're skeptical because you think most other agencies will try to steal your clients out from under you. I get it. Ian said it best, "If someone can steal your clients you're not doing a good enough job servicing them." Be Your Client's Most Valuable Resource Your clients trust you. They rely on to bring awesome ideas to the table - even if you aren't the one to execute them. Use your agency network to connect the dots and get things done for them. When you refer your clients to other agencies that specialize in an area you don't, you're proving that you are connected in the industry and they'll view you as a valuable resource. The Benefit of Masterminds Ian credits his involvement in mastermind groups for a lot of his agency's success. He's actively involved in 3 different groups right now. He says the idea sharing and accountability are crucial to growing and scaling. Ian says even if you have the best team ever, you still need a peer group to keep you in check. Mastermind members are great for: A different perspective and help you see things differently. Giving you crap when you don't follow-through. Advice and the benefit of a similar experience. In fact, Ian and I have been working together for a while. We both have benefitted from mastermind groups for various aspects of our business and have decided to develop one strictly for agency owners. Digital Agency Elite is a group of agency owners with the common goal of idea sharing to grow and scale their agency. The group meets monthly by phone and in person quarterly, the day before various marketing conferences around the country. If you think this format of mastermind is right for you, check out Digital Agency Elite to learn more and apply. We are only selecting successful agency owners who are committed to everyone's mutual benefit will be accepted. Agency Tools You Need to Check Out... There's a couple of pretty fantastic tools that all agency owners need to check out with some amazing deals just for Smart Agency Master Class listeners... Cashflow or bookkeeping issues? FreshBooks is the solution. FreshBooks makes ridiculously easy­ to ­use cloud accounting software for agencies that will help you work smarter, become more organized, and most importantly, get you paid quickly. Check out FreshBooks.com/SmartAgency and enter SMARTAGENCY in the "How Did You Hear About Us?" section for a FREE 30-day, unrestricted trial. Klipfolio is a tool that is helping agencies continuously monitor and report analytics. It's cloud-based software allows you to define KPI's based on your preferences and filters. With 50+ built-in marketing metrics, you can crea

Whether you are starting an agency or you're an established agency that has potentially hit a plateau, finding the best team especially your sales team is important. In this episode of Ask Swenk, I discuss everything you need to know about finding, hiring, paying and managing great sales reps to CRUSH IT in your agency new business. I talk about everything from skill criteria and previous experience to salary and commission. {1:42} Ramzi asked: "I was wondering if you have any great strategies to get referrals from current clients?" {4:15} Myles asked: "Should I let my full time staff freelance in their own time? If so, what measures do I need to put in place to protect myself and my business?" {7:02} Blake asked: "I am a big fan of your content. I own a 6 man agency and we're going through that process right now. We're trying to build our following with video marketing but it's just tough getting started! Any advice you could share would be appreciated." Discover the best Digital Agency Strategies today. Get Online Training to help you setup the right systems and strategies to help you grow faster. Let Me Help You I hope you found this episode of Ask Swenk helpful for your business but what are the other challenges you are facing in your agency? How can I help? I have covered topics from facing failing economies and recessions or how a speaking opportunity can create business for your agency. Or maybe you want to know the four phases of growth within your agency and want extra help in taking your agency to the next level and sell your agency for a larger profit? I have all the information you need to help you through it. You can learn more about my life and my experience as well as lots of tips, tricks and insights by reading our blogs that cover a wide variety of topics. If videos are more your thing, don't worry, i've got you covered! You can check out more from my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my Youtube channel. There you will find advice from myself and other agency experts.

Many agencies make the mistake in believing they just need to report on their analytics rather than monitoring them consistently. I am going to explain why you need to monitor analytics in order to build your business. In today's episode, we'll cover: What agencies are doing wrong with analytics reporting. 4 steps you need to improve client analytics. Ways to monitor analytics to grow your agency business. My guest on today's episode is Mychelle Mollot from Klipfolio. She's got a background in engineering, analytics and marketing… which makes her perfect in her role as CMO for marketing analytics software. Mychelle talks to us about the major differences in reporting vs. monitoring analytics, plus ways you can use analytics to grow your agency. In our 2016 Future Outlook of Digital Agencies, we reported that brands are hiring 85% of brands are selecting agencies based on their ability to report and react to analytics. Unfortunately most agencies believe they're being hired for their marketing and creativity. That means there's a major disconnect between what clients want and what agencies deliver. Agencies are not meeting expectation in this area - but there's hope! Reporting analytics isn't enough Mychelle says a lot of agencies aren't reporting analytics to their clients. And if they are, it's a pretty generic monthly or quarterly overview that gets rolled up and presented in a neat little Powerpoint. That's the problem, though. It's a recap of what has already happened. If there's a change in numbers you might be able to explain why, but you can't do anything to correct it. Instead, agencies should be establishing themselves as a valuable asset by bringing business growth ideas and strategies to the client when it's relevant. Change your mindset to use data proactively. Work with your client to identify the most important metric(s) for their business. Monitor key metrics in the moment (daily or every 2-3 days). Use real time data to proactively change strategy and impact the client's business. Monitor analytics to grow your business Create new opportunities with existing clients. By monitoring analytics you can leverage your knowledge of real time analytics to pitch new projects to your existing. If you see an area that needs improvement or a different direction the client should be take, present those opportunities to the client with the data. Analyze your own metrics. You're a digital agency but sometimes you're more like the shoeless cobbler. You can use real time analytics to monitor your agency's marketing. Just follow the 4 steps above and learn what's working and what's not. Tweak things proactively to impact your agency business. Charge for analytics monitoring. Agencies who provide analytics reporting usually do it as a built in service. However, if you are continuously monitoring activity there is potential to charge for this service. It can become cyclical this way… you charge to develop the work, you charge to monitor the progress and you charge for new projects that you discover through monitoring. The KEY is understanding that monitoring is so much different than just reporting. The opportunities and growth potential is limitless. Klipfolio is a tool that is helping agencies achieve continuous monitoring. It is cloud-based software that allows you to define KPI's based on your preferences and filters. With 50+ built-in marketing metrics, you can create a dashboard for yourself and your clients which can be viewed on desktop, mobile or old-fashioned PDF. I've played around with Klipfolio and it's a pretty awesome tool that can give you an edge over your competition. For a limited time, Klipfolio has a special deal for my listeners. Get a FREE TRIAL and an amazing offer just for The Smart Agency Master Class listeners at Klipfolio.com/SmartAgency. Growing Your Agency When you monitor analytics for your agency, it gives you a consistent view of the performance of your business. In order to create the best business possible, you need to look from the foundations up for any other areas you need to monitor. By evaluating other areas of weakness within your agency, you can create a better business and improve as an agency owner. And the best thing about it is, I can help you get through all of it. I can give you support and advice on many topics from what to do when you want to speed up sales processes, ways to increase your business profit margins or how you can build an authority for your agency. Growing your agency can be a major struggle for any agency owner and I can show you the different phases of growth you will experience, how placing a process for performance based pricing can be the best pricing strategy for your business and the three questions you need to ask yourself to sell more! Learn about my career and different experiences as well as tips, tricks and insights by checking out my blogs that cover a wide variety of topics. Find more from my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on

Whether you are starting an agency or you're an established agency that has potentially hit a plateau, finding the best team especially your sales team is important. In this episode of Ask Swenk, I discuss everything you need to know about finding, hiring, paying and managing great sales reps to CRUSH IT in your agency new business. I talk about everything from skill criteria and previous experience to salary and commission. Finding, Hiring, Paying & Managing Agency Sales Reps {1:03} Simohammed asked: "I'm thinking of hiring a sales rep for my agency. I know it's good to make the salary based on the representative's performance but from your experiences do you give a small salary as a base if there is no performance or is it always based on performance like project commissions and percentages?" {3:48} "What are other criteria that you look into a sales rep, besides being good in communication and a good sales person?" {7:39} "Is it possible to look for people with an existing network or previous experience in the same field etc?" Grow as a Business I hope you found this information helpful in finding the best sales reps for your agency to bring in those bigger clients and achieve the business growth you aspire to. If you are looking for advice on what you need to do as an agency owner or learn how to fast track growth for your agency, I can help. On my website, I have a bank of tips, tricks and insights that as an agency owner, you might find helpful. Head on over to the blog section of my website where you can find everything you need covering a wide variety of topics. If videos are more your thing and you find the more beneficial, you can check out the videos on my Youtube channel!

Have you ever considered starting a podcast to connect with your customers and create an audience for yourself and your brand? In this episode, we'll cover: 4 big reasons every agency should have a podcast. Common fears of podcasting and how to overcome them. Starting a podcast and building an audience of new business prospects. I'm super psyched to have Pat Flynn as my guest on today's show. He's the successful guy behind Smart Passive Income - a major resource for entrepreneurs looking to scale their business. He's also the podcasting guru and is sharing tips with us about the benefits of podcasting, as well as how to get started - including ways to get over your fear of recording your own voice! Pat got his start as an entrepreneur when he was laid off from the architecture industry in 2008. He started an online study program for architecture's LEED exam, called GreenExamAcademy.com and it took off. He learned a ton about quickly scaling an online business and over time turned that smart, passive income in another business… hence the name, Smart Passive Income :) Pat says a HUGE way to nurture leads and establish a relationship is through podcasting. 4 BIG Reasons to Podcast The podcasting space is less crowded. Stats vary but there's something like 5 million+ active blogs and only 500,000 active podcasts. Those are great odds! Podcasting is far less cluttered so you can find and reach your target audience. Podcasts are evergreen. There's potential for exponential growth when these shows live out there forever. Pat has episodes from 2010 that are still getting downloaded six years later! People are still discovering podcasts. Listenership is growing and by starting a podcast sooner than later you'll get in on the ground level. Listeners are downloading podcasts to listen to on the go: during their commute, working out, waiting in long lines, etc. When they find something they love, they're even binge-listening! You'll gain credibility. You're trying to establish yourself as an authority with your audience. And when you interview expert guests you are also adding to your own credibility. Another bonus? Content can be repurposed. You can turn an episode topic into a blog post or ebook, create a Slideshare or live event, even a lead magnet. Getting Over Your Fears Maybe you've been thinking of starting a podcast but you've got some hang ups about it. You're not alone. There are several common fears a lot of people face which hold them back from getting started. Here's how you can get over those fears... "What if people can't find it?" They will find it as long as you're specific in who you're targeting. People search for podcasts based on their interests, problems and focus. If you're searchable in one of those areas, they will find your podcast. It just takes a little time to build your audience so be patient and let it grow. "What if I can't come up with show content?" There's a couple different formats you can try out and see what sticks. Invite expert guests on your show to be interviewed on a specific topic that interests your audience. People like: authors, prospects, existing customers, and forum owners make great guests. Interviews are a win-win because you get some great show content and the guest gets to promote their business, book, forum or area expertise. Another popular show format is Q&A. Take common questions and record your answers, solution or advice. This is an awesome way to establish authority and credibility with your target audience. "What if people don't like it?" The key is to help your audience. Choose topics that are relevant and helpful to them. Don't guess what people want to know - research it online. Find out where your audience congregates online and see what problems, issues, or questions they are posting. Develop your show topics surrounding those issues and helping solve those problems. Don't sell right away, just help. "How can I find my 'hosting' voice?" Everyone feels the same way and you'll get over it in time. Pat says finding your voice is just trial and error. You'll get into a groove but in order for that to happen you have to start somewhere. Go back and listen to yourself, critique yourself and do better next time. Also, read the comments that follow your podcasts and make changes based on that feedback. The best thing you can do is: be you. It's ok to look at other successful podcasters and model after them, but don't copy their style. Be authentic and your "hosting voice" will develop by itself. "I don't understand the technology and equipment." Pat says the technology has come a long way since he started in 2010. You just have to research and education yourself. The thing about fear of something like this is that is a sign that you're about to do something that could be a really awesome game changer. So embrace the fear and psych yourself up for extreme awesomeness. In fact, Pat offers a Podcasting Course which break down everything you need to know about gett

Curious about selling your agency? In this episode of Ask Swenk, I cover how to determine your agency's current value and what you can do to increase it. I also take a real look at the process to eventually sell your agency and gain profit. {0:48} Tim asked: "What is my digital agency worth if I sold it today?" {4:10} Bree asked: "What does the process look like when you sell your agency?" {7:32} Tony asked: "How can you increase your agency valuation?" Tim asked: "What is my digital agency worth if I sold it today?" The short answer is it's worth whatever someone will give you money for it, and whatever you're willing to take. The thing I want to debunk right now is if you can get over $5 million, that you'll get tons and tons of money, or get over a million. It doesn't matter on your gross. I know agencies that are over $10 million in revenue, and they're like at 4% profit, which is horrible. Your goal for a profit margin should be 40% and more than that. If it's not, you're doing something wrong. There's a lot of people doing something wrong, but the cool thing is, know there's something wrong, and you can make it darn change. Through doing this and making that change, you can focus on how your agency can gain profit. Right? I don't want to cuss. To answer your question, to give you kind of a baseline, it's all about looking at the past three-year track record. As a possible acquirer wants to know is, they want to make sure you're going up. If you're going down, it's going to be like a fire sale. They're going to be like, "Well, we'll just acquire your assets, and we'll give you this amount of money, and that kind of stuff." You really want to look at has my revenue grown, and by what percentage year over year in order to figure that out. On a low end, it would be 15% gross every year. On a high end, it might be 50%. Then you also need to look at the profit. That's really where it is. Who cares if you're a $10 million agency. You should be making mad bank on the profit. Then you can base your margins ... On a small side, I'll give you a low, and a small, just to give you some kind of range. If you were 15% gross, or growing every year for the past three years, at 15%, and then 15% profit, you'd probably have a 5x multiple on profit. If you were at $1 million profit, you would get 5 million valuation for your agency. That's not saying you're getting $5 million cash, that's just what they evaluate it at, and then you can go through all the other stuff that I'll cover in the next question. On a high end, let's say you're at 40% on both ends, 40% growth, 40% margins, then it could be 11x. Let's say you were $1 million profit, then you would get $11 million valuation. That's just a rule of thumb to give you kind of low, and the high, and then you can calculate if you really want to sell it or not. A lot of times, I tell people not to sell their agency, because a lot of agency owners, and tell me if I'm wrong, they go, "Well, the grass is greener on the other side. I want to go build this product." This was me. "I want to go build this product, because it's so much easier, and I don't have to do all the hard work, and deliver, and all that kind of stuff. What they find is that the grass is greener on the side you actually water. If you did actually want to do a product, you can actually use the agency as an incubator, or this kind of system that just keeps producing these amazing products and technologies. Keep the agency, since you're not getting the huge multiples that you would on a Saas company. Build up these amazing Saas companies, and then you're off to the races, right? You get the money that you want, if that's what you want. If you're doing it just for the money and to gain profit, you shouldn't be doing it. Bree asked, "What does the process look like when you sell your agency?" The first thing is is an acquirer is going to reach out to you and ask you a number of different questions. They're just trying to get a baseline to figure out, "Am I going to give you a letter of intent," which will basically give you an idea of what they evaluate your agency worth, and kind of a high level structure of a deal. Maybe I evaluate your agency a $5 million. I'll give you $1 million cash up front. The other $4 million will be tied up in equity, and earn out over time. Something like that. You have to be happy with the letter of intent. If you're not happy with the letter of intent, you don't want to go to the due diligence phase, because it's going to be a waste of time. You want to kind of negotiate back and forth, be like, "How did you come up with that valuation?" That kind of stuff. The other thing I want to tell you is when you actually start going through an acquisition process, whatever the acquirer asks you, ask them back. A lot of people do not know that, and they do not ask the right questions. They're just so excited someone wants to give them a bag of money, they're like, "Cool!" Sometimes they're ju

What To Do When A Client Files a Business Lawsuit Against Your Agency When a project begins to go south, you run the risk of a client filing a business lawsuit against you which can be detrimental to your agency's reputation and future. In this episode, we'll cover: The warning signs of a project that's going south. Why it's so important to have documented processes for your agency. 3 ways to handle a business lawsuit from a client. This week's podcast is a little bit of a different format. Instead of interviewing a guest who shares great strategies to help you grow your agency, you get to listen in on a coaching call with a client who is facing a client business lawsuit. I recorded the call with his permission and we chat about how to handle it without wasting outrageous amounts of time, money and emotion. Before we dive any further, you should know a couple things: This is not legal advice. I'm not an attorney :) In the interest of privacy, names have been changed/omitted. The Backstory So today, I'm talking to Jake who owns a small digital agency in the midwest. They work with small and midsize businesses and have been in business for nearly a decade. Jake's agency took on a client who was retired from a successful military career. She was starting a side project which included an educational website. Jake's agency quoted the project at $15,000 with payment terms as: $5,000 upfront, $5,000 at concept approval and $5,000 upon completion. Why You Should Never Ignore the Warning Signs Before they knew it Jake's team was two-thirds into the project, victims of scope creep, way over on hours and project scope had changed many times… Jake admits all the warning signs were there and they ignored them. He says in hindsight they should have fired the client and walked away. Instead, they kept working in order to recoup their loss and get the last $5,000 installment. Finally, the project was complete and delivered. They didn't hear from the client for about a month until she contacted them to help with a server upgrade. Which they did. For free. Again. :/ 3 Words to Dread: "You've Been Served" Another month after final contact with this client, Jake says it was business as usual at the agency until a gentleman arrived at the office, asked to speak with the owner, and officially served him with a lawsuit. It was exactly like the movies. The client is suing Jake's agency for $5,000… Which is baffling because it's only for part of the project cost, not the full amount. This has never happened to Jake in almost 10 years in business. In 12 years running my agency, I went through this process 3 or 4 times. It's scary at first. The best way to handle it is professionally. Keeping your cool and an open mind. Why Processes Outperform Talent Every Time Without knowing the exact reason for the business lawsuit, the first thing to look at is Jake's agency's process. Could they be at fault or negligent in delivering what was expected, promised and paid for? He says no. Jake had purchased my Agency Playbook and has access to all my agency documents. He assures me that his team has documentation of the approved proposal, launch order forms, $0 change orders and project approval. He has full confidence that his team followed their processes and has a paper trail to prove it. So what piece of the story are we missing? 3 Ways to Handle a Client Business Lawsuit Keep attorneys out of it (if possible). In Jake's case, his agency was being sued for $5,000. Attorney fees would be least that much. This is a small claim should be easily resolved without racking up legal fees. Make a personal phone call. Even though you're shocked and insulted call and ask for a phone or in-person meeting to discuss her side of the story. There must be a reason she resorted to legal action, so give her a chance to explain. Diffuse the situation. You definitely want to defend your agency and your team, but just ask for her story and then listen without interrupting. Most people want to be heard so let her rant and vent and just hear her out. Brace yourself, because this could be the hardest part. Moving Past A Negative Experience Every experience has the potential to be something you learn and grow from… Even something like this. It's important to me that Jake not only get through this but also walked away learning how to avoid it in the future. Obviously, this agency's project delivery process is completely buttoned up. But, I always say there is no bad agency client - only a bad prospect or bad process. So somehow this really bad prospect slipped in and became a difficult client - which is the result of a flawed screening process. What I wanted to make sure Jake is able to avoid any future issues, so we talked about what he could do differently next time. Here's my advice to him moving forward: Trust your gut and don't ignore the warning signs. If a project or client is getting out of hand, fire them. Walk away and don't look back. Never, never keep work

Employee Profit Sharing, Referral Commission & Hourly to Retainer Is employee profit sharing a good idea? In this episode of Ask Swenk, I answer your questions about if and how to compensate clients for referral business, how you can convert a longtime hourly client to monthly retainer and profit sharing for your team of employees. {1:58} Geoff asked: "What are your thoughts on profit sharing for key employees?" {4:50} Ryan asked: "I know you've talked about sales people and compensation before but, what about referrals? Flat fee or percentage? One time or for the life of the project/client?" {7:28} Kirk asked: "I have a great client we do work for at an hourly rate -- this is the only client we have like this. We want to transition that client to a long term contract for a flat rate. Any suggestion on the best way to have that conversation about making the transition?" Improving Your Agency To bring your agency to the next level, finding ways to improve is always important. Through my years of experience, It's allowed me to provide advice on many topics from the struggles you may face with failing economies and recessions to how accepting a speaking opportunity can create business and the four phases of growth you may experience within your agency. Want extra help in taking your agency to the next level and sell your agency for a larger profit? Or want to become a better agency owner? Learn more about me and my experience and find lots of tips, tricks and insights by reading our blogs that cover a wide variety of topics! If videos are more your thing, don't worry, i've got you covered! Check out more from my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my Youtube channel. There you will find advice from myself and other agency experts.

Creating Fast Track Revenue for Your Agency If you want to know how to be up there with the big name agencies through fast track revenue, then my interview with Brad Martineau has everything you need to know. In this episode, we'll cover: 2 secrets to building multi-million dollar through fast track revenue. 2 things agency owners should quit being afraid of. A cool strategy for qualifying and educating new prospects. My guest on this episode of The Smart Agency Master Class is Brad Martineau, co-founder and Chief Baller (best title EVER!) at SixthDivision. He started his digital agency after leaving a seven year career at Infusionsoft. He shares with us the secret on how he built a $3 million agency in just a few years. Brad started at Infusionsoft in 2004, as their sixth employee. When he left in 2011 they had 650(ish)! What he discovered over that time is that Infusionsoft is a very powerful tool that very few people can actually use. When he left, he began consulting and eventually founded an agency for helping business owners master automation and technology so they can enjoy greater success and free up more of their time to enjoy life. Fast Track Revenue: 2 Secrets to Building Multi-Million Dollar Agency 1. Serious focus (to the point of perfection). Brad says it's super important to stay focused on building one great, profitable product. He was first exposed to this idea in book Ready, Fire, Aim: $0 to $100 Million in No Time Flat. His biggest takeaway was that a business owner's sole responsibility in getting to that first million is to figure out how to sell just one product profitably. He took this principle very literal and for three years, SixthDivision focused on one single product… The Two Day Makeover. Brad says at first, a "two day" makeover was taking more like two weeks, which obviously wasn't efficient or profitable. Working in this way, though, gave the team a chance to get smart about developing a successful process that is profitable, without the distraction of developing and selling other products. 2. Systems and processes that automate the sales process. Do you have a process for screening your leads? If not, learn how to qualify a prospect quickly here. Not only does Brad have a screening process, but he also puts his qualified leads through a campaign that establishes the know-like-trust factor before they even jump on the phone together. Check out this super cool strategy for increasing conversions: The prospect requests to chat using the online contact form. The prospect answers pre-screening questions before their request is approved. If approved, the prospect is put into a "prep and reminder sequence." They receive emails about how to prepare for the call, as well as videos to watch prior to it. Video include info on what and how SixthDivision works, success stories, etc. On the call, the sales person can jump over the informative stuff and dive right into specifics. Most people are so anxious to jump on the call, they end up doing the rest of the work on the backend. Doing it Brad's way means spending more time talking about the prospect and their needs, well as more time for objection handling. This process leads to more efficient sales calls and a higher conversion rate. It also give you the opportunity to elevate the client's experience on the initial call because they've had the opportunity to be educated. (And using software, you'll know whether they watched the videos or not. So, you'll know if they're showing up to your call prepared or not… which gives you the upper hand.) 2 Things Agency Owners Should Quit Being Afraid Of Here's a couple things Brad and I find commonly hold back most entrepreneurs from reaching their revenue goals. 1. Raising Prices My clients often complain about not being profitable but are afraid to raise their prices because they don't want to lose clients. Brad says he sees and hears the same thing. Most entrepreneurs are stuck on a specific financial model - even if it's broken. If you're losing money you need to restructure your pricing. If you lose clients by raising prices, that's OK because you were losing anyway. Bottom line: take action. 2. Specialization There's some sort of weird satisfaction in being able to say you offer everything to everyone… but if as the saying goes, when you are a jack of all trades, you are the master of none. It's not realistic to say that you're a full service agency. Let go of your hesitation to specialize. If you need more convincing, check out this interview about one agency owner who increased leads by 30%+ by getting super specific in a niche. Support Our Sponsor If you're looking for a tool to help grow your agency you've got to check out Redbooth. Using this software will help you grow your agency and eliminate major profit leaks, such as scope creep. Right now, you can get a FREE TRIAL for 30 days and bonus agency templates for client intake, social media management & more by heading to www.Redbooth.com

First Pitch to a Client On the first pitch to a client, it can create different obstacles for you as an agency owner as well as your team. Understanding your agency, resources you have and those you can bluff can make the difference in any first pitch with a potential client. In this episode of Ask Swenk, I talk about understanding cash reserves for your agency, why clients leave and how to avoid it, PLUS how to respond when prospects ask for an success story that you don't have yet. {3:01} Alina asked: "How much money should we have in reserve for a rainy day to run our agency successfully?" {6:12} George asked: "We just lost a major long term client. We never saw this coming because we've won a lot of awards on their work and they've seen traffic and sales growth every year we've worked together. Why do you think they left and what could we have done differently?" {9:11} Phill asked: "When you're pitching for that first big project that you have not done for anyone yet, what is a good approach when the prospect asks, "Do you have an example of this that has been successful for another client?" And this being your first pitch for this type of project, you don't have any examples to give them. So, what's a solid comeback?" Agency Owner Advice? Want extra help in making the best decisions for your business as an agency owner to get those potential clients on board? You can find lots of tips, tricks and insights by reading our blogs that cover a wide variety of topics or if videos are more your thing, visit my videos on my Youtube channel! If you are an agency owner, let me know if you would like to chat about your possible EXIT plan – strictly confidential. Click here to get my help now.

Is your goal for your digital agency to increase your agency profit but are finding leaks within that are preventing you from achieving your goal? In today's episode, we'll cover: Why scope creep happens and how to put a stop to it. 5 ways to scale your agency and eliminate the leaks that drain agency profit. Today's guest on The Smart Agency Master Class is Charles Studt from Redbooth, which is a project management tool and so much more. Charles shares some amazing advice on ways to make your agency run more efficiently so you can maximize time and profit. He also talks about ways to eliminate the biggest profit drain of 'em all... SCOPE CREEP. Why Scope Creep Happens Charles says most cases of scope creep is not due to an over zealous project team or a super demanding client. In most cases, it's an agency's lack of documented processes and lack of client education. Without a clear definition of the project and deliverables, there's too much gray area. So, when a client asks for a little something extra an agency instinctively says 'yes' without having a plan in place for tracking and billing for it… and the scope creep monster rears its ugly head. That means you have to have a very specific client onboarding process which spells out what is (and is not) included in their new project. Do you have a documented client onboarding process? Is it consistent and repeatable? Having a process in place is just one of the 5 Steps to Prevent Scope Creep. And, if you have a client onboarding process, it will be your point of differentiation and part of your value statement. 5 Ways to Scale & Grow Agency Profit Avoid scope creep and create upsell opportunities. Consider your core service and figure out what services you offer that compliment it. Make sure to spell out these "optional extras" to your client so that when they throw you a "special request" or "quick 5 minute change" you are prepared for handling it and charging for it. Become more efficient with your project documentation. Manage your client's experience with technology so you can keep a project moving. There's nothing worse than digging through old emails trying to find the one with client approval. Using a tool like Redbooth manages communications, status, revision cycles at a glance. Manage your team more effectively. Charles says that the average employee wants to spend 6 hours per week with their manager in order to feel effective. In a small agency, that level of personal attention can be difficult to achieve without adding to your team. A PM tool can be a great way for managers to be involved in the details of a project, while eliminating time consuming status meetings. Treat yourself like you treat your clients. Internal processes are just as important as client-facing ones. Using a tool like Redbooth can streamline routine HR functions like time-tracking, new hire onboarding, weekly team meetings, annual reviews, etc. In fact, Redbooth has customizable templates that help create and document processes so you're not reinventing the wheel every time. Get projects completed (and therefore paid) on-time. Ever get tired of waiting for the client to provide feedback or approval? Charles says Redbooth has a feature that allow you to communicate with your client via automated emails, mobile push notifications and real time, in-app instant messaging. Deadlines and tasks can be flagged, users can be gently reminded and you will get more done. I've checked out Redbooth and it's a pretty fantastic tool for agencies. You can check it out for yourself FREE for 30 days by heading to www.Redbooth.com/Smart. Enroll in your trial PLUS get the agency templates such as: client intake, end of project, social media marketing, agency management, and more... all for FREE. Creating a Better Agency Creating a solid strategy to grow agency profit can open up many doors for you as an agency owner. By evaluating other areas of weakness within your agency, you can create a better business and improve as an agency owner. And the best thing about it is, I can help you get through all of it. I can give you support and advice on many topics from what to do when you want to speed up sales processes, ways to increase your business profit margins or how you can build an authority for your agency. Growing your agency can be a major struggle for any agency owner and I can show you the different phases of growth you will experience, how placing a process for performance based pricing can be the best pricing strategy for your business and the three questions you need to ask yourself to sell more! Learn about my career and different experiences as well as tips, tricks and insights by checking out my blogs that cover a wide variety of topics. Find more from my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my Youtube channel. There you will find advice from myself and other agency experts.

Do you want to learn more about the best way to build relationships, streamline your deliveries and the best way to critique proposals? In this episode of Ask Swenk, I answer these questions and share more insight into how you can improve your agency. In this episode I discuss: How to streamline processes without being too cookie cutter. What to do when you're new in town and need to build relationships. PLUS, watch my critique of another agency's actual proposal. {1:52} Tara asked: "I feel like every time we get a new client we are on '50 First Dates.' How can we change this problem?" {4:16} David asked: My biggest challenge is that I've moved from Atlanta from New York and I have to build my network from the ground up. I've been able to do this over the past year, however I still don't have enough relationships to bring on the net worth clients where I can build an agency." {6:44} Aman asked: "Can you review my marketing proposal and tell me what I am doing right and wrong?" Discover the best Digital Agency Strategies today. Get Online Training to help you setup the right systems and strategies to help you grow faster. What Do You Need to Do When You Build Relationships? Whether you need advice on starting an agency, how to plan who you hire for your agency or how to bring your agency to the next level, I can help. I hope you found this helpful and can put it into action to build relationships with clients, partners and your team. Please find all my tips, tricks and insights in my blog that covers a wide variety of topics. Videos more your thing? You can check out the videos on my Youtube channel for advice from myself and other agency experts.

Have you ever considered direct mail marketing for your digital agency? Not even sure how to develop a strategy for it? I talk with Justin Christianson and he shares how his agency has gained huge success from using direct mail marketing strategies. In this episode, we'll cover: How to define your target market. 1 old-school outbound tactic that is getting massive 25% response. 4 steps to successful direct mail. Today's guest is 14-year veteran entrepreneur, Justin Christianson. After selling his previous business to his partners he began consulting and eventually created Conversion Fanatics, an SEO agency. Justin happens to also be a client of mine and is seeing some really great results with his outbound efforts. I invited him on the show to share his story, outbound strategy and the cool, old-school tactic that's getting a up to a massive 25% response rate! Check it out… Defining Your Market is Crucial Justin says, at first they were completely non-selective about who they would work for - targeting just about anyone and everyone. But rule #1 when you work with me is to get super specific about who you target… Justin is glad he listened. To define their target, Conversion Fanatics looked back at their success stories. They discovered patterns and consistencies among their best projects and used that information to create a customer avatar. They define their ideal client based on average spend and traffic type. Now that they know who they are marketing to, they can really drill down and become a leader in a specific niche. Justin says they did a ton of research to figure out how to get through to their ideal clients. They want to understand the issues, struggles and pain points of their prospects. They gathered this information in the form of formal surveys and data gathering, along with informal conversations, then use this in their marketing and when speaking to new leads. Why Outbound is Essential Cold traffic can be the hardest of the 3 Types of Traffic to go after, but for Conversion Fanatics it's been critical to their success. In fact, 70% of their marketing is cold outreach. But they're being smart about it by batching their efforts, and being very selective about who they target. One Old-School Outbound Tactic Most of their outbound campaigns are direct mail. YES postal mail - the kind the mailman delivers. They also weave-in custom emails and PURLs (personalized URLs) as well. They do a ton of research first and get really specific about who they target. Their market is bigger companies with $30+million in revenue so they goal is to stay top of mind for when the time is right. The direct mail marketing piece is letter from Justin personally. It has customized information about the prospect's website, issues he sees and opportunities for improvement. It's short and to the point. And most importantly - it's not a form letter! 4 Steps to Successful Direct Mail Marketing Provide massive value. Establish credibility by being helpful. Don't ask for a sale right away. Set-up yourself as the authority. Be specific. Use headlines that ask 'yes' or 'no' questions that are very specific to a problem or issues they face. Don't mass mail. Control the process by focusing your efforts on a small group of prospects. Send small batches. Have a contingency plan. Justin says his outbound strategy is a lot of work and takes 10-12 touches in order to be effective - but it's worth every bit of the time and effort it takes. However, unresponsive prospects get a free copy of Justin's published book. This is helpful, valuable and reinforces his credibility and authority in the industry. Other tactics Justin is using: plain text emails and PURLs. Just like the hard copy direct mail, he keeps emails personal, short and sweet, with a writing style that is friendly and familiar (not all cheesy, sales-guy style). And when you get cold traffic to the proposal stage, support our sponsor, Qwirl. Head to Qwilr.com/welcome/smartagency for a FREE TRIAL and special savings just for Smart Agency Master Class listeners. Become a Better Agency Owner Direct mail marketing might be seen as a thing of the past but today's episode has shown there is potential for huge success for your agency. Becoming a better agency owner means understanding that in order to grow, you need to be able to recognise other issues within your agency that needs your attention. Look for weak spots in your business and then think of how you can fix them. No matter what challenge your agency is facing, I can help you get through all of it. There are many topics I can offer guidance from the different phases of growth you will experience to how you can build authority for your agency. Growing your agency can be a major struggle for any agency owner and I can show from knowing when it's time to hire a sales manager or expand your sales team, creating a process for performance based pricing which can be the best pricing strategy for your business and learning how to

Do you need help in untangling the many pieces of information and advice on how to use social media to elevate your agency and bring in more clients? In this episode, we'll cover: Advice for keeping up with new social media trends and platforms. How to use social media for agency new business. 2 mistakes to avoid using social for your agency or your clients. How to sell social media management. If you've been wondering how to manage and optimize opportunities on all the various social networks – for you and for your clients – you must not miss this episode. Today's guest is with Emeric Ernoult, founder and CEO at Agorapulse, a social media management tool. Pretty cool tool, and I recommend you check it out. Emeric is a longtime entrepreneur who spent the first part of his career in business law before dabbling in SAAS startups. He says he landed in software and social media because it's fast-paced and ever-changing, which keeps things fresh and challenging. Emeric developed Agorapulse as an answer to managing multiple social media platforms, from messaging and notifications to scheduling posts and analytics/reporting. (Plus, there's a filter for ignoring annoying automated direct messages that clog your inbox!) Advice for keeping up with social In short, you can't. You'll never keep up with the latest and greatest while also managing what's current… Not to mention all the other responsibilities you have to your agency. Instead, Emeric says, delegate or outsource to a person or team dedicated to technology research and social management. If you're looking to learn a new social channel, Emeric advises us to start small. Learn one and master it, then move to another. All are similar but different, so finding the right platforms just depends on your business goals. How to use different social channels for new agency business Twitter is still #1. As a digital professional you should be a thought leader in this space, building your Klout score and positioning your agency in this ecosystem. Use social management tools, such as Agorapulse, to quiet the noise and eliminate the distractions on Twitter. I believe Facebook is a powerful vehicle for targeting and retargeting. Not many B2B or service businesses are using it yet, most ads are consumer products. Here's a great post I did on How to Scale Facebook Ads. As for LinkedIn, you can use it create to create a great inbound strategy. There's a new content publisher that seems to have fairly good reach. As a matter of fact, I interviewed an agency owner who lands a good majority of her business using LinkedIn. Here's the post with tips for making your LinkedIn profile a lead generator. 2 mistakes to avoid using social for your agency or your clients Your social presence can help you establish trust and authority in a low cost, highly effective way. Here are two things to avoid to ensure that happens…. Social strategy - you need one! Post with intent and consistency. Know your audience and how to balance the promotional messaging with the helpful information. (If you want to see how it's done, check out VaynerMedia and Gary Vee on any and every social channel!) Testing - lots of it! Start with a plan and implement it. Analyze results and then tweak. Analyze again. Don't settle for what you think might be working… Experiment with variables until you hit the jackpot! Selling social media management Often clients can be leery of social management as a service because they have a hard time justifying the expense of it. Here are the two things you need to do to help them get on board: Ease their pain. Understand what frustrates them and where they are wasting time in their marketing efforts. Show how you can implement a social strategy with your streamlined processes and systems. (It helps if your social presences is also stellar.) Demonstrate value. Own the numbers. We learned in our 2016 Future Outlook of Digital Agencies, that brands want analytics. They want measurable proof, so use reporting tools and data to your advantage. Hard data is the best way to increase the client's perceived value of this service. Support our sponsor Check out Qwilr.com/welcome/smartagency for a FREE TRIAL and special savings just for Smart Agency Master Class listeners. How Can I Help? You now know how social media can generate new business for your agency but you need to consider what will take your agency to the next level. You should take a step back and really look at areas you haven't explored yet as well as struggles you need to focus on to improve your business and then check out how I have all you need to get through these obstacles. I have advice to share with you from how to implement Facebook in your marketing strategy, ways of building authority to improve your agency or the best way to pitch to big brand clients. If growth is your focus, I've discussed the different phases of growth within your agency and how bad website issues could be holding your business back from reach you

We chat about landing your first client as a creative agency, how you go from initial contact to a paid consult, […] The post Landing 1st Client, Initial Contact to Paid Consult, & Charging to Restart a Project #AskSwenk ep 39 appeared first on Smart Agency Masterclass: Podcast for Digital Marketing Agencies.

Profitable Brand Building While Ignoring BS "Best Practices" Want to know the best ways for profitable brand building while ignoring all the BS best practices out there? In this episode, we'll cover: 2 ideas for profitable brand building to effortlessly generate more leads without BS best practices. How to break the "me too" agency mold. The #1 thing to grow your business. Today's guest is Matt Giovanisci and, I feel like he's my brother from another mother… We have a similar quirky sense of humor, we're both in the digital marketing space, we like to drop F-bombs in unlikely places, and to be honest, we both suck at writing! :) Matt's the founder of Money Lab, a business he founded with the sole purpose of making money online. His business model involves some fresh, unique, and humorous attention-getting marketing that ignores all the "rules" of marketing. He shares his story with us and the #1 key to standing out. Matt got his start in the pool business. Yep, you read that right - pools and hot tubs. After job-hopping between pool companies, he eventually worked his way into digital marketing for them. From there, he gained agency experience and picked up coding, too. He founded and currently runs SwimUniversity.com where is clients learn to care for their pools and hot tubs. He also founded and operates Money Lab, which he calls his experiment for making a passive income online. In addition, Matt is a blogger, video/music producer and a former podcaster. Busy dude, right? 2 Effortless Ideas To Drive Traffic Matt's doing a ton of unique stuff to market his online businesses as well as some profitable brand building, but here are just a couple of examples: 1- Opt-in Landing Page I first discovered Matt's content when his "I want your email address" landing page went viral. It's hysterical and you've got to check it out here. Basically, it's an entire landing page he created to poke fun and shed light on the ridiculous marketing practice we've gotten into where we literally hit people over the head trying to capture their email address. Think of it like an interactive SNL skit for digital marketers :) The goal for this page was pure entertainment… but the result was over 1,700 email addresses! The page was only promoted on Facebook, shared by DigitalMarketer.com and picked up by Reddit. Effortless leads. 2- Podcast Guest Interviews Being a former podcaster, Matt knew the impact of being a podcast guest. He also knew what podcasters aren't looking for from a potential guest. He decided once more to create a satirical page pitching himself as a podcast guest. It's all about his qualifications as a guest, but is dripping with sarcasm and all the while making fun of the traditional promotional "one-sheet" most guests use. Matt booked 16 interviews in 24 hours with this tactic, and he's still seeing results. How to Break the 'Me Too' Agency Mold I asked Matt how agencies could try to be different… and his perfect response was not to "try". That's the thing that business owners are getting wrong. Everyone tries to be different, when really we are all intrinsically different to start with. So, be you and you will be different. Most people just copy what they see being done because of social acceptance. Matt's advice was to stop what you're doing and talk to yourself: Think about what bothers you - then fix it. Think about what you find funny - then make fun of it. Think about what you wish existed - then create it. Be different without trying, by being yourself. In case you missed it, that's exactly what we did in our Agency Owner Pledge video. This is stuff that bothers agency owners, that they always say they will stop doing but never seem to be able to quit! #1 Thing to Grow Your Business Know what you hate doing, or what you suck at doing - and find a tool or outsource for it. For example, Matt says he's a terrible writer, and has always hated it. He found a solution for the problem when he discovered HemingwayApp. With the app, Matt writes as much as he wants and the app helps him trim down any unnecessary wordiness, grammatical errors, and typos. He now approaches writing with intention and purpose. Matt says he likes reading simple text with short and punchy sentences. He has made that his signature writing style and has even incorporated this into Money Lab's brand guidelines. If you want to learn more, head over to MoneyLab.com/dingle. Yep, "DINGLE" ...and see more of Matt's craziness for yourself. Improve as an Agency Owner I hope this puts a spotlight on how you can have profitable brand building for your agency without getting swept up in the fake best practices out there. Don't just stop there but take a step back and really look at struggles you need to focus on to improve your business. I have all you need to get through these obstacles. I have advice on topics from gaining agency exposure in the news, how to build authority for your agency, or even ways to use Facebook marketing strategies to expan

How to close a pitch and how to accurately calculate profit. Plus, managing your team priorities when it comes to training and continuing ed within the industry. Closing a Pitch {0:38} Yasser asked: Just a quick question... how do you end a pitch? Calculating Agency Profits {2:02} Myles asked: I was wondering what your thoughts are on trying to work out the profit we make on a deal? I feel it's a bit of a guess at the moment, as I'm not sure exactly what we should factor in to the cost of sale? Same goes for the monthly retainers, I'm not sure how we try and work out what it's costing our business in terms of supporting the client? What are your team priorities? {4:23} Phil asked: Say you found a fantastic video course that offers in-depth training on one of your core services. You get excited about it, and purchase it for your team to watch. You can't wait for your team to watch it, so you can start a conversation about the course... But 7 days later, you find that no one on the team has "had time" to watch the course. Do you scream, cry, force them or just give up? Discover the best Digital Agency Strategies today. Get Online Training to help you setup the right systems and strategies to help you grow faster. Build Your Agency Authority I hope this episode of Ask Swenk has given you an insight into the best way to close pitches, calculate revenue and recognise team priorities. Have you taken the time to see what other challenges you are facing within your agency? Now is also a great time to step back and look at other processes that need attention. No matter what challenge your agency is facing, I can help you get through all of it. There are many topics I can give advice on from what to do when you want to speed up sales processes to how you can build authority for your agency. Growing your agency can be a major struggle for any agency owner and I can show you the different phases of growth you will experience, how placing a process for performance based pricing can be the best pricing strategy for your business and the three questions you need to ask yourself to sell more! Want more? Learn about my career and different experiences as well as tips, tricks and insights by checking out my blogs that cover a wide variety of topics. Check out more from my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my Youtube channel. There you will find advice from myself and other agency experts.

How to End the Time Suck of Creating Proposals When it comes to creating proposals, you may find yourself spending hours upon hours trying to craft the best proposal you can to win that job. But if you are unsuccessful, you will find the time was wasteful. In this episode, we'll cover: The #1 tip for winning a proposal. 3 key elements of a successful proposal. A super cool tool to put an end to the time suck of creating proposals Today's guest on the show is Dylan Baskind, my first-ever guest from Down Under! (I think?!) He shares with us the key elements of creating killer proposals, as well as a way to save you time, energy and frustration on the whole process. After nearly a decade as a software design/engineer consultant, Dylan had a long list of the things he hated about creating proposals. His proposals had landed him work with all types clients, from small, local ones to large, multinational ones but not without a tons of work and frustration. He wanted something simple yet attractive that would be customizable but uniform. Enter the solution called Qwilr, which Dylan is co-founder and is CEO.... I've messed around with this tool myself and it's a pretty cool tool! #1 Tip for Winning A Proposal Case studies! At the end of the day it comes down to numbers. When you present a proposal you are meeting with a business person who wants a specific business goal met. You need a success story that can prove you are the right person that can deliver the desired results with data to backup your claim. We learned in our 2016 Future Outlook of Digital Agencies Report that brands want agencies to commit to specific results. Numbers don't lie. So, Dylan's advice is to use analytics and metrics and tell your success story in your proposal. That can be easier said than done, though. If you can't get a baseline from a prospect, it makes it much harder to prove the value and potential results of your work. However, if you can get them to measure "X" and you promise to deliver "Y" you're golden. 3 Key Elements of a Successful Proposal In addition to a case study, there are a few more keys to make your proposal a slam dunk. The upfront section should be dedicated to describing the client's problem and your proposed solution. Then, in this order, you want to include the following: Reformulate the problem using industry terminology. Rephrase the 3 I's (Issue, Impact, and Importance) in your own lingo. This confirms that you understand what needs to be done and why. Tell a compelling story about your team and why their experience and qualifications make them uniquely suited to work on this project. This is the first time in the proposal where you should talk about yourself. Everything up until this point is about the prospect! Provide one call to action. A lot of times proposals offer a variety of 3-4 different options. Eliminate the confusion and make sure you have one single, very clear call to action. [clickToTweet tweet="Your #proposal is your most important touch point. Here's how to get it right. " quote="Your proposal is your most important touch point. You have to get it right."] Your proposal is the face of your business. It used to be trendy office space created an impressive first look at a business. Today, with all things virtual and cloud-based, it's now the proposal that makes the first real impression. Dylan says your proposal has to be as good as your business - and it's where you need to display your innovation and creativity. Meaning, if you're a video production company your proposal has to have a video element. If you're in web design it needs to include an actual site. This tactic serves as a dual purpose for both delivering proposal content and a sample of your work. Crafting the Perfect Proposal After 8 years Word and PowerPoint just wasn't cutting it. Dylan says his proposal process was very organized but it was archaic. Since he is trained in both design and engineering he wanted his proposals to be both functional and pleasing to the eye. Proposals = Major Time Suck Major struggles included: Resizing images in PowerPoint or MS Word. Formatting issues when trying to paste an Excel chart into a Word Doc. Manual data entry of proposal pricing into accounting software. Pulling data from the proposals into the rest of Cloud-based agency business. Sound familiar? ;) Dylan created Qwilr as the solution to these problems and it has evolved into so much more. Qwilr saves ton of time, and includes design, quoting, analytics and internal communications features. It's an interface between your business and the outside world. It's the little details that separate you from everyone else… you don't have to be a designer to create gorgeous, user-friendly proposals. Check out Qwilr.com/welcome/smartagency for a FREE TRIAL and special savings just for Smart Agency Master Class listeners. What's Next? You may think that now you've improved your methods of creating proposals, what's next? Whether you need advice on g

How to BONUS the Creative Team, Prospect Selection & Sales Process, Sales Team Model? #AskSwenk 37: How can you bonus and incentivize your creative team? What to do when the prospect is controlling the sales process and expects some "free" work. PLUS, how to structure your agency's sales team. {0:32} Meny asked: "How can we build an incentive program for our creative team members, and what would that look like?" {3:53} Jared asked: "How do you address prospects who want to control the sales process? We're talking to someone right now that is putting us through their selection process with very little regard to our process and getting the information we need to put together a proposal. Normally I would go through their motions, but some of the questions they're asking are very tactical and would almost cross over into the 'working for free' zone." {6:22} Jack asked: "Selling has always come natural to me. I know some agencies have the CEO do ALL the sales, but I don't think that's as scalable as having Account Managers who can sell. What's the best business model for a sales team: The hunter/farmer model? The account manager does both model? CEO does all the sales, hands off to account manager?" Discover the best Digital Agency Strategies today. Get Online Training to help you setup the right systems and strategies to help you grow faster. Build a Better Agency Through my life in the industry, I have gained so many experiences that allows me to share advice on many topics from the struggles you may face with failing economies to how speaking opportunities can generate new business and using Youtube to boost your marketing for your agency marketing strategy. You can learn more about me and check out all my tips, tricks and everything you need to know in my blogs. I have covered a wide variety of topics as well as answering your questions in more from my Ask Swenk series. If videos are more your thing, don't worry, i've got you covered! You can check out my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my Youtube channel for advice from myself and other agency experts.

Rapid Agency Growth: The 4 Serious Strategies For Your Agency Every agency owner would most likely have rapid agency growth on their list of aspirations for their business. In this episode, we'll cover: Why you should niche to become more successful and achieve rapid agency growth. Ways to change your pricing to increase revenue and profit margins. How to use case studies as a lead generator. My guest today is Dan Lok, a self-made millionaire and entrepreneur who consults businesses for an equity position. He has taken on not one, but three troubled agencies and turned them into 7-figure businesses. So, if you are new to agency ownership or been in the game awhile but need some tips for shaking things up, you're going to want to know more from this self-made millionaire. 4 Serious Strategies For Rapid Agency Growth Strategy #1 - Be a specialist. Does your agency claim to be able to do everything for everyone? Or, is your target something broad, like "small businesses". You are a generalist but… the riches are in the niches. You might want to help everyone, you might even think you can. But if you're busy trying to be good at all things you will be the best of none of them. Every industry has it's own nuances, lingo, standards, etc. If you specialize within just one, you only have to learn about that specific industry. Then you can dig deeper to get a richer understanding. You become more efficient which saves you time and increases productivity. You also become the authority in the field and get referrals within the industry. There's a cyclical effective that generalists just can't achieve. Case in point... One of Dan's first ventures was with an agency called Standard Marketing. Lame name, right? You don't get any more general than "standard marketing" and they were handling all sorts of marketing for all sorts of clients. The fix... After some analysis, they realized more than 50% of their clients were real estate agents. They decided that was the niche, rebranded the agency, calling it Top Agent Marketing, and wrote a book about real estate lead generation. The result... Sales nearly tripled in the first year… from $30k/mo to $80/mo! Today, they're hitting a 6-figure monthly revenue. Strategy #2 - Revamp your pricing strategy. There's two ways to go about this… 1. Performance Pricing: Think of it from the client's perspective. They want results. If you are getting paid based on the results, you are motivated to deliver better results. If you follow a pricing model that allows for a base rate + incremental amounts based on performance, you'll find you work with less clients and make more money. The key to successful performance-based pricing is creating the right criteria to set up success. Be selective to be effective. For more on implementing performance-based pricing check out this interview with Tom Breeze who's also mastered this pricing model. 2. "Three Boxes" Pricing: We see it all the time - car washes, movie theater concessions… There are three levels of pricing: basic, moderate and deluxe. The basic package is so lame that no one goes for it. The deluxe package is so outlandish that no one goes for it. These two are the decoys to get people right where you want them - the moderate package. The moderate package is what you're already best at anyway. The great thing about these three boxes is that it provides a basic option for budget conscious clients. And for the 80% that end up with the moderate package, it plants the seed that there is more. Strategy #3 - Use your success stories. Prove you can do what you say you can do. When you are a specialist in a specific niche you can build recognition and establish authority by featuring case studies in your marketing. It sound elementary but it's a great way to increase your profits and it's often overlooked. Case in point... In early 2013, Dan invested in an agency that specialized in the digital marketing for audiologists. They were making $90K/mo but 0% profit. They were 90 days behind in delivery and $90K in debt. The fix... They evaluated everything from staffing to clients to pricing. In a short time, the entire team was slowly let go, nearly 25% of the clients left or were let go, and success story marketing was implemented. The result... In three years, profit margin went from 0% to 35%. The team went from 11 to 16 full-time employees. They are in no debt and have $200K in savings. They are on track to hit $4 million this year. Strategy #4 - Be your charming self. You love working on your computer. You 'get' your computer. Your computer 'gets' you. That's why digital marketers aren't typically known for being super personable. But hiding behind your computer isn't going to accelerate your business. As a digital marketer, you're selling an intangible service and your clients won't see results right away. In order to want to spend money working with you, they've got to get to know, like and trust you first. People want to work with people. That

What Makes Good Lead Magnets and How Can You Engage with Prospects? In this instalment of #AskSwenk, I discuss what exactly makes good lead magnets and how can you engage with prospects. I also share how to handle clients who approve work without reviewing and whether telesales companies are a good option for the outbound sales of your agency. {0:33} Frank asked: "What are others finding are good lead magnets to generate new contacts/leads? Beyond that, what are good ways get contacts to engage your firm once they are in your database?" The best lead magnets in my opinion are case studies. Headlines are the most crucial part of a case study to use them as lead magnets and I like to stick to the template in my headlines of "How to do something cool without doing something that sucks" to grab the attention of your audience. Once they are leads, ensure to provide them with good content with call to actions to get your prospects to move to the next stage. {2:43} Kelsey asked: "Does anyone have any experience with clients who approve work without actually looking at it? I have a client who has approved all of my work, but who just admitted to not actually taking the time to read any of the content I am posting on her behalf. Any thoughts?" Yes, I have had this experience. Sitting down with a client and explaining to them and sharing all the information to walk them through your process as an agency. Creating a signed paper work trail will support you when you need to go back to a client to show they approved an aspect of a project and additional changes will come at additional costs. {4:22} Oscar asked: "I see outbound marketing as a key component to growing the agency. Having tried this already with a couple of companies recommended by others with mediocre results (and I am being generous), I thought of asking you for your experience in this respect and any recommendations you may have on telemarketing/appointment setting companies." Most agencies have used telemarketing companies at some point. From my own personal experience for my own agency and for clients, I haven't seen any benefit from them. There's no value for your outbound marketing of a telemarketing company that doesn't know your business or understand your audience's businesses making a thousand calls trying to organise marketing audits. Better to create a targeted hit-list after research into your audience and then call them and offer them something of value for their business. Looking for More on How You Can Improve Your Agency and Yourself as an Agency Owner? Are there weaknesses within your agency that are causing everything to breakdown? Don't worry, i'm here for all the advice you need. I have been in the industry for a long time and I have had my own experience running my own digital agency as well as helping other digital agency owners so there are many topics where I can offer guidance. Whether you are experiencing challenges as an established agency or a new agency unsure of what the different phases of growth you will experience will look like, I've got you covered. As you continue to grow your agency team, I can show how to recognise when it's time to hire a sales manager or expand your sales team to perfecting your business strategy with creating a process for performance based pricing and how to keep your big name clients happy. Are you ready to create something cool and want more advice? Learn about my career and different experiences as well as tips, tricks and insights by checking out my blogs that cover a wide variety of topics. Or if videos are more your thing, visit my Youtube channel!

Could a killer outbound sales strategy take your agency to a whole other level in how you perform and the clients you attract? In today's episode, we'll cover: Why an outbound sales strategy is important. One killer outbound sales strategy for new agency business 4 steps to a successful 100 Call Challenge. Today's guest, Gene Hammett, knows a thing or two about outbound sales. He used to be my agency's VP of Sales and scored us meetings with huge brands like Home Depot and Porsche just to name a few. He's now using his knowledge and experience as a writer, speaker and Strategic Coach for competitive service-based businesses. Gene also hosts Leaders In the Trenches, a podcast for entrepreneurs. Gene recently turned one of his coaching strategies on himself and created a 10-Day, 100 Call Challenge. He's seeing some fantastic results and shared all the details with us. Why is a Outbound Sales Strategy Beneficial? Having an outbound sales strategy has been lost and forgotten. So many business focus solely on lead generation and ways to amplify inbound sales. As business owners, we can't always expect leads to come to us. Sometimes we have to approach them first and ask for their business. Outbound sales doesn't have to mean cold calls, though. It means defining a criteria for who you want to work with and then seeking them out to showcase your offering. Gene's self-imposed 100 Call Challenge is a way to re-introduce outbound sales strategy efforts back into your agency. What is the 100 Call Challenge? Most people think it's 100 cold calls and dread the thought of it. But really, it's a commitment to having 100 conversations. Gene breaks his goal setting down into annual, quarterly, monthly and then two week increments. For the first two weeks of February 2016 he decided he needed a jolt in his business - something drastic to stir things up. That's when he implemented the 100 Call Challenge. The results? 3 new speaking gigs that weren't already on his radar 2 new clients A booked calendar for an additional 2 weeks A flurry of new activity creating a snowball effect on his business 4 Steps for setting up a successful 100 Call Challenge: 1- Decide what you have to offer. You can't just start making sales calls to set up appointments. Major turn off. Time is valuable. So if you're going to ask people for their time, you better have something super valuable to offer in return. Think of reasons why prospects might want to spend time with you. What can you offer in exchange for an hour of their time? For new prospects: Develop a great solution to a common problem or something to ease one of their pain points. Then invite them to a cocktail hour, lunch & learn or other live event where you give them this information for FREE. Make a deposit before making a withdrawal. This strategy is HUGE - it establishes authority and creates goodwill. Host a live event and then make calls to get the right people in the room. That's how you stack the deck in your favor. For old leads: Follow-up is definitely a lost skill. Think about all the "no" or "not right now" responses you've gotten in the past year or so. Shoot an email letting them know you've been thinking of their X problem (something specific they experiencing the last time you spoke) and that you have some ideas. State that you'll be calling later that day to talk. Then make your call and provide the information - no strings. Chances are, the problem is still a problem and they'll be ready to listen to your solution. The goal here is to re-open the dialogue. Not score a sale. 2- Mindset is KEY. Gene has no hesitation in making phone calls and no fear of cold calling. (That's how he scored my agency with meetings with huge brands!) But what he has come to realize is that he wasn't making time to make calls. He was making excuses. Gene's advice is to get over your hang ups. (Pun intended!:) ) Have the courage to create what you want. It's easy to settle for status quo. You have to find your "everyday courage" which sits inside every one of us but becomes dormant as we get comfortable. Push yourself to go outside that comfort zone. No excuses. 3- Establish initiatives. For Gene, the goals were revenue-based and he set a two-week time period in order to reach them. He decided there were 3 routes to achieve his revenue target: more speaking engagements more clients higher profile attendance at his live events. What are your desired results? How can you get there? Be specific and make sure it's something you can measure. Hold yourself accountable to the timeline and results. 4- Pull the trigger. If you're making 100 calls in 10 days commit to roughly 10 calls per day. Even if you're out of the office. No excuses! Here's how Gene implemented his three-fold plan: More speaking gigs: Gene paid a Virtual Assistant to create a list of events that met his specific criteria. The list contained URLs, names, email addresses and phone numbers for 52 different events. He used that list to

Payment Schedules, Payroll for Owners, & Yearly Reviews In this episode of Ask Swenk, i'm talking all things payment and payment schedules. The best client payment schedule and how to get your clients to stick to it. Plus, whether the owner should be on payroll and how to handle those dreaded annual employee reviews. {1:14} Stuart asks: "We have tried to implement your payment schedule of 50% upfront, then 25%, 25%, based on milestones or timelines. However, we haven't had any success with this, and clients have pushed back hard to get this upon them signing off on the work. Aside from not working with these clients, how have you handled push backs like this?" {4:44} Adina asks: "Do you pay yourself a salary on payroll? My accountant says I need to pay myself like an employee and then remit payroll tax ...for myself! Just wondering if this is common practice. {6:37} John asks: "Should my company keep doing yearly reviews for my employees?" How You Can Improve Your Business I hope this provided you with a clearer idea of payment schedules when it comes to your own team and your client projects in the future. If you have more questions, I can help. Whether you have been an agency owner for some time or have just taken the leap and started a new agency, I have covered topics including bringing in big clients for your agency to reasons you should sell your agency. You can check out all my tips, tricks and everything you need to know in my blogs. I have covered a wide variety of topics as well as answering your questions in more from my Ask Swenk series. Are videos more your thing? You can check out my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my Youtube channel for advice from myself and other agency experts.

Do you want to learn how to go from the freelancer life to starting a digital agency and even grow it so it's worth seven figures. In this episode, I'll cover: 3 steps for transitioning from freelancer to agency owner. How to identify and overcome growth struggles. How to hire when you're ready. #1 advice for newbie owners. Rob Riggs has a great story to share about his digital agency journey, and it all begins with freelancing for a pretty awesome guy... ME :) Seriously though, I met Rob through owning my digital agency and we frequently sent work his way. Over the years Rob has turned his freelance business into a thriving digital agency. In this interview, he tells us about the transition that began in 2004, from a one-man show to 12 person digital agency, Your Design Online. He shares how he overcomes challenges, how his role has evolved, and what he would tell his former self to do differently. 3 Steps to go from freelancer to digital agency owner Identify a narrow niche. Rob says he stopped taking on "just any project." He drilled down to a specific niche and became a specialist. Go outside your comfort zone. In Rob's case, he emerged himself in more complex projects that were beyond building websites. He took responsibility for delivering results and showing ROI to his clients. Be self aware. Know what you stand for, what you believe, and what you are (and aren't) willing to work on. (For more on that check out this post on how to Quit Being a Prisoner to Your Agency, and read about an agency owner who created his agency around his life - not the other way around.) Solving the biggest growth challenges Rob says his biggest challenge, at first, was landing projects that were beyond what he could do himself. Once he got over that hurdle and grew to 3-4 people, then they were dropping the ball with details. As they grew even more, their issues were with delivery. You're always going to have issues, they just evolves as your business grows. The key is identifying the issue and the need for change. Then take action! When project details were an issue, Rob says they starting using Basecamp. When they outgrew that tool, they adopted new PM software that did more in the backend. When delivery was an issue, they created standard operating procedures for delivery. It seems counterintuitive but your need systems and processes that are made the be changed. Have a system in place for everything, but be able to identify when that system needs a makeover. If you have an isolated problem, you get through it and you learn from it. But if there is an issue that becomes a repetitive problem, there needs to be a standard process for avoiding it. As Rob says, "I never want to type the same sentence twice." And he's right - if you have great processes in place, you shouldn't have to! How to find talent when you're ready to hire Rob's first hire was a developer, who has been with him since the beginning. His role has evolved significantly over the past 12 years into project manager, problem solver and he's now a key decision maker who runs things while Rob is out of the office procuring new business. Rob says he always looks to hire people who are sharers. Part of his process is to do a post-mortem after a project wraps. They talk about things that went right and things that went wrong. For this to be a successful process, everyone on the team has to be honest about their own mistakes. He also looks for a good fit with the agency culture - making sure to hire people who can get behind the company's mission. He uses a lot of hypothetical situations in his interview process so he can look for creativity and problem solving skills. And, you don't have to pay top dollar for get great talent... Rob believes even coders making $200,000 are going to be unhappy and won't work hard if they can't get behind what they're working on. As the agency owner, you want to slowly replace yourself so you can be doing things that generate revenue. Often times that means being out of the office working prospects... not projects. (Not sure how to replace yourself? Check out this interview with an agency owner who fires himself at least once a year.) #1 advice for starting out? There's a reason I say "systems outperform talent every time." It's true! In Rob's case, there's a delicate balance owning an agency of this size. They are just small enough to be agile and make quick moves and just big enough that they need standardization for consistency's sake. If he had to do it all over again, Rob says he would tell his former self to this first. Tired of Being Restricted in the Career Path You're On? Are you the owner of a small agency under $300,000? Or a freelancer, marketing professional or agency employee who thinks you can run your own agency better? Jump Start My Agency is a program that covers everything you need to start a profitable agency and land high paying clients of over $20,000. This 4 week course is designed to help you find the ideal

What You Should Do (And Shouldn't Do) When Selling Digital Agency In episode thirty four of #AskSwenk, I discuss what you should do (and shouldn't do) when selling digital agency, plus how to compensate referral agencies and how to follow-up when a prospect goes dark. {1:08} Amy asked: "I'm in negotiations to sell my marketing agency. What should I be aware of? Pitfalls to avoid?" You need to determine why is the other agency or business interested in buying your agency? Revenue? Location? It's important to figure this out for the leverage of your agency and make sure to ask them the same questions they ask about your business to evaluate if they can afford you. You should also keep the fact you are considering selling confidential to avoid potentially losing clients. {5:57} Scott asked: "What are your thoughts on paid referrals or partnerships between agencies? For example, your agency refers me work I pay you x% commission. " This can be done a couple of different ways but depends on how big projects or retainers are. For a good strategic partnership to work, it should work both ways when it comes to referrals with a sliding scale for commission percentages. {7:38} Stuart asked: "We are walking our clients through the proposals, in person, as per your advice. However, we still find that once we have done this, the client then goes quiet on us (never a good sign). How do we persistently, yet politely, follow up to expedite this last stage of the sale and to find out if we are their preferred supplier?" A client going silent is a bad sign but you can probably trace it back to the first conversation you had with the client. Do they have the budget for the project? Do they have the authority to make decisions for the project? Do they have realistic timing? This will help you with your follow up strategy by following the three I's: Issue, Impact and In meeting scheduling. Check out Ask Swenk Episode forty three for more related questions! Improve Your Agency and Become a Better Agency Owner! Want extra help in taking your agency to the next level and become a better agency owner? You can find lots of tips, tricks and insights by reading our blogs that cover a wide variety of topics or if videos are more your thing, visit my Youtube channel!

Are your team within your agency losing far too much time in email communications both internally and with clients? In this episode, we'll cover: Gaining control of your clogged and cluttered email inbox. A system that sorts, organizes and stores emails in a way that makes sense. How to save time so you can get busy making money. Today's guest is digital agency owner Ian Garlic who owns Authentic Web, a video production and distribution agency and host of the podcast, TAO of Inbound. He shares with us a solution for sorting and organizing internal communication. Buried by emails? As his agency grew, Ian was having a problem with his email inbox getting clogged. He was cc'd on everything but wasn't necessarily involved in the details of every project. So, when Ian needed to jump in on something he was digging through emails trying to get a macro picture of what what going on by having to weed through all the micro details in old emails. The solution Ian discovered is Slack - a communication tool for tracking, sorting and archiving team communication. (The opinions expressed in this interview are our own. Neither Ian or I are affiliates of Slack.) Eliminate the time suck of email [clickToTweet tweet="Get a high-level, quick view of what's going on in your agency." quote="Get a high-level, quick view of what's going on in your agency."] Benefits to Slack: Create different channels for sorting and organizing information (client or topic specific). Do you dig through emails looking for information only to realize it's buried in with something completely unrelated? Slack eliminates this problem by sorting things in the channels your create. Tag people when their attention is required. Do you skim (or skip) over emails where you're cc'd only to realize that your input was needed but you were only half-listening? Slack will keep you and your team in the loop but individuals can be tagged and notified with their attention is needed. Automatically sequences information in chronological order. Ever scroll through an chain of emails trying to determine which parts of the conversation came before others? Who said what and what? Try as it might, Gmail and others can't always keep it all straight for us. Slack puts communication in chronological order and archives the old stuff for you. Cool integrations with PM software and GoogleDocs. No more switching between email communication and your other agency tools. It's all in one place on Slack. Getting started with Slack Slack is free to use but there are of course a variety of upgraded paid levels (information located on the Slack website). Ian says it's fairly easy to set-up but like anything else, there's a learning curve involved. You'll change and tweak the way you create your channels and hashtags as you learn what works best for your team. 3 steps to setting up: Create your teams and invite members. Create your channels. (Authentic Web has channels for: weekly meetings, KPI's, each client, miscellaneous and one for office humor.) Download the mobile/tablet apps so you can use Slack without going through a web browser. PRO TIP: Ian is pretty active on Instagram. He uploads images and stores them in Slack where he can grab them at anytime and post to Instagram right from his phone. Use Slack like a server-on-the-go. [clickToTweet tweet="Get out of your in your inbox and get busy generating revenue! #slack #productivity #digitalmarketing" quote="Get out of your in your inbox and get busy generating revenue! "] If you want some other tips on being more productive, check out this post and download my Productivity Funnel. Improve Your Business Increase the productivity of your team by decreasing the amount of time they lose in their email inboxes will create smarter and quicker strategies when working on client projects. If you need any help or advice on any topic to do with your digital agency, I have probably experienced them myself and can help you from what I learned. From what to do with your sales processes, ways to increase your profit margins or how you can build authority for your agency. I can show you how to stop losing money on projects, why solid processes for performance based pricing can be the best pricing strategy and how having remote working or freelancers in your team can be beneficial and the best ways of managing them. Learn about my career and different experiences as well as tips, tricks and insights by checking out my blogs that cover a wide variety of topics. Find more from my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my Youtube channel. There you will find advice from myself and other agency experts.

Agency Case Studies, Team Accountability & Avoiding Client Changes. On this episode of #AskSwenk, we'll cover: How you can use case studies to attract agency new business, how to improve your team accountability, and what do you do to stop your client from requesting a zillion changes. This Week's Questions: {0:51} Christian asks: "How can I use a successful case study to attract more business within the same niche?" {3:01} Eric asks: "What can I do to hold my team accountable to their goals? More importantly, if they don't hit them... what kind of repercussions should there be?" {5:26} Steve asks: "How can I handle a client who wants a zillion rounds of changes? We are constantly making changes only to find out they want more changes on top of their changes. It's killing us in hours. Is there a more efficient and profitable way to handle it?" Would You Like To Work With Me LIVE & In Person? I'm doing a live workshop here in Atlanta, GA in July, and I wanted to see if you'd like to come. This is an exclusive opportunity to WORK DIRECTLY WITH ME, IN PERSON, and I'll teach you the agency strategies that have helped me build a very successful digital agency. Discover the best Digital Agency Strategies today. Get Online Training to help you setup the right systems and strategies to help you grow faster. What Are Your Agency Concerns? So we've covered how you can improve your team accountability, use case studies for success for your agency and handling changes from clients but these might not be the only concerns you have for your business. It doesn't matter if you have been an agency owner for a while now or have just taken the leap and started a new agency, I have covered topics from the struggles you may face within your agency to leveraging Youtube in your marketing for your agency marketing strategy. Learn more about me or you can check out all my tips, tricks and everything you need to know in my blogs. I have covered a wide variety of topics as well as answering your questions in more from my Ask Swenk series. Are videos more your thing? Don't worry! You can check out my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my Youtube channel for advice from myself and other agency experts.

Struggle to find the work-life balance for you and your agency? As an agency owner, it's so easy to become a prisoner within your business as you strive to make it the best digital agency out there. In this episode, we'll cover: How to build your agency around your life, to find a work-life balance instead of being a prisoner. 3 ways to build your agency around your personality. How to brand your agency and be the leader in your category. Today's podcast guest is Re Perez, founder of Branding For The People, a branding agency for entrepreneurs and small businesses. Re has worked for some pretty huge agencies working on some major Fortune 500 clients. He talks to us about leaving all that behind in order to build an agency around his personality and lifestyle finding the best work-life balance. Re had a pretty interesting journey that led him to starting his agency. His highly successful career took him from New York to Dubai and back to New York. Yet despite a successful career he wasn't fulfilled with the work he was doing. He says that feeling coupled with a negative personal experience left him deeply questioning his next steps in life. He took 6 months off to travel, meditate, practice yoga and figure out what was next… In his travels, he learned about a yoga studio called "Yoga For The People" and later a restaurant, "Food For The People". Coincidence or fate?? :) Re took these signs, coupled with his gut instinct to become an entrepreneur, and started his agency Branding For The People - an agency that brings Fortune 500 branding solutions to small businesses. Branding Your Agency Re says logos and slogans do not make a brand. Those things support a brand but are only marketing tools for identifying a brand. Branding is a desired perception. In order to create a desired perception you must first have a desirable perception of yourself. As a small business, if you want to be perceived as the leader in your category you have to behave like the leader in your category by: Practice what you preach. Agency owners are famous for giving great advice to clients and NOT following it themselves. Start taking your own best advice! Be genuine. People can smell BS a mile away and they will call you out on it. Be who you are and be willing to let go of clients who aren't OK with the real you. Don't "act" like the big agencies by copying their behavior. Find your own unique position, while still behaving like a big agency. Don't force a square peg in a round hole. Always align yourself with the projects and brands that excite you. Allow agency's brand to be determined by your own core values. Work-Life Balance: How To Build Your Agency Around Your Lifestyle Re has one key motivator which determined how he would structure his business while staying true to himself: He didn't want a traditional office job. Meaning, he didn't want to work for anyone else or spend a bunch of time in board rooms. He wants to travel and connect with people outside of the office walls. He is very clear on his goals and values. Are you? 3 Ways to Build Your Agency Around Your Personality Change the terminology. Re doesn't refer to them as "clients" or "projects", they are "relationships" or "engagements". He's a people person and treats each opportunity with care. A change in terminology also changes the perceived value of the experience. Check out my previous post about how changing terminology can even help you increase your prices! {BONUS!} Be self aware. Know how you are (and who you aren't). You can't get real clarity on leading your business until you know who you are... Ask yourself: "Is this agency fulfilling?" or "Does the work I'm doing really matter to me?" and "Does my agency support my desired lifestyle?" If not - you can take a sabbatical like Re, or find another way to quiet the noise and distractions that are standing in your way. Here are the 4 common things that could be standing in the way of your clarity. Don't make decisions based on money. We all take on clients or projects because we need the money. And, you have to have some bad experiences so you know what you don't want to do. But at some point you also have to realize though that not every person with a credit card was meant to be your client. Instead, think and act like a millionaire, even if you're not… yet. Best advice: Be true to yourself and let the rest unfold. What's holding as a prisoner to your agency? Comment below and tell me your biggest challenges. Discover the best Digital Agency Strategies today. Get Online Training to help you setup the right systems and strategies to help you grow faster. Building Your Authority Finding a work-life balance for you as an agency owner will not only benefit your agency but your team as you are establishing a healthy work relationship. But in order to build authority as a business owner and your digital agency, you need to be able to recognise other issues within your agency that needs your attention. No matter what c

Do you find it hard to keep up with developments in technology and getting client contracts just right? In this episode of #AskSwenk, I answer your questions and cover these topics for you: What KPI's your agency should be measuring, how to keep up with all the latest technology and what key info you need to include in client contracts. Agency KPI's, Technology, & Client Contracts This Week's Questions: {0:25} Susan asks: "What KPI's does a digital marketing agency need to measure?" {2:10} Troy asks: "You are pretty much on every channel. I've listened to your podcast, seen you on Twitter, FB, Instagram and your blog, How do you keep up with it all?" {4:28} Rory asks: "As I'm just starting out, and bringing on clients, are there any super critical "things" to include in contracts and should we worry about contracts?" Are You Ready to Improve Your Agency? After you have mastered these challenges, what's next on your list? If you want to take your agency to the next level, constantly finding ways to improve is key. Want to know how to face failing economies and recessions or how a speaking opportunity can create business? Maybe you want to know the four phases of growth within your agency and want extra help in taking your agency to the next level and sell your agency for a larger profit? I have all the information you need to help you through it. Learn more about my life and my experience as well as lots of tips, tricks and insights by reading our blogs that cover a wide variety of topics. If videos are more your thing, don't worry, i've got you covered! You can check out more from my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my Youtube channel. There you will find advice from myself and other agency experts.

If you are looking for technology secrets for your agency to impress your clients, then today's episode is just for you. In this episode, we'll cover: 3 technology secrets that will WOW your clients. A Facebook development that every business should be using. The hottest trend in live streaming video. The #1 easiest hack to boost your Google ranking. On this episode of The Smart Agency Master Class, we'll hear from Ryan Steinolfson with some advice that can boost your business and totally impress your clients when you bring these growth solutions to the table. Ryan's agency, Accelerate Marketing, specializes in social proof and live streaming video for it's clients. He says live streaming is a lot more complex than it appears and his agency helps their clients with it in three ways: Live streaming on the client's behalf. Teaching client teams to live stream, or with their course Live Stream Blueprint. Developing "Advocacy Days", which are live stream events among multiple strategic partners that are connected using a common hashtag. According to the 2016 Future Outlook of Digital Agencies, we know brands hire agencies to be their technology leaders. They expect their agency to bring them emerging trends that will build business. I've been saying it for months now, Live Streaming is H-O-T and your clients need strategies for using it to their benefit. Here's more about live streaming video from a previous podcast guest, Kim Garst, founder of Boom Social. Here are 3 major technology secrets that will WOW your clients! 1. Facebook Live can now be used for any business page. As of a few weeks ago (from original post date April 2016), Facebook Live can be used on any business or public profile page. They just flipped a switch and made it available - and this is HUGE NEWS! Using Facebook Live, you can: Stream live video using the Facebook app from your iPhone or Android device. Add call to action text over your live stream Boost your videos by add keywords optimization Embed or repurpose your videos. Have your followers subscribe to get notified when you're broadcasting. Allow your followers to comment in real-time, share and embed your video. (Be sure to "like" my page and check out my Facebook Live videos now!) And Ryan has learned that right now, Facebook is giving preferential treatment to people/businesses who are using the Facebook Live feature. So live streaming videos are jumping to the top of news feeds (for now)... that means more opportunities and more reach. 2. The next big thing in live streaming video is 360 After Meerkat and Periscope introduced this technology, we've seen both Facebook and YouTube jump on board. YouTube allows you to give access to others to live stream on your channel and drop a graphics card into your live video. Which is super cool. But the next BIG thing in live streaming is 360° videos. Ryan says he's got his eye on Livit - an app for live streaming in 360°. It integrates with 360° cams for one of the coolest end-user experiences he's ever seen. 3. The BEST trick for moving up in Google rankings We know social proof (or social influence) carries huge weight in purchase decisions. Did you know that you can help your clients generate leads and crush it just by getting more reviews?! According to Ryan, 15% of your Google ranking is based on your social proof. So more positive reviews, means a high ranking. His agency has even seen movement from a D-position to A-position just from getting 10 or 15 reviews. This is a powerful tool that you and your clients are probably not taking advantage of, but should be!

What You Need to Know When Starting an Agency When starting an agency, it can be intimidating from building the best team to creating your portfolio of clients to make your business profit. But as the agency grows, you may find yourself outgrowing clients that you had when you initially started and needing to consider growing your team or outsourcing content for different projects. On this episode of #AskSwenk, we'll cover: what to do when your agency has outgrown a client, all about starting an agency (like when and how), and whether you should outsource your content writing. (0:21) Jojo asked: "My question is, how far do we need to go for these clients before it is time to think about politely passing them off to a more suitable freelancer or smaller agency? I appreciate that they were part of our business growth up to this point, but some of these clients are "loss-making" for us and get in the way of other work." (2:46) Nancy asked: "What will I be ready to start an agency? Should I start one now and leave my job?" (5:25) Enoch asked: "Do you think outsourcing content makes you more productive?" You can also find more of my Ask Swenk series as well as my other videos by checking out my Youtube channel! Tired of Being Restricted in the Career Path You're On? Are you the owner of a small agency under $300,000? Or a freelancer, marketing professional or agency employee who thinks you can run your own agency better? Jump Start My Agency is a program that covers everything you need to start a profitable agency and land high paying clients of over $20,000. This 4 week course is designed to help you find the ideal clients, charge what you're worth and learn how to build a team. There are clients waiting to work with you! Let me help you by requesting an invitation to the program.

Are you considering hiring freelancers but don't know the best way to successfully manage remote teams for your digital agency? In this episode, we'll cover: Creative ways to find top talent. Freelancer onboarding… or not? Managing freelance and remote teams. Today's guest is the co-founder of Hubstaff, a technology solution for managing a remote staff with everything from time tracking and progress monitoring to payables and financials. Dave Nevogt shares with us some great tips on sourcing, hiring and managing freelancers. Out-of-the-box talent searching ideas: Often times agency owners don't know where to look for the right candidates. Most end up relying on referrals or freelance marketplaces. Very few agencies experiment with other sources, such as: Check out LinkedIn or AngelList. Create a LinkedIn search filtered by your criteria. You never know who's looking, who might be employed but unhappy. Reach out in a personalized private message and include a link to the job description. If they're interested, they'll reply. Use your website to continuously recruit. You should always be scouting for good talent, whether your need extra help or not. Advertise "now hiring" on your website. This portray growth and attracts talent. Post job descriptions, too. Run targeted Facebook ads to enlist talent from a specific source, such as a specific company, geographic location, etc. How to handle freelancer onboarding Hubstaff has a small team stretched around the globe. Here's how Dave onboards (... or rather, how he doesn't onboard) new team members: Have a candid conversation about the position and the potential growth. You might see the potential for full-time but don't start out that way. Get settled in first and see if the person is the right fit. (Note: the U.S. IRS frowns on full-time freelancers. Check out this interview "How to Avoid an Audit" with an agency-focused tax accountant.) Don't fully onboard immediately. Start slow and make sure it's going to work on a surface level first before you using time and resources to train. Spend the first 30-days testing the waters. Learn each other's personalities traits and work ethic. Get a feel for the freelancer's effort and response time. Start slow with lots of involvement by the manager. But remember, there's a fine line between "involved" and "micromanaging." Communicate a ton and understand their workload. Make sure requests are filtered through you for now. Managing freelance and remote teams How can you ever be totally sure a contractor is working on the project you're paying for and not watching cat videos online? Truth is, you can't. What you can do is have an upfront conversation about expectations and your vision for the position. Tips for managing freelancers: Use a collaboration software such as Trello or Slack. This gets everyone OUT of their INBOX. It also allows the manager to see what everyone is working on and upholds a culture built on transparency. Hold live, weekly status meetings to see who's working on what. Even with PM software, private messages and direct requests can hijack a freelancer's time without your knowledge. Communicate goals and priorities. Know what your team is working on and keep it minimal (like, 5 things instead of 25). Often, when someone is overwhelmed they'll just shut down. Use a tool like Hubstaff for tracking progress on projects, budgeting, time tracking and random screenshotting in real-time. Working with freelancers or a remote team can be SUPER beneficial to both parties. It works for me, it's working for Dave at Hubstaff and it's been working for another agency owner I interviewed who has a $3 Million Agency With No Employees. SYSTEMS to help your GROW & SCALE My Agency Playbook contains the 12 Systems I used to grow and eventually sell a SUCCESSFUL multi-million dollar agency. It includes all the resources and tools as well as step-by-step strategies to save you tons of time. Everything you learn can be implemented immediately. Learn more by clicking here. Build Your Agency Growing your agency team through freelancers and remote teams can provide many benefits and many businesses in the future will move toward remote working, especially in the digital field. Are there other areas of your business you want to improve? By evaluating other areas of weakness within your agency, you can create a better business and improve as an agency owner. And the best thing about it is, I can help you get through all of it. I can give you support and advice on many topics from what to do when you want to speed up sales processes, ways to increase your business profit margins or how you can build an authority for your agency. Growing your agency can be a major struggle for any agency owner and I can show you the different phases of growth you will experience, how placing a process for performance based pricing can be the best pricing strategy for your business and the three questions you need to ask yourself to sell more! Learn a

On this episode of #AskSwenk, we'll cover: How to handle clients who think you have a conflict of interest because you're specialized in a niche. Also, ways to get your foot in the door with new clients, plus getting better business leads for your sales team. This Week's Questions: Tackling Conflict of Interest {0:29} Giles asked: "We specialize in design and marketing for the bar and restaurant sector. We've recently had a couple of meetings with prospects who were concerned about a conflict of interest as we already do work for one of the largest players in this sector in the UK. How would you tackle their concerns?" Getting Your Foot in the Door {2:36} Bobby asked: "What assessments would you use for getting a foot in the door with a client?" Finding Better Business Leads {5:16} Phil asked: "There's one thing I consistently hear from my sales team and that is 'it's just bad timing for the client right now.' Have you found a good way to overcome this objection? " Related: http://jasonswenk.com/askswenk50 Improve Your Agency Now that you have strategies for getting your foot in the door and bringing in better business leads for your digital agency, what's next on your list? What other challenges and obstacles are you facing preventing you taking your business to the next level? I have covered topics from how to handle a recession or how to increase your profits without losing customers for your agency. Or maybe you want to know the four phases of growth within your agency and want extra help in taking your agency to the next level and sell your agency for a larger profit? I have all the information you need to help you through it. You can learn more about my life and my experience as well as lots of tips, tricks and insights by reading our blogs that cover a wide variety of topics. If videos are more your thing, don't worry, i've got you covered! You can check out more from my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my Youtube channel. There you will find advice from myself and other agency experts.

Top 5 Business Growth Tips on How to Scale Your Agency Are you struggling on scaling your agency and just can't find the best business growth tips that fit your business model? In this episode, we'll cover: Top 5 business growth tips to grow and scale your digital agency. How to juggle and manage multiple businesses. If you're looking for a 7 or 8 figure entrepreneur to model, this guy might be it… Syed Balkhi is the owner of several multi-million dollar online business and he's crushing it. Syed's trifecta of online startups includes: WPBeginner (the largest free Wordpress resource), OptinMonster (lead generation software, and List25 (entertainment site) -- all of which are hitting 7+ figures and combined, serve over 400 million visitors! He's also a former agency owner and a stakeholder in several other businesses. In this episode, Syed shares his best advice for getting your business to the next level. He's got a ton of great tips for growing and scaling. Top 5 ways to grow and scale #5 - Answer everybody's questions. Syed says he spent very little on marketing his startups. Instead he would run hashtag searches on Twitter and respond to every tweet that had anything to do with a particular topic (in his case, Wordpress). Don't reply with a hardsell. Reply with a helpful tip or solution. #4 - Identify and solve one problem at a time. We're entrepreneurs. It's easy to get distracted by all those fantastic ideas that pop into our heads. Syed says a key factor in his success was concentrating on one idea at a time. #3 - Use a lead magnet. You'll have far better success with an opt-in that offers a payoff in the form of a useful checklist or tool. People are always hesitant to opt-in for fear of spammy junk mail. Bribery works so much better :) #2 - Follow-up is paramount. Once you capture contact info use it to establish trust and gain authority. Don't just send your monthly e-newsletter, which is all you. Provide goodwill content by offering resources and valuable information that helps them. #1 - The BEST advice to grow and scale: Find the right combination of content marketing and marketing automation. Build a system that establishes the "know-like-trust" factor with content and useful tools. Test and tweak often. How to succeed at multiple businesses The key is F.O.C.U.S. - Finish One Commitment Until Success. Syed says your agency should have to be focused on the strengths of your business. Identify a problem your prospects experience and then solve that problem differently and better than anyone else. Sometimes agency owners see a common problem their clients' experience and want to develop a product solution. Resist the urge. FOCUS. If you do decide to venture into developing a product, make sure it is a separate entity with a dedicated team. Don't overlap your resources between your service business and your product business. You can't excel at both simultaneously, so one will always suffer. In the end, neither business will flourish. In terms of juggling it all… Syed says he doesn't. He is in regular communication with team leaders that manage each of his businesses. He and his teams use tools like Slack and Basecamp to stay looped in. Syed's role now is mainly marketing, support and coaching his team. In fact, he's so far removed from daily operations, he doesn't even have coding access anymore (and he's OK with it!) :) If you want to grow and scale your agency, check out my Agency Playbook. It includes the 12 systems I used to start, scale, enjoy, and sell my agency. Check out this video on you can use my Playbook to take your business to the next level. Building Your Business Using these business growth tips, I hope you begin to see a real difference for your agency. If business growth tips aren't the only piece of advice you need, what other challenges are you facing? I have probably experienced all the different struggles for an agency owner through my own experience and I can help you from what I learned. From what to do with your sales processes, ways to increase your profit margins or how you can build authority for your agency. I can tell you the best ways to stop losing money on projects, why performance based pricing can be the best pricing strategy for your agency as well as why including remote working or freelancers in your team can be beneficial in the long run. You can learn more about my career and different experiences as well as tips, tricks and insights by checking out my blogs that cover a wide variety of topics. Find more from my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my Youtube channel. There you will find advice from myself and other agency experts.

On this episode of #AskSwenk, we'll cover: What awards you should be looking at nabbing to attract big brand clients, whether you should be putting your published pricing on your website, and how to protect the concepts you've pitched. This Week's Questions: 0:22 - Jerry asked: "What industry awards should I go after for my agency that can attract the bigger clients?" 1:53 - John asks: "What are your thoughts about posting your prices on your website or not posting them? I see many other agencies who do post and then many who do not." 3:39 - Elizabeth asks: "My agency is pitching concepts a lot more now. Concepts which we are proposing to make the content for. How can we protect our ideas from clients taking our ideas to other agencies?" Let Me Help In this episode of Ask Swenk, we've discussed a range of topics like published pricing for your agency and spec work but did this cover what you need to improve your agency? Do you need more advice? Don't worry, I have all you need to get through these obstacles. No matter what you need advice on, I have more than likely covered it. From topics such as handling a recession to ways of using your social media community to expand your brand awareness. Or maybe you want to know the four phases of growth within your agency and want extra help in easing through agency growing pains? I have all the information you need to help you through it. You can learn more about my life and my experience as well as lots of tips, tricks and insights by reading my blogs that cover a wide variety of topics. If videos are more your thing, don't worry, i've got you covered! You can check out more from my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my Youtube channel. There you will find advice from myself and other agency experts.

Do you know how to ensure you are guaranteeing leads for your business? If you are struggling with this as well as growing your team or how to prevent time lost to bad clients, this episode of Ask Swenk is the one you need. In this video, I'll cover: What to do when a prospect wants you to guarantee leads. My #1 struggle in growing my agency team and 3 ways we overcame it. How to fire a terrible client so you can quit wasting time. Guaranteeing Leads in a Proposal (0:23) Lawrence asks: "A prospect is asking for us to guarantee the number of sales leads our digital marketing will create -- which is impossible and could change over time. How would you go about putting this into the proposal?" Don't shy away from guaranteeing performance! Take pride and back your work. I have NO issue with guaranteeing leads... DO IT! But, you cannot guarantee sales. Lead generation in your control, converting leads and the sales process is not. 3 steps to guaranteeing leads: Determine a very specific criteria for qualified leads. Be very definitive on what a quality lead looks like. Look at similar, past clients as a benchmark for your past performance. Establish compensation at both a fixed level and performance level. For example, you get paid "X" rate for deliver "X" fixed amount of leads, and an additional "Y" rate for every lead thereafter. Here's an interview with an agency owner who runs his business totally on a performance-based pricing model. He has over a 50% margin and a 95% close rate. Talk about qualifying leads! #1 Struggle of Growing My Team (2:22) Christina asked: "What were your biggest pain points in growing your agency from a just few people to more and how did you overcome them?" The biggest struggle I had with growing my team was worrying about being able to afford them. Cash flow and making payroll was my #1 concern. 3 things that helped us overcome cash flow worries: Project receivables. We looked for holes to forecast where cash flow would be an issue and then we could be proactive instead of reactive. We use these "holes" as deadlines to motivate the sales and leadership teams. Change payment terms. We made recurring revenue (retainers) due upfront with incentives for prepayment for the entire contract period. Project payment terms changed to: 50% upfront, 25% due on a specific date or at a specific point in the project (whichever comes first), and 25% due upon completion or at a specific point in the project (whichever comes first). Increase pricing. We increased our prices for both our existing and new clients. Once you make the decision on what agency you want to be, make the moves to act and charge like it. Firing a Terrible Client (5:18) Glenn says: "We need to get rid of a terrible client. They're not taking the hint, so I need to formally drop them. A lot of thought went into this decision and they must go. How would you go about it?" Congratulations! I'm so proud that you've realized it time to get rid of this client. I have a motto: There's no such thing as a BAD agency client - just a bad prospect or bad process. It's OK that your process let a bad prospect sneak it and it's awesome that you're ready to get rid of them. Here's what you need to do: Check the language in your contract to see how much lead to time you need in order to end the relationship. Abide by the contract at all costs. Make a phone call, not an email and definitely not a text message, to talk to them. In the call explain that it's not working out and that your need to sever the relationship. End on good terms by giving them all their files and even a refund if you think it's necessary. Draw up a letter that details everything that was discussed on your call and all the assets you'll be releasing to them. Send this letter to them USPS Certified so that you can prove it's been received. And, keep a copy for yourself. Consider setting up an introduction between your newly fired client and your biggest competition :) After it's all said and done, forget it. Good riddance! You'll notice a huge difference in your team and your culture when you eliminate this baggage. In fact, take a look at the rest of your client roster. Are there other clients that are causing distractions or making it harder to become the agency you want to be? Quit wasting time on the wrong prospects and concentrate on the right ones. Do you like this NEW 3 question format? Give us some feedback below. And, make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel so you're getting the newest video advice each week! Build Your Agency Now that you know how to improve on guaranteeing leads, growing your team and more, this may be only the tip of the iceberg. But don't worry, I have all you need to get through these obstacles. I have covered topics from how to handle a recession or expanding your brand awareness with a social media community. Or maybe you want to know the four phases of growth within your agency and want extra help in easing through agency growing pains

Do you really need to have a big agency experience to truly be successful as an agency owner? In this episode, we'll cover: What it's like working at a big agency. Why a CCO would leave a large, publicly traded agency. Does size matter? How you can determine your purpose and use it to build your brand. For anyone who has questions or doubts in their own abilities to startup a digital agency and run better than the big dogs, you'll have to check out this interview. My guest, Kerri Konik, has worked at some pretty huge agencies, and left her latest as Chief Creative Officer in order to start her own agency. She tells us what it's like at the big agencies and why she left to do her own thing. The grass isn't any greener at the big agencies… it's greener on the side that you water:) What it's like at a big agency (...and why leave)? After years of working at big agencies Kerri started her agency, Brandscape Atelier, five years ago because she felt like she wasn't making much of an impact on her clients' businesses. Like anything else, there's pros and cons, of course. First and foremost the resources are top-notch. You have a team full of people who are experts in their specific area - people don't wear more than one hat. This means, you can learn a lot and get exposure to the big picture. However, big agencies tend to sound very glamorous when in actuality, they are not. Sure a big agency can be very fast paced and they land 2-3 year agency of record contracts, however there are too many layers to be effective. A typical client/agency meeting often included 18-20 people… making execution very inefficient. Kerri left because she felt like she wasn't making much of an impact on her clients' businesses. She started Brandscape Atelier (translation: "artist workshop") to bring sophisticated, big agency strategies to small businesses who are looking to grow. Does size matter? No it does not. You don't need a huge team to do amazing work. Kerri's agency operates with just six core team members and they bring in subject matter specialists as needed. They are in their 5th year and Kerri has no plans to get too big. She feels it's too difficult to be nimble when you are too big. More benefits of staying small: You make decisions based on the long term. Large corporations look at making growth decisions based on the short term, which doesn't have lasting effects for sustainability. You can turn down the wrong clients or wrong jobs that distract from your long term goals. You can make build your brand equity by defining your purpose. Why you do what you do. How to select clients that set you up for a WIN. Brandscape Atelier works with startups, small businesses and entrepreneurs that are looking to grow and be competitive with bigger brands. They have a pretty specific criteria on who they will (and will not) work with, including: Businesses that are focused and clear. They want to work with clients who want to make a big impact in their industry. Businesses the agency views as viable and sellable. Businesses the agency can bring to life by bringing the owner's unique and genuine personality into the mix. Set yourself up for a WIN by being selective in your prospecting. It's hard when you're starting out - sometimes you are hungry enough to take on any work that is thrown your way. If you can avoid making decisions based on short term gain, you will reap long term benefits. Remember: There's no such thing as a bad client. Only a bad prospect or a had process! Click here to learn what I mean. How can you determine your purpose? In Kerri's case, she kept finding herself beginning a lot of sentences with with "Someday, I'll..." She realized she had gotten to a point where she wasn't really doing what she wanted to be doing. She was just waiting for that "someday." If you want to find your purpose, figure out what you're passion about. Ask yourself questions like: "What can't I help doing?" "What do I want to see more of in the world?" "What do I want to see less of in the world?" Sometimes it's easier to start with what you don't want to do, then narrow down to what you DO want to do :) Use your findings to position your agency (and yourself) for success. When you're working on something that moves and inspires you, it also empowers you to be successful. Bottom line is, you do not need big agency experience to be a successful owner. My best advice is to stay in the game of learning. Stay on top of trends and technology and avoid being viewed as a commodity by your clients by continuing to take your level of knowledge and service up a notch. No matter what your size, there are five levels of agency service - check out another interview about them here. Comment below and tell me which level of service you provide? Which one are you be striving for? Building Your Agency I have more than likely experienced all if not most of the different struggles an agency owner experiences through my own experience and I can help you from wha

Do you know how to ensure you are guaranteeing leads for your business? If you are struggling with this as well as growing your team or how to prevent time lost to bad clients, this episode of Ask Swenk is the one you need. In this video, I'll cover: What to do when a prospect wants you to guarantee leads. My #1 struggle in growing my agency team and 3 ways we overcame it. How to fire a terrible client so you can quit wasting time. Guaranteeing Leads in a Proposal (0:23) Lawrence asks: "A prospect is asking for us to guarantee the number of sales leads our digital marketing will create -- which is impossible and could change over time. How would you go about putting this into the proposal?" Don't shy away from guaranteeing performance! Take pride and back your work. I have NO issue with guaranteeing leads... DO IT! But, you cannot guarantee sales. Lead generation in your control, converting leads and the sales process is not. 3 steps to guaranteeing leads: Determine a very specific criteria for qualified leads. Be very definitive on what a quality lead looks like. Look at similar, past clients as a benchmark for your past performance. Establish compensation at both a fixed level and performance level. For example, you get paid "X" rate for deliver "X" fixed amount of leads, and an additional "Y" rate for every lead thereafter. Here's an interview with an agency owner who runs his business totally on a performance-based pricing model. He has over a 50% margin and a 95% close rate. Talk about qualifying leads! #1 Struggle of Growing My Team (2:22) Christina asked: "What were your biggest pain points in growing your agency from a just few people to more and how did you overcome them?" The biggest struggle I had with growing my team was worrying about being able to afford them. Cash flow and making payroll was my #1 concern. 3 things that helped us overcome cash flow worries: Project receivables. We looked for holes to forecast where cash flow would be an issue and then we could be proactive instead of reactive. We use these "holes" as deadlines to motivate the sales and leadership teams. Change payment terms. We made recurring revenue (retainers) due upfront with incentives for prepayment for the entire contract period. Project payment terms changed to: 50% upfront, 25% due on a specific date or at a specific point in the project (whichever comes first), and 25% due upon completion or at a specific point in the project (whichever comes first). Increase pricing. We increased our prices for both our existing and new clients. Once you make the decision on what agency you want to be, make the moves to act and charge like it. Firing a Terrible Client (5:18) Glenn says: "We need to get rid of a terrible client. They're not taking the hint, so I need to formally drop them. A lot of thought went into this decision and they must go. How would you go about it?" Congratulations! I'm so proud that you've realized it time to get rid of this client. I have a motto: There's no such thing as a BAD agency client - just a bad prospect or bad process. It's OK that your process let a bad prospect sneak it and it's awesome that you're ready to get rid of them. Here's what you need to do: Check the language in your contract to see how much lead to time you need in order to end the relationship. Abide by the contract at all costs. Make a phone call, not an email and definitely not a text message, to talk to them. In the call explain that it's not working out and that your need to sever the relationship. End on good terms by giving them all their files and even a refund if you think it's necessary. Draw up a letter that details everything that was discussed on your call and all the assets you'll be releasing to them. Send this letter to them USPS Certified so that you can prove it's been received. And, keep a copy for yourself. Consider setting up an introduction between your newly fired client and your biggest competition :) After it's all said and done, forget it. Good riddance! You'll notice a huge difference in your team and your culture when you eliminate this baggage. In fact, take a look at the rest of your client roster. Are there other clients that are causing distractions or making it harder to become the agency you want to be? Quit wasting time on the wrong prospects and concentrate on the right ones. Do you like this NEW 3 question format? Give us some feedback below. And, make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel so you're getting the newest video advice each week! Build Your Agency Now that you know how to improve on guaranteeing leads, growing your team and more, this may be only the tip of the iceberg. But don't worry, I have all you need to get through these obstacles. I have covered topics from how to handle a recession or expanding your brand awareness with a social media community. Or maybe you want to know the four phases of growth within your agency and want extra help in easing through agency growing pains

When building an agency, having big brand clients can elevate your agency to a whole other level. This is where the challenge comes in of how do you grab the attention of those big brands? In this episode, we'll cover: Grabbing the attention of big brands. 5 Steps to creating a winning environment. The hierarchy of an agency with big brand clients. Don't be a "me too" agency Mike says the agency's Founder and Chief Creative Officer, Zak Mroueh, has always made it their mission to capture the attention of big brands and get to the next level. He says agencies are always telling their clients to stand out, be different, and do things that are uncomfortable. However, they don't "walk the walk" and follow their own advice. For example, ever notice how agency websites all look the same? That's why Zulu's website is one of the most entertaining agency site you'll see. It pokes fun at the agency industry's cliches and stereotypes. It's edgy, it's funny, and it's one example of Zulu walking the walk. (I'm telling you that you've got to check out their site - it's pretty awesome.) 5 Steps to creating a winning environment #SayNoToSpec At Zulu, they don't make decisions based on monetary gain. They're OK with turning down work that doesn't get them closer to their long-term goals. Spec work is a hinderance and an unfair expectation on the client's behalf. Just. Say. No. When they implemented this 5 years ago they were turning down 80%+ of their RFP's. Focus on long-term dominance. Zulu's website is just one example of their out-of-the-box creativity. Mike says the humor on the site isn't for everyone. It's a turnoff for some - and that's OK. They take risks in pursuit of new clients. Zulu's thinking: If a prospective client doesn't like their spoofy website, they're probably not the right fit anyway. Know why you do what you do. What's your agency's purpose? What are your core values? Why did you start an agency? (Don't say you're in it to make money. Money is an outcome, not a goal.) Determine your answers and communicate them from the top down. When you know your belief system it makes bigger decisions a lot easier to make. Be purposeful in your onboarding. Start day 1 with setting the right tone and helping a new employee adapt to the culture. At Zulu it's an orientation called "The Zulu Way" and it's a 90-minute one-on-one with the agency founder where a new hire learns expectations and do's/don'ts of the agency. It sets both parties up for a long and successful relationship. Hire senior people in key roles. This circles back to not making decisions based on money. You need some experienced people - ones who've already made their big career mistakes - in leadership roles. According to Mike, one of the best things they did was hire a seasoned CFO and an IT Director. Stop thinking about how these positions re non-billable. Having senior people in place sets a foundation for success and their value to the agency is priceless. As you grow, structure your agency for greatness So wait... the Founder is NOT the President? That's right. After about one year juggling the roles of Founder and President, Zak Mroueh, realized he'd rather be working IN the business than ON the business. Zak hired Mike Sutton as agency President to deal with all the "business stuff" that was getting in his way of being creative. Today Zak is the Chief Creative Officer and uses his experience and technical skills to oversee all aspects of creative, while Mike is the President overseeing contracts, billing, scopes, and other business details. Beneath the top tier of agency leadership, each department has 4-5 layers much like a traditionally structure agency. Moral of the story: know your strengths. Know your team's strengths. Be the best at one thing. Hire people to do what you can't (or don't want to) do. That's all great advice but what with the name? Why Zulu Alpha Kilo? It stems from the global Nato Phonetic Alphabet, the widely known language often used by pilots (aka: the "Alpha Bravo Charlie" alphabet). It's symbolic of the agency's dedication to clarity of communication. And it just so happens to spell Z-A-K, which is the founder's first name :) By the way - here's another super cool example of Zulu pushing themselves outside their comfort zone: http://creativity-online.com/work/zulu-alpha-kilo-zulu-blank-canvas/45173 Challenge: What are YOU doing to stand out? Comment below and share how you separate yourself from the pack. Discover the best Digital Agency Strategies today. Get Online Training to help you setup the right systems and strategies to help you grow faster. Bringing Your Agency to a New Level Landing big brands for clients can really bring your agency to a new level but also improve how you reach out to prospective clients moving forward. I hope you found this beneficial but I know there are other potential struggles you are experiencing in your agency and I can help. I can give you advice on recognising these new potential c

What pricing model are you using in your agency? If you didn't know the benefits of using a performance-based pricing model within your agency, I can show you how to implement it and why it will be worth it in the long run. In today's episode, we'll cover: The benefits of performance-based pricing. Maximizing agency revenue using performance-based pricing. Tips for turning your videos into low cost, high quality lead generators. Today's episode is by far one of my very favorite -- and no, I don't say that about every interview:) Tom Breeze not only trains people on getting more leads for their business using video, but he's also so confident in his agency's skill to do the same, that Viewability operates on performance-based pricing. With undergraduate and master's degrees in psychology, Tom launched his agency only after learning to successful market his private anxiety counseling practice using video on his website. This was back when video for web was pretty new. (We're talking pre-smartphone era... Tom carried a camera-less PDAs and recorded his videos old-school, with a camcorder!) He discovered his videos had a great conversion rate and cost far less than he was spending on Google Adwords. This transformed his business and eventually launched a whole new career into business video training and digital advertising. What are the benefits of performance-based pricing? Tom compared his business model to a trojan horse story. On the outside it appears his agency takes on all the risk and fronts all the costs. In reality, they've got a killer process for qualifying their leads, they're very picky with who they'll work with and they know how to crush it when it comes to fulfillment. Performance-based pricing is packaged with the notion that it must work, otherwise the agency wouldn't be doing it... This means the agency's inbound leads are "pre-sold" on the idea of working this way - there's very little convincing or converting. So exactly how do they get paid? At the onset of a new relationship, they have a frank discussion with about the breakeven CPA (cost per acquisition). They create a script, edit footage and run the ads in a 4-6 week test. Then analyze, tweak and repeat a second month. Tom's agency usually absorb the first month's costs, breaks even the second month and is profitable by the third month. Once the campaign is up and running successfully, they can "set it and forget it" - so there's a greater profit margin. About 4 out of every 5 clients are a win. And, when the client is seeing results they're happy to pay, even though this structure ends up costing more than a traditional agency's pricing model. Viewability's qualification process is so efficient and effective - they've never been stiffed on fees. Setting up success for agency performance-based pricing. Thinking of a performance-based pricing model for your agency? Here's some of Tom's very best advice for minimizing risk and maximizing revenue potential: Do not act as an agent, act as an affiliate. Rather than structuring client relationships like most service-based businesses, Viewability establishes a partner relationship where they work with their clients instead of for them. Know the formula for what makes a good client. Tom's agency has a super specific list of questions and criteria that determines who they'll work with - selecting quality over quantity. They take on fewer clients, but they have more time to spend with them. Work directly with the decision-maker. For Viewability, that's the business owner who can provide specific direction as well as maintains accountability for payment. Maintain realistic expectations. Goals need to be measurable and attainable. Ask and answer these questions first: Do they know their current cost per lead and what they'd like it to be? (If not, that's a major red flag.) Is it an evergreen offer that just needs more promotion? Has the funnel already been tested? How can you predict cash flow with a performance-based model? In a sense, the revenue from current clients funds the activity for future clients. However, within a couple months they're self-sustaining. It takes a shift in mindset. As a results-driven agency they're dedicated to only taking on clients with a greater lifetime value. The drawbacks, of course, are the upfront cost and the lack of predictability that retainer clients provide. However, as highly effective specialists in a narrow niche with a great profit margin the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. Turn your agency YouTube videos into lead generators. Tom says to look at the 4 P's to lower the cost per lead, maintain or increase the volume of leads and improve the quality of the leads, Here's a few simple hacks to make your existing video content lead generators: 1- Platform - learn where your leads hang out and put your video in front of them. He says you should connect on YouTube and convert on Google. 2- Person - connect with your organic traffic by linking your YouTub

Have you ever considered live streaming as part of your marketing strategy for your business? Not sure how to get started? In this episode, we'll cover: Why live streaming video is so HOT right now. How you can use live streaming video for generating new agency business. One new technology that will keep you ahead of current trends. Former agency owner Kim Garst is totally on top of the social media game. She's been named on a couple pretty prestigious lists, including Forbes' Top 50 Social Media Influencers and Top 20 Women Influencers. She's a serial entrepreneur who has spent the last two decades forging her way with online startups - including a digital agency. Kim's business, Boom Social began as an agency which has now morphed into a social media training resource for entrepreneurs. She's finding more success and satisfaction in helping entrepreneurs find and develop their social media voice. Here's what she shared about this year's hottest trend: live streaming video. What's the big deal with live streaming video? Live streaming video isn't new. What is new, is the accessibility and convenience of it. Apps like Meerkat and Periscope brought live stream to handheld devices and their popularity soared. This is the year for Live Streaming Video. Already this year, we've seen Facebook and YouTube jump onboard. As a society, we've spent the better part of a decade on social media. Status updates and Tweets are the norm. But as humans we crave more personal contact. When we consume in video form we find it more personal. When it's a live feed, it's more authentic, raw and real. If you're apprehensive about recording live video, you're not alone. It definitely exposes you and makes you more vulnerable. The upside is, you're not alone! How to use live streaming video for business: Remember people are craving that personal element that video provides? Use it to your advantage! Pick a platform and use it for things like - Recruiting Top Talent - if you've got a great company culture, spotlight it on video. Showcase the people and environment of your agency and let viewers get a glimpse. Client Retention - showcase who's doing what. This lets your clients see some of the "behind the scenes" work that goes on. Generate Leads - consider it a "video blog". You're already creating content that solves a problem or eases a pain point for your prospects. Turn on the video camera and talk through it instead of writing it. Create that know-like-trust factor a lot sooner by giving it a personal touch. If you're personable and providing valuable information you will convert faster using live streaming video. The effects of live streaming video moves much faster than blogging or tweeting. Kim says she's even converting some leads after just one touchpoint! Clients expect you to bring them emerging trends. You're an agency so you've got to be on top of the latest technologies. In our Future Outlook Report for 2016, we discovered the #1 thing brands want from agencies is new business building strategies and solutions. Even if you aren't using some of the latest social media technologies for your own business, your clients are expecting you to be skilled at using them. One new, cutting edge technology. One super NEW social app is Anchor. It's an audio app described as "radio by real people". Anchor is a free iPhone app that let's you broadcast short (2 mins or less) audio clips to global followers. Listeners can talk back which is something live streaming video doesn't allow. Kim and I agree that Anchor is the next BIG THING. Anchor encourages more engagement and satisfies our human craving for personal contact. She does say, however, that Anchor can become time consuming because it requires attention and constant follow-up to develop relationships. 2 creative ways to use live video and audio for business: Work smarter, not harder. Think of ways to stack your social media efforts. Get this -- Kim hosts live Q&A's on Anchor while broadcasting on TWO live streaming video platforms - Periscope and Facebook Live. Then she embeds the Anchor broadcasts into blog posts to repurpose and give it a longer life. Don't know about you, but my mind is officially blown. Start your own Q&A. You don't have to score a triple-pointer like Kim, but answering your client's biggest questions is the easiest and most effective ways to use these live video or radio apps. Find out what people want to know, let them ask and you answer. Establish authority and nurture the relationship into trust and eventual sales. Speaking of... ever heard of #AskSwenk? :) Kim's best advice: Jump over the fear hurdle and hit the "start broadcast" button! Take action NOW ...because ACTIONS lead to TRANSACTIONS! How Can I Help You? I hope you found this beneficial and it gave you an insight into using live streaming video for your business and marketing strategy. If you have more questions about how you can improve your agency, I can help. Whether you are an experienced

Are you reaping the benefits of monetizing agency content? If not, in my 6 step guide, I will show you how and elevate your business through monetizing agency content moving forward. In this episode we discuss: How to build a CONTENT EMPIRE that converts and retain clients. Two tips you need for successful content marketing. What you need to do with your content right now. How you can begin monetizing your agency content by following this simple, proven strategy. My guest on this episode is Joe Pulizzi. He has spent his entire career in the content world… He got his start in publishing in 2000 where he spent 7 years, until founding and growing Content Marketing Institute in 2007. Since establishing CMI he's been educating marketers on the use of content to build an audience that knows, likes and trusts their brand and how to turn that audience into customers. Here's the one thing you need to make sure you're doing with your content marketing. Take a look at your content and determine how it's different than everyone else's. Ask yourself: What is different about my story? How am I causing a disruption against the other content that is out there? Joe calls this differentiation your content tilt (more on that in a minute). In his book, Content Inc., Joe interviewed several different entrepreneurs and startup founders to uncover their process for building a successful content marketing strategy. What he discovered was a pattern in each business' success story. He realized every successful content marketing strategy followed the same 6 step process. Joe breaks down that process so other marketers can learn from it and replicate it. Monetizing Agency Content: My 6 Step Guide The 6 step process for building your Content Empire: The key is to initially set aside your products/services and make your content useful, reliable and dependable to build an audience. Then, after establishing trust and authority, you can cash in on your content investment through monetizing agency content moving forward. Step 1 - Find the Sweet Spot The sweet spot is the point where your knowledge and skill set intersect with your passion. For me, that's my knowledge and skill set in owning a digital agency coupled with my passion for helping other agency owners reach their goals. Step 2 - Determine your Content Tilt Your content tilt is what separates you from everyone else in your market area. It's your unique perspective on your content niche. Without content tilt you risk blending into the rest of the noise and being forgotten. Step 3 - Build the Base It takes time to build your base audience. And it requires a commitment to a specific content type via one main platform at a consistent day/time for a long term period of time. Own one type of media, delivered on one channel at a specific and predictable time. Joe says there is no perfect time or frequency - the best interval is just a consistent one, whether that's daily, weekly, or whatever your resources allow. Step 4 - Harvest the Audience Don't sew the seeds without harvesting the fruits of your labor! Building the base audience is great, but Joe tells us that most visitors will only come to your site once. need to capture their subscriber information to keep reaching them. Include a call to action in everything you do and seize every opportunity to have them opt-in to your content. Step 5 - Diversification The diversification step comes in when you've mastered one type of media on one platform. Joe says the best way to measure this is by having a predetermined goal for the number of subscribers you want (back in step 3). When you reach that goal, set a new goal and begin a new form of reaching another type of audience by diversifying your content vehicle and platform. He says you should become a media octopus by wrapping many arms around your audience in many different ways. Step 6 - Monetization Up until this point, the objective of your content marketing has been to generate interest and be sought out for knowledge and expertise. In the monetization step, you're trying to achieve 1 of 2 objectives: convert leads into new opportunities or retain existing customers by upselling or cross-selling. To achieve this you must identify how a subscriber behaves differently than an audience member. Here are Joe's 2 best tips to being successful with content marketing: The real goal is to produce the minimal amount of content with the maximum amount of impact. Focus on owning one type of media and one platform. Whether it's text, audio or visual - pick just one and be really great at it. Also, select one platform for distributing your content (iTunes, blog, YouTube, etc.) and own it. Consider yourself like a media company building a loyal audience over time. It's not easy and requires patience but it's the key to success in your content marketing efforts. Be consistent so your audience knows how, where and when to find your new content. By having a predictable schedule you are setting up an a

The Future Agency Outlook We have compiled a FREE AGENCY RESOURCE on the FUTURE AGENCY OUTLOOK of DIGITAL AGENCIES in 2016 and would like to share these great insights with you. This is data that we compiled from over 10,000 agencies, and we are going to share with you so you can navigate this new landscape and plan your new year with clarity and direction. Here's what you are going to discover: Why Brands Pick Agencies and What Brands Expect from Them How to Increase Opportunities for Agency Growth How to Increase Agency Margins and Better Scoping How to Increase Client Retention for Agencies If Agencies Should Develop a New Product and Why What Technologies Agencies Are Using Heading into 2016 What is an Agency's Lifetime Value of a Client and Why It's Important

Want some tax-saving tips for your agency that will help you save money and avoid an audit being carried out on your digital agency? In this episode, we discuss: How to protect your business, financially and legally. Ways to lower your taxes and other tax-saving tips. The IRS's big secret on audits. This is HUGE! Super-fun CPA and friend to U.S. agencies, Jason Blumer of Blumer CPA's chatted with me about several tax-saving tips along with a few words of caution, and one big IRS secret on this episode of The Smart Agency Master Class. Blumer founded and runs a virtual CPA firm with a team of 8 around the country who are specifically geared toward accounting for design, web and marketing agencies. (See? He's niching his firm and you should be, too. But that's another topic for another day :)) Keep in mind the advice here is just general. Your specific situation and questions about your agency should be discussed in detail with your own CPA. What type of business classification is best for your agency? Best advice: protect yourself and be something other than simply "self-employed." A sole proprietor should set up a limited liability corporation (LLC). This designation provides legal protection and operational flexibility, however there are no tax benefits. An LLC pays twice the self-employment tax since regular employees have the benefit of the self-employment tax being matched by their employer. An S Corp can save you a lot in terms of tax dollars, however, the hoops to jump can be pain. You must have a system for payroll and deductions, including paying yourself a salary. That means paying payroll taxes, too. Therefore, what you save in taxes can be swallowed up quickly by paying out professional fees to a payroll service. Keep in mind, that an LLC can transition into an S Corp as they grow. Blumer says he advises his clients netting $80-90k+ to go the S Corp route. Tax Saving Tips: What's the best way to lower my taxes? This is always a hard one. If you make money, you're going to pay taxes. The best tax-saving tip and way to lower taxes is to spend money reinvesting in your business which ultimately lowers your net profit, meaning less taxable income. Retail or manufacturing businesses have it a little easier. They can buy equipment to invest back into their business. Service-based businesses are a little difficult to advise in this area. And agencies? We're the worst. All we sell are our ideas. Blumer says your best bet is investing cash in a retirement plan for yourself. Depending on the type of plan you set up you'll benefit your taxes and your team. Other ways to save include training/educating your team. Small businesses like to lower their tax burden with these 2 tactics: You might think you are saving a ton on taxes if you're doing one or both of these things. That's only true if you're doing them right. Here's the real deal on the best tax-saving options... 1.Being a virtual agency Technically, if you have a team that's spread out around the country you should be paying taxes in every state where you've got people. There are states with no state tax such as Florida, Texas, and Washington. There are also states that make it a major pain in the ass to be self-employed, like California, New York, and Pennsylvania. Tax laws vary by state, so be sure to check things out for the state(s) your in. And, if you're not sure if you've got all your bases covered, talk to your account about it. Blumer CPA's offers an Exposure Tax Analysis. This is a discovery of your tax liability to see if you're compliant and in what areas you might be exposed. If your tax firm doesn't offer something similar, I know a guy… :) 2. Having all (or mostly all) freelancers If you're doing it correctly this is a good way to avoid paying employer taxes. But your freelancers have to actually play the part of a freelancer. The term "freelancer" or "contractor," in regard to taxes, is determined by the IRS. To be legit, your freelancers must be able to answer "yes" to all of these questions: Is there actually a contract in place? Do they invoice you for their time? Are they using their own equipment (computer, phone)? Are they available to work for others? This tax saving tip is simple. If they don't look like a contractor on paper, you need to have payroll systems in place and pay taxes on them. Want to know the IRS's biggest secret on audits? They don't really want us to know, but the IRS is in real trouble. They don't have the ability to enforce things like they once did.... A possible impeachment of the Commissioner coupled with losing budget dollars means they don't have the leverage to effectively audit. It's somewhat of a vicious cycle -- they're losing tax dollars because they can't run audits, and they can't run audits because they can afford to. So, that's kinda good for us. But, they DO still audit and audit selections are done totally at random. The good news: less than ⅓ of 1% of businesses get audited. In fact, with 20

What is the Secret to Rapid Agency Scaling? If a goal for your business is to achieve rapid agency scaling, in this episode I talk with Paul Higgins and discuss what you can do to achieve rapid agency scaling as well as what not to do to make sure you don't fall into any agency scaling pitfalls. In this episode we discuss: 5 levels you'll reach when scaling your agency How to know what level your agency is at and where it's going next 3 ways to avoid growth and scaling pitfalls As a business growth expert, Paul Higgins knows a thing or two about entrepreneurship and scaling businesses. After all, he spent nearly two decades on the client side, climbing up the executive ladder with Coca-Cola before founding an agency that serves as a partnership resource to small businesses. He's also a Director and Empire Builder at Bollo Empire, which helps agencies scale. In this interview we talk about best practices for rapidly scaling your agency. There are 5 steps to climb on the stairway to success. Which step are you on? Which step is next? How are you going to climb from one step to the next? Here are the 5 Levels of Scaling Your Agency Startup This is like the honeymoon phase of agency ownership. You're in love with everything about being in business for yourself. You are fired up and ready to make your mark on the industry. Rapid Growth In this stage, things are really heating up. You've got lots of client and are adding team members. Your agency is really taking off! You're hustling hard and you're satisfied with your growth. The Grind This is just what is sounds like. You feel stuck working in your business instead of on it. You're bogged down by administrative duties, putting out fires and handling client issues. It's easy to feel like you're being buried by The Grind. Freedom This is where you're acting as more of a stakeholder than an agency employee. You're working on business development and strategies for future direction. The day-to-day business can run without you… as it should! Cashout This phase is your exit strategy. It's your ability to walk away with cash to retire or start something new. The timing is up to you. (You can plan it out, or it could sneak up on you like it did for me after I ran my agency for 12 years.) Status quo will not help you grow. As an entrepreneur, it's easy to get bogged down by running the business and never take the time to do what's required to grow your business. Your inbox is too full, existing clients need you, your team needs you… There are a million reasons but the biggest one is probably that you just don't have enough time. However, if you're too busy that's an indication that you are either: not charging enough, or you need to hire someone so you can re-focus your attention. (Or, maybe the problem is BOTH?!) 3 Ways to Avoid the Pitfalls that Prevent You From Scaling Don't get stuck in The Grind or worse.... slip backward from Freedom into The Grind! Escape being stuck in a rut by making these 3 things a priority: Stay on top of industry changes, trends, and innovation. Your clients expect you to be on top of emerging trends - so walk the walk. Don't be afraid of change, embrace it![ Spend time with agency leadership peers or a coach. These people see things from an objective point of view and have relevant experience that you can learn from Use platforms and technology that are efficient for running and scaling your business. Make sure that the systems you're using are current and most effective. Remember to always work on your business, even in the early stages when you are working in it, too. These 3 strategies will keep you relevant in the industry and help you climb the agency-scaling staircase to the Freedom you deserve. Tip from the Agency Trenches What's the best advice for rapid agency growth? Paul has a two-part answer for rapid growth: People and Platform. He says it's super important to keep your people happy and use the right systems. That means making sure your team is not overloaded all the time and maintaining a pleasant culture/ environment. As for systems, Paul uses and recommends Podio, a CRM software that evolves with the needs of your business as it grows and changes. He says that it scales as you scale, so you aren't paying for lots of software bells and whistles that you aren't using, but they're available to add on when you're ready to use them. Are you ready to work with peers to help you with your rapid agency scaling? I have led a lot of successful Agency Mastermind groups over the past couple of years. There are a few more spots to fill in the upcoming group. We meet every two weeks so it's not a huge time commitment yet the benefits are immeasurable. You can read more details here and if you're interested there is a brief application process. You'll fill out a quick form and then I'll let you know if the group is a good fit for you. Building Your Digital Agency There is no rule fits all to rapid agency scaling but the best thing you can

Are you looking for advice on improving your agency's growth strategy? Are the systems you have in place just not working for you and feeling like you've hit a plateau in your business growth? Why Buying or Selling A Digital Agency is EASIER Than You Think. In this episode we cover: Why buying an agency isn't as expensive or as hard as you'd think. How rolling-in another agency can be a killer agency growth strategy. 5 ways to improve your digital agency's valuation to be acquired. What to look at if you're looking to acquire another agency. Today's guest, Eric Keiles was doing inbound before inbound was even a thing. Eric and his partner founded Square 2 Marketing in 2003 with the intention of helping brands revamp their old-school marketing to the way people are buying in the new millennium. In 2009, they partnered with Hubspot and took their business to a new level. I met Eric at Hubspot's 2015 Inbound Conference and quickly learned he is pretty serious about making a plan and sticking to it. He has one major B.H.A.G. (big, hairy, audacious goal) and that is for Square 2 to be the #1 inbound agency. They've been growing organically for a few years at 30%+ but that just wasn't aggressive enough... so they accelerated it with a layer of acquisitions. Actually, 3 acquisitions in just 18 months with 2 more in the pipeline. Why would you BUY another Marketing agency… or several? Eric says there are two reasons this is Square 2's agency growth strategy. They're looking to either acquire an agency with a specialization they don't have (like social media or an agency that works on a different platform) or to acquire another inbound agency in order to benefit from economies of scale. Size doesn't matter - 4 people or 20 - stability and profitability are key. It doesn't take a huge pile of cash to acquire another agency. Eric says it really doesn't. There is, of course, an initial layout of cash on the front end of the deal but his team feels pretty strongly about keeping the existing leadership in place and structuring an attainable earn-out for them. They've found this situation to be a win-win. Square 2 sees the growth and profitability they're seeking while the agency leader of the acquired firm eliminates the stresses of ownership and gets to focus on an area of the business they're passionate about while hitting earn-out goals. Use these to improve your agency valuation and as a guideline for vetting one you're looking to acquire. 1. Systems & Processes that Prevent Bottlenecking A great target for a potential merger is an agency that has great systems and processes in place. Everything cannot revolve around the owner. Eric says it's a major deal breaker if you're the only "go-to" person. It's important to have established systems and processes in place so the business can run without you. I say, "systems outperform talent every time." 2. Long Term Client Relationships When someone is looking at buying you, they are looking at what kind of profit they can generate in the near future. As Eric and his team are looking at agencies to acquire, they're looking at ones that have retainer clients or long-term (12-18 month) project, clients. Shorter-term projects or one-and-done clients don't make a viable agency. A mix of both is OK too, but they find that agencies that are 100% project-based are not viable. A buyer a well-established business with predictable revenue. 3. Common Personalities and Culture It's more than just buying a business, it's marrying two entities: meshing teams, workflow, ideas… so it's important the owners have the same core beliefs and the culture of the offices will gel. There's success where there's synergy. The guys at Square 2 Marketing look for like-minded individuals to go into business with, so before going too far into a merger they like to hang out together. 4. Healthy Margins Without Underpricing or Over Servicing You can have amazing clients and top talent on your team, but if you don't have positive profit margins then you're too risky to merge with. A lot of agencies want so badly to keep their clients happy they will over service without tracking the time. Or, they just want to win the deal so badly, they will undercharge. Sounds like a no-brainer, but agency profit margins aren't usually calculated accurately. Time tracking and scoping are huge. Eric says when he's looking at an agency to buy he not only looks at an hourly rate but also excessive rounds of revisions and out-of-scope requests. An agency with healthy (and accurately accounted) margins has a much higher value than one that only thinks they do. 5. A Variety of Different Sized Accounts It's like the old adage goes, "don't have all your eggs in one basket." The same is true for agency clients. It's not good to have just 1 key account. Eric says he categorizes clients in 3 ways: Acorns (have the ability to grow), Cornerstone (solid, long term), and Shit Box (tons of work, low profit, pain in the ass). He places a hi

Are you growing your digital agency the best way or are you facing hurdles you need to overcome and don't know the best techniques to overcome them? In this episode we cover: The most common challenge a new digital agency faces, and what to do about it. 4 traits you might have that are standing in your own way of growing your digital agency. How to find the clarity you need to grow and scale your marketing agency. Today's guest, Gray MacKenzie, and his partner started their Inbound Agency out of their college dorm room five years ago. As Seniors on the Grove City College Lacrosse team, they created a website and social campaign for the team. Their marketing efforts off the field coincided with on-field success and they realized the skills they had used for on something "just for fun" had the potential for much more. And thus, GuavaBox was born. In their first year, Gray says they weren't really all in and had a shot gun approach to the business. One big challenge they ran into as young entrepreneurs, fresh out of college was their lack of experience. It seemed clients trusted them for their technical skills but not for consulting and business building strategy. They were doing a lot of tactical work but not much more... This was covered in last week's podcast about the 5 levels of agency service. Check it out here. They spent those first years doing a lot of hands-on work while trying to build a reputation and educating clients about strategy. Gray says it was this learning curve that made them realize that in order to build a sustaining business for themselves with positive cash flow, they needed 2 things: bigger clients and retainers. But those two things don't come without some obstacles along the way... "There are 4 BIG things causing the challenges most agencies face" Gray knows first hand the many challenges a startup Inbound Agency faces because he's faced them ALL. Over the years he's discovered there are 4 underlying reasons why most startup agency owners stand in their own way of growing and scaling. 4 Traits Standing in the Way of Growing Your Digital Agency: 1. Lack of Confidence - If you aren't convinced in the potential for your ideas to succeed, how can you sell them to your prospects and clients? Be your own best case study. Self-test before you roll out a strategy and document the success so you can use the data as evidence. 2. Lack of Focus - When you aren't clear about exactly what your agency's specialty is (and what it isn't) it's easy to lose focus. Many of us want to be everything to everyone (or most things to most people). But learning to say "no" to one thing opens you up to being able to say "yes" to something else. Choose to focus on one type of client, one industry, one core service and do really, really well at it. Know who you won't work with and what you won't do. Then, stick to it. 3. Lack of Balance - It's easy to think that working harder will make you more money, but it's not a long-term fix. Working tons of hours doesn't make you successful and it doesn't help you build a solid foundation for yourself or your team. Putting in tons of hours can't last forever - everyone needs a work/life balance. 4. Lack of Efficiency - We tend to gravitate towards tasks that are easy rather than those that are more challenging. Often times it's the difficult or time-consuming tasks that have the most impact on growing your business. Be aware of how you're spending your time and be honest with yourself as whether what you're doing is the most efficient and effective way to spend it. If you need some pointers to get you on the right track, check out my post about Productivity and download my Productivity Funnel. You'll be amazed at the clarity you discover when you identify and work through these weaknesses. In fact, it was a moment of clarity that brought the guys at GuavaBox to the decision to develop project management software for Inbound Agencies. Two years ago, they realized their agency was really struggling with a process for managing deliverables. After trying every sort of technology out there, they developed DoInbound, which is software for Inbound Agencies to track and manage inbound marketing campaigns. Growing Your Digital Agency Growing your digital agency is no easy process but I hope this helps and gives you the tips you need. However, if not I am here to help. I have more than likely experienced all if not most of the different struggles an agency owner experiences through my own experience and I can help you from what I learned. I have covered many topics from what to do with your sales processes to improve them, how you can increase your agency profit margins or how you can build authority for your agency. I have the best ways for your business to stop losing money on projects, how performance-based pricing models can be the best strategy for your agency and why including remote teams or freelancers in your team can be beneficial in the long run. Learn more about my car

There are different levels of digital agency services that can support your business in staying competitive with others in the industry. The real question is do you know what they are? In this episode we'll cover: How you can prevent your agency from being viewed as a commodity. How you can charge more for your digital agency services & why clients will pay for it. What you need to do to increase the lifetime value of a client. Do consultancies have an advantage over digital agencies? [smart_track_player url="http://traffic.libsyn.com/jasonswenk/Do_you_want_to_know_the_5_different_categories_of_agency_services_.mp3"] With over 30 years experience in the agency world - many of them owning and running his own agencies - my guest Jamie Turner brings us some serious black box knowledge. Spoiler alert: remember that phrase, it'll be important later:) Jamie has worked for agency giants in New York and Atlanta and today is the Founder and CEO of 60SecondMarketer.com and 60 Second Communications. He's an author and international speaker specializing in social media and mobile marketing. I read a couple recent blog posts of Jamie's where he explained how you can save your agency from being left in the dust. I loved reading this post so much I that I knew I needed to get Jamie on my podcast so he could share his wisdom with you, too. Jamie says he was like the typical agency owner, with a ton of ideas but a short attention span to see them through. He was always chasing the new bright, shiny object. However, once he learned to focus it enabled growth and expertise. And he says, "the more expert you are at something, the more you can charge." Isn't that the ultimate goal? We can all agree that there is no shortage of agencies that do what we do. Even consulting companies are beginning to offer competitive services. So, how can your agency survive and thrive in this climate? First and foremost you need to understand the 5 categories that agencies fall into so you can identify where you are and where you need to go in order to stay competitive while also growing and scaling your business. Do you want to know the 5 different levels of digital agency services? The goal of agencies is to work up the chain of these 5 categories of their digital agency services for more staying power and a greater client lifetime value. 1. Hands Work Most small- and mid-sized agencies fall into this category and stay here. They win new business by pitching tactical work. They create assets like websites, logos, etc. and sell that type of work. Problem is, this work is one-off project work that typically doesn't lead to much more. Over the course of a client relationship these opportunities tend to decrease. The client views you as an easily replaceable commodity. Clients can bring jobs in-house or find another agency that can do things "faster or cheaper". It's OK to reel in new business this way but you should spend less than 6 months in the Hands Work phase. Show them you can do more that churn out work by moving into the next category. 2. Central Hub You can start to get in the driver's seat by being the Central Hub. Most clients have multiple agencies to meet their needs: digital, media, creative, direct, etc. When your agency acts as the Central Hub and the other agencies act as the spokes, it positions you at the center of the workflow. Jamie's agency puts themselves in this spot by creating and maintaining the status reports, managing the status calls, etc. In the Central Hub role you can build trust with the client, but you are really only viewed as an extension of the team. To be highly valued by clients and charge more for your services you need to be considered an advisor, not an order-taker. That is why the next category is so important. 3. Lightbulb When you have bright ideas and can provide original campaigns and business building solutions your clients will see more value in your work. In a recent survey we conducted, we asked brands why they started working with an agency. The #1 answer was that they were looking for guidance/advice on emerging trends and the insights on what to do next. An agency that can bring original ideas to the table will establish authority. Clients are more apt to listen and give your ideas a try when you're already acting as the Lightbulb. What's even better is that they will be willing to pay more for them. 4. Wisdom & Experience In this position, the client recognizes your agency as an authority in their industry. You share case studies and data to back up your ideas. You understand your client's needs and challenges as well as those of your client's clients. You are able to identify and help them avoid potential landmines. You see the big picture. Click here for my interview with Del Ross, Director of Sales and Marketing for Intercontinental Hotels Group. Del says the best way for someone to score a meeting with him is to "have a point of view and back it up with data and research." When your big

In this episode we'll discuss: Why you should fire yourself, and when 2 challenges most agencies face early on & how to overcome them 1 super smart tip about knowing your clients' clients Take it from a guy who has started and grown multiple multi-million dollar businesses, you must "give your job away at least once per year." That's exactly what my guest, J Cornelius, has been doing for much of his 20 years in digital space. From his startup software company to his startup agency, J shares with us philosophies and strategies that will help you scale and grow your business. A serial entrepreneur, J started his first business in 1996 when he founded and grew an international web design software company. When his entrepreneurial spirit got the 13 year itch, he began web-design consulting on the side. He eventually founded Nine Labs, a user experience and brand strategy agency, in 2012. Within those first couple years, he was partnering often with Brad Weaver at Suckerpunch Studios. The two realized they possessed complementary skills and were the missing piece to one another's agencies. They merged in 2014 and today have 11 employees. [clickToTweet tweet="What makes a successful merger or partnership?" quote="What makes a successful merger or partnership?"] It depends on the relationship between the partners, but #1 is TRUST. You have to belief that both partners have the same vision, goals and growth mindset. You also have to take the time to talk about all the worst case scenarios and write those into an Operating Agreement - this covers everything from injury or death, to buyouts or selling the agency. It's your insurance policy and a way to create a backup plan so the organization can survive without one of you. Fire Yourself! J says the best way to move your business forward is to concentrate on the large impact items that will allow your business to grow. Figure out which low impact items are holding you back, fire yourself from doing those things and delegate them to someone else. Quoting Jim Collins, J says "get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats." (From Jim Collins' "Good to Great".) [clickToTweet tweet="2 challenges agencies face early on" quote="2 challenges agencies face early on"] 1. Not knowing who you are: J says you have to find your identity and be able to tell a clear and compelling story about it. Promote who you are, what you do and why you're the best at it. He says the best way to get past this challenge is by having a narrowly focus specialization. Go after a very specific target right away. 2. Associating size with success: A lot of agency owners think they need to model the behavior of bigger agencies so they can grow and secure bigger clients. Not true! Often times it's the smaller clients that are easier to land, easier to work with and have the budgets. Also, more employees usually means more problems, which changes the leader's focus. J is always careful about who and how he hires, using a skill matrix to determine which skills sets are in-house and which might be missing. He says today, more than ever before, you can scale a business without necessarily having more people - and that's a good thing! Think about it… Would you rather have a $20 million business with 10 employees or a $10 million business with 20 employees? Best advice for a young agency Study businesses adjacent to those of your clients. After you figure out who your ideal client is, learn about their ideal client. You have to fully understand your client's business, who they serve and what their client's expect. When you understand how to help your clients' clients you are innately helping your client as well. If you love all J's advice you can connect with him or read more on his blog here. What's Next? Growing the best agency requires you to, well fire yourself if it's the right decision but also take a step back and look at the bigger picture of your agency for what you need to do next. From my own experiences, I can provide advice on many topics from how you can increase your agency profit margins to how you can build authority for your agency. That's not all, I have the best ways for your business to stop losing money on projects, how performance based pricing models can be the best strategy for your agency and why including remote teams or freelancers in your team can be beneficial in the long run. Learn more about my career as well as tips, tricks and insights by checking out my blogs that cover a wide variety of topics. Find more from me like advice from other successful agency experts in my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my YouTube channel.