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

Leverage Media Opportunities to Achieve Agency Business Growth Looking to use new media opportunities to build momentum for your digital agency and gain new agency business growth? In this episode we cover: How to create a media pitch that scores an interview Ways to prepare for the interview, and how to knock it out of the park When and how to promote your media opportunity to promote agency business growth A feature in the media can be a killer lead generator! My guest, Dana Barrett has got a ton of tips for us on getting media attention - and she should know! Dana hosts a daily business talk show on Atlanta 1190AM radio and is a panelist on Tech Edge, a local TV show. She typically interviews 1-2 companies across different sectors every single day! In this episode of The Smart Agency Master Class she talks with me about how a small business can get media attention, what to do once you score an interview and how to keep the momentum going when it's over. Make a Pitch Reach out with a simple and direct email pitch. Be clear on what you do, why it's different and who you serve. You must capture the reader's attention in the first 2-3 sentences! Also, show you've done your homework by stating why you are a good fit with this audience of listeners, viewers or readers. Don't throw in a bunch of stats, figures, or "hoopla", as Dana calls it. The subject line should be equally as direct, like "Possible Show Guest". Prepare for the Interview Know your stuff and be ready to talk about it freely. Dana's pet peeve: being given a list of topics or questions to avoid. Instead, she says, learn how to address those things even if you have to put on a politician hat and just say during the interview, "I'm not willing to discuss that today." Local media want to help you tell your story, so give them the talking points you do want to address. Dana also says you must able to speak about your business in an unrehearsed way. Be confident and genuine. Radio interviews are probably easier than TV interviews because there are less people watching you during the interview but regardless of who's in the room remember you are there to build relationships both the audience and the interviewer. People want to know who you are, what you stand for, and why you are special. If they can get behind you for those things, then sales will result from it. Lastly, don't be boring! Interacting with the media gives your brand a personality that will either resonate with the audience or... it won't. But, no pressure! :) Promote the Heck Out of It to Generate Agency Business Growth Before, during and after…. post it, tweet it and promote it. Whatever your social media platforms, give a it's imperative to make sure your social followers know about it prior to the interview, the day of, the hour before and for weeks afterwards. Today, everything lives digitally for all of eternity - use that to your benefit! Also, treat your interviewer as you would any other networking contact. It's not "one and done"... you can continue to help each other out. Remember, they're getting something out of this, too. You are providing them with good content and delivering an audience. It's a win-win. Media exposure can be an awesome way to generate leads! And, if you want to learn even more ways to generate leads check out my Generate Leads Everyday program with invaluable tactics and strategies you can implement for immediate results. My clients are generating 25-50+ leads every day using this program. 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's Next for your Agency? Through leveraging media opportunities, you could see a large increase in agency business growth but this could be detrimental to your business if you aren't prepared to handle it. To create the best business possible, you need to look at your agency in the bigger picture to find your strong areas as well as weak spots 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. Through my experience running my own digital agency and helping other digital agency owners, there are many topics I can offer guidance on whether you are an established agency facing struggles to new agencies unsure of what the different phases of growth you will experience will look like. Growing your agency team can also 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 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. Check out more from my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on m

How Can I Handle Training New Employees and Set Up Success? Do you want new employees to be successful from day one? Training new employees effectively and providing proper onboarding are the keys to success from their first day on your team! 4 Things You Can Do To Get New Employees Ready Before Their First Day Day #1 on any job is overwhelming for everyone. It's information overload! But by tackling these four things prior to their first day, you can set up your new employees for success. 1. Share your company vision and goals with them right off the bat. With a clear understanding of where the path leads, your employees can help pave it. 2. Write down the 30, 60 and 90-day goals you have for them and ask them to do the same. This manages hopes and expectations for both parties. 3. Ask "What do you need from me in order to be successful?" and then provide the tools and information they've requested. 4. Create screencasts or videos of some routine tasks, procedures or processes. Not only can this be used for reference by this new employee but it they move up or on, you'll have it for future employees. * Have all these items prepared and ready to go PRIOR to a new employee's first day on the job.* We don't always hire the perfect employees but when expectations are clearly communicated and tools are in place there is a greater chance for success. How can you help your new employees be successful? Whether you're hiring right now or not, what processes can you record and archive? Don't wait until you need it - start now! Related: https://jasonswenk.com/training-process More From Jason Swenk We've discussed why training new employees is essential for success from day one of joining your team 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? 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 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 me and other agency experts.

Today's guest, Jake Hare, has tons to share about overcoming struggles in the first year of agency ownership. He got his start developing apps while serving as Lead Intelligence Analyst in the military. Today he is co-founder of Launchpeer, a digital agency serving startups and entrepreneurs in the South. Learn how he generated niche leads for his agency. Why Start an Agency? After spending 3 ½ years in 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Jake went on to do government contract work in software development. Once he realized he wasn't passionate about his work, he started taking on side jobs developing apps. In late 2014 he and his two partners decided it was time to go all in, so they founded Launchpeer. As a husband, father and part-time grad school student this was a giant leap of faith! Struggles in Early Agency Days For Jake and his partners the hardest part of maintaining the agency this first year has been generating leads outside of their personal contacts. After working with friends (who naturally expected special pricing) The 3 co-founders brainstormed ways to drum up new business outside their circle. They tried to white label their services for larger agencies which didn't work out because other agencies weren't receptive to the idea. (They had not read my take on white labeling!) They tried networking events, which did bring in some business but takes tons of time and yields little results. They also got some referral business but word of mouth is not a scalable way to grow business. Finding Ways to Capture and Convert Niche Leads When they got to a point where they had no new jobs and no new niche leads, Jake did some online searching and discovered my Generate Leads Everyday program. They bought the program and made the decision to niche and focus on marketing to just one type of business -- startups and entrepreneurs in the South. Jake admits it was super scary but the guys were forced to either take action or look at shutting down. How a 0.3% Opt-In Rate Grew to 32% in 6 Weeks With a 0.3% opt-in rate, Launchpeer had nowhere to go but up. Jake and his partners got themselves out of the mindset that their website was a showpiece. They scrapped their entire site and changed the content to focus on the prospect and not themselves. They created landing pages focused on the lead and how Launchpeer can solve their problems. They created a Foot In the Door offer to drive traffic to their landing pages and marketed on Facebook. Jake says there was a lot of testing and tweaking involved in getting everything just right. In fact, he laughs about one of the biggest tweaks that happened when he was investigating why their Facebook ad click-through rate was lower than expected. He realized he had chosen to advertise to "southern-based entrepreneurs who speak English-UK". One silly slip-up and he was aiming his ads at Brits in the U.S. South! :) Trial and error plays a big role in getting results, too. They did split testing on their Foot In the Door landing pages and discovered a simpler ad converts more than a wordier one... This analysis and experimenting is what resulted in Launchpeer's 0.3% opt-in rate to reach 10% and eventually to 32%+ over a 6-week period. On interview date, Launchpeer was spending $20 per day and getting 6-10 leads per day. The exponential growth and potential opportunity far exceed their daily cost! Best Advice from a New Agency Owner "Don't be afraid to take action. I know it can be scary," says Jake. But, if what you're doing isn't working then the best thing you can do is something else. And as I always say, action leads to transactions. Being a business owner is tough and scary, no matter who you are… but doing nothing and closing your doors will be tougher and scarier. Ready to Take Action? Referrals are not scalable. So, if you are ready to take action that will lead to more leads every day, head over to GenerateLeadsEverday.com. This is the exact system I use, Jake uses and my clients use to grow and scale their businesses. Want More Advice? I hope you found this beneficial and it helps you generate niche leads for your agency. If you have more questions about your agency from the good to the bad like how you can get through hard times in your agency, I can help. Through my many years of experience, I can share advice on topics including how to start an agency from scratch to reasons you should sell. 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 answered your questions in more from my Ask Swenk series. Are videos more your thing? You can check out my AskSwenk series and more of my videos on my YouTube channel for advice from myself and other agency experts.

How Do You Scale Facebook Ads Once You Have Some Success? There are different ways to improve your Facebook marketing to increase your audience reach and brand awareness. Some agency owners aren't aware of the correct way to scale Facebook ads to reach these potential leads and are ultimately damaging their marketing efforts. I explain how you can scale Facebook ads for your agency once you have started to gain some success. There are 3 types of scaling you can do to increase your reach of your Facebook marketing. Most people are scaling their ads the wrong way which will hurt their results. Discover the right way to scale your ads. Tier 1 Scaling Duplicate the ad set and trying increasing the budget on the duplicate ad set. Don't just increase the budget of the ad set that is working. I determine what I should budget per ad set by how big the audience is. Audience usually support about $10/day per 10,000 in the audience. Tier 2 Scaling Upload your subscribers as custom audiences, then create look alike audiences (Test with winning ads) Upload your buyers as custom audiences, then create look alike audiences. (Test with winning ads.) Create look alike audiences from conversion pixels (Do not create until you have 1000 conversions) Install a retargeting pixel on all pages including your funnel, then create a look alike based on the retargeting pixel. (Do not create until you have 1000 conversions.) Repeat the process with different countries. Tier 3 Scaling Take your winning campaign that is a Website conversion goal, and create a Website click campaign to the look a like audiences Do the same thing to the other types of campaigns, and test. Want to go deeper into Facebook marketing, as well as lead generation? You need to check out the 5 systems I use for generating over 25+ leads a day. http://generateleadseveryday.com Take Your Agency to the Next Level I have shared with you how to scale your Facebook ads and reach potential leads you need to take it to the next level but this may not be the only struggles you need to focus on. 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.

In this episode learn the 12 things you can do to make your live stream more interactive, which is the next big thing in social media marketing.

If you are struggling to convert your leads into client opportunities, you might not understand your traffic and this is where you lose them. I am going to show you how to avoid losing these essential client opportunities. Understanding your traffic and how to convert more leads into opportunities I get questions all the time about how to drive more traffic to an agency website. I've developed a great program for generating leads but first I think it's important to really understand the three types of traffic and how to talk to them in order to convert them from being just traffic to being an opportunity. Here are the 3 types of site traffic and what you need to know about each. Traffic You Own - this traffic has opted in and asked for you to market to them. You have contact information such as email address, and phone number, and they belong to your list. Traffic You Control - this is the traffic you are steering toward your website or landing page using AdWords, PPC, Facebook ads, etc. You are in control of how they found you and what they know about you. Traffic You Don't Control - things like search engines and PR drive this type of traffic to your site but you don't have any control of it. Once you understand where your traffic is and isn't coming from, you can categorize them as cold, warm and hot leads, then determine how to talk to them. Cold Traffic Cold traffic has little to no idea who you are or what you have to offer. The best way to educate them further is to identify a problem they have and direct them to a landing page for solving it. Using this question and payoff as your lead magnet is a great way to turn cold traffic into traffic you control. (My JasonSwenk.com example: "Are you constantly relying on word of mouth and referrals to generate leads?") Warm Traffic Warm traffic has heard of you and is somewhat familiar with who you are and what you do. You can convert warm traffic to Traffic You Control by leading with a question about an outcome they desire. (My JasonSwenk.com example: "Do you want to grow your agency to 7 or 8 figures?") Hot Traffic Hot traffic knows who you are, understands what you do, and how you can help solve their problem or deliver something they desire. You can lead off with your sales proposition because they already know, like, and trust you. Using this information you should now be able to gauge the temperature of your different types of traffic and where they're coming from, then move forward with speaking to them in a way that increases conversions. You can read more about how I generate leads, including the 5 systems I use (for free) by heading over to Generateleadseveryday.com. And, if you like this advice you can watch my live broadcasts on Periscope or subscribe to my YouTube channel where I post regular videos to help you learn to grow and scale your business. Discover the best Digital Agency Strategies today. Get Online Training to help you set up the right systems and strategies to help you grow faster. What Does Your Agency Do With More Client Opportunities? With more client opportunities, this means you could be bringing in bigger clients which will bring your agency to the next level in growth and authority. However, if you don't have all your other struggles smoothed out, it will be a disaster. So now is the chance to fix it. By looking at the bigger picture of your agency, you can focus on 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 a bank of advice to share with you from my own experiences. This can be how to increase conversions on your website, ways to implement Facebook in your marketing strategy, why building authority to improve your agency is important, and 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 the three questions you need to ask yourself to sell your services to more customers. You can learn more about my career and experiences as well as lots of tips, tricks, and insights by reading 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 me and other agency experts.

How to Become the Best Presenter Today I was thinking about how to sell ideas effectively. A person can have the best idea in the world, but if that person cannot convince enough people, it doesn't matter. But what if they could be the best presenter of their ideas? One of the best presenters was Steve Jobs. What made him the best was he started with the BIG PICTURE rather than the details. When the iPhone came out, he started with the following: "Apple reinvents the phone." He could have started with: "We have developed the first smartphone by Apple that is easy to use, an iPod and a phone. The big pictures get us drawn in and interested to here more. People crave meaning before details. In every presentation Steve did, he was able to inform, educate and entertain us. He knew the problems he wanted to solve and the benefits of the solutions he provided. Most importantly he connected with his customers by explaining to them why they should care. One of the other great things he did was bring numbers to life. When Apple launched the iPod, Steve Jobs could have focused on the 5GB hard drive, but he came out saying that you could store 1,000 songs in your pocket. He also used great imagery. When the Macbook Air came out, he could have said that the Macbook Air was fast, easy to use, small, and cover all the hardware specs, but Steve Jobs said this is "the world's thinnest laptop" and showed an image of the laptop that was smaller than an envelope. Steve Jobs sold dreams, not products. He believed that he was selling a solution that allowed everyone to be creative and explore. He just happened to be selling computers. He knew his customers didn't care about his company, but they cared about themselves. That is why he focused on the big picture, informing, educating, entertaining, bringing numbers to life and great imagery. Discover the best Digital Agency Strategies today. Get Online Training to help you setup the right systems and strategies to help you grow faster. Become a Great in Your Agency Becoming the best presenter could open you up to opportunities in giving talks and presentations which could leads to bringing in new clients. This could bring your digital agency to the next level in growth and authority. By looking at the bigger picture of your agency, you can focus on 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 a bank of advice to share with you from my own experiences. This can be how to increase conversions on your website, ways to implement Facebook in your marketing strategy, why building authority to improve your agency is important and 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 the three questions you need to ask yourself to sell your services to more customers. You can learn more about my career and experiences as well as lots of tips, tricks and insights by reading 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.

4 Steps to Capturing Leads... Snagging Them Hook, Line and Sinker If your biggest issue right now within your agency is capturing leads, especially from big clients, then you are probably going about it the wrong way. There's a big difference between generating leads and capturing leads… and it's a lot like fishing. Think about the term "fishing" for a moment. Do you actually want to "go fishing" or do you really want to "go catching"? To be successful, it's the latter. You can go fishing by dropping a pole in a random location with random bait and you might get lucky, but usually you just spend tons of time and come up empty. BUT, if you have some strategy in place: the right location, the right bait and the right tools you will have greater chances for success. [ctt title="4 steps to CAPTURING more leads and why it's like catching fish" tweet="4 steps to CAPTURING more leads and why it's like catching fish: http://ctt.ec/p8U4Y+ via @jswenk #leads" coverup="p8U4Y"] 1. Know WHO you're fishing for: Be very specific on who your ideal client is. You know who you can help, so don't be afraid of reaching out to that very particular target. For example, when you start out fishing you already know what type of fish you're going out for, like red snapper or blue marlin. Be THAT specific in your business. 2. Know WHERE the fish are: Red snapper are near the reef at the bottom of the sea while blue marlin are at the weed line and found while trolling. Learn where your fish are congregating and capture them there. Is it Facebook, Linkedin? Do they use specific technology. "Fish where the fish are biting!" 3. Know WHAT bait attract your fish: When you're fishing, it might be lures or live bait, which could be worms, crickets or even other fish. In business, your bait is your lead magnet. What is something of value that you can provide for free that solves a problem or fills a need your prospects have? Prove you are valuable right away by giving them something they love in exchange for their contact information and they'll be hooked! 4. Know WHEN to pull the line in: You can be in the right place and bait the right fish but you can still lose the catch if you try reeling in the line too soon. Avoid having your prospects jump the line by using a nurture campaign that educates while building a relationship of trust and establishing your authority. In fishing and in business, if you don't know the who, where, what and when of the catch you're going after you'll end up unprepared and empty-handed. How to Improve So I have shared the best ways of capturing leads for your agency but don't just stop there. To improve your agency, you should take a step back and really look 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 expand your brand awareness. If growth is your focus, I've discussed the four phases of growth within your agency and how website issues could be holding your business back from reaching your potential. 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 me and other agency experts.

Are you finding it overwhelming in your agency working out what are priority tasks and what are tasks you can give to your team? Feeling overworked is a very easy rut to fall into as an agency owner and here's how you can get out of it. How to Focus on Growing Your Agency Instead of Just Running It It's common for every entrepreneur to feel bogged down by tasks and buried by a growing to do list. We are always so busy being reactive instead of proactive and there's never a chance to get ahead. It's like that client that is never happy and constantly calling or emailing… the squeaky wheel gets the oil, right? But that doesn't add any horsepower to your business. You need to work on the modifications to the engine before you oil the squeaky wheel. Don't focus on the little things that have no impact on the growth of the business and concentrate more on the high impact items. It's Too Hard to See the Forest for the Trees That's OK! I've created a worksheet that you can use when you are feeling overwhelmed. Start by making a list of everything that needs done. Then determine whether it absolutely must be done by you. Decide if its something that can be solved by technology or if you can delegate it to a team member or outsource it. (For example, before I had a team I outsourced show notes to a virtual assistant.) Consider the cost vs. the time it will take and what else you could be doing in that your time. After you know which tasks must be done by you, then you can rate them: high impact long term, high impact short term and low impact. If you aren't sure how to rank your tasks, check out my blog post about the Productivity Funnel. High impact items include growth opportunities, revenue and client generating tasks. Low impact items include checking emails, one-off project work, etc. Recognizing Priority Tasks With few exceptions, you should always work on the high-impact long-term items first. There are times I've put high-impact short-term tasks as a higher priority. An example might be during a cash flow crunch and a high-impact short-term task will bring in revenue. Always Give Priority to High Impact Action Items If you're spending time on low-impact, low priority tasks you are unable to focus on your biggest and best opportunities for growth. Decide what gets you closer to your BIG goals then backfill with the lower impact tasks. 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 Business You can build your business by identifying priority tasks that need your attention and when you get out of the overworked and overwhelmed rut, you are on the way to building the best digital agency possible. Through my own career and professional life, I have more than likely experienced all if not most of the different struggles you have and can help you with what I have learned. From bad agency clients, to developing agency products as well as how you can build authority for your agency. If you want to grow your agency even further, I have agency growth hacks, the best ways to improve management of your business as well and why building a remote team can be beneficial in the long run. As well as this, you can learn more about my career as well as tips, tricks, and insights by checking out my blogs that cover a wide variety of topics. I also hear the experience and advice from other successful agency experts in my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my YouTube channel.

How can you create more video for your agency content? In this brief episode, Jason shares his tips and tricks for live streaming and video marketing.

A lot of entrepreneurs like to create an e-book but they don't multi-purpose this content as well as they could. Check out this short #AskSwenk episode for some tips and tricks on creating micro content, across many different platforms to get more life from it.

Are you using CRM software the best way to track leads for your business? If you are facing some challenges, I can help. What are the best ways of using CRM Software to track leads and project cashflow? Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is HUGE in any industry where you've got multiple leads at various stages in the sales process. CRM software is a must in keeping organized and optimizing every opportunity. The best way to use CRM is to create levels and use the levels to get a handle on cash projections. [ctt title="Here are 3 steps you can take to manage your relationships and get a snapshot of revenue. " tweet="Here are 3 steps you can take to manage your relationships and get a snapshot of revenue. http://ctt.ec/j_kgW+ via @jswenk #agencycrm" coverup="j_kgW"] Step 1: Create Levels My agency had four levels in our CRM system for prospects who requested to be contacted. Level 1 - This level is people we needed to chat with and qualify. Remember to use my NBAT technique to qualify leads quickly. If you don't know about NBAT, watch this quick video about assessing Need, Budget, Authority and Timing. Level 2 - These people were qualified and needed a meeting to sell our foot in the door offer, such as a discovery or audit. (More on that in this post.) Level 3 - Leads at this level were ones in the proposal stage. We had qualified them and established a relationship in levels 1 and 2. Level 4 - This level was only for the done deal, after we got approvals and sign offs to proceed. Remember when you set up your levels, these are just for potential customers who ASKED to be contacted. People who enter your system through a lead magnet, should stay in the "lead bucket" until they indicate otherwise. Step 2: Assign Percentages to Your Levels For revenue forecasting purposes, we assigned percentages to each level. You can start by using my numbers below and fine tune them once you have a good handle on your own rates. Level 1 - About 10% of the people in this level will turn into sales. Level 2 - Roughly 25% in this level convert to sales. Level 3 - Between 50-75% of these prospects will become clients. Level 4 - Anywhere from 75-100% will close the deal. Step 3: Plug In the Numbers Use the percentages and get a great snapshot of your cash projection. Use this to analyze your accounting systems, accounts receivable, recurring revenue and more. Grow Your Digital Agency Once you know how to optimise your cash projections using CRM software, it's now time to look at the bigger picture of your agency, you can focus on 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 covered everything from increasing website conversions, how to implement Facebook in your marketing strategy as well as why building authority to improve your agency is important. If growth is your focus, I've discussed the different phases of growth within your agency and the three questions you need to ask yourself to sell your services to more customers. You can learn more about my career and experiences as well as lots of tips, tricks and insights by reading 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.

Are you starting to look into the opportunities available if you were to sell your agency? Are you unsure of how you can value your agency correctly and make it appealing to buyers? It can be super exciting when someone is interested in acquiring your agency… right up until the time that it gets super overwhelming. Here are the steps you need to take to make sure that when you sell your agency, it goes as smoothly as possible while also benefiting you and your employees the most. How to Sell Your Agency #1 Know what your agency is worth and the amount you need to have to walk away. Do you want to know the Agency Valuation Formula? These deals are done in a two-tier structure: cash amount and earn out. Come up with your cash amount figure, present it to the buyer and make sure you're happy with the amount. Most earn outs are structured in a way that make them unachievable, so don't get your heart set on earning it. #2 Resist the urge to celebrate. Celebrations and telling people too soon could seriously bite you in the ass. If someone is inquiring, they have interest but there is no deal in place. Keep it "business as usual" and try not to mentally spend all that money you think you're going to get in the buyout. #3 Be helpful without disclosing too much before you get the Letter of Intent. You'll feel the need to provide a ton of information to make sure the deal pans out. Stop yourself from tipping your hand too much. This buyer is probably a competitor, so why would you tell them all your secrets? They will want to know things like: margins, revenue, growth, client list, employees, and all that is alright to share. But don't start handing over documents, processes, or anything that is not necessary for them to get the full scope of the potential transaction. And, anything they ask you is fair game for you to ask them in return. Ask relevant questions to make sure they have the capability to buy. #4 The Letter of Intent LOIs resemble written contracts, but are usually not binding on what the purchaser evaluates your agency's worth. It is always good to know how to evaluate the worth of your agency, check out my Agency Valuation Chart as a starting point to see what your agency might be worth. The chart shows you the EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amoritization). #5 Due diligence phase. Keep things quiet and keep moving your business forward. Instead of daydreaming of ways to spend your new income, act like it's not going to happen. Reality check: it may not happen. These things collapse all the time and if you check out now, your business bottoms out and you're left with no deal and no agency. In the meantime, learn what you can about your buyer. What their intentions or reasons for the acquisition? Do they want your clients? Do they need you for your specialization? Are they trying to expand in your geographical location? Learn what you can to help make this is smooth transition for your employees IF (not when) the time comes. Are you ready to kick it into gear and grow your agency into something worth buying? You might want to check out my Agency Mastermind group. This is a group of like-minded individuals that meets every other week , so it's not a huge time commitment but 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 I'll let you know if the group is a good fit for you. Improve Your Agency and Become a Better Agency Owner! 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 my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my Youtube channel for advice from myself and other agency experts.

Agency Partner: How to Grow a Successful Agency with One Have you ever considered running your business with an agency partner? It's not easy being agency stakeholders and close friends but in this episode, these two ladies have it all figured out. Renee Warren and Heather Carson, co-founders of Onboardly, a demand marketing agency servicing clients in PR, content marketing, and social media talk with me about their secrets... Secrets to successful partnerships, secrets to their agency growth, and the one secret every new startup owner needs to know. What's the Secret to a Great Partnership? I usually tell people, "You either know the bad partner or you are the bad partner." Not true for Renee and Heather. They get along like besties and they tell me it's because they have rules for keeping business and friendship separate. They are careful to keep the lines drawn and clear about when they're wearing their "friend hat" or their "founder hat". They say this distinction has really made a lot of hard conversations go more smoothly than they might've otherwise. Heather and Renee also told me another key to their successful partnership is trust. Both ladies are totally confident that the other has the company's best interest at heart when making decisions or representing the business. There's no control freak in this duo! Another thing they've found helpful is bringing a mentor or advisor in when they've needed some guidance or third-party input. (Not to brag but they did give me some props here.) And, even if it's not me, I agree that an unbiased opinion from an outsider can really benefit an agency partner and solopreneurs. Learn from the mistakes and successes of those who have been there and done it. What are the Secrets to Agency Growth? Onboardly was established in 2011. Throughout those four years, Renee and Heather have learned a few things about growing their agency. Here are their 3 tips for actualizing growth: 1. Shared Goals For starters, these partners share the same goals and have a growth mindset. When their company reached a plateau in the third year, they decided to focus on removing the obstacles that were standing in their way. They articulate their goals to each other and their team, and don't let excuses get in the way. 2. Laser Focus Target Not only do they have a specific niche, but Heather and Renee are also very selective in which clients they will work with inside that niche. These ladies are clear that they will only work with clients that will allow them to produce good work. They won't spin their wheels on clients that require too much red tape or hand-holding. And over the past few years, Heather has honed her process for vetting clients which saves them a lot of time and energy in the long run. 3. Say No They've done it. Even when it was hard, Renee and Heather have turned down work from family and friends. They've turned away work from clients who couldn't afford them. They have had those awkward "thanks, but no thanks" conversations that keep the integrity of their business intact. What's One Secret for New Entrepreneurs? These ladies believe that if you get into business for any reason other than yourself, you're in it for the wrong reason. Knowing your "why" creates the playbook for your entire organization. It defines your culture, your employees, your clients... it becomes everything. In hindsight, if they'd known and articulated their purpose sooner it may have changed the trajectory of their entire business. Bottom line: be true to your story and don't lose sight of it. So, What Exactly Is 'Onboardly'? They are the startup for startups. Now, they're not in their early stages anymore but they still act like a startup. They model their clients by using the same systems and technology. They want to be able to relate to and provide value to their clients. Looking for a third-party opinion to help your agency grow? Would you like to meet other agency owners that have achieved what you're aspiring towards? That's what my Agency Mastermind group is all about. As a group and a team... we will work together to figure out the best sales, operations, and marketing strategies needed to exceed your goals. In other words, you will have all of the help you need to crush it! Learn more by clicking here... Become a Better Agency Owner Having an agency partner to run your business with you can bring many benefits but I suggest making sure to take my advice and find someone that is the best fit for you when you are ready to start your journey with an agency partner. Taking a step back and reviewing any other areas of weakness in your agency, how else I can help? During my time in the industry, I have had my own experience running my own digital agency and 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

4 Quick Tips To Save You Time and Energy Prospecting Clients If you've ever spent time spinning your wheels on a pitch only to find out you weren't talking to the decision maker, they don't have the budget, or they have unrealistic time frame then here are four things you need to do right away. Think of N.B.A.T. before engaging in any new project conversation... N - Need: Ask what the specific needs are and what specific end results they're expecting. Ask how this project fits in with the overall company vision. If they need to pull in another person to answer that question, hold onto that nugget of information. B - Budget: Ask for the the budget. More often than not, you won't get an actual number so act like a reverse auctioneer… Start with a ridiculously high number saying, "Is your budget $500,000, or $400,000, maybe $300,000…?" They either give you a more realistic range or the name of someone who knows. Hold onto that nugget of information, too! A - Authority: Were they able to answer the questions about need and budget? If not, and they gave you an other name or two, then you know who you really need to be talking to. T - Timing: Only you know what you can do and how long it takes. You might really want or even need this project but, if the timing has unrealistic parameters you are setting yourself up for failure. Become an Agency Mastermind Prospecting clients can be a major pain but I hope these steps improve your processes and get your agency moving more smoothly. This may be only one of a number of processes you need to focus on within your agency to improve it as a whole but I can help you get through all of it. I can give you advice on what to do when you are presented with new client opportunities as well as the different ways of building agency authority. Growing your agency can be a major goal for many agency owners. 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! You can also learn about my career and different experiences as well as lots of 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 Be So Successful You Can Accelerate Business and Turn Clients Away Ever wonder what it would feel like to accelerate business to such a level you can turn down work? That's exactly what my client, Matthew Arndt, CEO of Turbo Medical Marketing is able to do with his business. In this episode of The Smart Agency Master Class, Matt shares exactly what he has done to get to his agency to that point. 3 Ways to Accelerate Business Right Now... 1. Be Super Specific: It Will Draw In the Right Clients Turbo Medical Marketing is a digital agency specializing in medical aesthetics (ie. cash pay medicine such a: plastic surgery, dermatology, ophthalmology, medical spas and their related industry partners who work with the same practitioners). Wow. Super specific, right? Matt says he's seen huge benefit from really laser focusing on a very specific market. Because the medical field is so huge, he had to pinpoint a particular audience to gear all his marketing efforts. He understands the challenges and issues they face and knows exactly who/how he can help. Also, since business today is about belonging, he has become a servant to the medical aesthetics community. Turbo has built a reputation of being the go-to agency with proven results which has helped to accelerate business. 2. Be Patient: Nurturing Your Leads is Key for Growth A key turning point in Turbo Medical Marketing's business was the development of an automated email campaign used to warm up leads. They already had a ton of content but getting into the right hands at the right time has made a huge impact on their business. Don't be tempted to go in for the kill right away. Nurturing leads is so key to long term relationships and agency growth. It starts conversations and provides the opportunity to understand which of your core offerings are the right fit for a particular client. 3. Be a Partner: It Triangulates a Win Partnering with a third-party who has mutual interest can reap huge rewards and score a win for everyone involved. Matt was able to cultivate relationships with medical equipment and non-prescription drug reps who sell high ticket products to his clients in the medical aesthetics field. These reps also have marketing budgets allocated to value added campaigns. That means these reps actually give doctors marketing dollars to spend on promoting the equipment or drug they just purchased. Triple win…. The rep scores a win by giving something back to their customer. It sets up the doctors for a win by bringing in new patients to offset the cost of their investment. And, of course Matt wins by bringing in new agency business... Win - Win - Win. Ask yourself what kind of partners can help propel your business? What can you do for them? Find mutual benefit and go after it. Why Even Consider Turning Down Business? It's counterintuitive to turn down work, isn't it? Matt struggled with it for awhile too, but when he took the time to identify what his ideal clients looked like he realized the opportunity cost of taking on the wrong ones was too big to ignore. Sure, the wrong clients will bring in a small amount of revenue and but they'll also bring a huge amount of headaches. The tradeoff is just not worth it. As a business owner you're watching the bills roll in and may even be worried about payroll. It's tempting to take on a project that isn't quite the right fit or to work with a borderline bad client just to pay the bills. Before you do it, weigh the costs and long term effects on your business. If a client or project isn't going to get you where you want to go - just don't. Stop 'Getting Ready to Get Ready' and Take Action! Matt credits podcasts as his main source of inspiration for accelerating his agency and clients' business. He has incorporated podcast listening into his daily routine as a way to learn passively and find new ways to accelerate his agency and/or his clients' business. But it's not just the listening that important -- its the implementation. As business owners we have a million little reasons not to take action, but one really BIG reason why we should. Actions lead to transactions. Check out this approach.... I've created a FREE video on Generating More Leads. It talks about the 5 Systems my clients and I use to generate 25 or more leads every day. I use this strategy as a goodwill offering and as a way to get new conversations started. Check it out here. Growing Your Digital Agency I've now shared my advice with you on how you can accelerate business for your digital agency but what other issues are within your agency that needs your attention? Take a step back, 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. From my experience in the industry, 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

How to Grow Your Agency with a Target Audience of One Sounds a bit crazy but today's guest, Chris Brogan, says not only should you find your niche but why you should really drill down and create a target audience of a particular person to exert your marketing efforts. Chris is CEO of Owner Media Group as well as a long-time blogger, professional speaker, author and consultant on using media and engagement to build a better marketplace. He's worked with brands like Coke, Google, Comcast, and Pepsi but he's also been consulting with smaller businesses as well. Why Focus on an "Audience of One" Target Audience When There are So Many People to Reach? "We live in a world where even a toilet knows you've left and automatically flushes but a person in the same room as you can be so absorbed in their phone they hardly notice you," says Chris. Be the toilet. Help people feel seen and heard. To do this, identify a very specific target audience (don't worry about reaching everyone and don't worry about scaring people away). There are commonalities among individuals; find those and market to them in that way. Chris uses the example of Napa Auto Parts and Ace Hardware stores. Sure, they're in completely different industries but the common trait is that they're retailers for the Do-It-Yourself-er. The principle is the same for both - buy the parts, install them on your own. Find the similarities while treating them uniquely. And, to REALLY reach your Audience of One: DON'T try to be the next "Thought Leader". Flooding media with streams of content streams - which usually ends up just being links to articles - doesn't help or serve anyone. Don't add to the chaos. DO find a way to inform, entertain and equip your prospective clients for success. Make them the hero in their own story. Give away your ideas and the framework. They will still come to your for implementation and adding value. Think about it - even if they have the recipe most people still prefer sitting down to be served at a restaurant. DON'T think for a minute that everyone is reading everything you put out there. They aren't able to watch your every move. (But what a great problem to have if they were!) DO feel free to recycle your content by finding a different way to present it. If you are providing value and serving your audience, it's OK to repeat yourself or explain it in a different way to reach different people. [clickToTweet tweet="3 NEW Golden Rules of Business to Know Right Now: " quote="3 NEW Golden Rules of Business to Know Right Now: "] Business is about belonging. People want to be part of something, so make your business a servant to their community. Access is the new aloofness. Be available and reach out personally. People buy from people, not from brands or businesses. Connect and serve. Community and engagement go a long way. If you can connect people to each other and provide value for both, your extension of goodwill will gain their loyalty and trust. In terms of terms of tools, Chris believes we are done with multi-billion user platforms. People are trending toward community-based platforms that serve a purpose in their corner of the world. He feels applications like Bonfire and Whatsapp, the smaller group-based community platforms, are going to the upcoming trend. Above All, Just Be You Don't try to be like the big agencies. Chris and I both agree the key to a successful business is having great relationships. Be personal, be available, and take a genuine interest in your clients and community. The big agencies may have tons of clients but that only means they can afford to tick off a few. When you're being yourself you'll attract clients who are like-minded. Working with people you would actually hang out with socially makes for smoother, seamless work. Improve Your Agency and Become a Better Agency Owner! Want extra help in taking your agency to the next level and becoming 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!

4 Simple Steps to Generating More Agency Leads Immediately Ever find yourself churning out content but never seem to bring in more leads? In this episode of Ask Swenk, I show you how you can generate more agency leads without the need for more content from your team. Leads - we need them and they need us! Take a look at Google Analytics and find out which are your best performing blog posts. What content are you putting out there that is getting the most hits? Now, knowing what information your leads are seeking via your blog posts, revise your call to action on them… No more "Contact Me Now" crap. That is not a call to action, that is a passive cop out. Come up with a worksheet or template people can use to solve the problem or combat the issue that made them read your blog post in the first place. This should be something useful that you send after they opt-in with their email address ~ A.K.A. your lead magnet. Use the lead magnet as your call to action. Also, take another look at the headlines you're using. Add words that will get immediate attention, such as: "How to Do Something COOL and Not Do Stuff That SUCKS." Then get specific, like: "How to Do Something COOL and Not Do Stuff that SUCKS, If You're a Digital Agency. Take action like this and your leads will skyrocket right away. This is just a sneak peek at the advice in my Generate Leads Everyday program. This was once a live event but I'm releasing it now on video. My clients are seeing success by immediately implementing my strategies to generate 25+ leads every single day. If you want in on the action, head over to GenerateLeadsEveryday.com or click here to check it out. Be the Best Agency Owner You now know how generating agency leads without increasing your content is possible but what else do you need to do to become the best agency owner? 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 your potential. 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, did you know I have a Youtube channel? 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.

In this podcast, you'll get a peek into the habits, thoughts, and actions of a self-made millionaire as I talk with Jaime Tardy whose website, podcast and book all titled Eventual Millionaire have been guiding and inspiring entrepreneurs for years. She shares insights into what makes them tick and how you can position yourself into millionaire status. What Are Some Common Habits of a Millionaire? After interviewing over 200 millionaires Jaime says there are three common habits among them. Surprisingly, none of them have anything to do with daily routine such as diet or exercise however, she does find that they rarely watch much TV or movies - although, I am definitely the exception to the rule :) Instead, she has found common themes in their approach to business (and life): No Excuses Approach - To be prosperous you can't let your excuses stand in your way. We all have our reasons not to do something (no money, no time, etc.) but these are solvable. The millionaire gets it done despite their reasons or excuses. Continuous Forward Motion - Successful people aren't afraid to make a move - even if it's the wrong move. A lot of us are afraid to fail and let that hold us back. Some millionaires have had success right away but many fail 3 or 4 times before reaching success. Well, Jaime didn't actually get to divulge the third habit but you can read about it on her site. Fearing the Tall Poppy Syndrome It happens. When one person does really well people tend to wind up feeling bad about themselves. The typical reaction is resentment and oftentimes colleagues or peers will attack, criticize, or "cut down" the tall poppy among them. Don't let the fear of the tall poppy syndrome stop you. Succeed anyway. Jaime believes people with integrity should be the ones with money and influence as they're the ones who can do the most good with it. Jaime finds self-made millionaires are appreciative and humble. The stereotype is that the wealthy are also very greedy. However, the vast majority she talks to are some of the most giving and generous people she knows. Live the Life You Want Jaime learned the lesson the hard way with her own career. At a very early age she had a six-figure corporate career, expense account, big house and an expensive car. Sounds awesome! But she hated her job and dreaded Sunday nights because they marked the end of a weekend and start of a new work week. In time she changed all that but admits it can be difficult when you don't have much cushion in your budget. She implores us to have the life we want and then consider money. "I made one decision in my life based on money. And I swore I would never do it again." ~ Brad Pitt as Billy Beane in Moneyball Never make decisions based on money alone. I know what you're thinking: "Sure, it's easy to turn down money when you already have it." As an agency owner you have responsibilities and pressures like payroll and other fixed costs. You might be tempted to take on some of the wrong clients just to pay the bills. I strongly caution you against this. Bad clients may pay you but the long-term expense of having them will far exceed the short-term fix they give you in your cash flow. Bad clients drain your time, your resources, and your energy. No one can run a successful business in that state. Calculate the Opportunity Cost Instead of taking on the wrong clients, take time to determine the opportunity cost. I looked at my own opportunity cost in January. By eliminating the wrong clients, I brought in an additional $35,000 in revenue. Here's the breakdown: With my screening process, I turned down 20 "wrong clients" for a $1,000 program. At a 75% close rate, I could have closed 15 of them and made $15,000. I would have spent one hour with each of those 20, but I utilized those 20 hours differently. By reallocating those 20 hours I worked on a program that made $50,000. The difference in how I spent my time brought in an incremental $35,000! How Highly Successful People Face Challenges Demands On Your Time: Many business owners get stuck in the daily operations of the business - dealing with challenges and putting out fires. And, in many cases, the owner is also the salesperson. So if their time is focused on operations, sales tend to suffer. Jaime's advice? Hire a salesperson - or if sales is your passion, hire someone to handle the fires! Measuring Your Monetary Goals: Most CEO's set business goals but often get too busy working the business to check the numbers and measure against the goals. Jaime advises to set monthly goals and then break them down into daily tasks. For example: Goal: $500,000 annual revenue = $42,000 monthly revenue. Take $42,000 divided by the average sale = the number of clients you need to close each month. If you know your close rate, you'll even be able to determine the number of prospects needed to get you to your goal. Then, go do it! Staying Focused: Running a business is hard and there are a lot of demands on your time and energy.

What's the Best Website Homepage for Converting Leads? Well, today you're in luck because we are going to talk about the best lead generation agency website ever. Their home page converts 60%! The optimum guy in funnel optimization, Zach Johnson - founder of GameChanger Profits, talks with me about his unique approach to converting leads. This is a must-listen episode. Would you like to have your home page convert 30% or better yet... 60%? We've all seen those agency websites that brag on their own capabilities and show off an impressive client list. Not GameChangerProfits.com. Their visitors land on a webinar registration page. It's all about giving value and converting a visitor into a lead by attending a webinar. That's it. No bragging, no bells, no whistles. The coolest thing about this home page... It is a templated webinar registration page from Leadpages. It took them zero design hours, so they could focus on closing all those leads :) Why A Webinar? According to Zach, the cost of converting a prospect from a paid Facebook ad is increasingly more expensive, so he uses his ad spending to convert his leads to a webinar where he can control the selling. The results? GameChanger Profits is seeing a 60% conversion rate from warm prospects and 30% from paid traffic. No joke. As you pick your jaw up off the floor, I'll walk you through a funnel that is working extremely well for an agency: Offer free, content-based webinar (30-60% conversion rate!) Pre-webinar warm-up email sequence Webinar with high-value content Consultation (some are free / some are paid - this in in test) Close 90-day commitment Biggest Funneling Challenge Zach sees a lot of clients who have an existing funnel and know what is working and what's not. The biggest challenge he sees is that his clients don't know what to do with the pieces that aren't working. Knowing what to fix can be the biggest hurdle. He suggests looking at the big picture utilizing a dashboard tool to pinpoint the weaknesses and guide you toward a fix. Most Common Funnel Mistake When it comes to mistakes, the biggest Zach sees is overly aggressive tactics that scare away clients. You may have a great, higher price point product but strong-arming a client to get there is a big turnoff and a major deal killer. Need Help Generating Leads? I am getting ready to relaunch my program, Generate Leads Every Day, to the public as a self-course rather than a live program. The program has been earning my clients 25+ new leads every day. If you want to start generating leads, you need to check out Generate Leads Every Day. Want More about How You Can Improve Your Agency and Yourself as an Agency Owner? You can read our blogs that cover a wide variety of topics or if videos are more your thing, visit my Youtube channel!

In this episode, learn how to get over burn out by being intentional with your activities outside of work. Reset and recharge your brain so that you can be more focused. Also, how can you hire the right people that believe in your vision and help your agency grow.

Do You Struggle With DOING? Find Out What is Missing and Get UNSTUCK If you are having issues getting things done so you can grow your agency it's not about hustling harder.... it's identifying what's missing. In this AskSwenk episode, learn how you can gain clarity in order to get unstuck and stop being stalled out on just doing so you can start growing.

How to Overcome the NO MONEY or NO BUDGET Objection | AskSwenk | Ep #52 I get asked this all the time... many clients or prospects say they want to invest in their marketing but there isn't any money. But think of it this way -- if you needed emergency surgery you wouldn't say "I don't have the money." Instead, you would have the surgery and find the money for it later... because there is a sense of urgency. You need to create a sense of urgency for those clients. When you identify the problem and a sense of urgency, they'll find the money.

How Do I Get Off the Hamster Wheel and GROW MY AGENCY? | AskSwenk | Ep #51 If you're constantly stuck going around and around the hamster wheel waiting for things to change, you're going about it all wrong. Things aren't going to change but YOUR MINDSET is what needs to change. Instead of a hamster wheel, you need to think about it like a mountain. Climb the mountain but going into it knowing there are switchbacks and setbacks along the way. How can you power your agency in order to climb the mountain easier and faster? Who do you need to help you get to the top? Do you know your vision? What does the summit look like?

In this segment of The Agency Master Class, I've got Spencer Gallagher as my guest. He's talking today about why and how you should select a niche for your agency to find your ideal clients. In 1999, Spencer created one of the UK's top digital agencies leading it to a successful acquisition in 2008. Afraid To Specialize and Turn Off Potential Clients? You aren't alone. Most agency owners feel the need to market their services across the board and accept any work thrown at them. They fear the implications of turning down work and worry that having a specialization will result in less consideration by potential clients. They try to model the big guys who seem to be able to do everything. Truth is, you can't do it all and your ideal clients will respect you for it. In Spencer's case, he was spending his limited marketing budget casting a wide net. He was pitching many different types of jobs in many different disciplines. (Sound familiar?) Taking a step back, he decided to try a more targeted marketing approach. He directed his attention to sports marketing. Not only did this move give him focus, he became a respected authority in the field and had an edge against the generalists who were pitching the same clients. Declaring a specialization and becoming laser-focused resulted in 300% growth in the first 24 months. So, How Do You Select A Niche? You can start by asking yourself: "Who, how, why, and where do I do what I do?" Which one or two of these areas will help you narrow your proposition? Consider a horizontal or vertical niche… choose a service and/or a market area you can dominate. Use marketing intel to be sure it's an area with growing service needs and be certain it's something you are passionate about. There is a Direct Correlation Between Focus and Winning Large Brands Big brands attract better talent. As you bring in more talent, you can open to new niches and appoint specialized account teams who are experts in the category. This level of service will position your agency as an authority. Once that's established, your ideal clients will be knocking on your door! And remember, declaring a niche doesn't mean you have to turn down work - it's just a marketing focus and positioning statement. Need Help Identifying Your Focus Area? I've set aside some time to talk to you, personally. And during that time, I'll evaluate your business and work with you collaboratively to create an immediately actionable plan to increase your sales and profits. Click here to get my help. What Do You Do When You Have Your Ideal Clients? 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 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 me and other agency experts.

Do You Want a $3 Million Dollar Agency? Are you often dreaming of being the proud owner of a $3 million dollar agency? Today's Agency Master Class guest is Julian Stubbs, Co-Founder and CEO of Up There, Everywhere. He and his partner are the innovators that dreamt up the concept of a global, cloud-based agency and made it a reality. Wait, There Aren't Any Employees? That's right. Instead of employees, Up There, Everywhere has 160 MEMBERS in 20 countries. Members are freelance contractors who go through a series of interviews and if accepted, sign a confidentiality agreement. They are compensated by project value and have the benefit of flexibility to help balance work and life. The screening process is important because this work style is not for everyone. Members work remotely and all work is backed up in the cloud. There are no offices, but recently Up There, Everywhere has opened creative space in both New York and Stockholm with a third opening later this year in Amsterdam. This space is available for members to meet with clients as well as for internal collaboration as needed. How Was This Business Model Born? Walking through Central Park, Julian was inspired by seeing so many professionals working remotely... He thought about his 90-minute round-trip commute to the office everyday and calculated that his commute was taking the equivalent of 2 ½ weeks of his time every year. Together, Julian in Stockholm and his partner in New York created Up There, Everywhere in 2010. As new business was won and help was required they were faced with the challenges of bringing on new hires, such as: "How can we do more with less?"... "Would the work always be there?"... Their solution was to bring our cloud-based society to the professional world. They started talking to highly qualified professionals and developed a system for collaborating on work anytime, anywhere. Don't Clients Balk At This Arrangement? Not at all. In fact, most clients are extremely receptive to it. Typically, new clients just need to understand how their work is backed up and that it's accessible to other members if necessary. There's also a structured account team for each client, so there's built-in reliability and accountability that clients have come to expect from a more traditional agency. And Julian stresses the importance of the legally binding confidentiality agreement as well. Once clients understand the systems in place, the vast majority are open to this work style. Take a step back and evaluate your business. Run the numbers to see what's working and what's not. Figure out how can you accomplish the same work in a different way. Don't be afraid to turn things upside down and see where it takes you. If you're inspired by Julian's story, check out his books E-Ployment and Wish You Were Here. You can also check Amazon for his new book, Wish You Were Here 2, coming in March 2015. What to Remember When Building Your Million Dollar Agency So what should you take with you from today's class and apply to your own agency? If you are in the very early stages of building your team, don't be afraid of investing in a team that work remotely and on a freelance basis. Collaborative work with your team can keep the creativity high and encourage a higher standard of work. For established agencies, then it's time to take a step back and evaluate your agency as a whole. You won't achieve the dream of growing into a multi-million dollar agency if your goals and strategies aren't clear and consistently kept in check. Want Help Finding New Efficiencies In Your Business Model? I've set aside some time to talk to you, personally. And during that time, I'll evaluate your business and work with you collaboratively to create an immediately actionable plan to increase your sales and profits. Click here to get my help.

Productivity Funnel: How I Find Time to Focus On Running My Agency? Do you have a hard time with your productivity within your agency? No matter what level you are on, it is easy to get distracted from the tasks you should be focusing on. This is why a productivity funnel can be really beneficial to your agency. Q: How Do I Find Time to Focus On Running My Business vs. Being In The Business? Finding time to focus on running your business while getting bogged down by the business can be rough. And distractions are so easily found especially when you feel under pressure. We are typically so busy being reactive that we get derailed by smaller tasks and lose sight of our goals. What does that mean? If you're spending time on low impact, low priority tasks you are unable to focus on your biggest and best opportunities for growth. So here's what you should be doing... Decide what gets you closer to your goals then backfill with the lower impact activities. Let Me Help If you have more questions about how you can get through hard times in your agency, I can help. Through my many years of experience, I can share advice on topics including how to start an agency from scratch to getting through any economic recession. 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? I've got what you need. You can check out my AskSwenk series where I take questions from you and more of my videos over on my YouTube channel for advice from myself and other agency experts.

In this session of The Smart Agency Master Class I talk with Jack Mize, host of Influencers Radio and cofounder of Authority Alchemy. Jack is the authority on how to build authority, and we're going to show you how to build yours so people are banging down the door to work with you. The first page of Google is not important... It may sound like blasphemy, but it's true. Most people think "I need more traffic," but when you really look at the numbers it's probably not that you don't have enough traffic. It's that the traffic doesn't have a compelling reason to pick you. Spending money on pay-per-click and SEO is okay, but you need to start focusing more on building your authority and less on getting to Google's front page. Stop calling yourself an expert. You do not need to try and convince people you are an expert. Because, all that convincing makes the conversation about you when it should be about the client. So, stop thinking of yourself as needing to be an expert and start thinking of yourself as an educator and advocate. See, educators and advocates have a much better position. They help their clients learn, as well as propel them toward success. Speaking to prospects from this stance allows other people to call you the expert and spread the word on your behalf. You don't need to reinvent the wheel. Quit trying to come up with something brand new! You don't have to create something from scratch. Find something to do in a new way, or put your personal spin on it. This niche helps you build authority. Pro Tip: be sure you're giving the customer what they want, not what you want them to want. Trying to convince someone that they want what you have is hard. Instead, you need to convince them that you have what they want. Get inside their mind by asking questions and really finding out their problems. Try thinking of yourself as a doctor. Doctors don't list all of their services to their patients and ask them to pick one. No, doctors have the authority. Be like a doctor: listen to their problems, diagnose the issue, and prescribe a solution. Being the authority: 4 Issue Formula Once you've reframed yourself as an educator and an advocate, you need to create an event around your authority. Write a book, do a podcast, whatever you want. Use that platform to educate your prospects and build your authority. Jack suggests using the 4 Issues Formula. If you can address the following questions from the prospect, then you'll be way ahead of the competition: These are the questions prospects are bringing to you. If you can answer them before they're even asked, you will be building authority. Pro Tip: stay away from saying "consultation." It turns people off. Instead, call it an evaluation or an assessment. Personally, I charge for the assessment because it helps me pre-qualify serious prospects. And remember - you need to be making the conversation about them, not you. What you need to do right now. What's the one thing you can do right now to start building authority? Microspecialization. Too many people try to cast too wide of a net in order to ensure they aren't missing any opportunities. What you should really be doing is less, because it actually gets you more in the long run. Take a look at your menu and trim it down! Build Authority and Improve Your Agency Now you have an idea of how to build authority for your agency, what's next on your list? If you want to know how to prepare for potential failing economies and recessions or grow your prospects through speaking opportunities, I can help. 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 selling your agency for a larger profit. I have all the information you need to help you through it. 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! 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 me and other agency experts.

Word of Mouth Isn't a Scalable Way to Generate Leads In this session of The Smart Agency Master Class I chat with Clay Collins, cofounder of LeadPages, a lead generation platform. Clay is going to help explain why relying on word of mouth isn't a scalable way to generate leads, as well describing some other ways you should be generating leads. How should you be generating leads? In as many ways as possible! Clay says LeadPages put lead generation opportunities at every turn, and that's what you should be doing too. And the very first thing you need to do is get your damn opt-in box up. Too many agencies get hung up on what kind of stuff they should be giving away for the opt-in, or what the content of the emails and newsletters will be. In fact, they get so hemmed up on these details they don't even start with the first basic step to generate leads - the opt-in box! You need to stop putting the cart before the horse and put opt-in opportunities on your site, on your blog, in your podcast, everywhere! Put it on your homepage, opt-in for webinars, for demos, the list goes on and on. Not everyone will opt-in, but for sure no one will if they aren't given the chance. But I don't want to be annoying. Good, then don't be annoying. We've all seen that website with the pop-up when you first get there, the one that ambushes you whilst scrolling, the one that slides up from the bottom, and another one when you're trying to leave. Don't be that guy. But if you're providing something of value for the consumer, you're not going to be annoying by giving them the opportunity to get more value from you. Say you have a podcast - give the opt-in to get a transcript of the podcast. Or your blog post is about an industry trend - make the opt-in a downloadable white paper. This way the consumer gets something of value for opting-in. Overwhelmed by keeping the leads straight. It can be a lot of work to put opt-ins all over, but never fear because LeadPages has you covered with LeadBoxes. They help keep everything neat and organized for you. And even if you decide to do all the opt-ins yourself, it still pays off in the long run. According to Clay, the 10% of opt-ins they've received from their blog alone has led to millions of dollars in business. Millions of dollars is worth the work, right? "Word of mouth probably isn't working as well as you think." - Clay Collins Sure, you can get business this way but you can get a lot more business by branching out as well. Don't fall victim to thinking you're just a Google search away from the big client. It rarely happens that someone happens upon your website, fills out your 12-part form, and heads directly into a conversation with you. What more often happens is that they find your website, skip over the 12-part form, and opt-in to your newsletter. (That is, assuming you have an opt-in opportunity for your newsletter.) So what you need to be doing is providing value in the newsletter. Or in the blog. Or the podcast. Whatever it is that you're doing - pack it full of value! Tell people all the tactics and strategies, and don't be afraid. They don't want to take your knowledge and do it themselves - they're far too busy for that. They just want to know what it is you can do, and then they'll hire you to take care of it. Seriously, one of the best ways to get business is to give away your knowledge. Share your personal story as well. It's not just about the business, you have a story too. You need to create the opportunity for people to get to know you, as well as your agency. It makes you more personable and relatable. Remember: people want to do business with people, not brands and logos. Take some time to think about how you got to where you are today. What were your triumphs? What trials and tribulations did you go through to get here? Then find a compelling way to tell it, and watch it transform your business. Digital Agency Owner Advice So we've taken a closer look at your strategies and now you know the best way to generate leads for your agency but this might not be the only issue you have right now. To improve your agency, you should take a step back and really look struggles you need to focus on to improve your business. I have all you need to get through these obstacles. I have advice to share with you from gaining agency exposure in the news, how to build authority for your agency, or even ways to use Facebook marketing strategies to expand your brand awareness. If growth is your focus, I've discussed the four phases of growth within your agency and how website issues could be holding your business back from reaching your potential. 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, did you know I have a YouTube channel? 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 m

Hiring People Better Than You To Take Your Agency to the Next Level In today's session of The Smart Agency Master Class, I talk with Rich Brooks, president of Flyte New Media, a web design and marketing company. This episode is all about how to manage your team. You need to be hiring people better than you, and we're going to help you find those people, as well as get over being afraid of their skills. Plus, you'll hear about how to avoid some common mistakes. When should you hire someone else? The right time is different for everyone. For Rich, he was prompted to hire someone by a client. They wanted to give him more business but felt he wouldn't have been able to handle it on his own. For most of us, the right time is when we realize we can't handle it on our own. But maybe you're feeling like you can handle most of it on your own. In that case, think about bringing someone in on a part-time basis. Rich started with a part-time person and has since grown to a staff of seven; five of which are full-time. Take your time finding someone. Remember: hire slowly, and fire quickly. (More on that in a second.) Four of the biggest mistakes when hiring people. Hiring people too quickly! If you need someone ASAP for a project, or you're just going to hire so-and-so because you like them, then you are probably hiring too quickly. Cool your jets a little and really think about what kind of fit that person will be. And if you find yourself employing the wrong person, get rid of them! Not casting a wide enough net. If you're advertising for potential employees in a place where the kind of people you want to hire aren't looking, then you're making a mistake. Perhaps you should think about ditching the free neighborhood circular and paying for an ad on the hottest industry job board. Hiring without a plan. You hired them for a specific project, but what happens after that project ends? Have you made a job description for them? These are the kinds of questions you need to ask yourself before you bring someone on board. Hiring someone because you liked them. If your only requirement is that you like the person, you are going about hiring all wrong. Great people are great, but you don't have to hire people you want to spend holidays with. Sometimes the best people aren't your best friends. You're looking for people that will be a good compliment to you. That means you need to stay away from hiring someone just like you. You'll never get anything done that way. Instead, look for people you can work well with, but who will challenge you and fill in the gaps that you can't. Measuring employee performance. Everyone hates reviews. So let's ditch that term and start calling them Coaching Sessions. It can still be a painful process to go through, but it's a lot easier if we go ahead and reframe it as a conversation rather than a scolding. Secondly, you do not need to be everyone's best friend. Repeat it with me: I do not need to be everyone's best friend. What you need to be is your company's best friend, and your company needs you to toughen up and be the bad guy sometimes. At Flyte, Rich does his reviews quarterly. That way it's a more continuous conversation with the employee rather than an annual lambasting. I also do quarterly coaching, but instead of talking about what my goals are for the company, I let the employees set their 90-day goals that will help us reach the company's goals. Then we can sit down and see what goals were met, which weren't and why, and how to improve going forward in the next 90 days. This way everyone knows exactly what is expected and exactly what will be measured. Pro tip: deliver bad news last, or at least, in the middle. That whole bad news before good news idea is backwards. Instead, give the employee some positives before delivering any bad news. Then end on a high note for bonus points. How to say 'You're Fired.' Firing people sucks. It just plain does. But as a business owner, it is your job. You need to keep reminding yourself that it's not what you want as the agency owner, but what the company needs. Unfortunately, what you personally want and what the company needs don't always line up. Of course, firing awful employees is easy. It's those middle-of-the-road ones that are tricky. They're not really doing a good job, but they're not necessarily doing a bad job either. According to Rich, the so-so employees are actually the worst. They're doing nothing to improve and grow your company. In fact, they're just slowly dragging it down. As the owner, you need to tell the employee that it's time to rise to the occasion or get out. You aren't personally responsible for their well-being. If you've given them the opportunity to succeed, and they still can't, then you need to let go. Be zen about it: perhaps the reason they aren't succeeding with you is because they should be succeeding elsewhere. Hire dwarfs or giants. Do not be afraid when hiring people to hire people better than you. If you have a

In this session of The Smart Agency Master Class, I chat with Peter Caputa, VP of Sales for Hubspot, the king of inbound marketing. We chat about how you should stop relying solely on referrals, and how you can use strategic partners get your business to the next level. Strategic partners are awesome. You can get a lot out of having a strategic partner. Here are just a few benefits: Steady stream of referrals Marketing opportunities They can help you grow from small agency to large agency There will be many chances to learn from partners How you can you become one of the top strategic partners for a company like Hubspot? Unlike some, a strategic partnership with Hubspot cannot be bought. Peter says being a Hubspot strategic partner is earned, not purchased. In order to become one of Hubspot's top strategic partners, you need to: Have the ability to make your clients successful on Hubspot. Be able to sell and acquire new clients. Communicate your goals and successes with the strategic partner. Do something unique with your new client using the strategic partner. What your agency is probably doing wrong. According to Peter, agencies are failing to create the right relationship with their clients. Going in and selling tactics is the wrong approach. You need to be selling long-term value because you want a lasting relationship with the client that focuses on success. It's not just about what you're doing. You need to be showing the value of it. And remember - know your audience! A lot of agencies are afraid of committing to a niche for fear of losing out on an opportunity. It's time to raise your prices. Stop worrying about what other agencies are charging. You're worth more! Take time to figure out how much value you're providing the client. If you're helping them earn a million dollars, then you should rethink your $4k per month retainer. You need to find out the prospect's goal and explain to them the value that you can deliver. Their answers will help you determine what to charge. Also, make sure you don't lose the prospect in all the bells and whistles. Sure, you love the software, but the client just loves the outcomes. Keep the business conversation upfront, and explain the methodology in a way they can understand. I asked Peter what the biggest retainer per month was for inbound marketing services...and it's $25,000! Per month! The art and science behind hiring salespeople. The first sales hire is key. Peter is a fan of the Objective Management Group, which is an assessment tool that includes an assessment for salespeople. Peter also warns that you need to be ruthless in finding the right fit, not just hiring someone because you like them. Once you've hired someone, don't just tell them to "go sell." That's setting everyone up for failure. You need to be sure you've put objectives in place to hold the salesperson accountable (how much, by when, etc). You also need to be sure you are motivating and empowering them. Salespeople need praise as much as they need to want to make money. Give them lots of incentives and high-fives. AGENCY MASTERMIND for agency owners that want to GROW PROFITS It can be very isolating running your own agency. Wouldn't you like to join a community of other agency owners that will hold you accountable for growing beyond yourself, all while supporting your journey to get there? That is exactly what the AGENCY Mastermind is all about. Learn more... Become an Agency Mastermind Creating leverage to bring in strategic partners for your agency can bring your digital agency to a whole new level but this can cause issues if you don't work on the other challenges you have within your business. Don't worry, I can help you get through all of it. I can give you advice on recognizing new client opportunities to different ways of building authority to improve your agency. If you are having issues with growing your agency, I've the different phases of growth within your agency and how performance-based pricing can be the best pricing strategy for your business as well as the three questions you need to ask yourself to sell more! Learn all about my career and different experiences as well as lots of 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 me and other agency experts.

In this episode of The Smart Agency Master Class I have my first ever three way:) For the first time ever, I have two guests - Jim Hohl and Lucas Gavin of Visify. Jim and Lucas are going to share with us how you can use events to build your authority and grow your business by creating leads. Where do you start with creating leads for your agency? Jim and Lucas knew that they didn't just want to do business as usual. Chasing after projects and pitching all the time is exhausting. The duo decided to begin speaking at events and hosting webinars, which allowed them the chance to get their message out to a lot of people at once. Bonus: you automatically earn some street cred by being an event speaker. It's instant authority! No events in your area? Make one! It'll be a great opportunity for you to get your feet wet. It's fairly simple to throw together a 2-3 hour weeknight event. For something larger, consider hiring an event planner. Jim and Lucas hired an event company, allowing them to focus on work and let the professionals handle event stuff. Or you can create a mini-event around a bigger industry event. This way you can invite a select group to take part in a lunch-and-learn without having to do too much organizing. Start small. The event doesn't have to be a huge crowd. No one expects you to start out at a TED Talk. Start smaller and work your way up. Jim, Lucas, and I are all huge fans of webinars. Not only are they easy to set up, but they're an excellent first step in getting comfortable with speaking in front of people. But first, you need to come up with what you want to say. The simplest way to do that is to think about what you find yourself saying to most of your clients. What's some common advice that you give? Or, what is some aspect of your business that you are really passionate about? Use these as starting points for creating webinar content. Tech to use: Try GoToWebinar or Google Hangouts for a simple, effective setup. Save the sales pitch. You will attract a lot more people to create leads if you don't make the event a sales pitch. Seriously, you don't need to be pitching all the time, and no one wants to hear it. Instead, focus on creating quality content that delivers something of value to the audience. Have a genuine conversation. Offer a free download of a tool or white paper that they can actually use. They are guaranteed to remember you for it. Don't forget to include a CTA. You want to keep the conversation going, so make sure you include a call to action. Not the lame "buy my stuff" CTA, but something like "comment on my blog to join the discussion." You want to create a thoughtful and engaged community around your events. So whether you're doing a webinar or an in-person event, make certain that you have some sort of call to action. Success Story We had our first Agency Mastermind event last week and one of our members has already generated over $20,000 in extra income from one thing we have covered. If you would like to have a similar story, click here Discover the best Digital Agency Strategies today. Get Online Training to help you set up the right systems and strategies to help you grow faster. Improving Your Agency So now you know where to start in creating leads for your agency but is this your only struggle right now? My years of experience have 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. Learn more about me and my experience or all my tips, tricks, and everything you need to know in my blogs. I have covered a wide variety of topics! If videos are more your thing, don't worry, I've got you covered! Check out my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my YouTube channel for advice from myself and other agency experts.

In this week's session of The Smart Agency Master Class, I sit down with Tom Fishburne to talk about how you can spice up those boring newsletters you're sending out, and how you can invest in your audience to get better email open rates. Tom is Founder and CEO of Marketoon Studios, a content marketing studio that helps businesses reach their audiences with cartoons. He started cartooning at Harvard Business School, and was putting out a weekly cartoon about marketing for several years before finally building it into a business model. For Tom, it was all about connecting his passion with his business. Cartooning is a great tool to increase engagement. Cartoons have been described as the best involvement tool out there. Plus, you can fit a lot of information in a small space. Best of all, you don't even have to be a good cartoonist to draw one. In fact, one of the most successful web comics out there is XKCD, which is done entirely in stick figures, but has over a million unique visitors to the site every day. And cartooning has given Tom a 50% increase in email open rates on his email blasts, but more on that in a bit. What you shouldn't do with your boring agency newsletter. People tend to automatically think, "I want to make something that will go viral." You should most definitely avoid this approach. Tom says it's all about continuity. Make a commitment to producing weekly, and stick to putting out quality content every single week. Don't worry about whether or not it goes viral, just worry about whether or not your audience will find value in it. The more valuable it is to them, the more they'll share it, and the more the audience will grow. Remember, you're making an investment in the audience. Don't feel rushed to make a sale. People hate that, and you'll end up turning them off. It's not about people who are ready to buy now, those people will probably find you anyway. What you're trying to do is invest in people who will want to buy from you in the future. Gain them as fans, and they'll come to you when the time is right. And yes, it does need to be weekly. Monthly is just too sparse. Sure, weekly is a lot of work, but it'll pay off in spades over time. Just make sure you're putting out thoughtful content that the audience wants. How to get your email open rates to 50%. It's true, Tom has a fifty percent open rate. His email list of 20,000 is read by about 100,000 people a week through social shares. And he doesn't do any outbound marketing! Take a moment to collect your jaw from off the floor. Most agencies have an open rate of 12-15%, maybe 20% (if you're really lucky). How does one get to this magical 50%? It's all about interesting, relevant content. Tom has an audience that wants to be there, and they expect his email every Monday morning. They look forward to it, which has a lot to do with the fact that he doesn't stuff it full with sales pitches and useless facts about his agency. The cartoon is relevant to his audience and he uses it to start a conversation. Seriously, no one cares about your new VP of Operations. Don't put that kind of stuff in your email blasts. It needs to include things that the audience wants to see. No thought-provoking conversation is going to spring up around the newest award your agency won. Would you like me to help you with your biggest challenge? I've set aside some time to talk to you, personally. During that time, I'll evaluate your business and work with you collaboratively to create an immediately actionable plan to increase your sales and profits. Click here to get my help Keep Improving Your Business Now that you know how to increase and improve your email open rates, take a look at the bigger picture of your agency. Are there other challenges you are facing in your agency? From my experience, 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 selling 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 me and other agency experts.

Going from Agency Owners to Agency CEOs In today's session of The Smart Agency Master Class, I chat with Hannah Paramore, president of Paramore Digital. Hannah is going to talk about the five jobs of an agency owner, how to handle those roles and transition from agency owners into an agency CEOs. The 5 Roles of an Agency Owner. As the agency owner, it is your job to: Grow and mentor the leadership team. To be the face of the company. To set vision and direction. Manage the financials. Be available for key relationships. Whatever you're doing, make sure they are part of these five roles. If it's something outside of these, you need to assess whether or not you are the one that should be doing it. Being comfortable as the agency CEO. No doubt you started out as the smartest person in the room. You were consumed with passion and drive. You were the best at everything, from account management to writing to sales. But as you started to grow from a one-person agency, you probably realized you need to hire people to help you. Suddenly, you're not the smartest. And that's a good thing! You want to hire people smarter and better than you to do the work you don't have time for anymore. Who to hire for your agency. It may take some trial and error to find the right person. You need to clearly define what it is that you need, and how you envision working with someone. Think about what you want your team to look like. Try using a personality profile to find the right fit. If you hire someone, and it goes poorly, don't be disheartened. Remember, it's trial and error. Maybe you need to redefine what you need, or how you want to work with someone. Maybe that person was just an awful fit for your agency. It's okay. There are lots of wonderful people out there. If Hannah had to do it all over again, her first hire would be a Director of Client Services. According to her, "Good work doesn't keep the clients. You're hired for your creative and technical abilities but you're fired for your service." How to motivate and inspire your team. All agency CEOs should know the importance of a happy team. There is no magic formula, but here's a darn good one: Great clients + Great office space + Great culture + Ownership of work These factors, when combined with the right people, make for happy employees. Happy employees motivate and inspire each other, and that's how awesome agencies thrive. (Note: giving out employee bonuses doesn't hurt either!) The "too busy" excuse. Sometimes also known as the "too poor" excuse, and it's just that - an excuse. If you want your business to grow, you're going to have to make time for it. Hire people organically as you grow. Don't think you can afford them? Then you're not charging enough. Your team is part of the billable hours, don't be afraid to include them in the costs. Would you like to get more strategies like this, and be apart of an elite group of agency owners? It can be very isolating running your own agency. Wouldn't you like to join a community of other agency owners that will hold you accountable for growing beyond yourself, all while supporting your journey to get there? That is exactly what the AGENCY Mastermind is all about. Check it out now. Find the right Systems and Strategies that will help you grow faster. Check out the Playbook and the exclusive digital agency elite mastermind. Taking Your Agency to the Next Level Now that all your business owners know how to transition into agency CEOs, are there weaknesses within your agency that are causing everything to break down? 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 you how to recognize when it's time to hire a sales manager or expand your sales team to perfect your business strategy by 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!

Do you have an agency podcast? In this episode I chat with the master of podcasting, founder and host of Entrepreneur on Fire, John Lee Dumas about why your business needs an agency podcast. Podcasting is seriously great for agencies. Here are just some reasons why you need to have an agency podcast: It's on demand. You don't have to say no to something else to listen to a podcast. You can't watch a video and drive a car, just like you can't run and read a blog. But you can do all of those things (and more!) while listening to a podcast. Podcasts are targeted. There are thousands of podcasts out there, specifically tailored to your interests. All you have to do is find one. They're full of free, valuable content. And really, what's better than free and valuable. People listen to podcasts an average of 27 minutes. Compare that to the 45-second average for video and the three-minute average for blogs, and you can easily see how podcasts have the advantage. To be in someone's ear for 20+ minutes is a big way to build credibility. When they have a need, you're going to be the thing to turn to. How do you pick an audience? Start by picking your topic. What void will you be filling in the market? What are you truly passionate about? Use these to determine who your audience is. Don't be afraid to give stuff away. [clickToTweet tweet="It does feel counterintuitive but giving away free content is a good thing." quote="It does feel counterintuitive but giving away free content is a good thing."] You start by doing a podcast and post it on iTunes or Soundcloud. People find it when they search for the keyword associated with your podcast and suddenly, you find yourself being listened to and shared. The podcast starts driving a lot of organic traffic to your website, you're building credibility, and your business grows. All because you gave away something for free. Getting started. This is not a sprint; it's a marathon. Make sure you're committed to it for the long term. But don't look at it as being a complicated process, or even your sole focus. If you put the right systems in place, podcasting won't become a lot of extra work. I've said it before and I'll say it again: putting the right systems in place will help you work so much better. What More Can You Do? If you have more questions, I can help. 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 answer 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.

The Power of Visual Storytelling Do you want to learn the power of visual storytelling and how it can improve your branding marketing on social media as well as your relationship with clients? In this episode I chat with Ekaterina Walter who is a marketer who has worked with numerous Fortune 500 brands to help them with social business. She's also an expert at visual storytelling and is going to show us the power of using video on social media to market your brand. Why visual storytelling is the future. Just go ahead and accept it. We are so inundated with various amounts of information that we have a hard time figuring out how to sort it correctly. So we're just kind of making up our own filters as we go along. What's so great about visual storytelling is that it's a filter that comes to us naturally. Humans process visuals faster than they process text. Considering our attention spans are about 3.9 secs long, presenting information as a visual makes sense. How to make your content snackable. You don't have to do away with long form posts completely, but when posting a link to your blog pull out some interesting tidbits to highlight along with the link. Showcasing the good bits will increase overall traffic. There are lots of visual techniques to help get your overall message across. Infographics, data points, quotes, emphasized text, and animation are just some ways to deliver your message. But king of all these techniques is video. Videos are highly consumable. If you're putting out a press release don't just do the same old boring release. Add a video to go along with the release, and you could increase your traffic by up to 50%. Bonus - people love cartoons. Including a cartoon in your email or newsletter actually increases the open rate to 45%+. What are some visual tools you can use? If you want to make quick, easy visuals for your site or blog, here are some of Ekaterina's suggested tools: Canva QuotesCover PicMonkey Try adding infographics, infograms, or infoactives. Learn to use Vine, for goodness sake! Gifs, memes, etc. are all great additions that make your posts more appealing. Ekaterina's advice to telling a better story. Make sure that you really understand your brand, what your goal is, and where your audience hangs out. Once you've sorted those out, prioritize activities that allow you to build relationships with customers, stakeholders, and your employees. Understanding your community and knowing what they like is what will bring you success. Would you like to be apart of an elite group of agency owners? It can be very isolating running your own agency. Wouldn't you like to join a community of other agency owners that will hold you accountable for growing beyond yourself, all while supporting your journey to get there? That is exactly what the AGENCY Mastermind is all about. Check it out now. How to Further Improve Your Agency I hope you feel ready to improve your brand and connections with clients through visual storytelling but what other challenges are you facing? I cover all topics from the struggles you may face in your agency to creating the best agency proposals and more. Have other topics you want advice on? You can check out all my tips, tricks, and insights in my blog covering 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.

How to Overcome the Common Sales Objections In today's episode, I chat with Pamela Bruner about the common sales objections owners and salespeople encounter when dealing with prospective clients. How to change the perception of sales. Sales get a bad rap. People think of salespeople as being sleazy, or that the whole process is manipulation which leads to common sales objections. This bad perception is a challenge, but definitely something that can be changed. Talk to the prospective client as if you're partners. You're not selling, you're providing a service. Changing the conversation is how you'll do away with the negative image of sales. How to put the client at ease. Don't go in thinking "I have to get this sale no matter what." That's how you end up with bad clients. Not to mention, you're not really going to be listening to their needs or to see if they're the right fit for your agency if it's just about the sale. Let's face it, people are uncomfortable in the sales process. They're nervous. And when you're presenting to a prospect, they're suspicious about you trying to sell them something. Sometimes they're too nervous to speak up about what they want. You need to understand all of this. By knowing the subtext of what they're going through and the source of their fears, you can combat the hesitations and create a better conversation. What are the magic questions to ask to get the answers you need? According to Pamela, asking questions is the magic tool of sales. Here are some gems for your toolbox: What is important to you? Name the #1 result you want to have? What is the cost to you to be in the position you're in now? How do you feel about where you are now? What frustrations are you experiencing? Remember, the meeting isn't about you... It's about the prospective client wanting what you offer. And you won't know if you offer what they want unless you listen. Plus, people love to be heard. Giving potential clients a chance to share how they feel and what they need makes them feel good and builds a sense of security. Use the Three I's to find out what the client needs. Ask about their issue, the impact it's having on their business, and how important it is to them to solve the problem. What if the client doesn't know the answers? If the prospect doesn't know how to do what you're telling them to do, that's great! They can hire you to do it. You're their expert. If the client doesn't know the answers to questions that you need in order to move forward, you may need to get the right person in the room. Ask the prospective client who can help answer those unknowns. But if they don't know the answers to questions or seem uninterested in finding them you need to take that as a red flag. Clients like that can quickly become nightmares. How to avoid sticker shock. Surely you've heard, "You cost how much? I could get it elsewhere five time cheaper!" You need to start out your conversations to avoid sticker shock. It will still come up but you can try to head off some of the brunt. Be very clear on what it will cost and why. Explaining the quality of your solution will help the prospect understand your pricing. To really drive the value home, ask them where their revenues are now versus where they would be if the problem was solved. It's almost always a significant amount which are common sales objections. Meaning it would cost them more not to solve the problem than it would to hire you. "But I don't have enough time or money to do it." Chances are you've probably heard this one from potential clients too. Help them understand by breaking down how much time and money they'll get out of what they put in. People find time (and money) for what is important to them. Demonstrate to the client that it's important and they'll find a way to make it work. AGENCY MASTERMIND for agency owners that want to GROW PROFITS It can be very isolating running your own agency. Wouldn't you like to join a community of other agency owners that will hold you accountable for growing beyond yourself, all while supporting your journey to get there? That is exactly what the AGENCY Mastermind is all about. Click here to learn more... Discover the best Digital Agency Strategies today. Get Online Training to help you setup the right systems and strategies to help you grow faster. Improve Your Agency After common sales objections, what's next? 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 selling your agency for a larger profit. I have all the information you need to help you through it. 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 vi

Agency Problems: How to Overcome the Struggles of Growing an Agency When you want to grow your business, there are common agency problems every owner can experience from the very beginning. In this episode, I chat with Ronn Torossian, founder of 5W PR, the 24th largest PR firm. Ronn tells us about his experience growing an agency, and how to overcome the many agency problems that come along with growth. Success is not a magic formula. Every client, every project is something different. Not all clients want the same thing, so you need to make sure that you are actively listening to what they want. But it's not just about listening. You also need to be communicating with them regularly. Conference calls, activity reports, whatever it takes. Even if you're speaking with them every day, make sure you are also giving them formal weekly and monthly reports. Relationships matter. Strive for building real relationships. Get to know the person, not just the professional. Nurturing solid relationships will go a long way in helping you keep clients and work smoothly with them. How to continuously add value. You have to stay immersed in the client's business. Realize that you and your agency are there to help them grow their business. The client doesn't need to be worrying about what you're up to, they need to know they can rely on you to help them succeed. Don't forget your purpose! Overcoming the struggles. If you think being an entrepreneur is easy, you're insane. Every single day there's something going on. It doesn't get any easier, you just get better at handling it. It's a continuous learning process, but you need to figure out how to take time to just turn off. Taking a vacation, doing a favorite activity, etc. will help clear your mind and make you a better agency owner in the long run. You also need to become a master of time management. Limit your distractions and accept that you can't do everything. And since you can't do everything, you need to hire smart and talented people to help you. Then you need to make sure they are empowered to do the work. It's hard to let go of control but it has to be done if you're going to grow. Ronn's advice for growing. There are lots of different stages of growth. According to Ronn, "What got you here will not get you there." It's different going from a handful of people to over ten. It changes again going from 10-20, 20-35, and so on. There are different struggles at each stage. "Just make sure you have surrounded yourself with smart people to help you along the way." Your business can look like this if you want it to. If you're tired of getting the less profitable clients… If you're sick of selling yourself cheap when you know you're worth MORE… If you TRULY care about your clients and you want to build a business that creates RESULTS for them… Let's chat. Click here to schedule a strategy session, and learn how you too can be on your way to building a multi-million dollar agency. Building Your Digital Agency To create the best digital agency possible, there might be a list of agency problems you are either ignoring or aren't even aware of that needs your attention. Don't worry as 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 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.

Why Giving Free Consultations is Actually Bad for Your Business In this episode, I talk with Troy Dean about Post Traumatic Client Syndrome and why giving free consultations is actually bad for your business. The struggle is real. One of the biggest struggles out there is wasting time on unqualified leads. You drop everything to drive across town for a meeting with a potential client, buy them lunch, only to find out they have no plan and no budget. An afternoon totally wasted. What you need is better screening. Here's how: Draw a line in the sand and say "I will not touch a project under X amount of dollars." Stop doing free consults. Find out the budget before you meet. If you don't want to be doing projects under $10,000, then find out the project's budget before meeting with the client. When someone contacts you, reply with a survey of their project, asking things like budget and timeline. This will help you weed out those just casually browsing. Start charging for the initial meeting. This will help ensure that you're meeting with people serious about making a deal. It doesn't have to be a big fee. Don't even call it a fee. Do a consultation with something that they can take with them. Create some sort of roadmap, blueprint, or strategy. This way, they feel like they're walking away with something of value and you're being paid for your time. The Nightmare Client. Post-traumatic client syndrome is what happens when you deal with a pain-in-the-ass client. You know the ones: micromanaging, aloof, wishy-washy. These clients suck. One way to avoid PTCS is by positioning yourself as a consultant rather than a tradesperson. You want to change how the client views you. You're not an hourly product and you should be wary of working with anyone who doesn't think you're worth the amount you charge or who thinks what you do is "easy" or "simple." If you have a nightmare client - get out and get out fast. There is no reason to work with someone who doesn't respect you or what you do. Drop the PIA ones to make room for the great clients with awesome projects. Grow Your Agency Knowing how to improve business practices for your agency like avoiding giving free consultations to prospective clients, there may be other underlying practices you need to stop or take on to elevate your agency. I always suggest taking a step back to look for weak spots in your business. No matter what challenge your agency is facing, I can help you get through all of it. From my experience in the industry, 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 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 Generate Agency Business By Helping Rather Than Selling Do you find struggles within your agency of ways to generate business and bring in more clients? You wouldn't be alone and I have discovered that you can generate business much more successfully by offering help rather than constantly working and offering a sales pitch. In this episode I chat with Jay Baer, marketing strategist and best selling author. Jay has done everything from sales to social media to content and digital marketing, and he's going to explain how helping rather than selling will give you an edge. Forget what you were taught. Business is more competitive now than ever before. Sure, it used to be that the way to build your business was to do marketing, use the Four P's, and all that jazz. But nowadays, it's different. The best way to grow your business now is to create content that is useful. So useful, that people would actually want to pay for it, but don't have to because you're giving it away for free. It's this kind of super helpful, free content that will help you be heard above everyone else. Yes, you can give it away for free. If you're worried about giving away your content for free, you need to let that go. There's no real secret ingredient anymore. You don't have the uber proprietary lock on strategic planning. What you have is the same plan as the next agency, just with different acronyms. Giving it away for free doesn't mean you'll lose business. People just want to know the so-called "secrets." In the end, they're still going to hire you to do the work. Making time to be helpful. The idea of adding something else to your plate probably seems daunting, but don't worry because Jay has a tip: Take whatever business development you're already doing and dedicate a portion of that to creating helpful content. If your company writes a blog start adding in blogs that are useful to your readers. Building authority. Confidence in your own thought leadership is what gets you attention. You know what you're best at doing, so start there. Write content that's within your niche. According to Jay, you should take everything you know and give it away one bite at a time. This is one of the biggest drivers of my business growth and you need to start doing it too. I show you step by step how to do this in my program called Generate Leads Everyday. Learn more Jay's biggest struggle. In all Jay's ventures and experiences, he says his biggest struggle has been working in his business rather than on it. Sound familiar? You need to be creating processes so that you don't have to do everything yourself. And if you're thinking that you can do it better and faster than someone else, you're probably wrong. You're uniquely qualified to do certain things, so don't let yourself become hemmed up in doing the things someone else can do. Free up your time to work on growing your business and getting to the next level. What you can do right now. Take a look at your services. Now take a look at your competition. What are you doing that they aren't? If you haven't chosen an area to laser focus in on, this may be a good one to choose. Build content, marketing, etc. around this area of specialization so that you can become a thought leader in your industry. If you like this strategy, you need to check out the Agency Playbook, which walks you through all of this and more. Check it out now by clicking here. Helping vs. Selling Jay's book Youtility: Why Smart Marketing is About Help not Hype is a New York Times and Amazon best seller. In it you find the differences between helping and selling, and how that difference is critically important to the success of business. Build a Better Agency I've show you how to generate business more successfully but I bet this isn't the only struggle you experience. Through my life in the industry, I have 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.

In this episode of the Smart Agency Master Class, I chat with Lauri Flaquer, a business consultant with over 20 years of experience in television and film. Lauri specializes in using content to maximize business opportunities and she's going to help you understand why you need to use video content marketing to grow your agency's new business. https://traffic.libsyn.com/jasonswenk/Why_you_need_to_use_video_to_increase_your_agency_new_business.mp3 You need to be making videos to generate agency new business. If you want to become an authority in your marketplace and establish credibility quickly, then you need to be creating video content. The power of video is limitless! It's another opportunity for your clients - and potential clients - to know you and fall in love with you. Because, let's face it - people make buying decisions more and more off of what they see online. Video content marketing gives them another way to really get to know who you are, what you're about and what you can do, and realize they want it. It's not about being perfect from the start. Do not be afraid to just get started. If everyone waited until they were flawless, had all the right equipment, and were totally perfect to start, there wouldn't be any content anywhere. Give yourself the freedom to learn the craft. In 20 years, you'll look back and celebrate all your successes and failures. In the future, you'll be telling stories at parties about how bad you were in your first videos. But if you never start, you won't have anything to look back on - and no one wants to hear a story about nothing. Seriously, don't dwell on mistakes you haven't even made yet. Get out there! Where do I start when wanting to produce video content marketing for my agency? Lauri gives three pieces of advice to those figuring out where to start with creating video content: 1. Find your platform. What will it be about? What is the main theme? How will it enhance, fortify, solidify, and expand your brand? 2. Check out other people who are doing what you want to do well. Watch them. Model them. Then do it better and add your own flare. 3. Come up with scripts. Write and rewrite them. Once you go through the above, find yourself a community or public access network. They are typically desperate for content and a good place to hone your skills and refine your content. Bonus - they're usually free! Extra bonus - check out Cowboy Studio for affordable equipment, and Wistia for great tutorials on lighting, sound, etc. Don't forget to laser focus on your audience. It all goes back to branding. Think about who you are trying to reach and tailor your content to be what your audience wants to see. What would benefit them the most? Having a clear picture of who you're trying to reach will help you in creating great, valuable content. Build the Best Agency With this advice, you should now be able to strengthen your marketing by implementing video content marketing into your strategy. If there are other struggles you are experiencing in your agency, I can help you get through. I can give you advice on how to increase conversions on your website, how to snap up client opportunities as well as ways to build authority to improve your agency. If growth is your focus, I've the different phases of growth within your agency and the three questions you need to ask yourself to sell more of your digital agency services. Learn more about my career and experiences as well as lots of tips, tricks and insights by reading 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.

Getting CMO Attention as a Digital Agency When you are a digital agency, there could be a CMO attention you have been aspiring to achieve. If you can't quite get there, then this episode is for you. In this episode I sit down with Evan Kramer, Chief Marketing Officer at The Neat Company. We cover the following: Understanding a CMO's Decision-Making How to Get Their Attention What To Do When a New CMO Comes In How to get the CMO attention you want most Evan, like a lot of CMOs, is very data driven. If an agency can really assess performance in a holistic way, it's a big bonus. Agencies need to be comprehensive in respect to their integrative portfolio, as well as individual campaign performance. The second attention-grabber is showing that you really understand the client's business and their capabilities. Each client has a different type of infrastructure, each with its own good and bad points. Your agency needs to know that infrastructure and how the client works within it. How does a CMO find an agency? It's not always by general RFP. Evan's company just went through the process of finding a new agency because they were shifting their business model. Because of the shift, they wanted to find an agency who had clients like them, and already understood their unique position. Evan looked at a small, a medium, and a large agency, in addition to their incumbent. Each was engaged in a due diligence process and given a month to learn about his company. They were given the opportunity to look at everything from capabilities to product roadmaps. In the end, it was the mid-sized agency that won because they were most familiar with the challenges the company would be facing. What to do when the CMO leaves. Every new CMO is brought in for a reason. It means something is happening within the company. Either it needs to grow to the next level, it's shifting its business model, or it needs to perform better. Regardless, don't take the relationship for granted. You need to get in there and understand why the new CMO is there and what they've been asked to do. Remember: landing the client isn't the end of the work. Agencies are doing one thing right. Agencies are being more holistic in their work and taking more thematic and portfolio approaches when it comes to media. Looking at everything from multi-touch to multi-screen to how SEM works with SEO, and how it all works together is something that agencies are doing right. If that describes your agency, keep up the good work! The #1 thing you can do right now. [clickToTweet tweet="Make sure that you are managing expectations by understanding the client's business. " quote="Make sure that you are managing expectations by understanding the client's business. "] Make sure that you are managing expectations by understanding the client's business. Be realistic and give measurable improvements. Realistic expectations make the relationships work better. Evan says, "iterate to be great." Become a Better Agency Owner When you gain the CMO attention you've been aiming for, it can bring potential and possibilities but if you haven't a solid foundation, it can create issues. By looking at the bigger picture of your agency, you can focus on 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 a bank of advice to share with you from my own experiences. This can be how to increase conversions on your website, ways to implement Facebook in your marketing strategy, why building authority to improve your agency is important and 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 the three questions you need to ask yourself to sell your services to more customers. You can learn more about my career and experiences 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, did you know I have a Youtube channel? 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.

In this episode I talk with Scott Monty, former Global Head of Social Media for the Ford Motor Company. He walks us through landing big agency clients like Ford as well as other new clients. How does your ad agency generate new business with big clients like Ford? It's all about the research. According to Scott, about 90-95% of the people who contacted him didn't do their research before approaching him. As a fairly public figure at Ford you can imagine that he got a lot of inquiries. But most of them were either form emails or total shots in the dark. So, how do you get in the door at Ford? Well, the company works almost exclusively with WPP companies. The are big, well established agencies with whom Ford has had a long relationship. It's hard to break into that establishment. However, if you want to approach them, be sure to do your research beforehand. You need to really understand where a company like that has been, what they've done, and what it is that they want to do. In the case of a company like Ford, you'll probably need to subcontract for one of their traditional agencies. The WPP companies will farm out work to smaller agencies and that's where you can get in the door. Recommendations on how to get your agency to the next level. Show that you have a keen understanding of the client's business and an understanding of your own capabilities. Don't assume you can improve on something without knowing what the baseline is (in other words - reread #1). Understand where the industry is going, where the challenges are, and where there might be an opportunity that isn't currently being met. Should I be a specialist? Being a specialist can take you a long way. However, there is a danger. As soon as the industry realizes how vital your specialty is, they'll start to bring it in house. Make sure you have your next specialty on the horizon. Regardless of down the road, having a specialty and providing value will get your foot in the door. It will also allow you to command a premium over your competitors. The Do Not's For Big New Clients Want to make a big client mad? Lag behind on the trends in technology. It's your job as the agency to stay on the cutting edge. Don't let your client be the one that's pushing you or telling you about the newest trends. They're paying you to be awesome, so be awesome! Most of the time, agency owners are being reactive, not proactive. Start by creating good content. Have an angle, produce regularly, and help people. Remember: it's not about what sells, it's about what people need. Advice For Your Agency I hope you found this helpful in how your agency can bring in new clients as well as big clients such as Ford but this might not be the only struggle you are facing within your business. I cover all topics from how to leverage Youtube in your agency's favour to creating the best agency proposals and more. I hope you found this helpful and can put it into action. Have other topics you want advice on? You can check out all my tips, tricks and insights in my blog covering 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.

What do you need to do to improve your business management and get away from being run by your agency and start running it? In this episode of The Smart Agency Master Class, I talk with Chris Ducker. Chris is a serial entrepreneur that owns and operates three separate business that include a call center, a recruitment company and a co-working space for startup entrepreneurs. Chris is obviously someone who knows a lot about running a business and he's going to share with us how he manages it all without being overwhelmed. Business Management: Why is the agency running you? Because you're micromanaging! Let's face it, entrepreneurs are wired to believe they should be doing everything themselves. Chris refers to this as "superhero syndrome," and it's something every entrepreneur will suffer from at some point. Eventually, though, you will hit a crossroad where one of two things will happen: A) You'll burn out and be no good to anyone. B) You finally build a brilliant team to help you run, grow, and support the business. Clearly, you want to go with Option B, right? That's how you build the business, not just run the business. There's a lot of amazing talent out there, so make sure you're making the most of it. Say it with me: I do not have to do everything myself. But I can do it quicker! Yes, you probably can do it quicker yourself, but that doesn't mean you should do it. If it's a revolving task - say, posting a blog - it makes more sense for someone else's time to be taken up with completing it. Taking up hours of your time to complete simple tasks just because you can do them faster doesn't make sense financially. Next time you're doing one of these revolving tasks, take a second to record yourself doing it. Show the steps so that your virtual assistant can see how to do it, and BAM! You've cleared up some of your valuable time! But I don't want to pay someone! Again, it doesn't make financial sense for you to be doing it. Let's look at the math: Say your time is worth $1,000/hour, but the routine task you're looking to spend the next hour on can be done by a virtual assistant for $100. Why in the world would you spend your time doing it? You're literally saving $900 by having the VA do it! As the agency owner, your time is better spent creating content, meeting with clients, and growing the business. You need to build a quality team and let them handle running the business. Chris spends a maximum of 10 hours/week on his businesses. Max! The rest of the time he's out there marketing, working on other projects, and speaking. That's what you need to be doing, too. [clickToTweet tweet="Unlearning micromanaging: make a plan to phase yourself out." quote="Unlearning micromanaging: make a plan to phase yourself out."] For each task that comes up, ask yourself, "Am I the one that has to be do this?" If the answer is no, then don't do it. Pass it along to someone on your team who can handle it. It can be a hard thing to learn, but make a habit of asking yourself that question. Eventually, delegating will come naturally. This is one of the most important thing I tell people, and that is why I created the Agency Playbook. It allows you to setup systems that make your business profitable without you having to make every decision or do every thing. Check out the Agency Playbook now. What's Next Using the best business management processes will help you run your agency and team rather than your agency run you and make you lose your passion. If business management isn't your only struggle, 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.

Are you holding your agency back by committing a common social media sin in your marketing by not showing personality? In this episode I chat with Laura Roeder, founder of LKR Social Media and creator of Edgar. Want to Take Your Agency to the Next Level by Using Social Media? Laura is a social media genius, and was - not once, but twice - named a Top Entrepreneur Under 30. She's going to give you advice on what you can do better when it comes to social media and what social media sin you need to stop doing immediately. The Biggest Social Media Sin One of the worst things you can do on social media is not show any personality. Most agencies do great work for their clients in helping to create and craft a social media voice but are desperately lagging when it comes to creating their own. If you say your agency does social media, then you better be doing social media. How do you think it looks when you tell prospects social media is part of what your agency can offer but you only have 50 Twitter followers? Laura's advice here is to "shape up" and get your social profiles together. If you're selling social, make sure you practice what you preach. Creating a Social Media Voice Make sure your followers get to know you. It's hard to form a relationship with a blank brand so provide some kind of information or link to who your team is. You'll have a lot more success if you associate your social profiles to actual people. After all, people buy from people, not from companies. Now, if you're the kind of agency that has a thought leader or a principle as the figurehead, it may make sense for you to use them as your social voice. If you're not that kind of agency, you can add something like "Tweets by [name]" to your Twitter account or add who's posting on Facebook. What Happens When the Social Media Person Leaves? It happens. People grow and move on. But this can be especially tricky when the person is your social media star. Make sure you're branding the social profile around the company and not an individual. This way, when one moves on another person can easily slip into the role. Unless it's a thought leader, you should probably try to avoid having too much of your following built up around an individual anyway. "But, I don't have time for social media." Yes, you do! Use some kind of tool to schedule updates ahead of time. After all, sitting in front of social media all day is not a good use of your time. And don't worry about sounding impersonal or robotic. If anything, automation actually helps you come up with more high-quality posts. Instead of panicking to update, you'll have planned out 6-8 months of content to automatically post. Then you are free to engage and interact with your followers and build relationships. Making Connections If you're just starting out, the best way to find people is to start with the ones you know. Find the profiles of your employees, customers, prospects, etc. and follow them on Twitter. Invite them to like your page on Facebook. Start the conversation with them. Next, look at the writers of blogs you read. Post to them about how you enjoy their work, or retweet their latest article. This way you can start building relationships organically. Remember: if you follow people and never talk to them, your relationship will never grow. Paying for Followers. Unless the goal of your business is to have the most followers, buying followers is a waste of time and money. So, if you're not profiting off of having the highest number of friends, why do it? Fake followers don't ever become customers. Not to mention, imagine the embarrassment of having to tell prospects and clients that your social following is actually a bunch of fake bots from Russia. Talk about cringeworthy! Discover the best Digital Agency Strategies today. Get Online Training to help you setup the right systems and strategies to help you grow faster. Become a Better Agency Owner We have covered why you should avoid the social media sin of not showing the personality of your agency, so now it's time to put all of this into proactive with your social media content and get your agency out there. In my own career as an agency owner and professional life, I have more than likely experienced all if not most of the different struggles you have and can help you with what I have learned. From bad agency clients, developing agency products as well as how you can build authority for your agency. If you want to grow your agency even further, I have agency growth hacks, the best ways to improve management of your business as well as why building a remote team can be beneficial in the long run. As well as this, you can learn more about my career as well as tips, tricks and insights by checking out my blogs that cover a wide variety of topics. I also hear the experience and advice from other successful agency experts in my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my Youtube channel.

Interested in learning how to increase user engagement with your target audience? In this session of The Smart Agency Master Class I'm going to tell you about some agencies that are using surveys all wrong and give you suggestions on how to use them to have more frequent conversations. How you're probably using surveys now. Most agencies are using surveys to gain insights on their audience. These surveys ask questions like: What would you want in a particular product? The surveyor is asking because they're trying to find out what they should build. But the response they're most likely to hear is "faster" and "cheaper." Most surveyees don't know what they want. And how could they? They've never even seen it. Here's how to use surveys to increase user engagement. I use surveys to engage my audience more. For example, as I'm building my list (you need to be building lists, too!) I will ask for more engagement. I want to know more about them so I can send relevant information in the future. In order to learn more, I ask questions like: Are you a freelancer? Are you an agency under $1 million? Are you an agency over $10 million? I ask these questions because it changes how you talk to them going forward. You wouldn't have the same conversation with a freelancer that you would with an agency over $10 million. Now, I have - and do - use surveys to ask what their biggest challenges are. Most of the time, I already know the answer, but in these cases I'm asking so I can respond back with help and can get more engagement. The whole goal is to get the engagement back and forth. You want that dialog! B2B (even B2C) conversations lead to transactions. Pro Tip: People love for you to reach out to them and ask for their expert opinion. You're setting them up on a pedestal, and who doesn't love that? Part of the reason I do this podcast is to reach out to killer guests and start a relationship with them. Survey Challenge! I challenge you to create your own survey. Come up with a strategy to get more engagement and make a survey. Would you like to get more strategies like this, and be apart of an elite group of agency owners? It can be very isolating running your own agency. Wouldn't you like to join a community of other agency owners that will hold you accountable for growing beyond yourself, all while supporting your journey to get there? That is exactly what the AGENCY Mastermind is all about. Check it out now. 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's Next? Now you know how to increase user engagement, what is the next challenge you want to overcome in your agency? Through my own career and professional life, I have more than likely experienced all if not most of the different struggles you have and can help you with what I have learned. From bad agency clients, developing agency products as well as how you can build authority for your agency. If you want to grow your agency even further, I have agency growth hacks, the best ways to improve management of your business as well as why building a remote team can be beneficial in the long run. As well as this, you can learn more about my career as well as tips, tricks and insights by checking out my blogs that cover a wide variety of topics. I also hear the experience and advice from other successful agency experts in my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my Youtube channel.

Do you want to know the #1 thing is that you need to stop doing when pitching to a big brand? If you are ready to become a big brand agency, this is the insight you need to get you there. In this episode, I sat down with Carlos Tribino, CMO of GiftCards.com. Carlos has been on both the agency and large brand side of the pitch and has 20 years of experience in marketing. He's going to tell us why you should understand your prospect before you pitch and what big brands are looking for when picking an agency. What are the big brands looking for in an agency? The number one thing they want is for you to understand their business. By really understanding your prospect's industry you can tap into smart insights and develop strong, compelling, and relevant ideas for brand positioning. Not to mention, this level of understanding will help you go beyond the obvious and craft original, compelling position statements. Carlos also points out that big brands aren't typically looking for full service agencies but rather agencies that are specialists in a particular area. There are so many new technologies out there, it's hard to be knowledgeable enough on all of them. Pick an area and excel in it. The no-no's that agencies need to stop doing. Not surprisingly, the biggest no-no is failing to understand the prospect's business. Or worse - pretending to understand it. Be real, not just opportunistic. If you're calling up prospects and giving some generic pitch you need to stop. Do your homework and make sure that when you call you express that not only can help them accomplish XYZ but also how you're going to do it. It's not only impressive to the prospect that you've done your homework but also shows that you really understand their business. How often should I be following up? Don't be afraid to follow up! It's okay to keep in contact, especially if you're adding value each time. Check in and include a white paper, or perhaps forward along an article related to the prospect's industry. You want to show interest and willingness, but not go overboard with the follow ups. Check in every couple of weeks or once a month. Or whenever there's a big change in the industry or with the company. You can use those opportunities to come up with a cool idea to throw their way. The one thing you need to do differently right now. Find yourself a cool client with a lot of potential and help them realize their awesomeness. People appreciate when you stick by them, and help to create something out of nothing. Once the client reaches their full potential, people will be asking who helped them get there, and your name is sure to come up. Ready to be a Big Brand Agency? Now that you know how to become a big brand agency, it's time to focus on the other hurdles and obstacles that are stopping your agency moving to the next level. I have all the advice you need. No matter what you need advice on, I have more than likely covered it. From topics such as how a poor website design can affect your leads to how your agency can cope while you work through a recession. 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 business experience as well as lots of tips, tricks and insights by check out my blogs that cover a wide variety of topics. And if videos are more your thing, 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.

Where to Find the Right Digital Agency Talent In this episode I sit down with Amy Hoover, CEO of Talent Zoo. Amy is going to talk to us about how to find the best agency talent, developing a recruitment and hiring plan, and what to ask in the interviews. Amy is adamant that you need to develop a recruiting and hiring plan. Finding someone is a multi-prong process, involving personal contacts, former coworkers, job boards, head hunting, and paid recruitment. Rarely does just one of these prongs end up working, so you need to come up with a plan to help you hit many of the angles at the same time. The plan. Start internally. Develop an "employer brand," including why it's great to work for your agency and why your employees think it's great working there. And don't forget to put it on your website! Look at options for getting your employer brand out there. Get the word out through your personal and professional networks, as well as agency-specific resources. Identify who needs to be involved internally. Do you have a HR person or a hiring manager? Think about involving potential peers in the hiring process. Whatever you do though, don't involve clients. Even if the person will be working mainly with the client, don't involve them. Having clients involved in your hiring process is a disaster waiting to happen. Be specific in what you're looking for. Small to mid-sized agencies have a hard time planning what the new hire will actually do. You need to clearly identify what the responsibilities will be so you can find the right person. Always be recruiting. That means you should be constantly on the lookout for that amazing someone for your team. Create a tracking method. Whether it's a spreadsheet or a full-blown applicant tracking system be sure to have a way to save and easily retrieve resumes. What to look for in a potential hire. Make sure you vet their resume as much as possible. You want to be sure that they can do what they say they can do, as well as that they have actually done what they've claimed. Also, look for someone who is going to be a good cultural fit. You need someone who will jive well with your agency's culture. Finally, let your team at them. The team may pick up on things you missed in your conversations with them. Remember - a bad hire can be costly. Hire slowly, fire quickly. Hiring from competitors. Hiring from your competitors does not guarantee a good fit. It may be tempting to try, after all they do the same kind of work you do, with the same type of clients as you. Still, hiring from the competition is super limiting. You're keeping yourself from getting completely fresh eyes with new agency talent. Also, making the transition from large agency to a small one can be really difficult. So hiring someone from your bigger, more successful competitor may actually do your team more harm than good. The interview. Ask questions that will showcase the person's actual personality, not just their work personality. Invite them on a skateboarding outing with the team or find out what they do in their spare time. Ask what they loved about their first job. Anything to break free from the normal interview questions will help you see what they're really like. I used to dress like a race car driver in my interviews. Seriously, full suit and helmet (with the visor down). Once, I even dressed like a ballerina. I wanted to see if it would rattle them, or if they had a sense of humor. For those that don't know, Talent Zoo is an industry-specific job board. They cater mostly to tech, creative, marketing and PR listings, and they're a great place to find talent. They also put out a whole ton of original content around hiring and hiring trends. After You Hire Your Team When you hire new agency talent for your business, you are ready to focus on other weaknesses and challenges within your agency. No matter what challenge your agency is facing, I can help you get through all of it. Through my experience running my own digital agency and helping other digital agency owners, there are many topics I can offer guidance whether you are an established agency facing struggles to new agencies unsure of what the different phases of growth you will experience will look like. 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. 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.