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

When was the last time you stepped back to evaluate whether your agency's strategy is truly aligned with your core mission and values? Is your team buying into the overall vision? Are they motivated and understand their role in the vision? If not, it's time you start integrating vision and strategy for more effective results. Today's guest has set himself the mission of saving small businesses from failure by teaching them how to combine their vision with effective strategy. He thinks agency owners should think about strategy a lot sooner to avoid moving blindly with no particular purpose in sight. In t his episode, you'll learn how having a clear vision statement can motivate your team and drive growth. Jimmy Newson is the founder of Moving Forward Small Business, a membership-based organization that helps businesses grow and achieve their goals through practical and actionable advice. As a business and growth strategy consultant, Jimmy has worked with organizations of all sizes, but his specialty lies in working with small businesses and entrepreneurs. Jimmy is also a contributor and member of Leadership Network with Entrepreneur.com, where he shares his expertise on small business management and growth. In this episode, we discuss: Integrating strategy for clearer and more effective results. Why you should rethink and adapt your strategy. Building a purpose-driven team. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service. Strategy Can SAVE Small Businesses At his organization, Jimmy's ultimate goal is to save one million small businesses from failure by 2050. Why small businesses? According to Jimmy, 99% of businesses in the United States are small businesses and the failure rate among them is alarmingly high. "You have to start questioning why that is," he says. Jimmy's personal experiences have given him a deep understanding of small businesses' challenges. Despite working with large organizations, he deliberately maintains a small team and leverages available technology to bridge the gaps. His goal is to empower small businesses to thrive by implementing effective strategies that ensure financial success and long-term sustainability. Is a clear vision enough to create this sustainability? Jimmy highlights the need to create a business plan that aligns with your vision, mission, and purpose. He also stresses the need for a strategy that outlines the rules of engagement and guides decision-making. This strategy will become the guiding force that will keep the organization on track and allow business owners to make decisions that align with their vision and mission. Once established, new opportunities for your business should always be examined under the guise of "Does this align with my strategy?" By aligning opportunities with their strategy, business owners can ensure they are moving in the right direction and avoiding potential pitfalls. Is it Time to RETHINK Your Strategy? Most agency owners start out being good at something – whether Google ads, website building, etc. – However, once they step into the role of entrepreneur, they encounter various unfamiliar aspects of the business. "You don't have to be good at all these things," Jimmy clarifies, "but you have to be aware of them." It's about figuring out how to address these aspects of business without shouldering them on your own, which would probably not provide the best results. The logical step is to hire a team and start delegating tasks. However, before that be sure to build a strategy that provides a path to reduce uncertainty around the future of your business. By developing a roadmap for their business, agency owners can navigate challenges and obstacles with greater ease. Additionally, Jimmy suggests reevaluating and revising the strategy regularly to evolve and refine your vision and strategy and thus adapt to changing market conditions. Building a Purpose-Driven Team to Cultivate Employee Motivation and Commitment Once you've established and integrated a strategy into your agency's mission and vision, how do you get people joining your organization to buy into that vision? They should be aware that their role isn't just a job; it's a mission fueled by the agency's core values. This is the power of having a compelling "why" behind your agency's vision. As Jimmy emphasizes, people aren't just motivated by products or services; they crave purpose. When employees believe in the organization's mission and values, they are more likely to be engaged, motivated, and committed to their work. Having a strong "why" behind the agency's goals can help employees self-validate their reasons for being there. This sense of purpos

Is your agency leveraging CRMs to tailor personalized client experiences and nurture long-term client relationships? Are you tracking customer interactions from first message to delivery? In the dynamic world of agency-client interactions, CRM tools play a pivotal role in streamlining operations and enhancing customer experiences. Today's guest has made customer satisfaction his focus even since his start as a graphic designer and now offers a CRM system designed specifically with agencies in mind. Tune in to learn valuable insights on client management and relationship-building strategies for agencies. Steve Holm is the CEO of Copper, a CRM company that helps agencies track clients from initial interest to project delivery. He discusses the importance of building better relationships with clients and shares his background as a graphic designer and his experience in digital product development. In this episode, we'll discuss: How design can translate to customer value. Crafting a success path for designers at your agency. How to effectively use CRM to navigate customer relationships. One CRM designed specifically for agencies. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Understanding How Design Can Translate to Customer Value Steve's journey began as a graphic designer, crafting yearbooks for elementary schools using InDesign. He then transitioned to digital design at an agency collaborating with Facebook on feature and product development. Through his network of industry connections, Steve ventured into partnerships with various companies, eventually assuming a leadership role in product management. His background in design and product management equipped Steve with the skills to create a vision and roadmap for his company based on the impact they aim to have on customers. Since the beginning, Steve has seen that design can directly impact customer satisfaction and, as a result, business success. To him, the most important thing to keep in mind as you design is "what is the value this is giving to customers and how can I make a connection between my design and the value they're receiving?" Making this connection leads to increased revenue or reduced turnover. In his view, this approach translated well into the role of CEO, as he understood the significance of prioritizing customers, designing with the end consumer in mind, and working backward to the technology, rather than starting with the technology and trying to sell it. It's a philosophy very similar to that of Steve Jobs, who believed in designing products that cater to the needs and desires of customers. Establishing a Clear Path to Success for Designers at Your Agency As a designer who eventually transitioned to management roles, Steve knows that trajectory depends on the person. Throughout his professional journey, he has strived to elevate the role of design within strategic discussions to provide more avenues for designers to find fulfillment. Establishing a clear career path for designers, encompassing both technical expertise and management responsibilities, is crucial for retaining top talent. However, not all designers aspire to or are suited for managerial positions; some excel as creatives and prefer to stay in that role. The problem is that in certain organizations managerial roles are perceived as the sole route for designers to have a significant impact on the broader vision. At his organization, Steve focused on granting design a strategic role in project development. Addressing the issue of impact makes it easier to understand a designer's motivations for role transitions, their objectives, and how to support their success. When designers only see themselves getting ahead by moving into manager roles, Steve perceives it as a flaw in company operations. Designers should have more participation in strategic decisions. By exposing them to the right conversations and strategies, agencies can leverage their expertise to drive innovation and create customer-centric solutions. Navigating Your Agency's Customer Relationships with CRM Customer relationship management (CRM) is a crucial aspect of any business and, as such, agencies should provide world-class relationship building across every touchpoint in the customer journey. It's the way to engage prospects and close more deals, as well as, retain existing clients to grow those accounts. With ten years of experience in CRM and looking at it from end to end Steve believes it's important to provide the utmost quality at every step of the process. How are you engaging with customers from the moment they reach out? How are you interacting? Are you making sure to get feedback on what went well and what can be improved post-interaction? The right answers to these questions will help you remarket and grow your business from existing clients. For Steve, a key practice in this process is to have a CRM that tracks all these interactions, documents, and tasks for the post-sales, and project delivery stage

How do you prioritize between family time and business responsibilities as an entrepreneur and parent? How is that balancing act working out for you? Being an agency owners and a parent can be a bit of a mess and there's no magic formula to balancing parenthood and being an agency CEO. For some parents, this means a lot of guilt about not spending enough quality time with their kids or not being 100% focused during family hours. Today's guest started her entrepreneurship journey while eight months pregnant and has been constantly learning ever since. She'll share some of the boundaries she's learned to uphold to protect her family and rest time. She also explains why hiring was a daunting but key step towards improving both her personal and business life. Audra Brehm is the owner of Brehm Media, a social media marketing agency focused on the beauty and fashion industry. She's been on the podcast before talking about raising agency prices and why it does not scare away the right clients. As a business owner and a mother, Audra discusses the challenges of balancing life and work, going back to starting her agency while eight months pregnant and learning to embrace imperfection. Tune in to hear insights on making it work and finding success in business while navigating the demands of family life. In this episode, we'll discuss: The boundaries need to balance motherhood and being an agency CEO. Embracing imperfection to find work/life balance. how hiring the right team will set you free. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service. The Balancing Act of Being a Mom and an Agency CEO Balancing work and family is a common struggle for many individuals, especially for moms running their businesses. Audra jumped into the adventure of being a business owner while still eight months pregnant with her second child. It was not exactly her plan. Freshly moving to Colorado and interviewing for jobs, she was presented with the choice to either relocate to Florida for work or start her own consulting firm with that brand as her first client. Being a self-declared bad employee, the possibility of becoming a business owner appealed to her even while eight months pregnant and she jumped at the opportunity. Although excited about launching her business post-baby, managing both her business and family proved to be a challenging task. Many working moms grapple with the fear of neglecting their families while pursuing their professional goals. The initial years were particularly demanding for Audra as her business demanded a significant amount of her time. Over time, she learned to prioritize her time commitments alongside her financial objectives. Failing to uphold self-imposed time boundaries can lead to feeling torn between family and business responsibilities. Now she has non-negotiable boundaries such as being present during weekends or after a certain hour. Does this mean she advises postponing starting a family until after establishing your agency? No. There'll never be a perfect time to have kids, just like there's never a perfect time to start a business. Audra's advice is to stop pushing things off and just treat both with care. If you aspire to have a family and run an agency, you will find a way to strike a balance. It's a challenging juggling act that requires diving in and taking action rather than waiting for the ideal moment. Finding Work/Life Balance Through Delegation and Goal Setting Like Audra, many agency owners experience the guilt and stress that often come with trying to juggle both family and business. She's found the way to be present in both aspects of life is to set clear boundaries. She has also learned to delegate tasks, set goals, and communicate with her children about the demands of her work. This open communication has allowed her to involve her children in her business and help them understand the importance of her work. Similarly, Audra prioritizes quality time with her husband, who also serves as her COO. They have intentionally set aside dedicated hours each week to simply enjoy each other's company without discussing work or family matters. This practice helps them nurture their relationship beyond their roles as parents and business partners, preventing burnout from an exclusive focus on work. Of course, accepting imperfection will also be key to finding peace as you try to balance both worlds. Audra believes even the smartest and most successful people have figured it all out yet. It's a real struggle to maintain a good family life, be an engaged significant other, and have a successful business all at the same time. "It's a grind all the time and it's okay to

Gary Vaynerchuk and Steve Jobs both became the face of their brand, but could this marketing strategy cost you when it's time to sell your agency? How can you avoid becoming the brand to build a 'sellable' agency? Today's guest is an entrepreneur who has successfully started and sold four businesses. He discusses the value of personal brands in relation to company success and delves into the challenges faced by service companies in building assets compared to tech or SaaS startups. Tune in to learn about common mistakes made by agency owners when considering selling their businesses and the pitfalls of an obsession with scale. John Warrillow is the founder and CEO of The Value Builder System, a sales and marketing software for business advisors to find, win and keep their best clients. In addition to having started and exited four companies, John is the best-selling author, Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You. In this episode, we discuss: How to add value to your agency. Build a 'sellable' agency. Equity rolls vs. earn-outs. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources Copper: This episode of Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by Copper, a CRM solution built specifically for agencies that use Google Workspace. Its CRM integration works seamlessly with Gmail, Google Calendar, and Drive, so you never have to switch tabs to add leads, track email conversations, find files, or manage tasks in your marketing or sales process. Head over to Copper.com/agencies to get a free trial just for Jason's listeners! How Businesses Fall into the Revenue Pitfall Agency owners and service-based businesses often fall into the trap of overvaluing their companies when considering selling them. This common mistake is rooted in their relentless pursuit of growth and expansion. As a public, we tend to idolize big companies as opposed to good companies. This can turn into an obsession that leads agency owners to focus solely on increasing revenue, rather than building systems and processes that can make the business less dependent on the owners and founders. This fixation on growth typically results in rainmakers focusing predominantly on their sales expertise, which, while driving business growth, also increases dependence on the founders. Paradoxically, this dependence diminishes the overall value of the business. For John, the obsession with growth does agencies a great disservice by creating a culture of focusing solely on revenue. Consequently, businesses become so intertwined with the owner's presence that they essentially create a job for themselves rather than an asset that can thrive independently. This realization can be a bitter pill to swallow for many agency owners, especially when they recognize that their ego often drives these attitudes. By subscribing to the notion portrayed in "Mad Men" that their primary role is that of the charismatic pitchperson, they inadvertently create successful jobs rather than valuable assets. An Easy Method to Add Value to Your Agency So how can you avoid the revenue pitfall? John recommends agency owners take their CEO hat off from time to time and replace it with that of the parent of the business. In this sense, rather than micromanaging employees to hit revenue goals, empower them to take ownership of their work. They will feel greater pride and engagement, enabling the agency to thrive with or without you. By prioritizing long-term sustainability you can increase your agency's value and make it more attractive to potential buyers. It's not just about winning big clients or receiving accolades, but about creating a valuable asset that can stand the test of time. John also introduces the concept of assessing agency services according to how "teachable, valuable, repeatable" (TVR) they are to make strategic business decisions based on this. The TVR framework encourages agency owners to assess each service based on how teachable it is to their team, how valuable it is in terms of differentiation from competitors, and how repeatable it is in terms of recurring revenue. According to John, aency owners should focus on services that score high on all three criteria, as these are the services that will ultimately lead to a more sustainable and scalable business. This is not necessarily easy. Getting rid of some low-scoring services may mean walking away from 90% of your revenue. If this is your case, you can jettison the lowest-scoring services at least once a year. Striking the Right Balance as an Agency CEO Building a business that can run without you and that you can eventually sell will also require you to make the transition from agency owner to CEO. This means assuming different roles like setting the vision for the agency, being the face of the organization, understanding the financials, and coaching and mentoring the leadership team. Personally, John disagrees with Peter Drucker's notion that the two key functions that a CEO should focu

Do you have enough of an appetite for risk to trigger exponential agency growth? Have you considered strategic partnerships as a growth strategy? Today's guest changed the music scene for entrepreneurship and managed to grow his agency from $2 million to $16 million in just two years. How'd he do it? After getting past common initial struggles like developing sales and hiring the right people, he focused on strategic partnerships and found the right formula to scale his marketing agency. Tune in to learn from his incredible growth story and strategic approach to agency success. Alex Rossman is the owner of Rossman Media, a socially led digital marketing agency that serves brands of all sizes to help them grow online, with a particular focus on social media. Rossman's award-winning team is positioned for global expansion. He discusses the importance of having an appetite for risk and thinking long-term about company growth. In this episode, we'll discuss: Learning when to hire employees. 8Xing a digital marketing agency. How to minimize the risks in an agency acquisition. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service. When to Hire Employees For Your Agency Alex started out as a musician and was actually signed by a record label and touring at some point, all while maintaining a corporate job. However, the corporate job was draining and the music gigs weren't profitable so he needed another way to balance his creative side while using his experience with sales and marketing. This led to his start in the agency world back in 2017. Over seven years of steering his agency, Alex pinpoints hiring as his biggest challenge. Though his hands-on experience gave him insight into each role's requirements, finding candidates who could confidently take the reins proved difficult. Like many founders, Alex struggled to prioritize - should he start by beefing up sales or operations? Eager to scale rapidly, Alex also fell into the common trap of over-hiring. Buoyed by high growth, he staffed up quickly rather than strategically. Soon he was building the plane while flying it, scrambling to course-correct profitability and organization. To surmount hiring hurdles, agency owners need self-awareness around strengths, weaknesses, and business stage. Rather than focusing on rapid growth alone, smart hiring means filling gaps with experts who complement the existing team. This prevents overstretching capabilities and sets an achievable path for sustainable scaling. Looking back, Alex wishes he balanced ambition with patience. Hiring is never easy, but by aligning roles and capabilities to the agency's most pressing needs, founders can build a thriving team equipped for the long-haul. Centering the Utilization Rate to Increase Agency Success Having learned from over-hiring missteps, Alex now centers his growth strategy on utilization rate and team optimization - two pivotal aspects for agency success. By closely tracking utilization, he ensures his team effectively spends time on client work, driving productivity and profitability. Now, Alex and the team rate incoming leads as high, medium, and low, which plays into how they decide to hire based on the amount of work they'll have in the coming months. Focusing on high-impact tasks and leveraging each team member's strengths, or "superpower," will also help you ensure you're optimizing team performance and maximizing productivity. This approach not only benefits the agency but also serves the individual team members by allowing them to excel in their roles and contribute to the company's success. Moreover, with an adaptable mindset, Alex continuously reevaluates team efficiency as the agency evolves. Assessing performance, identifying improvement areas, and adjusting roles over time is key. This may involve revisiting responsibilities, offering training, or reallocating resources to tap the highest potential impact. 8Xing HisAgency in Just Two Years The driving force behind the remarkable growth of his agency lies in strategic acquisitions. As the agency owner, Alex has diligently focused on enhancing services for clients and nurturing relationships with both clients and employees. Additionally, he dons his investor hat to assess the industry's current fragmented landscape. Recognizing an opportunity, Alex leveraged mergers and acquisitions to bring on board companies that not only aligned with the agency's culture but also addressed operational gaps. In 2022, their pivotal acquisition involved the purchase of a complementary social media agency, a move that facilitated horizontal integration and bolstered the management team with fresh talent and cliente

Would your agency keep running and growing if you had to take a month off tomorrow? Or would it all fall apart? Which systems could you start implementing right now to keep this from happening? Today's guest went through difficult times last year and his focus wasn't fully in the business. These struggles proved to be too much for a recent purchase, which he had admittedly rushed; as that acquisition started falling apart and becoming a burden, it started to take a toll on mental health. In the end, he had to sell. Now he thinks carefully about the processes and systems that must be in place in case of an emergency. Tune in to learn how he navigates his agency to allow himself time to focus on the things that are more important than money. Robert Lee is the owner of Lesix Media, a real estate-focused agency that thrives on doubling clients' productivity, sales, and marketing through innovative frameworks. Robert discusses his experience buying and transforming an agency that now focuses on helping real estate professionals, commercial roofers, political candidates, and organizations. He shares insights on finding a consistent path to growth and how setting up the right systems will allow you to take care of your mental health. In this episode, we'll discuss: How to use direct email to leave a lasting impression. Avoid regret by trusting your gut. More important than money: prioritizing mental health. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources Copper: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by Copper, a CRM solution built specifically for agencies that use Google Workspace. Its CRM integration works seamlessly with Gmail, Google Calendar, and Drive, so you never have to switch tabs to add leads, track email conversations, find files, or manage tasks in your marketing or your sales process. Head over to Copper.com/agencies to learn more and get a free trial. From Young Freelancer to Entrepreneur Needing the Structure of an Agency Robert has been working with political candidates and organizations for around fifteen years. Starting as a freelancer who thought he could do it all, his understanding of what an agency was grew with experience. The more he learned, the more he appreciated the structure and organization needed to truly succeed. This wish to become a more formal and organized business was the idea behind his plan of buying into a direct mail agency. It was a natural transition after fifteen years in the business to grow a team and have a business he could grow. In the end, he didn't just buy into an agency but outright purchased one. They were one of his vendors around 2017 and it was actually a long process to complete. He already had the political marketing business and had plans to transition that business from just fulfilling mail projects to becoming a full-service agency. Using Direct Mail to Leave a Lasting Impression His agency currently focuses on helping political candidates and organizations spread their message. However, up until six months ago they were all about direct mail and were responsible for a lot of junk mail for real estate agents and commercial roofers. For Robert, direct mail may get a lot of hate but it can be impactful in a variety of ways. "You don't have to use direct mail for everything, but don't count it out," he argues. Personally, he favors sending obnoxiously large pieces because there are a lot ways to make it really creative and get people's attention. It's important to think outside the box when it comes to designing and executing direct mail pieces and there's a lot of space for impactful designs, such as die-cut pieces and pop-up elements that leave a lasting impression. Avoiding Regret in Your Agency by Trusting Your Gut Looking back, there are many things Robert would do differently in that process to purchase and transition the agency's services but the biggest one is to trust his gut. The company he acquired was a mom & pop shop with no sales processes in place. Despite having reservations about this, Robert chose to move forward with the purchase. Instead of waiting until they created the necessary sales process and revisit the acquisition after a year, he argued against himself and went ahead with the purchase. As a result, he faced challenges and struggles that could have been avoided. Basically, their sales process revolved entirely around the owners and referrals. There was no lead generation. Under these conditions, it wasn't really a business so much as a job these owners built for themselves and were now trying to sell. For his part, Robert had been planning this acquisition for a long time and was nervous he would lose the opportunity if he asked for more time for them to resolve the issues. It was a valuable lesson in business. With those problems, the agency became more of a burden that needed his constant attention. It was not structured in a way that allowed Robert space to face these challenges and soo

Is the wrong prospecting process bringing you clients who are just not a good fit? Are you feeling trapped in a contract with clients you wouldn't choose to work with again? Building strong connections with clients based on common ground and understanding can significantly impact the success and fulfillment of partnerships in the agency world. Today's guest saw her first agency end after all partners lost their passion for the work. The reason? Working with clients who didn't fit the agency's personality left them all feeling stuck and overwhelmed. After selling and starting over, she has made the right prospecting process a focus of her new business and is seeing the results. Tune in for insights on starting over the right way after selling an agency that wasn't working out. Jodie Ball is an agency owner specializing in search engine optimization helping clients scale and grow. She has a decade of experience in SEO and digital marketing and uses a data-driven, non-siloed approach to capture target demographics at pivotal points during their decision-making process. Jodie shares her journey of building and selling her first agency with partners, along with the challenges and successes she experienced. She now enjoys the freedom to choose her clients and work with people she wants to work with. In this episode, we'll discuss: How the wrong prospecting can lead to agency frustration. Ensuring your vision aligns with your prospects. Selling and starting over the right way. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service. When Clients Don't Align: The Path to Agency Frustration Jodie's agency journey started when she was an intern helping build websites for musicians and got the amazing opportunity to work in the search engine optimization of an Amazon-owned business. She sort of fell into the role of executing an account for Amazon, a path she would have never imagined for her career. Later on, the people who first contacted her for that project called her when they decided to build an SEO agency and eventually became her business partners. The Amazon gig helped them gain credibility as they started and grew their agency. Initially, she worked on sales and strategy and had to wear a lot of different hats as she and her partners figured out the agency. After starting off with a bang with Amazon, Jodie's agency went on to work with high-end fashion retailers like Skims and Good American. They stayed within the fashion niche to leverage their expertise and reputation in that area and attract clients who valued their industry knowledge and experience. However, they fell into a pattern of taking on clients that didn't fit their agency's personality and started to feel stuck and overwhelmed. This led to stress and ultimately made the business less enjoyable. Five years in, her partners were now too busy for the agency and it seemed there was not enough meat left on the bone. Basically, it seemed clients did not have a full understanding of the value the agency was providing. This resulted in unhappy clients and frustration on both ends. Looking back, Jodie sees their reporting was not complete enough to communicate the full extent of their results. How to Find The Right Prospects: Correcting Past Communication Mistakes Agencies must establish clear channels of communication with clients from the very beginning and consistently update them on the progress of their projects. By setting expectations and goals upfront, agencies can ensure that clients are aware of the value they are receiving and can better appreciate the results of their work. There are certainly many things they could have improved which Jodie now implements in her new agency with her current understanding of prospecting that helps eliminate the wrong prospects since the beginning. A lot of it has to do with educating the client during the onboarding process. Clients may not always be familiar with the intricacies of digital marketing, SEO, or other services offered by agencies, so it is crucial to take the time to explain these concepts in a way that is easy for them to understand. Jodie finds that many times with clients the business model is a really great fit for the agency but the person they'll be communicating with is not there yet in terms of understanding or being in the right mindset. This is not necessarily insurmountable and agencies can empower these clients to make informed decisions and better appreciate the work being done on their behalf. Looking forward, Jodie would like to focus on growing the team, scale the agency to reach the 7-figure mark and retire to live a more relaxed lifestyle. Selling an Agency a

Do you dream of running a big agency? What's your target number and how do you think you'd handle the added stress of an increasingly larger team? Today's guest is the leader of an agency colossus: an over half-billion-dollar behemoth with around 4,000 employees spanning the globe, a scale very few founders could even imagine. He'll share invaluable insights into engineering colossal expansion, the leadership mindset needed to wrangle this growth, and how his team handles agency valuations in their search to continue the agency's growth. Tune in to this must-listen episode if you're looking for inspiration and practical advice on taking your agency to the next level. Dimi Albers is the global CEO of DEPT, an agency that has seen phenomenal growth over the past eight years. He shares the pivotal moment back in 2014 when the partners at Dept decided to shift their focus from being a Netherlands-centric design and tech agency to becoming a global player that covers the full digital customer journey and the strategy behind acquiring 33 agencies. In this episode, we'll discuss: The road to scaling to $500M. Lessons from a cultural mismatch. Inspiring your leadership team. Elements to consider for an agency valuation. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources Convert Masterclass: Do you want the ultimate guide to building a profitable and self-driven sales team? Access our FREE masterclass and learn how much you should be charging to increase profitability, how to train your salespeople to respond to any objections, and more. Just go to AgencyMastery360.com/convert and unlock maximum profits. Taking a $500M Agency to Global Markets Back in 2014, Dimi's agency made the pivotal decision to expand its services and target international clients. They wanted to transform from a design and tech-focused agency into a company that covers the customer's full digital journey. This strategy was considered relatively unique and presented an opportunity for growth. At the time, the agency had a very good reputation in The Netherlands and was valued at 15 million USD. To support their ambitious plans, the agency partnered with a Dutch private equity firm. This partnership provided the necessary resources and expertise to accelerate their growth, despite initial reservations about working with a private equity firm. Even with capital backing, they remained relatively conservative in investments. Dimi focused on establishing profitability for core revenue drivers within a tight 12-18 month timeframe. The agency pursued a two-pronged growth strategy - mergers and acquisitions supplemented by nurturing intrapreneurial talent to drive organic business wins. Organic expansion from existing client relationships delivered a steady 25% annual growth rate, which compounded as M&A activity layered in. For Dimi, scaling an agency is fundamentally a people business and requires making sound decisions consistently rather than betting on a few big moves. It may sound boring, but he cautions against the idea of explosive growth and highlights the unglamorous but crucial factors like hard work and incremental smart choices. His agency methodically built its value proposition in the Dutch market first. From this solid foundation, they gradually expanded into Europe, the US, and ultimately APAC - advancing to new geographies only after careful evaluation of their capability strengths and each market's receptiveness. This thoughtful, capability-driven approach to global scaling enabled successful service expansions into new territories. Trusting Your Gut: Lessons from a Cultural Mismatch Quite early in their journey, when they were far less experienced, DEPT partnered with an agency that ended up being a cultural mismatch. This was the sole instance Dimi can recall facing such an issue. Being a first for him at that stage, Dimi admits to underestimating how long it would take to recognize and address the disconnect. Ultimately, even though the merger was a sound financial decision, the misaligned team needed to be merged with a more culturally compatible group to rectify matters. Looking back, he thinks he could have made faster decisions by just trusting his gut. It's possible to determine with a high level of certainty whether a partnership or hiring decision will work out after speaking with someone for a certain amount of time. In this sense, he's learned to trust his intuition and instincts in business. How To Deal With "Difficult" Clients at Your Agency Dimi's agency evolved from being generalist to niche-focused through strategic mergers and acquisitions. As specialized firms joined, it opened up new service offerings and vertical markets like Amazon advertising expansion across Europe. Their vision for growth centered on meeting client needs first. Starting with establishing a strong portfolio in the Dutch market, they then expanded across Europe as demand grew. For Dimi, prioritizing client satisfaction and value del

Are you looking for motivation to get your agency off the ground? How has your client acquisition strategy evolved since you started? Have you tried building client communities to foster a competitive spirit that will lead to client wins? Today's guest is a young entrepreneur who turned to marketing as a teen knowing college just wasn't for him. He focused on learning and building a solid base and now has 400K/mo SMMA and has purchased another two agencies. He and his partner understand their strengths lie in getting businesses off the ground and recognizing potential for growth in partnerships. However, they're still figuring out how to scale to eight figures. Tune in to learn from his inspiring journey and his tips for successful mergers and acquisitions. Matt Shields is the founder of Estate AI, an agency that seeks to shift the paradigm for realtors who rely on referrals by teaching them how to run a business with consistent opportunity flow. Matt is a young agency owner who has achieved impressive success in a short period. His determination and entrepreneurial spirit led him to purchase his first SMMA course at just 17 years old. Now, with over $425,000 in monthly recurring revenue, Matt shares his unique approach to acquiring agencies and achieving high profit margins. In this episode, we'll discuss: Matt's client acquisition strategy. The $2,500 ad that got them a $1,000,000 win. Building communities for client success. Top tips for buying and selling your agency. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service. Outgrowing Self-Doubt to Catalyze Agency Success At age 17, Matt felt school wasn't the right path for him and wanted to try a different entrepreneurial approach. He purchased a $597 marketing course that taught him key skills - sales, outreach, onboarding customers, and Facebook ads. However, as Matt took his first steps into entrepreneurship, the biggest hurdle had nothing to do with practical business tactics. In that crucial first year, Matt was forced to face deep inner fears - the fear of failure, rejection, and not being good enough. He realized he needed to work extensively on his own psychology and overcome limiting beliefs about his young age and ability to successfully build a business. Confronting these mental roadblocks proved just as important as mastering the outward skills. Although Matt eventually reached a good place and found success, in his view he never fully overcame self-doubt. Getting too comfortable would mean stagnation, which he wanted to avoid. While he conquered early fears around sales and now thrives in that area, he continues to face the challenge of overcoming fears of leadership and leveling up his mindset. It's a constant process of self-improvement, because as a business grows, so too must the entrepreneur grow personally. Most recently, Matt has focused on becoming disciplined enough to consistently take action on the hard things, regardless of his passing feelings or mental resistance. The Evolution of His Agency's Client Acquisition Strategy Matt scaled his first agency through the strategic use of free trials. To attract initial clients, they leveraged LinkedIn automation, Facebook direct messages, and cold email outreach. This approach worked particularly well when they started emailing gym owners to offer free trial services. They completed around 70 free trials over 6 months - but only for prospects they knew could convert to paying customers. After that 6-month ramp-up period, they were generating $20,000 in recurring monthly revenue. This early method provided valuable entrepreneurial experience. However, Matt's agency has since evolved its approach to client acquisition. They now rely on paid advertising and use the same systems they sell to run their own growth campaigns. This strategy rocketed them from $10,000 per month to $150,000 within just 3 months, hitting $350,000 in monthly revenue by their first year - all through paid ads. To fuel this exponential growth, Matt and his partner reinvested all profits into paid media spending and building a robust sales team. They also recognized offering a compelling guarantee in their ads was crucial for conversion. Rather than innovate from scratch, they analyzed competitors' guarantees and modeled their own to be slightly better than existing market offerings. Matt believes that SMMAs don't need to innovate, just pay attention to what works and do it better. Their simple but realistic promise - "10 listing appointments in 6 months for realtors" - resonated powerfully with their target audience. This honed, benefit-driven guarantee helped attract a steady stream of new clien

Do you find it hard to stand out on LinkedIn? Have you tried making connections there only to feel bombarded by spam? Our guest today is here to rescue your LinkedIn presence from obscurity. She specializes in coaching agency owners to transform their profiles into irresistible client magnets. During this chat, she goes over some of the most common misconceptions about LinkedIn, her concept of writing a "love letter" to your target audience, and why trying to be overly professional won't work on this platform. Tune in to learn how to make the most of LinkedIn and differentiate yourself in this crowded digital platform. Nicole Osborne is the founder of Wunderstars, a brand and marketing coaching program designed for agency owners and online businesses. With her help, entrepreneurs get to the bottom of how to stand out on LinkedIn. She discusses the importance of being authentic and sociable on the platform and shares insights on how to fix the common LinkedIn mistakes agency owners are making. In this episode, we'll discuss: What's working and not working on LinkedIn. How to write a love letter to your audience. How to connect through vulnerability. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources Agency Blueprint: Do you need help accelerating your agency's growth? If you're having trouble scaling your agency, maybe you're just too close to the identify areas where you need the most help. This is why we're setting up a free strategy session with our Scale Specialist Darby where he'll walk you through a framework for scaling your agency faster. Just schedule a chat with Darby – no string attached – at JasonSwenk.com/Darby. Together, you'll figure out your next steps for scaling your agency faster. Rapport Building: The Secret Weapon to Make it in Marketing As a teenager living in former Eastern Germany, Nicole had to help out with the family's market stall sales after both her parents lost their jobs. She was tasked with selling sunglasses and, initially, she felt awkward and shy. However, she soon realized that building rapport with potential customers was essential to successful sales. By engaging in friendly conversations and making people feel comfortable, Nicole was able to draw them in, make the sale, and get referrals. Reflecting on this experience, she realized that many agencies, despite being excellent at marketing their clients' businesses, often struggle to market themselves effectively. They fail to overcome their fears in order to become more visible and successful on platforms like LinkedIn. Initially, agency owners may feel the pressure to portray themselves as uber-technical experts on LinkedIn. However, Nicole suggests that being authentic and talking about everyday things can be just as effective as long as you keep your ideal clients in mind. Not Growing On LinkedIn? Try This LinkedIn has proved to be THE platform to be in for many agency owners. However, a lot of people have negative perceptions of it. Even though some still think of it as a "boring" platform, it has evolved over the years, transitioning from a strictly professional and corporate platform to becoming a more sociable and engaging one. In this sense, Nicole encourages agency owners to be authentic in how they present themselves on the platform and not stick to an outdated overly professional style in their posts. This is the only way you'll succeed in utilizing LinkedIn to connect with people on a more personal level. Of course, there's no denying that interactions can get quite spammy on LinkedIn. To this, Nicole counters that email marketing can also get very spammy, yet everyone uses it to promote their businesses. Likewise, as long as individuals focus on building genuine connections, the platform can be a valuable tool for business development. It's important to avoid immediately jumping to a sales pitch without first assessing if there is mutual value and benefits in the connection. Instead, engage in conversation and find common ground. By taking the time to get to know each other and finding shared interests, individuals can establish a solid foundation for a meaningful connection on LinkedIn. Approach LinkedIn as a real networking event where you would hopefully not just talk about yourself but also actively listen and engage with others. Treat it like a virtual networking party and you'll have global reach that will allow you to work with international clients and grow your personal brand across the globe. From LinkedIn With Love, How To Find Your Ideal Clients What works on LinkedIn is something that can change over time, like with any social media platforms. For Nicole, one thing that will never change is the human element, which is why you should always show up as yourself. Instead of putting on a professional mask, start by thinking about what your ideal clients need and focus on that. It's an approach she links to writing a love letter. Ask yourself what would appeal to your audience? What wou

Are you running a full-service agency? Have you already considered niching down? What about broadening your services once you do? Today's guest built an agency that became a world authority on Google ads. Even though he eventually sold, he now believes more growth may have been possible with patience and the vision to expand his services after niching down, which he calls the "hourglass method". Tune in to learn about his early failures and successes as a young entrepreneur, the lessons he takes from his years of experience and selling his agency, and why he believes agencies are the future of most businesses. Kasim Aslam is the founder of Solutions 8, a highly successful Google Ads agency and the host of the Perpetual Traffic podcast. After seeing his dreams crushed by a financial collapse and rebuilding to reach the highest successes in the industry, Kasim talks about the importance of having a strong business partner and lessons he took from selling his agency. Tune in to gain insights from Kasim's experiences and learn valuable lessons from his agency success story. In this episode, we'll discuss: Why it's okay to start broad before niching down. Becoming an authority on Google ads. Attracting potential buyers to your agency. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service. Ending Up $150,000 in Debt in His Early 20s Despite having sold the most successful Google Ads agency and knowing few people have ever gotten to that level of success in the industry, Kasim is quick to acknowledge he's not the brains of the operation. The joke between him and his partner is that Kasim made promises and his partner kept them, which worked out really well for both. After growing their agency which they sold in 2022 to now, for the first time in two decades – he's an employee. In recalling his agency journey, Kasim first remembers his greatest failures. In his early 20's, he was working in the banking industry building software right at the time of the financial collapse of 2008. "It was the best thing that could've happened" he says looking back. He was making way too much money at a young age, had just bought his first house, a car, and was spending way more than he should have. However, once he lost his job he was quickly reminded that he did not actually own those things and ended up losing them. He was just 22 years old, $150,000 in debt and felt his life was over. The lack of funds to float a percentage of a software building project had him searching for other types of web work. Website maintenance quickly led to website development, SEO work, and eventually to his agency, Solutions 8. The Secret to Choosing The Best Niche For Your Agency Starting an agency after a personal setback can be a daunting task, but Kasim managed to rebuild from scratch to have a profitable business with 15 employees. However, he went too wide on his offering and soon found it felt like having eight different businesses. The agency was certainly profitable but he was miserable. The business could not run without him and he was working 12-hour days. At one point, he tried to sell the business. "I kept trying to get rid of it," he recalls. He never got too close to actually selling it, since the valuation offered by brokers didn't come close to his expectations and he knew his books were a mess, which made the agency much more difficult to sell. Many things needed to be fixed, so Kasim hired his current business partner with the intention of having him run the agency. Right away, his partner started to highlight issues that could be fixed. Having someone in the trenches with him reignited Kasim's passion for the agency and soon they were working on growing it together. The years of running a full-service agency were incredibly stressful, but Kasim sustains it was the best way to eventually find success in the right niche. "You can't niche down right off the gate because if you do, you'll pick the wrong niche," he says. In his view, it's okay to start broad as long as you have the intention of niching down. Once a niche is established and successful, Kasim suggests branching out to add related services or offerings. It's the hourglass formula – start broad, niche down, branch out – to maximize your business' potential and cater to a wider range of clients. How His Agency Became the World Authority on Google Ads The Google Ads piece of the business started by adding this offering to his real estate business. He picked the best Google Ads agency he could find and the partnership went so well that Kasim was soon sending agency clients their way. On one hand, it killed his margins but it was turnkey so they handled e

Does your agency offer web design services? What is your perspective on creating impactful agency web design? What do you think of how most websites are currently utilized? Today's guest is an expert in website design with a growth-driven approach to agency web design. He's been working in web design ever since the early days of the internet and believes nowadays many businesses are building low-quality websites focused only on sales. In his opinion, websites should have a strong technical foundation and create a journey that leads to engagement and conversions. Tune in to learn about his passion for creating impactful websites, how he developed a very effective foot-in-the-door, and how he's embraced podcasting as a way to attract the type of client he wants to work with. Mark Bevington is the CEO and founder of Ninedot, a website design and development agency that takes underperforming websites and turns them into the best-selling tools for their clients. Mark shares his insights on the limitations of traditional websites and the importance of growth-driven design. With over 23 years of experience, he sees a need for websites to evolve and adapt to changing analytics and customer preferences and allow for easy updates that align with business evolution. In this episode, we'll discuss: How to provide value in web design. WebCare as a foot-in-the-door strategy. Using a podcast to create meaningful connections. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources Attract Masterclass: Do you want to know the four secrets to attract your ideal agency clients? Access our FREE masterclass series and learn how to create a magnetic agency, become an authority, and master the art of client attraction. Just go to AgencyMastery360.com/attract and unlock maximum profits. Three Differentiating Factors that You'll Find in Any Quality Website With over twenty years in the industry, Mark has seen a lot as a marketer and agency owner. When he started his agency, the internet wasn't really a thing, so they focused more on print work and newsletters and eventually moved to digital. However, some things remain unchanged because they're at the core of a solid business strategy, starting with quality, which has taken a hit with the onset of AI. In his opinion, since the pandemic and the surge of many new agencies that don't work with the necessary standards, it's become common to see crappy work all around. It can be challenging to differentiate quality work from garbage in the context of website design and development. Here are some differentiating factors: A reputable agency or designer takes the time to thoroughly analyze the client's business, target audience, and goals before embarking on the project. They conduct research and gather relevant information to ensure that the website aligns with the client's brand identity and effectively communicates their message. A well-designed website is visually appealing, easy to navigate, and optimized for different devices and browsers. For Mark, UI and UX have become such buzzwords and most people don't understand what that means. It's not just about getting a client from point A to point B. Behind that should be an understanding of the experience based on the journey you're creating. A website should not be a static entity but rather an evolving platform that adapts to changing market dynamics and user preferences. A quality web agency conducts A/B tests, analyzes user behavior, and makes necessary adjustments to improve conversion rates and achieve business objectives. Garbage work, on the other hand, lacks this growth-driven approach and fails to leverage data to enhance the website's effectiveness. Affordable Website Support as a Strategy for Long-Term Success Mark's web design agency has always provided some degree of web maintenance for its clients. However, as clients continually asked for a more affordable dedicated website support option, the agency developed a new service called WebCare. Through this service, his agency helps clients properly maintain the core functions of their websites by having an expert team keep a watchful eye out for technical issues. As Mark notes, most clients are brilliant at their actual business but lack the technical knowledge needed to run a website themselves and need reliable, judgement-free support to maintain it. WebCare is all about maintaining a website as a long-term investment. While the aesthetics of a website may become outdated over time, proper maintenance ensures it continues to function effectively. Additionally, it's become a very effective foot-in-the-door offer for them. If a client comes to them with an underperforming site, they can offer this affordable option instead of hitting them right off the back with an expensive rebuild and get the relationship going. Being able to show quick wins to clients is a key element in building trust and further extending that relationship. The Game Changer: Embracing Change Thro

Are you trying to grow your SMMA but can't get past the referrals stage? What's holding you back when it comes to continuing your growth and reaching eight figures? Today's guest may not have written the book on how to start a SMMA, but he sure read it from cover to cover and then threw all the rules out the window. He is a young agency owner who started out with dreams of outgrowing his post-college job and gaining the sort of independence and success he knew could come from entrepreneurship. He endured long months of looking for his first client and the hardships of trying to stand out before finding the right niche. Tune in to hear about the challenges and advantages of being a young agency owner and his experience and insights in growing a SMMA. Stevie Johnston is the young entrepreneur behind Digital Ox Zero, a specialized marketing agency that offers turnkey digital marketing solutions, expert appointment-setting services, and business coaching for Chiropractic, Dental, and Integrated Medical Clinics. Stevie niched the niche and doubled down on a bold strategy, allowing him to scale his modest digital agency from operating out of his apartment to a $500K/month recurring industry-leading powerhouse with over 20 employees. In this episode, we'll discuss: Finding the right formula for SMMA growth. Going beyond referrals to build a scalable agency. Focusing on creating a steady recruitment pipeline. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service. Unlocking His Marketing Potential & Finding His Drive Stevie describes himself as a Tai Lopez case study, as it was one of his ads that inspired him to build his own agency. He figured if he managed to get at least ten clients to each pay him $1,000 per month he'd be able to have freedom, travel, and enjoy life as an agency owner. Having recently graduated, Stevie found himself working his same college job at 23 and feeling stuck. He knew something needed to change and entrepreneurship offered a straightforward solution to his desire for a better life. Tai Lopez's ads promised exactly the type of opportunity he needed to do something different. It seemed simple, but of course he soon realized it was actually very hard. However, it was a proven business model so he trusted that getting through the learning curve would land him on the right path. He held strong for seven months waiting for that first and ended his first year with 20K in revenue. But how did he stay motivated? Even though he had a hard time finding that first client, Stevie felt this was his chance. Going back to working at the juice bar was not an option. He felt he had a lot to offer as a great communicator with good work ethic; he just needed that first client to make it work. Once he had his first clients, prospecting, learning sales, and working 10-14 hours from his small apartment was nowhere near the pain of going back to a job that only offered financial constraints and lack of freedom. Initial Turning Points & Finding the Right Formula for SMMA Growth The big turning point for Stevie was finding the right niche. Although he started out working with chiropractors, which seemed focused enough, it was still hard to stand out in a market with so much competition. When a client asked him to help them advertise their spinal decompression machine, he found a specialty within a specialty that actually needed attention and had lots of demand. Focusing on this niche he not only saw more consistent results, he became a niche leader. A more specialized focus also helped justify a higher price point, which helped him get to 20K. As the agency continued to grow, however, Stevie realized they had no big differentiator. Anyone can run ads and it seemed like everyone did at that point, which started a big race to the bottom while high turnover rates were impacting his agency's growth. It was very frustrating to realize that his clients weren't getting the results they wanted as they kept complaining the leads were bad. In an attempt to keep a client, Stevie offered to take over sales calls for one month. It was his moment to "get in the trenches" and figure out what was not connecting. That month they 4X the amount of leads turned into appointments. The model did work, they just needed someone at the phone with basic sales skills, energy, and that would follow up with clients. As momentum built, Stevie first hired a dedicated sales associate and then continued staffing specialists internally, subsidizing expenses by raising prices. It was the differentiator they needed. It required more employees, more expenses, and a lot more headaches, but they were solving a problem no one els

What kind of culture do you promote at your agency? Do you keep track of things employees say are hitting or not hitting the mark about the culture? How has your culture changed since the pandemic? Today's guest runs a 260-employee agency and has put great care to ensure that work flexibility and employee happiness are a big part of their culture. She believes giving employees reasons to stay at her agency are much more beneficial than the work of having to constantly replace key roles due to high turnout rates. Tune in to learn about the ways she has reintroduced in-person activities while keeping a mostly remote workflow and how she makes sure employees feel heard. Jane Crisan is the CEO of Rain the Growth Agency, a fully integrated performance-based agency based in Portland, Oregon. Her agency offers agency a unique approach to scaling brands with deep expertise in media, creative, strategy, and analytics. With more than half of their employees working from all over the country, they've made a commitment to having a flexible-first workforce as a way to keep employees happy. Tune in to see their journey to small independent business to a multimillion-dollar agency and the struggles to maintain a flexible work culture following the pandemic. In this episode, we'll discuss: Mapping out the path for employee career progression. Building community while respecting work flexibility. Making a deliberate effort to create culture. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources Convert Masterclass: Do you want the ultimate guide to building a profitable and self-driven sales team? Access our FREE masterclass and learn how much you should be charging to increase profitability, how to train your salespeople to respond to any objections, and more. Just go to AgencyMastery360.com/convert and unlock maximum profits. Making Sure Employees Feel Heard & Can Express Their Concerns Like many businesses, Jane's agency took the pandemic as a chance to open up its doors to talent from all over the country. It was a great opportunity to grow the agency, which started 25 years ago as a small independent agency and now has around 260 employees. Getting access to talent they probably would've never been able to relocate to Portland was a huge advantage and it also meant committing to being a flexible-first agency. Jane puts a lot of effort into maintaining low turnover levels, and although she knows there's no magic solution to making everyone happy, there are a few things she's found are very important to creating a sound work environment. For starters, the agency conducts a yearly all-employee survey to gather feedback and identify areas of improvement. This survey has been conducted for the past 10 years and allows the agency to track trends and address any concerns. The Importance of Mapping Out the Path Over the years, the number one thing that came across with the annual survey was career progression. To address this, the agency invests time and resources in helping employees see a future within the organization. They employ a talent management assessment system called the "nine box," which assesses an employee's potential for growth and where they currently stand in their career. This system allows them to identify high performers, future leaders, and individuals who may need additional support or training. The agency is also very committed to quarterly goal setting and tracks whether departments and individuals are setting and achieving their goals. For Jane, no matter the size of the agency, goal setting a priority and holding employees accountable helps creates a culture of continuous improvement and personal development. Having a clear growth track can help tremendously to keep people motivated. Instead of shifting people's goals every quarter, at Jane's agency the senior team sits down at the beginning of the year and establish career progression goals for each employee. This long-term approach allows employees to have a clear vision of their growth trajectory and helps them stay focused on their objectives throughout the year. Additionally, the agency conducts quarterly check-ins to ensure that employees and their managers are on the same page and to make any necessary adjustments. Sometimes employees may find that their initial goal to be managers didn't turn out to be what they expected and want to change paths. Many individuals excel as individual contributors and may feel miserable when forced into management positions. This is why it's so important to help employees discern their strengths and interests, guiding them towards the most suitable career paths. Mastering the Remote Agency Balancing Act As a mostly distributed agency, Jane confronts an ironic challenge - remotely fostering the connections that sustain a thriving culture. Granting location flexibility wins employee applause yet strains community ties essential for engagement. Seeking solutions – and since employees themselves expressed

What fears or limiting beliefs hold agency owners back from pricing their services assertively? What critical ingredients are you missing to confidently quantify value? Today's guest co-founded a small yet highly profitable creative agency in less than four years by starting out with a clear concept of the value she provides. Charging according to your worth is usually a difficult subject for many agency owners, as it gets to the core of how they value their work. However, establishing your value and pricing it accordingly sits at the heart of every agency's growth potential. Tune in to learn how starting out with a clear idea of your pricing will help you find your ideal audience faster and weed out bad prospects. Shannon Fitzgerald is the co-founder and CCO of The Hooligans Agency, a boutique agency specializing in video content for small to mid-size agencies, advocacy organization, non-profits, and more. As she puts it, they make culturally dope shit that makes the world a more fair and equitable place. Shannon recalls her road from the media industry to focusing on the political and advocacy space, the challenge of not losing yourself in hustle culture, and much more. In this episode, we'll discuss: Standing unflinching on price. Communicating your values to find the right clients. How to build a workflow structure to ensure smooth agency sailing. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service. From Success in Entertainment to Becoming an Agent of Change After starting her media career very young working at the BBC and rising up the ranks at MTV developing binge-worthy series, Shannon decided to change her focus and go beyond primetime profits into the political field. Following the 2016 election, she became a creative strategist and worked with over 80 congressional and statewide candidates. Eventually, she decided to create her own agency to focus on the non-profit and advocacy space, which was in great need of a new creative and storytelling perspective, and has been working on getting these more traditionally-minded organizations to take creative risks. Standing Unflinching on Price: Projecting Self-Worth to Clients For Shannon, quantifying her agency's value started by trusting decades of expertise. With 20 years as an entertainment power player, her creative vision at last found purpose converging politics with media. Intuitively connecting candidates' objectives to audience-captivating messaging, early wins confirmed - this was her niche. Even while securing that first client, self-doubt barely surfaced. Shannon charged $1,200 for a 30-second ad, cementing her positioning confidence. She knew the right customers would recognize a premium creative's worth and pay for ingenuity. Ultimately, if you don't understand your worth, neither will clients. For founders struggling to project certainty, she admits self-valuation reflects inner beliefs. Shannon and her partner started out establishing their worth and trusting the right clients will appreciate their expertise and have been successful in finding an audience. Establishing your worth can be really difficult, but it's a hurdle all agency owners must face on their path to growth. By boldly embracing self-worth from inception, her agency found its niche and charted the path toward maximum impact. How to Communicate Value to Find the Right Clients Once you have a clear understanding of your worth, it is important to effectively communicate this value to your prospects. This involves highlighting your experience, expertise, and the unique solutions you bring to the table. Being clear about your worth will also help you be clear about the type of client you want to work with. For Shannon, this means making sure the values are aligned; is the message they want to put into the world something she wants the agency to spend time on? Are they willing to try new things and trust her agency's guidance? In this sense, she'll typically turn in a document with 5 to 6 ideas for the client's project varying from new and risky to more moderate. The client's pick will let her know how far they're willing to go in terms of creative risks. Next, they'll develop the selected idea to create a campaign. It is also important to be confident in your pricing and not undersell yourself. Charging prices that accurately reflect your abilities and the impact of your work are essential for attracting clients who appreciate and are willing to pay for your services. Confidence in pricing allows you to establish profitability, work fewer hours, and have the freedom to do what you love. Structuring Workflows for Smooth Agency Sailing Shannon's agency survi

Are you looking for ways to differentiate your agency? Have you considered expanding your agency's offering with proprietary technology? Today's guest markets to franchise systems and offers a platform built for their specific marketing needs. It's a great way to cater to clients' specific pain points while increasing his agency's value. He details the unique challenges and opportunities of marketing for franchise systems, the strategic decisions behind developing proprietary technology to better serve clients, and the challenge of getting most clients to adopt this solution. Alex Porter is the CEO of Location3, a partner agency for multi-unit brands and franchise systems. His agency has been delivering enterprise strategy with local activation for clients and helped them drive digital transformation since 1999. Tune in to gain valuable perspective on growing and scaling your agency and learning how having their own platform has helped them differentiate from the competition. In this episode, we'll discuss: Finding their perfect niche. Marketing to franchises. Offering a dedicated platform for franchisees. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources Agency Blueprint: Do you need help accelerating your agency's growth? If you're having trouble scaling your agency, maybe you're just too close to the identify areas where you need the most help. This is why we're setting up a free strategy session with our Scale Specialist Darby where he'll walk you through a framework for scaling your agency faster. Just schedule a chat with Darby – no string attached – at JasonSwenk.com/Darby. Together, you'll figure out your next steps for scaling your agency faster. Podcast Takeover!! Get to know your Smart Agency Guest Host: Dr. Jeremy Weisz is the co-founder of Rise25, an agency that helps companies launch and run podcasts profitably. He followed Jason's podcast and eventually joined the mastermind and has been a guest on the podcast before. Today, he's helping Jason bring something new to the Smart Agency podcast audience by interviewing a special guest and getting a new perspective to the show. Why Franchises was the Perfect Niche for This Agency 25 years ago, Alex was ready to go back to college for a PhD in Sports Psychology when he ran to an old buddy who told him the internet was going to be the next big thing. He offered him a job at his startup where he could learn about internet marketing. The appeal of getting very early into something like that was exciting, so he changed his plans and followed his friend and began his career in marketing. About five years ago, after working for Location3 for many years, Alex and the team decided the agency would focus on the franchise space after one of their biggest clients went out of business. This event led the company to reevaluate their purpose and strengths. They realized they had a strong track record of working with franchise brands and enjoyed the relationships they had built in that industry. One of the key insights looking into this space was that there were very few agencies specifically catering to franchises. This presented an opportunity for them to differentiate themselves and provide targeted solutions to franchise systems and their individual franchisees. What It's Like to Work With Franchises The success of franchise marketing lies in the mindset of innovation. Alex and the team not only understand the business of their franchise clients but also focus on driving revenue. They constantly test new tactics and ensure that each dollar is spent efficiently. However, franchise marketing also presents unique challenges, particularly in navigating the corporate versus individual franchisee relationship. Location3 primarily starts at the franchisor level, as they are responsible for assisting their franchisees in their marketing efforts. This why they first take the time to understand how this particular relationship works from a funding perspective in each case and aim to become the franchisors preferred vendor that they will then recommend to franchisees. In terms of engaging with franchisees, most franchise systems have annual conferences to discuss operations, finance, and marketing. Location3 typically attends these conferences and provide education on new marketing strategies and showcase data-driven results. Throughout the year, they continue to engage franchisees with webinars and information to keep them updated on the ever-changing digital marketing landscape. Bridging the Tech Gap for Franchise Marketing with Their Own Technology Solution Franchise marketing is unique in that each franchisee acts as their own Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). The success of their marketing efforts directly impacts their individual lives, making it a highly invested interest for them. Location3 recognized this and developed its own platform called Local Act, which allows franchisees to understand and optimize their local digital marketing efforts. Through

Do you have a hard time letting go of agency operations and overall control? Have you embraced your role as the visionary and taken a step back from minor tasks? If you haven't, why not? Today's guest realized at one point that autonomy was his personal core value and that his agency would fail unless he prioritized it. This realization led to a new point of view, where he imagines how he would run his agency if he knew nothing about the business. This exercise has greatly helped him detach himself from agency operations and trust the agency can run without him. Tune in for an interesting discussion about autonomy in business, having employees vs. hiring contractors, and the benefits of building a personal brand. Nicholas Kusmich is a digital marketing expert who helps businesses rapidly scale revenue using Facebook Advertising. He's behind the highest campaign ROI's in the world thanks to his "Contextual Congruence"– a proprietary process based on the marriage between direct response marketing and understanding social behavior. He's also the founder of H2H Media Group, a paid media agency that has been helping brands be heard since the onset of Facebook. Nicholas shares his journey of starting his agency in 2008 and how he transitioned from being a one-man show to building a team of autonomous contractors. In this episode, we'll discuss: Strategies vs. tactics to build businesses. The power of personal brand. Putting autonomy first. An exercise to help take yourself out of the equation. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service. Long-term Strategies vs. Tactics as a way to Build Business Back in 2008, Nicholas was told having his own business would require selling an ebook and a course. In order to sell said ebook, he started running ads on Facebook. Once he became good enough, people were contacting him to do these ads for them. Suddenly, he had an agency. Since then, his agency has had the fortune of working with big brands and helping businesses that needed to be heard become brand names. In the beginning, Nicholas admits he was charging way less than he should have, with an initial fee of $500 a month. However, compared with today's landscape where you can get offers from people promising to work for free, it seems far more tamed. As an alternative, to get the attention of your first clients, he suggests being clear on what the fees are from the beginning but offering to only charge them after they see results. It'll allow you to build leverage, get those new clients and not ruin your reputation. Furthermore, you'll get much better results by building your reputation using long-term strategies. Instead of emailing a prospect offering to send them a video, create 10 custom videos that offer value and send them over a certain period. You'll be much more likely to get their attention and start a conversation. For Nicholas, "strategies build business and tactics make sales." Yet everyone in the business seems to be using tactics. Too many marketers are constantly chasing the latest trends in an attempt to capture attention and make quick sales. To some extent, of course it makes sense to always be aware of new developments and using new technologies. However, the consistency and focus on long-term strategies is what will allow you to build a successful business. Recognizing the Power of Building Your Personal Brand Nick, unintentionally, built the agency's brand around himself and his knowledge. Now he's spent the last few years pushing off the notion that working with his agency means working directly with him. In the beginning, he was very much the button pusher, running the ads himself and taking sales calls. However, he realized he wasn't living the entrepreneurial dream he'd wanted and was burned out and stressed. Learning about Dan Sulllivan's unique ability principal, he realized real growth and development would only come by surrounding himself with people with their own unique abilities. These people would then take over every other tasks outside his specific expertise. Next, it was time to build his brand, but was it better to build his own or the agency brand first? It seems no one can agree on whether it's best to develop your personal brand or agency brand first. But we can all agree on this: personal brands are very powerful. Logan Paul and KSI took out heavy hitters like Coca-Cola not because Prime is the best energy drink in history but because they had really strong personal brands. No one wants to engage with a brand, they want to engage with a human being. Nicholas recognized the value of his personal brand in attracting clients. His unique point of view

Are you an agency owner or an entrepreneur who wants to take your business to the next level? Do you want to learn how to grow your revenue, profit, and impact in the world? Have you found yourself chasing only the money and feeling dissatisfied later? Today's guest grew her agency from zero to seven figures in just two years, while also making a positive impact in the world through her social responsibility initiatives. She has transitioned from being a consultant to being a leader and aligned her business with her personal goals and values, and has used her agency as a platform to create social change and help others. Natalie Hogg is the founder and CEO of Method Q, a marketing agency that offers a unique combination of services, including traditional marketing, talent placement, and fractional CMO work. Under her leadership, Method Q has achieved remarkable growth, evolving into a seven-figure enterprise within just two years of its inception. She reveals how she started her agency with a vision and a press release and explains how she faced and overcame the challenges of scaling her business. In this episode, we'll discuss: A press release setting a clear vision. Allowing room for solutions to emerge. The key to building a scalable business. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources Gusto: Running payroll and benefits is hard. Especially when you're a small business. Gusto is a tool that helps make payroll, benefits, and HR easy for small businesses. You no longer have to be a big company to get great technology, great benefits, and great service to take care of your team. For a limited time, Gusto is offering a deal to Smart Agency Master Class listeners. Check out Gusto.com/agency for 3 months FREE once you run your first payroll with them. Making the Best Out of an Unexpected Layoff Natalie's journey into the world of marketing and agency ownership is marked by a blend of strategic foresight and a deep understanding of the digital landscape. Her career began in the bustling world of digital marketing, where she was getting ahead until an unexpected layoff derailed how she'd seen her path thus far. The idea of starting her own business had been in her mind as something she'd do further down the line. However, this shift made her question "Why not now? Why should I have to wait years until I'm more experienced?" She found a gap in the market, with many companies laying off their marketing and sales teams and later falling behind in reaching their goals. This is where she comes in to help them figure out who to hire. It all started as consultancy work, but soon evolved into a growing team and officially having her own agency. One of her signature services is fractional CMO work, where she acts as a part-time chief marketing officer for her clients, providing them with strategic guidance and direction. This service has positioned Method Q as a trailblazer in the marketing world, offering a novel and valuable solution that sets them apart from their competitors. With every success she tries to give back by taking on non-profit clients and she herself is on the board of StandUp for Kids, helping youth at risk of homelessness. How a Clear Vision Will Take You All the Way to Success Natalie's vision for the agency started with a press release she wrote in 2020 about her future and her retirement. Everything she wrote there became a reality, even faster than she could have expected. Growing an agency is a very complex endeavor that will have many ups and downs. For her part, Natalie has been able to pull through the hard times and not let fears of failure get to her. In fact, she says she'd never go back now that she's had her taste of entrepreneurship. Her success is the proof that having a clear idea of where you're going makes it much easier to take full advantage of the little uptick moments that get you to the next level. Feedback Over Firefighting: Allowing Room for Solutions to Emerge With over 20 clients, Natalie has had to accept she's no longer able to handle all accounts herself and started delegating. It was time to make her team accountable and trust their work. Giving up control is not easy and it will take hiring people you trust. If you're finding it too hard to delegate tasks, it may mean you don't trust your team. Ask yourself why this is the case. Did you have clear standards when it came to hiring or just started hiring when you were desperate for help? For her part, Natalie made many valuable contacts while working in-house and was already aware of the incredible value they would add to her agency. As a boss, she sees herself as an empowerer and has no issue giving up control; however, she'll always want to be in the loop to influence decisions rather than make them. Agency owners tend to fall into the trap of wanting to solve all problems and not let their team figure it out. This is a mistake. Instead, hard times can become teaching moments if you allow your team t

What does it take to succeed in business, especially in the agency world? How do you surround yourself with the right people who can support you, challenge you, and help you grow? How do you overcome the obstacles and fears that may hold you back from achieving your goals? Today's guest is an agency owner who shares his personal experiences of being in both conducive and detrimental social circles and highlights how the latter can negatively impact one's mindset and success. His philosophy underscores the importance of having a balanced perspective by interacting with people at different levels – those who are less experienced, peers, and more successful individuals. Tune in to learn about how surrounding yourself with the wrong people can leave feeling stuck and miserable, the fallacy of comparing yourself to others, and the importance of finding a community that will help you reach new heights and keep you accountable to your goals. Ian Garlic is a marketing expert specializing in video marketing and storytelling. He is the founder of video marketing agency authenticWEB and is the mind behind Storycrews. He also hosts The Garlic Marketing Show, is part of the team at Video Case Story, and consults on video shoots. Ian known for his profound insights and innovative approaches in the digital marketing landscape. His journey in the industry is marked by a deep understanding of the intricacies of business growth, particularly in the agency sector, and a passion for helping businesses harness the power of effective storytelling in their marketing strategies. In this episode, we'll discuss: Curating your support system. Overcoming the barrier of overthinking and self-doubt. Choosing the right group for you. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service. Who's In Your Corner? Curating Your Support System Agency owners everywhere find themselves chasing the wrong yardstick, pushing relentlessly toward finish lines not their own. Gripped by others' narrow definitions of success, they wake one morning in quiet panic. The team too often hears from agency heads who built ventures according to the "right" metrics. Yet after reaching a certain level of success they find themselves stressed out and disillusionment sets in. Soon enough, they start thinking about selling because of how unhappy they are. Ian knows that pain firsthand. Surrounded by big league players, he pushed his agency to serve ever-larger corporations. But in that quest for status, the work lost meaning. At a point, he felt far removed from the local businesses he set out to empower. It was time for a change. He needed his own definitions, his own scorecard - rooted in his values rather than others' demands. If you find yourself chasing ideas of success that don't fit with your values, look around and evaluate if you're surrounding yourself with the right people. For Ian, being in the wrong group, even if technically you're surrounded by very successful people, can have a negative effect on one's confidence, motivation, and performance. By contrast, the right people will offer support and help you find the right answers. In this sense, Ian speaks about the importance of being with people who are at different levels of success - below, at the same level, and above you - to ensure a balanced perspective and growth. Peers at all stages can become guides or critics. Just take stock of those given VIP access to your mind. Do they fill your cup or drain it? Nourish dreams or deflate them? With perspective, those draining more than giving face demotion. Shortcutting Analysis Paralysis Through Shared Perspectives As agency scale specialist, Darby speaks with many agency owners every week to help them come up with growth strategies and keep track of their goals. In this role, he has found that overthinking is a common barrier for agency owners that can lead to analysis paralysis, where one gets stuck in indecision and inaction. Making decisions is tough, and agency owners can fall in the trap of seeing all the angles and choices, which leads to worrying they're making the wrong move. He recommends seeking a supportive environment, such as a mastermind or a support group, where they can get feedback, advice, and accountability to help them make decisions and move forward. On your own, you may get too deep into what you're trying to do and give up before giving yourself enough time to find the right way. Having the right people to support you can help you transform not only your business but also your mindset. You'll learn to receive feedback, which can be hard but is very important to get out of your own head and see things from a di

Have you considered bringing on a partner to lighten the immense pressure of solo agency leadership? Do fears around lacking key skills or experience hold you back from taking the entrepreneurial leap yourself? When today's guest launched his first agency, self-doubt around "going it alone" led him to take on a co-founder partnership. But without aligned goals from day one, hairline fractures quickly formed. As their once amicable agency grew and priorities diverged, he outgrew the partnership and they went their separate ways. In this interview, he'll talk about why he didn't go into a partnership for the right reasons, how the dynamic between he and his partner worked, and how they went about the adjustment process after the split. Tune in if you're an agency owner trying to figure out whether a partnership would be right for you. Rob Rosasco is the founder and driving force behind Too Darn Loud Digital Marketing, a boutique agency that specializes in assisting law firms to amplify their presence and reach. Rob reflects on his early days in the industry, his eventual venture into starting his own agency, and the initial fears that led him to start his business with a partner. He goes into the dynamics of the partnership and how eventually he found himself outgrowing it, both professionally and in terms of the vision for the company. In this episode, we'll discuss: Building an exit strategy after outgrowing your partner. Dividing the agency when selling is off the table. Preparing an ironclad clause for an agency partner breakup. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources Gusto: Running payroll and benefits is hard. Especially when you're a small business. Gusto is a tool that helps make payroll, benefits, and HR easy for small businesses. You no longer have to be a big company to get great technology, great benefits, and great service to take care of your team. For a limited time, Gusto is offering a deal to Smart Agency Master Class listeners. Check out Gusto.com/agency for 3 months FREE once you run your first payroll with them. Outgrowing Co-Founders: Building Exit Strategies into Agency Partnerships After working for a larger company in the legal marketing space for eight years, Rob felt starting his own business would be a natural transition. His journey into entrepreneurship began with a mixture of ambition and caution. Initially hesitant to venture solo into the competitive arena of digital marketing, he decided to start his business with a partner. This decision, born out of a desire to mitigate the challenges of launching and running a business independently, marked the beginning of a significant phase in his career. At the heart of Rob's professional expertise is a profound understanding of sales and client engagement, a skill set essential for the growth of his venture. Despite his extensive experience, he recognized the need for support in areas like back-office operations, web development, and SEO. So he resolved to partner with someone who could complement his skills and share the entrepreneurial journey. The relationship worked exactly as he had envisioned for a while, with his partner working his excellent selling skills to get clients while Rob ran the business. As the business evolved, Rob found himself at a crossroads. Both he and the agency outgrew his partner who got comfortable staying at a certain point in terms of growth. After seven years, the differing visions and philosophies between him and his partner necessitated a reevaluation of their partnership. However, their operating agreement did not include language for this specific situation where one partner was dissatisfied with the other's contribution. Rob's experience is not just a tale of business strategy and partnership dynamics; it emphasizes the importance of having clear terms in any business partnership, especially provisions for situations where partners may need to part ways due to divergent goals or strategies. When Selling's Off the Table: Divvying Up Split Partnerships Not all partnerships have to end this way. If you have a business partner and are thinking about parting ways, think hard about whether you have irreconcilable differences or just need to make a few changes. Having fundamental differences in your approach to the business, vision, and philosophy is very different from just needing a new role. If you do decide you just don't see eye to eye in the business anymore, then it's better to part ways sooner rather than later. By the time both partners accepted it was no longer working out, they considered different options like splitting or one of them buying the other out. Selling the agency seemed like a possibility in the beginning, having already received some decent offers. However, Rob and his partner couldn't agree on what constituted a fair amount. Rob pushed to buy his partner out to have the company as a whole, but it wasn't possible. Since neither of them wanted to sell, it cam

Are you getting ready to sell your agency? Are you looking into potential buyers? How will you protect your interests in an M&A process? Today's guest has a lot of experience, and even a book, in this area having sold the same agency twice and coming out mostly unscathed from the initial failed deal. He'll share some of the good, the bad, and the ugly aspects of selling your agency and the challenges of managing a large agency team. Tune in to gain valuable insights on navigating the process of selling your agency. David Rodnitzky is a digital marketer who started and later sold 3Q Digital, a team of 500+ rockstar/ninja/guru online marketing pros who offer expertise in online analytics, decision science, strategic consulting, creative, and conversion rate optimization. He also founded Agentic Shift, a boutique consulting firm dedicated to helping agency founders successfully exit their businesses through mergers or acquisitions (M&A). Recently, David poured all his M&A expertise into his new book, Selling Your Marketing Agency, which you can get on Amazon. In this episode, we'll discuss: The Key to managing an agency team of over 100 people. An ironclad acquisition contract clause that will save your agency. Lessons to help you avoid pitfalls in the M&A process. Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service. Accidental Agency Owner in Search Engine Marketing According to David, he sort of glammed into the world of search engine marketing after started in digital marketing in 2000. He worked at a series of startups in Silicon Valley, for about eight years and moved on to a company where he found the culture was not one he agreed with. He was traveling to India three times a year to manage a team while his wife was pregnant and decided it was not a smart family decision. So he quit and set up shop in a coffee house in Pacifica, California. Soon people started calling him to help them with search engine marketing consulting and he had an agency. That agency Today is 3Q Digital, part of a bigger organization called DEPT. The Key to Managing Over 100 People: Maintaining Consistency of Quality and Processes For David, it's a lot harder to go from managing two people to 25 people than it is to go from 25 people to 100 people. No individual can manage hundreds of people. You can only dedicate so many hours per week to checking in with your team. In this sense, he has learned the importance of maintaining consistency of quality when it comes to the people he hires, as well the importance of processes. Most agency owners would agree it's relatively easy to manage and monitor two or three employees and make sure that they are doing a great job. However, the more people you hire, the more you have to delegate that responsibility and the less you sort of know about how well your team is performing. So David has learned to remain constantly obsessed with quality on the team. As to delegating, processes will be key to maintaining quality, and unfortunately, most agencies don't have many processes. At David's agency, when a client is onboarded, the success or failure of that client is based on the person assigned to that account. The results could vary since everyone has their unique ideas. That's why you'll need a solid process to ensure consistency because you can't have a brand without consistent results. An Ironclad Acquisition Clause to Save Your Agency from Ruin Initially, David wasn't planning on selling his agency, until the offers came pouring in unsolicited. So he hired an investment banker to keep track of these inbound leads and screen them to determine which ones were legitimate buyers. At this point, David decided to do a "mini process" where he sent letters to some potential buyers hoping to get official offers. The idea was to create a competitive environment and increase his company's perceived value. The result was three great offers with one clear winner. This offer was a lot higher than David had expected, as its owners were bent on buying an agency. In the end, they took the offer for $30 million in cash and $35 in an earnout over three years. But business veterans know big payouts often come with equally big headaches. So before ink hit paper, David negotiated an ironclad clause: until the full earnout paid out, he would retain absolute authority on all agencies like finances, sales, and hiring. Furthermore, if the company failed to meet the initial terms David would have the option to buy the agency back. He'd soon confirm adding that clause was the right decision. Earnout Loopholes and Buying Back the Agency to Rebuild Under the deal signed with their new parent company, David would get his earnout if he manage

Are you paying attention to the changes AI is bringing to the agency world? How have you been finding ways to incorporate it to streamline processes? Would you consider hiring a dedicated innovation role to keep track of these technological advances and not fall behind? Today's guest has been in the industry for over 20 years but has been active in staying on top of new technological developments that will change how marketers operate forever. He's actively testing new uses for AI and working to keep his team excited about learning everything they can about these developments. Discover why refusing to learn and adapt will leave your agency in the past and the importance of a good AI prompt to get the best results. Jeff Lizik is the president of RedShift Digital Marketing, an ROI-focused business that defines itself as more of an "anti-agency". His team promises to increase clients' visibility, boost website traffic, and grow their business while building real relationships that will impact their businesses. Jeff shares how his accidental success as a paintball retailer led to his venture into the world of digital marketing. He also dives into the challenges he faced with Google's algorithm updates and highlights the need for agency owners to be versatile and adaptable in a constantly evolving industry. In this episode, we'll discuss: The power of an expertly crafted AI prompt. Will you eventually need a director of innovation? Why you should hire highly skilled talent sooner rather than later. From Accidental E-Commerce Success to Leading a Top Agency Jeff found accidental success in the e-commerce industry in 2001 selling paintball supplies he got on eBay. Within a year, he had sold a million dollars worth of products and became the second-largest paintball retailer globally. At one point, he even participated in the beta testing for third-party selling on Amazon. After his e-commerce venture, he initially decided to take a break and go back to a corporate job. It didn't last long though; once he missed the entrepreneurial lifestyle, Jeff started building affiliate sites and was making more money than before. However, once Google implemented the Penguin update, all its sites plummeted in search rankings. Unwilling to rebuild the sites, he decided to start his own agency instead. How Technology Has Transformed and Continues to Transform Marketing With over two decades in the agency business, the main changes Jeff sees are powered by technology; nowadays there are very efficient tools that have helped marketers improve their jobs. According to Jeff, technology has made marketers more efficient and effective in their strategies. Search engines, particularly Google, have evolved to become more complex. Everything about Google's search results has changed, such as the placement of ads at the top and the decrease in organic search visibility. But most people now rarely use Google for searches and instead rely on YouTube and other platforms. Hence, videos have become more important in the decision-making process and social media platforms such as Instagram will play a larger role in driving consumer behavior and sales. On the other hand, nothing is as simple as 20 years ago. Back in the early 2000's marketers could still scam the search engines. That's not possible nowadays, so you have to be good at your job. And we've yet to see the full impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the industry, probably the biggest transformation marketers will go through. The Power of an Expertly Crafted AI Prompt By now we should all understand there are potential dangers associated with AI, which is why its use should go hand in hand with human oversight and the correct prompts. There's always the possibility the AI is giving you false information. Treat it as a tool, not a replacement for human expertise and judgment. AI prompts are powerful tools that have the potential to revolutionize the way marketers approach their work. They can significantly enhance productivity and efficiency by streamlining processes and reducing time spent on tasks. When it comes to creating the perfect prompts, there are already services that create these prompts for you, which not a lot of people know. These premium prompts are built by experts in the field and provide complete context and background information, ensuring that the AI understands the desired output accurately. By investing in advanced prompts, marketers can gain a deeper understanding of AI capabilities and maximize its potential. In his case, Jeff works with very detailed prompts that produce very efficient results. How does he use this tool? After uploading detailed information about his agency and the type of clients they work with, he uses AI to create different personas and works through that until he gets one ideal customer profile. He then asks the AI to create headlines based on this customer's pain points, as well as ideas for every social media platform. In detail, he's e

Jason Swenk and Manish Dudharejia delve into the world of agency management and business scalability, shedding light on the complex yet rewarding journey. They explore how past challenges can be transformed into valuable lessons for growth, highlighting the indispensable roles of continuous innovation and strategic thinking. Through their discussion, they unravel the subtle differences that set exceptional work apart from the average, offering listeners practical insights to propel their own business ventures toward unparalleled success and distinction. Manish reflects on the evolution of a growth-obsessed mindset, both personally and in business, acknowledging past mistakes as pivotal learning experiences. He shares his journey from conventional lead responses to a more focused, core-driven approach, underscoring the value of adapting and evolving business strategies over time. 00:00:00 - Opening Insights: Navigating Agency Management Mastery 00:01:23 - Introducing the Visionary: Insights from Manish Dudharejia 00:03:38 - Agency Growth Uncovered: Planning for Scale and Success 00:04:27 - The Power of Reflection: Innovating for Business Breakthroughs 00:06:46 - Transformative Decisions: How Past Lessons Shape Future Success 00:08:57 - Strategic Focus: The Key to Business Acumen and Achievement 00:10:43 - Pursuing Excellence: Elevating Business Practices to New Heights 00:18:58 - Concluding Wisdom: Summarizing Game-Changing Strategies 00:20:09 - Final Thoughts: Wrapping Up with a Special Opportunity Resources: https://e2msolutions.com/smartagency

Is your agency able to turn video views into paying clients? Do you know how to craft an effective video ad and test its results? Why is YouTube still the platform yielding better results for your video ads? Today's guest specializes in video advertising and knows many agencies still haven't fully tapped into the potential for video ads to engage customers and drive results. He'll unpack why YouTube specifically is the best platform for agencies to focus their video efforts and the key ingredients for crafting attention-grabbing YouTube ads that convert. Tune in to learn to maximize your video marketing efforts, leverage data-driven video campaigns, and understand the video marketing opportunity agencies cannot afford to ignore. Jake Larsen is the owner of Video Power Marketing, a video marketing agency that aims to help clients power their businesses by leveraging video and YouTube ads. For ten years his agency has helped clients understand the importance of creating the right video, targeting the right audience, and presenting them with the right offer to achieve successful results. By following this formula, agencies can effectively utilize video ads on YouTube to grow their client base. In this episode, we'll discuss: Why agencies should prioritize YouTube for their video content. 3 elements to creating a successful YouTube ad campaign. Keys to building the right message and offer. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources Gusto: Running payroll and benefits is hard. Especially when you're a small business. Gusto is a tool that helps make payroll, benefits, and HR easy for small businesses. You no longer have to be a big company to get great technology, great benefits, and great service to take care of your team. For a limited time, Gusto is offering a deal to Smart Agency Master Class listeners. Check out Gusto.com/agency for 3-months FREE once you run your first payroll with them. Why Agencies Should Prioritize YouTube for Video Marketing Efforts In many cases, the reason why many people don't get the views they should be getting on their videos comes down to the platform. For his part, Jake likes YouTube as a unique platform for reaching a highly targeted audience. One of the key advantages of YouTube ads is the quality of views they offer. Unlike other platforms like Facebook and Instagram, where a view is counted after just a few seconds, YouTube considers a view when the viewer watches at least half of the ad or 30 seconds, whichever comes first. If you're using YouTube ads, you can be assured that those ads are being seen by engaged viewers likely to convert into leads or clients. Another advantage of YouTube ads is its intent-based targeting. Since Google owns YouTube, agencies can target viewers based on their search behavior on Google. For instance, if someone searches for "how to grow my marketing agency" on Google and then goes to YouTube, they'll probably be served an ad related to growing their agency. This highly relevant audience-to-message ratio makes it easier for agencies to connect with their target audience and deliver their message effectively. In terms of mindset, just remember to create ads that focus on the audience and their problems, rather than solely promoting your business or product. They suggest that great ads are those that offer solutions and make the audience's lives better. They advise advertisers to consider their target audience, how to grab their attention, build trust, and offer something that will improve their lives. 3 Elements to Creating a Successful YouTube Ads Campaign To create a successful YouTube ad campaign, Jake suggests focusing on three key elements: Can you create the right video? Can you reach the right audience? Do you have the right offer for that audience? If you can get those three elements to line up at the right time, you'll maximize your results. Agencies need to create compelling videos that resonate with their target audience and effectively communicate their value proposition. After that, they need to ensure that their ads are being shown to the right audience. Lastly, agencies need to provide the right offer that entices viewers to take action, whether it's signing up for a newsletter, booking a consultation, or making a purchase. YouTube ads offer agencies a unique opportunity to reach a highly engaged audience, and with the right approach, they can effectively grow their client base and drive business growth. What are the Keys to Building The Right Message and Valuable Offer? To successfully utilize YouTube ads, Jake recommends crafting a message that resonates with your target audience. He suggests addressing their specific pain points or needs. This requires a deep understanding of your audience and their motivations. In terms of how this message is constructed; in particular, Jake recommends not skipping these key elements: Effective hook, The problem you're trying to solve, A solution to that problem, Credibili

Do you know how to get the attention of big brands? Wondering if the glory of having enterprise clients justifies the headaches involved? Are you highlighting success stories to get attention and attract the sort of clients you want? Today's guest dissects big brand dilemmas having partnered with countless household tech names. She says cracking their codes hinges on network and leveraging your identity. We'll explore challenging elements agencies endure silently while chasing coveted opportunities. Tune in to unveil the dualities separating perception from reality when pursuing premier partnerships. Kaitlyn Barclay is the CEO and co-founder of Scout Lab, a creative communications agency specializing in branding communications and campaigns. Her agency has grown well past the million-dollar mark and works with some of the biggest brands in the world. Kaitlyn talks about her background in the tech industry and how it influenced her decision to create an agency that caters to tech companies. Tune in to learn how she decided to go all-in when promoting the agency, leveraging personal networks, and how her agency was able to establish a strong reputation and gain attention from big brands. In this interview, we'll discuss: Using your identity and existing clientele as leverage. Possible hurdles of working with big brands. Highlighting success stories to attract next-level projects. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service. Creating a Differentiated Offer to Drive Value to Clients Coming from Silicon Valley, Kaitlyn had a deep understanding of the world of tech, specifically multi-sided marketplaces. She had previously started a company in 2015 that was later acquired. Back then, she craved an agency that intrinsically understood technical founders' mindsets and markets. So she built that rare specialty boutique herself alongside a partner. The agency quickly took off from there. Scout Lab's success can be attributed to its unique approach and differentiated offering. Kaitlyn went all in promoting their services to her entire network, many of whom were working with the type of clients she eventually wanted to work with. One key aspect of their differentiated offering was a clear point of view and their ability to blend the practices of brand building with agile methodology. This unique combination allows them to create a shared language with their target clients, who are often tech-focused and product-oriented founders. Most agencies default to retrofitting versus innately knowing tech, thus Kaitlyn positioned Scout Lab through authentic insights and delivered uniquely tailored transformations. They didn't have to pretend - focused specialization allows them to stand out by simply understanding the audience Positioning Your Agency at the Edge of Culture In 2016, many things were happening in the world and many big brands made huge marketing mistakes that came down to ignorance. Big brands wanted a partner who could provide a 360-degree view of their target audience. Kaitlyn's agency promised an extraordinary amount of research on the clients' potential consumers to have a 360-degree view of the audience they want to acquire and retain. They called it "purpose-driven marketing" although she agrees the term has lost all meaning with time. However, in 2016 when brand safety was top of mind for many executives, it was extremely provocative. They were an organization that understood the needs of tech brands to launch and scale. Billion-dollar companies were looking to appeal to "the cool kids", folks who were on the edge of culture. By positioning themselves as experts on the bleeding edge of culture, Scout Lab was able to open doors and secure partnerships with these multinational corporations. Leveraging Your Identity and Existing Client Work Even though they had exactly the expertise and fresh approach big brands were looking for, how could they get their attention? Kaitlyn knows your network is your net worth, so networking plays a crucial role in approaching these clients. Representing themselves and their business in the right rooms and talking to the right people was essential. To establish a differentiated point of view, they made a list of "no's," identifying who they wouldn't work with. By staying true to their values and focusing on enabling access, they became an attractive agency partner for clients who wanted to be more agile, purpose-driven, and consumer-centric. Additionally, ScoutLab used its identity and existing client work as leverage. In this regard, Kaitlyn started to share the agency's case stories with her network, hoping to attract similar successful business

Once a year, our digital agency owners mastermind cohort trades Zoom squares for open skies, convening at a ranch to deepen connections forged through months of vulnerable idea sharing. For three days, members taste true community while sampling strategies for unlocking agency success. But the annual live retreat with other mastermind members promises more than stimulating discussion and delicious food. This gathering of peers breeds breakthroughs that boost business and life alike. Between fireside chats and horseback excursions, mastermind members crystallize priorities, pressure test assumptions, and summon the courage to meet change head-on. Tune in to hear some of this year's highlights and the many benefits both the members and the team take from this annual event. Darby Copenhaver and Jason Swenk look back on this year's Digital Agency Experience (affectionately known as DAX). They discuss the benefits of having a couple of days for in-person meetings and how it provides a sense of comfort and personal growth for everyone involved. They also recall some fun campfire anecdotes, the best memories they take from this year's reunion, and some key learnings everyone took back home. In this episode, we'll discuss: Digital agency experience 2023. Revelations around staffing and agency values. Leadership check-ins on what you need to start, stop, and continue. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources Gusto: Running payroll and benefits is hard. Especially when you're a small business. Gusto is a tool that helps make payroll, benefits, and HR easy for small businesses. You no longer have to be a big company to get great technology, great benefits, and great service to take care of your team. For a limited time, Gusto is offering a deal to Smart Agency Master Class listeners. Check out Gusto.com/agency for 3-months FREE once you run your first payroll with them. Digital Agency Experience 2023 This was Darby's third year at the Agency Mastermind Experience and, as always, it was unique. Most of the members had not met in person and didn't know what to expect. Fortunately, the experience created an overwhelming sense of comfort for everyone attending. The members were interacting at all times and had so much to share after a year of online meetings. In his conversation with members, Darby could see how much they each took away. Everyone had their expectations of what they wanted to get out of the event or what they thought they needed. Fortunately, every single one expressed they got monumentally more than they expected. When they join the mastermind, agency owners are normally filled with questions and not sure who to turn to get the answers. In many cases, mastermind discussions lead to tough questions that lead agency owners to question where they are with their business and what they need to keep growing. For others, it may lead to affirming things they already know they should do. In many ways, it's like group therapy. Even though you already know something, it hits differently when you're forced to say it out loud and in front of your peers. It forces people into action in a way they might never do on their own. Staffing Revelations Around Talent and Values Gathering people around a campfire can foster a sense of camaraderie and create lasting memories. It's a perfect moment for them to let their guard down and go back to their high school selves. It creates an environment where people can connect on a deeper level and engage in authentic conversations. During the mastermind experience, the campfire was a time for reflection, collaboration, and goal-setting. The group engaged in conversations about parenting, work, and personal aspirations. This year, many conversations highlighted the importance of considering values when it comes to your team. Jason is a big believer in evaluating team members and clients based on whether they align with the same values. It becomes an important aspect of building a successful and cohesive group. Just ask yourself, "Would I want to hang out with them at my house?" It's not exactly about surrounding yourself with 'yes men', but brilliant workers can still corrode culture. Mastermind members traded tales of top performers poisoning team dynamics. Finding the right talent is hard, of course. But hiring mistakes grate slowly and then mass exodus eventually follows. So surgically remove cultural cancers promptly. It's the best approach to protect your team and save yourself bigger problems down the line. Furthermore, implement the value element as part of your hiring process. Vet people based on their talent and how compatible they are with the established agency values. Leadership Check-Ins: What to Start, Stop, and Continue? What does your team want you to start doing? What do they want you to stop doing? And what would they like you to continue doing? These questions were part of the group discussions and led to useful realizations, even for Jason, wh

Want to achieve growth through means beyond just new client acquisition? What is profitable for one company may fail another. Today's guest knows profitable strategies demand contextualization. He built an agency helping ecommerce businesses optimize profits by leveraging his analytical skills and his desire to help people and make an impact. Learn about the many aspects beyond just creativity where an agency can come in and help drive their client's profitability. He recalls his start as a nurse and his transition to working in ecomm, as well as some lessons on how to achieve growth without focusing solely on reducing acquisition costs, and why you should never lose sight of the bigger picture. William Harris is the founder and CEO of Elumynt, an e-commerce growth agency focused on maximizing their clients' profitability with a team that gets obsessive about data to build the best-performing and most cost-effective ad campaigns. William has published over 200 articles on e-commerce and advertising leadership and will detail the ways in which he uses intelligent strategies to help eCommerce and SaaS businesses accelerate their revenue. In this episode, we'll discuss: Analyzing customer lifetime value to determine profitability. Taking comprehensive approach to advertising. How the P&L unlocks a client's full value. Remembering what matters most. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service. Podcast Takeover!! Get to know your Smart Agency Guest Host: Dr. Jeremy Weisz is the co-founder of Rise25, an agency that helps companies launch and run podcasts profitably. He followed Jason's podcast and eventually joined the mastermind and has been a guest on the podcast before. Today, he's helping Jason bring something new to the Smart Agency podcast audience by interviewing a special guest and getting a new perspective to the show. Combining Problem-Solving Skills and Desire to Help People Growing up, William had a passion for inventing and problem-solving to come up with new ideas. He also had a strong desire to help people, which he pursued through a career in nursing. While working as a per diem nurse, he witnessed the hospitals' staffing challenges. Their ineffective system was leading to problems in providing adequate care to patients. This was probably a problem at a lot of hospitals, which sparked his interest in finding a solution. It was 2013 and hospital schedules were still done on paper. William met with Chad Halverson, who ran a company called When I Work, and discussed using his API to develop scheduling software specifically designed for hospitals. It was a project that could truly have an impact on both hospital administrations and patients. During their time working on this, Chad recognized William's marketing skills and offered him an opportunity to lead his marketing team. It was a chance to combine his problem-solving skills and marketing expertise. Analyzing Agency Customer Lifetime Value After his time at When I Work, William transitioned into the e-commerce industry helping different businesses achieve growth and success. The eCommerce industry was still very young and many founders entered the field with innovative ideas but lacked a deep understanding of business concepts. Rather than solely focusing on minimizing acquisition costs, William helped clients view higher acquisition costs as wise investments given sufficient customer lifetime value. To attract valuable customers, William leveraged advertising supplemented by lifestyle partnerships seeking to get involved in customers' hobbies and lifestyles. By sponsoring events or activities related to their target market, businesses can establish themselves as part of the community and build a loyal customer base. This approach not only increases brand awareness but also allows businesses to better understand their customers' needs and preferences. William attributes this focus on customer lifetime value to his background in SaaS where it is common to analyze the customer acquisition cost (CAC) to lifetime value (LTV) ratio to determine profitability. To him, it became a sort of fun math problem. Understanding where a business needs to be in terms of this ratio is crucial for long-term success. What may be profitable for one company may not be for another, and each business needs to determine its own profitability threshold. Maximizing Profitability Using a Comprehensive Approach to Advertising Many eCommerce stores fixate too much on immediate transactions over long-term profitability. A lot of these businesses just look at the return on ad spend, which while commonly used as a metric to measure advertising succe

Are you effectively communicating your brand? Are you understanding your prospects and choosing quality over quantity? Do you speak in their terms to reach them? Do you have a deep understanding of their needs and challenges? Today's guest is a branding expert who knows how to speak to audiences and get a message across. She sees agencies making many mistakes by not understanding that you have to earn your brand, not buy it. Tune in for valuable insights and tips for agency owners to create memorable and effective brands. Jaci Russo is the co-founder and CEO of Brand Russo, a strategic branding agency that aims to change the conversation and motivate consumer behavior through the use of our experience, resources, talent, and process. Jaci discusses branding strategies for agencies and some misconceptions and mistakes agencies make when it comes to branding. In this episode, we'll discuss: To win prospects over, answer the question "What can you do for ME?" Understanding your clients' personality type. How to earn your brand. Focus on quality over quantity in proposals. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources Gusto: Running payroll and benefits is hard. Especially when you're a small business. Gusto is a tool that helps make payroll, benefits, and HR easy for small businesses. You no longer have to be a big company to get great technology, great benefits, and great service to take care of your team. For a limited time, Gusto is offering a deal to Smart Agency Master Class listeners. Check out Gusto.com/agency for 3 months FREE once you run your first payroll with them. Going from Agency Employee to Freelancer to Agency Owner After college in Louisiana, Jaci moved to Los Angeles and worked at Creative Artists Agency, where she got to be a part of the rebranding of Ticketmaster and USA Networks. Years later she moved home and worked in-house at an agency and then in-house for a client while starting a family. Things were going well, but Jaci knew she'd never get ahead being a W2 worker. The need for a more flexible schedule moved her to make a change to be a freelance media buyer. However, with clients coming in fast and being married to a graphic designer and copywriter, they had more clients than a small agency. They decided to make it official and dedicate themselves to the agency full-time. Eventually, they bought a building to expand their growing operations and 23 years later they have 20 employees serving clients across the country. Answering the Unasked Question "What Can You Do for Me?" Understanding your target audience is crucial for effective branding. Sadly, many agencies make the mistake of using industry terminology that excludes their target audience. It both fails to get the message across and makes the agency appear pretentious and out of touch. To create a successful brand that resonates with your target audience, you'll need a deep understanding of their needs, wants, and challenges. If you do this, you'll easily get in touch with how they talk. "SEO is great," Jaci says "but when I see companies optimizing for their in-house terminology and the people they're trying to reach use a completely different set of terms. It's such an obvious disconnect!" Furthermore, many companies spend a lot of time talking about features and what they do. In reality, the question "What do you do?" is an opportunity to answer the unasked question "What can you do for me?" Focusing on this question allows you to answer not by talking about the company but about the solutions you provide. This approach will completely change your messaging and content. Now you'll be writing about something people care about; you'll be writing about them. It requires thorough market research, gathering insights, and analyzing data to gain valuable insights into the target audience's preferences and behaviors and use them effectively in your branding efforts. Understanding Your Clients and Communicate Accordingly Jaci believes in the power of understanding personality types of advertising. It helps her know what kind of results they need to deliver depending on the client. "When we're creating something that's targeting engineers or attorneys," she says, "people are going to read all the details, we have to give them a lot of details". If the client is an illustration type, they'll love pretty pictures and awards. For them, she finds ways to convey how the agency has been rewarded for great work, like clients sticking around for twelve years. On the other hand, logotypes look to their peers for endorsement of their choices, so they need case studies and testimonials. She knows one size doesn't fit all and it's all about building an emotional connection. However, at her agency, they use that knowledge of the target audience to craft something that'll connect with them. Strong Brands Aren't Bought, They're Earned You can spend a lot of money on advertising and buy attention, but Jaci believes strong brands mu

Did you know time is the most valuable resource for clients? How are you helping clients maximize their time with your services? The relationship between agency responsiveness and revenue is something more agencies should be looking at closely and something that will surely give you a competitive advantage. No matter how good you are at what you do, clients are noticing the time you take to do it. They no longer tolerate months of no communication to then arise with a magical strategy. They want to know what's going on and how long you'll take to deliver results. In fact, they're even willing to pay more for speed. Tune in to hear from an expert on how you can use time and responsiveness to your advantage without making big changes to your process. Jay Baer is an author and business growth and marketing expert with over 30 years of experience in the field. He's written seven business books and owned a series of agencies for most of his career 30 years. Currently, he's "sans agency" as he just sold his global consulting firm 18 months ago. Jay shares his insights on how to create a competitive advantage for your agency. To this end, he emphasizes the need to adapt to changes in customer behavior by focusing on the importance of time and responsiveness in capturing customer loyalty and generating revenue. In this episode, we'll discuss: Prioritizing responsiveness when working with clients. Agency responsiveness as a distinct competitive advantage. A small change to make a great difference: Response without answers. Closing the uncertainty gap. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service. Other Smart Agency interviews with Jay Baer: Converting More Clients by Helping Rather than Selling Talk Triggers that Get Clients Knocking on Your Door Are Agencies Conscious of How They Spend Clients' Time? Jay has gotten into the habit of writing new books and frameworks every three years, which is the time it takes for customer behavior to change. Clients' needs and competitive advantages will change every couple of years and it's important to keep this in mind to stay ahead of the competition. His more recent research revolves around our relationship with time and how it's changed after the pandemic. "I think time is actually the only resource on this planet that we actually share equally," Jay explains. The pandemic was a harsh reminder that nothing is guaranteed and tomorrow is not promised. We have become more conscious of how we spend our time, which has led to various trends in business and personal life. After conducting extensive research on the relationship between responsiveness and revenue, Jay found that, surprisingly, two-thirds of customers now consider speed as important as price when making purchasing decisions. Causing customers to waste time can lead to financial losses. His research findings resonate with agency owners, who often find themselves in a dilemma. As customers, they desire immediate responses and efficient service. However, do they prioritize responsiveness when working with their own clients? Agency Responsiveness as a Way to Get a Distinctive Competitive Advantage Based on these findings, agencies should be using responsiveness as a distinct competitive advantage in business. Basically, with current expectations in customer service, the fastest business will win. Of course, you can also be TOO fast and lose customers' trust in the process. This is commonly seen with chatbots, where an immediate response is seen as indicative of not dealing with a person who can answer your question. In his book, Jay clarifies business owners should be looking for "the right now", which takes a clear understanding of an agency's performance. He recommends implementing a Got it audit, by answering how long does it take your clients to get a response? To get an invoice? To get a report? Basically to get any of the services your agency offers. It may seem like a basic question, but all too often agencies can't answer it. Only by knowing this can agencies identify areas of improvement and make informed decisions to enhance their operations. After all, the perfect amount of time will always be just a little bit faster than the clients expect. Teaching Agency Teams to 'Respond Without Answers' According to Jay, every agency team should be trained to "respond without answers". Basically, it'll happen from time to time that clients ask a question for which you don't have an immediate answer, so you set out to look for that answer and respond once you have it. However, what happens while you're looking for that answer? The person who asked the question has no information and they're f

Offering a unique customer service experience is a sure way to stand out from all the competition out there. With people focusing so heavily on technology and automation, customers are many times left to fend for themselves when a problem arises. When it comes to urgent matters, they crave having a human to reach out to and have experienced guidance to solve their problem. Today's guest realized this need and has worked to build an agency with a 'Yes' mentality. For him, being a service company comes first and is one of the top reasons why clients choose his agency. Tune in to learn why his vision was to offer that yes mentality and customer-centric approach. Jeff Hastedt is the managing director and co-founder of Brkthru, a service company that helps companies harness the selling power of digital advertising. They focus on providing immediate assistance and handling media execution for brands and agencies. Most notably, they believe in "starting with a yes" and accommodating any size campaign, last-minute needs, fixed budgets, unique audiences, and tough challenges. In this episode, we'll discuss: Building a service company with a yes mentality. The importance of centering relationships in sales. How his staff training became an important element of company culture. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources Gusto: Running payroll and benefits is hard. Especially when you're a small business. Gusto is a tool that helps make payroll, benefits, and HR easy for small businesses. You no longer have to be a big company to get great technology, great benefits, and great service to take care of your team. For a limited time, Gusto is offering a deal to Smart Agency Master Class listeners. Check out Gusto.com/agency for 3-months FREE once you run your first payroll with them. Podcast Takeover!! Get to know your Smart Agency Guest Host: Dr. Jeremy Weisz is the co-founder of Rise25, an agency that helps companies launch and run podcasts profitably. He followed Jason's podcast and eventually joined the mastermind and has been a guest on the podcast before. Today, he's helping Jason bring something new to the Smart Agency podcast audience by interviewing a special guest and getting a new perspective to the show. Finding the Right Combination to Succeed in Digital Advertising Jeff's digital experience and expertise date back all the way to 2000, working at companies like CBS, Clear Channel, and Powerheads assisting brands and leading international digital campaigns. He and his co-founder were colleagues at a previous organization and shared a dream of starting a business. Jeff's previous attempts at entrepreneurship did not go as planned. However, he now sees he didn't have enough experience at the time. Years later, he and his co-founder's combined experiences and knowledge in the media and advertising industry, particularly in digital advertising, were the right combination to succeed with Brkthru. Is There a Right Time to Start Building your Agency Management Team? Six years after starting his business, the mission remains pretty much the same; being the preeminent service company in digital media and having no minimums. In fact, the latter is still one of the top reasons why clients continue to pick them. Even though Jeff fully believed in their mission, their growth has been greater than expected. In 2017, when he and his co-founder agreed to let the market decide, they couldn't have imagined the level of growth they'd seen. But Jeff mostly attributes this success to an amazing management team that was willing to take a risk working with a startup. At the time, he wasn't thinking about a management team. His business was barely two years old and technically he couldn't afford one yet. However, he was presented with a wonderful opportunity to add his current COO. He decided to take the chance. Sometimes opportunities like this one will come up before you think you're ready. It won't always happen at "the right time". However, if it's worth the risk, it may be something you're very glad you took on when you had the chance. Benefits of being a Digital Agency with a 'Yes' Mentality In an industry enamoured with technology, Jeff's agency Brkthru defiantly declares itself service-first. He knows automation leaves clients craving human connection when challenges strike. So he staffed support with savvy experts, not chatbots. Real people solve real problems in real time. Jeff built Brkthru around "yes" - embracing each client's unique needs and budgets. While other agencies balk at last-minute requests or limited funds, they are willing to work with clients regardless of the size of their campaign or budget. They understand businesses may have unique needs and are willing to take on last-minute needs, work with fixed budgets, target unique audiences, and tackle tough challenges head-on. Being flexible and adaptable has allowed them to offer the necessary support and solutions to overcome obstacles. Th

Do you spend too much time securing new business for your agency? Are you constantly scrambling to attract new clients? You could be missing opportunities to provide more value to existing clients. It's also time you're not dedicating to your agency, which leaves you marketing yourself last. Pouring effort into your own marketing fills your pipeline with your perfect clients and the ability to pick and choose who you're working with. Today's guest saw fast growth early on with his agency until he ran into this very issue: new business from referrals was drying up and finding new leads took a lot of time and effort. What changed everything for him? Content marketing. Jon LaClare is the founder of Harvest Growth, an agency focused on video marketing and, to a lesser degree, infomercials. His team helps high-growth companies selling consumer products and services grow sales through the power of direct response. Jon shares how he went from one-off projects to a predictable recurring revenue model and some of the challenges he's faced, like the difficulty of consistently finding new leads. He also reflects on the tendency among agency owners to prioritize their clients over marketing their own agency. In this interview, we'll discuss: What to do after referral leads start to dry up. Transitioning from project work to ongoing campaigns. Why you have to stop marketing yourself last. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service. What to Do After Leads Dry Up: Challenges Following Early Success Jon always envisioned himself as the future owner of some type of business, although not necessarily an agency. Now he sees every step in his career journey always had this intent in mind. A big moment in his career was working at OxiClean. It was a phenomenal opportunity and a great place to work until it was eventually sold. At first, Jon figured it was time to look for another job. He realized, however, this was a perfect opportunity to start his own business. It took him some time to finally figure out what he wanted to do and, in a way, he feels he lucked into the agency business. Growth came fast in the early years thanks to a handy list of contacts made during his time at OxiClean. However, at some point, those leads started to dry up and businesses slowed. This was the first big obstacle he found as an agency owner, as he admits he didn't realize the time and effort it would take to bring in new leads. Pivoting from Charging by Projects to Ongoing Campaigns Jon's agency used to heavily rely on video production projects for revenue, which was great when times were good and very difficult when they weren't. The ups and downs made it ultimately not sustainable in the long run. He spent a significant amount of time and effort getting projects in the door but fell behind on his agency's marketing and sales efforts as he focused on delivering good work for clients. This would lead to drought spells where he and his team would have to scramble to find new projects. This reactive business model wasn't sustainable. So they pivoted from one-off projects to ongoing campaigns, becoming a long-term partner maximizing value over time. Instead of just delivering a one-off TV spot or infomercial, they started focusing on how they could help their clients launch and grow their products over time. This shift allowed them to not only provide ongoing value to their clients but also stabilize their revenue stream. They started small as they found their niche, slowly raising prices as expertise and confidence grew. Jon learned that sometimes the time and energy spent on finding and selling new clients is time you lose on existing clients. This may lead to missing out on opportunities to provide more value. By stretching out the revenue of their clients over time, the agency was able to alleviate some of the pressure and focus on being more strategic and creative. Embrace Content Marketing and Stop Marketing Yourself Last Jon wishes he'd embraced content marketing sooner. Now he cultivates posts showcasing expertise for ideal clients. However, he stresses the importance of choosing formats that play to your strengths. Look for something that resonates with your audience and showcases your agency's expertise. In his case, it was launching a podcast where he interviews business owners, inventors, and entrepreneurs. It's a form of content that aligns with his strengths and allows him to share his knowledge and expertise in a way that resonates with their audience. He struggled with writing blogs in the past and found it time-consuming and challenging. However, finding a content format that fits his skill set helpe

Have you made hiring mistakes that affected your agency's growth? How long did it take you to course correct before it was too late? Wrong hires can become a cancer inside your agency that leaves you exhausted and overworked. Today's guest started her agency as a very small operation and turned to friends when it came to hiring. However, she soon realized that friendships don't always translate to the best work relationships. She was micromanaging, losing money, and losing confidence in her ability as a leader. In a bold move, she took control of the situation by shutting down her agency at the end of the year. She decided to create new rules, enforce them, and see who really remained after the agency's direction was made clear. Tune in to learn she saved her agency, gained confidence as a leader, and built the team she needed. Danielle Reid is the owner of DR and Associates, a creative agency specializing in communications, diversity, and multicultural marketing. They do brand and project development, and growth campaigns for start-ups and helps all size business and achieve results through strategies that connect while using innovation and expertise. In this episode, we'll discuss: Rapid growth and getting to 7-figures in four years. Why you should always ask for a budget. Pulling the brakes to correct hiring mistakes. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources Gusto: Running payroll and benefits is hard. Especially when you're a small business. Gusto is a tool that helps make payroll, benefits, and HR easy for small businesses. You no longer have to be a big company to get great technology, great benefits, and great service to take care of your team. For a limited time, Gusto is offering a deal to Smart Agency Master Class listeners. Check out Gusto.com/agency for 3-months FREE once you run your first payroll with them. The Biggest Challenge with Getting to 7-Figures in Four Year Danielle worked for a Big 6 agency as a senior manager for a long time and loved being the person pulled into projects that needed saving. However, she craved new challenges and eventually got bored. She left agency life to work for the Navy, a new and exciting challenge that validated her leadership talents. She realized she was the expert in the room, which fueled her motivation to one day own her own agency. After a brief stint at a corporate job she realized it was the right time to become a business owner, so she started her agency, DR & Associates. Looking back, the growth they've seen since 2019 has been amazing, hitting over 7 figures in just four years. However, despite the rapid rise, pricing was the first big obstacle she struggled with. Agency owners often see low pricing as a strategy to get started and build a client list. Like many before her, Danielle wasn't thinking about her profit margin. She figured she'd just charge low prices to have a competitive advantage. How did she measure success? It was all about making an impact on companies she believed in. Many businesses couldn't afford a $25,000 retainer but had great potential for growth. This approach is often driven by a desire to attract clients and gain experience in the field. However there are risks associated with low pricing. It's important to consider the implications of this strategy and its long-term effects on the agency's growth and profitability. A Crucial Turnaround: Why You Should Always Ask for The Budget The first moment that represented a crucial turnaround for Danielle was her first 6-figure contract. A non-profit client needed help with social media strategy and ended up hiring her agency. She was stunned to find their budget was $180,000 but was glad to have asked for a budget beforehand. This contract dwarfed her previous record of $4,000 so it was a huge step in the right direction. This enormous deal affirmed her value while fueling accelerated growth. Still, Danielle doesn't apply a one-size markup. Especially with budget-limited nonprofits, proposals embody custom assessments of needs, goals, and ability to pay. Her agency balances mission and margins through context-based pricing. Pulling the Brakes to Correct Past Hiring Mistakes As she went through expenses at the end of last year, Danielle had the dreadful realization that she had been scammed by some employees, considering how much they cost and how little value they provided in return. This brought about a moment of radical changes, as she fired some of her team last December to figure out how to move forward in 2023. We've all been warned about the difficulties of hiring friends. In her experience, these friends turned out to be less productive than expected. Unfortunately, it came to a point where Danielle had to babysit her employees, having to do more direction of everyone else's duties than her own work. So she put certain parameters up, knowing these employees wouldn't choose to return after the rules were enforced. It was a tough lesson but it had to

Have you nailed down your agency's ideal niche? Are you attracting clients that ignite your agency's growth? Could you be standing in the way of your ability to raise agency prices? After years as a generalist agency, today's guest decided to turn his business into a dual agency launching a niche firm alongside his broad shop. This calculated risk revealed his true north while preserving the existing revenue streams. Now their work inside the niche outpaces the generalist division of the agency. He talks about the decision to create two agencies and his revelation to let go of limiting thinking in order to raise prices. Matt Banker is the owner of Banker Creative, a business he calls a dual agency since it has two different brands under one agency. Matt shares his experience running two brands, Banker Creative and Benchmark Growth, which specialize in web design and marketing for accounting firms, respectively. He discusses the benefits of having a niche focus and the importance of building processes to delegate tasks to his team. Tune in to learn from his insights and strategies for growing and scaling an agency. In this episode, we'll discuss: Shedding your limiting mindset in order to raise agency prices. Building a dual agency to explore the ideal niche. Who is the first hire you should make as a new agency? Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service. What is the First Hire You Should Make as a New Agency? Matt's career began in consulting, but he craved solving business challenges hands-on. He moved to an agency, seeking a consultative versus task-driven role. However, it wasn't the greatest experience. Ready to merge his design and storytelling skills on his terms, Matt built a web design shop. In the early days, Matt advertised his services on Craigslist and charged around $1,500 for his first websites. He quickly realized the need to hire additional help to handle the growing workload and started with a part-time designer. It was an area he knew well enough that he could hand it off to someone else and still manage that process. If he could do it over again, Matt would hire an operations manager sooner. However, he fell into the trap of hiring help to support him in whatever projects he was taking on. As the agency continued to grow, he made a crucial shift in his mindset and focused on building out processes and handing off tasks to his team. Once he stepped back and trusted his team, he started to have the freedom to focus on sales and business development. Initially, delegating proved difficult. Matt's hands-on interest complicated empowering his team. But as momentum grew, he realized it was time to "become more boring as a company" and create efficient systems and workflows. Structure and trust paved the path to scale. How to Stop a Limiting Mindset and Raise Agency Prices Looking back on that initial $1,500 fee, Matt sees what held him back from raising prices sooner was just his own mindset. To him, running an agency is 30% being good at the thing you're selling. The other 70% is learning things you didn't think you needed to know and dealing with self-worth issues. You start to doubt yourself when asking: How much do I deserve to make for this project? Those are limiting factors. Your agency will only grow to the level that you as the owner, are at, so you need to always find ways to keep leveling up. With time, Matt realized he and his team were gaining more knowledge and providing amazing value to their clients. If they were to charge based on performance, they could definitely get paid more. He raised his prices and soon realized in most cases he was more price-sensitive than his clients. They had no trouble paying what his agency was worth and he was the one standing in his own way. Currently, he puts his pricing on his website as a form of self-accountability. To him, having the price out there means making one decision in advance instead of making it on every single call. This, however, could deter bigger clients from working with him, as they could be expecting to pay much more than is announced on his website and assume his agency lacks the experience they want. Building a Dual Agency to Explore Their Ideal Niche Matt's agency has since expanded to include two brands. Banker Creative, specializes in web design using the StoryBrand framework, and Benchmark Growth focuses on marketing for accounting firms. The decision to niche down and target accounting firms was a strategic one, influenced in part by the agency's name, "Banker Creative." While they have worked with banks and other financial professionals, they found that accountants are the ideal niche

Have you struggled with turnover post-pandemic? Looking for insights on adapting and fortifying your agency? What about outsourcing strategies that enable growth? The pandemic has had a profound impact on the IT industry, with one of its major consequences being the mass exodus of employees, resulting in the loss of experienced staff members who had been with companies for 15 to 20 years. This has posed a tremendous challenge for IT companies, compelling them to adapt and fortify their processes. Today's guest is an Indian entrepreneur who managed to learn and adapt to these new challenges after previous experiences surviving failure and rising again in a new niche. Tune in to gain insights on scaling your agency and the benefits of outsourcing IT services. Shamit Khemka is the founder of SynapseIndia, a premier IT outsourcing company. They are a Microsoft-certified gold partner that provides software development, custom web and mobile applications with 23+ years of experience. Their focus is open-source frameworks and ecommerce. In this interview, we'll discuss: Surviving failure and turning it into opportunity. Choosing a niche and retaining top talent in a competitive industry. Keys to effective leadership at your digital agency. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources Agency Analytics: Tired of endless manual reporting in order to show your clients the value your agency delivers? It's time to check out AgencyAnalytics, the best automated client reporting solution for marketing agencies. Try it for FREE for 14 days when you head over to AgencyAnalytics.com/Smart and sign up. It's time to see how life feels on the other side of manual reporting madness! Podcast Takeover!! Get to know your Smart Agency Guest Host: Dr. Jeremy Weisz is the co-founder of Rise25, an agency that helps companies launch and run podcasts profitably. He followed Jason's podcast and eventually joined the mastermind and has been a guest on the podcast before. Today, he's helping Jason bring something new to the Smart Agency podcast audience by interviewing a special guest and getting a new perspective to the show. From Belly Up to Up and Running: Surviving Failure and Turning it into Opportunity Starting over after failure can be a daunting and challenging task. It requires resilience, determination, and a willingness to learn from past mistakes. However, it can also be an opportunity for growth and success. Shamit's current company is the result of starting over after his initial venture went belly up. Despite the failure, he saw an opportunity to try again with the computers and talented programmers he had left. This gave them the opportunity to explore new possibilities and start building websites and developing software. Shamit's mindset at the time was crucial in his decision to bounce back. He was young and willing to take risks, which allowed him to see failure as a learning experience rather than a setback. He also had confidence in his technological skills, receiving continued inquiries even during the dot com downfall. This indicated there was still a demand for their services, and they could leverage their existing resources to meet that demand. However determined, starting over required a strategic approach. In this sense, Shamit attributes his focus to what he learned during his participation in the MIT program, which provided him with valuable knowledge and insights that he could apply to his business. Of course, it was not easy, but it is possible. Rising from the ashes requires a positive mindset, a willingness to learn from past mistakes, and the ability to adapt and pivot. Finding a New Niche in a Mobile App Development At the time his first company went under, most people would've probably just gotten a job. Instead, Shamit decided to give entrepreneurship another try. His passion for technology played a significant role in his ability to persevere. He firmly believes in his ability to create and build a successful business using his technological skills. This new endeavor started with an offering of simple website and hosting services. With time, they also started developing straightforward software, as well as developing interesting projects with US companies. Slowly but surely his agency started moving between different technology solutions, which led to working in mobile applications. First, an EO mobile application built by Shamit himself, followed by hiring a mobile application developer. To date, the mobile division has grown to a team of 35 people. Advantages of Partnering with Indian Startups Shamit links his ability to think creatively and find solutions where none existed to a unique problem-solving approach known as "Jugaad" in India. For him, Indians are born entrepreneurs in a culture Jugaad refers to finding innovative and unconventional solutions when traditional methods fall short. Many people think of Indian labor as cheap labor and shy away from working with Indian compani

Are you struggling to get a handle on your agency's growth? Have you established the right strategies for formalizing growth beyond referrals? Today's guest grew organically for a long time but eventually saw the need to clearly define his agency's direction and business goals. His team lacked a clear understanding of the overall direction, resulting in the constant need for guidance. He talks about the moment he knew it was time to hire an operator and how having clear processes and systems benefitted his team. He also shares how starting a podcast revived his agency, fueled their social media, and helped him become a better leader. Paris Childress is the founder and CEO of Hop Online, a performance marketing agency for SaaS companies. Having run his agency for 14 years, he's seen many ups and downs and come out stronger. Today he shares how to identify and navigate the hard times of entrepreneurship and advice on how to overcome challenges and make informed decisions. Tune in for an inspiring conversation with a seasoned agency owner. In this episode, we'll discuss: Becoming a manager of systems, not people. Formalizing growth with a three-fold marketing strategy. Establishing a brand and leadership through podcasting. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service. Learning to Manage Systems Instead of People to Grow Beyond Referrals Paris is an accidental agency owner who rushed to create a company once he realized invoices were an important part of getting paid. At the time, he didn't fully understand what he was creating but luckily organic growth soon followed. As time went by, Paris realized the agency was not set up to see real growth past initial referrals. The challenge now was to get the systems and the structure in place to grow his small team. It was time to move from managing people to managing systems. Basically, managing the agency was getting harder because he had to manage more and more people who didn't always know what to do. They needed systems to fall back on. He needed to clearly define their services, implement SOPs, and figure out what they were good at. Step one was hiring an operator. As the agency's visionary, he recognized it was time to get someone to focus on processes and execution. His agency greatly benefitted from that clarity and setting up the systems for real growth. More recently, the pandemic presented new growth opportunities as SaaS businesses were red hot during COVID-19. Now, Paris is getting ready to tackle new challenges as SaaS businesses are seeing their valuations go down. It's definitely a tougher environment with marketing budget cuts so they're focusing on developing their brand. Formalizing Growth with a Dedicated Team and a Partner for Outbound One of the first steps to have a more serious focus on their marketing was formalizing a growth team working on generating more leads for the agency. It includes two full-time marketers, one salesperson, and himself. With a decrease of new business coming their way, Paris made the conscious decision to dedicate agency resources to the problem. This helped them avoid downsizing. With the margins being way too low for way too long, he had been pondering that option. However, he realized it was not a marketing problem but rather a sales problem. In terms of strategy, Paris was clear he needed to develop the 3 marketing channels: inbound, outbound, and partnerships. To tackle their lack of inbound strategy, he launched a podcast, which has become his favorite part of his week. It's still very small but it's starting to attract the right audience. A podcast can make a huge difference in your brand even with 50 to 100 downloads per week. It's not about building a huge audience, but rather building a relevant audience. As to the outbound piece, Paris is surprised at how well it's worked. They'd previously tried in the past with internal teams but this year they found a qualified partner to help them on this front. The result has been a steady pipeline with pretty good leads for them. Of course, it is a longer sales cycle than inbound or referrals. Discovery calls should be approached with a much more consultative approach and guide the conversation to get them talking about their business so they can start to realize they do need help in some areas. Establishing Thought Leadership Through Podcasting Starting a podcast has helped revitalize his agency in many ways. For instance, they now get to repurpose that content. It's fueling their social media and creating assets for salespeople. Additionally, and perhaps most importantly for Paris, it brought a lot of clarity for h

Is your agency's profitability falling short? Do you lack clarity about your real margins? Many agencies struggle to maximize performance due to a core issue - not accurately calculating gross margin. Misconceptions around margin math sabotage profits. Today's guest specializes in increasing agency profitability by solving the single but costly problem of suboptimal agency margins. He shares how he helps agencies boost margins by correcting common errors in delivery margin calculations. Marcel Petitpas is the founder of Parakeeto, a technology-leveraged service firm, specializing in helping agencies measure and improve their performance. His firm exists to solve one problem: Agency Profitability. Marcel discusses his experience helping agencies increase their profitability and shares what many firms are getting wrong about how to calculate their delivery margin. In this episode, he'll share valuable insights and strategies for agency owners looking to boost profitability. In this episode, we'll discuss: Calculate gross income and delivery margin. 3 Ways to increase agency profitability. Specialization is the key to improving profitability. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources Agency Analytics: Tired of endless manual reporting in order to show your clients the value your agency delivers? It's time to check out AgencyAnalytics, the best-automated client reporting solution for marketing agencies. Try it for FREE for 14 days when you head over to AgencyAnalytics.com/Smart and sign up. It's time to see how life feels on the other side of manual reporting madness! Before pandemic-fueled virtual tours, Marcel built 3D home models in a glacial 2015 market. With houses languishing for years, his niche hobby lacked scale potential. So he pivoted into software, soon meeting an agency owner drowning in spreadsheet tedium. This agency owner spent up to two precious days a week answering questions about his business like Can we take on more clients? Do we need more staff? Who's performing and who's perishing? There had to be a better way to operate and strategize. In that moment of shared pain, Marcel's purpose sparked - a business focused on solving that problem and making it easier for small businesses to answer those questions. And so Parakeeto was born, to liberate founders from manual metrics and maximize their potential. Opaque Profits: Shedding Light on Delivery Margin for Agencies The big issue Marcel sees in many agency owners is that they don't know what their gross margin is. Personally, he prefers to call it delivery margin to prevent any confusion. You can obtain an agency's delivery margin by answering how much of every dollar that clients paid to you after fulfilling on your promise is now left to you to have a profit? Most firms can't answer that question when looking at their financials. In most cases, they're just a few steps away from being able to answer it but don't know how to. For Marcel, it all starts with how we measure profitability, which is a framework still stuck in the past. The growth of a firm still being predicated today is getting more bodies and utilizing them to grow. However, this is not necessarily how it works in a modern context. A lot of companies are doing at least some amount of flat-rate or value-based pricing so they don't actually know how much money they make spending a certain amount of time on a client. As a result, the basis for their profitability is opaque and they're unsure how to do better. How to Calculate Your Agency's Gross Income and Delivery Margin According to Marcel, calculating your delivery margin shouldn't be so complicated if you've first established your revenue and pass-through expenses (which are third-party expenses the agency incurred by outsourcing work to satisfy client demand). The formula is: Revenue - Pass-through Expenses = Agency Gross Income (AGI) Once you have the Agency Gross Income (AGI), you can calculate the Delivery Cost, which is what it costs you to earn that revenue. Most of this will be your team's time. On an agency basis, you are looking at the amount of your payroll is allocated towards delivery. On a project basis, you'd need to answer how much time you spent completing a project and the cost of that time. The formula is: AGI - Delivery Cost/AGI. Ex: If you made $1 million and spent $400K on Delivery Costs, then you have a 60% delivery margin. The challenge a lot of agencies have to really get a clear idea of their delivery margin is that in many cases they have all their payroll costs on the P&L in one bucket. In those cases, they may think they have a great gross profit, but what they're looking at on the P&L is their gross income including delivery costs. Three Ways to Improve Agency Profitability According to those formulas, Marcel identifies three ways to increase delivery margin. You can either decrease your costs or increase the amount of revenue generated with the costs you have: Decrease costs:

Are you struggling to scale your digital agency to 7-figures and beyond? Do you think 8-figure or 9-figure agency owners must have it all figured out? Today's guest shares the journey of taking his smaller agency to an eight-figure business and discusses the strategies that helped him scale and grow. He talks about the huge impact their transparent pricing model had on their growth, why he's still figuring out a marketing strategy that will not depend on referrals, and how he's changed his mind about the remote model. Tune in to hear more about Graham's experiences and insights as an agency owner. Graeme Barlow is a tech entrepreneur who has built and sold several startups in the space and is currently the owner of Iversoft, an agency that builds custom software for brands all over the world. The agency specializes in mobile but dabbles in backend web development and works with creative agencies to complement their engineering expertise. In this episode, we'll discuss: Moving from the tech space to owning an agency. The pricing model that led to immense 8-figure agency growth. Marketing strategies to attract big brand clients. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service. Moving from Tech to Being in the Agency World Many agency owners think grass is greener on the tech side of business and dream of building the new Facebook. For his part, Graeme made the journey backwards and ended up being an agency owner after years in tech. He has built products and games and seen the real struggles in tech and the opportunities as a service provider to partner with up-and-coming starters to develop cool tools. For him, it was the best of both worlds. As an agency owner, Graeme could get access to the coolest technology around while also working with tech startups as they start to scale. However, he found it's not easy working with unknown and unpredictable technologies. Looking back at their impressive growth over the years, Graeme admits it took a lot of pain and suffering. When they started, it was all small fixed bid projects they could complete in a week. Nothing seemed too complicated working on mobile at a time when mobile apps still weren't as complex as they are today. Fast forward to the present and they are now handling multiple six-figure projects at a time. That level of growth is what most agency owners dream of but maintaining it takes solid processes, a good team, a good marketing strategy, and a lot of resilience. A Pricing Model that Led to Immense Growth Transitioning out of the fixed bid to a retainer model proved to be much more difficult than he thought, though a necessary step to scale. In software, there's much you'll learn about user interaction when people start using it. It is extremely hard to define every possible element of software build up front, which is why the fixed bid model was just not working for them. What could they change? How could they make it happen? Basically, they looked at their most successful accounts past the build stage; these accounts were in the maintenance stage and they were working on product enhancement and doing live support in DevOps. Those were their happiest clients. Why was that? All the priorities were aligned. Now Graeme provides a cost breakdown: team retainer, overheads, and a 20% markup on team fees. Clients dictate resource levels based on priorities. Want aggressive? Add senior members. Conserve costs? Go junior heavy. It's their call. This basically eliminated the need for price negotiation with clients. It's been much easier to sell and maintain and they almost eliminated price negotiation with clients, making the process smoother and more efficient. RFPs: Graeme admits, however, that RFP traditions still clash with the retainer approach. If this is your case as well, offer skeptical prospects a paid half-day workshop exploring fit before any scope is defined. The investment filters the serious from the merely curious. Leveraging Success Stories to Go Beyond Word-of-Mouth The marketing component is something Graeme admits he and his team are still figuring out. The bulk of their growth has so far come from word-of-mouth from existing clients. Other than that, they're still trying to crack the marketing piece. Luckily, attracting elite talent gave Graeme an edge when pitching clients; as they can offer better talent than clients could recruit and retain on their own. However, you'll need more than word of mouth to maintain growth. You need to be intentional about your strategy. For instance, one mastermind member built a referral system tracking reciprocity. If they didn't send referrals, it was time to look for another

Have you struggled to build an ethical yet profitable agency model? Do you want your brand to attract clients through value rather than hype? Are you unsure how to leverage personal branding effectively online? Today's interview tackles it all. Today's guest is passionate about helping people build their personal brands and counteracting the lack of integrity in the agency space. Although he dislikes the term "agency" he built one focused on really helping his clients and making sure their win is also his team's win. Tune in to gain insights into Grant's journey and learn about the importance of personal branding in the online coaching industry. Grant Owen is the owner of Integrity Media, a media company that helps clients create short-form and long-form content, as well as podcasts. More recently, his company has been shifting towards a CMO model where they help people with their brand foundations and scaling their own in-house team. In this episode, we'll discuss: Building personal brands with integrity. Will hiring friends inevitably lead to disaster? Diversification vs. Specialization. Why the agency model is here to stay. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Sponsors and Resources Agency Analytics: Tired of endless manual reporting in order to show your clients the value your agency delivers? It's time to check out AgencyAnalytics, the best automated client reporting solution for marketing agencies. Try it for FREE for 14 days when you head over to AgencyAnalytics.com/Smart and sign up. It's time to see how life feels on the other side of manual reporting madness! Developing Your Personal Brand with Integrity at the Core Grant's agency began with impromptu business strategy sessions with friends. He found fulfillment in dispensing actionable advice. Soon he realized - these skills could help counter unethical hype plaguing online marketing. By sharing his mastery, he saw an opportunity to restore trust by offering consulting services with integrity at the core. His tools empowered clients to build brands "the right way"- with their success tied to his. Grant believes everyone has a story worth sharing. Especially online coaches - personal brands build trust, credibility, and community. They provide a platform to move audiences through narrative. It became his mission to help coaches develop reach through radical honesty. In a crowded space, the character stands out. Lead with your human story and the rest will follow. However, he has made some mistakes, like charging way below the value he actually provided, something he quickly sought to correct once he realized the agency was just not profitable. Overall, he's made many mistakes in his journey and has learned a lot about his own shortcomings and the challenges standing in the way of growth. Delegating and Outsourcing as the Key to Agency Growth By now, Grant has started delegating tasks. However, his input still powers the agency. His goal is to reach the summit where operations run smoothly without his constant direction. First on the outsourcing list are low-value marketing tasks devouring his days. No more content editing and video production that takes time from sharing his insights to attract ideal clients. Next, he plans to build a team dedicated to handling the services he provides. With these functions supported, Grant will be able to optimize his time for high-impact priorities. As for sales, Grant cherishes the thrill of the close. This highlights the balancing act and sheds tedious tasks but retains activities aligned with his strengths and passion. By outsourcing wisely, entrepreneurs unlock new heights. Pass the baton on duties that drain, and your energy will soar toward vision fulfillment. The summit is closer than it appears. Does Hiring Friends Inevitably Lead to Disaster? Grant leverages his network and personal connections to find the right people for his team. One thing he has learned is that creatives usually suck at business because they don't know their value. On the other hand, business types are great at business and suck at creative, which really shows in the quality of their work. Grant realized he had a network that could bridge that gap so he started hiring his friends in the creative space and providing them with the right opportunities. Of course, hiring friends as employees often doesn't work. You could end up with employees who treat you like a friend rather than a leader. This can lead to a lack of productivity and a failure to meet the necessary requirements of the job. A better alternative might be hiring acquaintances and building a strong enough relationship that develops into a friendship. Still, as long as both parties have their goals aligned and work towards mutual benefit, it can lead to successful work relationships. Things will usually fall apart when one party's self-interest is at the detriment of the other party's goals. Shared values also cement fruitful client relationships t

Are your salespeople trained to tell relevant stories and sell in the appointment? Do they know how to catch a prospect's attention fast? Using sales scripts is a great way to keep your message focused and concise. To get the best results, your sales reps should be armed with a bulletproof script and serious training to overcome sales objections. Today's guest shares his experience and expertise in creating a big sales team that is constantly growing and improving through continuous training. Tune in to gain valuable insights on scaling your agency, building a winning sales script, and how to support ongoing professional development. Scott Scully is the CEO of Abstrakt Marketing Group, a b2b lead generation and business growth agency that offers multi-channel marketing solutions to small and medium-sized businesses. In his 28 years in the business, Scott's main focus has been in the marketing and lead gen space with three companies that all exceed $12 million in revenue. In this episode, we'll discuss: Building a winning sales script. Handling outreach by creating exclusivity. Gamifying growth. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service. Podcast Takeover!! Get to know your Smart Agency Guest Host: Dr. Jeremy Weisz is the co-founder of Rise25, an agency that helps companies launch and run podcasts profitably. He followed Jason's podcast and eventually joined the mastermind and has been a guest on the podcast before. Today, he's helping Jason bring something new to the Smart Agency podcast audience by interviewing a special guest and getting a new perspective to the show. Handling Outreach by Building an Exclusivity Perspective Scott has owned three successful marketing companies always aiming to help businesses grow. His current brainchild, Abstrakt Marketing, scaled 20% annually over 12 years, crossing $50M in 2021 revenue. His team builds predictable sales pipelines - website design, content creation, social media, and extensive email and phone outreach. They make hundreds of calls daily, qualifying and scheduling initial consultations. But outreach takes shape through their sales enablement blueprint. First comes research and list cleansing to identify ideal prospects. Another key element is that the client has their target defined. Scott is a huge believer in having a defined niche. This way, his team can come with expertise in that particular niche. Working from an exclusivity perspective helps his team build up in terms of why they're calling them, who they are, and why potential clients need to meet with them. Building a Winning Agency Sales Script Scott knows cold calls aren't everyone's cup of tea, so he crafted a blueprint to catch attention fast. To build a solid script, he focused on getting people's attention, exclusivity, scarcity, and then selling the appointment. First of all, Scott recommends letting clients know you'll be brief and go straight to the point. That's huge because it shows you value their time and acknowledge the call is an interruption. Next, state the reason for your call and introduce your company. Take this as an opportunity to differentiate yourself. "If I'm a managed service provider, there are a lot of managed service providers these days. So why are you different?" Scott explains. This is where specialization becomes very important. If you're able to differentiate yourself as a managed service provider who happens to specialize in their particular industry, now you have their attention. Also, you can get ahead through influencer social proof. "We're tightly networked with industry leaders nationally - we understand your daily challenges and can plug you into best practices." This insider credibility will make you irresistible. Why You Should Never Lose Sight of Your Goals to Sell the Appointment Once you have your script and can differentiate yourself, the most important thing is to not forget your goal of selling the appointment. For Scott, the worst-case scenario is when the call is handled by a sales enablement person who lacks a clear understanding of the ins and outs of the sales presentation itself. In those cases, they may fall into mini-pitching. As a result, the prospect could make the decision to not show up based on that call. Overeager reps also risk sharing too much about what comes next. In those cases, once the time for the appointment comes, a prospect may feel they've already talked about some of those things and you may not have their full attention and participation. This is why he insists on the importance of selling the appointment. As long as you overcome the objections and answer why that meeti

Are email newsletters out? Do people want or even read those anymore? Actually, yes! Old-school agency newsletters are a great way to position yourself as a trusted expert. Eager to learn proven strategies for engaging and valuable newsletters? A newsletter can be an invaluable tool to position yourself as a trusted advisor and expert by offering information that the audience genuinely wants to engage with and learn from. Today's guest shares his experience transitioning from owning a marketing agency to building newsletters for his media company. He shares his insights about the ways a newsletter should provide value and the type of content it should contain. Tune in to discover some truly helpful information on how to build a successful newsletter. Nate Kennedy is an entrepreneur and philanthropist who has been in the online marketing world since 2006. He has worked for many businesses in different niches and personally built and sold 7 different online businesses with 6 and 7 figure exits. More recently, he changed pace and now focuses on building newsletters for his media company. In this episode, we'll discuss: Being the curator vs. being a creator. Turning your newsletter into a business tool. How often should you send out a newsletter to be relevant? Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Sponsors and Resources Agency Analytics: Tired of endless manual reporting in order to show your clients the value your agency delivers? It's time to check out AgencyAnalytics, the best automated client reporting solution for marketing agencies. Try it for FREE for 14 days when you head over to AgencyAnalytics.com/Smart and sign up. It's time to see how life feels on the other side of manual reporting madness! How to Curate an Engaging Newsletter After working in online marketing for many years and building multimillion-dollar companies, Nate felt stressed with clients calling him at all hours and crushed under the pressure of what he had built. It was time for a change. Rather than relying solely on platforms like Facebook or Google for traffic, Nate was fascinated by the possibility of owning his audience. By building a targeted and engaged subscriber list, he could have more control over their reach and generate revenue through sponsorships and affiliate offers. Instead of going to these other networks and paying them to buy the audience, he could own even a small piece of that pie. In his experience, a newsletter should deliver valuable content for a specific niche or industry to provide maximum value to the target audience. This could be achieved in two ways: Build a newsletter around your thoughts, insights, and content to help said niche audience. Building it around curated content with a variety of useful sources within that industry. For instance, Nate sends out a newsletter focused on financial literacy for a specific audience. It's aimed at teaching consumers how to become financially smarter. This is not content he writes, he just curates it from different sources. On the other hand, he also has a different newsletter for entrepreneurs written by him with his thoughts and insights. How Should a Newsletter Look to Get People's Attention? This will depend on your goal and target audience. A more personalized newsletter with your insights on a matter should probably contain mainly text and not be filled with images and videos. As opposed to a more e-commerce-style newsletter aimed at selling products, which will contain more images, links, and videos. A lot of people go for a hybrid approach. How The Newsletter Can Become a Tool for Agency Business When it comes to building the subscriber list, Nate suggests running ads specifically promoting the newsletter and its benefits. However, right now he gets most of his new subscribers from one-step funnels, such as polls or surveys. This way, he engages potential subscribers and gathers information about their interests and preferences. This targeted approach ensures that the newsletter is attracting the right audience and providing content that resonates with them. By consistently sending out newsletters, agency owners can stay at the forefront of their client's minds and remind them of the reasons they initially hired the agency. This is particularly important in the competitive agency industry, where other agencies may attempt to win over clients with lower prices. Once, you've built an audience and started getting some traction, you might want to partner with some businesses that align with your values and beliefs. Sponsorships can provide an additional revenue stream without the need for hard selling. Just make sure to only recommend products that the business genuinely believes in. Recommending subpar products can damage the relationship with readers. How Often Should You Send Agency Newsletters? While the frequency of sending newsletters may vary, it will ultimately depend on your goal. A curated newsletter with advertisers can go o

How are you leveraging AI to increase your agency's productivity? Which tools are you currently using? Is there a new skill you'd like to master but don't know where to start? Artificial intelligence (AI) brings a new world of possibilities for agency owners that goes beyond just creating content. Today's guest shares his expertise in leveraging artificial intelligence with a problem-solving approach for marketing. He discusses the use of AI to optimize bidding algorithms and drive better results for multi-location brands. David also reflects on his journey into digital marketing, his impostor syndrome when it comes to being an agency owner, how he leverages AI to master new skills, and the impact the mastermind has had on his confidence. David Melamed is an entrepreneur and the founder of Tenfold Traffic. Even though he had very limited exposure to advertising, he describes himself as someone who was born to do marketing and pursued it from a young age. Much of what he was able to learn back then was through the blogosphere "sprinkled with a few doses of back-against-the-wall reality," he adds. Because of this, he loves to teach and help curious marketers make the smartest marketing investments possible. Currently, David's work focuses on wherever emerging technology meets marketing. For the past year, he's been focusing on the legal industry and helping brands close the loop in their marketing using automation to drive better results. In this episode, we'll discuss: How to leverage AI beyond content creation. Useful tools to help you master new skills. The power of peer support to propel agency growth. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service. The Revelation That Led to an Interest in Digital Marketing David's passion for marketing began bubbling at age 9 - when his pickle sale business got shut down by school authorities. But the seeds were planted. At some point, he dreamt about building shopping centers. However, a retail leasing gig unlocked a revelation: Brands just needed demographics, accessibility...and search engines. With this epiphany, David saw a future beyond shopping centers. He knew he needed to master digital marketing. But theory lacked application. When dream SEO jobs passed him over for experience, David spent two weeks absorbing everything he could on optimization, wowing in round two. Though still green, it was enough to get him his first opportunity. Leverage AI to Master New Skills with a Problem-Solving Approach With years of work in the marketing space under his belt, David has now moved to focus on the possibilities AI development brings for businesses. To him, AI has not really been a pivot from what he's been doing for years. For instance, he admits he's never been good at scaling a team, which is why he has resorted to scale with automation. "It was easier for me to master automation than finding a team of really awesome people and training them," he admits. Once AI came along, he wasn't sure about its potential but six months ago he decided to just dive into it. What could AI enable him to do that he couldn't do yesterday? Most people look for the low-hanging fruit to find ways to save time in content creation. What piqued David's interest was the possibility to dive into areas he couldn't before because he didn't have the expertise to use the tools himself. He's not a developer, but he now builds and runs software codes every day with the help of ChatGPT. In his experience, David is getting massive leverage on AI by just asking for help with things he doesn't entirely understand. To him, it's not about something he wants to delegate but rather needs help mastering. Experimenting at the Intersection of Creativity and AI David is a big believer in creating community and helping others with their projects whenever he can. One of the tools he uses all the time and highly recommends is Notion AI, which he uses to create all sorts of things, like a tool to help a 17-year-old entrepreneur with his dropshipping business. "AI today has what I call a last mile problem," he says. It gives you a great output but it still has limits and Notion is very versatile and quick. Though acknowledging limitations, David sees large language models replacing up to 30% of agency workflows through automation. Beyond workflow efficiencies, David engages in prompted experimentation to extract insights. Testing platforms like Prompt Meteus help him craft and perfect prompts for optimal results. And for both content and creative code, he leverages ChatGPT. For David, AI represents boundless potential - faster database builds, marketing strategy, com

How are you planning to leverage AI for marketing insights? Want to know the best tools to utilize artificial intelligence in your agency? For years, we've known AI would revolutionize marketing through real-time insights and automation. However, for it to provide accurate insights and recommendations, it needs a comprehensive understanding of how a company is performing in relation to the overall market. Today's guest knew this was where AI was moving towards and decided to jump to the challenge of building a platform that would best utilize these developments for agencies. He'll share his journey from identifying AI as the future for agencies to years of failed attempts at development and finally finding the ideal partner to build his vision. He also talks about what he looks for in an acquisition and how he deals with burnout. Erik Huberman is the founder of Hawke Media, an outsourced CMO and marketing team that customizes data-driven, performance solutions to help launch, scale, and invigorate businesses. Check out Erik's previous interview, where he talked about setting financial goals, his marketing methodology, and his book, The Hawke Method. In this episode, we'll discuss: Learning to align systems to talent. Why he set out to leverage AI for marketing insights. Can agency owners avoid burnout? Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Sponsors and Resources Agency Analytics: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by Agency Analytics, an automated client reporting solution for marketing agencies. Go to agencyanalytics.com/smart to sign up for a 14-day FREE trial and see how life feels on the other side of manual reporting madness. Podcast Takeover!! Get to know your Smart Agency Guest Host: Dr. Jeremy Weisz is the co-founder of Rise25, an agency that helps companies launch and run podcasts profitably. He followed Jason's podcast and eventually joined the mastermind and has been a guest on the podcast before. Today, he's helping Jason bring something new to the Smart Agency podcast audience by interviewing a special guest and getting a new perspective to the show. Early Lessons on Aligning Systems to Talent to Boost Retention As an entrepreneur, Erik had started a few e-commerce companies and was unimpressed by the agencies he had worked with. He decided to form a small team that could assist his clients and quickly saw a positive response. Initially, he attracted people to work with him for a low base pay and a percentage of revenue. In his mind, the sky was the limit and any one of those workers could make a lot of money under that model. However, within six months most of them were gone. This is how he realized most people are not entrepreneurial and would rather have consistency over volatility. With this lesson learned, he pivoted to attract talent seeking consistency over shoot-the-moon potential. With the model adjusted, growth exploded and revenue was $1 million in their very first year. As expected, the growth percentage leveled off, but steady year-over-year expansion continued. Erik realized different motivations drive people. Some thrive on uncertainty, but most need security. Neither is right or wrong - smart leaders align systems to talent. Once he matched incentives to appetite, talent and growth flourished. Know your team and they'll drive you anywhere. Why You Should Stay Ready to Replace Irreplaceable Talent After starting several enterprises Erik learned you'll always be hiring and rotating key roles. Would it be ideal to find the perfect person who will stay for the next 30 years? Of course! However, life happens so now he stays ready to perpetually replace irreplaceable talent. Except one - his strategist-turned-president partner. So far, he's the only hire who came into the agency with an attitude of owning his work, treating it as more than just another job. He definitely earned the leap from employee to co-owner carrying that weight from day one. It's a decision Erik definitely doesn't regret. When it comes to building leaders, he has also learned the importance of dedicating more time to their training. "I used to just rush through meetings with my leaders," he admits. Now he prefers to spend time in the weeds with them and collaborate, instead of just expecting them to solve any problem that may come up. Building a Platform to Leverage AI for Marketing Insights Seven years ago, Erik had a meeting with Marcus Shingles and Peter Diamantes. They talked about rapid disruption and got to wondering about what was going to disrupt marketing agencies and what they do. At the time, Marcus and Peter thought it would be freelancers. Erik disagreed and leaned more toward AI as a disrupting force. In his opinion, AI would first offer insights into an agency's marketing channels to see what's working and what's not. At some point, instead of just telling you what wasn't working, AI would also offer to fix it for you in real time. Their response t

Are you struggling to step into your own as an agency leader? Looking to rapidly grow your boutique agency? In this episode, our guest shares her journey as an accidental agency owner and how she has grown her boutique communications agency by over 75% in the past two years. She discusses the importance of focusing on the type of agency you want to be, the clients you want to work with, and the type of work you want to do. Pilaar also highlights the benefits of organic growth and embracing mistakes to empower your team. She shares some of her experiences having grown her boutique agency quite fast and the role that stepping into her own as a leader played in their success. Pilaar Terry is the managing partner and COO of POV Agency, a fully remote boutique communication agency that reimagines how PR is done and more importantly who it's done by. She and her partner built the agency on the belief that a varied, nuanced, and colorful perspective is a strength. Tune in to learn from Pilaar's experience and discover how you can achieve similar growth for your agency. In this episode, we'll discuss: Growth by design and the importance of having a deliberate focus. Prioritizing diversity and inclusion. Allowing employees to learn by embracing their mistakes. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service. Growth by Design: The Importance of Deliberate Focus Pilaar attributes her success to a deliberate focus on her desired agency identity, clients, and work. She and her partner have been in the agency business for 20 years, worked with tons of brands, and remained just people who do good work. This led to a lot of good word of mouth and referrals once they joined forces. However, a more intentional and strategic approach was necessary to reach their goals. By aligning their intentions with the type of agency they wanted to be, the clients they wanted to work with, and the work they wanted to do, they were able to achieve significant growth. She emphasizes the importance of creating a plan around your goals and intentions based on your vision. This was a key component in their success. Becoming the Leader Your Agency Needs One of Pilaar's biggest challenges while growing her agency was coming into her own as a leader. Basically, she struggled to find a balance between the needs of the company, the team, and herself as a leader. As the owner of a small agency with a handful of employees, she defaulted to putting her team's needs first. Of course, this is not necessarily a bad thing but it came to a point where it was to her detriment. She was taking on a lot of work not wanting to burn out her employees. Looking back, she knows she needs to learn to be a leader, delegate, and give constructive feedback. What was she afraid of? Coming from working at really big agencies and now owning a very small boutique business, Pilaar was afraid people wouldn't want to work at her agency. Any time someone chose her agency she felt grateful that they would take a chance on her. In reality, she was also taking a chance on them. At some point, she was no longer sure she had the team she wanted to grow the agency with, even though she had hand-selected each one. Thankfully, her agency started to invest in a really amazing partner that does team training and organization development. She realized she was hiring for the wrong reasons. Once she understood this, she came into her own as a leader. Prioritizing Diversity and Inclusion at Her Agency Working at bigger agencies helped Pilaar learn so much about structure, skills, and dealing with clients. However, she was consistently sidelined. By the time she became senior vice president, she hoped it was her time to have a voice and be valued. When that didn't happen, she wondered what she was doing there. This negative experience served as a catalyst and her motivation to create an agency where everyone's voice is valued. It fueled her desire to create an agency that prioritizes diversity and inclusion. At their current agency, the majority of the team consists of people of color, working parents, individuals in the military, neurodivergent individuals, and people from different sexual orientations. She aims to create an environment where individuals from diverse backgrounds and perspectives can contribute and be valued for their unique insights. Seeing Employee Mistakes as Agency Opportunities The feeling of not being valued motivated Pilaar to create a great culture at her agency, but she admits to sometimes swinging too far in the other direction. Not wanting to demotivate employees, she was operating off of what she didn't want to be.

What is the key to unlocking strategic partnerships in order to grow your agency? Wondering how to identify promising collaboration opportunities? The most mutually beneficial strategic agency partnerships are with tangential agencies that align in vision and share in collaboration. Today's guest has great insight and information about what the most successful agencies are doing to find the best partnerships to grow. Learn how to identify and approach high-potential partners hungry for help only you can provide. Alex Glenn is the founder & CEO of Partner Programs Inc., a parent company that operates Partner Program Collective, Agency Partners Collective, and Partner Hub, a platform built for agencies who want to find and manage their partnerships. Overall, Partner Programs Inc. works as an ecosystem that offers community support and training services for both sides of the partnership equation. Alex will offer his unique perspective on how agency owners are using partnerships to grow their businesses and the things they should avoid to protect their agencies. In this interview, we'll discuss: Which partnerships offer the most growth for agencies? What you should be looking for in a strategic partner. A trap you should avoid at all costs. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Sponsors and Resources Agency Analytics: Tired of endless manual reporting in order to show your clients the value your agency delivers? It's time to check out AgencyAnalytics, the best automated client reporting solution for marketing agencies. Try it for FREE for 14 days when you head over to AgencyAnalytics.com/Smart and sign up. It's time to see how life feels on the other side of manual reporting madness! How You Should Be Using Strategic Agency Partnerships to Grow According to Alex, the past five years have seen a whirlwind of partnership experimentation as strategies trickle from tech giants down to digital agencies. But what options offer the most growth for agencies today? E-commerce. E-commerce has historically been ahead of the curve in terms of software and in the agency world. Usually, e-commerce brands know they have a short window to either make it or land on their face once they launch. To make the most of their go-to-market, they need strategic partnerships.Typically, they'll go for agencies that already have a channel of influencers, past products they've brought to market, and partners that will help increase the reach of that go-to-market. These are agencies that can almost guarantee success. Niche agency. After e-commerce, the typical agency partnership would be a niche agency that has demand for software, web development, etc. These agencies are so niched down that partner agencies know they won't have to worry about them cannibalizing their service offering. Across categories, Alex sees partners thriving by playing to niche strengths versus chasing full-service breadth. As competition stiffens, agencies build leverage, mitigate risk, and open new doors through collaboration. The future for agencies favors focused vision and allies rather than being isolated and siloed. What Should You Be Looking for in a Strategic Partnership? Picking partners requires savvy calculation. Alex says sometimes white labels can still drop balls, leaving you to blame. To reduce this risk, get in the habit of referring at least three partners to a client. If it all goes south, you can argue you provided two other good options they didn't pick. You should also keep track of your referrals. If the referrals are only flowing one way, it's time to find another partner. Ultimately though, it boils down to your core offerings - that's the magnet attracting partners. For example, if you're a boutique creative agency, supplement with tech partners in ecosystems granting access to ready-to-go business. Even creative-focused agencies should dip into these pools of opportunity. Initial referral wins, when reciprocated, start an upward spiral of exponentially increasing referrals. But don't waste time on partners not returning the favor. Alex sees this optimization process as the path to bigger contract proposals. So choose allies wisely, perfect your craft, and integrate into collaborative ecosystems. Then watch the referrals and opportunities multiply. Avoid this Common Trap at All Costs About 90% of agencies have around 20 employees and sit in a creative niche category. If this is your case, you should be looking for strategic alliances with tech partners. However, if your business is based on word of mouth and referrals, you're basically very vulnerable. Some big agencies will find agencies in that 90% and white label the heck out of them. It's often the case that for those smaller agencies, the majority of their business is coming from this big agency partner. If you're a smaller agency and your partner says "I want to buy you" you'll of course be very excited. That is, until they want to lower the price arguing they'r

Do you want to learn strategies for overcoming obstacles and fixing mistakes? Interested in fostering strong agency client relationships through communication? Today's guest shares his journey discovering e-commerce and the strategies that helped him scale his agency under extreme circumstances. He recalls some of his struggles identifying and fixing mistakes. He also shares his gratitude for clients who recognize the process of enhancing an online business requires time and effort. Overall, he encourages communication and education between agencies and clients to foster a mutual understanding of the work being undertaken and the value it brings. Anatoliy Labinsky is the founder of Golden Stream Media, an e-commerce growth agency that helps generate 6 and 7-figure results for their clients. In just five years, he went from waiting tables to being a successful business owner. As part of his model, he gives away some of his secrets and shares his formulas and ad templates so anyone can plug and play his winning ads. In this episode, we'll discuss: The importance of mentorship learn from early mistakes. How clear client communication and understanding leads to success. How radical transparency can fuel your agency's growth. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service. How Mentorship Helped Turn Failures into a Multi-Million Dollar Agency Anatoliy has had his share of failures early in his career. His journey is certainly not one of overnight success. In fact, finding the right path was initially challenging and he felt lost. In August 2017 living in Dubai and actively seeking opportunities, he had an "aha moment" after discovering the potential of e-commerce and Facebook advertising. Intrigued by this concept, he wanted to dive deeper into these areas and understand how they could be leveraged in business. This is where his journey in e-commerce and his first failure both began. He launched his first store and soon lost everything he had, from his main job to his part-time jobs and savings. Nothing seemed to work. Looking back, he wasn't really looking at KPIs and tracking didn't understand what wasn't working and why. Luckily, in January 2018 he met his mentor. By this time, he owned money and had several part-time jobs, but kept investing in his dream. "I was addicted" he admits. He invested $47 on each coaching call with his mentor and quickly started to realize everything he was doing wrong. Following his coach's advice, he made his first $8,000 in the first fifteen days of working together. When Client Communication & Trust Trumps Early Struggle Anatoliy's successes started with My Kitty Cat Store and some fashion, health, and beauty stores. He was one of the first to make a health product store to alleviate back pain, which presented the opportunity to scale without much competition. From the ad perspective, it was super simple. They got results without doing any detailed research and found an audience. There was no need for storytelling and long copy explaining its benefits. A picture of the product and a short and to-the-point headline did the trick. On the other hand, he also had some difficult campaigns that took up to seven months to start showing results. It's been one of the hardest projects they've done considering there were zero results for the first months. They tried several creative solutions without seeing many sales. The most surprising thing for Anatoliy was seeing the client stuck with his agency throughout the struggles. She was very appreciative of all the effort they were putting into her business and, ultimately, could see they were getting better results than she'd gotten for herself in three years. Finally, seven months later, they found the right formula and jumped from zero sales to $27,000 in sales. Anatoliy knew it was a matter of finding the right combination of mastering the algorithm, having the right creatives, and finding an audience. In the end, it was his team's hard work and the client's trust that got them over the number one hurdle for any online business, which is clients solely focusing on the money spent on advertising. There's extensive behind-the-scenes work required to implement changes and enhance online business and not fully comprehending this will lead to giving up on projects that can prove to be very profitable. Staying the Course and Growing with a Mostly Ukraine-Based Team Anatoliy's agency is now US-based but part of his staff is in Ukraine, which has of course presented unique challenges in the last couple of years. Overall, he's very happy they've all risen to the occasion in the face of unique diff

Are you looking to grow your agency fast while maintaining a work-life balance? Eager to start mastering boundaries without compromising growth? Today's guest talks openly about growing her agency to over $1 million while fiercely protecting her personal life by establishing clear boundaries. She highlights the ongoing need for self-awareness to identify where these boundaries may be "leaky" and the importance of having people on the team who understand the challenges you face. Learn tangible tactics for aligning your agency's growth with your personal well-being. Caitlin Copple is the owner of Full Swing Public Relations, a PR agency with a mission to help leaders be seen and sought after so they can reclaim their power and build the platform they need. She describes herself as an unlikely agency owner who was able to grow her agency over the million-dollar mark in less than four years. Once this milestone was cleared, she realized the power of small business owners to change the world and was ready to tackle new challenges. In this episode, we'll discuss: Working smarter and thinking about future acquisition. Aligning agency growth with team well-being. Building self-aware leadership. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Sponsors and Resources Agency Analytics: Tired of endless manual reporting in order to show your clients the value your agency delivers? It's time to check out AgencyAnalytics, the best automated client reporting solution for marketing agencies. Try it for FREE for 14 days when you head over to AgencyAnalytics.com/Smart and sign up. It's time to see how life feels on the other side of manual reporting madness! Learning About Limits as an Agency Owner After a decade in marketing, Caitlin took the leap to start her agency, while still young enough to risk but seasoned enough to succeed. Exceeding her initial goal to match her salary in five months, she researched the industry, motivated to overcome dismal stats for women-owned agencies. Caitlin credits mindset as instrumental in confronting the challenges of scaling. It's a word that gets tossed around a lot in the coaching world but there's also truth to that. We all have an idea of what we can achieve and there's something about growing a business that helps you constantly expand that vision. That's part of what she enjoys about the ride. Moreover, once you can generate revenue on demand, you can start setting the parameters for your life. And as someone who really values her freedom, she has really enjoyed that part of being a business owner. Working Smarter and Preparing the Agency for Possible Future Acquisition For Caitlin and her business partner, there was always a line in the sand regarding what they were willing to do to succeed. Working long hours and sacrificing time with family was never an option. After all, running an agency was supposed to free up their time to focus more on family. They even make sure to take five consecutive days off without cell phones or checking emails. Therefore, the decision was made early on to try to work smarter and not necessarily harder. They sought to staff up, even though that meant their margins would be smaller. They built the agency with a very clear alignment around What's a number that would make this journey worth it? And where did they need to be in the next years to ensure the agency's position provides options? They're making sure they're prepared for the future, including the possibility of being acquired by somebody who shares their values. More recently, after making that early investment in operations, they've been documenting SOPs. This way, they aim to run the business more effectively and be prepared for a future sale. They started this in 2021 and have so far documented everything from onboarding to how to approach a press release. Being very intentional about these values has helped them build the type of business they'd want to work at while still creating opportunities for their future. Mastering Boundaries with Agency Growth Through Policy Having people on your team who are going through the same challenges as you can be a great support for your growth. This is why Caitlin and her partner work so well as a team. They both understand the importance of drawing a hard line on what you're willing to sacrifice for the business. In this sense, their partnership works a lot better than partners with big age gaps who are not in the same place in life. As to their team, their agency attracts a lot of working moms wanting to be part of this boundary-honoring culture. Flexible policies, paid parental leave, instant healthcare - each perk affirms their commitment to work-life wellness. By living their values, they continue building a team as dedicated to family as success. Building Self-Aware Leadership by Establishing Clear KPIs Caitlin has made her share of hiring mistakes. To be fair, she also admits she wasn't the best leader sometimes but has continued to

Are marketers going to be replaced by AI? Do agencies need to embrace AI to survive and thrive? How can data optimization maximize AI results? Our guest today discusses the impact of AI on the agency world and shares his insights on how AI is outperforming marketers and the opportunities it presents for agencies. With the rise of AI, many agencies may not survive but those that adapt and embrace AI will thrive. In this episode, you'll learn more about the future of AI in the agency industry and how data will make all the difference in the results you get using AI for your agency clients. Bryan Trilli is the owner of Optimized Marketing, an agency specializing in lead gen for franchises. He describes himself as a serial entrepreneur with businesses in five different industries, including one that trains AI to understand images and video. Bryan is a big believer in the power of AI and will discuss some tools agencies should already be using and talk about how some of these systems can get results faster than marketers would've dreamed of years ago. In this episode, we'll discuss: How AI is doing a better job than most marketers. AI applications for your digital agency. Using AI to interpret agency data. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service. An Accidental Agency Owner Who Got Pulled into the Agency World More than being an accidental agency owner, Bryan recalls it as being forced into the business. Back in 2008, he owned a brick-and-mortar business and had to meet with agencies to work on advertising. However, he got the sense the agencies didn't quite know what they were doing when it came to digital marketing. He didn't want them to just "figure it out as it goes" and decided to handle his company's digital marketing himself. A few years later, he sold that business and suddenly found himself helping some friends with their digital marketing. This is where his agency journey officially began. How is AI Doing Better than Most Marketers Are most people aware of the many applications of AI for agencies? Sam Woods, writer of a newsletter called the Bionic Marketer, an incredible AI resource, developed software that can build an entire marketing campaign with just a few prompts. Unfortunately, this tool is not available to the public but it may give you an idea of what you should all be doing with AI. It provides copy, landing pages, ads, and more, all ready to use. It may sound too good to be true and it gets better. Sam has been using this tool for years for a bunch of companies and assures that it beats the control in 100% of cases. Even at 70% it would be amazing, but 100% is truly mindblowing, considering it's just ten minutes of work. Developments like this cause a lot of talk and spread fears that AI is here to replace us all. In truth, we're not at a point where AI will replace you, but people who know how to use AI will. How can agency owners get ahead of this? For Bryan, as long as you're staying informed and know what's coming, you'll stay ahead of the people not paying attention. AI Applications You Should Be Using Right Now One of the most widely known AI tools is ChatGPT. With ChatGPT, you can significantly enhance email and marketing copy by providing specific advice based on data. Effective use of AI for marketing campaigns will require a specific target audience in mind when developing email or marketing copy, rather than relying solely on average data. By inputting the data into ChatGPT and asking targeted questions, the tool can provide valuable insights and recommendations for improving the copy. There are so many pieces that can be automated with AI. Some tools can transcribe videos and meetings, enabling easy reference and information searching. You can also use AI to convert spoken content into text. The transcriptions can then be fed into the tool, which can efficiently search and summarize the information. This can ensure efficient retrieval of information whenever needed. These transcripts and search capabilities have wide-ranging applications across all aspects of a business. How Marketers Have Gotten Better in Their Use of AI Until a few months ago, most people were using AI as an idea generator. Little by little, people have been getting better at using AI and training it to best serve their interests. To get the best input out of a tool like ChatGPT, you'll need to ask clear and specific questions. By providing context about the data and its purpose, such as for an email campaign, the tool can effectively enhance the copy. Additionally, you can establish a direct connection and feed with ChatGPT to automate the feedback proc

Do you want to communicate results and build trust with clients? Need to streamline reporting without sacrificing quality to show the full value your agency offers? Effective client reports are the best way to communicate your results to clients and improve their trust in your services. However, putting together detailed reports can be time-consuming unless you're using a proven automated reporting tool. Today's guest offers an integrated solution that helps agencies offer complete reporting without having to actually build the reports. Their services help agencies save time and reduce churn. Having built his software company from scratch, he's intimate with challenges like hiring missteps, building leadership, and learning to let go, which he also shares in this interview. Joe Kindness is the owner of AgencyAnalytics, an automated client reporting solution for marketing agencies. With Agency Analytics, agencies can connect all their clients into one system and bring in all that data to create the reports. You can even automate this by setting up those reports for your client to get monthly, or weekly, or they can log into the platform to see a dashboard. In this episode, we'll discuss: How the pandemic sparked their growth by popularizing remote work. The risks of scaling fast. Learning to build a strong leadership team. The right time to let go control of the agency. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM All In On Remote: Cracking the Hiring Code Post-Pandemic Joe and his partner started like many agency owners by completely bootstrapping the process of building their company. It was not a straight path to success, but rather a start that took them to several stops before finding the best formula. "That first thing you try will definitely fail. And it won't be the thing that takes you to the end. But it's part of the journey," he shares. After starting the AgencyAnalytics back in 2010, they still had only 14 employees by 2020. Early on, they figured hiring would be the easy part. They'd already built great software, now it was time to open a Toronto office and welcome all the people who would want to work with them. Unfortunately, they found out it's very hard to scale and find great people. It took a lot of attempts before they figured it out. What were they getting wrong about hiring and attracting the right people? Looking back, there were several factors. For instance, Joe remembers how hard it was to attract people to a remote business pre-pandemic. People thought it was a scam. Once the pandemic opened the doors to popularize the remote model, they knew they had to go all in. They hired a recruiter, HR people, and all the support they needed so Joe wouldn't have to handle all the interviewing alone. Soon they found a rhythm, gained some traction, and started to hire some generalists. Expand Cautiously and Evolve to the Needs of the Market Rapid hiring initially brought pure excitement after a decade of bootstrapping. But the thrill of scaling soon gave way to overwhelming demands. Joe added HR support, although uncertain it justified a full role. The results spoke volumes. Offloading time-consuming interviewing let Joe refocus on the agency. This milestone embodied their measured growth mindset: Test new roles cautiously, validate impact, then scale boldly. Another calculated risk? Transitioning from a niche SEO tool to an integrated agency solution. Though known for rank tracking, reporting capabilities showed greater potential. Months of pushing and prodding led to decisive commitment. Joe knew niching down as a comprehensive agency resource felt right, though not without uncertainty. In the end, their courage to strategically evolve paid off. For Joe, exciting growth requires patiently navigating uncertainty. Thoughtfully elevate support roles, validate successes, and then expand courageously. Keep your vision broad but your validations focused. Bringing Strategy into Agency Leadership Rather Than Just People Managers When you start hiring, you mostly hire people to do and manage stuff. At some point, however, you'll need to bring in team leaders. For Joe, it started with understanding what a true leader's role is. A leader is not just a manager of people. A leader brings in strategy. Therefore, being able to get to that point where you can afford or attract a person to handle the strategy is a really key moment. Joe's advice is that once you get to that point where you can bring that person in, just do it. Don't get too caught up in the equity or the salary you'll give them. The right person will give you a positive ROI and will be key to helping the company get to the next milestone. How to make sure you find the right person? There's always a chance you'll hire a bad leader, and they'll end up creating more work for you. Take the time to ensure you're choosing the right person. Don't just hire the first resume that looks great because you need help fast. More recently,

Are you looking to grow your agency while maintaining a work-life balance? Not sure who and when to hire to achieve your agency goals and not work yourself to death? You can find the balance and reach your goals when you hire the right team. That's what today's guest learned when she figured out how to offload the things she doesn't love and focus on what she does love about being an agency owner. As a former TV reporter turned PR agency owner, she shares her journey of growing her agency and her strategies for increasing profit while decreasing workload. Although she used to default to controlling sales and all communication with clients, she eventually became addicted to building a team. Now as CEO, her day-to-day activities focus more on creating content that will bring organic leads to the agency. She shares her strategies for finding the right people to achieve her agency goals and wants to help agency owners understand the importance of overcoming the hurdle of marketing yourself as an agency owner in order to build your brand. Christina Nicholson is a former TV reporter and anchor who got into PR and is now the owner and CEO of Media Maven. Christina's first job after leaving TV was working at an agency for 6 months. Her agency experience wasn't the best so she decided to leave and started to work as a "professional freelancer". From there, she slowly started building a team and, before she knew it, she now had an agency. Her agency gives people exposure in the media without spending on ads. Christina also has an online course that helps people DIY if they don't have a budget for an agency. In this episode, we'll discuss: Reducing the owner's workload and building a team. Building your personal brand to secure organic leads for your agency. Getting out of sales by establishing your role upfront. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 11 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service. Check out Christina's previous Smart Agency interview back in 2019. Reducing the Agency Owner's Workload and Building a Team For Christina, the scariest part of building an agency was hiring people. She had a personal brand as a freelancer that she carefully curated with impeccable work ethics. Of course, she was nervous about bringing other people into that dynamic. However, by this time she was working around the clock, and was stressed out, and it was clearly time to get other people to help her. She initially had to force herself to back off and allow her employees to do their jobs. Eventually, she became addicted to building a team. The big change really came once she hired a person who could essentially replace her functions with clients. This way, she stopped being the middleman between clients and her team. This person was in charge of making sure that both clients and team members had everything they needed to be successful. At this point, she realized she was still making money and didn't have a lot to do, which was amazing. Securing Organic Leads through Content For her first hires, Christina started posting in Facebook groups with contacts from her time working in media. This led to a few key hires that later made valuable referrals as she grew her team. For her most valuable hire to date, she was surprised to find this person in her personal network. At the time, she didn't quite know she needed a director of operations. Once she was clear on what she needed, someone suggested she just post it on her personal Facebook to see what came up. Luckily, the right person quickly answered and she was able to fill the role that would change the way she ran her agency. It wasn't a smooth process at first. Christina would continually answer emails before anyone else could. This is common for agency owners who are so used to doing things by themselves. However, it defeats the purpose of bringing on a team. Once she backed off and started delegating and empowering her team, she saw real change. When it was time for her role at the agency to change, she started to study how she got the clients she had. She realized most of them came to her organically after listening to her podcast or her posts on LinkedIn. It was time to focus on creating more content, building her newsletter, and recording her podcast. How to stop wasting time. Christina used to waste a lot of time on potential clients who had no idea what they wanted, no budget, and unclear goals. Now she dedicates time to qualifying her leads, asking for their budget and goals, and afterwards refers them to a team member who will be their point of contact. Leveraging Your Personal Brand to Promote Your Agency's Expertise A lot of agency owners resist the idea

Are you worried about losing top talent at your agency? Struggling with high employee turnover that hinders your agency's growth? It can be hard to find and keep the right people to help achieve your agency's goals. Our expert guest is a repeat on the show who shares the importance of retaining employees and how you can ensure you never lose an agency employee again. Joey Coleman shares insights on how to create a remarkable employee experience to prevent turnover. He dives into the top reason employees leave and the impact it has on agency growth. You will learn practical strategies to never lose an employee again and ensure the success and scalability of your agency. Joey Coleman has spent 20 years teaching organizations how to keep their customers and employees. How? He turns them into raving fans via his entertaining and actionable keynotes, workshops, and consulting projects. With his model, he helps companies enhance the experience they're delivering to customers or employees and how to make it as remarkable as possible. In addition to being an entrepreneur, speaker, and recovering lawyer, he is also the writer of the recently released "Never Lose an Employee Again". In this episode, we'll discuss: Why do companies lose employees? Are you making these mistakes during employee reviews? How to create a remarkable employee experience. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service. Why Do Great Agencies Lose Great Employees? If you talk to most agency owners and ask why they lose employees they'll say it's because they were offered more money. However, the biggest study on this matter conducted so far indicates that, yes, some employees do leave for more money. Surprisingly, though, just 9% of the people interviewed left for better compensation. What did the remaining 91% list as the reason for leaving their jobs? Well, almost 1/4 of respondents left because there wasn't a clear path for their future with the organization. They didn't understand what could be their next role within the company. They thought they had to leave to move upward. How do you approach the conversation about their future? Give them the option to decide. Ask them what they hope to achieve at your agency. Do they see themselves in a leadership role or do they prefer to develop their skill set? It's important to highlight this decision doesn't have to be set in stone throughout their time at the agency. In fact, this is a conversation you should revisit at least once a year at the annual review – which Joey believes should be a biannual review – where the employee should have the opportunity to change their answer without negative repercussions. You shouldn't expect a level of certainty from your creative, non-client-facing employees. When you're dealing with creatives try to think creatively about how you manage and deal with them in that way. What You Should and Shouldn't Do During Employee Reviews Would annual reviews become something employees are actually dreading? It depends on the type of workers you employ. Entrepreneurs typically hate reviews and may prefer "coaching sessions." And surely you can choose to have entrepreneurial employees. However, that structure will ensure you don't have a good retention. Instead, employees who like stability and like to know what will happen in the immediate future will almost always appreciate a review. They like to know that their work is being appreciated and areas where they can improve. However, there are some things you definitely SHOULDN'T do, like walking into the review announcing you'll be pointing out the areas where the employee is deficient. You also shouldn't use that to justify not giving a raise. Instead, Joey recommends 360 reviews, where you'll review your team members and they'll review you all well. He likes to structure these reviews with STOP, START, and CONTINUE questions. In this sense, you could ask employees "What are some things I should stop doing and why? What are some things I should start doing? And "What is something I'm doing that you'd like for me to continue to do?" Pay special attention to the answer for CONTINUE because that's where you'll learn what's most important to them. This way, you'll cultivate an environment of honesty and accountability without being overly critical. Are You Incentivicing Employee Burnout? What is the actual workload you're expecting employees to handle? Many agency owners don't realize that employees start complaining about not having a healthy work-life balance because that's how much they feel they're expected to work. We're expecting the work time to dip into their personal