Karl Sakas served as the #2 man in a couple different digital agencies before he created the Marketing Agencies community at Inbound.org, which has over 1,000 agencies in 48 countries. As president of Sakas and Company, Karl advises agencies worldwide about strategy, operations, and leadership.
He also volunteers as a bartender on a 1930’s railroad car. He has recently published a book entitled, “The In Demand Marketing Agency: How to Use Public Speaking to Become an Agency of Choice.”
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- Why Karl launched Sakas and Company
- High-growth agencies vs. lifestyle agencies
- How agency owners can do what they love without getting sucked into the day-to-day client work
- How to turn a high-growth agency into an asset that can actually be sold
- Things that get in the way of the growth and scaling of agencies and how to fix them
- Karl’s Time Bucket Template for improving time management
- How agency owners looking to sell their agency should spend their time
- Action steps agency owners can take to put these theories into practice
Recommended books and resources
- The In-Demand Marketing Agency: How to Use Public Speaking to Become an Agency of Choice
- Karl's Time Bucket Template
- Don't Just Make the Logo Bigger: Taking Clients from Painful to Profitable
- Don’t Be the Shoemaker: And 11 Other Easy-to-Implement Ideas to Improve Your Agency
- Escape Plan: Your Guide to Finally Getting Out of the Office
- Website: www.sakasandcompany.com
- Email: karl@sakasandcompany.com
- Twitter: @karlsakas and @sakasandco
We’re proud to announce that Hubspot is now the presenting sponsor of the Build A Better Agency podcast! Many thanks to them for their support!
Before Trent Dyrsmid started a digital agency called Groove, he founded Dyrand Systems, a managed IT service provider that was recognized twice as one of Canada’s PROFIT Magazine’s 100 fastest growing companies. During his 8 years as CEO, Trent was fortunate to have been recognized as one of the Top 40 under 40 business people in Vancouver, B.C.
In addition to overseeing Groove, Trent is also the host of the Bright Ideas podcast, where he regularly publishes interviews with some of today’s brightest entrepreneurs.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- Trent’s journey into entrepreneurship, leaving to become an employee, and his return to being his own boss
- Why Trent created Bright Ideas and Groove Digital Marketing
- The importance of creating a business that works within a niche
- Generating leads through a lead magnet
- Why you should be targeting leads on Facebook
- How to make your agency more valuable by creating systems and getting out of the client work
- What’s next for agency owners that have successfully built the systems that allow them to take a step away from their agency
- Action steps for putting in place the topics discussed in this episode
Trent Dyrsmid Recommends:
- E-myth by Michael Gerber
- A Stake in the Outcome by Jack Stack
- www.brightideas.co/whats-next
- Bright Ideas interviews Brian Clark: www.brightideas.co/145
Contact Trent Dyrsmid:
- Website: www.brightideas.co
We’re proud to announce that Hubspot is now the presenting sponsor of the Build A Better Agency podcast! Many thanks to them for their support!
Drew McLellan is the Top Dog at Agency Management Institute. For the past 21 years, he has also owned and operated his own agency. Drew’s unique vantage point as being both an active agency owner and working with 250+ small- to mid-size agencies throughout the year, give him a unique perspective on running an agency today.
AMI works with agency owners by:
- Leading agency owner peer groups
- Offering workshops for owners and their leadership teams
- Offering AE bootcamps
- Conducting individual agency owner coaching
- Doing on-site consulting
- Offering online courses in agency new business and account service
Because he works with those 250+ agencies every year — he has the unique opportunity to see the patterns and the habits (both good and bad) that happen over and over again. He has also written two books and been featured in The New York Times, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Fortune Small Business. The Wall Street Journal called his blog “One of 10 blogs every entrepreneur should read.”
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- Why planning ahead is so important and why your agency can’t ignore it
- The Agency Owner Life Plan
- The One Page Business Plan
- Steps you can take to hold you and your leadership teams accountable on the goals you set together
Documents:
- Drew's completed 2016 Agency Owner Life Plan document
- Blank Agency Owner Life Plan document
- Blank Agency One Page Business Plan document
Ways to contact Drew:
We’re proud to announce that Hubspot is now the presenting sponsor of the Build A Better Agency podcast! Many thanks to them for their support!
Jay Friedman is a nationally recognized and accomplished digital media expert, speaker, and author. You will often find him speaking at conferences, writing for lead publications, websites, and books. He recently authored the incredibly well written, information packed 7th edition of “Thirty Days to PAID Digital Media Expertise.” He is, without question, a well-versed expert on digital media and programmatic buying.
In 2006, Jay joined Goodway Group to launch the digital division. Now in 2015, Goodway has more than 200 clients across the country.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- Programmatic buying: what is it?
- Why programmatic buying is much more effective than traditional ad buying models
- How to know whether to bring programmatic buying in-house or work with a partner and rules for both options
- Jay’s action plan for jumping into programmatic
- Why programmatic partners have to continually educate their agencies
- The qualities that the agencies that do programmatic well all have in common
- How agencies can succeed by adapting the Airbnb and the Uber model
- What agencies need to do to be good partners to their programmatic partners
Websites Jay recommends:
Ways to contact Jay:
- Email: jay@goodwaygroup.com
We’re proud to announce that Hubspot is now the presenting sponsor of the Build A Better Agency podcast! Many thanks to them for their support!
Douglas Burdett is a B2B marketing agency principle. He is a former artillery officer, and his agency, Artillery, helps agencies get found online, convert website traffic into leads, and nurture leads towards a sale. Douglas authors two marketing blogs, Forward Observer and Fire Support, and he hosts The Marketing Book Podcast.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- The importance of niche for creating a market
- How to run a niche blog that acts as lure for your other services
- Why buying email addresses is a bad idea
- Why absolute patience is key whenever you are creating content
- The Marketing Book Podcast
- How Douglas automates the promotion of his evergreen content
- Why Douglas only conducts one podcast interview per week
- Great productivity software Douglas and his team use
- Tips and resources for getting your own podcast started
Ways to contact Douglas Burdett:
- Agency website: www.artillerymarketing.com
- Email: douglas@artillerymarketing.com
Douglas Burdett’s Blogs and Podcast:
- Forward Observer: http://www.artillerymarketing.com/blog
- Fire Support: http://www.defensecontractormarketing.com
- The Marketing Book Podcast: http://www.artillerymarketing.com/marketing-book-podcast
We’re proud to announce that Hubspot is now the presenting sponsor of the Build A Better Agency podcast! Many thanks to them for their support!