On this episode, we delve into the unconscious mind and the concept of “limiting beliefs.” It’s the idea If I say to you, “I’ll meet you there in five hours” what is the first question you’re going to ask me? Right, meet you where? Finding our way without knowing the destination is impossible. But too often, that’s how we run our agencies.

Both short and long-term planning often gets sidelined in the hubbub of running our agencies. We’re putting out fires. We’re solving client crises. We’re answering employees’ questions. All stuff that needs doing, but for a lot of agency owners, the urgent gets in the way of the important

On episode #169, we get right into it. What does it take to create plans that inspire compliance and action? What does it take to actually follow through? Is there such a thing as work-life balance? I’ll give that answer away for free: no, there is not. (But still listen in!)

That’s why I loved my conversation with Jennifer Dawn. She is a business coach for high-achieving entrepreneurs, and she’s developed some really strong tools for goal-setting and planning.

Jennifer spent years working in the corporate world before taking the plunge and pursuing her passion for mentoring entrepreneurs to grow profitable, healthy, and truly exceptional businesses.

Business plans don’t have to be the Mona Lisa. They don’t have to be epic works of prose. Jennifer and I agree – one page, two max, is a great length for a plan.

If you’re ready to really make time for the important; if you want a plan for work and life that really serves the life you want, this is a perfect episode to dive into. There are tons of practical tips and suggestions about how to get your plans out there on paper, review regularly, and actually, follow through so you get to the defined destination of your choosing. 

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

• How to get your business plan down to two pages or less
• The importance of getting an outside perspective on your business plan
• Why beginning with the end in mind has not gone out of style
• How to make your business plan a living document
• Breaking down your goals into tiny, manageable steps
• Definition of the “A” task
• Actionable ways to manage your work/life blend this week
• How to build personal and work components together into your planning
• How to plan your business priorities so they are in support of your life goals
• Three steps to achieve any goal you set          

Ways to Contact Jennifer Dawn:

• Website: https://jenniferdawncoaching.com/
• 3 Secrets to Achieve Any Goal You Set (scroll down on the homepage to access this tool): https://bestplannerever.com/

On this episode, we delve into the unconscious mind and the concept of “limiting beliefs.” It’s the idea that our unconscious mind can hold us back without us even realizing it. So, how do we stop something we’re not even conscious of? The good news is that it is possible, and while it does take hard work, the steps themselves are pretty simple.

This limiting beliefs stuff may sound a little new-agey. I’m a big fan of data and looking at the facts at hand. For me, turning those limiting beliefs to unlimiting beliefs is fascinating because of the science behind it. This isn’t some magic act.

My guest on episode #168 is Karen Brown, author of Unlimiting Your Beliefs. Karen is a mentor and coach who works with people to uncover what might be impeding their progress in work and life. Often, our unconscious thoughts and actions are the source of this impediment.

One of the most interesting turns in the conversation for me was when Karen talked about her experience preparing to be an Ironman Triathlete. Her limiting belief had told her for 28 years that she shouldn’t even be thinking about this. She was not a good swimmer. That was a big hurdle. It was limiting. So, she unlimited her belief, telling herself out loud, “I am a good swimmer.” I asked if she suddenly became a good swimmer. As you might imagine, it took more than that. But giving herself that unlimiting belief propelled her to action. She got a swimming coach. She practiced. And soon enough, she was a good swimmer.

Our conversation is a fascinating look at the unconscious (or subconscious) mind and how it works. Listen to learn more about how to uncover the unconscious limits we put on ourselves and what to do to break that pattern.

Karen Brown is CEO of Velocity Leadership Consulting, a Denver-based business psychology executive and coaching company. With more than 20,000 business coaching hours under her belt, she founded Velocity Leadership Consulting in 2012, after finding her own divine potential while training for and finishing the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii.

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

• The science behind limiting beliefs and how to retrain your brain
• How to make unlimiting beliefs natural and habitual
• Asking the right questions to uncover the limiting beliefs of your unconscious mind
• Why writing out your limiting beliefs is so important, and why speaking the opposite out loud is just as important
• How the skills used in unlimiting your beliefs in one area will have a broad positive impact personally and professionally
• How to counteract the most common and pernicious limiting belief: I’m not good enough
• Why our unconscious beliefs and our conscious goals are sometimes at cross-purposes, and what to do about it
• How, like most things, you’ve got to use it to lose your ability and reshape limiting beliefs
• One way to get yourself into the unlimiting mindset: name and write down just one of your achievements          

Ways to contact Karen Brown:

• Website: velocityleadershipconsulting.com/build/
• Book: https://amzn.to/2ypriYS

When you started your agency, it was probably pretty exciting and somehow any worries you had were squelched before they could get in the way. But as our agencies get a little more established and we get a little more comfortable, taking a risk seems scarier, doesn’t it?

My guest thinks that’s a problem and he recommends that we re-acquainted with being uncomfortable.

In some ways, I’d like to think my big risk-taking days are behind me. But when I go to manage my business, and in nearly every conversation I have with my AMI colleagues, I know being risk-averse is not a strategy any of us can afford. Staying relevant and successful—according to my guest—requires a level of comfort with being uncomfortable.

It is a bit of bromide that the rapid pace of change is the one constant we can count on these days. How do we manage that change and thrive in the midst of it? That’s what we’re getting at in this episode.

On episode #167, my guest Scott Amyx proves that he knows this topic. From a childhood of poverty in South Korea to a career at the tip of the spear in terms of understanding and embracing innovation, Scott has lived and thrived in this era of discomfort. The upshot of his research is clear: being prepared for change and meeting disruption with a strategy of embracing it and pivoting as needed is a critical skill to survival as a business owner today.

Scott Amyx is the Chair & Managing Partner at Amyx Ventures and Singularity University/Smart City Accelerator Mentor and Startup Board Member. He is a TEDx speaker on disruption and success. Scott is a thought leader, speaker, author, and winner of the Cloud & DevOps World Award for Most Innovative Vendor.

Scott’s book, Strive, is all about how doing the most uncomfortable things leads to success.

What You Will Learn About in This Episode:

• How to get comfortable with being uncomfortable
• What you need to know about decentralized, autonomous organizations
• The market imperative of lifelong learning
• Why selling expertise and strategy is where differentiation happens
• How individual discomfort gets collectivized and creates tipping points for innovation
• Why as individuals and organizations, we need to be disrupted in order to be our optimal selves
• How process automation is disrupting the work of agencies as much as any other business sector
• Why the way we tell stories in our business needs to evolve with the tech and platforms people use to engage with stories
• Why the move toward a more agile, freelance workforce in your agency is likely not a short-term trend          

Ways to contact Scott Amyx:

• Order Strive: https://amzn.to/2yqtMGh
• TEDx Talk: https://youtu.be/FXoqlqpWpao
• Website: https://scottamyx.com/

Back in my early days of agency life, there was a production or traffic manager in every agency. Their job was to make sure all of the work was in the pipeline and delivered on time and on budget. Somewhere along the way, as agencies streamlined, that position went away.

But now it’s back. And it’s making a huge difference in agencies client retention and profitability.

Back then, the production manager was a combination of what we might think of today as a traffic manager and somebody who negotiated with all the outside vendors like printers or other suppliers providing a service to the agency to solve a client’s problem. The production manager kept track of all the jobs the agency had open, the due dates, who within the agency was working on them — and it was all done by hand without software.

Then in the middle of my career, that position sort of went away as people within agencies started tracking their own jobs using some sort of software. Computers and systems began to replace things that humans did previously.

Because of the complexity of our work today, and how fast it needs to be delivered, many agencies are discovering they need more than just software. They need a dedicated person responsible for driving how the work gets done and how it gets done on a budget.

This is a vital role inside an agency and I’m glad to see it’s back. Depending on the size of your agency, this position, combined with implementing the right software, might be something you want to think about as you prepare to step into 2019.

But before you do, I want to share several best practices, resources to evaluate, and a month-by-month roadmap so you and your team will know what to expect and when.

Quite honestly — on-boarding this new role, especially if you add in new software, will be bumpy. It will be hard on your team. You need to think about it carefully, and if you’re ready to grow, maybe it’s the next step for you. My goal for this solocast is to help smooth out the road for you as much as possible.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

• Why not having a traffic manager may be holding back your agency’s growth
• How to decide if and when your agency is ready to hire a traffic manager and onboard the software system
• The day-to-day role of a traffic manager and the impact the role can have on your agency’s profitability and client retention
• Why the traffic manager is a full-time position, not a hybrid, and definitely not entry-level
• Who the traffic manager should report to within the agency and why
• The personality and EQ a good traffic manager must have to handle the work and the team
• The advantages and disadvantages of all-in-one software solutions versus standalone
• What you and your team can expect to happen within the agency during each month of the implementation process and how it gets worse before it gets better
• The role of the agency owner throughout the process
• What are the success metrics you and your team need to consider before deciding to go down this path

Drew McLellan is the CEO at Agency Management Institute. He has also owned and operated his own agency since 1995 and is still actively running the agency today. Drew’s unique vantage point as being both an agency owner and working with 250+ small- to mid-size agencies throughout the year gives 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 — Drew 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, Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Fortune Small Business. The Wall Street Journal called his blog “One of 10 blogs every entrepreneur should read.”       

Ways to contact Drew McLellan:

• Email: drew@agencymanagementinstitute.com
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/drewmclellan

Content marketing is growing up. It’s no longer about throwing out random social posts, random blog posts, or making an infographic once a quarter. Instead, we need to begin asking the questions (for our own agency and our clients):

• What are we building?
• What can we become as a brand that is of value to this audience of people we care about?
• Who can we be for our prospects, our customers, and our business partners?

And I think an agency’s role in that can be both exciting and profitable.

Why? Because one of the biggest frustrations for most agency owners is that it’s getting harder to have a seat at the client’s strategy table. Agencies are being commoditized and relegated to the status of order takers all too often.

But when we have strategic conversations with a client around how they can truly leverage content in a way that is much bigger than a set of assets — you help them become a destination. You help them become a media company. That’s when the game changes and you’re back driving the client’s strategy and having significant impact on their goals. You become a must have partner.

My guest today is Robert Rose. He was instrumental in the creation and growth of the Content Marketing Institute working alongside CMI founder Joe Pulizzi. Robert has written several books, including two with Joe. Their latest, “Killing Marketing” is about how innovative companies are using content as a strategy to turn marketing cost into a revenue stream rather than a cost.

I promise you — Robert and I will get you thinking in completely different ways about content, the way your agency delivers content, charges for content, and talks to clients about content.

Here’s the thing — most agencies will not have the courage to implement the future proofing strategies Robert and I discussed in this episode. Be one of the few that does.

I encourage you to take action — do something with what you learn from this episode. If you do that — you will be sought after — and I want that for you.

And if you found this episode helpful — you might also be interested in the 2-day “Content Marketing For Agencies” workshop Robert and I are teaching this January. Learn more here.

What You Will Learn About in This Episode:

• How using content as a strategy can help solve a client’s business issues — and in the process — future proof your agency
• Why your audience — or your client’s audience — should be considered your “pre-client database
• Why agencies need to understand how to create content with a purpose and that it is no longer about creating more stuff
• How all the content marketing assets created for a client need to connect together to tell a single story
• How treating audience members like customers builds trust, then their walls come down, and they become much more open to sales messaging
• How to create an owned content experience for your clients and help them transform into media companies
• Why agencies need to have some sort of vertical specialization combined with a unique point-of-view of how they approach the world in order to be differentiated
• How an agency can go about uncovering its unique point-of-view
• Why midsized agencies looking to grow and become trusted business advisors to clients should focus on the strategic side because that is where the value is
• Why if you can’t control the media — then becoming the media is a viable content strategy for agencies and clients alike

Ways to Contact Robert Rose:

• www.contentadvisory.net
• www.robertrose.net

In last week’s encore interview with Robin Boehler — we talked about the biz dev practices that she and the team at Mercer Island Group see when they’re sitting on the client’s side of the room. If you listened to that episode — you heard me say that if you implement the best practices Robin shared, you’re going to see the difference in your win rate.

And because I want you to be as prepared as possible as you step into 2019 — I invited Steve Boehler and Lindsay O’Neil, also from Mercer Island Group, to join me for this week’s episode. Think of this as a new biz one-two punch!

There is nobody more in the fray of seeing why agencies win, lose, or how the pitch process plays out than Steve, Lindsay, and their team. And nobody is more generous in sharing what they observe.

This episode will give you the inside look at how agencies present themselves (accidentally and on purpose) and the influence each nuance has on our prospects as they weigh one agency against the others.

We talked about the prep work agencies need to be doing so they’re ready to make a successful pitch. My guests dove into the details like researching a prospect, building out a business profile, preparing your PowerPoint so it stands out, some best practices around rehearsing, and even how your agency should ask for a client’s business at the end. Because making the “ask” really matters.

Steve and Lindsay also shared examples of case studies from agencies that won a pitch because their teams showcased the client as the hero in the work, as opposed to putting the spotlight on themselves.

Whether you’re pitching a new prospect — or you’re strategically merchandising the work you did for an existing client during the last year — the case study process we discuss is worth the listen alone!

I’m excited for you to listen to these two (this one and episode #163 with Robin) interviews because I know Robin, Steve, and Lindsay will help you put your best foot forward in 2019.

And if you found the episodes helpful – you can get even more by spending 2-4 days learning from Robin and Steve Boehler at AMI’s Win More Business workshops this January. Learn more here.

 

What You Will Learn About in This Episode:

• How to build a detailed dossier for your prospective client in about two hours
• Why learning how a prospective client talks about themselves is a valuable piece of information to uncover in your research process
• How to ask the right questions that uncover a prospect’s business issues while instilling confidence that you understand them and their industry
• Why preparing brilliant case studies like those of FIG Agency makes your client the hero — not your work
• How to make your client a celebrity as McCANN WORLDGROUP did for its client, State Street Advisors with “Fearless Girl”
• Why less is more when it comes to the written proposal and what are the key elements that must be included — and most agencies miss
• How to front-load your proposal and presentation so that you focus on the client and not your agency
• How and why you should invite your prospective client to your agency for a visit
• How to build and document your business issue success experience so it is at the ready for your next presentation
• How to let a client know at the end of the presentation that your agency wants their business without sounding schmaltzy

Ways to Contact Steve Boehler and Lindsay O’Neil:

• Website: www.migroup.com
• Phone: 206.236.0447

Business development is a topic that is always front-and-center for agency owners. So I’m welcoming back one of our most popular guests, Robin Boehler from Mercer Island Group, to talk to us about the observations she and her team have made as they work with both agencies and clients who are asking to be matched with agencies. From those observations, Robin will outline some of the best practices that we need to be mindful of as we work to grow our agencies.

One of my favorite songs from the play Hamilton is “In the Room Where it Happens” where Aaron Burr laments that he’s not an insider, seeing how decisions are made. Mercer Island Group is always front and center in that room, as brands decide which agency has earned their business. You and I, as agency owners, are like Burr. We’re never going to be invited in, but fortunately, we have access to someone who is always there. In this podcast, Robin will help us understand how clients respond to the work we do, our level of preparation before and during a pitch, and how we communicate our understanding of the client’s business issues.

Sadly, sometimes the best fit agency doesn’t win. The agency lined up perfectly with the client and maybe should have been the agency that was selected. But something the agency did or didn’t do take them out of the running. All without them even knowing what they did.

We’ve all made mistakes during a pitch and didn’t come out ahead. Those mistakes are painful and expensive. But they’re fixable if you heed the insights Robin shared in this episode.

I promise you — if you implement the best practices Robin and I talk about in this episode, you’re going to see the difference in your win rate. This is the perfect time of year to put this advice into action so you step into 2019 ready to serve your prospects and build your agency.

If you love this episode – you can get even more by spending 2-4 days learning from Robin and Steve Boehler at AMI’s Win More Business workshops this January. Learn more here.

What You Will Learn About in This Episode:

• Common mistakes Robin sees agencies make when preparing, or while making, their pitch to a client
• How agencies need to stop underutilizing the cover letter to their presentation
• How to read, analyze, and uncover what a client is requesting in their RFP / RFI
• Why it’s important to focus the majority of your presentation around the client’s business issues — and not your agency
• How to evoke curiosity and make your prospects want to lean in when you describe your agency
• How to write a cold email to a prospect and stand out from the crowd
• How to ensure everyone on your team is telling the same story about the agency and how you serve clients
• Why “frame of reference” is important when communicating with a prospect about what your agency does
• Why you should put the entire pitch process, assets, and everything you will need to be successful onto an agency calendar — and allow enough time at the end for adjustments
• How problems around attention to detail make clients begin to question an agency’s bandwidth and capacity

Ways to contact Robin Boehler:

• Website: www.migroup.com
• Phone: 206.236.0447

Often on this podcast, I share a wide-ranging conversation with my guest and we bounce around a little bit, even though we are focused on an overall theme. This episode is a little bit different. We going to deep-dive into just one subject: geofencing.

For some in our business who aren’t digital natives, reaching an audience through new technologies like geofencing may seem complicated. When I started the business while still in college, it was all about print, radio, and TV. Now, I turn around without bumping into a new delivery channel or technology, like geofencing.

On episode #162 of the Build a Better Agency podcast, my guest is Justin Croxton. He is the director of sales at Propellant Media, where they serve clients with location-specific methods like geofencing. Their clients are mostly SMBs in both B2B and B2C categories. IN our conversation, Justin compares getting fluent with geofencing as similar to becoming proficient in AdWords.

Justin didn’t start his career in the agency business, but about three or four years ago, partnered with some colleagues to form Propellant, where the main product is inbound and technology-driven solutions for clients. 

What You Will Learn About in This Episode:

• The difference between beacon notification and geofencing notifications
• How to build conversion zones using geofencing
• Getting over the “minimum spend” hurdle in geofence ad buying
• Why you should consider coupling geofencing with search retargeting
• How to create the right digital marketing mix with geofencing as a key ingredient
• How to target the right people within a geofence with your marketing message
• Ways you can keep up the messaging (or not) once someone leaves a geofenced zone
• The digital mechanics of how geofencing interacts with apps and sites on your phone
• How geofencing works in the B2B space
• Why it’s not complicated for agencies to enter the geofencing space

Ways to contact Justin Croxton:

• Website: www.propellant.media
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/justincroxton

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!

For entrepreneurs, business decisions always are a blend of the head and heart. You need data and research in hand to make smart, informed decisions. But it also needs to feel right.

Episode #161 is about those head-and-heart decisions. It’s about making mistakes and starting over. It’s about not settling for only one side of the equation.

Some learn these lessons sooner than others. We all know college kids who started their own thing and made it work brilliantly. Back when I was in college, that didn’t even cross my mind. But today, it’s becoming more of the norm.

Today’s young adults have a different script and a different sense of what’s possible. And they are far from crazy. Exciting things are happening, big problems are getting solved, and a larger purpose is being fulfilled. And people like Jonathan Grzybowski are just jumping in and doing it.

For 29-year-old Jonathan, part of the problem was his own dissatisfaction. Running a full-service agency was not fulfilling. Money as the sole motivator was not working for him. That led him to set out to solve a business problem along with his own dissatisfaction. His agency excelled at design. Why not take that design excellence and use the platform they were developing to manage their internal projects to provide design as a on demand service? Jonathan Grzybowski is now co-founder of Penji, a subscription-based design service for agencies and other businesses.

Beyond the business problem, Grzybowski also wanted a business that made a difference in the community where he lived and worked – Camden, New Jersey. One of the things I love most about the agency owners I work with is their generosity. They have a pay it forward mentality. Jonathan is finding the ethos of Penji to be extremely fulfilling. And he’s finding that when you love Camden, Camden loves you back!

This is a great conversation about finding the right fit, starting over, serving clients and the community, and following your head and your heart – really, everything you could hope for in an episode of Build a Better Agency!

What You Will Learn About in This Episode:

• The potential downside of being a full-service agency
• How people just starting out in the world of work are viewing entrepreneurship as a viable path
• Why the hard work of entrepreneurship should not be glossed over
• Why offering a suite of services sometimes is not enough differentiation
• The freedom that comes from specialization
• How to build a business model and platform that serves both agencies, individual companies, and your community
• How vision and purpose beats trying to be the next Tai Lopez or Gary Vaynerchuk
• Why an agency might hire out a core function like design
• The power of connecting with your local community
• The importance of research in finding your niche          

Ways to contact Jonathan Grzybowski:

• Website: https://penji.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!

One of the challenges for all of us as agency owners and leaders is finding the balance of creating a relationship with our employees, but also being the leader and helping them recognize their blind spots, areas of growth and when they’ve messed up.

This requires the courage to have candid conversations with your team members. It’s never easy or all together comfortable, but to truly be a leader in our agency – this is not an optional skill.

I see the avoidance of these conversations when I’m on site with an agency, when I’m on a coaching or and when I’m with a group of owners, talking about their employees. We don’t address behaviors that we know are unacceptable or not up to par. We may joke about it, or hint at it, or even deal with it passive aggressively – but we don’t tackle it head on.

We hide behind silence, email exchanges, and even through text messages – all to avoid that face-to-face conversation.

I get it — you’re afraid of what your employees’ reaction will be, or what it would do to the agency if they quit. You feel as if you’re between a rock and a hard place. So you tolerate the behavior. You make your staff and clients suffer from the behavior. You risk losing employees and clients rather than addressing it.

And worst of all — you greatly diminishing your reputation as a leader because everyone around you is wondering why you’re letting it continue. And quite honestly — they’re wondering why they should follow the rules if others don’t.

The skill of having difficult conversations and course correcting your team is vital. And we as agency owners need to get good at it.

There may be a few of you who are really great at this. You give really honest, candid, specific feedback, and you’d do it early on when you first see the behavior, attitude or bad decision, not after it’s been happening for months and months.

But for the vast majority of you, this is not your gift, but if you think avoiding difficult conversations isn’t affecting your agency…you’re wrong. You’re absolutely wrong. This is a skill that you must own if you want to grow your agency in terms of profits, respect, and your people.

And that’s why talking through how to get better at having difficult conversations with your employees will be our focus during this solocast.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

• Why employees become more engaged and committed when they receive honest feedback from you.
• Why leaders who are rated the highest are the ones who most actively give and seek feedback from their team.
• Why caring about your agency’s culture is about more than just “Beer Fridays”, the parties, or the fun. It’s about the level of candor you have inside your shop.
• How not addressing bad behavior and course correcting an employee early on causes you to lose the respect of your team.
• How to take and apply a sample script for starting off a difficult conversation with one of your employees the right way.
• How to prepare yourself to have a difficult conversation with one of your employees.
• How to apply the elements of having a difficult conversation — the pieces of doing this well.
• How to focus on specific issues during the difficult conversation.
• Why creating an action plan for correcting the behavior is not your responsibility – it’s your employee’s.
• Why if you’re not having difficult conversations on a regular basis, or not celebrating your people by praising them, or coaching them so they get even better — that you’re not doing your job.

Drew McLellan is the CEO at Agency Management Institute. He has also owned and operated his own agency since 1995 and is still actively running the agency today. Drew’s unique vantage point as being both an agency owner and working with 250+ small- to mid-size agencies throughout the year gives 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 — Drew 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, Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Fortune Small Business. The Wall Street Journal called his blog “One of 10 blogs every entrepreneur should read.”

Ways to contact Drew McLellan:

• Email: drew@agencymanagementinstitute.com
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/drewmclellan

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!

Client relationships is a frequent topic on this podcast. In this episode, we focus on what it takes to cultivate strong and mutually beneficial relationships with clients.

Dr. Mario Vafeas is on the faculty at The University of the West of England in Bristol. His work in agency-client relationships is the result of research, study and real-world experience.

He brings a pragmatic approach, backed by the data, into the conversation.

Buckle up because it’s a deep conversation, packed with takeaways to use in your own agency. Through deepening your relationship with clients, and providing the right kinds of ideas, training and other added value, you can really set agency apart, increasing your client and employee retention. You will truly be a trusted ally and co-creator with your clients and prospects.

Prior to joining the faculty at UWE, Mario spent 20 years in branding and design consultancy and several years in brand management at HJ Heinz and Harveys of Bristol.

As well as undergraduate and masters teaching, Mario is involved in knowledge exchange projects with SMEs, and research in the field of buyer-seller relationships and value co-creation.

He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, and a Fellow of the Institute of Direct and Digital Marketing. He is also a DMA (West) Regional Council Member, and a Certified Digital Marketing Professional (Professional Diploma in Digital Marketing from the Digital Marketing Institute). 

What You Will Learn About in This Episode:

• How to both share ideas with and learn from the client
• Drawing from other industries to bring depth to your work in the clients’ industry
• Why external agencies need to focus less on producing “stuff” and more on producing insights and big ideas
• Communication with clients does not come with a template – each client relationship is unique
• Why you get more business opportunities when you take time to meet and check in with clients
• How to build relationships through coaching clients in best practices
• Adding value through offering training opportunities to clients
• Being proactive in making clients’ lives easier
• How to behave less transactionally so clients believe you really want a relationship
• How coaching hits all the big C themes
• Why great work with clients is co-creative

Ways to contact Mario Vafeas:

• Website: people.uwe.ac.uk/Person/MarioVafeas
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/mario-vafeas-4581298b

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!

Remember when it sounded crazy to remote employees scattered all over the country?  Or even crazier, in multiple countries? The truth is today, it’s becoming the norm rather than the exception.

Many agencies are choosing a hybrid approach, with a central office and staff in a brick and mortar location, but also with remote full-time and part-time workers. Some agencies are going all-in on remote work, ditching the central office and becoming, in the words of my podcast guest for this episode, “location-agnostic.”

I am intrigued by this, to say the least. I worked for and built businesses in an era when you went where the work was, whether you loved that particular center of commerce or not. But our business is changing, and the agency owners I work with are shifting into this new normal as well.

I had some big questions about becoming totally location-agnostic. How do you develop a strong culture when you all work in different places? How do the clients feel about it? How do you do the collaborative work that agencies are known for when you are scattered all over?

My guest on this episode is Brendon Craigie, co-founder and managing partner at Tyto PR. Tyto is a pan-European company with a fully location-agnostic staff.

Is building a healthy and happy work culture possible with an all-remote team? Brendon is finding the answer to that is a resounding “yes!” But there is more to his company than a remote workforce. They are intentionally flat, hiring well-seasoned creative “black belts” rather than having junior-level staff as worker bees. They are finding this to be a business model that’s rewarding to clients as well as the firm itself.

In his role, Brendon leads the agency and is heavily involved in counseling clients on strategic and creative matters. As an experienced global CEO, he also enjoys working closely with other CEOs on broader business and communications strategies.

Prior to launching Tyto, Brendon was the global CEO of Hotwire. As part of Hotwire’s founding team, he rose through the ranks to become CEO, and during his six-year tenure in the position he doubled the company’s size and repositioned it into a top 50 global challenger brand. Brendon’s achievements were recognized through multiple awards.

Brendon has worked across Europe, Asia, and the U.S. with a host of global names including Cisco, Microsoft, and Google. During his career, Brendon has helped to devise strategies and support campaigns for high-growth companies entering Europe to grow their brands and business. These campaigns often extended several years and included several early-stage companies, such as GoPro and BlackBerry, that have become multibillion-dollar successes, while others achieved the exits they desired. 

What You Will Learn About in This Episode:

• The virtues of being a location-agnostic company
• The logistics and financial implications of an all-remote workforce
• Creating a culture in a virtual agency
• Building a flat organization with seasoned, high-level, customer-facing staff
• When you meet with colleagues, how to meet with a purpose
• How to bring the best ideas forward through a “creative sprint” process
• When and how a virtual workforce can get together in the real world – preferably for a mix of work and play
• A cost/benefit analysis of having a staff of seasoned professionals
• How to angle for that non-contested pitch to your ideal clients
• Baking insight and research into the way you do business and how you get new business.

Ways to contact Brendon Craigie:

• Website: tytopr.com
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/brendoncraigie

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!

We are hip-deep into 2018, and the new tax law is fully in effect. It’s past time to get a handle on the implications of the new law for your business because we only have a few months left to do any sort of planning before year end.

Many agency owners are not exactly “numbers” people. The default, too often, is to let other people handle the money, then go off and focus on the creative or strategic side where we can play to our strengths.

On episode #157 of Build a Better Agency, I talk with CPA and tax advisor, Craig Cody. Cody definitely wants you to partner up with a professional when it comes to number-crunching. But in our conversation, he makes no bones about it: you’ve got roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty. You can’t check out of your business’ finances, no matter how much you trust your internal or external advisors.

So, this is a great and very timely conversation. Did you know you can hire your kids and enjoy some significant tax advantages? Craig serves up a ton of tax tips, deduction hacks and best practices on everything from dispelling the myths about deducting a home office to paying for medical expenses, along with the basics of keeping up with the books.

A tax advisor – not just a tax preparer – can be a huge benefit for your bottom line. I had a great time talking with Craig. I learned a lot, and I know you will too.

Craig Cody is a Certified Tax Coach. His practice is rooted in tax planning. His philosophy is to find ways to legally reduce tax liabilities and keep more of what clients earn in their own pockets. 

As a Certified Tax Coach™, Craig belongs to a select group of practitioners throughout the country who undergo extensive training and continued education on various tax planning techniques and strategies in order to become, and remain, certified. With this organization, Craig co-authored an Amazon best-seller, Secrets of a Tax-Free Life. In addition to tax planning, Craig’s practice offers traditional tax services as well as remote CFO services. 

What You Will Learn About in This Episode:

• The big differences between a tax preparer and a tax advisor
• Why tax planning for entrepreneurs can make a huge difference in how you manage your finances
• Passthrough income potential in Section 199 of the new tax code
• How long it should take to gather P and L information for the previous month
• Aspects of the new tax laws that you might not have considered
• How frequently to be in contact with your tax advisor
• How to find a good match for you in a tax advisor
• The wrong kinds of tax deductions to take
• Tax benefits of hiring your school-age children
• Steps to take in order to avoid fraud and theft within your business

Ways to contact Craig Cody:

• Website: craigcodyandcompany.com
• Free resource: craigcodyandcompany.com/buildabetteragency

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!

Building genuine relationships in our industry is one of the best parts of being in the business. The point is not to build transactional relationships that will end in a big “payoff” for you. When you focus on real relationships, you wind up bringing people into your life who you actually want to work with, and when you’re really fortunate, end up being good friends.

I firmly believe in this philosophy and the value of those relationships, both professionally and personally. These days, relationship-building often starts online.

James Carbary has raised LinkedIn updates and interactions to an art form. I wanted to explore his strategy and the benefits he’d seen in this episode. James generously shared some great tips on how to create good content that gets noticed and builds both engagement and relationships online. His LinkedIn prowess grows out of his larger interest in fostering genuine relationships.

One of the more fascinating projects James has going on are the B2B Growth Dinners he has launched.  It may be coming to a city near you and if so – be sure to participate. James’ idea was to create an opportunity for six strangers who all worked in tangential fields to have dinner and get to know one another. No agenda, no 30-second elevator pitch. He owns/runs an agency, but James’ passion and gift is as a relationship builder. So, we had a lot to talk about!

James Carbary is the founder of Sweet Fish Media, a podcast agency for B2B brands. He’s a contributor to the Huffington Post and Business Insider, and he also co-hosts the B2B Growth Show, a daily podcast dedicated to helping B2B marketers achieve explosive growth.

What You Will Learn About in This Episode:

• The power genuine relationships have to enrich your life and build your agency
• Repurposing content to fit the platform you are presenting it on
• How to create a community of people
• Working with engagement groups on LinkedIn
• How to post on LinkedIn for maximum organic views and engagement
• Why to have conversations over a meal
• Using LinkedIn to define your brand and attract clients you want to work with
• How podcasts help you build a relationship first, add value, and find ideal clients

Ways to contact James Carbary:

• Website: sweetfishmedia.com
• Website: b2bgrowthdinners.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!

It’s a bit of a milestone episode here, episode 155. It seems like an odd number to celebrate, but it means this podcast has been going strong for three years now! (52 weeks = 156 episodes) So thanks for listening, whether you’ve been around since the beginning, or this is your first time here!

As I speak with agency owners and decision-makers every day about their agencies and their business development efforts (or lack thereof!), we talk about the value of niching their agency. It’s the old brain surgeon versus general practitioner and the relative value proposition of each.

Your niches (note the plural) can be industry-specific, a certain methodology or in some limited cases – a specialty (PPC, etc.). But what do you do when you’ve narrowed down the niches you want to serve?

That’s what this solocast is all about. How do you actually walk out your talk and live/sell and profit from your niches?

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

• Why establishing niches for your agency is so important
• How many niches should an agency have and why?
• How do you promote your agency’s special sauce/niches and expertise
• How sweet spot clients intersect with your niches
• The business development process to sell to your niches
• Why helping your clients be better at their job is the heart of your biz dev plan
• What to do with those clients outside your niches that you don’t want to fire

Drew McLellan is the CEO at Agency Management Institute. He has also owned and operated his own agency since 1995 and is still actively running the agency today. Drew’s unique vantage point as being both an agency owner and working with 250+ small- to mid-size agencies throughout the year gives him a unique perspective on running an agency today.

AMI works with agency owners by:

• Leading agency owner and key executive 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 — Drew 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, Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Fortune Small Business. The Wall Street Journal called his blog “One of 10 blogs every entrepreneur should read.”

Helpful Resources from this Episode:

• Sweet Spot Client Filter: http://bit.ly/2O1m3Y0
• Content Marketing For Agencies Workshop: http://bit.ly/2O29OdO
• Agency New Business Blueprint: http://bit.ly/2MNkGaN

Ways to contact Drew McLellan:

• Email: drew@agencymanagementinstitute.com
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/drewmclellan

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!

Word of mouth is nothing new. For generations, it’s been talking with your neighbor over the fence, at the local watering hole, or telling your co-worker about the latest movie in the breakroom. As a business, word of mouth is sparked by those things that you do that separate you from the pack. These talk triggers are so memorable and unique that your customers can’t help but talk about them.

My guest Daniel Lemin gives plenty of examples that show us that talk triggers are rarely very expensive, and they tend to be operational differentiators rather than gimmicks or flash in the pan activities. Think Doubletree’s complimentary cookie when you check in or the Cheesecake Factory’s epic novel of a menu.

Daniel has co-written a book with Jay Baer about this powerful marketing technique appropriately called Talk Triggers. In this episode, Daniel and I chat about what he and Jay learned in their research and the insights they gleaned for all marketers. These B2B and B2C brands (large and small) are following a specific pattern as they create and execute their talk triggers and Daniel will walk us through that as well.

We look at this topic from many angles – from how agencies can leverage this phenomenon and, of course, how we can put it into practice for our clients.

Daniel Lemin is a startup co-founder, trusted advisor and bestselling author on reputation management, digital marketing, and social media customer service. As an early member of Google’s global communications team, Daniel led the launch of products in North America, EMEA, and Asia Pacific, and edited the Google Zeitgeist weekly research report featured in over 40 markets worldwide.

His new book with co-author Jay Baer, Talk Triggers, explores word-of-mouth marketing and lays out an indispensable framework for building them in your own organization.

Daniel regularly provides expert commentary on TV and in high-profile publications such as the New York Times, USA Today, CBS Radio, and Fox News, and speaks and leads workshops across the nation. In 2015, he released his first book, Manipurated.

A native of Ohio, Daniel earned his MA in communications and leadership from Gonzaga University. He lives in Los Angeles with his cocker spaniel Truman and enjoys the simple joys of gin martinis, jazz, and eating his way around the world—he’ll try nearly anything as long as it doesn’t bite back.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

• How to put structures in place to create WOM talk triggers
• Why it’s got to be remarkable to be a talk trigger
• How something as simple as a cookie or a deck of cards can get people talking
• Why talk triggers are so often about operational differentiation
• Why talk triggers need to be available to everyone—it’s not about exclusivity
• The best examples of word of mouth are never complicated or expensive
• Why metrics for word of mouth are more complicated than other marketing metrics
• What metrics you CAN use to measure the impact of word of mouth
• An unexpected benefit of well-done talk-trigger campaigns—they make the workplace more enjoyable for employees

How to Contact Daniel Lemin:

• Website: daniellemin.com
• Book: talktriggers.com
• Email: daniel@talktriggers.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!

As agencies struggle to attract and retain top talent, it’s natural that we’re having a lot of conversation about culture.

We’re in a creative industry, and I find that most owners are pretty self-aware. We want to love the business we’ve built, and we want to do right by our employees. Everyone wants their agency to have a culture that employees value and enjoy, but some owners don’t really know how to be intentional about it.

Gina Trimarco is the chief results officer and founder of a company called Pivot 10 Results. In this episode, I wanted to get her take on some of the challenges owners are facing in the current business climate – mainly getting and retaining the right employees. Work culture is a big part of that equation.

We get into a lively discussion about core values and how they can either sit unremembered in an employee handbook or be pivotal in shaping culture. What does it take to keep core values front-of-mind for both owners and employees? How does that help attract and retain the best people? These are questions I am asked every day, so I was glad for Gina’s perspective on all this. I think you will be too.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

• How to define a healthy work culture
• Creative ways to thank employees for a job well done
• Putting your best foot forward when an applicant is interviewing you as a potential workplace
• Empathy-based training and emotional intelligence to create a positive work environment
• The critical role of stated, repeated, and lived-out core values in establishing a healthy work culture
• Using your story to sell services, and attract and retain great people
• How a team of happy employees that has bought in to the core values can be your best recruiting tool
• How to listen to employees’ hopes and dreams and develop strategies to retain them longer
• Creating a positive culture that stays positive when the owner is away

Ways to contact Gina:

• Website: pivot10results.com
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ginatrimarco

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!

“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” That’s the standard advice of any investment advisor. But that investment can only happen once we’ve actually made the money. But maybe the concept of diversification is equally applicable to the first stage – making the income in the first place.

Having multiple sources of income builds wealth more quickly and mitigates risks inherent in having just a single source. The logic of that seems simple enough.  But the execution – that’s a whole different animal.

My podcast guest Dorie Clark has a very interesting perspective on this topic and I was excited to pick her brain for all of us. Her most recent book, Entrepreneurial You, is a blueprint for developing multiple income streams without losing your sanity.

Building these income streams involves tough decision-making but it doesn’t have to mean you take huge risks along the way. Dorie suggests a more measured approach and walks us through some of the methods we can explore as we expand our ability to accumulate wealth.

Dorie Clark is a marketing strategy consultant, professional speaker, and frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review. She is also the author of Reinventing You and Stand Out, which was named the #1 Leadership Book of 2015 by Inc. magazine and one of the Top 10 Business Books of the Year by Forbes. 

The New York Times described Clark as an “expert at self-reinvention and helping others make changes in their lives.” Clark consults and speaks for a diverse range of clients, including Google, the World Bank, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, the Ford Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Yale University.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

• Creating diverse income streams without jumping into big, new, risky ventures
• Guiding people through the sales funnel by offering incrementally advanced services
• The importance of living beneath your means as an agency and as a person
• Minimizing risk over time through developing diverse income streams
• How to be the person that makes the hard choices
• The meaning of the word “perspicacity”
• The biggest obstacle to being entrepreneurial
• How making introductions with no expectation of anything in return can be a superpower
• The difference between a mindshare activity and a market share activity

Ways to contact Dorie:

• Website: dorieclark.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!

In any trade, mastering the work is just the first of many hurdles. But one of the most daunting for most agency owners is pricing. What is the work worth? Who is my competition, and what if they offer services for less? What is the true value of the work we’re doing and what’s the ROI for our client?

There will always be someone (agency or freelancer) who is willing to do the same work for less. But how does that influence our pricing strategy and should it? This episode is all about the value conversation that leads to identifying a price based on the value you are offering. We’re going to dive into both the theories and principles and how to get over the discomfort of putting these pricing principles into practice.

Blair is an expert in sales, particularly in the creative services industry. He started his career working for a number of Canadian ad agencies and design firms. In 2000, he struck out on his own with a consulting practice named Win Without Pitching. In our conversation, Blair will walk us through a framework developed over decades of learning, trying, failing and perfecting value-based selling for creatives.

Blair is the author of Win Without Pitching Manifesto. He has just written a brand-new book called Pricing Creativity. I have spent some time with it, and the cool thing is, it's not really a book – or more precisely, it’s not only a book. It's more of a training manual – a three-ring binder full of all kinds of tips, tricks, and the psychology of pricing strategy.

This is a meaty episode and I promise – it’s going to give you plenty to think about.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

• How to effectively price your creative work
• Why a one-page proposal beats a 75-page presentation every time
• The value of silence in the sales process
• Moving from vendor to valued expert early in the sales process
• Making the closing on the sale a “non-event”
• The four-step framework for mastering the value conversation
• How to discipline yourself to not offer solutions too early in the process
• The mindset shift needed to improve selling skills to become a pricing expert
• Having value conversations with the right decision-makers
• How to move from agreeing with sales principles to making them standard practice

Ways to contact Blair:

• Website: winwithoutpitching.com
• Ebook/Training: winwithoutpitching.com/pricingcreativity

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 we dive into today’s topic — I first want to say thank you for your listenership and loyalty! We are downloaded in over 85 countries and I’m grateful for every listener. This solocast is Episode 150 of Build a Better Agency and I’m grateful for your time and the conversations we’ve had over the last three years.

Way back in Episode 35 (in early 2016), we talked about the employee shortage and the challenge the shortage was creating for agencies and agency owners. If anything – things have gotten tougher.

As you know, I see the financials for about 120 AMI agencies a year. I review their P&Ls, balance sheets, ratios, and some other information. And I will tell you that even though agencies may have had a good year financially in 2017 — they didn’t actually get to keep a lot of the money they earned. And the reason why they didn’t is because their employees are taking more and more of that money. This is happening because of scarcity. The truth of it is...scarcity wins. And right now, your employees are in control.

There are fewer good agency employees than there are agency needs and jobs. And I don’t think this is going to change any time soon. I thought it might be helpful if I shared how some agencies are addressing this challenge. I will walk you through some creative benefits employees consider to be brag-worthy, as well as the benefits that scored at the top of our research with over 1,000 agency employees. The truth is, 401k programs and insurance coverage no longer differentiate you from your competitors — they are table stakes.

Here’s the reality — we have to understand what today’s workforce wants and you have to make sure that your culture and your benefits package match those expectations if you want to attract and retain the talent you need to grow your agency.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

• How to attract and retain quality talent using today’s tools and why you need to build a pipeline for talent in the same way you build a pipeline for new business
• How long you should reasonably expect your employees to stay with your agency
• What are some brag-worthy benefits that will get your employees talking about your agency with their fellow professionals
• How you can provide your employees the opportunity to have flexible work hours or work from home days without losing the valuable in-office collaboration
• Why your employees will actually take less time off if you provide them with unlimited PTO
• Why we cannot dismiss the changes in the needs of today’s workforce as just a millennial thing
• What your employees consider to be the most important thing keeping them in a job – or – how they decide to accept a job they are offered
• How treating all of your employees fairly does not mean you have to treat them all equally
• Why just because someone is good at their job does not mean they’re going to be good at supervising other people doing that job
• What are “boomerang employees” and why you should consider circling back to them

Drew McLellan is the CEO at Agency Management Institute. He has also owned and operated his own agency since 1995 and is still actively running the agency today. Drew’s unique vantage point as being both an agency owner and working with 250+ small- to mid-size agencies throughout the year gives 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 — Drew 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, Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Fortune Small Business. The Wall Street Journal called his blog “One of 10 blogs every entrepreneur should read.”

Resources:

• Unlimited PTO examples

Ways to contact Drew McLellan:

• Email: drew@agencymanagementinstitute.com
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/drewmclellan

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!

In our industry, storytelling is one of those words that is so overused, it can lose its meaning pretty quickly.

Great stories stick with us. My guest, the co-author of The Storytelling Edge, Joe Lazauskas, understands that good storytelling gives you an edge. In a world where content can be all-but-meaningless pablum, it can also tell a story that moves a customer and makes a connection with them.

As a writer and storyteller myself, I always soak up any time I can spend with someone who’s as passionate about this subject as I am. Joe gets into the brain science of why stories are so powerful – they are a way to understand each other and ourselves better. He takes that knowledge and helps brands tell better stories.

For agencies and our clients, stories are how we build trusted connections with customers. In an era where there is pressure to churn out content, Joe helps us take a step back and understand why story is so important, and the key ingredients and tactics for telling good stories.

Joe Lazauskas is an owner and the director of content strategy at Contently. If you're not familiar with Contently, it is a content strategy practice. It offers a dashboard, but they also help big-brand clients create stories and content for those brands.

Joe was also one of the founding editors of the New York Egotist. After that, he became a tech and marketing journalist for FastCompany, Digit Day, and Forbes, among others. He joined Contently in the early days of their formation and in the beginning, he served as editor in chief.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

• How the brain engages with story, and how you and your clients can benefit
• The four elements of good storytelling
• Why content without a story is missing something
• Key tactics for good storytelling, and how to apply them in your agency
• How to help clients have less fear about sharing the gap between what is and what could be in their business
• Discovering what the customer is interested in, and telling compelling stories around that
• Educating clients about the power of content that tells a story. It’s not checking off the “wrote a blog post” or “sent out some tweets” box
• The companies doing storytelling content well, and how you can scale it
• Implementing editorial boards and newsrooms to get strategic about using content to tell stories

Ways to contact Joe:

• Website: Storytellingedge.com
• On Twitter/Instagram: @JoeLazauskas

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!

If there is a common pain point for agency owners today -- it’s recruiting and retaining talent. It’s a conversation I am having every day and it’s more difficult than it’s been in quite a while. Unfortunately, I don’t see that trend reversing any time soon. Which means we’d all better improve our ability to keep the good ones that we either have or can attract. It’s starts with hiring the right person for the right reasons.

What are the most effective questions to ask during the interview process? What do you need to know about the candidate? What do they need to know about you, your agency and the culture there?

For my podcast guest Steve Lowisz, it all comes down to purpose. Are you clear on the purpose of the position your hiring for? Are deliverables clearly spelled out in the job description you are posting? It’s critical to discover if the candidate’s purpose actually aligns with your agency’s purpose, and if they do – you’d better have a plan for nurturing that shared passion.

Steve Lowisz is an expert on talent acquisition, talent assessment, personal development, diversity & inclusion, and business performance. He has more than two decades of research and practical business experience allowing him to serve hundreds of organizations and thousands of individuals.

As CEO of the Qualigence Group of Companies that he founded in 1999, Steve regularly contributes to Industry events and publications and has been featured in Fortune Magazine, CNN Money, The Detroit Free Press and on Bloomberg Radio.  

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

• Why job descriptions often don’t provide the right information to get the right candidate for the job
• How to look at capacity, character, competencies, and culture when interviewing candidates
• How to discover what is motivating someone’s job search
• Identifying what a candidate is looking for that they don’t have now
• The different competencies needed for working on site compared with working remotely
• How facts, feelings, focus, and fruit can help get you through difficult, honest feedback conversations
• Numerous strategies for hiring and retaining great talent
• How to engage on LinkedIn, rather than using it as an “as needed” resume database
• Why having one-on-one meetings still matter and how to fill them with purpose

Ways to contact Steve:

• Website: stevelowisz.com
• Website: qualigence.com/recruiter-fuel-directory

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!

Business development does not just happen. For most of us as agency owners, sales is one of those things we wish we didn’t have to do.

In this episode of Build A Better Agency, we’re going to really dive into sales. I think the reluctance comes down to a fear of rejection. Because of those fears and insecurities, we don’t prioritize biz dev. We don’t put it on the calendar. We don’t make it a must do.

I think the biggest change we can make, and this is my challenge to you, is to just carve out time to connect with your ideal clients. Maybe it’s one morning a week. But as my guest says, if it’s not on the calendar, you’re not going to do it.

My guest for episode #147 is Michelle Weinstein. Michelle has done it all. She's been on Shark Tank. She has raised over a million dollars for her last company, and she now teaches entrepreneurs how to sell.

At the end of the day, Michelle is a sales strategist. She teaches mission-driven entrepreneurs how to sell without being sleazy.

I think we make sales harder than it needs to be. That’s why I wanted to bring Michelle on to have this conversation. She generously shared some incredible ideas and strategies that you can implement right now.

What if you could make a list of your ideal top-tier clients and actually have the confidence and the plan to demonstrate to them that they’re be losing out by not working with you.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg of our discussion. This is a must hear episode if you are looking to enjoy biz dev and ultimately the fruits of that labor in increased profits.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

• Why saving those email and text “thank you’s” and testimonials from clients is so important
• Why service-based businesses like ours are easier to sell than products
• How to block out time for business development
• The most useful tasks to tackle during your biz dev time
• Why “bumping into” your ideal clients at a trade show can be a truly winning strategy-and how to prep for it
• How to research and strategize for your pitch
• Creating and managing a list of your top 20 ideal new clients
• How to offer a gift that is something of value, without giving away the store or your trade secrets

Ways to contact Michelle Weinstein:

• Website: www.thepitchqueen.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!

Why do some agencies seem to “get” digital transformation and others struggle to cross that hurdle? Even more puzzling – among the ones who do get it – why are so many of them struggling to make money at it?

These are some of the daunting questions I’m exploring in this episode with my guest Chris Aarons. We all understand that digital transformation is happening. Few understand this as well as he does.

What does it mean for an agency to have digital-first DNA? Chris Aarons’ book Digital Helix explores this idea and I asked him about it when we spoke. Part of this concept is understanding that everything is connected, and a digital asset is never “done” or complete. When we approach our work with that understanding, what we do for and with clients becomes less about putting out emergency fires or checking off the boxes on the latest trend. It becomes about a consistent and constant state of evolution.

Chris believes the larger value we can all offer clients is helping them recognize and embrace that reality and then together, looking out over the horizon and planning for tomorrow’s opportunities rather than focusing on today’s fires.

That’s how we add incredible value and earn our seat at the client’s table. In this episode we talk about how to make that vision a reality for your agency.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

• The importance of an exploration mindset in moving you and your clients forward
• What it means to operate with a digital-first DNA as an agency
• How to encourage digital-first DNA thinking in your clients
• How to develop ongoing conversations with clients rather than operating from a one-off proposal framework
• Why talking with a client’s customers is at least as important as talking with the clients themselves
• How sales are connective moments – not a journey
• Why identifying the current problem is not the agency’s primary job
• How to be relentless about getting better over time
• When and how organic influencer models can beat the pants off of paid reach

When you’re busy running an agency, it can be hard to take a step back to see broader trends. What is currently happening and what is on the horizon regarding client relationships? What tactics and deliverables are hot and making agencies money? This is the second part of a discussion I started last month about the we’re tracking at AMI.

One of the best aspects of our work with agency owners from all over the world is that it affords me perspective. In episode 140, Top 2018 Agency Trends Part 1, I talked about trends that were related to money and the changing structures of our teams. And in this episode, I’m going to talk about the trends that I did not have a chance to get to in that episode.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

• How retail-facing companies are transitioning those skill sets into B2B space
• Why big consumer brands are decreasing their marketing spend and what it might mean down the road for small to mid-sized agencies
• The continuing rise of video and how to avoid the urge to over-produce video content
• Why clients are coming back to integrated agencies after splitting their marketing dollars among smaller agencies focused on narrow tasks
• What tactics and deliverables are earning agencies solid revenue in 2018
• The rise of influencer marketing
• The fascinating ways in which voice is changing search and how to stay on top of the trend
• The love/hate relationship we all have with chatbots and what that might mean for their future

Drew McLellan is the CEO at Agency Management Institute. He has also owned and operated his own agency since 1995 and is still actively running the agency today. Drew’s unique vantage point as being both an agency owner and working with 250+ small- to mid-size agencies throughout the year gives 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 — Drew 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, Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Fortune Small Business. The Wall Street Journal called his blog “One of 10 blogs every entrepreneur should read.”

Ways to contact Drew McLellan:

• Email: drew@agencymanagementinstitute.com
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/drewmclellan

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!