Some of the most significant innovations have been born out of the most challenging hardships, and agency innovations are no different. For the past two years, agency owners have been through the wringer. Some of you have even wondered if it’s time to shut your doors and move on to something different. You’re all. Just. Exhausted.

I often use the analogy that your agency is a ship, and you are the captain. It’s your responsibility to make sure that the ship doesn’t sink. For the past 24 months, this meant finding shelter and waiting out the storm. But we must rethink that analogy for the new times we’re finding ourselves in. With pandemic days easing up, I’m now telling you it’s time to head back into open waters.

While things haven’t completely settled down yet, this is our time to shine. We’ve spent the past two years adapting, changing the game plan, and moving through a figurative storm of hardship. But that has primed us for greatness and equipped us to move forward into a new renaissance of ideas and agency innovation. It’s time to relinquish control, take new risks, and see that these hard times have made you and your agency stronger and ready for brand new ventures.

A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev, or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here.

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

• I made a mistake in overemphasizing the importance of finding a safe harbor to get us through the pandemic. We need to rethink this.
• Where your focus should be turning now to drive your agency innovations
• Why control and leading with a type-A personality was suitable for the pandemic but might not be as supportive now
• Why creativity and agency innovation is so important right at this moment
• How taking risks will push your agency forward into the new era
• What past tragedies and renaissances can teach us about where we’re heading in the future
• That your only choice as an agency owner right now is to leave safe harbor no matter whether you’re ready to close up shop or move forward as an agency
• The questions you should be asking yourself as an agency owner to be a renaissance leader

As agency owners, we’re often dedicated to the niche we’ve carved out for ourselves and can get very comfortable serving our clients within those parameters. It’s easy to become highly committed, and stubbornly so, to that one niche. When it stops working for us the way we want it to, deciding to pivot can be difficult.

Today, the CEO of PredictiveROI, Stephen Woessner, came on the podcast to share his experience with this exact situation. His agency had been working in a niche for many years as a podcast shop that helped clients produce content. After some time, it started to become clear to the team that there was a better way they could be approaching business. Thus, a new agency niche was born, which began their great pivot to becoming the authority in teaching clients how to be the authority of their industries.

Stephen shares with us what led to the decision to pivot, the decisions he and his team made during the shifting process, and how they re-established their cornerstone content to align with their new niche.

If you take nothing else away from this very transparent and open discussion today, you should at least know that you have permission to think differently about how you want to position your agency to potential clients and that it’s okay for your agency niche to not be permanent. Sometimes, to build better, you need to pivot.

A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev, or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here.

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

• Why choosing your agency niche doesn’t have to be a permanent decision
• How Stephen Woessner of PredictiveROI knew it was time to pivot to a new niche
• Why sometimes throwing out the playbook and rebuilding in a different direction is a better move for your agency, even if it doesn’t seem that way at first
• What pushed Stephen and his team to rethink their agency niche and the value they were providing to their clients
• How to know which types of clients you’re already serving the best (this could be your new niche)
• What is cornerstone content, and why is it so important to establish?
• The importance of building a community of people wanting to learn from you and others to make more effortless sales
• You have permission to think differently about your agency and how you want to position it in your industry

We all know the phrase, “what we don’t know, can’t hurt us.” But, it also can’t make us any more money. That’s why this week, we’re kicking things off with another solocast episode where I’ll be discussing the two agency growth secrets that are guaranteed to put more money in your pocket and bring clients to you effortlessly.

To demonstrate this, I’m using Flying Camel as an example of how a few small tweaks can up-level you from an A– to an A-grade agency. They’ve already established themselves as an agency that has honed its expertise within a niche, they’re sought-after to speak at events all over the world, and are overall doing everything right. But, they knew they could be doing more, and they contacted me to help them figure out how to tackle it.

While we didn’t need to change much, we still gave them two areas to work on that will almost instantly make their agency even more attractive to potential clients. And on today’s episode, I’m going to break down those topics so that you can start up-leveling your agency, too.

A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev, or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here.

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

• The agency growth secrets that can uplevel your agency, even if you’re already doing everything right
• Two ways that you could easily improve your agency’s profitability and bottom line every year
• The value of understanding the money metrics in your agency, even if you’re not a numbers person
• Why carving out a niche and honing your expertise will establish you as a leader in your industry
• The reasons you should not be dismissing your own expertise, but rather, magnifying it
• How to be sought-after specifically for your expertise with very little change to your day-to-day operations
• Why being a thought leader matters when running an A-tier agency
• How to carve out time to create content that sets you apart from other agencies

This holiday week, the idea of freedom is at the forefront of many people’s minds. It’s a topic that touches so many facets of our lives every day. In today’s episode, I want to turn my focus to agency owners, and what freedoms we should be taking full advantage of that will ultimately benefit your agency culture.

Many of us chose to start our own agencies because it granted us privileges that being an employee did not. And while we may think we’re taking full advantage of them, the reality is that we could be offering ourselves so much more.

Today, I’ll cover seven freedoms that agency owners can (and absolutely should) be taking advantage of. From who you work with and hire, how you spend your work time, to your own role in your agency, and more. You chose to work for yourself, and now is the time to reflect on if you’re making it work for you.

A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev, or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here.

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

• Why we should take full advantage of our freedoms as agency owners
• What specific privileges we have, and how to leverage them to work for you and your agency
• Why agency owners shouldn’t hire employees based solely on their talent
• Why it’s important to share your vision when choosing who you hire
• How putting up with bad attitudes from employees limits the freedoms we have as agency owners
• Why we should have more freedom than our employees when it comes to our schedules
• Why your time should work for your life, and not the other way around
• What you should be doing when it comes to leveraging your financial freedoms as an agency owner
• The freedoms agency owners have when it comes to walking away or staying in the business
• Why agency owners take on the risk of running a business but aren’t comfortable taking the rewards