Fear is a familiar feeling in agency ownership. It’s easy to feel like you don’t know what you’re doing or might be missing something important, especially if you’re doing it all yourself.
In this episode, I’m delivering advice on how to conquer the biggest agency owner fears in a Collabs & Cocktails event hosted by Predictive ROI. Whether it’s imposter syndrome, money worries, figuring out how to manage employees, or learning how to collaborate with other agency owners, I have some advice that will help ease your mind and get you back to focusing on the important things.
For 30+ years, Drew McLellan has been in the advertising industry. He started his career at Y&R, worked in boutique-sized agencies, and then started his own (which he still owns and runs) agency in 1995. Additionally, Drew owns and leads the Agency Management Institute, which advises hundreds of small to mid-sized agencies on how to grow their agency and its profitability through agency owner peer groups, consulting, coaching, workshops and more.
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 four biggest fears of agency ownership
- How to eliminate money fears by running things by the numbers
- Taking care of your employees so that they stick around
- Why you shouldn’t operate on only referrals and word of mouth for biz dev
- The importance of becoming an authority in your industry
- Generating right-fit leads
- Navigating imposter syndrome
- The right way to collaborate with other agency owners
One of the best ways to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry and get more right-fit clients is by publishing a book. Often, the people who don’t want to publish a book fall into one of two categories: those who don’t think they know enough (or think everyone knows what they do) or those who think they have the “secret sauce” and don’t want to give it away willingly.
Our guest, Henry DeVries, is here to tell us why everyone has it in them to get published, why it’s the best way to find new clients who are a great fit to work with your agency, and the seven best ways to market the book once it’s written.
This episode is packed with tips that will teach you exactly how to set yourself apart from other agencies and get clients contacting you for work, not the other way around.
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 a book is the #1 marketing tool for an agency
- How to identify the topic of your book
- Why giving away your secrets will leave potential clients wanting more
- Why you know more than you think you do about your industry — so write about it!
- The “Magnificent Seven” of marketing your new book
- The spectrum of “getting published” and building your body of work
- Having a book as a legacy piece for your agency and your accomplishments
Today on the podcast, we’re challenging how you approach B2B prospecting. If you’ve ever been afraid to openly advertise your pricing, roll out a free offer for new customers, or try something completely different from the agency norm, I hope this conversation inspires you to take the risk.
In this episode, David Valentine and I discuss how his businesses have grown incredibly by using unorthodox methods to drive sales and keep clients for longer through “Outrageous Offers” and case studies. His agencies have closed 75–85% of their sales by giving clients nothing to lose in working with him. He knows that what companies need most are results — and fast.
Tune in to hear what he’s learned over ten years of agency experience, the different methods he uses to drive sales, and how he guarantees his clients’ happiness.
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:
- What is an “outrageous offer”?
- How to stop creating roadblocks for your agency to obtain new business
- The effectiveness of case studies in showing clients how you can guarantee results
- How to sell results over selling a product
- Why attaching free offers to a guaranteed outcome works
- Why transparency will generate new business for you
- Making yourself irresistible and undeniable to prospects
We always say, “What you measure matters,” on the podcast, and today is no exception. To keep you and your team fed, you need to measure metrics in your agency. Without this vital system in place, you likely have no idea how much money is coming in or being spent, which directly affects your team.
That’s why we have Marcel Petitpas here to teach us all about running your agency by the numbers. He’s the expert in AGIs, delivery margins, and profit and loss statements, and he knows how to keep agencies on the right track.
In this episode, we’ll discuss the most important metrics agencies should already be measuring, how to improve time utilization, calculate billable rates, and the importance of excellent project management. It might seem like an intimidating topic, but we promise that it’s not as painful as it looks, and it will make your life so much easier once you make the changes we discuss in this episode.
Marcel Petitpas is the CEO & Co-Founder of Parakeeto, a company dedicated to helping agencies measure and improve their profitability by streamlining their operations and reporting systems, a problem he discovered while running his own agency back in his early 20’s.
He’s also the fractional COO at Gold Front, an award-winning creative agency in San Francisco working with brands like Uber, Slack, Keap, and more. As well as the head strategic coach at SaaS Academy by Dan Martell, the #1 coaching program for B2B SaaS businesses in the world.
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 importance of measuring metrics and agency finances
- The difference between delivery margins and delivery costs
- Three ways to improve delivery margins
- How to approach employee utilization differently to boost profitability
- Why time tracking shouldn’t go out the window
- What to consider when setting billable rates
- The imperative role project managers play in measuring metrics
- Where agencies might face challenges in 2023
We’ve all been hearing it: a storm is coming. Or maybe it’s not. Depending on who you ask, we don’t know what our economic future holds. But one thing is for sure, if you stay prepared with recession planning, regardless of what the economy is doing, you can hold strong against those unexpected changes much more easily.
In this solocast episode, I will share with you the best ways you can start recession planning even if your agency is financially okay right now. It’s never the wrong time to start looking at how you can operate better, earn more profit, and keep great clients and employees, no matter the economic outlook.
Instead of waiting out the economic storm and wishing you had been better prepared, start making changes today and know that you have the power to pull yourself through anything while still making a profit. You just need to be smart about it.
For 30+ years, Drew McLellan has been in the advertising industry. He started his career at Y&R, worked in boutique-sized agencies, and then started his own (which he still owns and runs) agency in 1995. Additionally, Drew owns and leads the Agency Management Institute, which advises hundreds of small to mid-sized agencies on how to grow their agency and its profitability through agency owner peer groups, consulting, coaching, workshops and more.
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:
- Things you should already be doing for recession planning
- Why you should be raising your hourly rates
- How to prepare yourself against a longer sales cycle
- The importance of renewing contracts and locking in good clients now
- The good and the bad of employee staffing during a recession
- Why having too much money in your agency is a bad thing
- The importance of maintaining a good attitude with your team
- Why you can still be profitable even if there’s a recession