It’s no secret the job market has shifted immensely over the past 3–4 years. One minute, we’re hitting the brakes and halting all new hires. The next, we’re kicking things back into gear and going through a hiring frenzy with inflated salaries. And now, we’re entering a recession but still need to hire top talent at an affordable price. How do we keep up?

This week, I’m talking with Art Boulay and Sue MacArthur, two experts in talent management and agency staffing. They created a perfect formula for assessing potential new hires’ strengths, weaknesses, and full-on red flags that could save you a lot of time before even starting an interview.

This episode is packed with information about how agencies can optimize their hiring in a job market where you only have a few days — rather than a few weeks — to decide on a candidate. I hope you grab a pen and paper and take some notes on this one because this could change your entire approach to hiring new team members.

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:

• How hiring has changed rapidly in the past 3–4 years
• What agencies should have in place before they begin looking for a candidate
• Why you need to try your best to lock in a new hire in under a week
• Don’t be afraid to make a candidate sweat a little
• Why trying too hard to sell your agency to a candidate could lose you a great hire
• Identifying yellow and red flags for in-office, hybrid, or remote positions
• How to handle and possibly prevent a bad Glassdoor review if you encounter one
• Pay attention to the little things — body language, demeanor, and even their background in the Zoom call
• The most critical things to consider to get the right candidate to accept your job offer

One of the biggest sticking points with agencies is establishing tried and true onboarding and training SOPs. Over and over, we find that new hires aren’t pleased with how their onboarding process went, despite agencies and larger companies investing billions into this one area.

Poor training and onboarding experiences can result in disaster and influence how long your new hire will want to stick around after the fact. It can be even more challenging for remote agencies to establish cohesion in SOPs when a team is remote or hybrid. That’s why it’s essential to have well-established training SOPs that are easy to follow and help your new hires understand their purpose within your agency.

In this episode, I’m interviewing Jennifer Smith from Scribe to teach us how to make SOPs that are quick, painless, transferable, and digestible. She knows what remote teams need to get everyone on the same page quickly, and she has a lot of knowledge on how to make that happen. Tune in to listen and learn great ideas from Jennifer to make a typically painful process seamless and much more organized.

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 having tribal knowledge in an agency
• Where agencies often fail to have proper documentation
• Establishing the why, the who, and the how of your agency to new hires
• Creating proper SOP documentation to onboard new team members
• Where agencies can improve on building a remote team
• How to demonstrate skills and tasks to new hires with training SOPs
• How to make SOPs and documentation pain-free and easy to share amongst your team

With a heavy heart, I’m recording this week’s solocast to commemorate the life of a cherished and respected team member of AMI, Craig Barnes. I have known Craig for 25 years, and we became great friends and colleagues over our time together as fellow agency owners.

I want to use this solocast as an opportunity to honor the legacy Craig left behind and share with you all some of the core values he taught me over our long time working together, the most important one being to lead with love.

Whether you were part of his family, community, colleague, or client, Craig always made sure that people knew he loved them. He was never afraid to shower others with love and celebrate their wins in life, no matter how big or small. He did everything in a big way, whether that was making a huge business decision or taking up a new hobby — and he wasn’t afraid to go after it with genuine, whole-hearted passion.

I’m heartbroken to be recording this episode. Still, I hope this allows everyone the chance to reflect on his incredible life and legacy and encapsulate everything that Craig taught us in the AMI community.

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.

In This Episode:

• How Craig Barnes became a part of my life and the AMI community
• What we can learn from Craig’s life and professional life
• Keep evolving
• If you’re going to do it, do it big
• Strategy is critical
• There is no substitute for integrity
• The more you teach, the more you learn
• Lead with love

As agency owners, we’re always looking for ways to get great customers that increase our profitability while decreasing the length of the typical sales cycle. That’s the dream, right?

This week, I have Tom Schwab on to talk about one of the best ways to make that dream a reality — being a great guest on other people’s podcasts. As a great guest himself, Tom has a gold mine of valuable information to share with us about getting featured as a guest on podcasts, the ROI that it brings to your agency, and how to track the results you’re getting from being a podcast guest.

Great conversations lead to great customers, and Tom will teach us exactly how to turn all that talking into gold. Don’t miss out on this information-packed episode so you can start your year right by setting the stage for increased profitability in 2023.

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 you don’t need to host your own podcast to get your name out there
• How to use podcast guesting as a way to achieve your goals
• Why podfade is such a common occurrence
• How to identify which podcasts need your voice as a guest
• Leveraging a podcast to attract great clients, not more leads in the sales funnel
• How to be a great podcast guest and get the host to sell you to the audience
• Pre- and post-interview podcast guest best practices
• The importance of having a tracking mechanism for performance and conversion rates

As agency owners, we’re always looking for ways to get great customers that increase our profitability while decreasing the length of the typical sales cycle. That’s the dream, right?

This week, I have Tom Schwab on to talk about one of the best ways to make that dream a reality — being a great guest on other people’s podcasts. As a great guest himself, Tom has a gold mine of valuable information to share with us about getting featured as a guest on podcasts, the ROI that it brings to your agency, and how to track the results you’re getting from being a podcast guest.

Great conversations lead to great customers, and Tom will teach us exactly how to turn all that talking into gold. Don’t miss out on this information-packed episode so you can start your year right by setting the stage for increased profitability in 2023.

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 you don’t need to host your own podcast to get your name out there
• How to use podcast guesting as a way to achieve your goals
• Why podfade is such a common occurrence
• How to identify which podcasts need your voice as a guest
• Leveraging a podcast to attract great clients, not more leads in the sales funnel
• How to be a great podcast guest and get the host to sell you to the audience
• Pre- and post-interview podcast guest best practices
• The importance of having a tracking mechanism for performance and conversion rates

Diversity in the workplace is the cornerstone of running a modern and successful agency. Without it, you’re not only selling your agency short, but you’re also passing up on an immense pool of talent and ideas that you won’t find by staying in a comfort zone.

This week, we have Dr. Ella Washington, a professor, organizational psychologist, and DEI expert, on the podcast to share the purpose, pitfalls, and progress behind effective and measurable DEI work. Whether your agency has fallen behind the times or you just need a fresh perspective, we all have work to do in this area.

So, take this episode with an open mind, actively listen to it, and use it as a guide for refocusing your DEI efforts in 2023.

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 metrics for tracking DEI work progress
• The three P’s of starting DEI work
• How hybrid work environments promote diversity in the workplace
• Inviting more diversity into your organization
• Why diverse backgrounds of all kinds matter at work
• Inclusive leadership
• Acknowledging and addressing microaggressions
• How to create a safe space as a leader and invite conversations about DEI