Agency growth and biz dev can feel like an uphill battle when we’re already so tired, overworked, and burnt out. But it doesn’t have to be hard or add anything extra on our already full to-do lists. In fact, it shouldn’t be difficult at all. 

Tori Boats joined me this week to help close out the year on a high note and show us that setting our agencies up for exponential growth in 2025 doesn’t have to be tough — and it can even be fun. 

If you’re feeling that end of the year slump, this episode should inspire you to rediscover that creative spark that motivated you to start an agency in the first place. No worrying about what’s profitable or competitive — just pure creative and visionary ideations that will give you the fresh thinking you need to start off 2025 on the right foot. 

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:

• What gets in the way of the spark of agency ownership

• Getting into an innovative and creative headspace

• Translating a creative spark into sustainable agency growth

• Centering your clients’ needs instead of yourself or the agency

• Challenge yourself to come up with silly, unrealistic ideas

• Infusing energy, excitement, excitement, and visionary ideas to agency employees

• Having a vision is the key to getting unstuck

• The 5 mistakes agency owners make that keep us stuck

Agency ownership can leave us stressed, burnt out, and sometimes, thinking the grass is greener somewhere else. But when you really sit back and think about it, we have it pretty good — we just lose sight of it sometimes. 

So this week, I’m finishing off the year with another solo episode to really sit down and take stock of what it is about agency ownership that makes it so special compared to other jobs. Because no matter how hard things get or how many bad days we have, our jobs are still pretty special and unique. 

While you listen to this episode, I want you to reflect on all the things that you could take a little more time to appreciate. Whether that’s your employees, your work-life balance, your clients, or even just the type of work you get to do, there’s always something we can be grateful for in this industry. 

In 2025, let’s find a little more joy in our work and give ourselves more credit for all the hard work we already do and will continue to do — because we love it that much.

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:

• We’re wired to constantly want to do better
• Agency owners can lose sight of how much joy is in the industry
• Agency ownership brings us balance in our personal and professional lives
• You can still make a decent living as an agency owner even if you have a bad year
• Getting to work for and with whomever you want
• Doing the type of creative work you want to do (for the most part)
• Why you should take some time to reflect on all the joys that come with agency ownership
• Agencies have more impact than we give ourselves credit for

As we round the bend into the new year, I’m reflecting on the lessons learned from my time as an agency owner and the insights I've gained from working with hundreds of agencies. 

While there are too many to count, I’m going to try to boil down my experiences into a few points that I hope you can take into 2025 as you start to think about what you want the next year to look like for your agency. This episode is packed with actionable advice on things like niche selection, service offerings, operational efficiencies, and how to foster a culture of continuous growth and dedication among your staff. 

As you go into the new year, ask yourself, How do you want your agency to look different? How do you want your team to look different? How do you want to look different to the world? And how do you want the clients you serve to be different?

With those questions in mind, join me as I walk through what my dream agency would look like today and how you can implement these strategies to align your agency for success in 2025.  

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:

• The most profitable size of an agency
• Dividing in-office work and at-home work for a hybrid agency
• The importance of having in-house accounts service people who are dedicated to growing the agency
• Using freelancers and contractors to support a smaller team of in-house creatives
• The continued importance of running the agency by the numbers for maximum profitability
• Having one-on-ones to check in with agency employees and clients
• Narrowing down your niche to get to that 20% profitability
• Building a recession-proof agency
• Getting more thoughtful about what the agency owner role looks like and hiring roles to support it
• Getting smart about paying yourself 
• Team off-sites and investing in professional development

To grow the agency, agency owners need to be working on the business, not working in it. That means we have to accept that it’s time to get out of the day-to-day and embrace agency entrepreneurship as business leaders. 

Michael E. Gerber, author of The E-Myth and renowned business guru, joined us today to share some profound lessons for agency owners to uplevel their businesses and stop getting stuck just being technicians of the business. 

Too many of us get stuck in the day-to-day operations, doing work we should hire other experts to do. And while those experts do what they do best — so should we. By focusing on biz dev and enhancing the mission, vision, and values of the agency, we’re making room for the agency to grow while achieving our dreams. 

If you’ve been looking for a push to get inspired to finally run the agency as the visionary you are, this is your episode. Michael is a great inspiration to show agency owners that following our dreams and visions is possible if we set ourselves up for the right kind of success.  

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 agency owners get in their own way of their success
• Many agency owners are technicians suffering from entrepreneurial tendencies
• How to use systems and processes when you’re an agency doing custom work
• The 8 distinct personalities for a great entrepreneur
• Running an agency vs. doing the work of an agency
• Create systems and processes, and then make your agency the product
• Great entrepreneurs are great creators

Account executives are critical for agency profitability and success. Without them, we wouldn’t have anybody responsible for building deeper trust with clients and growing their accounts.

That’s why we’ve brought Lori Highby on the show this week to share everything she knows about the account executive role. Some of you might recognize her from the AE Bootcamps she teaches at, and she’s here to bring that wisdom to the greater AMI community so we can better understand just how important our AEs are for agency success.

As someone who has an inside look at how AEs think and the questions and concerns that are always in their heads, Lori is the perfect person to share them so we can learn how to better support our AEs.  

We cover everything from the expectations in an AE role, how agency owners can better communicate their goals and expectations to AEs, recognizing their hard work, and supporting their goals and aspirations within their role so they can also grow with the agency. 

This episode is packed with incredible insights, so we hope you can take some of these topics and use them to better understand and support the AEs in your agency. 

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:

• Recurring struggles that account executives face and are looking for guidance about
• The importance of standardized communication on the team and with clients
• Helping AEs level up their soft communication skills
• Supporting your account executives’ eagerness to learn and level up
• The importance of AEs knowing agency math and using it to determine profitability
• What AEs really want from agency leadership 
• Take more time to recognize and appreciate your account executives’ hard work
• How to find more moments for recognition on your team
• What AEs love about their jobs
• How to support and encourage your team in leveling up their skills
• How agency owners can amplify AE success in the agency

This one is going to be hard for most agency owners to hear, but you need to take a sabbatical — or a vacation or any amount of time off where you completely unplug from the agency. No Slack, no email, no phone calls. Nothing.

Most of you just got really uncomfortable reading that statement, but it’s absolutely necessary if you want your agency to grow. In fact, not taking time off could be stifling agency growth more than you realize.

Every time you jump into a meeting with a client that your project manager or AE could be taking, or you need to sign off on a minor thing that your leadership team could handle, you’re making it harder for your team — and your agency — to grow.

Louise Oliver is going to share her story of how she was exactly like many of you, stressing over her maternity leave and avoiding deleting work apps off of her devices. And then she did it. She realized how much that time off helped her and her agency grow exponentially.

So, tune in and take the sabbatical.

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:

• Don’t be an agency owner who can’t imagine being involved in everything
• Taking time off completely unplugged shows your team they trust you
• The importance of having a strong leadership team to back you up
• The stages of grief of unplugging during a sabbatical
• The day and night difference Louise experienced after returning to work
• Taking a sabbatical will give you the freedom to finally do the work you want to be doing
• Letting your leadership put out fires while you’re away is the key to their growth
• How stepping aside can help your team find weak spots in systems and processes
• If a sabbatical or vacation feels impossible, that’s a good sign to look at how your team is structured
• How taking time off can help you on a personal level outside of the agency

The future of work is becoming more fractional. Instead of full-time, in-house teams doing all the work — how many of us grew up in the agency world — fractional employees like contractors and freelancers can take on more and more complex roles for us.

With remote and hybrid work still on the rise, we can leverage fractional employees to bring a more diverse portfolio of skills to the agency without breaking our bottom line.

Sara Daw joined me this week to share her knowledge about fractional employees and how they fit into what she calls “the access economy” where we can access a larger pool of talent at our fingertips without actually having to make a full-time hire.

We dig into what it means to build psychological ownership in fractional relationships, how fractional employees can make themselves more known within the agency culture, and how the future of work will evolve as the whole concept of employment shifts and changes.

This episode comes with a lot of deep thinking homework that will challenge you to look at the workforce you want to build for your agency’s future and the infrastructure you need to start building in order to support that. There’s a lot of good stuff here to share with your leadership team, so get ready to take some notes on this one.

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 the access economy?
• Why does the access economy work so well?
• How psychological ownership plays into fractional work and the access economy
• The importance of psychological ownership in our relationships with fractional employees
• Getting a breadth and depth of skillsets in a fractional C-Suite and fractional employees
• How employment will evolve as we lean into fractional employment and hybrid work
• Creating culture and creativity in fractional work environments
• How to be more connected and intentional with relationships as a fractional employee
• Having the right skillset at the right level

Many agency owners reported in 2024 that one of the best things about their agencies are their employees. Despite continued biz dev struggles and slow sales cycles, agency owners have had a hard time shrinking their teams because they just love them that much.

So, this week, let’s talk about some of the ways we can think about agency employee compensation more holistically to show them our gratitude and continued support.

Agencies continue to be really competitive environments, and many of our best employees will inevitably be approached by recruiters and other agencies at some point in their careers. And the best way to keep them around is through their compensation packages.

But these shouldn’t just be about high salaries and bonuses. While important, that’s just the tip of the iceberg in showing our gratitude and support to our employees. In fact, the most impactful forms of compensation come from deeply knowing and respecting your team, and showing your personalized gratitude for their efforts and commitment to your agency.

Join me on this week’s solocast to dig a little deeper in how we can really get thoughtful about how we compensate our employees, not just with more money, but investing in their continued growth and your personal relationship with them.

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:

• Looking at agency employee compensation not as an obligation, but something you do out of gratitude
• Using raises as a reward for employees adding more value to the agency
• Giving bonuses or profit sharing to celebrate hitting monthly or quarterly goals as a team
• How a good benefits package gives you a competitive advantage against other agencies
• Personalized perks and thank-yous to reward individuals go a long way
• How to know when one of your employees has gone above and beyond
• Spending time getting to know your employees and caring for those personal relationships
• Develop your compensation philosophy based on your goals and values

It’s no secret that new business for agencies was brutal in 2023. And for some in 2024, it’s been equally difficult. So, for 2025, we want to challenge you to get unstuck from those difficult sales cycles and lay the groundwork for some new energy as we come to the end of this year.

This week, Susan Baier joined me again to help us look at the agency sales cycle a little differently. Next year, it’s all going to be about using research studies to build your thought leadership portfolio, create cobblestone content, and attract right-fit clients with little to no prospecting on your end.

If you haven’t done research studies before, it’s time to start. Get some data, find your unique perspective, and share it openly and with authority. In 2025, it’s going to be all about teaching and educating your audience to build trust so that by the time they pick up the phone to call you, they’ve already bought into your expertise.

If you’re looking to get out of the funk of 2 slow sales years, you’ll want to stop what you’re doing right now so you can take some notes on this episode.

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 does doing research make agency employees and the agency better?
• Why agencies need to constantly be adapting and learning new things
• Using new knowledge and research to make your team smarter
• How agencies can use their research to innovate and be better
• The surprising effects of new research and thought leadership on client budgets
• Using research to shorten the sales cycle, build trust, and promote thought leadership
• 3 big things that happen when agencies conduct their own research
• Innovative and creative ways to present new research to clients and prospects
• It’s not just about data — it’s about your unique perspective on the data
• Building cobblestone content out of larger research studies

With more agency owners wanting to step out of the agency’s day-to-day operations to focus more on being the company’s visionary leader, there are many areas of the business that can sometimes go overlooked.

To remedy this, many agencies are embracing the COO role to help keep things running smoothly.

With the fast growth of this role comes many questions, which we will answer in today’s episode. Carolyn Lodge, a COO and agency owner herself, has a unique perspective that will help us see both sides of the coin in the CEO/COO relationship.

We discuss what skills and qualities we should look for in a COO, the dynamic a CEO and COO should have when working together, the top concerns of current COOs like cybersecurity issues, and the role COOs should play in agency AI development.

This episode is packed with insights and advice for agency owners looking for extra support with their day-to-day operations, so be ready to take some notes and, hopefully, think a little differently about how you can best utilize your team in the future.

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 scaling effectively means for agency owners
• How to identify which areas of the agency are ready for growth
• Finding ways to replicate and systemize work in a custom industry like marketing
• Marrying customization and systems and processes for agency growth
• Letting go of identity attachment as an agency owner to better utilize your team’s skills
• Building an effective training program that helps team members and new employees be more self-sufficient
• The more time off you take, the more money you can make
• The often overlooked downsides of growing and scaling the agency
• Digging deeper to discover why you really want agency growth
• Finding your Minimal Viable Operation for what you need to reach your growth goals

This is a topic we’ve covered many times before, but it’s an important one. When was the last time you checked in with yourself about what agency growth really means to you? It can be more than just adding more team members and physically growing and expanding the agency.

It can also mean growing your AGI, getting higher paying clients, more interesting projects, more name recognition, or more freedom and time off. No matter how you personally define agency growth, there’s a method to achieve it.

This week, Marquel Russell is sharing his expertise in agency growth and scaling so we can learn how to do it in a way that works for us. From niching down, getting out of the day-to-day operations of the agency, or actually taking time off (a foreign concept to most agency owners), there are ways to reach your agency growth goals.

Join us to learn how Marquel has helped countless agencies grow and scale with just a few tweaks to their business models. And if you’re still not sure what agency growth looks like for you, this episode is even more important for you to listen to.

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 scaling effectively means for agency owners
• How to identify which areas of the agency are ready for growth
• Finding ways to replicate and systemize work in a custom industry like marketing
• Marrying customization and systems and processes for agency growth
• Letting go of identity attachment as an agency owner to better utilize your team’s skills
• Building an effective training program that helps team members and new employees be more self-sufficient
• The more time off you take, the more money you can make
• The often overlooked downsides of growing and scaling the agency
• Digging deeper to discover why you really want agency growth
• Finding your Minimal Viable Operation for what you need to reach your growth goals

As agency owners, we’re perpetual change-makers, striving to affect real and sustained transformation not just in our clients’ lives, but also in our own. But as we all know, creating transformational, lasting change within the agency can be an uphill battle.

Humans are hardwired to resist change because it can feel unsafe. So when we want to change our day-to-day operations, revise a strategy with a client, or even get a prospective client to say yes to something unfamiliar to them, it can be tough to find a way to get that “yes” we so badly want to hear.

Our guest this week, Tamsen Webster, is an expert in change. She joined me to dive into how we can be more effective in creating transformational change by understanding the principles that guide human behavior. We explore how traditional advice often falls short, leading Tamsen to write her book, which shares effective change strategies into actionable insights for the agency world.

If you’re an agency owner looking for practical advice on how to communicate more effectively and make real, lasting changes — both for your clients and within your own team — you’re in the right place. So, grab a notebook, listen closely, and get ready to start making changes that actually stick.

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 missing link for agency owners in making transformational change
• Why behavioral economics and psychology are harder in business than in interpersonal relationships
• Creating long-term, lasting change over quick fixes
• The “why” behind how people approach change matters
• Why people have to agree with the “why” and the “how” when presenting a change
• We can’t want the change more than they do
• Why pain and stress isn’t a good change motivator for long-term, lasting change
• How to go after a committed yes over a quick yes

Your business should serve your lifestyle — not the other way around. Many agency owners got into the industry because it affords them a lifestyle and freedom most people dream of. But it’s easy to lose sight of that when the business gets overwhelming and we fall into agency owner fatigue.

For this week’s solocast, I want to do a deep dive into one of the ways we help agency owners sort out this fatigue and get back on the right track to achieving their goals and dreams — the agency owner life plan.

This plan is a free tool to help agency owners sit with their goals, dreams, aspirations, and legacies and write them down so they feel more tangible and achievable. These legacies don’t have to be lofty, lifelong goals but can be smaller goals that we can start working toward today.

Whether you have a charity you’d like to work with or just want to focus on spending more time with your family, you can use your agency (along with the agency owner life plan) to help you achieve these goals step by step. So if you’re feeling burnt out, fatigued, or discouraged, this episode will help you sort out your dreams and desires and help you get back to using the agency to fuel your legacies.

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:

• 3 things that drive agency owner fatigue
• Our business should serve our life, not the other way around
• The agency owner life plan
• Finding 5 legacies you want to leave in your lifetime
• Uncovering 3 things you can do this year to start working toward your legacies
• Choosing 5 people you want to spend more time with to help you achieve your goals
• How to use the agency to support you in accomplishing your goals

Agency leaders have some of the most important roles in the agency. They’re key team members supporting the agency owner in the agency’s day-to-day operations and taking on roles that allow the agency owner to focus on business development and other key tasks.

The truth is, it can be a lonely position.

As agency owners, we need to consistently work on being more supportive to these key leaders — whether they’re our COO, creative directors, department heads, account leads, or even the company president.

These positions are mission-critical and will support the long-term growth and success of the agency all the way to its succession. So naturally, it’s our job to create opportunities for growth, career development, and constructive feedback that support our agency leaders to be better at their jobs.

This episode is a great one to sit down with your agency leaders and go through the different points we discuss so you can learn what opportunities you and your agency leaders can create together for their continued growth and development.

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:

• Which agency leader positions typically qualify for leadership peer groups
• Why Del found value in sending his agency leaders to peer groups at least twice per year
• How agency peer groups help agency leaders feel less lonely in their positions
• Why money isn’t always the solution to keeping agency leaders happy
• The value of mentoring and coaching leaders, and how to structure time for it
• How to give your agency leaders more autonomy in their roles
• The importance of workshops, peer groups, and other leadership training opportunities
• Helping your agency leaders grow in their roles within the agency
• How agency leaders want feedback presented to them

Agency owners and leaders are no strangers to proposal writing. But despite our vast experience, there are things we still get wrong, and there is always something we can improve — especially as the industry shifts and changes so quickly.

I got to sit down with Robin Boehler and Emily Shapiro from Mercer Island Group to talk about the often-overlooked pitfalls in our agency proposals. This conversation is a game-changer for anyone looking to level up their agency’s pitch game.

You might even see yourself in some of the examples of what not to do in an agency proposal, cover letter, or bio, but don’t be too hard on yourself. This episode is all about unlearning the bad habits so we can replace them with ones that will get you to that next conversation with a prospect.

Quality over quantity is the name of the game when it comes to winning new business with agency proposals. So, if you’re ready to transform your proposal process and start landing those dream clients, this episode is a must-listen.

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:

• Unintentional errors agencies make that cost them new business opportunities in their proposals
• Framing your proposal as client-centric instead of agency-centric
• Crafting a story with an agency proposal
• How to show a client you’re a good listener
• The most common reasons why clients move on to a new agency
• Using case studies to talk about other clients without going overboard
• Making sure it’s not too hard for prospects to work with you
• What we get wrong about our agency bios
• Misunderstood agency proposal best practices
• The most glaring mistakes we make with our case studies

When I was an agency employee, I admittedly hated being told what to do or how to do it. So naturally, systems and processes really rubbed me the wrong way.

Now, as an agency owner, I’ve learned to embrace the same systems and processes I used to rebel against because I know they help me run my agency better. Despite how constricting they can feel at first, they’re there to help you get a zoomed-out look at how your agency is running and collect data on how to make strategic improvements.

For Misty Larkins, systems and processes have really helped her grow and scale her agency from 4 employees, to just over 20. This week, she’s joining us to share how she and her team started documenting systems and processes from ground zero to get them the well-oiled machine they have today.

Even if you hate the idea of systems and processes, they can really be helpful in the case that you lose a top employee or have someone essential out sick for a month or two. So join us to discover what Misty learned about establishing systems and processes in her agency and how we can do it, 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:

• What it looks like when you have no documentation of systems and processes
• Starting to define your processes from ground zero
• Implementing tools and project management software after establishing a baseline
• Having a person or team take ownership of documentation
• Making changes stick with your team
• Knowing when the established systems and processes are scalable
• Balancing the desire to be creative and innovative with following systems and processes
• Setting expectations about what success looks like in the agency
• Creating an environment for employees to learn and grow

Finding right-fit clients is one of the never-ending juggling acts of agency ownership. We need to keep the pipeline full, but we don’t want to rely only on referrals or say yes to clients who don’t fit our niche or values.

The solution lies in how you build and maintain relationships. Not just any type of relationship — relationships that are aligned with the mission, vision, and values of the agency.

On this week’s episode, Matthew Kimberley shares his expertise in finding right-fit clients through tactics like the Red Velvet Rope Policy, which makes it clear who you are (and aren’t) for. His strategies make it simple to get clear on your right-fit client criteria so you can focus on working only with those who excite you.

As any good agency owner knows, we’re in the relationship business. So Matthew also shares how to nurture relationships with clients and prospects once you dial in on who you want to serve.

This episode serves as a good reminder that even though building and nurturing relationships with right-fit clients might seem like a simple concept, we can always take the opportunity to reevaluate who we want to work with and how to go after them.

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 core tenets of attracting right-fit clients
• Determining who your ideal right-fit client is
• The Red Velvet Rope criteria
• Setting boundaries that make it clear who you are and who you want to work with
• Diversifying your offers to different tiers of clients
• Maintaining and nurturing client and prospect relationships
• Prioritizing who to keep in touch with
• Identifying your outreach network of 90

Every agency should be able to run at 20% profitability on a consistent basis. But as agency owners, sometimes we get in our own way and become the bottleneck to our agency growth.

For this week’s solocast, I’m breaking down the five biggest things agency owners do to stifle their agency’s growth. Whether it’s not being able to get out of the day-to-day operations, or not trusting what your numbers are telling you, these are all things most agency owners encounter at least once while growing and scaling the business.

The good news — you’re not alone. These five issues are very common. The bad news — they can be a tough pill to swallow and difficult to course correct once you realize what’s happening.

This episode will give you a detailed guide to recognizing these common patterns and behaviors for agency owners and what to do to get your agency back on the path to growth and profitability.

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:

• Why doing everything your way won’t work forever
• The impact of this on agency growth and profitability
• The importance of documenting SOPs and systems and processes and updating them regularly
• How to start documenting SOPs if you don’t do this already
• Why serving clients instead of the agency will leave you stuck
• The 3 S’s of growing an agency
• Why you need to listen to what your numbers (AGI) are telling you
• Prioritizing performance-based growth over selling on personality or individual reputation

For many agency owners, sales is a necessary evil. For others, it’s your natural gift, and you look forward to doing it. Either way, you can always benefit from making it easier and better for you.

One of the biggest benefits we cover in today’s episode is shortening the sales cycle. Many agencies struggled with elongated sales cycles last year, but that doesn’t need to become par for the course. Stephen Steers joined me on the podcast to teach us how storytelling in sales is one of the most effective ways to make sales faster and easier.

He shares a ton of nuggets of info from understanding why people buy, why agency owners need to stay in contact with prospects (and how), and how to use storytelling to catch the attention of prospects and keep them interested.

The bottom line is sales doesn’t have to feel icky. By embracing storytelling, you can build trust, forge deeper connections, and get prospects excited to work with 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 founders and agency owners should aim to fire themselves from sales
• The Magnificent 7 reasons why people buy
• Maintaining relationships with prospects throughout the sales cycle
• What is storytelling in sales?
• Unlocking urgency for prospects
• 4 questions to ask yourself before telling a story to a prospect
• Why storytelling is so effective and what we get wrong about it
• Preparing for 3 types of objections from prospects
• The AREA Framework

We’ve spoken before about how podcasting is a great tool for building an audience that sees you as a thought leader. That’s still true, but simply having a podcast is not enough.

To truly be successful in podcasting, you must know how to engage that audience and be worthy of their time. As our guest Tom Weber says, “You don’t have a right to have an audience.”

An audience must be earned.

Tom shared some insights about the importance of knowing who you’re really speaking to. It’s not just about demographics; it’s about understanding your audience’s needs, fears, and desires. We also explored how to build a captivating narrative that engages listeners and how to ask the tough questions that get you honest feedback.

If you want your podcast to engage your audience and make it past the first seven episodes, it’s worth investing the time and effort to make it truly exceptional. Your audience will thank you for it — and more importantly, they’ll keep coming back for 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:

• What podcasters get wrong about marketing their shows
• Respecting the audience’s time commitment that they’re making to you
• The #1 way to promote a podcast
• Why creating a compelling narrative is extremely important in podcasting
• Making your show something people want to listen to
• Getting on your audience’s level
• Don’t put out any content you’re not proud of
• Getting effective input and feedback from your audience
• Starting a conversation with your listeners
• Knowing what your audience wants to hear and learning from them

As agency owners, we’re always looking for ways to improve our business development strategies and stand out in a crowded marketplace. This week, I’m flipping the script and sharing an episode where I was a guest on Susan Quinn’s podcast, Better Experiences by Design.

Susan asks some great questions to help get to the bottom of the two main biz dev strategies modern agencies can count on today — niching and thought leadership.

Doing these two things can transform your agency’s growth trajectory. We cover several key components, including how to leverage thought leadership effectively, why niching down is crucial for agency success, and how to overcome the fear of narrowing your focus.

We also explore common mistakes C-Suite executives make in marketing their own firms, the importance of consistency in business development efforts, and how to identify and attract “right-fit” clients for your agency.

Success in agency biz dev today is about being consistently interesting and relevant to your ideal clients over time. By focusing on your expertise, generously sharing your knowledge, and staying top-of-mind, you’ll be the natural choice when prospects are ready to buy.

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 thought leadership is a critical part of biz dev
• What clients should think about when hiring an agency
• The riches are in the niches — narrowing your focus
• Knowing when you’ve narrowed your niche enough
• Why referrals aren’t the best way to grow your agency
• What does a right-fit client look like?
• Taking advantage of AI as an industry disruptor
• Bettering your best with constant learning

Systems and processes are a tough nut to crack for agency owners, and it’s even more challenging once you get clients involved. Many of us are accidental agency owners who thrive in the chaos and disarray of agency life but know that operating this way will reduce profitability.

This week, we’re sitting down with Xenia Muntean to share her journey of becoming an accidental agency owner and what it taught her about agency systems and processes as she began to build her own workflow software.

We dug into some meaty topics that I know are on your minds: How do we balance creativity with structure? Is it possible to have systems and processes without stifling innovation? We explored how bringing clients into the process earlier — especially for social media work — can lead to faster approvals and better profitability.

Systems and processes can be the bane of most agency owners’ existence. But with the right mindset and tools to get the job done, it can open the door to increased profitability and happier clients.

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:

• Xenia’s journey from accidental agency owner to software entrepreneur
• The importance of balancing creativity with systems and processes in agencies
• How larger agencies involve clients earlier in the content creation process
• The value of getting client buy-in at the concept stage, especially for video content
• Why operating reactively creatives operational debt
• How to customize workflow while still having systems and processes
• AI’s potential to improve operational efficiency in agencies, beyond just content creation
• The challenge and opportunity of embracing AI in agencies
• How to be more systems and processes minded in how we operate

As agency owners, one of the things we fundamentally get wrong in sales is how heavily trust plays a role in the process. We’re selling intangible services and solutions to people with a high price tag, and we expect prospects to trust that we’ll deliver on our promises.

It’s a risky proposition, especially for the ones putting their trust (and wallets) in our hands.

This week, I’m sharing how agency owners can earn and leverage their trust with client referrals to increase sales. When you sit back and watch the sales come in simply because someone knows, likes, and trusts you enough to recommend you to others, it’s a beautiful thing.

I’ll share the four things we need in any sales process: the etiquette of social proof and earning client referrals, and how to ethically become part of a community without becoming a billboard for your agency.

When you earn people’s trust by being genuinely helpful, knowledgeable, and a pleasure to do business with, you won’t have to lift a finger to make a sale.

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.

In This Episode:

• Putting ourselves in the shoes of the buyers
• The role of psychological discomfort and decision fatigue in the buying process
• 4 things we need in any sales process to be successful
• The pros and cons of waiting on referrals
• The etiquette behind social proof and referrals
• What does it mean to belong?
• What it takes to earn someone’s trust enough to earn a referral from them

Agency owners have it tough these days, but we have more control over how hard it is for us than we think. This week, we’re going to talk in-depth about how we can change the course and direction of our business by changing our habits and mindsets.

To help us, we’re talking to Jason Yarusi about creating positive momentum around breaking bad habits, choosing to offload tasks that aren’t propelling us forward, and cutting out unnecessary chaos in our lives.

You might think there’s nothing you can personally change, or maybe you have too many variables that are completely out of your control. You could have a lot of fires popping up during the day that you have to address.

But the good news is we have a lot more say in what happens in our day-to-day than we think. And by taking a few moments to ground yourself in the reality of your situation, you’ll realize that a lot of those big fires aren’t fires at all — or someone else’s fires to put out.

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 near-death experience that changed Jason’s course in life
• Being self-aware in how you’re showing up each day
• Starting the day off with a solid routine that sets you up for success
• Regrounding yourself when things start going off course
• How to recognize you’re not focused on the right parts of your business
• Finding your way out of the day-to-day grind to reach your long-term goals
• Creating positive momentum around changing habits that aren’t serving you
• Where people get stuck in these habit shifts the most
• Writing down 3 things you can do write now to build positive momentum

When you’re stacked against other agencies with the same awards, credentials, and impressive case studies as you, it’s tough to stand out above the rest. But with the right pitch deck, you’re sure to catch the attention of your ideal clients.

This week, Tom Martin is teaching us a few things about crafting the perfect pitch deck that moves beyond just impressing clients, but making them remember you over the rest. You already have their attention just by getting the meeting, but your pitch deck is what will ultimately make you the undeniable choice in the end.

Tom shares his thoughts on strategic repetition, the science behind the pitch deck, and what agencies most often get wrong when building their decks. This episode is packed with tons of golden nuggets and actionable insights about what will make you the most memorable agency in the room.

Stop making easily fixable mistakes that could cost you right-fit clients, and join us to learn everything Tom can teach us about building a better pitch deck.

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 purpose of a pitch deck
• The science behind an effective pitch deck
• What makes us lose our audience while we are presenting
• Agencies have earned the right to be in the room and should act like it
• Taking your client on a journey with you during the pitch
• Why you might want an appendix in your pitch deck
• How to design slides for memorability and information flow
• Getting scientific about strategic repetition
• The most critical part of the pitch deck
• Don’t just show up and throw up