In the last solocast, we reviewed the agency trends that most affected agency AGI in 2023. This week, we’re pulling back the curtain on the major trends rocking agency owners and their teams in 2024 — and giving you tips to stay ahead of them.
We’ll give you a reality check on misguided expectations around agency valuations and sales. And we’ll explore why daily timesheets and utilization metrics are so crucial for retaining your rock star team members.
Another big trend we unpack is moving back towards more in-office collaboration and nurturing agency employee fatigue through meaningful face time, employee retreats, and using in-office time more intentionally.
If you want to stay ahead of the curve and proactively build your agency’s future, don’t miss this deeper look at the key trends shaping the industry this year and beyond. And to catch up on all the other trends we unpacked, be sure to check out Part 1 from last month’s solocast.
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 COO role is becoming increasingly popular, even with smaller agencies
- Making the right decisions around selling your agency — or buying another one
- Why taking a smaller salary as an agency owner isn’t always better
- Hybrid work trends for agency owners and employees
- How contractors and freelancers can fill in worker gaps
- The continuing importance of keeping accurate daily timesheets
- What helps reduce agency employee fatigue and what’s causing it
- What agency owners are going to spend time and money on in 2024
Every year, we go out into the field to understand the biggest pain points and priorities for both agencies and clients. This year, we took data from the 2024, 2019, and 2014 Agency Edge Research studies to compare how client expectations have changed over the years.
This year, the burning issue was client-agency trust — what clients look for in an agency, how an agency can retain clients, and what causes a client to look elsewhere for another agency.
To help make sense of all the changes, Susan Baier from Audience Audit joins us to discuss what agencies can do and are already doing to impress clients. We’ll break down the three distinct client segments that emerged, their unique attitudes towards agencies, and what factors drive their decision to hire or fire an agency partner. We also discuss how to position your agency for better alignment with client priorities.
If you’re looking to learn how to better position yourself to win and retain more clients in 2024 and beyond, don’t miss our deep dive into the data to gain a competitive edge 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:
- What clients think agencies do really well
- Changes in client-agency expectations over the years
- Agency advocates, begrudging buyers, and exacting experts
- How attitudes have changed toward having a trusted agency partner
- Why agencies are having more in-house staff than before
- What agency management fatigue has done to change client-agency relationships
- What does agency trust look like to clients?
- Do clients want an agency with a niche, or generalists?
- What makes an agency a poor fit for a client
- How client-agency trust can push a client to look for a new agency
The FTC has recently passed regulations against non-compete clauses on a federal level in all work contracts. Starting in the fall of 2024, agencies will have new rules to comply with regarding their employees and independent contractors.
This will be a big shake-up for many agency owners, but luckily, Sharon Toerek is always by our side to walk us through any new legal requirements that hit us unexpectedly. In this episode, she covers a lot of ground on how agency owners can comply with the new FTC non-compete rules for both employees and independent contractors.
We cover the difference between non-competes and non-solicitation agreements, how agency owners can prepare to announce these changes to their workers, and how we can still legally protect our IP and client relationships.
Sharon stresses that the quicker we start working on compliance, the better prepared we’ll be for when this goes into effect in a few months. So don’t delay — tune in to learn how this affects your agency and how to get ahead on compliance over the summer.
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 covenants are still legal under the FTC non-compete ruling?
- What agency owners need to do to be compliant
- How these changes will affect your freelancers and independent contractors
- How to protect yourself if you’re selling your business
- Non-solicitation agreements vs. non-compete clauses
- Is the US ahead of or behind the times on this?
- How soon agency owners need to prepare new contracts or to announce the changes to employees
- Making sure your independent contractors are actually independent contractors
- The consequences of misclassifying employees as independent contractors
Agency owners who want to scale their business often run into a chicken-and-egg situation. To scale and grow sustainably, you need to hire more people. But to be able to hire more people, you need to scale and grow to have the money to do so.
This is where hiring international employees can help solve your problems.
This week, we’re diving into the growing trend of hiring full-time international employees with Kim Walker. Kim and her husband Brian initially had reservations about hiring international workers for their agency but quickly realized the immense benefits to them and the people they were hiring.
Kim details her thorough hiring process, how she overcame cultural barriers, the amazing talent and value international hires bring, and the life-changing impact it has had on their agency. We also touch on common concerns like pay rates, taxes, benefits, and time zones.
Whether you’re struggling to find affordable talent locally or just want to build a dynamic, multinational team, this episode is a mini crash course in finding incredible international employees to help supplement your U.S. team.
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 Kim and her husband got the idea to hire international employees
- How they started the process of finding international talent
- The worries they encountered when making their first international hire
- Average pay for international employees in the Philippines
- What they learned about hiring foreign workers
- How the hiring process differs from stateside interviews
- The secret lies in strong core values
- Weaving different cultures into the agency’s culture
- Taxes and benefits for foreign workers
- The mistakes they made and what they learned from them