So many of us hate selling or feeling like we are “being sold to” because it has the old reputation of being manipulative, exploitative, and too pushy. Thanks to the sales tactics of the old days, our sales prospects have walls up before a call or meeting even starts.

When we know the psychology of sales and truly understand how people want to be sold to, that’s where the magic begins. Jeremy Miner, voted in the top 50 best salespeople worldwide, has some knowledge to share with us about approaching the sales process in a way that sets you up for success from the beginning.

Not only can you ditch lengthy sales pitches and pretend to care about the weather in your prospect’s city, but you can also get to the root of their needs much more efficiently and teach them how you fit into that equation. Your prospects win because they learn about their company’s problems, you win because you know how to solve them, and you both win again because fixing those blind spots helps you both make more money. What do you have to lose?

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:

• Jeremy’s first door-to-door sales job
• How to get sales prospects to pull you in rather than you pushing them to make a decision
• Getting to the bottom of your prospect’s problems and figuring out how to solve them
• The least persuasive way to sell
• Leading sales conversations with emotion instead of logic
• The NEPQ approach to sales conversations
• How Covid impacted selling to prospects
• Building a visual gap between where your sales prospects are and where they want to be
• Asking the right questions

This week, I’m using this episode to talk about some questions I get asked a lot, and that is what we offer in AMI memberships. Many of you want to know what our different tiers of memberships include and what other services we offer. If you’re curious about AMI and our membership offerings, this episode is for you.

I will break down what we offer for agency owners and leaders and how you can get involved in the AMI community if you feel compelled to do so. We have a ton of different ways to become a community member, get consulting and one-on-one coaching, access our peer networks, and even get help with succession work.

Our goal is always to help small to mid-size agencies reach their goals and get access to the best network possible. You’re never too small or far away from us to participate, so if you’re feeling compelled to join the community in some way, I’m giving you all the details here today.

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 free resources we always offer agency owners and leaders
• Our workshops, both online and in-person
• Online and onsite consulting with experienced business leaders
• Creating a network of agency leaders with Peer Networks and Virtual Peer Groups
• How we can help in succession planning and coaching new buyers to acquire an agency
• The BABA Summit
• How to get involved if you can’t travel or just want some content from us
• The members-only perks as an add-on to our free content

You need innovative ideas to stand out and be ahead of the curve. We often get caught up in the chaos of day-to-day agency operations and retreat into the comfort zone of doing things the same way we’ve always done them.

Today, we’re talking you out of that way of thinking and giving you an entirely different framework for approaching client projects. Stan Phelps, an author and keynote speaker with prior agency experience, has a whole new way of thinking about client projects and asking the right questions to build out innovative ideas that will keep clients coming back to you for more.

When we make the time, space, and budget to allow our teams to think outside of the box and take more creative risks, we make space for better, more trusting clients who know you’ll hit a home run for them every time.

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:

• Creating innovation through action and insights
• Why we need to be incentivizing our teams and clients to think outside the box
• The IDEA Framework for mapping out innovative ideas
• Sometimes it’s about learning what our clients don’t value
• Using attribute and journey mapping to learn about customers and how they interact with us
• How to start asking your clients the big questions that lead to big ideas
• What to internally evaluate before taking your ideas to a client
• How to infuse innovation into agency operations as an agency leader

Think about some of your favorite brands for just a moment. What aspects of those brands make you feel the most connected to them? Do you ever find yourself talking to your friends or family about a company you love so much because of what they stand for or how they connect with people?

Enter community building as a marketing strategy — the next big thing in brand marketing, according to Mark Schaefer. This week, he will teach us why brands need to hop on this trend as quickly as possible and how agencies can join in on the fun, too.

As business leaders, the best way to reach our audience is to turn that audience into a community and connect with the people who are your biggest advocates. In this episode, we’ll talk about the role of creating emotional connections to your brand, the difference between an audience and a community, how agencies can become leaders in community building for brands, and so much more. Mark will leave you thinking about how your agency can evolve into a thriving community while growing your brand organically.

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:

• Mark’s inspiration for writing his book on the next big brand marketing strategies
• The 3 trends that came together to bring community building to the forefront of brand marketing
• The importance of having an emotional connection with your community
• The major difference between audience and community
• How can agencies begin helping brands with community building?
• Nurturing organic advocacy for your brand
• Perfecting community building in both online and face-to-face interactions
• Some pitfalls to avoid when beginning to dabble in community building
• Can/should agencies create their own communities?

There’s no denying that when the pandemic hit, the workforce changed forever. We experienced some of the most rapid shifts in our economy and lifestyles this century, and we still feel its effects today.

Most notably, our work standards morphed along with how we view leadership and hustle culture. The old ways of working longer hours and devoting yourself to a company to climb your way to the top have dissolved.

This week, Heather McGowan is joining me to talk about the major shifts we’ve recently experienced and will shed some light on how agency owners can adapt to better fit the new roles employees expect leadership to fill. She’ll talk about “The Five Greats” that led to these intense shifts, and four leadership adaptations agency owners should consider making to support the new-age workforce best.

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 Heather accidentally became an expert in human work culture
• “The Five Greats” that collided all at once to shift the workforce
• How to change the mindset around hustle culture and where it still has its place
• Four shifts an agency owner needs to make to align themselves with the current workforce
• Moving from competition to collaboration to motivate your workforce
• Polling your workers and being open to feedback as you make changes
• How agencies are successfully building a remote culture
• What are the new standards of effective leadership today?

If you’re tired of assessing your agency’s project values based on an average hourly rate and having your team constantly updating timesheets, you’ll want to take some notes on this episode. Today’s topic is all about restructuring pricing models to focus more on the scope value rather than an average billable hourly rate.

Our guest, Jonathan Stark, is a former software developer on a mission to rid the world of hourly billing. He’ll teach us to reevaluate the work scopes we’re pitching to prospects and customize it so you can focus on their actual needs rather than what they think they need.

By using this method, you will not only remove the headache of hourly billing but also have better conversations with prospects, establish yourself as a thought leader, and have the potential to increase your profit exponentially — just by changing this small aspect of your sales and discovery calls.

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 and why Jonathan became so passionate about eliminating hourly billing from his agency structure
• Why fixed pricing models based on scope value are both easier and more profitable
• Asking the right questions to get to the bottom of your prospect’s actual needs and weed out bad clients
• Talking about the value of the outcome of the work you’re going to do for clients
• Building proposals with 3 budget options based on a fixed-price value
• How to engage with a prospect to discover what they need and how to price it out
• The pros and cons of changing your pricing strategy
• Productizing some of your services as “off-the-shelf offerings”
• How to implement this strategy as a smaller agency without too much risk

One of the most common traps we fall into as agency owners is making decisions based on our fears. Every day we have to make hard choices, and it’s easy to fall victim to a fear-based narrative when trying to make everyone happy while keeping a business afloat.

But fear not — I have some advice for you that will help you see the bigger picture of where you are likely making fear-based decisions for your agency. This week, my goal is to help you identify the most common fear-based business decisions, understand why this happens almost universally, and learn some tricks to rewire our thinking around these decisions.

As you listen to this episode, take stock of when you’ve made decisions out of fear. Fear of losing a good employee, fear of losing money, fear of missing out on a good project or client — and see if you can find a better approach to tackling even just one of these examples.

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 biggest, worst fear-based decision agency owners often make
• Acknowledging the truths behind our fears and putting action behind them
• Financial decisions (and mistakes) we make when we’re afraid
• How we hand over control to our clients when we’re acting out of fear
• The vital role of client and employee satisfaction surveys
• The psychology behind fear-based decisions
• Why you should step away from a problem and ask for help
• How to rewire our thinking around decisions and get out of the fear narrative

To continue on the sales theme this week, we’ll dissect everything you need to know about winning and retaining right-fit clients, honing in on your agency vertical, and strategizing your agency growth plan.

Our guest, Corey Quinn, has a 25-year track record of extraordinary success as an entrepreneur, sales leader, and CMO for a $150M+ company. Today, he helps B2B SaaS and Agencies grow from 7 figures to 8 by doing less, not more.

In this episode, Corey will share some wisdom from his successful business career to teach us how we, as small agency owners, can implement an effective agency growth plan. He’ll teach us how to keep right-fit clients on our roster and establish a vertical that gets even more customers coming to you for your expertise and fantastic customer service.

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:

• Growth and retention strategies that are applicable to small agencies
• Honing in on your agency growth plan
• The power of niching and word-of-mouth connections
• Leveraging both inbound and outbound sales tactics
• The common mistakes people make when trying to increase sales
• How much time an agency owner should dedicate to biz dev
• Why specializing in specific customers and industries works so well
• 2 or 3 things you need to have exponential growth
• Sales strategies that will have new customers coming to you for work

Sales — the dreaded word that most of us cringe when we think about it. It brings up thoughts of manipulation, forced conversations, and fear of rejection. It’s one of those necessary evils that come with being a business owner that’s essential if you want to keep growing.

For many of us, we fear hearing the word “no.” Once it’s out there, we drop the conversation, take the loss, and move on. But if you want to sell effectively AND create a pleasant sales experience for yourself and your prospects, you must rethink your sales strategy.

Today, I’m talking with Richard Fenton, a seasoned expert in all things sales prospecting, selling styles, and getting to the other side of the “no.” It didn’t always come naturally to him, but after a long time in the business, he’s learned that an initial rejection can be a huge win later in the sales process.
Whether you like sales or not, you have to get better at it to keep new clients coming through the door. So join us to learn how you can rethink your sales process and become a better salesperson, even if it doesn’t come naturally.

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:

• Richard’s “aha” moment that made him rethink sales forever
• Why “no” isn’t the end of the sales process
• The four types of salespeople and the one we should all strive to be
• The intersection of caring about relationships and caring about results
• Why you need to ask better questions in the sale process
• Getting a prospect to know, like, and trust you
• Staying in touch even after an initial rejection
• The reason sales has gained such a bad reputation
• How to sell without being manipulative or shark-like

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

With agency ownership comes big ideas, a lot of creative energy, and infinite passion for your work. Chances are you have a million ideas floating around your head with nowhere to put them. Why not compile them into a book?

We’ve talked about why creative thought leadership matters for finding right-fit clients and aids in biz dev for your agency. This week, I’m bringing back Henry DeVries to discuss finally putting all those ideas into action and writing your book.

We have a fun episode planned today with tons of advice for creating the blueprint for your book, how to finally get started with writing (and get help doing it), and some of the common roadblocks we create for ourselves when it’s time to finally go to the printer.

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:

• Building the blueprint of your book
• 7 questions to answer when creating the book outline
• Why writing is a team sport
• How to solo write a book in a way that’s manageable (if you choose to go it alone)
• The best approach to co-authoring a book
• Discovering your hidden assets and turning them into content
• The roadblocks we create for ourselves in the final stages of publishing

Business development will always be necessary for keeping your agency alive. Many agencies are great at marketing for clients but historically fall flat when it’s time to market themselves to prospects.

Peter Levitan knows this very well and has some tips to share to help us get creative about our agencies and prospecting for them. Whether aggressively pursuing a dream client or breaking into thought leadership, Peter knows the ins and outs of getting your agency’s name out there to just about anyone.

Tune into this episode to learn Peter’s business development expertise, hear his thoughts on thought leadership and writing, and see what’s on the horizon for agencies going into 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:

• Peter’s strong background in business development and agency consulting
• The top 3 ways to get more business and keep it
• The importance of standing out from the crowd when marketing your agency
• How to do direct marketing
• Fresh and new topics that your agency can write about
• Dabbling in thought leadership
• What’s on the horizon in 2023?
• Being aggressive and persistent with agency goals without overloading the team

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

• The reason why timesheets matter for more than just hours worked
• Why timesheets should be done every single day
• How to start talking to your team about daily time tracking
• Incentivizing the team to track time consistently
• Holding the team — and yourself — accountable
• The psychology behind my time-tracking accountability method
• How to use the data that daily time tracking gives you

Weary is a great word to describe a lot of agency leaders right now. It comes up again and again that we’re just tired, overworked, and running on fumes. It’s not our fault, but there are things we can do to get back to feeling a little more balanced and less like we’re about to snap.

I brought Jeff Salzenstein on this week to teach us some good habits that we can work on little by little to improve our personal lives and help us be better agency leaders. As a former tennis pro, he knows what it’s like to be under pressure and have people counting on you to perform at your peak at all times.

We’ll talk about how he made the difficult decision to move from playing tennis to doing leadership coaching. He’ll cover everything he knows about getting your mental, emotional, and physical health to its optimal level so that you can show up as your best self for the people counting on you the most.

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 to stay strong and committed in the face of challenges
• Navigating the weariness that comes with agency leadership
• Shifting a negative mindset into a positive one
• Focused breathing as an effective technique to recenter yourself
• The importance of good sleep for good leadership
• How incremental changes create significant shifts in our lives
• The importance of having well-rounded emotional health

If you’ve ever been in a situation where you’re thinking, “I’m doing too much,” or “I don’t have time to be creative anymore,” get comfortable because this episode is for you. Today, we’re talking about optimizing your agency workflow through outsourcing and hiring so that you can get your hands out of everything and get back to doing more of the work you love.

Manish Dudharejia of E2M Solutions is an expert in white-label outsourcing, agency workflow optimization, and hiring the right people to do the tasks you don’t need to be completing. In this episode, we’ll discuss what a white-label agency is and the value it can bring you, how to find the right mix of experience and trainability in new hires, project management, niching, and why you must find more free time as an agency owner.

Don’t be an obstacle to your growth. Instead, outsource and hire people who want to scale with you. You’ll quickly find that your time finally becomes yours again.

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 agency owners are frequently stretched too thin
• The right combination of experience, value, and trainability to look for in new hires
• What can white-label outsourcing do to ease your workload?
• The importance of having solid processes and workflows
• Why niching matters when scaling your agency
• The do’s and don’ts of niching and scaling
• Why you should be obsessed with freeing up your own time

Marketing agency culture is constantly changing, but adapting the best we can is important. And one of the most important ways we need to be adaptable is by identifying where we can bring more diversity and new perspectives into our company culture.

Sometimes when you’re sitting in the boss’s chair, there can be a disconnect between knowing what your people want and need and seeing who might be missing from the room altogether. This is where this week’s guest, Farzana Nayani, comes in to save the day. She has over 20 years of DEI work experience and knows how to get straight to the core of what employees want from their employers.

In this episode, we’ll talk about how to create safe environments for everyone, communicate that you’re open to having tough conversations around diversity, equity, and inclusion, quiet quitting and labor hoarding, and how to set boundaries around polarizing topics in the workplace.

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 employee resource groups are beneficial to employees
• How DEI work has changed since Farzana began this work
• What can we do as business owners to create a safe environment?
• How to communicate that you’re open to difficult conversations around differences
• How to learn more about our employees without creating more discomfort
• How to invite more diversity into your agency culture
• The rise of quiet quitting and labor hoarding
• How to avoid polarization around politics in the workplace

Creating content and having a content marketing strategy have become the bread and butter of marketing agencies, and we have the research to prove it. In fact, many agencies are now saying that 75% of their revenue is coming from content.

This week, I’m talking with Steve Pockross and Ryan Sargent of Verblio to go over some interesting research they did about content creation, content ROI, what types of content they create, and more. This episode is packed with information that will hopefully give you some valuable insights into why having a good content marketing strategy is so important these days.

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:

• Steve and Ryan’s key takeaways from Verblio’s research on content marketing strategy
• Why it’s okay to outsource content creation
• The shocking ROI of content marketing
• How to sell clients on the value of content
• The challenges of creating good content
• The importance of finding subject matter experts
• What types of content are the best to reach an audience
• Why clients are more willing to pay more for high-quality content

For 2021 and 2022, we’ve been in a job seeker’s market where potential employees have more power to make demands. But now, this period is cooling off as we head into a recession. This means you should be able to find good talent for less money and with fewer demands.

We know it’s hard to compete with big corporations for what we can offer, but many people choose to work with agencies because they’re unique and go against the corporate grain. So once you have your star employees, how do you keep them around? This solocast, I’m focusing on how to invest in employee retention, particularly for your star players.
This episode will cover three key areas where you can get creative in making your team feel valued and how to implement them in meaningful ways. It’s time to put your money where your mouth is and show your team that they matter — because that’s almost half of the employee retention recipe. Stick around for the full episode to learn the rest!

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 biggest challenge for agency owners in 2021 and 2022
• How to creatively compete with big corporations in your employee compensation
• Why it’s so important to invest in your employees’ career growth
• What star players look for when choosing to work with an agency
• Developing a greater purpose for the work you do
• Why your employees care more than just money
• How caring more will make your team stick around longer

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