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Build a Better Agency Podcast

Scale and grow your agency with better clients, invested employees, and a stronger bottom line, with Drew McLellan of Agency Management Institute.
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Build a Better Agency Podcast
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All Episodes
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Now displaying: 2015
Episode 12: Growing Your Agency without Growing Pains, with Karl Sakas. 0
Dec 28, 2015

Karl Sakas served as the #2 man in a couple different digital agencies before he created the Marketing Agencies community at Inbound.org, which has over 1,000 agencies in 48 countries. As president of Sakas and Company, Karl advises agencies worldwide about strategy, operations, and leadership.

He also volunteers as a bartender on a 1930’s railroad car. He has recently published a book entitled, “The In Demand Marketing Agency: How to Use Public Speaking to Become an Agency of Choice.”  

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • Why Karl launched Sakas and Company
  • High-growth agencies vs. lifestyle agencies
  • How agency owners can do what they love without getting sucked into the day-to-day client work
  • How to turn a high-growth agency into an asset that can actually be sold
  • Things that get in the way of the growth and scaling of agencies and how to fix them
  • Karl’s Time Bucket Template for improving time management
  • How agency owners looking to sell their agency should spend their time
  • Action steps agency owners can take to put these theories into practice

Recommended books and resources

We’re proud to announce that Hubspot is now the presenting sponsor of the Build A Better Agency podcast! Many thanks to them for their support!

Episode 11: Recognizing Your Role as an Agency Owner, with Trent Dyrsmid. 0
Dec 21, 2015

Before Trent Dyrsmid started a digital agency called Groove, he founded Dyrand Systems, a managed IT service provider that was recognized twice as one of Canada’s PROFIT Magazine’s 100 fastest growing companies. During his 8 years as CEO, Trent was fortunate to have been recognized as one of the Top 40 under 40 business people in Vancouver, B.C.

In addition to overseeing Groove, Trent is also the host of the Bright Ideas podcast, where he regularly publishes interviews with some of today’s brightest entrepreneurs.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • Trent’s journey into entrepreneurship, leaving to become an employee, and his return to being his own boss
  • Why Trent created Bright Ideas and Groove Digital Marketing
  • The importance of creating a business that works within a niche
  • Generating leads through a lead magnet
  • Why you should be targeting leads on Facebook
  • How to make your agency more valuable by creating systems and getting out of the client work
  • What’s next for agency owners that have successfully built the systems that allow them to take a step away from their agency
  • Action steps for putting in place the topics discussed in this episode

Trent Dyrsmid Recommends:

Contact Trent Dyrsmid:

We’re proud to announce that Hubspot is now the presenting sponsor of the Build A Better Agency podcast! Many thanks to them for their support!

Episode 10: Establishing Life and Agency Goals for 2016, with Drew McLellan. 0
Dec 16, 2015

Drew McLellan is the Top Dog at Agency Management Institute. For the past 21 years, he has also owned and operated his own agency. Drew’s unique vantage point as being both an active agency owner and working with 250+ small- to mid-size agencies throughout the year, give him a unique perspective on running an agency today.

AMI works with agency owners by:

  • Leading agency owner peer groups
  • Offering workshops for owners and their leadership teams
  • Offering AE bootcamps
  • Conducting individual agency owner coaching
  • Doing on-site consulting
  • Offering online courses in agency new business and account service

Because he works with those 250+ agencies every year — he has the unique opportunity to see the patterns and the habits (both good and bad) that happen over and over again. He has also written two books and been featured in The New York Times, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Fortune Small Business. The Wall Street Journal called his blog “One of 10 blogs every entrepreneur should read.”

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • Why planning ahead is so important and why your agency can’t ignore it
  • The Agency Owner Life Plan
  • The One Page Business Plan
  • Steps you can take to hold you and your leadership teams accountable on the goals you set together

Documents:

Ways to contact Drew:

We’re proud to announce that Hubspot is now the presenting sponsor of the Build A Better Agency podcast! Many thanks to them for their support!

Episode 9: Understanding Programmatic Buying and Real-Time Bidding, with Jay Friedman. 0
Dec 9, 2015

Jay Friedman is a nationally recognized and accomplished digital media expert, speaker, and author. You will often find him speaking at conferences, writing for lead publications, websites, and books. He recently authored the incredibly well written, information packed 7th edition of “Thirty Days to PAID Digital Media Expertise.” He is, without question, a well-versed expert on digital media and programmatic buying.

In 2006, Jay joined Goodway Group to launch the digital division. Now in 2015, Goodway has more than 200 clients across the country.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • Programmatic buying: what is it?
  • Why programmatic buying is much more effective than traditional ad buying models
  • How to know whether to bring programmatic buying in-house or work with a partner and rules for both options
  • Jay’s action plan for jumping into programmatic
  • Why programmatic partners have to continually educate their agencies
  • The qualities that the agencies that do programmatic well all have in common
  • How agencies can succeed by adapting the Airbnb and the Uber model
  • What agencies need to do to be good partners to their programmatic partners

Websites Jay recommends:

Ways to contact Jay:

We’re proud to announce that Hubspot is now the presenting sponsor of the Build A Better Agency podcast! Many thanks to them for their support!

Episode 8: Making the Shift to Specialization, with Douglas Burdett. 0
Dec 2, 2015

Douglas Burdett is a B2B marketing agency principle. He is a former artillery officer, and his agency, Artillery, helps agencies get found online, convert website traffic into leads, and nurture leads towards a sale. Douglas authors two marketing blogs, Forward Observer and Fire Support, and he hosts The Marketing Book Podcast.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • The importance of niche for creating a market
  • How to run a niche blog that acts as lure for your other services
  • Why buying email addresses is a bad idea
  • Why absolute patience is key whenever you are creating content
  • The Marketing Book Podcast
  • How Douglas automates the promotion of his evergreen content
  • Why Douglas only conducts one podcast interview per week
  • Great productivity software Douglas and his team use
  • Tips and resources for getting your own podcast started

Ways to contact Douglas Burdett:

Douglas Burdett’s Blogs and Podcast:

We’re proud to announce that Hubspot is now the presenting sponsor of the Build A Better Agency podcast! Many thanks to them for their support!

Episode 7: Mentoring your best assets, with Mitch Matthews. 0
Nov 25, 2015

Mitch Matthews is a keynote speaker, a success coach, and a bestselling author. He has an amazing podcast titled Dream, Think, Do. Mitch works with leaders from companies such as NASA, Disney, Booking.com, and more. He is passionate about coaching entrepreneurs and leaders to dream bigger, think better, and do more of the stuff they love.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • Why mentoring your employees is so important
  • Mentorship 2.0: how to structure your mentor/mentee relationships to draw out the best results
  • The dangers of “getting a PhD in mentoring”
  • Mentoring with the CEO vs. CFO model
  • How to equip employees to make decisions
  • The fundamental differences between how we were brought up and how millennials were brought up and how to deal with these differences
  • How to mentor someone who is skilled in areas that you aren’t
  • Mitch’s “Mentor Manager Cheat Sheet”

Book Recommendations:

Ways to Contact Mitch:

We’re proud to announce that Hubspot is now the presenting sponsor of the Build A Better Agency podcast! Many thanks to them for their support!

Episode 6: Legal protection for today’s agency, with Sharon Toerek. 0
Nov 18, 2015

Sharon Toerek is an intellectual and property law attorney. Her national firm, Toerek Law, works with clients all over the country, devoting time to helping creative professionals protect, enforce and monetize their creative assets. Sharon consults with clients on legal issues surrounding copywriting, content protection, licensing of creative content, trademark and brand protection, and more.

She is the former President of the American Ad Federation (AAF) Cleveland and serves on the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4As) Legal Consultant panel.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • The most common legal concerns agencies have
  • The big misperceptions that get agencies into hot water
  • How and why you need to structure agreements with freelancers and clients
  • The Legal and Creative Agency Protection System
  • The big legal issues that are holding agencies back
  • Employees and social media: the policies you need to put in place with your employees to protect your agency
  • Some things you can do at low to no cost to protect your agency legally

Resources Sharon provides:

  • Developed as a result of FAQ’s Sharon was receiving, Agency Legal Protection is a legal toolkit for marketing agencies.

Ways to contact Sharon:

We’re proud to announce that Hubspot is now the presenting sponsor of the Build A Better Agency podcast! Many thanks to them for their support!

Episode 5: Stop Getting in Your Own Way of Scaling and Growing, with Drew McLellan. 0
Nov 11, 2015

Drew McLellan is the Top Dog at Agency Management Institute. He has also owned and operated his own agency over the last 20-years. And all through the year, he straddles the fence of working in his agency and working with 250+ small- to mid-size agencies in a variety of ways.

AMI works with agency owners by:

  • Leading agency owner peer groups
  • Offering workshops for owners and their leadership teams
  • Offering AE bootcamps
  • Conducting individual agency owner coaching
  • Doing on-site consulting
  • Offering online courses in agency new business and account service

Because he works with a lot of agencies every year — he has the unique opportunity to see the patterns and the habits (both good and bad) that happen over and over again. He has also written two books and been featured in The New York Times, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Fortune Small Business. The Wall Street Journal called his blog “One of 10 blogs every entrepreneur should read.”

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • How to know if you are spending too much time on client work
  • Why your agency’s growth suffers when you spend your time on client work
  • The specific areas where you should actually be spending your time

Ways to contact Drew:

We’re proud to announce that Hubspot is now the presenting sponsor of the Build A Better Agency podcast! Many thanks to them for their support!

Episode 4: Clarity trumps persuasion, with Stephen Woessner. 0
Nov 4, 2015

Stephen Woessner is CEO of Predictive ROI and the host of the brilliant Onward Nation podcast. He is the author of two bestselling books, The Small Business Owner’s Handbook to Search Engine Optimization and Increase Online Sales Through Viral Social Networking. His digital marketing insights have been featured in SUCCESS, Forbes, Entrepreneur, The Washington Post, Inc. Magazine and more. His agency blends education in very transparent ways for clients.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • How Stephen’s agency blends education into what they do for their clients
  • How you can charge a premium fee while building trust and proving expertise
  • What needs to be changed to fix the money draining mistakes that are sucking money out of your business
  • Predictive ROI’s scorecard
  • The modern agency ecosphere
  • Data vs. traditional creative: how do you blend them?
  • Why Predictive ROI had to completely rewrite their client contract agreement
  • How their money-back guarantee has helped them retain clients longer
  • Strategies to use to assert your intelligence to clients and earn them money
  • How to combat the fear of criticism

Ways to contact Stephen:

Books:

We’re proud to announce that Hubspot is now the presenting sponsor of the Build A Better Agency podcast! Many thanks to them for their support!

Episode 3: Increasing your New Business Odds, with Peter Levitan. 0
Oct 19, 2015

Peter Levitan builds successful brands, digital technologies, publishing and advertising environments, and highly effective marketing programs for Fortune 500 companies. He has 30 years of experience running Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising Worldwide, his own Portland Agency, and as the CEO of two Internet start-ups.

What you'll learn about in this episode:

  • The major mistakes agencies make in regards to bringing on new business
  • How to create distinction using your website and the reason most agency websites aren’t attractive to clients
  • The ways agencies are doing sales wrong and what can be done about it
  • Specialization vs. generalization: how to specialize and still have fun
  • The kind of research Peter’s agency does that helps them look better than their competition
  • Why you should stop using the term “full-service” if you want to position your agency against your competition
  • They ways many agencies and agency owners are failing when it comes to their content

Recommended books and resources:

Websites (not his):

Books (not his):

Ways to Contact Peter:

We’re proud to announce that Hubspot is now the presenting sponsor of the Build A Better Agency podcast! Many thanks to them for their support!

Episode 2: Retooling and reinventing your agency for the future, with Jason Falls. 0
Oct 19, 2015

Jason Falls is one of the most widely read and respected voices in digital marketing and social media industries today. He leads digital strategy for Elasticity and he also shares his no-nonsense ideas regularly on his own website, www.jasonfalls.com.

He is the author of some great books, including “No Bullshit Social Media” and “The Rebel’s Guide to Email Marketing.”

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • Why social cannot be an upsell
  • The benefits of putting your pride aside, admitting you can’t do everything, and partnering your agency up with other agencies
  • Why you need to be truly honest with yourself about what your agency’s strengths and weaknesses are
  • How to protect your agency when partnering with other agencies
  • How millennials are changing the entire landscape of our world and what we need to do to adapt
  • The action steps you can take to start partnering up with the right agencies

Recommended books and resources:

We’re proud to announce that Hubspot is now the presenting sponsor of the Build A Better Agency podcast! Many thanks to them for their support!

Episode 1: Increasing Client Loyalty, with Scott Monty. 0
Oct 19, 2015

Scott is an international recognized leader in digital communications, digital transformation, social media, and marketing. He is the principal of Scott Monty Strategies where he counsels brands and agencies on strategy, executive communications, influencer management, customer experience, and digital innovations.

He has extensive experience in communications and marketing agencies, including a client base of IBM Healthcare and Life Sciences, Coca-Cola, American Airlines, T-Mobile, GE Software, and more.

He has also authored the widely acclaimed Week in Digital newsletter at ScottMonty.com and is the executive editor and co-host of the Sherlock Holmes website and podcast “I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • What Scott learned about agency/client relationships while working at Ford
  • The qualities in agencies that clients want to keep around
  • The things agencies tend to do that get on clients’ nerves
  • How Scott sells his consulting services by having a side career giving speeches
  • Why understanding humans on a deep level is an important strategy to work on
  • “The Week In Digital”: Scott’s weekly newsletter
  • Scott’s great strategy for getting to the core of ideas

Ways to Contact Scott:

We’re proud to announce that Hubspot is now the presenting sponsor of the Build A Better Agency podcast! Many thanks to them for their support!

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