Andy Crestodina is a co-founder and the Strategic Director of Orbit Media, an award-winning 38-person web design company in Chicago.
Over the past 15 years, Andy has provided web strategy and advice to more than a thousand businesses. As a top-rated speaker at national conferences and as a writer for many of the biggest blogs, Andy has dedicated himself to the teaching of marketing.
Andy has written hundreds of articles, many of which have been published on the top marketing blogs and media websites. Favorite topics include content strategy, search engine optimization, social media and Analytics.
Andy was named to Forbes Top 10 Online Marketing Experts to Watch in 2015 and Entrepreneur Magazine Top 50 Marketing Influencer in 2016, and is a mentor at 1871, the #1 incubator in the US.
He is also the author of “Content Chemistry: The Illustrated Handbook for Content Marketing.”
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- Why Andy started his web design company and how it’s evolved since then
- Doing important tasks before urgent tasks
- Why you need to write your content marketing mission statement
- Why delegating is so crucial (and why Andy hired a boss for himself)
- Why you don’t need to publish every week
- Why you should publish answers to questions you get frequently instead of constantly writing emails with similar content
- Measuring the performance of content
- How to construct your content so that it will perform
- “Content Chemistry”: Andy’s book about how to repurpose content
- Building your website with what people are searching for in mind
- Winning the SEO battle and turning visitors into leads
- Steps agencies can take right now to improve their content to convert more leads
Ways to Contact Andy Crestodina:
- Blog: www.orbitmedia.com/blog
- Book: "Content Chemistry: The Illustrated Handbook for Content Marketing"
- LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/andycrestodina
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!
A leader of such national accounts as Home Shopping Network, The Disney Channel, CitiFinancial, and Papa John’s Pizza as the founder and sole principal of $110 million Atlanta-based Fricks/Firestone agency, John Fricks is focused on the same kind of growth at AntonWest. In the seven year transition from Fricks/Firestone in Atlanta to AntonWest in Jacksonville, he consulted with CEOs of major corporations and agency owners all over the country.
John Fricks believes the key to problem solving is listening to clients describe their challenges so the agency can creatively advance a solution through its full arsenal of resources digital, broadcast, print, and public relations. He will tell you that the proximity to navigable water was not part of the lure to Jacksonville, but you are sure to find him relaxing by a dock when not behind his desk.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- How John managed to get huge accounts at his small agency (Fricks/Firestone)
- How to appeal to a CEO’s insecurities
- What John does at his new agency AntonWest
- Why agencies need to get involved in all areas of their client’s business, not just the advertising
- Staying up to date on new technology and ideas
- Having great relationships with vendors that make them feel part of the business
- How to recruit and retain top talent
- What a culture must have to be truly collaborative
- How to position your agency in the marketplace
- How account people can gain the trust of their creatives
- Why it’s important to allow your employees to fail (when trying)
- What agency CEOs need to be focusing on today
Ways to Contact John Fricks:
- Website: antonwest.com
- Email: jafricks@antonwest.com
- Phone: (904)701-4140
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!
Joe Calloway has been speaking to business audiences for about 30 years. He’s written seven books, including the just released “Keep It Simple.” He has served as the first Executive In Residence for Belmont University's Center For Entrepreneurship, and he invests in and advises start-up companies, including Gilson Boards, a snowboard manufacturing company. Joe is an active investor in a real estate development group with current projects in Louisville, Nashville, and Chattanooga. He lives in Nashville with his wife, Annette, and our daughters, Jessica, and Cate.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- Why Joe wrote “Keep It Simple” and how it’s different from his other books
- What all effective leaders have in common
- What your vision/mission statement should sound like
- Why you need to follow Warren Buffett's advice and say no to almost everything
- The Gold Standard: doing what you say you will do, the way you said you will do it, when you said you would do it
- Why you have to set the example inside your business
- Why you can’t get stuck doing what used to work
- Being better tomorrow than you are today
- Why you need to be so good at the basics that you are cutting edge
- Why you need to work on the relationships with everyone you work with
- Being your authentic self and believing in yourself
- Why -- whatever happens -- that’s normal
- Improving upon your strengths
- Why your success is dictated by your culture
- Why you need to get clear on the three things you need to get right
Ways to Contact Joe Calloway:
- Website: joecalloway.com
- New book: "Keep It Simple: Unclutter Your Mind to Uncomplicate Your Life"
- All books: joecalloway.com/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!
Part "idea whisperer," part message strategist, and part presentation coach, Tamsen Webster helps people and organizations like Verizon, State Street Bank, Ericsson, Johnson & Johnson, and Disney find and communicate the power of their ideas. She is the Executive Producer of TEDxCambridge, one of the oldest and largest locally organized TED talk events in the world. She is also Executive Communications Coach with Oratium, a messaging consultancy. In former lives, she worked in both agencies and at nonprofits heading up brand, marketing, and fundraising communication strategy, along with a brief but enduring turn as a change management consultant. She’s also a retired Weight Watchers leader and an accidental marathoner.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- Why speaking is the best tool for convincing someone that your agency is the best agency for them
- Why you need to make your speeches about your audience and not about you
- Mistakes that agencies make in pitches all the time
- How to structure your new business presentations so that you win the business
- Why you want people to remember the one big idea of your presentation -- not specific tactics
- How to develop a thought leadership presentation
- Why niched presentations are a lot more effective than broad ones
- “Why,” “what now,” and “how” talks: what’s different about these kind of presentations
- How to structure a talk when you are given a general topic that you have to speak on
- Why you should stop before the sell when you’re presenting to gain awareness for your business
- Why creating an event is a great way to get good at speaking
- How to find other speaking engagements
- Why you need to grab testimonials from speaking engagements and video of your speeches
- How to unravel a failed speech to make sure it works in the future
Ways to Contact Tamsen Webster:
- Website: tamsenwebster.com
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!
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 I absolutely believe Jim Rohn’s famous adage that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with
- Why you should go back and take a look at the one page life plan I outlined in episode 10
- Spending time with the people who inspire you to commit to excellence in every aspect of your life
- Spending time with the people you learn from that challenge you to think in different ways
- Spending time with people that you can teach
- Hanging out with people who see you more clearly than you see yourself
- Spending time with people who will call you out when you need to be called out
- Having people in your life that make you push harder than you would on your own
- Spending time with the people that fill you with joy
Ways to contact Drew McLellan:
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!
Phil Gerbyshak is a speaker and a trainer, who delivers programs on the power of technology, social selling and connection. With a unique speaking style—part technology and sales expert, part entertainer—Phil keeps his audiences awake and engaged while providing micro-tactics to help you get more leads, earn referrals, and improve your business. When he’s not traveling, speaking, or making new connections, Phil writes. He’s published 5 books, including "10 Ways to Make It Great" and "#TwitterWorks," more than 2,500 articles, and has been interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Financial Times, and more.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- Social selling: getting people to convert for you
- Making a connection with someone online (this isn’t a follow or a like)
- Why keyword targeting isn’t necessarily the best path to success
- Why Phil actively connects people he thinks should know about each other
- How Phil uses LinkedIn as a powerful sales and research tool
- Why you have to share content that isn’t your own
- Why you should congratulate your competition -- and why you need to be genuine about it
- Phil’s strategy for creating content people need and starting conversations
- Cultivating and leveraging testimonials
- How to use your pinned post wisely
- Things you can do right now to start putting into practice the ideas from this episode
- Phil’s podcast “Conversations with Phil”
Ways to Contact Phil Gerbyshak:
- Website: www.philgerbyshak.com
- Podcast: conversationswithphil.com
- Twitter: @PhilGerb
- Email: phil@philgerbyshak.com
- Text: (414) 640-7445
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!
Kris Hoet has a broad experience on both the client and agency side and brings a unique perspective to his work at the crossover of creativity and technology. His passion for technology and how to translate that into change and impact first came through when he was working as a client enabling better connections with consumers by building some of the first online cinema experiences in the late 90s and kickstarting some of Microsoft's first influencer marketing activities in the early 2000s.
Currently Kris is heading up the innovation initiatives at Happiness, an agency he co-founded, a role he also fulfills for the global FCB network to which Happiness belongs. Before joining Happiness, Kris was part of the management team at Duval Guillaume responsible for some advertising classics such as TNT's Push to add drama & Carlsbergs Bikers. During his time there the agency became Digital Agency of the Year twice and following that was elected Agency of the Year for three consecutive years.
Kris is also a renowned speaker at international marketing conferences. He was one of the Advocates of the TED Ads Worth Spreading program and is still a curator of All Gunns Blazing, a selection of some of the most innovative worldwide creative work of the famed Gunn Report.
He is an avid mountain biker and a self-proclaimed petrolhead with a special love for vintage cars.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- Why Kris made the jump to the agency side -- and why he started his own agency
- Innovation initiatives and driving change in every aspect of a company
- Why small changes across a company are better than one big change
- Getting ideas for change from other industries
- Some feeds that Kris follows to get inspiration
- Finding the time to focus on innovation and learning for learning's sake while also running a client-driven profitable business
- Why everybody needs to be involved in an initiative
- Working in a messy way with these innovation initiatives and why that demands more trust between agency and client
- Why you can do this with your employees you have (if they’re actual good employees)
- How to inspire your team to want to innovate
- How to get innovation started
Ways to Contact Kris Hoet:
- Twitter: @krishoet
- Newsletter: crossthebreeze.com/warped
- Company Twitter: @hppnssanywhere
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!
Chris Wilson is the Founder and Chief Client Advocate of Function Point Productivity Software Inc.
As the company’s leader, Chris wants to create the world's leading digital tools for managing the day to day hassle of running a professional service firm. Chris’ focus is on creating a place, a team and a culture where the best creators, communicators and collaborators can grow.
Chris has an extensive understanding of the operation, management and workflow processes of Design studios, Advertising agencies and Architectural firms, with experience assisting thousands of firms in standardizing their business of design.
Chris holds a Bachelor of Commerce with a major in Service Industries.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- The typical reasons that agencies decide they need to get better systems in place
- What Chris’ company Function Point does
- Mistakes that agencies make when it comes to starting to think about workflow and using a tool like Function Point
- How to figure out if your workflow process needs improving
- Why workflow allows people to put their brain flow in the right place
- Why systems have to be easy to use
- Why timesheets are absolutely necessary and why agency owners can’t be exempt from them
- Warning signs that your workflow needs improvement
- Making sure you have strong creative briefs
- Steps that you can take right now
Ways to Contact Chris Wilson:
- Website: www.functionpoint.com
- LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/groups/3802657
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/functionpoint
- Twitter: @functionpoint
- Email: chris@functionpoint.com
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!
Daniel Lemin, the founder of One Good Brand, is a digital reputation and online marketing veteran with deep agency and digital brand strategy experience. He was employee no. 400 at Google where he served on the global corporate marketing and communications team. He is the author of “Manipurated,” an Amazon bestseller, that exposes the inner workings of online review sites. Daniel also serves as the head of consulting for Jay Baer’s Convince & Convert consulting group, where he provides digital marketing and customer experience counsel to global brands and organizations including the United Nations (Food & Agriculture Organization), Best Buy, Petco, BMC Software, Telogis and Pella Windows and Doors. He’s been seen in the New York Times, USA Today and on Fox News, CBS Radio and many other news outlets.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- Why online reputation work is such a great opportunity for agencies
- How Daniel got into online reputation work and how came to write “Manipurated”
- What makes this kind of work more profitable for agencies than SEO work
- Tools that are great for this kind of work
- Why every person inside an agency needs to be good at this -- and why Daniel advises against having a dedicated team that does only this kind of work
- How agencies can price this kind of work out
- What agencies can do to get B2B clients that aren’t as concerned about reviews as B2C businesses like restaurants to understand the importance of this kind of work
- Why agencies need to be aware of their own reviews (typically from employees)
- What agencies that have bad reviews can do to improve that
- Why negative reviews on social media are more urgent and need to be acted on quickly
- How agencies can structure this out in terms of packages to offer clients
- The Snapchat-like video reviews that are coming soon
- What agencies can do right now to start doing this kind of work
- Some resources to help with this
Ways to Contact Daniel Lemin:
- Website: www.manipurated.com
- Twitter: @daniellemin
- Email: daniel@manipurated.com
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!
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 the speed of change is the new normal and why you have to embrace that
- How what agencies sell has changed from the Mad Men days to today
- Why you need to tie marketing, sales, and customer service together to be a great agency in 2016
- Why data analysis is more important than it ever has been
- Leads, sales, and retention: why you need to focus on these at a much higher level if you want to keep charging a premium price
- The importance of making real time decisions and adapting based on data
- Why we need to work with clients who may be resistant to experimentation
- How to assess if your agency is up to par on these ideas, and what to do about it if the answer is no
Ways to contact Drew McLellan:
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!
Andrew Dymski is a co-founder of DoInbound, a process and project management platform for inbound marketing agencies and GuavaBox, an inbound marketing agency. He is a lacrosse coach on the side and loves doing almost anything outside. He is also the co-host of Inbound Agency Journey, a weekly podcast for agency pros.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- How Andrew and his business partner Gray MacKenzie started their agency while they were still in college and the transformation that GuavaBox has overwent since then
- How Michael Gerber’s “The E Myth” transformed how Andrew’s agency was ran
- Using blogging as a method for separating yourself
- Why clients will leave if communication is poor -- even when you’re doing great work
- DoInbound: a tool for creating templates that power the delivery of services just for inbound marketing agencies
- How creating DoInbound has helped the way Andrew works with his clients
- Why you need to figure out your vision and share that with your core team
- Listing and pruning your agency’s list of deliverables
- How to create processes with your employees and get them to actually follow the processes created
- How many processes are too many processes?
- Why you need multiple iterations of processes
- What meetings about processes with your employees should look like
- What you can do right now to put some of the ideas from this episode in place without freaking out your team
Ways to Contact Andrew Dymski:
- Podcast: www.doinbound.com/podcast
- Twitter: @AndrewJDymski
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!
Greg Verdino is a highly regarded authority on “the digital now.” He is known for his uncanny ability to get ahead of trends, spot the difference between fads and the future, and apply his understanding of the rapidly changing global landscape to solve pressing business challenges.
Greg’s perspectives have been shaped by more than 25 years spent working at the forefront of change, during which time he has advised hundreds of organizations including more than 50 of the Fortune 500; has served in senior leadership positions at a half-dozen technology start-ups; and has launched innovative products, lines of business, and divisions from within traditional companies. Through his work speaking, writing and consulting on digital strategy, transformation and innovation, he helps business leaders build thriving 21st century companies.
Greg is also managing partner and chief strategist at VERDINO & CO, the consultancy he started with his wife to help companies create the content-driven digital experiences their customers demand.
Before VERDINO & CO, he was Executive Vice President at social business firm Dachis Group, where he worked with clients including BIC, Citibank, Fidelity, GE, Michaels Stores, Nestle and others to formulate and execute best-in-class digital strategies. He joined Dachis Group (now Sprinklr) through its acquisition of crayon, the social media consultancy at which he served as Chief Strategy Officer and in which he was the second largest shareholder. Previously he was digital strategist and head of emerging channels for Digitas, and served in media, marketing, sales and general management roles at ROO Group (now Piksel), Akamai Technologies, Arbitron, Wunderman, and Saatchi & Saatchi.
Greg is the author of microMARKETING: Get Big Results by Thinking and Acting Small (McGraw-Hill, 2010), and a contributing author to Reinventing Interactive and Direct Marketing (ed. Stan Rapp, McGraw-Hill, 2009). Throughout his career, he has served as a go-to expert for a wide range of media outlets including Advertising Age, Bloomberg Business, CNN, Cablevision News12, Fox Business, Investor’s Business Daily, the New York Times, Newsday, and the Wall Street Journal. He has given speeches, led panel discussions and facilitated workshops at more than 100 corporate and association events throughout North America, in Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa.
He lives on Long Island with his wife, tween daughter, baby boy, and the world’s most disobedient cat.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- What has changed since the beginning days of when agencies began to do social
- Why content needs to expand past “content marketing” and must be infused into every single interaction inside and outside your organization
- How to help clients understand the value of content
- The importance of analytics and content metrics that Greg uses with clients
- Why Greg and his wife decided to go it on their own instead of taking positions inside other agencies
- How Greg differentiates his agency from other agencies
- How Greg has been able to recognize trends that matter and ignore the ones that fade
- Tips and tricks for getting everything done that you want as an agency owner
- The shift from pipeline business to platform businesses
- Why it’s so important for agency leaders to stay on top of trends
- Why small agencies are often the best at adapting to change
- The rules that agency owners should never break
Ways to Contact Greg Verdino:
- Twitter: @gregverdino
- LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/gregverdino
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/gregverdino
- Personal website: www.gregverdino.com
- Agency website: www.verdino.co
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!
Henry Corona graduated from Grinnell College in Iowa, moved to Los Angeles, and earned an MA in Economics from UCLA. He worked as an Economist for the Rand Corporation, and while at Rand, Henry earned an MBA in Finance & Marketing from USC. Upon graduating, he joined the M&A department of a conglomerate.
He went to work for Lucasfilm Ltd. in various financial management positions during the first Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark film series. His experience included cash and investment management, comptroller for profit sharing, merchandising, publishing and music. Following Lucasfilm, Henry worked in various film and entertainment companies including 20th Century Fox and New Line Cinema.
He went into the Advertising business by working for Dave Martin, founder of the Martin Agency, and has worked in financial and transactional management in marketing, advertising, communications technology ever since. His experience in marketing communications has included mergers & acquisitions, business valuation, and serving as CFO for ad agencies, tech start-ups, film and video production companies, and other communication technology businesses.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- Henry’s transition from the film business to the advertising business
- Mistakes agency owners make that hinder their ability to sell their agencies
- Where agencies need to be investing
- Why tracking hours is critically important
- What to do about employees that cost your agency money
- Why your agency should have a profit sharing system
- AGI numbers you need to know
- What diminishes the value of an agency
- Charging brain surgeon prices vs. charging nurse prices
- Training clients so they don’t feel like they’re getting the “B Team”
- What agency owners can do right now to improve on the ideas from this episode
Ways to Contact Henry Corona:
- Phone: (305)748-0888
- Email: henry@financesur.com
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![/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
Tom Schwab knows how to grow a business online using content as fuel. Marketing at its heart is starting a conversation with someone who could be an ideal customer. Tom's company, Interview Valet, partners with agencies to get their clients featured on leading podcasts their prospects are already listening to. This provides traffic that has been shown to convert 25 times better than blogs.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- Why podcasting is so relevant today
- The benefit of being a podcast guest
- How Tom’s clients are able to sell being on podcasts to their own clients
- Benefits of podcasting over other forms of content
- Why podcast traffic converts higher than blogs
- Message, market, and machine: what you need to have a successful podcast interview
- What you (or your clients) need to be a great podcast guest
- Why you need to bring a giveaway when you are a guest on a podcast
- What not to do when you are a guest on a podcast
- Is it appropriate to suggest questions to your podcast host?
- How Tom helps agencies look good
- The podcasting niches that Tom focuses on
- Things you can do right now to put these ideas in place
Ways to Contact Tom Schwab:
- Freebies: interviewvalet.com/BetterAgency
- Email: tom@interviewvalet.com
- LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/thomasmschwab
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!
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 about 70% of your new revenue should come from existing clients
- How to teach your AE’s to grow the business that they’re serving Strategies for you the business owner to focus on new business
- The four areas of the sales funnel and how to work with all four
- The system for reaching out to your 25 best prospects
Ways to contact Drew McLellan:
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!
Dr. Anthony Paustian was given a rare opportunity in life to create and design a technology-focused college campus from scratch. That was fifteen years ago. Since then the campus and its innovative advances in technology-based instruction have appeared on CNN, CNBC, Wired, USA Today, NPR and other national media and won numerous awards for leadership in innovation including being featured on the InfoWorld 100 List (#51) of the nation's most innovative organizations.
In 2006, Anthony created the Celebrate! Innovation Exhibition; a new type of campus learning environment where students are surrounded by the stories of great innovators through larger-than-life visuals, technology-focused exhibits, and through an annual Celebrate! Innovation Week (ciWeek) where the people behind the stories come from all over the world to tell those stories firsthand. The Celebrate! Innovation Exhibition is currently on the Iowa Department of Tourism's list of places to visit.
From his Air Force days on F-111s to building national brands to coaching a very talented group of educators, Anthony has developed a unique skill set that is quickly apparent in every aspect of his life as a leader, educator, entrepreneur, inventor, designer, author and speaker.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- Why Anthony decided to become an author and a coach
- What keeps someone that wants to write a book from actually doing it
- How to get past the thought that your book won’t be valuable enough
- The process for getting a book from your head and into an actual book
- How to turn your blog into a book
- How to successfully proof your writing
- Why you need to speak about the topics you write about
- What the editing process is like once your book is in the hands of an editor
- What you need to have for your book to appear in a library
- Why you don’t need (or even necessarily want) your book to be on shelves at Barnes and Noble
- The best way to sell your book
- What kinds of e-books you should sell
- First steps people can take right now to get going
Ways to Contact Dr. Anthony Paustian:
- Website: bookpresspublishing.com
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!
Chantell Glenville is the author of “What Clients Really Want (And The S**t That Drives Them Crazy)” the first ever book on how to create great client/agency relationships written by an ex-client. Winner of the WACL Future Leader's Award 2013, Chantell has worked at some of the UKs top creative communications agencies such as AMV BBDO, VCCP, and Dare as well as client-side at Vodafone, a multinational teleco.
Her experience both client and agency-side has given her a unique insight into the situations and behaviours that can really break client/agency relationships or make them excellent. Chantell has worked with and for agencies with varying specialties and on a broad range of clients; from international blue chips such as Johnson & Johnson, Barclaycard, Molson Coors, and Henkel through to high profile UK and pan-European accounts.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- Things agencies do over and over that drive clients crazy
- The small behaviors that break apart relationships
- What agencies don’t know about the world clients live in
- The complexity of the structure of clients’ systems
- How agencies can help clients manage the revision process
- Why you need to know more than one person inside your client’s company (and get to know them face-to-face)
- The working hour differences between agencies and clients
- Why you should never overpromise and underdeliver
- The two things that create great agency-client relationships
- Why attention to detail is so important for agencies
- How to get to the top of a client’s to-do list
- Reasons clients will fire agencies (and why they never want to do that)
- Things agency owners can do right now to help their account executives improve agency-client relationships
Ways to Contact Chantell Glenville:
- Book: "What Clients Really Want"
- Website: www.masteringaccountmanagement.com
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!
John Warrillow is the author of books “Built to Sell” and “The Automatic Customer” and founder of The Value Builder System™ where advisors help company owners increase the value of their business. Previously, he founded Warrillow & Co., a subscription-based research business dedicated to helping Fortune 500 companies market to small business owners. A sought-after speaker and popular Inc.com columnist, John lives in Toronto.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- John’s book “Built to Sell”
- The very easy path for agencies to follow that make it extremely hard to sell
- What services look like that make an agency sellable
- Why you can’t confuse the doing with owning a business
- When is it time to say no to business?
- What to do after you sell your agency
- Things to avoid when exiting your agency
- Services agencies can offer on a subscription model
- Standardizing a process and giving that process or product a specific name
- Why you shouldn’t surround yourself with journeymen agency employees
- How to assess how sellable your agency is and what can be done to make your agency more sellable
Ways to Contact John Warrillow:
- Website: valuebuildersystem.com
- Website: www.builttosell.com
- Website: www.automaticcustomer.com
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!
Steve Farber is listed as one of Inc’s global Top 50 Leadership and Management Experts. He is a Leadership Pioneer, Strategist, Keynote Speaker, and Bestselling Author on Extreme Leadership. His expertise is in creating organizational cultures where leadership is not just an opportunity and obligation for those in authority, but for everyone at all levels.
Steve is the President of Extreme Leadership, Inc, and the founder of The Extreme Leadership Institute, organizations devoted to the cultivation and development of Extreme Leaders around the world. His accessible, deeply inspirational, and eminently practical Radical LEAP framework is widely used across the business, non-profit and education spectrum. He has been credited with redefining leadership in deeply personal yet practical terms and re-energizing thousands of people to make a significant difference in their businesses, lives, and the world around them.
His third book, “Greater Than Yourself,” was a Wall Street Journal® and USA Today® bestseller. His second book, “The Radical Edge,” was hailed as a playbook for harnessing the power of the human spirit. And his first book, “The Radical Leap,” is already considered a classic in the leadership field. It received Fast Company magazine’s Readers Choice Award and was recently named one of the 100 Best Business Books of All Time.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- Defining “Extreme Leadership”
- What an extreme leader does
- Love in the business place
- Putting in more energy into your business than you take out
- Why leaders need to be audacious and willing to fail
- What agency owners can do to become more audacious
- How a business that embraces extreme leadership looks different
- Steve’s book “Greater Than Yourself”
- How to become one of the greatest leaders by lifting others up
- What agency owners can do right now to start working on the ideas from this episode
Ways to Contact Steve Farber:
- Website: www.stevefarber.com
- Twitter: @stevefarber
- LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevefarber
- Book: "Greater Than Yourself: The Ultimate Lesson of True Leadership"
- Book: "The Radical Edge: Another Personal Lesson in Extreme Leadership"
- Book: "The Radical Leap: A Personal Lesson in Extreme Leadership"
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!
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:
- The daily traffic / huddle meeting for discussing daily vital priorities and how to make this meeting work regardless of agency size
- The monthly all-staff meeting for informing and inspiring your team
- The twice a year to quarterly meeting for team building and planning
Ways to contact Drew McLellan:
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!
Peter Shankman is a spectacular example of what happens when you merge the power of pure creativity with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and a dose of adventure, all to make it work to your advantage. The New York Times has called him "a public relations all-star who knows everything about new media and then some," while Investor's Business Daily has labeled him "crazy, but effective."
He founded Help A Reporter Out (HARO) in 2010 from his apartment before selling it to Vocus. Peter is the also founder of ShankMinds: Business Masterminds, a series of small business entrepreneurial-style masterminds in over 25 cities worldwide. Additionally, Peter is also the founder and CEO of The Geek Factory, Inc., a boutique Social Media, Marketing and PR Strategy firm located in New York City, with clients worldwide.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- Innovation through exploration
- Why you need to hold your ground with clients and force them to trust your expertise
- How to get your customers to tell your story for you
- Peter’s book “Zombie Loyalists”
- Peter’s company The Geek Factory
- How agencies can make customer service attractive for their clients
- Why rewarding someone for being your 10,000th follower is an insult to the rest of your followers
- Why everything you create has to have value for someone
- How to create invested customers with the way you respond through email
- How Peter carves out time in his schedule for everything
- Peter’s preferred methods for professional development
- What Peter’s agency of the future would look like
- How Peter helped his employees with professional development
- The things that get in the way of corporations hearing their customers
- Things agencies can do right now to implement the ideas from this episode
Ways to Contact Peter Shankman:
- Book: "Zombie Loyalists"
- Twitter: @petershankman
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!
Paul Roetzer is founder and CEO of PR 20/20, a Cleveland-based inbound marketing agency and HubSpot’s first Agency Partner. He is author of “The Marketing Performance Blueprint” (Wiley, 2014) and “The Marketing Agency Blueprint” (Wiley, 2012); creator of Marketing Agency Insider and Marketing Score; a regular contributor to leading marketing industry blogs; and a frequent speaker on content marketing, inbound marketing, performance and strategy.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- Why Paul started PR 20/20
- Standardizing pricing to prevent scope creep
- Paul’s point system for pricing
- How to create a content strategy that works today
- Top of the funnel content vs. bottom of the funnel content
- Using the point system for professional development
- Where to find the great content writers that you will need to hire
- How PR 20/20 decides if a client is a good fit
- The Marketing Score
- Automated Insights
- Steps agencies can take right now
- How to keep employees around and enthusiastic
Ways to Contact Paul Roetzer:
- Website: www.pr2020.com
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!
Michael Gass is the founder of Fuel Lines Business Development, LLC, a firm that provides business development training and consulting services to advertising, digital, media and PR agencies.
Since 2007, Michael has pioneered the use of social media, content and inbound marketing strategies specifically for agency new business. Michael has originated a system that makes targeting, positioning, and differentiation easier and helps agencies to find, attract and engage their best prospects online. He has trained over 200 agency CEOs and their senior management teams in all 50 states here in the U.S. and agencies in over 21 foreign countries.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- Generating new business through niche blogs
- Making these niche blogs truly niche (hint: “healthcare” is not a niche)
- Why these blogs need to be written by one or two visible authors
- The pace these blogs have to be written, at least initially
- Why you should start out with just one niche blog
- Why a person should be the face of only one blog
- How to keep this process running smoothly and consistently
- Why agencies have to add consulting as a service line
- The differences agency websites and niche blogs have to have
- The time commitment this kind of program requires
- The steps your agency can take right now to get this program up and running
Ways to Contact Michael Gass:
- Website: michaelgass.com
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/michaelgass
- LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgass
- Twitter: @michaelgass
- Google+: plus.google.com/108664560492921436543
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!
Michael Farmer grew up in the Midwest and was the first child in his family to go to college. He went to Princeton on an NROTC scholarship and worked at various jobs to pay the difference. After that, he spent 5 years as a naval officer, 3 years at sea, and 2 years teaching NROTC at Iowa State University. Then he was off to Harvard Business School and a one-year research assignment writing cases and teaching marketing in Lausanne, Switzerland. He then joined some consulting firms and worked all over the globe. Eventually, he ended up at Bain & Company where he spent three years in Boston, and then nine years in London, Munich, and Paris. Bain then started his own consulting firm, Farmer & Company, specializing on solving agency / advertiser problems. He stayed in London until 2001, and then returned to the States and continued his work. He wrote Madison Avenue Manslaughter between 2009 and 2015, and the book was published in 2015.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- Some of the big problems agencies face today
- Why the future is bright for small to mid-sized independent agencies
- Why your agency needs a uniform approach for working with clients and an example of what that looks like
- The documented scope of work document: what should this look like?
- Why it’s harder than ever for agencies to make money
- Michael’s “price for the work” metric
- Creating accountability with client heads
- Why agencies probably will have an easier time fixing scope of work than they think
- What agencies can do right now to start fixing some of these mistakes
Ways to Contact Michael Farmer:
- Website: farmerandco.com
- Twitter: @farmerandco
- Email: mfarmer@farmerandco.com
- LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/michaelfarmer
- Book: "Madison Avenue Manslaughter"
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!
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:
- Gross Billings vs. Adjusted Gross Income
- How agencies lose money when pricing
- Why scope creep leads to little or no profit
- Why your agency needs to issue change orders and how to turn this into a process
- Why you need to use the one page business plan
- How to know if you need a better new business plan (hint: you probably do)
- Why you need a tax advisor not a tax preparer
Ways to contact Drew McLellan:
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!