Brent Weaver became obsessed with creating websites when he was 15 years old. He realized he could create and share information with anyone in the world with the click of a button. His first business was a web design agency turned marketing firm. That business was named in the top-five fastest growing businesses in Denver, Colorado two years running leading to a successful exit/sale to another Denver-based agency. In 2012, he formed uGurus, a business dedicated to helping other web professionals succeed at building profitable businesses without needing to go through twelve years of roller-coaster pains. uGurus has now graduated over 600 web professionals from their Bootcamp. Graduates consistently use words like "transformative" and "life changing" to describe the results they achieve from the program. When not focused on the business, Brent loves hanging out with his wife and two year old son. Other favorite activities: writing, swimming, and snowboarding.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- Why agencies have a hard time making money creating websites for clients
- Why bad discovery leads to scope creep
- Why you should spread discovery over multiple meetings rather than one long meeting
- Why you need to niche down to find the quality and quantity of clients that you need
- Why you need to treat your website (and your clients’ websites) like a kid
- Working with your clients to develop a web strategy that fits their budget
- Establishing a communication pattern with your clients
- Not letting clients delay because a website isn’t perfect
- How to focus on the right platforms
- How to know whether to bring web-dev in-house or use a partnership
- What agencies need to know about the web to capitalize on the opportunities out there
Ways to Contact Brent Weaver:
- Website: uGurus.com
- Email: brent@ugurus.com (this is where to reach Brent for the terrific offer given at the end of the 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!
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 you have to measure inside your agency
- The AGI/FTE ratio: why you should be aiming for this to be 150,000 (and why many agencies struggle to reach this goal)
- Measuring over/under on projects: how often are you over, how often are you under, and by how much?
- Why you need to look at profitability on a client by client basis (and how to know when to fire a client due to profitability)
- Why you need a minimum standard AGI for all your clients
- Why you absolutely need to use timesheets inside your agency (and why this doesn’t mean you should bill by the hour)
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!