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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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Now displaying: September, 2019
Sep 30, 2019

I’m a big believer in love. Sure — romantic love or the love you have for your family is awesome but that’s not what I am talking about. I am talking about loving the people on your team and your clients. It’s amazing the level of connectivity you can create when you lead with love. It may seem odd, but I think love is especially important in the workplace. Agencies lead with love towards their employees and clients will likely keep those employees and clients and enjoy the fruits of those relationships for many years.

That’s why I knew I’d love Steve Farber’s new book Love is Just Damn Good Business. Steve has decades of experience as a leadership trainer and expert, he’s an internationally sought out speaker and best-selling author. (He was my guest on episode #46 and we mentioned love a few times there too!)

In episode #208 of Build a Better Agency, Steve and I talk about the impact of love on a business’ ROI, employee retention and employer satisfaction. This is one of my favorite conversations I’ve had, and if you only listen to one episode of the podcast, I hope it’s this one.

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: https://www.whitelabeliq.com/ami/

What You Will Learn in this Episode:

  • Why Steve’s message is so important in today’s world
  • The benefits of building a work environment based on love
  • Building love and relationships with clients
  • How to demonstrate love to employees
  • The powerful message of being fully present with people
  • What empathy really looks like in action
  • Showing love and kindness in the most difficult times
  • Serving your employees by being a “strong frame”

Ways to Contact Steve Farber:

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Sep 23, 2019

Many agency owners are struggling to not only understand laws like the CCPA and GDPR, but more important — determine what your agency has to do to be compliant and avoid liability. What laws apply to your shop and your clients? What does compliant even mean in terms of practical do’s and don’ts? What is the chain of responsibility if clients make bad choices? What are mistakes we should avoid?

My guest Ruth Carter is an Arizona-based business, intellectual property, and internet attorney; a best-selling author who literally wrote the book on the legalities of blogging; has been living and breathing the new CA privacy law and works with agencies every day to help them manage the hype and interpret the laws accurately.

Ruth and I had a lively conversation about privacy laws and what they mean for agencies. Ruth is a wealth of legal and privacy information for agencies and a brilliant navigator for this tricky subject.

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: https://www.whitelabeliq.com/ami/

What You Will Learn in this Episode:

  • What determines which privacy laws an agency and our clients need to follow
  • How agencies can protect themselves if clients don’t follow privacy recommendations and get into legal trouble
  • Privacy disclaimers, policies, and declarations needed for an agency’s website
  • Whether your agency has to abide by the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and/or the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
  • Privacy mistakes that get agencies into hot water
  • The importance of transparency when adding clients to your email list
  • Why most agencies can take a deep breath – they’re probably already complying with the law

Ways to Contact Ruth Carter:

Sep 16, 2019

There are people who are considered leaders because their title says they are and then there are people who lead, no matter where in the org chart they may be. Agency owners can’t afford to be leaders in title only. We have to step into true leadership if we want our agency to thrive and grow.

David Wood, founder of Play For Real, is my guest on this episode of Build a Better Agency. David is a pro at spotting what it takes to be a strong leader in the workplace.

David was a former consulting actuary to Fortune 100 companies like Sony Music and Procter & Gamble. When he left his Park Avenue job, he began to explore the world in a different way in terms of helping high-performing entrepreneurs, executives and leaders play the game of personal development as well as it can be played.

In this episode of the Build a Better Agency podcast, David and I talk about what it means to show up as a leader who is not afraid to be daring, authentic, and vulnerable. We talk shop on how to encourage employees to be better leaders, how to build an environment of trust, and how true leadership can make all the difference.
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: https://www.whitelabeliq.com/ami/

What You Will Learn in this Episode:

  • Ideal traits and practices for leading people
  • The differences between relational and posturing leadership
  • How to recognize leadership flaws and train employees to keep you accountable
  • The importance of incentivizing employee contributions and collaboration
  • What being an authentic and daring leader looks like
  • How your leadership skills translate directly to running a more profitable agency
  • The power of listening to people’s problems rather than giving advice or trying to fix them
  • Action steps for becoming a more vulnerable leader

Ways to Contact David Wood:

Sep 9, 2019

As agency owners, we all want to hire the mystical, magical salesperson that will allow us to hand that task to someone other than us. Can it be done? Yes, but probably not the way you think or wish it would happen.

Sales is a challenging activity no matter what you’re selling. Selling for agencies, even more so.

In this solocast, I will walk you through the make-up of that unicorn of a salesperson so you can spot one out in the wild. I’ll help you identify some prime places to search what traits are non-negotiable, and how to build a compensation package, if you happen to find one.

Even if you find this unicorn of a salesperson, you won’t be able to walk away completely. I’ll also discuss the agency owner’s role in the biz dev process. With the right people, the right assets, and the right communication, you’ll be well on your way to a successful sales operation for your agency.

A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here.

What You Will Learn in this Episode:

  • What makes agency owners uniquely qualified to be the best agency salespeople
  • What an outside salesperson has to understand about your niche to sell for your agency
  • The traits of a good salesperson
  • The different kinds of agencies and how that impacts salespeople’s success rates
  • A compensation model for outside salespeople and how long it will take them to start making sales
  • What assets salespeople need to set them up for success
  • Why salespeople need access to the agency owner

Drew McLellan is the CEO at Agency Management Institute. He has also owned and operated his own agency since 1995 and is still actively running the agency today. Drew’s unique vantage point as being both an agency owner and working with 250+ small- to mid-size agencies throughout the year gives 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, Drew 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, Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Fortune Small Business. The Wall Street Journal called his blog “One of 10 blogs every entrepreneur should read.”

Ways to contact Drew McLellan:

Tools & Resources:

  • Get 10 hours for FREE for a Project with More than 50 Hours with White Label Here.
Sep 2, 2019

Lawyers, financial planners and insurance salespeople. You joke about avoiding them at cocktail parties, but they are definitely not who you should avoid as agency owners. Many owners think of attorneys as an expense. I can tell you – the preventative investment you make with a lawyer to get a good contract and other tools is a pittance compared to what I have seen agencies lose when they don’t have those good tools.

If you are a high-risk gambler – grab a contract off the internet and use that.

That’s why I invited Jamie Lieberman, founder of Hashtag Legal LLC, to be my guest on this episode of Build a Better Agency. She has over 15 years of legal experience and specializes in helping agency owners protect themselves before they get into hot water.

Jamie brings extensive experience in contract creation and negotiation IP issues agencies face, web and mobile app terms and conditions, and influencer marketing legalities.
Settle in – she’s ready to give you a free hour of legal counsel!

What You Will Learn in this Episode:

  • Why you need to find the right attorney for your agency
  • The absolute necessity of drawing up the right contracts for your agency and some characteristics of the ideal contract
  • How agencies can (and should) protect themselves from potentially hazardous legal situations caused by clients
  • The ins and outs of independent contractors and how to avoid legal headaches and fines
  • Navigating non-compete and non-solicitation agreements for employees and contractors
  • The importance of confidentiality agreements and defining what constitutes confidential information
  • Claiming domain names while avoiding copyright or trademark infringement
  • Why agencies owners should stay abreast of popular trends in the industry, especially in areas such as influencer marketing

Ways to Contact Jamie Lieberman:

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