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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: November, 2020
Nov 30, 2020

If you’re not new to the podcast or AMI, you know that I am a proponent of agencies differentiating themselves by finding a niche where they can develop a depth of expertise or a position of authority. It’s one of the core messages in the book I co-wrote with Stephen Woessner, Sell with Authority. Which makes Brent Weaver a kindred spirit! Brent Weaver shares our philosophy of niching down, and he joins me to talk about what he believes it takes to become an authority.

Brent is a former agency owner and now focuses on helping business leaders finding their niche. He currently serves as the founder and CEO of UGURUS, a business training and education company dedicated to helping business owners achieve freedom by owning their markets. His work focuses on helping clients overcome their dependence on referrals and word-of-mouth through developing thought leadership. If you didn’t get a chance to meet him during our previous conversation, check out Episode #66 where he explains how to turn a profit doing web dev.

In this episode of Build a Better Agency, Brent provides valuable insights about finding your niche. He shares his own experience on niching down so you understand what it takes to become the dominant player in a specific market segment, even in times of crisis. Learn how to find your market, own your market, and, as a result, scale your business.

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.

Finding your niche in the agency landscape

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

  • The framework of Brent’s book, “Get Rich in the Deep End”
  • How finding your niche and serving that audience will make everything in your business easier
  • The difference between having a lot of clients in a niche vs. being an authority
  • Why niching down will enable your agency to thrive in good times and bad
  • How to find time to market your business amidst your chaotic schedule
  • What type of content is central to developing a position of authority
  • The correlation between niching and scaling a business
  • How niching goes beyond marketing

“Finding your niche and serving that audience will make everything else in your agency 10x easier.” @u_gurusCLICK TO TWEET“Having a select market and consistent deliverables makes it easier to sell. It also makes it easier to deliver results for your clients.” @u_gurusCLICK TO TWEET“It’s one thing to have a lot of clients in a niche. When you are the thought leader and the marketing authority in your niche, clients will start coming to you.” @u_gurusCLICK TO TWEET“When you’re a niche agency and times are good, you make more money than anyone else. And when times are bad, you get back on your feet quicker than anyone else because clients are not looking for a generalist.” @u_gurusCLICK TO TWEET“The more complex your business is, the harder it is to scale. Finding your niche simplifies the equation.” @u_gurusCLICK TO TWEET

Ways to contact Brent Weaver:

Additional Resources:

Nov 23, 2020

Successful business development strategies are always a hot topic when I’m talking with agency owners. That was true before the pandemic, so you can imagine how often we’re talking about it now! Business development for agencies has made a 180 over the past decade. Have you changed the way you sell to keep current?

Greg Jacobs is the head of Strategic Partnerships at Schiefer Chop Shop, an Irvine-based brand transformation agency where he developed a unique recipe for successful business development strategies. He also led NASCAR’s unscripted content division and served as Head (SVP) of Monetization at Red Bull & Red Bull Media House. As you might imagine, with that background, he comes at prospecting for his agency in a very different way.

During our conversation, Greg walks us through his approach to creating successful business development strategies and offers up some suggestions for agency owners who are looking to hire a salesperson for their shop. It’s never too late to re-tool your own biz dev strategies and this episode is sure to point you in the right direction.

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.

 Successful Business Development Strategies

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

  • Greg’s approach to building successful business development strategies and how agency owners can use it in their own niches
  • Greg’s transition from content creation to biz dev
  • How Greg mediates between biz dev and content creation teams
  • How to attract and retain the right biz dev talent
  • What Greg does to differentiate his agency and make it stand out from the crowd
  • How content plays a role in Greg’s biz dev efforts today
  • How newcomers can be successful in an agency biz dev role

“Content can be a universal language. If a brand has an interesting story and you can tell that story in a short form piece of content, the brand now has an asset they can use across their owned and operated channels.” @GregoryJacobsCLICK TO TWEET“The key metric of any piece of content is engagement. Will they click on it, will they watch it, and will they stay for a period of time?” @GregoryJacobs” @GregoryJacobsCLICK TO TWEET“There is no biz dev rep worth their salt that will do one of two things: A) Work on commission only. And B) Claim they can close business in less than six months.” @GregoryJacobsCLICK TO TWEET“Successful business development strategies give reps a window of time to figure it out, proper onboarding, some kind of retainer, and the ability to maintain relationships post-close.” @GregoryJacobsCLICK TO TWEET“Successful business development strategies are all about finding a balance between what you want to make and what fits your partner’s brand.” @GregoryJacobsCLICK TO TWEET

Ways to contact Greg Jacobs:

Additional Resources:

Nov 16, 2020

It’s an age-old adage – books are a three-dimensional business card. In today’s vernacular (from the book Sell With Authority) a book is an excellent example of cornerstone content. Many agency owners I know are curious about how to become a successful author but have decided they’ll never have the time or space to actually write that book. Josh Steimle has helped many clients recognize that they actually can get that book written and it doesn’t have to take years or be a painful experience.

Josh is an agency owner and former guest (Episode #182). As his agency (MWI) matured and his partners were running the day-to-day operations, Josh decided to explain what it takes to become a book author to grow their businesses just like he had done for his agency.

During our conversation, Josh explains how agency owners can write a book that demonstrates their expertise and allows them to step into their authority position. He then breaks down the book writing process to make it faster, less cumbersome, and very doable for the busy agency owner who wants to learn how to become a successful author.

This is the episode for you if you’d like to add the title “author” to your list of accomplishments. Josh busts many myths and helps the listeners chart a course to getting that first draft done!

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.

 How to Become a Successful Author | Build your agency’s authority position through authorship

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

  • If you decide to go with a different keyword, make sure to have the keyword listed in at least one bullet point in bold.
  • How to write a book and use it as cornerstone content
  • Why a book is a strong way to tie your thought leadership and content creation efforts together
  • How to become a successful author so you can build your agency’s position of authority.
  • How Josh helps business owners navigate the book writing process
  • Why being an author and having a book escalates your agency’s growth and creates new opportunities
  • How being an author can actually shorten your sales cycle
  • Different ways you can use storytelling techniques to write a business book
  • How to organize the content/expertise you already have into an outline for your book

“Thought leadership has a lot of potential, and there are so many different places to publish and promote our content. A book is the glue that binds all of our content creation efforts together.” @joshsteimleCLICK TO TWEET“There are three hard parts to writing a book: getting started, finishing it, and everything in between.” @joshsteimleCLICK TO TWEET“If you have tossed around the idea of how to become a successful author, it is easier than you think. A book helps agency leaders propel their businesses in directions they don’t normally get to go.” @joshsteimleCLICK TO TWEET“We’ve had potential clients call us and say, ‘we read your book, we want to work with you, send us a contract.'” @joshsteimleCLICK TO TWEET“Even if it’s a bad book, it takes so much work for agency leaders to get a book done. That is why you need a process for how to become a successful author.” @joshsteimleCLICK TO TWEET

Ways to contact Josh Steimle:

Additional Resources:

Nov 9, 2020

How are clients thinking about and reacting to both COVID and the recession it triggered is on every agency owner’s mind. Will our clients go dormant? How are they approaching 2021 budgets and plans? Because we know this is vital intelligence for you, we decided to make that the focus of the 2020 Agency Edge research project. You’re going to find the data insightful and a relief.

The Agency Edge research series is a collaboration between AMI, Audience Audit, and Dynata. Audience Audit’s Susan Baier joins me to walk you through the highlights of the research findings and what you should do next, based on what we learned.

We believe the insights will help you strengthen your relationship with your current clients, dodge some potential landmines, and navigate your biz dev prospecting with more success. After you listen to the podcast, be sure to grab the 30-page executive summary from the show notes.

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.

Agency Owners | How are clients being impacted by COVID and the recession

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

  • Findings from the 2020 Agency Edge Research Study
  • How agency owners are feeling as they deal with the impact of COVID and the recession
  • The 3 distinct segments that capture agency owner sentiment in 2020
  • How the agency relationships of respondents have been impacted by COVID and the recession
  • What clients want out of their agencies during COVID and the recession
  • Why the data from the latest research study paints a more optimistic picture than we’d feared
  • New opportunities for gaining market share in 2020
Nov 2, 2020

It’s an age-old discussion. Should an agency specialize and focus on specific niches or should they be a generalist? If you’re familiar with AMI or have read the book I co-wrote with Stephen Woessner (Sell with Authority), you know that I believe there are some huge advantages to claiming your authority position and being a specialist. You don’t have to take my word for it – in this episode, I am going to show you some data to make the point.

But, even if you choose to remain a generalist, that doesn’t mean you can’t have a rock-solid sales strategy that keeps your pipeline full and attracts your best-fit prospects. It’s going to take longer but you can get there.

In this episode of Build A Better Agency, I want to walk you through the stages of an agency’s biz dev evolution and the potential power of holding a position of authority so that prospective clients hunt you down and ask if they can be your client.

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/

Agency Owners | Should your agency niche down and specialize?

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

  • Why agencies who specialize have a distinct advantage when it comes to sales and retention
  • Why referrals shouldn’t be the only way you grow your agency
  • The goal today for agencies is to be sought after
  • The evolution of how agencies sell
  • The importance of developing thought leadership and expertise within a niche
  • The research data behind how and why agencies get hired
  • How to carve out a position of authority and sell from that position
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