Jami Oetting is the editor of Hubspot’s Agency Post, which is a blog for advertising and marketing agency professionals. She led the launch of the publication in 2011 and its growth before Hubspot acquired it in 2013. Hubspot works with about 2,500 agency partners and about 15,000 customers worldwide. Now, Jami’s blog is one of the largest blogs for agency professionals. It offers incredible content to help agency leaders grow their business.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- How agencies can and should be getting clients now that we’re not bound by geography
- Why getting business through referrals is still viable -- but why the source of those referrals is changing
- Why buyers have as much if not more information than sellers and what that means for your agency
- Using inbound marketing to attract the right kind of clients (and turn away the wrong ones)
- Why you need to stick with inbound marketing content creation
- Why you absolutely must specialize on a niche if you want to survive
- Why you will struggle to attract great employees if you don’t have a strong new business plan
- Why you need someone on your team who is responsible for marketing your agency
- How to come up with content for your blog
- Why interviews are a great way to create content
- What agency owners can do right now to get the ideas from this podcast into place
Ways to Contact Jami Oetting:
- Website: blog.hubspot.com/agency
- Email: joetting@hubspot.com
- Twitter: @jamioetting
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!
Gavin is a marketing technologist, strategist, and advisor. He is the founder of the Disruptor’s Handbook, a network of entrepreneurs and innovators that help businesses innovate like startups, which Gavin calls “marketing lead innovation.”
He has led new venture startups for organizations like PwC, developed digital strategy and execution for global brands on both the agency and client sides, and spent some time as an analyst in digital transformation for award-winning analyst and advisory firm, Constellation Research.
He also has extensive international experience in driving measurable outcomes via digital customer experience platforms, digital strategy, and executing innovative content driven campaigns.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- Gavin’s long road that ultimately led him to become a marketer
- Creating value for customers by working on their problems
- The evolving role of agencies
- Why you have to be transparent about what it is that you do
- How to get your employees to become better strategic thinkers
- A “lean canvas” and creating a business out of the problem that has an idea as a solution
- How to have better business conversations
- Improving your business by bringing together your best advocates and harshest critics
- Getting past the fear that comes with working transparently
- What agencies can do today to become better at honing in on their clients’ problems
- Tips for fostering innovative thinking throughout your entire organization
- Why you need to start thinking like a startup
Ways to Contact Gavin Heaton:
- Website: www.servantofchaos.com
- Handbook website: disruptorshandbook.com
- Twitter: @servantofchaos
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 things we say about our agencies that make them all sound the same
- The terms every agency uses to describe themselves
- Why you can’t say you’re good at everything
- Finding clients that are the right fit
- Understanding who you are as an agency
- The benefits of defining your “why”
- Remembering that hiring your agency is a huge risk for the person making that decision and what you can do to alleviate that person’s fears
- An example: how my agency McLellan Marketing Group defines itself
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!
Brian Shea is the founder of Shea Consulting where he helps companies streamline their business development systems so they can enjoy consistent, sustainable success. Most business owners flinch at the word “systems” but in reality a system that is simple and repeatable helps free business owners to be more creative, more successful and more profitable.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- Brian’s background in consulting
- What is keeping smaller companies from utilizing processes and systems
- Why systems and processes are so crucial for scaling
- Freeing up capacity through delegation
- Why processes and systems can often fail inside agencies
- Making sure the system or process matches the actual problem
- The four-step assessment Brian uses with his clients for finding the right systems
- The importance on getting clear with specific goals
- Who in an agency keeps systems from succeeding
- How to bring processes to agencies that pride themselves on their creativity
- What happens when systems aren’t put in place
- How to solve the scope creep problem
- What systems every agency needs to have
- What you can do today to begin being more process driven
Ways to Contact Brian Shea:
- Consulting website: www.sheaconsulting.biz
- Blog and newsletter: www.sheaconsulting.biz/blog
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!
Adam Carroll is quickly being recognized as one of the top financial educators in the country based on his core message of “you are the architect of your own life.” Adam has presented all over the globe. Over 500 universities have been lucky enough to host him and he has presented some amazing TedTalks all over the world.
In 2014, Adam successfully crowdfunded a documentary on student loan debt titled Broke, Busted & Disgusted, and he raised nearly $70,000 for the film in 45 days. The mission of the film is to start a national debate about changing the way we fund college and not crippling 20 something’s with mountains of debt.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- Adam’s documentary “Broke, Busted, & Disgusted”
- Accountability and business owners: why you need accountability partners
- What agencies should be doing at the tail end of the year
- How Adam saves time for his family by using a Power Priority List
- What to look for (and look out for) in an accountability partner
- What different kinds of accountability partners you should have (hint: they shouldn’t all be entrepreneurs)
- Mastermind groups vs. accountability partners: do you need both? If not, which one is right for you?
- The commitment required for mastermind groups and accountability partners
- What you can do right now to act on the ideas from this episode
Adam Recommends:
- Book: Essentialism by Greg McKeown
- Book: Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
- Podcast: Dream, Think, Do by Mitch Matthews, episode: "Masterminds"
Adam Carroll's Websites:
- Business Website: www.adamspeaks.com
- Podcast: www.buildabiggerlife.com
- Film: www.brokebusteddisgusted.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!
Jay Baer is known for many things. He’s the world’s most retweeted digital marketer. He is also a renowned business strategist, keynote speaker, and The New York Times bestselling author of five books.
He also travels the globe helping people get and keep more customers. He’s the founder of Convince & Convert, a strategy consulting firm that helps prominent companies gain and keep more customers through the smart intersection of technology, social media, and customer service. His company’s media division owns the world's number one content marketing blog, the world’s top marketing podcast, and many other educational resources for business owners and executives.
Jay has created five multimillion-dollar companies and is an active venture capitalist and technology advisor as well as an avid tequila collector and certified barbeque judge. His new book, Hug Your Haters, is coming out on March 1st.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- Jay’s new book “Hug Your Haters” and what you need to know about the people who complain on social media
- How to use this information to increase your customer advocacy
- Why complaints are going to continue to go more and more public
- Defining customer experience in the modern age
- Why this creates enormous opportunity for B2B buyers
- Why haters are your most important customers
- The problem with surveys
- The Honest Audit: what this is and how to put it into place
- Things that agencies have to be careful of when discussing these issues with clients
- Software solutions that agencies of all size can leverage
- How agencies should package and price this sort of work
- What agencies can do right now to get started
Ways to contact Jay Baer:
- Website: www.convinceandconvert.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!
Bob Sanders is a powerhouse in the marketing industry. He has previously worked with Agency Management Group, a firm that specialized in the operations, finance, and technology consultations for multinational agencies around the world. Since then, he has become the leader of Sanders Consulting Group, a leading consulting firm specializing in helping agencies implement best practices faster and more effectively.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- How agencies can manipulate chemistry to their advantage
- The four quadrants people fall into and why this is an important thing to be able to assess when pitching new business
- Why you should never stop generating new business
- What agencies can do to get better at closing sales
- Strategies that work with big and small accounts
- Why spec creative isn’t something to be feared
- How to play on the misperception that agencies live exciting lives
- Why you need to alter your pitch based on who you’re pitching to
- How to be persistent to the point where potential clients are always thinking about you
- What your agency needs to do today to get on the right track in terms of new business
Ways to contact Bob Sanders:
- Website: www.sandersconsulting.com
- Twitter: @newbusinesshawk
- Email: bob@sandersconsulting.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:
- How you are preventing your employees from becoming the employees you want them to be
- Why every employee needs weekly one-on-one meetings with their direct supervisor
- How to get your employees to run these meetings
- The form that needs to be filled out before one of these meetings takes place
- How these meetings can help you celebrate the wins you might not know about if you didn’t have these meetings
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!
Susan Baier began her career as a brand manager for companies like Dial and Conoco-Philips. She also worked agency side and within client companies in their research departments, honing her skills as a research professional.
Recognizing that primary research was often too expensive for small to mid-sized agencies, she launched Audience Audit, where she conducts quantitative attitudinal audience segmented research. She helps her agency clients develop marketing strategy for their clients based on customer insights. They find it much easier to develop messaging, strategic plans, and business development plans with real data that helps them understand how customers who look (demographically) the same behave in very different ways and what motives those choices and behaviors.
Over the past few years, AMI and Audience Audit have partnered together for studies on how business owners find agencies, their attitudes towards working with agencies, and more.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- How the research that Audience Audit does differs from a lot of the research that’s out there
- How your agency can leverage research inside your agency-client relationships
- The ways agencies can better sell the value of research to existing and prospective clients
- Why agencies can’t build their business around “shiny toys”
- The ways research has changed and why agencies shouldn’t be afraid to bring it to clients that they haven’t done research with in the past
- How bringing research to clients can give them a sense of relief and make it easier for your agency to retain their business
- A specific example of how this kind of targeted research helped a client in a big way
- The mistakes agencies make when trying bring research into their shop
- Why niche really matters when it comes to research
- Baby steps agencies can take to start incorporating research
Ways to contact Susan Baier:
- Website: www.audienceaudit.com
- Email: susan@audienceaudit.com
- Twitter: @susanbaier
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!
Chuck Meyst has been in sales all his life, from his childhood bike route to CEO and founder of AgencyFinder.com, a matchmaking service for agencies.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- Why Chuck started AgencyFinder and how it works
- Why agency descriptions of themselves should be results-focused
- What both clients and agencies need to do well to find the right partner
- The big mistakes agencies make with their websites
- Sales: why do agencies not like this word?
- The traits Chuck sees in terrible employees
- Why processes are so important, especially when it comes to sales
- The characteristics in agencies that clients love to see
- How agencies win business through pure chemistry
- What AgencyFinder does to assess agencies and how to receive that perfect score of 100
- How AgencyFinder helps agencies team up with clients that are great matches
- Things agencies can do today to improve upon the topics discussed in this episode
Ways to Contact Chuck:
- Website: www.agencyfinder.com
- Email: chuck@agencyfinder.com
- Phone: (804)346-1812
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!
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
- The In-Demand Marketing Agency: How to Use Public Speaking to Become an Agency of Choice
- Karl's Time Bucket Template
- Don't Just Make the Logo Bigger: Taking Clients from Painful to Profitable
- Don’t Be the Shoemaker: And 11 Other Easy-to-Implement Ideas to Improve Your Agency
- Escape Plan: Your Guide to Finally Getting Out of the Office
- Website: www.sakasandcompany.com
- Email: karl@sakasandcompany.com
- Twitter: @karlsakas and @sakasandco
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!
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:
- E-myth by Michael Gerber
- A Stake in the Outcome by Jack Stack
- www.brightideas.co/whats-next
- Bright Ideas interviews Brian Clark: www.brightideas.co/145
Contact Trent Dyrsmid:
- Website: www.brightideas.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!
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:
- Drew's completed 2016 Agency Owner Life Plan document
- Blank Agency Owner Life Plan document
- Blank Agency One Page Business Plan document
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!
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:
- Email: jay@goodwaygroup.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!
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:
- Agency website: www.artillerymarketing.com
- Email: douglas@artillerymarketing.com
Douglas Burdett’s Blogs and Podcast:
- Forward Observer: http://www.artillerymarketing.com/blog
- Fire Support: http://www.defensecontractormarketing.com
- The Marketing Book Podcast: http://www.artillerymarketing.com/marketing-book-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!
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:
- "Drive," by Dan Pink
- "IGNITE" (2nd Edition), by Mitch Matthews
- Mentoring Cheat Sheet
Ways to Contact Mitch:
- Website: www.mitchmatthews.com
- Podcast: www.mitchmatthews.com/blog
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!
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:
- Website: www.legalandcreative.com
- Website: www.agencylegalprotection.com
- Developed as a result of FAQ’s Sharon was receiving, Agency Legal Protection is a legal toolkit for marketing agencies.
Ways to contact Sharon:
- Email: Sharon@legalandcreative.com
- Twitter: @SharonToerek
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:
- 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!
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:
- Company Website: www.predictiveroi.com
- Podcast Website: www.onwardnation.com
- Email: stephen@predictiveroi.com
- Twitter: @StephenWoessner
Books:
- The Small Business Owner's Handbook to Search Engine Optimization
- Increase Online Sales Through Viral Social Networking
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 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):
- Seth Godin’s books
- Poke the Box
- All Marketers Are Liars
- We Are All Weird: The Rise of Tribes and the End of Normal
- Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?
Ways to Contact Peter:
- Website: www.peterlevitan.com
- Email: peter@peterlevitan.com
- Twitter: @PeterLevitan
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!
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:
- No Bullshit Social Media
- The Rebel’s Guide to Email Marketing
- Website: www.jasonfalls.com
- Twitter: @jasonfalls
- Website: www.goelastic.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!
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:
- Company Website: www.ScottMonty.com
- Sherlock Holmes site/podcast: http://www.ihearofsherlock.com
- Email: scott@scottmonty.com
- Twitter: @ScottMonty
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!