The Agency Growth Podcast

**Cold Open (We discuss what we think about getting manicures as men)** **Skip the Cold Open at 9:40**Our 52nd episode! That means we've been publishing a new episode every, single Friday for a full year! Thank you for continuing to listen and support our podcast!In this episode, we cover a brief topic that Jake saw while scrolling through Facebook. Someone had brought up that they think the marketing industry should be regulated to prevent people entering it who do not know what they're doing and potentially damage business reputations, website rankings, or mismanaging their money regarding paid ads.Jake asks Cody what he thinks about regulating the marketing industry similar to how the hair or accounting industries are regulated with government-issued licenses and certifications.----------------------------------Our recommended agency tools:everbrospodcast.com/recommended-tools/----------------------------------⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐As always, if you enjoyed this episode or this podcast in general and want to leave us a review or rating, head over to Apple and let us know what you like! It helps us get found and motivates us to keep producing this free content.----------------------------------Want to connect with us? Reach out to us on the everbrospodcast.com website, subscribe to us on YouTube, or connect with us on socials:YouTube: @agencyuTwitter/X: @theagency_uLinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/agencyuFacebook: facebook.com/theagencyuInstagram: @theagencyuReddit: r/agency & u/JakeHundleyTikTok: @agency.u

**Note: Starting at 41:15, there is some distorted audio for a few minutes. This podcast was recorded in person and Cody's mic sucks. This does pass and return to normal.** **Cold Open (Cody gives Jake a familiar mug for his birthday / Jake talks about the Iowa license plate scandal / Buzzfeed News closes down)** **Skip the Cold Open at 12:00** AI isn't a new topic but it's time we talk about it and how it will affect the agency space. Some agency owners think it will cause agencies to close down or make it difficult to find new clients while others see opportunity in it with scalability and executing jobs they can't perform themselves without the need for hiring. In this episode, we talk about how our agency uses AI as well as what agency business models will be negatively affected and if you fall into that category.----------------------------------Our recommended agency tools:everbrospodcast.com/recommended-tools/----------------------------------⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐As always, if you enjoyed this episode or this podcast in general and want to leave us a review or rating, head over to Apple and let us know what you like! It helps us get found and motivates us to keep producing this free content.----------------------------------Want to connect with us? Reach out to us on the everbrospodcast.com website, subscribe to us on YouTube, or connect with us on socials:YouTube: @agencyuTwitter/X: @theagency_uLinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/agencyuFacebook: facebook.com/theagencyuInstagram: @theagencyuReddit: r/agency & u/JakeHundleyTikTok: @agency.u

Lately, within the last year, there has been a surge of new, self-proclaimed "agency" or "SMMA" owners. You might even be one of them -- but with that surge of new, ambitious agency owners comes a surge of other people capitalizing on it and taking money from naive people looking to finally make something of themselves. These people are the Mastermind, YouTube, and Facebook gurus. 99.99999% of them never actually had a successful agency that did over $10k in MRR but they've found it lucrative to pretend they did and charge people hundreds and thousands to be part of their cult. They're selling shovels during a gold rush -- yet they have no idea where to dig but pretend they do. In this episode, Cody and Jake talk about why Masterminds are generally a waste of money and the information you learn from there, you can learn for free on YouTube, in your community, or even directly from this podcast. Cody even likens Mastermind groups to paying for business friends, which is sad. After listening to this episode, do you disagree with us? We'd love to hear what your thoughts on Mastermind groups are whether you've never been a part of one or you've been a part of one for a long time. Head over to everbrospodcast(.com) and tell us what you think!----------------------------------Our recommended agency tools:everbrospodcast.com/recommended-tools/----------------------------------⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐As always, if you enjoyed this episode or this podcast in general and want to leave us a review or rating, head over to Apple and let us know what you like! It helps us get found and motivates us to keep producing this free content.----------------------------------Want to connect with us? Reach out to us on the everbrospodcast.com website, subscribe to us on YouTube, or connect with us on socials:YouTube: @agencyuTwitter/X: @theagency_uLinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/agencyuFacebook: facebook.com/theagencyuInstagram: @theagencyuReddit: r/agency & u/JakeHundleyTikTok: @agency.u

**Cold Open (What's the maximum number of days you can eat leftover pizza?)****Skip the Cold Open at 5:45**Lately, we've been getting a lot of requests from listeners and people in groups asking if there is an opportunity to work for us for free so they can gain experience. Although the idea of free labor sounds appealing, it really isn't from our perspective, and in this episode, we'll tell you why.When you hire someone, whether it's a paid position or an unpaid internship, you have to dedicate resources to get that person trained and up to speed. When someone wants to work for free to gain experience, it means they're not going to stick around for the long haul. Who would? They're not getting paid.We take time to invest in our team. We do it because our team makes us stronger and better forever. When you hire someone, you can expect it to take a year before you get real value out of that team member -- how long does someone really expect to work for free?If you liked this episode or any other episode -- head over to your podcast platform of choice and leave us a review! It helps us get found and motivates us to keep producing this content.----------------------------------Our recommended agency tools:everbrospodcast.com/recommended-tools/----------------------------------⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐As always, if you enjoyed this episode or this podcast in general and want to leave us a review or rating, head over to Apple and let us know what you like! It helps us get found and motivates us to keep producing this free content.----------------------------------Want to connect with us? Reach out to us on the everbrospodcast.com website, subscribe to us on YouTube, or connect with us on socials:YouTube: @agencyuTwitter/X: @theagency_uLinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/agencyuFacebook: facebook.com/theagencyuInstagram: @theagencyuReddit: r/agency & u/JakeHundleyTikTok: @agency.u

**Cold Open (Jake almost dies at a paintball tournament)** **Skip the Cold Open at 13:00** 1 in 5 businesses fails within the first 5 years. We think that number is much higher in the digital agency space. We're rounding off our 4th year with Evergrow and seeing continual 100% year-over-year growth with no business debt. But when we look around, we see new (and even older) agencies doing really dumb things that are killing their businesses. The gurus out there will tell you that you can hire an appointment setter and closer on a strict commission basis and even do the same for the marketing execution by outsourcing it to the Philippines. Although, yes, you can do this -- it's a surefire way to kill your business within that first 5 years. If your entire sales process is outsourced, you have no brand identity. If your entire marketing execution is outsourced, you have no quality control and no value prop. You'll get away with a few bucks in the first year. A respectable wage as a solo operator, but eventually, the business will die -- and sooner than you think. If you liked this podcast, leave us a review on your favorite platform. It helps us get found and keeps us motivated to keep producing quality, free content. As always, you can head over to our website at everbrospodcast(.com) (I'm leaving the link out to see if this episode gets discovered more by doing so -- sorry, it's the SEO in me).----------------------------------Our recommended agency tools:everbrospodcast.com/recommended-tools/----------------------------------⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐As always, if you enjoyed this episode or this podcast in general and want to leave us a review or rating, head over to Apple and let us know what you like! It helps us get found and motivates us to keep producing this free content.----------------------------------Want to connect with us? Reach out to us on the everbrospodcast.com website, subscribe to us on YouTube, or connect with us on socials:YouTube: @agencyuTwitter/X: @theagency_uLinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/agencyuFacebook: facebook.com/theagencyuInstagram: @theagencyuReddit: r/agency & u/JakeHundleyTikTok: @agency.u

We're joined by Kevin Miller from the Marketing Agency Owners group on Facebook to talk about something we don't do ourselves to acquire clients -- cold messaging and outreach.Kevin owns All Approach and regularly gives tips as well as coaches agency owners on how to book appointments and acquire clients using LinkedIn messaging.As you know, we (Jake and Cody) don't do any outreach. All of the clients we receive are inbound and since we sell SEO and PPC services, we have a belief in drinking our own Kool-Aid to acquire clients. However, as we established in episode 40, some niches may not be as easy to acquire clients through inbound methods.We talk with Kevin to understand:Which niches LinkedIn outreach may be best suited forHow to approach new prospectsTips and tricks to get prospects to respond to your messagesHow you can establish credibility when you don't have anyIf you liked this episode or any other Everbros episode, leave our podcast a review! It helps us get discovered and gives us motivation to continue providing all of this free information!You can also reach out to us on our website at everbrospodcast.com and even comment on specific episodes.As mentioned at the end of the episode, you can find Kevin at allapproach.com or join the free Facebook group.

In episode 004 of the podcast, we talked about how to price your agency services. However, the episode was geared more toward pricing once your agency is more established. It covered understanding your labor hour allocation and market rates.When you're just starting out, you won't know this information. Additionally, you likely don't have much, if any, experience or case studies to show to prospective clients meaning they're going to have to take a chance on you.With that in mind, you cannot charge what an established rate would be. You may have to discount or give your services away for free.In this episode, we go over just how much you might consider discounting your services, the constraints and expectations you set with your clients regarding those rates as well as what can happen if you charge too much right away.----------------------------------Our recommended agency tools:everbrospodcast.com/recommended-tools/----------------------------------⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐As always, if you enjoyed this episode or this podcast in general and want to leave us a review or rating, head over to Apple and let us know what you like! It helps us get found and motivates us to keep producing this free content.----------------------------------Want to connect with us? Reach out to us on the everbrospodcast.com website, subscribe to us on YouTube, or connect with us on socials:YouTube: @agencyuTwitter/X: @theagency_uLinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/agencyuFacebook: facebook.com/theagencyuInstagram: @theagencyuReddit: r/agency & u/JakeHundleyTikTok: @agency.u

The main reason why Jake believes so many new agency owners and people who sell SMMA courses gravitate to social media is that you don't have to really learn how to track anything. All of the important tracking features are built into the Facebook interface. All you have to do is copy and paste a pixel into a landing page and boom, you're done.It's why there don't seem to be as many Google Ads or SEO experts out there as there used to be. People who teach themselves Google Ads fail to teach themselves the tracking and analytics portion of it that will track more than just phone calls from call extensions.In this episode, we talk about how understanding the key components of tracking digital marketing efforts will set you lightyears apart from other agencies out there.We talk about how and what we track for all of our clients regardless of the medium we're promoting on using Google Tag Manager with Google Analytics and how we track phone calls, emails, and form fills without having to pay for any call tracking software.Furthermore, if you can't track all of the conversion actions on your client's site, your ads can't optimize to deliver to people likely to complete that conversion action. This is why it's so critical to make sure you understand tracking and analytics setup.Want to learn Google Tag Manager and Analytics setup? Here are a couple of free trainings from Google on each of them:Google Tag Manager FundamentalsGoogle Analytics 4 Google Training----------------------------------Our recommended agency tools:everbrospodcast.com/recommended-tools/----------------------------------⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐As always, if you enjoyed this episode or this podcast in general and want to leave us a review or rating, head over to Apple and let us know what you like! It helps us get found and motivates us to keep producing this free content.----------------------------------Want to connect with us? Reach out to us on the everbrospodcast.com website, subscribe to us on YouTube, or connect with us on socials:YouTube: @agencyuTwitter/X: @theagency_uLinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/agencyuFacebook: facebook.com/theagencyuInstagram: @theagencyuReddit: r/agency & u/JakeHundleyTikTok: @agency.u

In this week's episode, we go over arguably the single most important thing that separates our agency from the rest of the agencies out there.Tracking.The number one thing clients hire you for is results. If you can't provide results, they'll fire you. So it's your job to make sure the results you're providing are trackable. As much as we like to think, things like clicks, traffic, impressions, and rank are not results business owners care about.They typically care about leads and sales. But it's important to make sure you find common ground with the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) you want to deliver and the KPIs your client sees as valuable.If there is a mismatch, either you need to adjust your value proposition or the client may not be a good fit for you.The first step in tracking your KPIs is figuring out what KPIs you should be tracking.Also in this episode:Jake talks about a guy who tried to call him out for being a "fake guru"Jake and Cody debate buying used houseware----------------------------------Our recommended agency tools:everbrospodcast.com/recommended-tools/----------------------------------⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐As always, if you enjoyed this episode or this podcast in general and want to leave us a review or rating, head over to Apple and let us know what you like! It helps us get found and motivates us to keep producing this free content.----------------------------------Want to connect with us? Reach out to us on the everbrospodcast.com website, subscribe to us on YouTube, or connect with us on socials:YouTube: @agencyuTwitter/X: @theagency_uLinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/agencyuFacebook: facebook.com/theagencyuInstagram: @theagencyuReddit: r/agency & u/JakeHundleyTikTok: @agency.u

Are you a serial planner or do you take action for the sake of taking action?In this episode, we share differing beliefs on whether you should take time and plan out the right moves for your agency or just get started and figure it out.There are pros and cons to each method.Taking Time to PlanPro: The actions you take will be meaningful and although will have slower short-term returns, the long-term results can be exponential.Con: Analysis paralysis is a real thing and taking too much time to plan can cause you to never take action -- making you your own worst enemy.Just Taking ActionPro: You don't let analysis paralysis stop you from taking action toward your goals and you're already further ahead than the people who are planning everything.Con: It's easy to take the wrong steps without planning. The wrong steps can stifle your long-term growth.We differ slightly on each of these but ultimately, there is some middle ground. Jake provides his insight on why he plans everything out before starting. Cody talks about why it's better to just take action.Either way, Jake takes time to plan things out and executes quickly while Cody just takes action but is a perfectionist in the execution -- ultimately causing both of us to reach our goal around the same time.Useful links:At the end of this episode, Jake talks about a Marketing Agency Owners group on Facebook where a lot of the topics for the episodes come from. You can find that group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/maopublicAt the beginning of this episode, Cody and Jake talk about the best marketing newsletter to subscribe to and even cover a topic that was discussed in it. Here is a link to subscribe to it: https://www.stackedmarketer.com/friend-recommended/?utm_source=sparkloop&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=sm_daily&rh_ref=9731be28----------------------------------Our recommended agency tools:everbrospodcast.com/recommended-tools/----------------------------------⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐As always, if you enjoyed this episode or this podcast in general and want to leave us a review or rating, head over to Apple and let us know what you like! It helps us get found and motivates us to keep producing this free content.----------------------------------Want to connect with us? Reach out to us on the everbrospodcast.com website, subscribe to us on YouTube, or connect with us on socials:YouTube: @agencyuTwitter/X: @theagency_uLinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/agencyuFacebook: facebook.com/theagencyuInstagram: @theagencyuReddit: r/agency & u/JakeHundleyTikTok: @agency.u