Build a Better Agency Podcast

I hang out with agency owners every day and 95% of them resist proactive business development for as long as they can. Until that big client starts to give "I want to break up" signs, they are happy to rely on referrals and anyone who crosses the threshold as a substitute for a true biz dev program. Most owners will tell me that they either hate sales or they're terrible at them. But the reality is – you are all brilliant sales people because you are not a sales person. You are uniquely skilled at having business conversations at a level that no average salesperson can have. The other excuse some owners will offer is that they are introverts, which means they can't be good at sales. Again, I disagree. The key to good sales is asking better questions and listening with more intentionality and no one is better at that then someone who is more introverted. All of this is why I invited Matthew Pollard to be on the show. He's here to share insights from his work and from his forthcoming book, The Introvert's Edge. He's got some really great things to share to get us out of our reluctance about selling and networking. Can narrowing our niche help us sell better? Matthew thinks so. Should we get beyond describing our work as a functional skill – the same skill everyone in the marketplace has? Matthew knows getting beyond functional skill is a crucial step. Matthew is the Rapid Growth Guy. He's dedicated to helping small business owners succeed by giving them methods that helped them transform their business from struggling into profitable success stories. He is the founder and executive director of the Small Business Festival, ranked among the top five conferences in the nation by Inc. magazine. He is in the international sales blogger awards hall of fame and has been featured in Entrepreneur, CEO magazine, Fortune, you name it. But what we care about is that he's going to help us be smarter about selling. What you'll learn about in this episode: How to craft a unified message about why people should work with you The difference between your functional skills and the reason people actually work with you The three-step process to rapid growth Why you don't have to be an extrovert to be excellent at sales Plenty of life hacks for your next networking event How to stand out when your services have been commoditized Why bending yourself to perceived market "needs" will leave you tired and frustrated How niching narrows your market in all the right ways The folly of sharing a bland message in a crowded market – and what to do instead Why a small niche you are excited about is better than a giant market you don't care about Ways to contact Matthew/Resources: Website: matthewpollard.com Podcast: matthewpollard.com/better-business-coach/forget-about-goals-why-is-the-key-to-success Free chapter: matthewpollard.com/theintrovertsedge/book 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!

I have the good fortune of hanging out with agency owners and their teams every day of the year. We work with over 250 agencies that range from a handful of employees to several hundred team members. While every agency is absolutely unique – there are some common themes and trends that bubble up as we work alongside our agency clients. Every year I pull together the trends I see time and time so the agencies we serve aren't surprised by any of them. I've categorized them into some big buckets: money, employees, agency structure, clients, tactics, and revenue opportunities. There were too many trends to pack into one solocast, so I'll cover half this time and the other half in July. Here's the good news – it's a great time to be in the business. As always, both challenges and opportunity abound. My goal is to help you spot the opportunities so you can maximize them while sidestep the trouble spots. What you'll learn about in this episode: How agencies fared financially in 2017 Why 2017 was a great year for agencies to make money – and where that profit got re-allocated The factors complicating employee hiring and retention Agency structure changes in terms of both department structure and employee life/work models 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: Email: drew@agencymanagementinstitute.com LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/drewmclellan 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!

Every agency has an internal culture. The only question is – did you build it on purpose. Intentionality. That is the bottom line. If you want to consciously create your team's functionality and effectiveness, what kind of clients you attract, and where your own focus should be – that takes intentionality. That level of thinking has helped Raman Sehgal build an agency that allows him to work with clients from all over the world and enjoy a staff retention rate of 80%. Raman Sehgal is the owner of a UK-based marketing agency called Ramarketing, an award-winning, creative, digital and PR agency. They are in the business of helping fast-growing companies in the life science, pharma, and manufacturing sectors get noticed. Nine years ago, he was working from a desk in his home. His agency has now grown the agency to a staff of over 20 and they working with clients across the UK, the US, and Europe, and still have the very first client that they landed almost a decade ago. What you'll learn about in this episode: What it looks like to go from freelancer to running an agency How the job of owner changes over the lifecycle of an agency Why it's possible to run an agency from a kitchen counter or a big corporate office How most agency owners become accidental business owners How Raman's agency model compares to how a traditional agency runs How to build a family first, work second culture in your business What it takes to serve clients in multiple markets around the globe The power of being "meaningfully specific" in an agency Raman's agency billing structure and the difference between billing by the hour for the US compared to the UK Building a fee structure on deliverables The correlation between giving clients a good return and the margin you receive on your work The red flags you can use to vet prospects and make sure they are a good fit for your agency How trying to make a difficult client happy can actually cost you and your staff Best practices to keep your team productive Ways to contact Raman Sehgal: Website: www.ramarktingpr.com LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ramansehgaluk 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!

Making a profit is the goal of any agency owner. But too often, the way we think about profit actually hurts our agency. The standard equation (sales - expenses = profit) can lead to bad decision-making. We are willing to accept the leftovers (profit) rather than running our business to deliver profit as a key outcome. I'd much rather have you determine the amount of profit that is acceptable to you and then you manage your business to that goal. This is a more effective way to look at the profit equation – one that helps agencies thrive and gives you the ROI you deserve for taking the risk of owning an agency. Michael Michalowicz founded and sold two multi-million dollar companies. Then in his mid-30's, he went broke. Starting over again, he was driven to find better ways to grow healthy, strong companies. Among other innovative strategies, Mike created the "Profit First Formula," a way for small to mid-sized businesses like our agencies to ensure profitability from their very next deposit forward. Michael is now running his third million dollar venture, is a former small business columnist for The Wall Street Journal, the former MSNBC business make-over expert, a popular keynote speaker on innovative entrepreneurial topics, and is the author of Profit First, Surge, The Pumpkin Plan and The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. What you'll learn about in this episode: The two questions Michael asked himself that allowed him to find his calling to become an author Why leaving too much money in your agency leads to bad decisions What it means to run the Profit First system within your agency Basic principles to help your agency get ready to use the Profit First system Why you aren't limited by a lack of resources The parallel between Pumpkin farmers and business regarding organic growth Key takeaways agency owners can apply to their biz dev strategy using the principle of "growing the strong sprout" Why it's important to serve the verticals your agency knows well, and that will allow three or four of those legs to support your stool Consequences you may face when you put too much focus on your weakest clients Why entrepreneurs struggle with being profitable A better way to calculate profit for your agency so you can stop using the "Frankenstein Formula" Principles taken from health and fitness industry you can apply to manage your money better and simplify your agency 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!

No matter what kind of agency you own, where it's located, or how large it is – there is a truth about your business. You are literally and figuratively on stage every single day. Whether you're on the phone with a client, sitting across the table from a few people, or standing on the stage at a national conference, we are constantly presenting. We can't afford to be shy about presenting. I'm not suggesting you do a TED talk but I am suggesting that you can't afford to shirk away from any stage, big or small. You've heard me talk about the value of speaking as a way of creating cornerstone content but today I want to focus on a different aspect of presenting – selling from the stage (whatever that stage may be). This week's podcast guest loves to talk to business owners about how to do that bigger and better, and bolder. Dustin Mathews is an author of many best-selling books, and he has shared the stage with athletes, business celebrities, and titans of business. His latest book, "The No BS Guide to Powerful Presentations: How to Sell Anything with Webinars and Online Media Speeches and Seminars" is going to be a book that you are going to not only read but underline and highlight and share with others. That I promise you. Dustin is known for creating content that drives people to buy products en masse. His companies and private clients have been featured on Forbes, Entrepreneur, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Inc magazine. He's literally marketed and filled over 3,000 events and has led 10 online product options. He and his work had generated over $43 million in sales. So he knows how to package and sell value. As a part of prepping for the work that he's doing today, he did some recent research and has identified a process for creating and selling products and services that he calls the Irresistible Offer Architecture that is so unique that he was able to get recognition by the US Patent and Trademark Office. What you'll learn about in this episode: Why it takes practice to get comfortable with public speaking Testing and getting feedback on material before presenting it to a large audience Why it doesn't matter how qualified you look if you're able to speak to someone's pain point Giving a speech that gets people to take the next steps you want them to take How to sell at conferences when you're told "don't sell from the stage" Creating excitement about your offer by teasing coming next in your presentation The five elements every presentation should have Giving people value in your speeches before giving them the ask Separating your agency from your competition by giving your processes a name Why you need to showcase case studies in your presentations to show off your expertise The nine elements of the irresistible offer architecture Why you should give people a physical giveaway (book, flash drive, etc.) whenever you can How to overcome your prospects' objections Reverse engineering your presentations based on what you want to offer at the end Why you have to get good at speaking now Ways to contact Dustin Mathews: Book: nobspresentations.com Website: www.speakingempire.com LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/thedustinmathews 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!

Branding has always been a cornerstone of my own agency. We've spent a ton of time and effort building brands for clients. We have, like all of you, created what we think of as a proprietary process around brand, and it's a topic that I have a great passion around. Many of you are either too polite to ask or have point-blank asked me, "Drew, what is the deal with you at Disney." Brand is part of why I love them so much. One of the aspects of Disney that I really admire and connect to the most is that I think they're just about as good as it gets in terms of understanding their brand, building their brand, and evolving their brand over time. One of the guys in the agency space who I think is really brilliant at branding is an Iowa based agency owner named Nick Westergaard. His new book, Brand Now: How to Stand Out in a Crowded, Distracted World, just came out and it is a brilliant blueprint for how to create a memorable, meaningful brand in today's chaotic time and space. Nick and I talked about are how building a brand has changed in this digital crazy, crowded, distracted time, and what are some of the elements that we as agencies can really spotlight and offer as a huge value to our clients. How do we use brand as an agency offering to stay sticky with our clients rather than a one and done project? Nick is a strategist, speaker, author, and educator. As Chief Brand Strategist at Brand Driven Digital, he helps build better brands at organizations of all sizes — from small businesses and Fortune 500 companies to President Obama's Jobs Council. In addition to his new book, Nick is also the author of Get Scrappy: Smarter Digital Marketing for Businesses Big and Small. Nick is a sought-after keynote speaker at conferences and corporate events throughout the world. He teaches at the University of Iowa where he sits on the Advisory Council of the Marketing Institute at the Tippie College of Business and the Professional Advisory Board for the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. He is also a mentor at the Iowa Startup Accelerator. What you'll learn about in this episode: Working with brands in a distracted, digital age How the world changed our views about how we should be looking at branding Why simplicity in branding is more critical than ever How agencies can help their clients understand what storytelling really is and how to help them construct better brand stories Why "Story" is a buzzword and how we can rescue it Why the main character in the story shouldn't be the brand and why it should be the client's end user Why making sure employees understand the brand is so important for your agency culture and the work that they do for clients The role agencies play in building brands and moving the brand forward How to provide real value to clients in this era of distraction and rapid change The opportunities agency owners are missing out on during the brand discovery process Why a brand is everything a company does – and why that doesn't have to be overwhelming Why it's important for you to plant your flag for your brand How Nick's book can help agencies work together on their own brand The value of getting outside perspective on your own agency Ways to contact Nick Westergaard: Website: www.nickwestergaard.com Website: www.branddrivendigital.com Book: Brand Now: How to Stand Out in a Crowded, Distracted World 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!

If you've ever hung out with me for more than 10 minutes, you've probably heard me say something like "there are no bad clients. But there are bad clients for YOUR agency." I do believe that there's an agency out there for every client. But it very well may not be yours. One of the most critical skills an agency owner/leader must develop is the ability to discern if a prospect belongs on your client roster. Many of you have been emailing me lately asking me questions about problematic clients. And in some cases — they're clients you never should've taken in the first place. You either haven't yet developed the processes or the spidey sense to sniff out a bad prospect or even worse, you ignored that spidey sense. We've all seen the money on the table and thought to ourselves, "Okay, I'm going to ignore that nagging feeling in my stomach and I'm going to take that client." I've owned my own agency for 23 years and believe me, I've made that expensive mistake more than once. Every time I've ignored that little nudge saying, "Don't do it Drew...don't do it" — the nudge was right and I was wrong. I regretted taking that client and I'm guessing you've had the same experience. The wrong clients, even if they have buckets of money, can literally kill your agency. A client that is not the right fit for your agency is almost impossible to make happy. So what do we do? We run around scrambling trying to make them happy. We do extra rounds of revisions that we don't charge them for, and in the end, they're still not happy. Now we're underwater and have lost money. We've literally paid for the privilege of serving that client. Or worse — the client berates your employees. They micromanage your team. They call or text 24/7 with no respect for boundaries. And when you don't step in to negate the situation because the client is giving you a lot of money, you're at risk of losing your employees. In today's tight labor market, your employees don't have to stick around to work for in that environment. Everyone thinks about "How do I find clients that make me money?" — but quite honestly, the first thing we should be thinking about is "how do I get rid of the clients that cost me money and how do I avoid them down the road?" That's what this episode of Build A Better Agency is all about. How you can find and keep clients who don't cost you money. You can absolutely do this for your agency. And I'm going to show you how. What you'll learn about in this episode: How agency profitability begins with attracting the right fit clients How to identify the tangible and intangible things that make a client fit the "sweet spot" of your agency Why you should rank every prospect whether they are knocking on your door, or you're putting together a prospect list, or you're getting ready to respond to an RFP Why you should consider creating a "Biz Dev" committee within your agency to decide which prospects are the right fit prospects to pursue How to put the "Sophistication Level Factor" to work inside your biz dev process A specific process and tool you can use to kick-off your agency's relationship with a new client in the right way — so it feels like a celebration and everyone is on the same page How to provide a new client with the proper orientation of what it is like to work with your agency and the team they will be working with on a daily basis The two key pieces to effective client communication and why staying in touch by email is not the answer How a weekly status update can help your AEs gently nag a client so they stay focused on what they need to be doing and providing to your team Why and how you as the agency owner should be spending time with the top 50 percent of your clients — demonstrating how much you love them and how committed you are to their success 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: Email: drew@agencymanagementinstitute.com LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/drewmclellan Resources: Sweet Spot Client Filter NB criteria form Client Scorecard 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!

One of the most rewarding aspects of AMI is that we can give agency owners a sense of perspective. Owning and running an agency is lonely and isolated. You make decisions based on what you know and usually you only know your own reality. I love it when I can shine a light on how other agencies are doing something or a best practice or metric that gives owners confidence that you're on track or even that you're ahead of the curve. Hubspot recently completed a survey of over 1,200 marketing agency decision makers and I was invited to comment on some of the findings. After reading the report, I knew the insights were something we needed to explore together on the podcast. Tim Dearlove is the Growth Marketing Manager at Hubspot, which as you know is a market leading inbound marketing and sales suite of tools that is very agency centric and they invest a huge amount of time and effort to support agencies all over the globe. (Note: And the presenting sponsor of Build A Better Agency) Some of the findings will touch on themes you live with every day – the fears and frustrations of any agency owner. There are some trends and practices we'll call to your attention and some opportunities for you to take the lead over your competition. We'll also look at how you can stay ahead of your clients – and the importance of ongoing learning not just for you, but for the talent you hire as well. It's an episode full of big ideas and targeted actions you can take to make your agency better and your life a bit easier. What you'll learn about in this episode: Retainers/long-term relationships: why they are great for your agency as well as your clients Retainers that allow your agency to provide services on an ongoing basis while keeping control Some of the mistakes agencies make by not clearly defining what the service is and tying the value directly to the offering Going through the process and making sure the decision to work on a retainer basis is thought out and not just tacked on at the end Why the paid discovery process is the ideal way to enter into a retainer agreement (and why it's not always possible) The three categories a retainer should have to provide value to the client: optimization, insurance, and strategy How to talk to prospects so they understand the value of an ongoing relationship Three great ways to clearly define and price your services Why your clients will test the boundaries of your agreement if you don't clearly define them The importance of saying "no" and the right and wrong ways to do it Why consistent, clear communication with ongoing clients is a great way to upsell services Building systems and processes for great internal and external communication Why you have to work on your processes in small increments or they will never get done Ways to contact Tim Dearlove: Twitter: @tdearlove Research Report 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!

A frustration for many agencies today is that it's tough to get clients to commit to ongoing retainers. Post recession, clients are drawn to project work as opposed to the longer-term, on-going work that agencies prefer. There are many factors that play into this and some agencies have cracked the code of earning a client's confidence and being positioned as an on-going partner. Barry O'Kane has cracked the code. He has over 18 years of experience as a digital agency owner and a web developer. He and his team work in partnership with social impact organizations and creative agencies to solve their toughest challenges. Barry runs a virtual dev shop called endzone.io, and he also teaches web agencies how create recurring revenue for their shop and recurring value for their clients. He really believes that there are internal processes and systems and that agencies need to consider so they get compensated differently and create a whole new value proposition for themselves and their clients. What you'll learn about in this episode: Retainers/long-term relationships: why they are great for your agency as well as your clients Retainers that allow your agency to provide services in an ongoing basis while keeping control Some of the mistakes agencies make by not clearly defining what the service is and tying the value directly to the offering Going through the process and making sure the decision to work on a retainer basis is thought out and not just tacked on at the end Why the paid discovery process is the ideal way to enter into a retainer agreement (and why it's not always possible) The three categories a retainer should have to provide value to the client: optimization, insurance, and strategy How to talk to prospects so they understand the value of an ongoing relationship Three great ways to clearly define and price your services Why your clients will test the boundaries of your agreement if you don't clearly define them The importance of saying "no" and the right and wrong ways to do it Why consistent, clear communication with ongoing clients is a great way to upsell services Building the systems and processes for great internal and external communication Why you have to work on your processes in small increments or they will never get done Ways to contact Barry O'Kane: Website: endzonesoftware.com Podcast: happyporchradio.com LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/barryokane 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!

It started with the cats. Who knew cats were trend setters but when it comes to video they were on board long before we were! One of the biggest trends I've seen over the last five years is the proliferation of video. You can't go anywhere (Online, mass transit, Times Square or your home security system) without seeing a video these days. And these are not the videos of old. When I started in the business, we make gorgeous videos, shot on film and painstakingly edited for days. Today's videos can certainly be that but more often than not – they're run and gun videos that are often shot, edited and posted the same day, if not in real time. To think any agency can avoid getting proficient at video is a fool's folly these days and I don't want ignorance, fear or the "I hate the way I look on video" worry to keep you from evolving your agency's skills in this area. You simply can't afford not to be good at video, not to understand how to leverage video and most important – how to create videos for yourself and your clients in a cost effective, profitable way. That is why I invited George B. Thomas onto the Build A Better Agency podcast. This guy gets video and has a passion around it that is infectious. George has an interesting past – he's a recovering youth pastor, a former pub bouncer, but no matter what his title was, he's always been about helping people at different points in their journey. Now he is the Resident Nerd at the Sales Lion, an inbound and content marketing agency helping businesses become rock stars in their markets. George believes that video is the next step of the inbound marketing evolution. He loves helping businesses wrap their heads around video. As he is quick to tell you – he's a branding guru, a video marketing ninja, and an inbound Jedi. A little peek into George right there! When he's not running video workshops or speaking around the world, he's hanging out with his family enjoying the beautiful world that is North Carolina. What I love about George is that he's got an energy and a passion for this, which you will feel in this episode, but he also brings the goods in terms of expertise and he's going to get down to the really needy gritty of telling us not only what to do, but how to do it. I want you to listen to this conversation through parallel tracks. First, I want you to listen to it while thinking, "how can video help our clients grow their business and improve their customer's experience?" But the other lens I want you to be using is, "how do I use video better for the agency and our biz dev efforts?" Some of you are already swimming in these waters but many of you are not. Time to get to it! What you'll learn about in this episode: Why George believes that getting great at video is the difference between having a successful agency and closing your doors The difference between creative, big budget video that dominated agencies of the past and the much cheaper, revenue-driving videos of today Making quick, easy videos that answer the questions your sales people get the most How to sell clients on making these quick videos The kind of equipment you need to own to make video for yourself and your clients that looks great Everything you need to know to pick the right editing software The skills needed to be great behind the camera and in the editing room The kinds of videos your agency should be producing Why every person in your agency needs a video of themselves in their email signature The danger of being too salesy in your videos How to become more comfortable on camera Why you don't have to be afraid of live video Misassumptions agencies and other businesses make about video that consumers don't make Matching the right video to the right platform/audience Ways to contact George Thomas: Free video assessment: thesaleslion.com/assessment Content video workshop: thesaleslion.com/video Facebook: www.facebook.com/Mr.GeorgeBThomas Twitter: @GeorgeBThomas 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!