Multi-Million Dollar Agency Building: How One Agency Owner Built Three

Every digital agency owner dreams of building a multi-million dollar agency and what better way to learn how than from an owner that didn't just make one, but built three multi-million dollar agencys.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• 3 lessons on scaling your business into a multi-million dollar agency.
• How to have growth-minded hiring practices.
• Attracting, hiring and keeping top talent.

Lance Hollander is my guest this week on The Smart Agency Master Class. He’s the owner of his third multi-million dollar agency, Delphic Digital. Yep, you read that right. He's been owner to three successful, 7-figure agencies. He profitably sold the first two agencies, but can’t stay away from the business and earned partnership in another. Lance swears this is the third and last… but we’ll believe it when we see it :) Today he's here to share the lessons he’s learned climbing to the top 3 times and his secrets to scaling each multi-million dollar agency.

3 lessons on scaling a successful agency

1- The right partner is critical to success. Lance says service businesses are best held by multiple people with different skill sets. And in his words - any single who would run an agency alone is both incredibly smart and incredibly crazy.

2- Strive to always be the dumbest person in the room. Surround yourself with people who are the best at what they do. You can achieve success by working with people who are better than you at what they do.

3- Always be seeking new business - even when you’re busy. Lance’s advice is 50-60% revenue from existing clients and the balance from new business. It’s very common to get so busy that you just don’t have time to fill the pipeline because you’re concentrating on delivery only to find yourself eventually un-busy with an empty pipeline.

[clickToTweet tweet="Hiring #agency talent is like Tetris. Every piece that falls dictates your next move. Learn via @jswenk" quote="“Hiring is like Tetris. Every piece that falls dictates your next move.” ~ Lance Hollander"]

How to have growth-minded hiring practices

When you’re first starting out, you need to hire people who can be the Swiss Army knife of your business. Your business needs people who can many different jobs with the common goal of growing. As your agency gets larger, you can begin to hire specialists in their field who just want to wear one hat.

Lance has learned if you approach hiring wanting to save money, you will not save money. You need people who can run the show without you. And in order to do that you have to be willing to pay senior staff salary. After you have a good team of lieutenants running things you can afford to hire junior staff members and save some money. And more good news - you’ll already have senior staff in place to train them well.

Ways to find & attract ideal agency talent

One hugely helpful resource is LinkedIn. Lance says he used to spend up to 30 hours per week scouring LinkedIn, familiarizing himself with who’s out there and looking for the right talent to match his agency’s needs and culture.

Then Dephic Digital went through a period of rapid growth, with 50% increases year over year for several consecutive years. The lesson they learned is rapid growth means spending time recruiting, paying recruiters or asking your senior people to recruit - none of which is ideal.

So when the agency reached about 50 people Lance hired a full time Head of Talent who is responsible for identifying and recruiting new talent while keeping the existing team happy. He says it’s the best non-billable position they have… in fact, he says they should have created the position when they were at 30 people.

2 Secrets to getting beyond the plateau

Align expectations & value. When you’re in a service business like ours, it’s important to make sure expectations and value are aligned. Do your clients have reasonable expectations? Are you showing them results they can attach value to?

Reporting is a great tool to achieve this but that doesn’t mean pulling a report and reading it to your client. It means monitoring analytics and using it to tell a story to your client.

Account Management isn’t the star. Lance’s agencies are known for keeping happy clients on retainer for 5+ years. In fact, his first couple agencies were bought by clients! He says the secret to keep clients happy is by making them the star.

Do a great job at making your key client contact a star. Complete projects on time, under budget and occasionally over deliver… when they look good because of you, they’ll remember it and want to keep you. Your end goal is to get your client promoted and start all over with the newbie.

Moving Forward

I hope this was beneficial and transforming your business into a multi-million dollar agency now seems like a goal that can be reached. However, moving forward you won't be able to accomplish this unless you identify areas within your agency that needs work. So what's next on the list?

If you need support and advice on any topic, I have most likely experience them myself and can help. From what to do with your sales processes, ways to increase your profit margins or how you can build authority for your agency.

I can show you how to stop losing money on projects, why solid processes for performance based pricing can be the best pricing strategy and how having remote working or freelancers in your team can be beneficial and the best ways of managing them.

Learn about my career and different experiences as well as tips, tricks and insights by checking out my blogs that cover a wide variety of topics.

Find more from my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my Youtube channel. There you will find advice from myself and other agency experts.

Why I Charge for Agency Programs

Ever wonder why I charge for my programs? Asked and answered right here! Also, how to quit being dragged into client work so you can grow your agency. Plus what do to when a client refuses to sign a contract and questions why you even have one.

{0:52} Simon asked: Everyone says a business owner should work on the business and not in the business. However, we’re a very small team of 5 people. The biggest challenge we have is hiring talented senior people who can run and grow the clients' businesses. Simply put we don’t have the money to pay the huge wages they command. And our clients don’t and won’t pay that much to have someone manage their account. So I get dragged back into client work and can't work on my own business. How can I prevent this from continuing?

{4:07} Simon asked: Just out of curiosity, if you sold your agency for 8-figures I'd assume you’re set up for life and can live off the savings. If that’s the case why aren't you giving away your Playbook for free and just charging for 1-on-1 sessions?

{7:23} Tim asked: I’ve got a local client who is taking issue with my contract. Nothing IN the contract, but the fact that I have one at all. In their words, "We do relationships, not contracts." The entire document is essentially a T&C agreement that covers liabilities and outlines a work process so that once signed, it stays on file. How do you handle contracts in a way that makes them approachable to clients?

Advice For Your Agency

I hope this episode of Ask Swenk was helpful and brings you clarity on agency programs and how to get those contracts signed.

If you want to know how to improve your digital agency, you may come across challenges and knowing how to adapt will make you a better agency owner. I cover all topics from the struggles you may face in your agency to creating the best agency proposals and more. I hope you found this helpful and can put it into action.

Have other topics you want advice on? You can check out all my tips, tricks and insights in my blog covering a wide variety of topics as well as answering your questions in more from my Ask Swenk series.

Are videos more your thing?  You can check out my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my Youtube channel for advice from myself and other agency experts.

When looking to improve the lead generation strategy of your digital agency, you might find it difficult in identifying the ways you can do this. One of the ways you can improve your lead generation strategy is by contributing to podcast content by being a guest.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• 3 Benefits of being a podcast guest.
• How to get find shows and rock an interview like a pro.
• How to turn other podcast listeners into your clients.

My guest today is Tom Schwab founder of Interview Valet, an inbound marketing agency. Tom’s background is in engineering - he even ran a nuclear power plant in the Navy - which means he’s brilliant at building process and systems that generate maximum output for minimum input. Tom shares the genius of being a podcast guest as a lead generation strategy, as well as the secret to getting more bang for ($0) bucks.

Why Being a Podcast Guest Is Important for Lead Generation Strategy?

Fresh content is still a thing, but blogging just isn’t. People want to consume information in different ways, on their terms and in their own time. That’s why podcasting is so awesome. I chatted with podcast master Pat Flynn about starting your own podcast. In addition to hosting, it’s also a great idea to get yourself out there to be interviewed as a guest.

Think of being a podcast guest as a way of having more content out there. Podcasts are evergreen. Make sure your interview content is something that is going to earn awareness, respect and trust.

Podcasts are also more convenient to consume. Reading blogs or watching videos isn’t always convenient, however people are downloading podcasts to listen to on the go. They can even be listened to on 1.5X or 2X speed for quicker consumption.

People also really love podcasts because they are more conversational in nature. Videos tend to feel scripted and “perfect” but podcasts are natural with more of a human touch.

3 BIG benefits of being a podcast guest.

1. A captive audience. The host show has an established audience that is already tuned in to hear the valuable content the being serves up. They are voluntarily listening to what you have to say!
2. Pre-qualified leads. You’re getting targeted reach to your specific market, which means your ideal customers are the ones listening and leads are pre-qualified. Be selective with the podcasts you choose.
3. Shorter sales cycle. Prospects earned from a podcast already know your story and enter into the sales cycle educated. They aren’t the tire kickers - they’re already interested. Your sales cycle is shorter because you don’t have to spend as much time convincing.

Getting started as a podcast guest.

It’s the same marketing principles that we’ve always known: Marketing is just a conversation with your ideal clients. So you need to find them, connect with them, and make it easy for them to become a paying customer.

1st - Identify podcasts to target.

Find the right podcast audience. Identify shows that have listeners with the right buyer persona. Start by searching shows by keywords in iTunes or SoundCloud. Do your homework to find out the size of the podcast and density of listeners that fit your target audience.

Some other things to look for:

• Age of the podcast - many die by episode 10.
• Show notes - important for SEO and backlinks.
• Explicit rating - decide if your brand/audience will be OK with offensive language.

Start by making a list of podcasts to target. Then check out Tom’s infographic on getting booked as a podcast guest.

 2nd - Be a superstar guest.

Your job is to make the show’s host look like a genius for having you on the podcast. Do that by being your charming self and providing super valuable content.

Be genuine in your interview to attract the right clients. Draw in the people who are entertained and excited by the thought of working with you. Be yourself and let your personality shine through in the interview.

Make sure you’re providing valuable information that will stay relevant in an evergreen platform like a podcast. This will all contribute to improving your lead generation strategy.

3rd - Turn listeners into leads.

Use your interview like a lead magnet. Remember, podcasts are just more content so you need to provide a call-to-action. The tricky part is that your leads are listening on the go, so you have to make it very easy. Send them to a dedicated page on your site, invite them to listen to your podcast, or give simple instructions to sign up for a webinar. Simplicity is key.

Also, make sure you help promote your episode once it goes live. Tweet it, share it - do your part to get it out there. You can also transcribe the interview and tweet out key phrases, or take a piece of it and expand on it in a blog post. Be creative about repurposing interview and all your content. Not everyone sees everything you put out there, but the more you have out there the better odds that everyone will see something.

4th - Avoid these mistakes.

Don’t just go for the shows with the biggest numbers. Spend some time interviewing on smaller shows first so you can fine tune your interview style and topics.

Make sure you’re prepared. You don’t want to be caught off guard with surprise questions/topics. Prepare for the interview like you’re giving a keynote on stage.

Be sure you’ve got the right equipment and that it’s in working order. Test your connections and mic before every interview.

Would you like to be a guest on my podcast?

I'm looking for people willing to share their amazing stories to help our agency community. Agency owners only, and you must be over $1 million in annual revenue.  Click here for details. 

Are you losing out on improving your agency profitability why having the wrong internal processes for your business?

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• How to fix the #1 problem every agency experiences.
• 3 ways to standardize your internal processes and increase profits.
• 2 strategies to upsell to existing clients.

This week’s guest is the expert on creating systems and processes. (Which means I’m a big fan because you already know how I feel about systems and processes.) Anthony Chatfield has an extensive background in the agency space and is the founder of Lead Connect, an agency specializing in inbound marketing. He also consults with agencies that are great with lead generation and closing deals, but struggle with delivery. Anthony shares strategies for making your agency operate more efficiently with some key process documentation.

The Gap In Agency Internal Processes

The biggest problem Anthony sees in agencies is the breakdown in communication between sales and fulfillment. So many times a salesperson promises the moon and stars, but the account team delivers something far less. This leads to frustration on the client’s part and resentment internally.

There’s a three-part fix to this problem that Anthony says in crucial in for every agency:

1. Formalize a checklist for your core services.

Operations standard are a must. Creating a document that you can share with the client about what is (and what is not) covered in a project fee manages expectations and minimizes or eliminates profit leaks.

2. Develop a master document for the engagement.

Include everything from target demographics to KPI’s. Understand the client's definition of success and spell out how the client will measure the success of your agency’s work. This should be in place by the end of the first meeting. It’s good to have a template or standard document that can be customized on a project/client basis. If you want access to the exact agency documents we used, click here.

3. Get everyone on the same page from day #1.

Get sign-offs from everyone involved - external and internal. This is another important way to manage expectations and maintain accountability. Have the client sign everything from the checklist, to the brief, to the proposal, to zero dollar change orders.

When you have a standard process in place the client learns off the bat how you operate. You manage them and the project instead of allowing them to manage you.

2 Strategies to Upsell Your Agency Clients

1. Meet more. 

No one wants to add more meetings to their calendar but when those meetings are revenue generating you better believe they’re worth it! Anthony says a lot of agencies aren’t talking to their clients frequent enough. When you increase communications there are natural opportunities for upsells. He says account teams should be holding weekly status calls with clients. This keeps everyone accountable - especially the client who might be holding up a project. When you’re ahead of schedule and the client is seeing results, they’ll start asking you what else they can pay for to get more results.

2. Tell a story. 

When you deliver results, don’t just email them a spreadsheet or report. Analyze the results and give it to them in story format. Present what happened, what was learned and what else you can do with the data to drive more or better results. When you frame it this way you are opening up dialogue for next steps, more projects, etc. And whenever possible present these results face-to-face. Hiding behind email does not allow for discussion - personal meetings are going to open up more opportunities.

Cashflow or bookkeeping issues?

FreshBooks is the solution. FreshBooks makes ridiculously easy­ to ­use cloud accounting software for agencies that will help you work smarter, become more organized, and most importantly, get you paid quickly.

Check out FreshBooks.com/SmartAgency and enter SMARTAGENCY in the "How Did You Hear About Us?" section for a FREE 30-day, unrestricted trial.

Build Your Agency

Revising the internal processes of your business can create benefits not only for business but for your teams and you as an owner.

Are there other areas of your business you want to improve? By evaluating other areas of weakness within your agency, you can create a better business and improve as an agency owner. And the best thing about it is, I can help you get through all of it.

I can give you support and advice on many topics from what to do when you want to speed up sales processes, ways to increase your business profit margins or how you can build an authority for your agency.

Growing your agency can be a major struggle for any agency owner and I can show you the different phases of growth you will experience, how placing a process for performance based pricing can be the best pricing strategy for your business and the three questions you need to ask yourself to sell more!

Learn about my career and different experiences as well as tips, tricks and insights by checking out my blogs that cover a wide variety of topics.

Find more from my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my Youtube channel. There you will find advice from myself and other agency experts.

So many agency owners become consumed by their top line revenue and what they need to do to make it better. Incase you didn't know, top line revenue isn't everything and yours means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• Why top line revenue isn’t everything.
• 2 ways to tackle profitability.
• How to get past the excuses and be a content machine.

I’m super psyched to have Joe Apfelbaum as my guest on the podcast today. Joe’s the owner of Ajax Union, a 7 year old, $4 million dollar agency. In addition to being a successful agency owner, Joe is also a mega content producer. He tells us all about what he’s done in order to get to the multi-million level, what he stopped doing to stay there and how in the world he has the time to create so much content.

Top line revenue isn’t everything

When they started seven years ago, Ajax Union was operating as a full service agency. They would do anything/everything for anyone/everyone. They experience significant growth while revenue doubled every year for the first 4 years. They were also on the Inc. 500 list as the fastest growing agency. BUT, top line revenue and quick growth isn’t everything if you aren’t managing profitability…

Back then the agency had 350 active projects at any given time, which meant 75 full time employees to service their growing client list. They were building their top line with no regard to the bottom line. Joe knows firsthand - you always have to be working on your bottom line.

In early 2015, Joe decided to take a hard look at where his agency was heading. After He restructured his agency and his approach to business. He made two huge decisions which impacted business dramatically:

2 Ways to Tackle Profitability

1- Focus on a specialization

Instead of being a full service, “me too” agency, Ajax Union focuses now on B2B lead generation. Doing this meant deciding who they can and cannot serve… and willingness to turn away work that is not ideal and specific to their niche.

Defining a niche not only meant targeting specific businesses with their outbound strategy but doing this also created a built-in screening process for inbound. The result was a cut in full time staff and outsourcing more work in order to manage profitability.

It’s scary when you define who you are and who you’re not, because it means eliminating opportunity. Now, Joe says he turns away 90% of his prospective clients but it hasn’t hurt revenue one bit.

2- Build relationships

Joe says he also realized building relationships was going to be the key to sustainability. Rather than just driving leads and competing with every other agency, he has now created a network of agencies that have complementary skills and developed a referral community. He is sending business to other agencies and they’re reciprocating.

Relationships and networking is a great business building strategy. In fact, I interviewed one agency owner who doubled their business by referring work to other agencies. When you stop competing and start trusting your connections, everyone wins.

The other huge benefit to having great relationships with other agencies is for your future. You may want to buy another agency as a growth strategy - you may want to sell your agency to someone you trust. If you have established relationships these transactions are much easier.

How to Get Past the Excuses and Create Massive Content

Content is king, for sure. And Joe’s a big proponent of helping without selling. He believes great content helps serve your target and they will remember you for it when it’s time to work together.

Even though he produces a ton of content now, it wasn’t always like that for him. He says he started and stopped several attempts at blogging, email marketing, podcasting and video production. Like all of us, it’s hard to make time to write or record yourself. Life gets in the way -plus- there’s all the usual reasons not to do it: camera-shy, fear of speaking and general lack of confidence. Joe had all those reason (excuses) too, and that made it nearly impossible to commit to content creation.

2 Steps to Being a Content Machine

1- Define your goals to grow to your agency.

It’s all about clarity. Getting really clear about where you’re going means you’ll get there a lot faster. Joe says it took him a long time to understand and appreciate his ‘why’. But, once he got clear about his personal purpose he was able to create a personal brand.

When you aren’t sure who you are, you end up hiding behind a facade or some notion of who you should be… so, figure out who you are and why you’re doing what you’re doing.

When Joe got clear about his purpose, he realized it’s about being helpful and inspiring to others. He merged that with his business goals and knew he had to start putting himself out there.

2- Commit and make it priority.

Don't allow it to take a back seat.

With crystal clear purpose, Joe’s done a complete 180. He shed his excuses and now has a weekly podcast, internet TV show and posts daily inspirational videos on Facebook. He also sends a weekly blog-style email to the top 100 ideal clients he’s targeting. He writes for Entrepreneur, Forbes, Business Insider and more.

It’s not really about how much content you can create it’s how much you can you share, re-purpose or re-package it. I live by the 80/20 rule. Spend just 20% of your time on on content creation and 80% on distribution.

Is time the problem? Don’t let time be your reason. Make time or hire someone dedicated to content creation and agency marketing. Commit to a content schedule and block out time to crank it out. Or, delegate to a team member who can make it a priority if you can’t. It should be a non-negotiable growth strategy.

#1 Strategy that Drives 100% Agency New Business

I asked Joe how much of his business comes from his content. His answer? “ALL.”

And if you think about it, it makes sense. He says he’s got stuff everywhere. So every brand that’s working with Joe’s agency has seen or heard something from him prior to working together. He has done the groundwork and built the know-like-trust factor.

His best advice is to just get started. Be on a predictable schedule and be patient while momentum from your content builds. Whatever you do, don’t his the pause button - it’s just too hard to get motivated to get going again once you give yourself permission to take a break.

Cashflow or Bookkeeping Issues?

FreshBooks is the solution. FreshBooks makes ridiculously easy­ to ­use cloud accounting software for agencies that will help you work smarter, become more organized, and most importantly, get you paid quickly.

Check out FreshBooks.com/SmartAgency and enter SMARTAGENCY in the "How Did You Hear About Us?" section for a FREE 30-day, unrestricted trial.

Next Steps For Your Agency

Has your opinion on top line revenue changed?

I hope it's starting to sink in for you that your top line revenue of your agency doesn't mean anything and it has encouraged you moving towards the next steps of growing your agency. But what's next on the list?

If you need support and advice on any topic, I have most likely experience them myself and can help. From what to do with your sales processes, ways to increase your profit margins or how you can build authority for your agency.

I can show you how to stop losing money on projects, why solid processes for performance based pricing can be the best pricing strategy and how having remote working or freelancers in your team can be beneficial and the best ways of managing them.

Learn about my career and different experiences as well as tips, tricks and insights by checking out my blogs that cover a wide variety of topics.

Find more from my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my Youtube channel. There you will find advice from myself and other agency experts.

Every agency owner has the goal of growing their agency to a level that they can target the bigger potential clients. This is because with bigger clients comes creating proposals for bigger budgets.

This week is we are going to talk all about budgets...  more importantly, we are going to talk about client budgets. In this episode of Ask Swenk, I take a closer look into what you should do when clients lower their budget during a project, the strategies for getting an increase in budget and how to land bigger clients with bigger budgets.

Bigger Budgets

{3:17} MJ asked: What do you do when a client won't give you the budget promised?

{6:21} Carl asked: What are the best strategies and tactics for a digital marketing agency to increase the budget of key clients?

{9:29} Andrew asked: As a small video agency, what is your best advice for acquiring new clients, moving up the food chain and commanding bigger budget projects?

Special Offer

Did you realize this is the 50th episode of #AskSwenk? To celebrate this milestone and thank you for the awesome questions, we've got a special offer! CLICK HERE to get $500 OFF my Agency Playbook, which includes the systems every agency needs to be easier to run and scale to the next level.

Grow Your Agency With Your Clients

I hope you found this episode of Ask Swenk and that your questions about achieving those bigger budgets have been answered.

Growing your agency can be a major goal for many agency owners. I can show you the different phases of growth you will experience, how placing a process for performance based pricing can be the best pricing strategy for your business and the three questions you need to ask yourself to sell more!

You can also learn about my career and different experiences as well as lots of tips, tricks and insights by checking out my blogs that cover a wide variety of topics.

Check out more from my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my Youtube channel. There you will find advice from myself and other agency experts.