Have you ever considered acquisition as a growth strategy? What about acquiring five or even ten other agencies in order to grow? A lot of agency owners consider M&A for growth but think there are financial barriers preventing them from taking the leap. However, have you ever considered M&A as more of an investment strategy?  In this episode, our guest shares his insights on the power of mergers and acquisitions in the agency industry. He discusses how he initially thought M&A was only for businesses with large amounts of cash but now realizes the surprising accessibility of acquisition andhow it more achievable than he thought. He also shares his hands-on experience purchasing companies with lower EBITDA values and how it has the potential to significantly boost his own company's EBITDA.

Jon Bast is the owner of T3 Marketing, which started as a full-service marketing agency and is currently in the process of changing to focus on CMO services for car dealerships. He’s been in marketing since graduating college in 2012 and launched his agency in 2016. Jon has been a member of Agency Mastery since 2017 and believes the agency mastermind community has been an important part of his growth as an agency owner. More recently, he's been learning about the accessibility of acquiring companies to grow his agency.

In this episode, we’ll discuss:

• Increasing agency valuation up to 12x.
• Different models of agency M&A investing.
• Advice for agency owners hoping for growth through M&A.

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Sponsors and Resources

Would you like to create a magnetic agency? Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is brought to you by the Agency Mastery Attract Masterclass, a free video training series where you'll learn how to build a better agency by becoming an authority in your niche and mastering the art of client attraction. Check it out at AgencyMastery360.com/attract.

Increasing Agency Valuation Up to 12X 

Like many agency owners, buying other agencies had long been on Jon's mind, though it seemed out of reach. But as his agency scaled, acquisition opportunities came into view. Now knee-deep in the process, Jon wishes he'd studied up sooner. In the past, he and his partner entertained options, but none felt like the right strategic fit. That changed in 2021 when an agency aggregator approached them. This sparked a six-month preparation process for acquisition. Though the deal ultimately fell through, it lit a fuse within Jon. With this new insight, he focused on proactively pursuing acquisition targets that aligned with his agency's goals.

One important thing he learned in that failed process was the term "multiple arbitrage." With this strategy, agency owners can add value to their business ranging from 3x up to 12x. However, a common concern is how to add value, and multiply sales, yet still retain clients and be scalable. This growth rate is something he never thought he’d see until he understood the power of M&A. Jon thought it was pretty much impossible to get to $2 million in revenue fast, but he now realizes it actually is realistic. Now he understands by adding the right agencies to his portfolio, his business can get to $2 million in EBITDA through the power of M&A.

Creating a New Agency Vision Around Mergers and Acquisitions

Jon’s team has semi-automated their outreach. They identified 100 possible purchase options and narrowed down the list to 50 to start contacting. They also created an acquisitions brand, which is associated with a bigger vision of acquiring companies and reselling them in 2-4 years.

The owners of the acquired companies are presented with the option to keep a percentage of a business worth 5x and take a second exit in 2-4 years.

Jon has also learned that in many cases owners are looking for an opportunity like this. Some have been operating the business for several decades and are ready to move on; others really need someone to step in and operate the company. After a couple of conversations, Jon finds these owners are willing to sell just so they no longer have to operate the business.

Different Models of Agency M&A Investing

Jon’s vision is to sell his newly acquired agencies as a larger entity. The team takes the top talent from these agencies and has them come together to discuss ways to leverage each other's strengths. Right now they’re focused on looking for specific capabilities. With experience, they’ve learned the importance of acquiring capabilities instead of synergies.

There are many models for this type of sale that don’t necessarily require millions of dollars to start. For instance, in the Alex Hormozi model, they invest and do management consulting with the option to buy the business. Then they sell it off piece by piece, rather than selling the parent company.

Overall, Jon's advice is to strive to buy something that is established instead of buying and then building from scratch. You’re buying someone’s perfect formula that took years and years to come up with. You’re not just buying a product so don’t just limit yourself to looking at just EBITDA. The true value to you may be different than to the owner who has emotional ties to the business.

Advice for Agency Owners Hoping to Grow Through M&A

When it comes to agency M&A, Jon encourages agency owners to think big. In his experience, once he started thinking about acquiring not just one but 5-10 agencies, that vision led to more people attaching themselves to him along the way. This is why he believes in the importance of allowing yourself a limitless vision.

Jon highlights the potential and feasibility of acquiring other agencies, even for smaller businesses. For his part, Jason suggests narrowing down the focus to one or two key actions. Jason finds many agency owners overwhelmed when they consider the steps needed to double their agency in the next year. However, when he asks them to consider what it would take to 10x their agency, the list is much smaller and more manageable. This indicates that focusing on a few key actions can lead to significant growth.

By thinking big and expanding one's vision, it becomes easier to attract and align with the right people and resources to achieve growth.

Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset?

If you want to be around amazing agency owners who can see what you may not be able to see and help you grow your agency, go to Agency Mastery 360.  Our agency growth program enables you to take a 360-degree view of your agency and gain mastery of the 3 pillar systems (attract, convert, scale) so you can create predictability, wealth, and freedom.

Does your agency website convert as well as it should? Why do clients buy from your agency? It might be time to take an objective look to determine how your agency website can convert more clients. It’s a practice that will help you improve as a business and get a pulse on your audience’s decision-making process. Today’s guest founded one of the first CRO agencies in America and has a lot of experience understanding what his clients need versus what they want. He's sharing his story about growing his successful agency and ways you can improve your website to convert more clients by looking at the functional, emotional, and social reasons they buy from you.

Khalid Saleh is the CEO of Invesp, one of the first dedicated CRO Agencies in North America. His agency has worked with the likes of eBay and Target, as well as smaller startups. As an eCommerce software architect, Khalid built his career devising ecommerce and optimization solutions for companies like American Express. Today he’ll reveal how some of the most important changes to a business website must come from careful testing and how, in that process, he’s usually humbled by clients.

In this episode, we’ll discuss:

• What clients want vs. what clients need.
• Improve your agency website to convert more clients.
• Getting to the core of why clients buy.

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Sponsors and Resources

E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service.

Podcast Takeover!!

Get to know your Smart Agency Guest Host: Dr. Jeremy Weisz is the co-founder of Rise25, an agency that helps companies launch and run podcasts profitably. He followed Jason’s podcast and eventually joined the mastermind and has been a guest on the podcast before. Today, he’s helping Jason bring something new to the Smart Agency podcast audience by interviewing a special guest and getting a new perspective to the show.

What Clients Want vs. What Clients Need

Khalid got the opportunity of a lifetime to work with Motorola revamping their ecommerce website in 2005. It was a dream come true for any software engineer as he had access to all the technology he needed to build the best website.

The project took endless nights of hard work but the site was ready in three months. However, after so many hours of work and resources poured into the website, they quickly learned the site was not converting. They had almost no orders. As a software engineer, this was outside Khalid's expertise. The site was built as expected so his job was done. Nonetheless, Khalid became very interested in how something like this could happen and the idea for his agency, Invesp, was born.

Now his agency helps brands increase conversion rates by getting to the core of their goals. It boils down to what clients want versus what clients actually need. Often times clients think they just want to revamp their websites, but they actually want help growing their business.

Improving Your Agency Website to Convert More Clients

Khalid and his team know that website CRO starts with looking at the website from the client's perspective. Once he understood that clients chose his agency in order to grow their business, his team made some adjustments to the agency website. First, they got rid of any language that sounded too formal. He wants clients to feel like they’re being greeted as a friend. He also removed ambiguous language and tried to be very clear about what his agency does. Too often a company’s website uses vague language. As a result, people leave not having any idea about what they do. In this sense, the friendly language must be balanced with practical descriptions of the ways you help clients.

Next, clients browsing the website may worry their team lacks experience. So they added social proof of the different companies they’ve worked with and the results they’ve achieved. They even added video testimonials to offer additional evidence and not just claims of success.

Khalid and his team designed the website according to what they wanted the client’s user journey to look like. They strategically mapped it out to answer their main questions and concerns and address their core needs. This is what he did for his agency and part of how he helps clients increase their CRO.

Why Clients Can Humble the Most Experienced Marketing Agency Experts

In his keynote speeches, Khalid often refers to being humbled by clients. Sometimes all your research and testing does not prepare you for the clients’ reactions. Even though the research indicates one option is the most likely to bring more website traffic and clicks, you may be quickly humbled by the actual response. It’s something every business owner, marketer, or designer can relate to.

Anytime you run an experiment in marketing you have a hypothesis. You may be proven correct or find you’ve misinterpreted what the audience wants. With several options, one wins, and the others lose. Why did some of them not work out? This is a tricky question you should always ask to get a better understanding of what works for your audience.

Some clients may agree there are reasons to change a design but don’t think testing is necessary. They can’t choose one design out of several options so they figure any of them will do. This is where Khalid’s team insists on the importance of testing each design out. Usually, the results end up surprising everyone. Out of four designs that seemed equally good maybe two actually reduce the conversion rate, while the results for the other two show a clear winner. This is why testing is so important.

Getting to the Core of Why Your Clients Buy from Your Agency

Anyone who’s been through business school has probably heard that “no one buys a quarter-inch drill, they buy a quarter-inch hole”. That saying refers to the practical results you expect to get when you buy a product. In reality, for every action we take there are functional results, social results, and emotional results. For instance, if you buy a car you’ll be able to get from point A to point B (functional), you’ll feel like you’ve accomplished something (emotional), and maybe get your peers’ praise (social).

However, getting people to admit this is difficult. You must be very good at customer interviews by structuring them in a conversational style. After establishing the conversation, Khalid recommends going back to when the problem began. Ask questions that take the prospect back to the moment they decided to make the purchase. The more they remember and open up with details about their purchase decision,  the better results you'll get about the emotional and social response to the purchase. These results are better than just asking direct questions about the product and purchase experience.

Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset?

If you want to be around amazing agency owners that can see what you may not be able to see and help you grow your agency, go to Agency Mastery 360.  Our agency growth program enables you to take a 360-degree view of your agency and gain mastery of the 3 pillar systems (attract, convert, scale) so you can create predictability, wealth, and freedom.

Do you want to level up leadership in your agency and empower your team? Providing resources and training to your leadership team is important in helping build their confidence and creating a trickle-down effect to the rest of the team. Today's guest believes it all starts with the hiring process and creating an agency that is desirable to work for. He is on the show sharing how he and his agency business partner maintain a balanced relationship that benefits the agency and how they've created an agency that is in high demand not only by clients but by protective employees as well.

Brett Curry is the CEO of OMG Commerce, a performance marketing agency that manages YouTube, Google, and Amazon campaigns for growing ecommerce brands. They’re a Google Premiere partner and Amazon partner. Brett is also the host of two ecommerce podcasts Spicy Curry and Ecommerce Evolution, where he highlights what’s new and coming in e-commerce.

In this episode, we'll discuss:

• Creating balance with your agency business partner.
• Cultivating leadership and empowering your team.
• 2-step strategy taking e-commerce brands to the next level.

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Sponsors and Resources

Would you like to convert more prospects into clients, charge what you're worth, and maximize profits? Check out our free video training all about pricing, building a sales team, and getting the owner out of sales so they can focus on profitability. Head over toAgencyMastery360.com/covert

Listen to our Smart Agency podcast episode with Chris Brewer, OMG Commerce where he shares 4 major agency sales mistakes and the systems you need to sales success.

Pivoting Away from the Full-Service Agency Model

For as long as he can remember, Brett has been captivated by the world of advertising and marketing. Even while on vacation, he can be found diving into the latest marketing books and publications. His passion was sparked early on when he discovered direct-response marketing gurus like J. Abrahams and Dan Kennedy in his teens. Though the mediums may have changed over the years, as an agency owner he has maintained that intrinsic drive to understand what makes great marketing.

Brett and his partner first started the agency in 2010. By then, he had a successful career in marketing and owned a company focused on print, TV, radio, and direct mail. The agency started a project to try their luck with online advertising. They started with local Google map optimization for businesses and was a hit right away. With time, they started doing website design, copywriting, and TV advertising. However, it quickly became too much and they pivoted away from that full-service model.

It was time to drop some services and focus exclusively on an area where they truly shined. The clear answer was search marketing. It combined all the things they were really good at as a team, so they went all in. Right away they formed some key partnerships and started working with ecommerce clients.

Creating Balance with Your Agency Business Partner

Starting out, both Brett and his partner had existing businesses to lead, so balancing the agency became a challenge. How could they each utilize their skill sets and still work as a team? They share the most important value which is their trust in marketing and leadership style. When it comes to their individual strengths, Brett is really good at pitches and leading teams while his partner loves everything about the sales process and is very good about following up. This is how they complement each other and divide the workload.

For agency owners with co-founders, Brett recommends having very clear expectations about what each one brings to the table. It’s good to have this in writing from the beginning instead of figuring it out along the road. In fact, this is something they still revisit 16 years later when they talk about how their roles need to shift every couple of years as the agency grows.

The most important thing is having a good understanding of each partner’s personality and areas of genius. Get clear about how you’ll work together and which decisions you can make individually and which must include all partners.

Cultivating Agency Leadership and Building a Great Team

For Brett, everything rises and falls on good leadership. To ensure he’s creating the best conditions to build great team leaders, he leads a monthly leadership development training open to everyone in the agency. He’s a big believer in providing the right resources and training to empower people to make decisions. This is the fastest way to prevent a bottleneck where every decision has to be run by you. Having good leaders working alongside you ensures they can make decisions. It’s not easy to do for agency owners. We love to solve problems! But you need to show people you trust them to make decisions.

Finding and training great leaders starts with the hiring process. Brett is proud of his agency’s process and the type of people their culture attracts. They’ve had some disastrous experiences with past hires, which have mostly traced back to hiring friends of friends. They’ve since learned a lot from their mistakes and made great key hires who have been with the agency for a long time.

How to attract the right people to your agency team. Brett loves podcasting and speaking at events and admits he would do it just for fun. However, he says a really cool benefit of having a podcast and being a regular speaker at industry events is not only attracting clients but also attracting employees, too.

2-Step Strategy to Take eCommerce Brands to the Next Level

Brett declares YouTube as one of the fastest-growing and most used platforms by younger generations. If you want to learn or research something, YouTube is the place to go. It has reach and targetability so you can be really specific about what you want to reach.

As opposed to other platforms where the video is just doing part of the work, on YouTube the video is everything. YouTube videos must interrupt, grab attention, overcome objections, demonstrate the product, get the viewer to take action, and have the right pacing. Furthermore, it's important to understand video ad campaign structure to identify how to bid, measure, and look at things to get the most out of your video. It’s not enough to measure direct conversions. Many people watch an ad and then go to Amazon rather than click through and purchase directly.

Owned by Google, YouTube holds all the search behavioral data you need. They’ve been collecting the data for decades and you can tap into that keyword search behavior and target people based on that. Build your audience based on what people search on Google so they’ll see your ad. YouTube really understands audiences and creatives.

Brett has witnessed many shifts in the marketing game over the years. However, he still thinks email remains as powerful as ever. It’s a good way to warm someone up to your brand and cultivate them into a great client before they buy. Once they do buy, it’s also a great way to get them ready to get the most out of the product. It basically facilitates repeat purchases and product launch sequences.

Put them together for a strategy that takes brands to the next level. YouTube ads are a great way to get people introduced to a product and send them to a landing page to opt-in to an email list. Then, use email to close the deal. In fact, in Brett's opinion, a direct-to-consumer e-commerce brand email should be responsible for 30% to 45% of revenue.

Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset?

If you want to be around amazing agency owners that can see what you may not be able to see and help you grow your agency, go to Agency Mastery 360.  Our agency growth program enables you to take a 360-degree view of your agency and gain mastery of the 3 pillar systems (attract, convert, scale) so you can create predictability, wealth, and freedom.

Is your team working together toward a clear agency vision? Do you trust your team and effectively delegate? Do the agency leaders also know how to delegate in order to scale the agency?  The agency owner is the Visionary and needs an effective operations leader to align the team with the vision by holding them accountable and having hard conversations. Today's guest is an Agency COO offers insight into an operator's role in keeping the team focused on the agency owner's vision.

Zach Montroy is the founder of The Intention Collective, a company that offers strategic planning, growth acceleration, workshops, and leadership coaching for entrepreneurs. As an agency COO, he is passionate about helping companies grow and evolve into high-functioning, high-impact organizations. Today he talks about how agency owners can hold their team accountable and make sure everyone’s rowing in the same direction to get their the destination faster and easier.

In this interview, we’ll discuss:

• Do you need more employees or better delegating skills?
• Why effective delegating begins with the agency vision.
• Operations leaders keep agency Visionaries more focused.

Subscribe

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Sponsors and Resources

E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service.

Do You Need More Agency Employees or Better Delegation Skills?

To Zach, one of the biggest obstacles for agency owners is clarity on how to hold people accountable. As leaders, we carry a huge weight on our shoulders and often think the answer to managing workload is hiring more people on the team. However, it all comes down to how they are delegating, holding people accountable, and driving clarity.

Hiring more people can become the default response to a increased workload. However, if you were to examine your team’s capacity, you would probably find faults with delegating and clarity that is costing them time. Fixing these issues leads to more work getting done without the need to make new hires. Furthermore, oftentimes we convince ourselves that it’s easier and faster to just do things on our own. You may think “It’ll take me 15 minutes to do it myself but an hour to explain it to someone else.” The problem is that if we multiply that times 20 or 50 now all our time is going to things other people could be even doing.

Agency owners should start by auditing their time for one or two weeks to catch how much they’re spending on low-level tasks. Ultimately, those 15-minute tasks add up to 10-15 hours a week that should be delegated to someone else. As an entrepreneur, is this the most effective use of your time?

Effective Delegating Begins with the Agency Vision 

Cutting down on tasks that are just draining you and taking away time from setting the vision for the agency reflects on your culture. Moreover, it’s very likely that there are people on your team who find joy in some of these tasks. It takes a lot of self-awareness to know which tasks to delegate and do it wisely.

Identifying the things you need to do in the business goes beyond just wanting to scale. Instead, think about what you would need to do to 20x the business. There are probably two or three big things you should be focusing on. Everything else you should delegate.

Ultimately, a clear vision makes all the difference in achieving your goal. Without a clear vision, your team is just working on what they think is important. It's like your team is together in the same boat but everyone will be rowing in a different direction.

This is a result of not dedicating enough time and energy to being a leader. As the agency leader you set the boat on it's course and everyone else to follows.

Do you know what your destination is? You need to define where you’re going as well as why and how you’re going to get there.

Why Every Visionary Needs an Operations Leader

Being an agency Operations leader requires a particular skill set. When you’re leading an agency it’s your responsibility to keep everyone focused. It’s the Visionary’s job to be thinking in terms of the agency’s future three, five, or ten years down the road. If they’re not doing that, it won’t grow and scale. In that sense, the Operatorations leader's job to determine what’s best now and establish a working strategy to follow.

The Operations leader indicates how to align people behind the vision so that it becomes more than just an idea. They also establish priorities and make the hard decisions. If this leader is doing their job, they’ll probably say at some point “If we say yes to this then we have to say no to this other idea.”

This may create a notion that operations are constantly saying no to the Visionary’s ideas. That’s not the case. They do say yes to things but they usually have to say no to something else.

How Can You Hold Your Team Accountable to the Agency Vision?

Pursuing the same goal as the company comes down to how you are holding people accountable. What does accountability look like? Zach says it comes down to clarity. People have to have deep clarity in their roles and contributions. The agency is investing in them and giving them trust to perform the job.

Finally, when it comes to accountability, leaders need to have the ability to have hard conversations. Facing issues with the team head-on and with empathy will help you develop as a leader. The more a leader is willing to hold their team accountable, the less they actually have to do it. They’ll do it for themselves. Avoiding uncomfortable accountability conversations only leads to a lack of accountability.

Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset?

If you want to be around amazing agency owners that can see what you may not be able to see and help you grow your agency, go to Agency Mastery 360.  Our agency growth program helps you take a 360-degree view of your agency and gain mastery of the 3 pillar systems (attract, convert, scale) so you can create predictability, wealth, and freedom.

How would you define your agency leadership style? Has your leadership evolved as your agency grows? Or has it remained stagnant as you keep doing things the way you've always done them? Ideally, your style should align with your agency culture and enable the desired outcomes for your agency. Finding your ideal leadership approach takes time, but it helps to first clearly define your goals. Furthermore, what kind of culture do you want to foster in your business? As today's guest explains, agency owners need to adjust their leadership style as their agency continually grows. She shares how she's identified the right leadership style for her agency's current stage, and how her leadership team has also adopted styles that align with how they want to show up for the agency.

Bobbie Bailey is the owner and president of M Agency, a digital agency that partners with companies looking to build memorable brands, websites, and marketing campaigns. As a full-service creative marketing agency headquartered in the Pacific Northwest, they work with clients in a variety of industries. Bobbie is an accidental agency owner whose career has taken many twists and turns. She is on the show reflecting on the transition from print advertising to digital and her evolution as an agency owner and leader.

In this interview, we’ll discuss:

• Evolving your digital agency to focus on what clients need.
• Helping brands adapt to the digital age.
• What type of leadership style enables agency growth?

Subscribe

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Sponsors and Resources

Attract Masterclass: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by the Attract Masterclass, a free masterclass series where you'll learn how to create a magnetic agency, become an authority in your niche, and master the art of client attraction. Make sure to check it out at AgencyMastery360.com/attract.

Podcast Takeover!!

Get to know your Smart Agency Guest Host: John Corcoran is the co-founder of Rise25, an agency that helps companies launch and run podcasts profitably. He followed Jason’s podcast and eventually joined the mastermind and has been a guest on the podcast before. Today, he’s helping Jason bring something new to the Smart Agency podcast audience by interviewing a special guest and bringing a new perspective to the show.

Learning How to Evolve Your Skills into a Role You Desire

At just 15 years old, Bobbie was determined to work. She figured the restaurant industry was the right place to start, so she began persistently calling all the restaurants in her area. Her tenacity paid off when one restaurant created a hostess role specifically to hire her. This formative experience taught Bobbie invaluable skills in reading people and adapting to different situations. Additionally, she learned to handle a high level of responsibility early on. To this day, when interviewing potential hires for her agency, if Bobbie sees restaurant experience on their resume, she knows they can handle a lot.

After studying computer science, Bobbie interned at a woman-owned tech company. This proved to be a great learning experience. As she had hoped, the internship led to a full-time job offer. However, the owner was very honest and actually encouraged Bobbie to pursue something more suited to her interpersonal skills. While skilled in computer science, Bobbie wondered if she wanted to sit behind a desk for the rest of her career. After all, her people skills could provide success in other directions.

Considering her options outside of computer science ultimately led Bobbie to a job producing the Yellow Pages. Her entry-level role involved cold-calling 70+ people per day. Before long, Bobbie quickly grew from prospector to sales representative.

Helping Brands Adapt to From Print to Pixel

As the company’s work culture took a turn for the worse and it became clear the future was in digital advertisement, Bobbie felt motivated to make a change. Clients were asking her for support in the transition from print advertising to digital and navigating this new world. How to take advantage of the digital medium? With so many options, how could they better spend their budget?

Businesses that came from the print world and managed to evolve to digital proved to be very innovative. They found a way to monetize different channels and different mediums and adapt to a new era. Luckily, Bobbie had just the right training to know how to provide the support and strategy they needed. Furthermore, digital exposure was still very limited, with not as many options as we see today, so the transition felt natural.

Evolving Your Digital Agency to Focus on the Needs of the Clients

Initially, Bobbie transitioned into a consultant helping companies outline a digital marketing strategy. However, she quickly realized there were not any full-service agencies in this space. Since there was no one looking at the full picture she added website development to her services.

Bobbie grew a team that built websites and brought many brands to the new era. For instance, some of their clients had websites that were more than a decade old, terribly outdated, not optimized for smartphone view, and full of useless PDFs. Her agency completely rebuilt its clients' online presence and brand.

It took about five years for her to learn enough and realize the need to focus more on brands. From that point on, everything at her agency is rooted on branding, brand identity, and brand archetypes.

Bobbie and her team have different ways to extract a business’ personality. They go deep asking all sorts of questions that vary according to the industry. Then, all key stakeholders are interviewed as part of the process. Finding the essence of a business is vital to helping them articulate their voice and visual identity.

What Type of Leadership Enables Agency Growth?

Being an agency owner is a leadership role that changes and evolves as the business grows. In Bobbie’s case, she recently realized the leadership style she developed over the years was no longer a good fit for an agency of their size. She had to step back, identify the problems, and get curious about coaching styles. She had a business coach who regularly met with the team and provided support. However, as the agency grew the expectation for support continued even though the agency had outgrown it.

Choosing and committing to a leadership style requires an understanding of whether or not it fits your agency. This is something Bobbie has shared with her leadership team. At present, everyone on her team has also named their leadership style and identified how they want to show up for the agency. This helps keep everyone accountable and behaving according to the ideal way they want to show up.

Consider the leadership style you desire. Then take some time to outline the outcome you want. After that, identify and name your desired leadership style. Some people may want a militaristic type of organization. Some prefer servant leadership where they get involved whenever a problem comes up. However, this type of leadership is not ideal when you’re trying to scale your business. That’s where a coaching style can be helpful to try to pass the baton and focus more on the vision. In the end, your leadership style must be suited to the current growth stage and the desired outcomes to get your agency to the next level.

Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset?

If you want to be around amazing agency owners who can see what you may not be able to see and help you grow your agency, go to Agency Mastery 360.  Our agency growth program enables you to take a 360-degree view of your agency and gain mastery of the 3 pillar systems (attract, convert, scale) so you can create predictability, wealth, and freedom.

Are you getting the attention of your ideal clients? Ever wonder if your sales tactics are working? Wonder what clients think about your sales emails and calls? Most agency salespeople believe in what they sell but are unknowingly going about sales in the worst way, scaring off potential clients. Today’s guest once owned a marketing agency and has moved to the client side with a very successful retail brand he founded. He shares the secret of what sales tactics get his attention and how you can improve your sales to stand out from the competition.

Kelley Thornton is the founder and CEO of Tiege Hanley, a company focused on helping men look and feel amazing with uncomplicated skincare routines. He and his team are always looking for new ways to reach their customers with new marketing for their products. Over the years, his company has worked with several agencies and seen the very best and worst of agency salespeople. He sheds light on why some agencies' sales tactics are not working.

In this episode, we’ll discuss:

• Why some agency sales tactics are not working.
• How to improve your sales tactics and convert more prospects into clients.
• What gets a brand CEO's attention?
• Why patience can be the best sales tool.

Subscribe

Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM

Sponsors and Resources

E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service.

Kelley founded his agency in 2009 and spent ten years in the grind as CEO. He enjoys looking back and remembering everything they accomplished and how much the agency grew in that time. To him, the agency business is about people but there was a constant struggle to get paid fairly for your expertise. He saw first-hand how difficult it is to scale an agency, which is why he ultimately chose to leave the #agencylife.

Now, as the owner of a big brand, he gets approached by many agencies trying to work with him. In this position, he has witnessed many good and bad sales tactics and strategies. As someone who worked in sales for eighteen years, Kelley says he has the utmost respect for salespeople. However, while some of these strategies stood out to him for very good reasons, there are some sales strategies agencies should stop doing altogether.

Top 4 Agency Sales Tips: Insights from a Brand CEO

1 - Know Who You’re Marketing To and Be Specific

How can you stand out to potential clients for the right reasons? Just like anything else, you have to do your homework and have some idea of who your audience is. A lot of agencies set up email campaigns. Sometimes they take the time to customize them however, most don’t spend the time and energy to really understand their customers.

Even people who do try to understand their ideal customers opt for a spray-and-pray approach because it's more efficient. They send the same email to several people within an organization. However, Kelley believes that is the worst thing to do. If someone in the company finds the email interesting and brings it to someone who also got the email, they both become put off by it. Even worse than that is sending it to multiple people in the same email thread. You will stand out by taking the time to send personalized email communication and research the person whose attention you’re trying to get.

2 - Don’t Make Assumptions or Promises You Can't Keep

Kelley says the worst emails are the ones that make an incredible amount of erroneous assumptions about his business. This includes what the agency thinks it can do for his company. These emails usually contain promises like “We can help you improve your revenue from email by X amount". Kelley immediately trashes this type of email because no one should be making assumptions about how much they can help before they've even had a discussion with him.

Another common tactic he doesn’t like is the “I’ve prepared something very special for you, I just need you to respond to this email to confirm you want me to send it”. Basically, Kelley finds this type of "bait email" very disingenuous. If the salespeople really had something prepared, they would just send it. He has responded to some of these emails only to find the salesperson is not prepared to send the materials they promised.

3-Send Emails That Are Honest, Clear, and Concise

Communicate why you’re reaching out in as few words as possible. Be really precise about what problem you solve and how you’re uniquely capable of solving it. That’s it. A clear and concise email conveys you value the person’s time. Most people won’t even bother to read a long email explaining why you should work with them. Get straight to the point and you'll start converting more prospects.

Being honest will help the prospect also respond with honesty. Kelley says that if he as the client has that problem, he’ll respond. He has felt engaged and compelled to respond when the emails are concise, make suggestions, and maybe ask one question. If he’s interested, he’ll respond to that question. It’s a legitimate way to start a conversation, although it should be specific and not something complicated.

4- Be Courteous in Your Follow-Up 

We all hate the “bump-up” email. Please don’t do that. Or at the very least, don’t just say “Hi. I’m bumping up this email”. At least take the time to restate why you’re sending the email. Some people get creative with these emails and will even send pictures to try to get the prospect’s attention; remember to keep the tone light and don’t take offense if they've decided not to respond. Instead of sending a final email saying something rude like “I guess you’re just not interested in scaling your business,” try leaving the doors open with something like “I sense the timing is not right. We still think we have a great solution for you. I’ll back in X amount of time.”

What Gets a Brand CEO's Attention?

Phone calls are tricky nowadays because you rarely find anyone willing to pick up the phone for an unknown number. However, Kelley occasionally does pick up the phone and he finds he’s more likely to stay on the phone for a longer time when the salesperson gets to the point fast. He’ll ask “How can I help you?” and hopes to get a really succinct answer to assess whether or not he’s interested in the first few minutes of the call.

As someone who enjoys reading. Kelley is more impressed by a direct mail package that includes a letter over fancy boxes people tend to send. In these cases, a handwritten note is even more valuable because it’s such a rare gesture to have. It shows the person is really interested in the client’s business even more so than expensive gifts.

Finally, personalized videos are great for getting a prospect's attention. Of course, just like in text form, they shouldn’t be too long if you want people to watch them. It’s a great way to stand out as long as you make it about the client or their product. You could show you’ve already used their product to start a conversation about how you can help them market them. That’s the type of customization that really moves the needle.

Being Patient May be Your Best Sales Tool 

Sales is a long game and in this day and age, we’re conditioned to getting an instant response. Kelley encourages salespeople to be patient. Just because you struck out on your first attempt to reach a client doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not interested or won’t engage with you. Most of the time a no just means "not right now." Be patient with your audience. Know who you’re talking to and do not take it personally.

Jason once waited eight months to interview Seth Godin and he came through. Eight months after their initial exchange he reached out again and got the interview he wanted for the podcast. The wait was definitely worth it.

Two or three times a year is a good measure of how many times to reach out to prospects without becoming a nuisance. Sending multiple emails won’t help wear them down. That’s not how it works. Two or three emails are enough to determine if this is something they need right now.

Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset?

If you want to be around amazing agency owners who can see what you may not be able to see and help you grow your agency, go to Agency Mastery 360.  Our agency growth program helps you take a 360-degree view of your agency and gain mastery of the 3 pillar systems (attract, convert, scale) so you can create predictability, wealth, and freedom.

Are you looking to connect with decision-makers in big brands? Do you want to land bigger, high-value clients? Big brands realize there's a good match with boutique agencies that provide a fresh and innovative approach. So how can your agency unlock inbound marketing strategies and get noticed by big brands? One agency has worked with household names like Disney and Shopify. He explains why he strongly believes in the value of forming and nurturing strong relationships with people rather than brands, and how betting on someone’s growth can help you land big clients and take your agency to the next level.

David Mausolf is the owner of Apex Growth, an agency focused on helping big brands that aren't fully staffed or are uncertain about their growth strategy crush their financial forecasts. David’s team becomes seamlessly integrated with partners and provides clients with the tools and training they need to grow.

In this episode, we’ll discuss:

• Nurturing relationships before selling services.
• Starting conversations with big brands.
• Earning the attention of ideal prospects with targeted content.

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Sponsors and Resources

Attract Masterclass: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by the Attract Masterclass, a free masterclass series where you'll learn how to create a magnetic agency, become an authority in your niche, and master the art of client attraction. Make sure to check it out at AgencyMastery360.com/attract.

Nurturing Relationships Before Selling Agency Services

Years ago, David and his partner were working full-time jobs while trying to grow their agency on the side. However, it wasn’t sustainable and in 2020 they decided to make the jump to focus on scaling the agency full-time. In just three years they’ve grown to have 25 employees and over one million in revenue.

How did they do it? David believes it all started with relationship-based selling. Most agency owners approach their relationship with clients from a service-based standpoint, where the focus is on what they’re selling – whether ads, SEO, CRO, etc. Instead, his agency's model revolves around cultivating meaningful relationships with clients to uncover their unique needs. Then they craft tailored solutions that speak directly to the clients' needs.

Depending on their needs, David’s team helps companies hire new team members or executives. The relationship may also start directly with the specialist searching for new job opportunities. By strategically connecting specialists with target companies, they foster meaningful relationships that organically develop into sales opportunities with large enterprises. This strategy helps them stand out from the competition who are just selling services.

Getting Conversations Started with Bigger Clients

David understands the opportunity to work with a big company may come every 1-3 years. In the meantime, he works on planting the seeds to first build and nurture a relationship with that company. It’s a very different model than trying to sell to a mid-size company or startup, which can be much more transactional. When you’re trying to work with a brand like Facebook, that relationship must be pre-established so they feel they know you on a personal level.

Start by supporting them in a way that’s not transactional. Keep in mind you’re selling to people, not brands. David’s team focuses on building valuable relationships with executives knowing they will move on to work at other companies and bring the relationship with them. Someone currently working at a small startup might end up working at a big international company in a few years. The relationship-based model focuses on the individuals as their career progresses.

For instance, David’s team may even make introductions for one of these individuals looking for a new job. The agency doesn’t gain anything from that, but it’s part of establishing trust and making a bet on someone who is likely to be a valuable contact at a big brand someday. It’s definitely a long-game strategy. Eventually, when this person needs your agency's services in their new company, your agency is one of the first they reach out to.

Earning the Attention of Your Ideal Prospects With Targeted Content

Relationship-building is a strategy that has worked wonders for David’s team. However, if you want to get your foot in the door right now then it’s all about getting attention with great content.

Ask yourself what type of content would be relevant for someone in your niche/ industry. David focuses on LinkedIn content by posting about the type of problems his ideal clients usually face. Then he might also run ads to target that specific audience. It’s a way to create a passive relationship before ever talking. In fact, he prefers using ads over sending direct messages, which can feel invasive and repetitive. Many times, after consuming his content for a few months, clients come to them.

Keep in mind you might not get concrete data that your content is being seen by the right prospects. As David explains, executives and decision-makers are very busy and don’t necessarily comment and engage with your content. This doesn’t mean they’re not paying attention. Many times an executive will tell David during their first meeting that they’ve been following him for months.

Is LinkedIn the Best Place to Grow an Audience?

Is LinkedIn the best place to find these decision-makers? Yes, you are more likely to find that audience there. However, David and his team are starting to organize round tables and invite people from the industries they’re targeting. They also participate in private Slack work groups where they get to meet ideal prospects and bring their expertise. Their goal in these forums is to present themselves as a resource that can help with specific issues. It’s not a place for selling, it's more about establishing authority and gaining trust.

How often to post? Most don't have meaningful and insightful advice to offer by posting daily. David’s team focuses on quality over quantity, which means posting about 3-6 times in a two-week period. There’s no need to post daily - people don’t need to see you every single day. David's agency has a formula focusing 20% of its content on personal stories and 80% on industry-relevant content. This too, establishes authority in the industry and followers begin feeling like they know you on a personal level. Finally, they also mostly focus on written form, which gets them better results than video.

Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset?

If you want to be around amazing agency owners who can see what you may not be able to see and help you grow your agency, go to Agency Mastery 360.  Our agency growth program enables you to take a 360-degree view of your agency and gain mastery of the 3 pillar systems (attract, convert, scale) so you can create predictability, wealth, and freedom.