What sets digital marketing agencies apart? How can you destroy your competition to succeed? Are you struggling to stand out in a crowded market? Do you want to crush your competition and become the go-to agency in your industry, but don't know where to start?

What if I told you there’s a way to separate your agency from everyone else? Whether it’s an SEO, ecommerce, or email marketing agency, your agency can still sound like everyone else despite having a niche. Having a MeToo agency will only have you winning the race to the bottom.

The next logical step after choosing a niche is finding ways to position your business as the top choice for clients. From crafting a unique value proposition to building a strong brand identity, you need to know how to set your agency apart from the competition.

In this video, I’ll share…

• How one agency transformed from a "Me Too" agency to an industry leader with a huge waitlist of clients that are willing to pay a premium for the best.
• Why your marketing isn’t clear and how to fix it. I’m also going to show you the simple formula for developing an elevator pitch that makes people say where have you been all my life.
• My positioning script board that you can download and use to make your own marketing stand out.

So, how can you be more competitive in such a crowded space? Let’s about how to position your agency to stand out. Most digital agencies struggle with positioning in a way that truly resonates with their audience. Having unclear marketing leads to several bad things:

• Your clients won’t know who you are.
• Nobody is clear on how you can help them.
• Your marketing campaigns fall short.
• Potential clients won’t buy from your agency.

It’s frustrating because you know you have a great service to offer but you’re talking to an empty room.

Crush Your Competition With Marketing Messaging That Really Works

Let me tell you about my friend Jose, who had an agency with a well-defined niche, but was converting at less than 20%. My first thought was to ask him about his elevator pitch, which was “We design websites for non-profits”... Clear, understandable, and to the point. However, the problem was that it only mentioned who he helped and what he did.

No one cares what you do; they care what you can do for them.

After thinking about the results his clients wanted and why, we came up with an elevator pitch that mentioned how they helped nonprofit clients achieve their goals of raising awareness and finding donors and volunteers. We walked him through our positioning scripts and came up with a new approach. The new elevator pitch was clear on who they actually helped, what they want, and why in just a couple of sentences. That agency is now dominating their niche.

 The Positioning Script That Can Help You Reach the Top

Our formula to help agency owners improve their positioning includes five questions. Ideally, you’ll spend at least 10-15 minutes on each. You’ll be ranking each of the provided options to answer:

• What does your client want?
• What is keeping your client from getting what they want?
• How does their problem make them feel?
• Why shouldn’t people have to deal with this in the first place?
• What is the root cause of your problem?

Once you have your answers, you can start following the script to tell a story and create your new elevator pitch. This is what we did with Jose and this is how you too can get the best results. Get access to these resources at JasonSwenk360.com/attract.

Now you can create authority and position your agency in the right way. That’s where great content comes in, which is our next step in the Attract Series.

Whether you're just starting out or looking to take your agency to the next level, this video is a must-watch for anyone who wants to dominate their industry. So what are you waiting for? Hit the play button and start becoming the go-to agency today!

The Ultimate Guide to Unlocking Your Agency's Potential

If you want to stand out from the noisy agency space and attract your ideal clients in order to crush the competition be sure to check out our FREE video course: AgencyMastery360.com/Attract

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.

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Are you worried that defining a niche will limit your agency’s potential? Don’t be. Check out one agency’s story about how they grew past 7 figures in a very specific horizontal and vertical niche. Think: if you got paid on performance alone, what’s the ONE THING you do best to get you paid the most?

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• Why your agency needs a vertical or horizontal niche, or both.
• When and how to expand your niche.
• How to get bigger clients and retainers.

Today’s guest is Chris Dreyer, founder of Rankings.io (formerly Attorney Rankings). He’s a client of mine who did a private, full day workshop with me. We were able to supercharge his agency business and since then he’s had amazing growth! Agency leads have increased to 50-60 per day and they broke the 7-figure mark! Chris shares some of the strategies that helped his agency grow easier and faster.

Why Choose a Vertical and Horizontal Niche?

Chris is a school teacher by trade and was doing some SEO on the side. After a couple years of side jobs helping small businesses with SEO he quit teaching. He says it was an easy decision to choose a specific vertical niche because he knew he already had success stories, would build authority quicker, and stand out from the competition. To Chris, it seemed like an easy and logical decision.

Focusing on a horizontal was a more difficult decision. Chris says they are awesome at SEO and their happy clients would requests other services, like social media, PPC, email marketing, etc. He says they were “OK” at these types of projects and were profitable. However they made the difficult decision to focus only on their core service of SEO - and it paid off! Zeroing in on a horizontal makes you super searchable, and your ideal clients can find you right when they need you.

[clickToTweet tweet="When you make the decision to be the best at one thing, other decisions become easier to make." quote="When you make the decision to be the best at one thing, other decisions become easier to make."]

When and How to Expand Your Agency’s Niche

It was their goal to provide the best SEO for law practices - staying true to the goal was key. It wasn’t easy though. Naturally, law firms have relationships with a lot of medical providers. So, Chris’s agency’s satisfied law clients would often refer physicians to them. As tempting as it was, he often turned down those projects because he was so committed to the original goal in his vertical niche.

In fact, it wasn’t until just recently that Chris’s agency, formerly AttorneyRankings.io, rebranded to Rankings.io in order to draw a broader client base. The rebrand comes after 3.5 years of establishing their vertical niche. They’ve found a lot of their strategies easily transferred from legal to medical practices. However, 90% of their business still comes from attorneys.

How to Get Bigger Clients and Retainers

Not to pat myself on the back… but I’m gonna :) Chris said he attributes a lot of their success to implementing my Foot in the Door strategy. That’s when they saw conversion rates explode! Once they started offering a $995 SEO audit, it became so much easier for clients to commit to bigger projects.

The Foot in the Door allows Rankings.io to showcase their knowledge and educate their clients based on research and fact. It also allows the agency to qualify their prospects by working on a smaller project before signing on for a higher value, long term project. It serves as a vetting process and helps avoid potential headaches. (Translation: weed out the bad prospects before they become bad clients!)

From One Agency Owner to Another

Chris is a big fan of educating yourself and always trying to improve. His best advice to any agency owner no matter what stage they’re in, is to take action. Learning means nothing if you don’t put it into action.

Need Guidance and Support to Grow Your Agency Faster?

Most agency owners struggle to scale. We’ve developed an amazing mastermind to guide you through the journey of implementing the right systems so you can scale your agency — instead of feeling overwhelmed by it.

We do this by bringing together successful agency leaders to share strategies, offer advice, and reveal what’s working (and what’s not working) in their agency. The truth is, whatever you want to accomplish in life, nothing will help you go further, faster than getting the right adviser in the context of motivated peers. If you want to GROW fast and smart, Digital Agency Elite mastermind will help.

How Can You Improve Further?

Do you still have more questions to improve your business? I can help.

It doesn’t matter if you have been an agency owner for a while now or have just taken the leap and started a new agency, I have covered topics from the struggles you may face within your agency to leveraging YouTube in your marketing for your agency marketing strategy.

Learn more about me or you can check out all my tips, tricks, and everything you need to know in my blogs. I have covered a wide variety of topics as well as answering your questions and more from my Ask Swenk series.

Are videos more your thing?  Don’t worry! 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.

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If you’re looking for new ideas to generate new agency business and attract new clients, you might want to hear what today’s guest tells us about branded web TV and influencer marketing.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• How to use branded web TV for agency new business.
• 4 Steps to positioning your agency or client as an influencer.

Mark Fidelman founder and CEO of Fanatics Media is here to tell us -- branded web TV is the next big thing. According to Mark, video content is heading away from one-offs in favor of series or episodes. As an agency you can use this influencer marketing strategy for building new agency business, and as an innovative idea for your clients.

Why Branded Web TV?

At Mark’s agency they’re seeing an upswing in the popularity of branded web TV series. You might be familiar with Celebrities in Cars Getting Coffee or YouTube’s First We Feast. These are examples of branded series’ where viewers get a small dose of entertaining content while also being marketed to… and that’s where Fanatics Media has found their niche. They’re matching influencers and celebrities with brands to create a series of branded episodes.

In fact, Marriott has started using this marketing strategy. They have Bill Rancic (winner of season 1 on "The Apprentice") as their celebrity influencer on Open Invitation. This series of episodes entertain and inform while Bill and his celebrity wife, Julianna, tour a vacation destination. However the series is obviously branded by Marriott as he engages in property amenities.

You can use branded web TV for your agency as an inbound strategy by creating a series or episodes of valuable, helpful videos. You can bring idea to your clients who look to your agency for unique, innovative solutions and develop business building ideas. Even if video isn’t your thing, by providing a new lightbulb idea your agency will be valued and respected as an advisor rather than just a commodity.

4 Steps to Position Yourself or Client as an Influencer

1- Have laser focus. Know exactly who you can help and get very specific with who you will target. Afraid to specialize and turn-off potential clients? Don’t be! When you niche down you aren’t eliminating or turning away business. You’re just aiming it in a particular direction. You can’t influence on what you don’t know but when you concentrate on what you do know, you’ll find confidence and success.

2- Know your customer’s platform. It’s super important to know where your prospects are congregating and become a servant to that community. Don’t go broad by smattering your content everyone, but instead concentrate it and talk to an audience of one.

3- Create relevant video content. Determine what your audience needs or wants to know. What are common questions or challenges they have? Produce a series of content to answer their questions and aid in their challenges. To maximize effectiveness, create a reliable and predictable content schedule.

4- Get out of your own way. Most of us hate how we look on camera or can’t stand our own voice. It’s OK and you’ll learn to get over it. The key is to just start. Mark says he recorded 1-2 mins every day for 30 days to get over his hang ups. And me? I look like an orange Oompa Loompa in my early videos. Even pros like Gary Vee and Casey Neistat started somewhere. Just practice - you’ll find your voice and comfort zone.

Cashflow or Bookkeeping Issues?

FreshBooks is the solution with their ridiculously easy­-to-­use cloud accounting software for agencies.

Freshbooks helps you work smarter and become more organized. Most importantly, it gets you paid quicker. Check out FreshBooks.com/SmartAgency and enter SMARTAGENCY in the “How Did You Hear About Us?” section for a FREE 30-day, unrestricted trial.

Improve Your Business

With this blog, I hope it has given you an insight into the world of influencer marketing as well as how it could benefit your business. However, if there are other struggles you are experiencing in your agency, I can help you get through all of it.

I can give you advice on how to recognise new client opportunities to the different ways of building authority to improve your agency.

If you are having issues with growing your agency, I’ve the different phases of growth within your agency and the three questions you need to ask yourself to sell more of your digital agency services.

Learn all 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.

If you want to grow your agency like some of the big guys but you’re not sure how to get there, you’ll want to check out this episode. Our guest has grown four (almost five!) 8-figure businesses. He shares ways to increase your profitability so you can grow and scale too with the best growth model for your agency.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• 2 tips to building an 8-figure agency.
• The right way to create a growth model after the big agencies.
• 2 ways to increase profitability and eliminate scope creep.

Today’s guest is on in the process of building his 5th eight-figure business. Vinnie Fisher is the authority on profitability and growth. He’s an attorney by trade but left his law career to fulfill his dreams as an entrepreneur. Currently, he is the founder and CEO of Fully Accountable, a back office accounting and HR solution for service-based businesses. Vinnie shares the two big secrets he attributes to his 8-figure success with the right growth model, plus how an agency can become more profitable.

2 Tips to Building an 8-Figure Agency

1. Invest in developing people.

Vinnie says through out growing five different businesses he’s come to notice that the company flourishes when he doesn’t trap himself in a primary role. He spends time nurturing his team and trusts them to take the company to the next level.

2. Understand the marketplace.

We have an innate desire to be all things to everybody. However, defining an area expertise is imperative to growing your business. When you dive deeper into a specific target market, you can really zero in and get a comprehensive understanding of it. There is often resistance to specialize because owners are afraid of trapping themselves in their business. But those who don’t specialize end up wasting time and money.

How to Create a Growth Model Like Bigger Agencies

Naturally, if you’ve got a growth mindset you want to model what the big agencies are doing. And that’s a great idea, but you have to make sure you’re looking at the right season of that business. The big agencies didn’t always start with a broad business. Look at their early years and notice how they grew.

With his law background, Vinnie compared it law practices. He says all the successful law offices have specialize in a particular type of law: Family Law, Class Actions, Mergers & Acquisitions, etc. He says general practitioners can build a nice business but the big, well-known firms are the ones with an expertise.

[HOMEWORK] When you’re looking at a bigger agency to model, I challenge you to do this exercise as homework:

• Select a couple big agencies you’d like to replicate and check them out on The Wayback Machine. Notice the evolution of their site and note the changes.
  

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• Create a timeline of changes to their site and what might have been going on in the industry, technology, financial market, politics. See if you can draw connections between their online presence, their business growth and the outside influences.
  

  ---

• Don’t actually replicate what they’ve done - remember, they made mistakes along the way, too. Instead, use this exercise as your inspiration and an agent of change.

Target Profitability Rate for Agencies

In the debate over growth vs. profitability, Vinnie and I agree. Growth doesn’t mean sh*t if you’re not profitable. As a general rule for businesses that operate strictly with a service model (for example, agencies without any productized business), the magic target is 33% profit. Vinnie quoted this statistic from US Census data. Generally, agencies should see their revenue equally split in these three buckets: ⅓ Overhead, ⅓ Expenses and ⅓ Profit.

Remember, 33% is just a target for service businesses. You can micro-analyze your profit margin based on your agency’s uniqueness. However, Vinnie says no agency in a growth phase should be at less than 20% profitability.

How to Increase Profitability

Believe it or not, there’s a good chance you’re guilty of sabotaging your own profitability. If you are under charging, over delivering or doing too many “quick little favors” for free that is scope creep. It is absolutely the #1 agency profit killer.

Vinnie advises us to understand fair market value for the services we provide. Sometimes that means raising your prices. However, you may be priced just right but giving away work or doing extra work that goes unnoticed or unappreciated.

One of the best ways to prevent scope creep, is to understand why it’s happening in the first place. Sometimes the client asks for “favors” to get more value than what they’re paying for. The agency complies because they are trying to create goodwill and build the relationship. Other times, agencies are going above and beyond on technical components of a project, which goes unnoticed and unappreciated.

2 Ways to Minimize Profit Leaks

1- The $0 Change Order.

Document all changes you make on a Change Order Form. This is especially helpful for those "favors" and out of scope requests that you do for free. Make sure the form indicates the value of the work, then zero out the amount and have the client sign it. This shows the client what their “favor” is worth and serves as a reminder later when they ask for more. Once you assign a value to it, the client will be reluctant to ask for many more changes or favors in the future.

2- Communicate with the client.

If you’re going above and beyond, make sure you explain it them. Clients don’t know exactly what their agencies are doing behind the scenes. However, when you involve them they’re able to appreciate the extra energy you’re putting into their projects.

FREE Agency Accounting & HR Resources:

Vinnie and his team at Fully Accountable has a gift for our podcast listeners. Check out FullyAccountable.com/smartagency for an ebook, HR resources and more.

Need to up your staffing game?

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What Happens After Your New Growth Model?

Creating the best model growth strategy for your business can elevate your agency to the next level but you need to be prepared for a potential influx of business this growth model can create. By evaluating other areas of weakness within your agency. No matter what challenge your agency is facing, I can help you get through all of it.

There are many topics I can give advice on from what to do when you want to speed up sales processes, ways to increase your business profit or how you can build 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!

Want 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.

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.

Profiling Ideal Clients to Attract New Agency Business

If you are pulling generic data and basing your entire client persona off of it, you’ve got to catch this interview. To attract and qualify new agency business you need to be profiling ideal clients. This episode is all about how you can really zero in on how to start profiling ideal clients and your client’s clients.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• What “attitudinal segmentation” is and why you need to be doing it.
• 2 problems with the way agencies are strategizing now.
• 3 ways of profiling ideal clients and getting better data on your prospects.

Our guest today is Susan Baier, founder of AudienceAudit.com has spent 30 years in the marketing space. She’s worked both agency-side and client-side as a strategist until eight years ago when she founded her agency specializing in attitudinal segmentation and research. Susan tells us all about using custom research and data to avoid being a “me too” agency.

Profiling Ideal Clients: The Key Factors

WTF is "Attitudinal Segmentation"? (And why should your agency care?)

Since the dawn of time, agencies have been using research and data to hone in on their clients needs, and using the same for their client's clients. However, as things change we need to start considering more than just geographic and demographic information. Attitudinal segmentation is a fancy way of using customers preconceived notions and attitude in order to market to them better. With this type of research and data, marketers can tailor their campaigns with regard to customers’ attitude toward an industry, business or product. Marketers can also learn more customers’ thoughts and feelings about a particular industry, product, service, brand etc. by using this type of data. The result is more efficient and effective marketing that provides the service and value their prospects desire most.

2 Problems with Status Quo

Susan says agencies and clients think they understand what their customers want. However, without considering attitude and emotion, we’re not getting the whole picture. Gone are the days of marketing to a particular demographic (i.e. white females 25-40, on Pinterest), so most small and mid-sized agencies are doing a combination of going with their gut and buying packaged data. The problem is:

1. The data is irrelevant. Agencies and client execs spend hours upon hours developing their customer persona based on what they “believe” is going on in the marketplace. They are using their own personal experiences, underlying beliefs and anecdotal information to make assumptions about their customers.

2. The research is unhelpful. Generally, pre-packaged data is pretty accessible to everyone and doesn't identify anyone in particular. It is only industry specific, but not customer or brand specific. The data is vague and only gives insight into a type of person (based on age, race, interests, etc.) but nothing specific.

3 Ways to Get Better Data

1. Surveys

Surveys can help you understand what content is more relevant and valuable to the people visiting your site. For the past year, I have been using a Progressive Profiling Page for my lead magnet opt-ins and it is getting a 94% response rate. Progressive profiling is a series of 3-4 questions that helps me understand who is visiting my site as well as helps me qualify and tag them into the right automated marketing campaign. You can also survey your existing customer base to gather and interpret the data on why or how they feel about your business, offerings, industry, etc.

Pro: People are programmed to answer questions when asked. When you require a few answers before delivering on your lead magnet promise, you’ll get a really good picture of who’s visiting your site and why.

Con: Identifying the right questions to ask can be tricky. There are still some assumptions involved and it’s hard to pinpoint the exact questions to ask in order to get a the data you desire.

2. Personal Outreach

It might seem old fashioned, but talking to your existing clients can give you keen insights. This means picking up the phone and actually speaking to someone - no hiding behind email. Ask all your questions and get honest feedback to use in your marketing strategies.

Pro: One on one conversations can be highly effective and beneficial for gaining an understanding of your clients thoughts, attitudes and emotions.

Con: This type of research is not statistically valid. While you can gain information and insight, personal conversations cannot be used as mathematical data. It’s also really hard to reach a large sampling when making personal calls, therefore you can’t drive all your marketing strategy based on conversations with a handful of people.

3. Statistical Study

This is the best and most valuable way of securing data full of with attitudes, thought and feelings. A statistical study involves a large sampling with custom filters for demographics as well as specific questions about habits, opinion, mood and mindset of a distinct group of people.

Pro: This approach yields the best results and gives a very clear picture of what’s really going on. You can use it to obtain custom information and create a very clear persona for your content and marketing strategy.

Con: Fear of the results… it’s not really a “con” but some are afraid of getting super specific research because it might make results may show that your marketing strategy isn’t working. Don’t be afraid of results. Do a good job of selling in the need for research and the benefits of it’s accuracy. Then use it to learn what is and is not working. Don’t shy away from accountability. Instead use it to your advantage. You can analyze data and make it work in your and your clients’ favor.

With good data and research your “good” work will be even better. Clarity on who you’re talking to and what’s important and valuable to them means getting it right, right away. Less testing and tweaking means more efficiency and faster results.

[clickToTweet tweet="Marketing is a one-to-one conversation. Having good data gets you closer to a one-on-one, a lot quicker." quote="Ultimately, marketing is a one-to-one conversation. Having good data gets you closer to a one-on-one, a lot quicker."]

Cashflow or Bookkeeping Issues?

FreshBooks is the solution with their ridiculously easy­-to-­use cloud accounting software for agencies. Freshbooks helps you work smarter and become more organized. Most importantly, it gets you paid quicker.

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

Building Authority for your Agency

When profiling ideal clients for your agency, you could be at the beginning of increasing the workflow for your team and increasing revenue. However, what happens if this happens and there are weaknesses within your agency that causes everything to breakdown? Don't worry, i'm here for all the advice you need.

I have been in the industry for a long time and I have had my own experience running my own digital agency as well as helping other digital agency owners so there are many topics where I can offer guidance. Whether you are experiencing challenges as an established agency or a new agency unsure of what the different phases of growth you will experience will look like, I've got you covered.

As you continue to grow your agency team, I can show how to recognise when it’s time to hire a sales manager or expand your sales team to perfecting your business strategy with creating a process for performance based pricing and how to keep your big name clients happy.

Are you ready to create something cool and want more advice? 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.

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

Solutions for Staffing Issues

Are you trying to grow your agency while keep a tight lid on staffing? Busy chasing freelancers, all the while worrying they might go rogue or MIA? Over and understaffing can cause a ton of stress, but so can relying too heavily on freelancers. Today’s podcast guest has a solution for those staffing issues and more.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• Solutions to common agency owner struggles and staffing issues.
• #1 staffing mistake agency owners make.
• One service that makes agency owners’ lives easier.

Today’s guest is Ryan Crozier, founder of Agency Boon - an agency that provides creative agency talent to U.S. agencies. In other words, it's the agency that helps agencies.

Like many agency owners Ryan stumbled into the agency business. However, Ryan’s story has a different twist. He was a U.S. missionary in Romania where he started a nonprofit. He discovered his team’s creative talents and started farming out those talents to make ends meet for the nonprofit. They began assisting U.S. agencies on a project-basis and used all their profits for their charity work.

That was three years ago... today Agency Boon is a team of 20 with a variety of talents. One thing that has not changed over time is Ryan’s vision for the agency. They’re still in existence for nonprofits and they reinvesting all the agency profits back into Romanian charities.

Common Agency Owner Struggles

Ryan says his goal has always been to add value and serve his clients. The problem is that he has ZERO agency experience. There’s been a massive learning curve and a lot of second guessing himself, like:

• Feeling isolated. Running an agency can be very lonely. Prior to founding the agency, Ryan worked at a church and managed volunteers. Being an American leading an international agency has a completely different set of challenges. Mixing cultures with different work styles and work ethics can be really difficult.
  

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• Growing a team. Under and overstaffing is a concern of every growing agency. You want to keep people busy enough but not too busy or overworked. Ryan says he has tried to grow smart. Starting out with a small team of 1-2 is one thing but knowing when, how and which people to add is always a difficult decision.
  

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• Growing the agency. Finding new business can be challenging. Finding new business in the States when you’re in Romania is a completely different set of challenges. Since outsourcing to international companies has a certain stigma and a reputation for delivering shoddy work, . Overcoming these preconceived notions about his Romanian-based agency has been a major struggle.

Overcoming Agency Owner Struggles

1- Engaging in communities. Online communities and networking organizations can be a great resource. Ryan says advice and guidance from other agency owners is a huge help in solving some of his agency’s issues. It’s also reassuring to hear that other agency owners are experiencing similar struggles and facing the same challenges. If you’re a digital agency owner, you can request membership in our Facebook community with over 2,000 other agency owners.

2- Adding structure with systems and processes. There are resources and programs like our Agency Playbook that can provide a framework for running your agency. Ryan says he learned that having systems in place to streamline his business left him with time to concentrate on growing it rather than dealing with the day-to-day stuff.

#1 Staffing Mistake Agency Owners Make

You know there’s a saying about putting all your eggs in one basket. The same is true for relying too heavily on freelancers.

There are benefits to using freelancers - no employee overhead, schedule flexibility, etc. However there are staffing issues and also risk involved. There’s not much accountability. And, if you’ve got a lot of work tied to them and then you can’t track them down, it’s a nightmare. Every agency owner has or knows a “freelancer disappearance” story, right?. It happens. You can’t scale and grow an agency under those circumstances.

It’s also really difficult to juggle multiple freelancers. Managing projects gets really pretty tough when you’re bouncing work between a couple different freelancers with different skill sets. That alone can create major issues.

Working with Agency Boon is the best of both worlds. They make agency owners’ lives easier without the commitment of a permanent employee. Agency partners that work with Agency Boon find the experience an improvement over working with freelancers. Their Project Managers work with the talent, oversee projects, and can even integrate into the client’s PM software (Asana, Slack, etc.) Plus, since they’re in Romania, they’re working while the U.S. market is sleeping, so turnaround is often less than 24 hours. BONUS!

Check them out at AgencyBoon.com or hit up Ryan on Twitter @RyanCrozier and tell him you're a friend of mine :)

Becoming a Better Agency Owner

I hope this has provided you solutions to your staffing issues as well as any other struggles you are experiencing. Through my experience running my own digital agency and helping other digital agency owners, there are many topics I can offer guidance whether you are experiencing challenges as an established agency or a new agency unsure of what the different phases of growth you will experience will look like.

As you continue to grow your agency team, I can show how to recognise when it’s time to hire a sales manager or expand your sales team to perfecting your business strategy with creating a process for performance based pricing and how to keep your big name clients happy.

Are you ready to create something cool and want more advice? 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.

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.

What Do You Need to Do to Quit Losing Clients

Have you ever lost a client even though you’ve done great work for them? Puzzled as to why your “bad client” is so bad? This episode is all about what clients really want, from the woman who literally wrote the book. Learn all about maintaining good client relationships, how to quit losing clients, plus managing and training an amazing account service team that helps grow agency business.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• Why great work isn’t enough to keep clients happy.
• What clients actually want from their agency.
• 3 ways to make agency clients’ lives easier.
• Hiring and managing a team that grows your agency.

There’s no such thing as a bad agency client... only a bad prospect or a bad process. In this episode my guest, Chantell Glenville, goes in depth on the bad agency processes that are killing your business. Chantell spent a number of years working both the client side and agency side of the business. She’s the author of best-selling book “What Clients Really Want (And the Sh*t that Drives Them Crazy), the first of it’s kind written from the client's perspective.

Why Great Work Isn’t Enough

Chantell says over the span of her career on both sides of the business in agencies of varying size and specialties she witnessed lots of breakdown in communication between agency team and clients. There seemed to be a common thread among them. A breakdown in client relationships is what gets an agency fired - even when they’re killing in with great work. So how do you quit losing clients and maintain good relationships?

So, What *DO* Clients Want?

Of course they want great creative, innovation and the expertise of the agency. But here’s the part no one tells us… Clients want their agency to make their lives easier and to not make their lives harder.

[clickToTweet tweet="Agency Acct Service Golden Rule: Make your clients lives easier. Do not make your clients lives harder. " quote="Agency Account Service Golden Rule: Make your clients lives easier. Do not make your clients lives harder. "]

The problem is, agencies usually make the assumption that a new client starts at level zero on the unhappiness scale. We assume the client’s life is already relatively easy, when in fact they might already be at a -3 or -4 on the scale. Then we end up inadvertently doing things that tip the scale and make their lives even harder.

3 Ways Agencies Can Make Clients’ Lives Easier

1- Understand the client’s work life. What pressures are they under? Who do they report to and what is their supervisor’s work style? What is the structure of their day? If possible, go to their office and shadow them for a day to see what they “normal” looks like. Then adjust your style in a way that makes all things easier.

You might be surprised at what you learn when you get a glimpse into their world. (Especially if you’ve never worked client-side.) For example, if a large part of the client’s day is spent in meetings, it explains why you don’t get a quick reply to your “urgent” emails. So ask them if it’s OK to text them first when you’re sending something urgent. Figure out what makes the client’s life easier - without making it harder.

2- Pay attention to detail. If your client is often pressed for time but feels like you aren’t good at details that just creates extra work for them. Double and triple checking your work piles more on their to-do list. And, it is the exact opposite of making their life easier! If you’re client feels like they’re always catching your mistakes and needs to inspect every aspect of your work it adds an unnecessary amount of suckiness in their day.

For example, if your client has to send your work for a round of revisions based on things the agency missed, it negatively affects the agency by eating hours. However, think about it from the client’s point of view. It also adds another round of proofing for them, which eats hours into their day and… makes their life harder!

3- Ask them. Be direct and ask how you can make their life easier. Then alter your work style to accommodate their needs - if you're more of an email person and they're more of a phone call person, adjust accordingly to service their needs. Find out the easiest and preferred method of communication by asking them. Ask how much advance notice they need for approvals and sign-offs. Who else needs to sign off? Should you include that person on your emails, as well? Who else gives input on projects? How can you help simplify that process so your client isn't chasing their own internal approvals?

Another tip - consider using automation to on-board for new clients, then follow-up with human contact. Use automated emails to set expectations and establish workflow. However, always be sure there is a human for your client to connect with.

How to Hire & Manage a Team that Grows Your Agency

Chantell says the best AM’s are not only creative and organized but they also have a vast amount of empathy. Really amazing account people can put themselves in the client’s shoes and then adapt accordingly.

At my agency, I liked to say Account Managers are “client ambassadors”. They should consider themselves an extension of the client’s team; always thinking and acting in the best interest of the client. Account Managers should know and understand their client’s business and financial goals and objectives. They should know their clients problems and challenges in order to offer solutions.

In order to nurture client relationships and grow agency business, it’s up the account manager to communicate with the agency team. It can be hard for the rest of the team to know what’s going outside of a specific project. Meet regularly with your account managers to look at the broad scope of the client’s business and collaborate on big picture ideas.

Last, make sure your Account Managers feel empowered to present ideas to clients. Not just ideas that serve the agency, but any ideas that show care and passion for the client’s business. AM’s should know their client’s better than they know themselves. They should have a pulse on the industry and the competition. Set up Google alerts and be aware of what’s trending in their business even before they are… be client ambassador in every sense.

Quit Losing Clients: Defining Team Roles That Keep Clients Happy

Sales Team vs. Account Manager

Chantell says the best flow, in favor of the client, is to keep everyone involved but within their specific silo. That means the Salesperson doesn’t just “hand off” a client to an Account Manager. It’s a risky decision and makes the client feel like a commodity. Instead, have Sales involve the AM in strategy and planning meetings right off the bat. Let them gain trust and credibility, then gradually amp up the account person’s involvement while backing off the Sales involvement and quit losing clients.

Account Manager vs. Project Manager

Chantell also says it’s not a good idea to overlap duties and have the same person act as Account Manager and Project Manager. When you mix the roles it’s easy to miss opportunities for growth and added value. Typically, someone who’s good at one role is not good at the other. PM’s are task-oriented and like to feel accomplished. They’re in it for the short term. They are super organized and like to see a project from start to finish, which is good for the agency but not necessarily good for finding new business opportunities. AM’s are best at nurturing and growing relationships. They’re best at the long-haul and the big picture.

Cashflow or Bookkeeping Issues?

FreshBooks is the solution with their ridiculously easy­-to-­use cloud accounting software for agencies. Freshbooks helps you work smarter and become more organized. Most importantly, it gets you paid quicker.

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

More Advice to Build the Best Agency

Now that you know how to quit losing clients, what are you other hurdles within your agency? When trying to grow or make the best decisions for your business, it can be challenging and I hope you found this advice beneficial and it helps you with any of your concerns.

No matter if you are considering selling your digital agency or you want to grow your agency to the next level,  knowing how to adapt will make you a better agency owner. I cover all topics from how to increasing traffic to your agency website to who you should hire to grow your agency team and more to help you kick your team into action.

You can check out all my tips, tricks and insights in my blog covering a wide variety of topics including more about client relationships, tips on what to avoid to quit losing clients as well as answering your questions in more from my Ask Swenk series.

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

Legal Protection: Which Areas of Your Agency Need It?

It’s not a matter of if but when a legal issue arises for your agency, are you prepared? My guest today is an Intellectual Property attorney who focuses on helping marketing agencies with their legal protection to ensure all aspects of their agency stays protected.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• What legal mistakes to avoid.
• Which areas of your agency need legal protection.
• 3 contract loopholes you need to watch for.

Your agency’s biggest asset (other than your team, of course) is your intellectual property. This episode features Sharon Toerek, attorney at Toerek Law and founder of Legal+Creative. Sharon shares the processes to have in place in order to cover your ASS(ets). :) As an attorney specializing in marketing agency law, Sharon tells us exactly what mistakes to avoid and how to plan for potential sticky situations.

2 Big Mistakes to Avoid

According to Sharon, one the biggest mistakes she sees from marketing agencies is not understanding, undervaluing and not protecting their intellectual property. Everything your agency touches, does or creates is intellectual property. This is the product you’re selling. It’s absolutely imperative to adequately protect it.

The other common mistake is not having a process in place for the occasion when (not “if”) a legal situation arises. Issues such as: freelancer management, client contracts, brand protection and copywriting/social media content compliance can cause friction. The absence of a process for these things can make it even worse.

Areas that Need Legal Protection

Legal protection for your agency is so important and Sharon has identified 6 legal silos every agency should be concerned with; she covers 3 of them for us:

New Business: Whether you do a lot of pitches or not, at some point you must show your hand in order to land new clients. Agencies need to know how to protect themselves from the potential of a client taking their ideas to a competitor or in-house.

Solution: Avoid having your work stolen by having a non-disclosure agreement in place, or intellectual property and copyright notices in your proposal.

Contracts: Somewhere along the way, the word “contract” got a bad rap. People don’t like the stigma around contracts because they fear breaking them or wanting out. Sharon says a contract is simply a written set of promises both parties agree upon. Contracts are a MUST.  Run away from any client who doesn’t want to sign one.

Solution: Have a contract template, non-disclosure agreement, MSA or statement of work. Even if you end up using the client’s contract forms, having your own and knowing it’s contents will make you a smarter negotiator in the end.

Freelancers: With the ebbs and flows of agency workflow there’s often the need for freelancers. Managing the relationships and expectations with your freelancers is an area that can require special attention.

Solution: Be sure you have a strong independent contractor agreement in place that protect both parties, as well as a non-disclosure agreement.

3 Client Contract Loopholes to Close

In the event that a client requires you to sign their contract (instead of them signing yours), it’s super important to make sure it’s mutually beneficial. After reviewing hundreds of client-generated contracts, Sharon has identified some common areas to watch for:

1. Intellectual Property Provisions

These assets are your biggest form of capital but often times client-generated contracts provide for ownership by the client upon creation. Sharon tells agencies to protect themselves by allowing your intellectual property to transfer ownership to the client upon approval and payment. When you legally turnover assets before receiving payment, you’re essentially giving way your leverage for payment.

2. Liability and Indemnification Provisions

In most client’s contracts, they hold the agency responsible and liable for all outcomes. However, sometimes the outcome is reliant on information provided by the client. The agency should only be held liable for what they do, make and create. Even better, hold the agency only liable for gross negligence or purposeful wrongdoing and cap limits to the amount the client paid or to the amount of your insurance policy.

And speaking of insurance… Errors and Omissions coverage is necessary, no matter how small your agency may be. It’s typically very reasonable to add this coverage and can save you tons of headaches down the road.

3. Payment terms

First of all, make sure you have the right payment terms. (Hint: it's not 50% upfront and 50% upon completion!) Next, make sure phrasing in the contract protects your agency and gets you paid in a timely manner. Sharon has reviewed contracts which promise payment after the invoice is approved. This means you could be waiting months for someone to approve an invoice. No way! Check that contracts clear and fair payment terms.

Protect your agency from the liability of missed deadlines. Be sure there is language in the contract that allows for charging rush fees and passing along costs associated with delays caused by the client’s inaction.

Being aware of these areas will make you a better negotiator. It will also help you resolve an issue more smoothly when (not “if”) one arises. Having the right documents and processes is the only way to do it. You can check out the agency documents I used here.

Cashflow or Bookkeeping Issues?

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

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 Level Digital Agency

Ensuring you have legal protection for every aspect of your digital agency not only protects you as the owner and your team but also prevents stress and financial issues in the future.

To create the best business possible, you need to look at your agency in the bigger picture to find your strong areas as well as weak spots and then think of how you can fix them. No matter what challenge your agency is facing, I can help you get through all of it.

Through my experience running my own digital agency and helping other digital agency owners, there are many topics I can offer guidance whether you are an established agency facing struggles to new agencies unsure of what the different phases of growth you will experience will look like.

Growing your agency team can also be a major struggle for any agency owner and I can show from knowing when it’s time to hire a sales manager or expand your sales team to perfecting your business strategy with creating a process for performance based pricing and how to keep your big name clients happy.

Are you ready to create something cool and want more advice? 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.

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.

Stop Doing Things You Suck At & Improve Your Team Leading Skills

Want to improve your team leading skills? Just can't stop doing the things you're no good at? If you’re looking to break through the plateau of running a solo agency, this episode is for you.

Today’s guest is Pia Larson is the Chief Imagination Officer of Fingerprint Marketing, the digital agency she founded ten years ago. Pia shares stories and lessons learned about successfully building and leading her team.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• Solutions to 3 challenges every agency owner faces.
• The difference between being a leader and being a boss.
• How to stop doing the things you suck at.

3 Challenges Every Agency Owner Faces + Their Solution

1. Are you constantly chasing clients? The agency business is about relationships. And Pia says her company vision included long term clients. However she felt like she was always chasing the next client, which left her no time to build relationships with existing ones. When you can’t focus on current clients and make them feel special, they have no sense of loyalty.

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   Do you try to do everything yourself? As an entrepreneur we’re wired to wear many hats - even if something you don’t know or haven’t learned. One of Pia’s big challenges was the time of suck of educating herself in areas she didn’t know, like SEO or copywriting. (She’s a designer by trade.)

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3. Do you find yourself doing things you hate or suck at? Lots of business owners end up doing things outside their wheelhouse because they don’t think anyone else can do it better. That’s a pretty common mindset but truthfully you’re standing in your own way.

The solution to ALL these challenges is to add to your team. If you’re a one-person show, you really can’t grow and scale without hiring. When you ignore your gut and hold off on hiring, you’re actually sabotaging your potential for growth. You’re at max capacity - it’s time to bring in some help.

Pia says she dragged her feet for a year on hiring, but when she resigned to it and hired two people she saw results within a week. She admits there’s huge risk when you hire… What if they don’t work out? What if you can’t keep them busy? What if clients don’t like them? What if you can’t pay them? BUT, the payoff is so much greater than the risks.

Team Leading: How to Be a Leader, Not Just a Boss

Once you commit to hiring, you’ll will discover a shift in your role and focus. But you’ll also have a new role as a leader.

Being a leader is not the same as being a boss. I like to tell my clients, if you’re their biggest cheerleader your team is more likely to walk out on a limb for you, even if they’re afraid it will break, because they know you’ll catch them. Team leading is different to leading a business.

Pia has experienced the same over the last decade running her agency. Rather than dictate decisions and responsibilities, she likes to find the special talents and gifts within her staff and nurture it. She has had great results by asking people what they want to do, versus telling them what they have to do. This management style gets a great response and can be very motivating.

How to Stop Doing Things You Suck At

It starts with self-awareness. You need to have an ‘ah ha’ moment when you realize what you DO want and DO NOT want to be doing. It means taking a good, hard look at your skill set and being honest with yourself about what you enjoy doing.

Then, make a “No List” and tell yourself these are the things you aren’t going to do anymore. Next: eliminate, delegate or automate tasks on the No List.

Whatever you suck at - eliminate, delegate or automate.

Pia took it a step further by asking her mom and childhood friends to tell her the attributes and characteristics they remember about her as a child. She says she got some really great insight into her strengths by taking this approach, then applied it to her role in the agency.

#1 Tip For Dealing with Bad Clients

First of all, there are no bad clients - just bad prospects or bad processes.

But every once in awhile a bad one does sneak in. Usually bad clients are just bullies with a budget. If you’re being treated poorly, it’s not worth it - cut them loose.

Pia is competitive by nature. However, when she let her guard down and accepted that there’s plenty of new business out there for every agency it opened her agency up to a ton of new opportunities.

Being able to turn down business is a major milestone. In addition to your formal qualification process, you should also interview prospective clients. Prospects aren’t the only people who should be asking questions in an initial meeting :)

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 Authority

I hope this has given you an insight into improving your team leading skills, how to face challenges that may come your way and how to stop doing things you suck at. Have you taken the time to see what other challenges you are facing within your agency? Now is also a great time to step back and look at other processes that need attention. No matter what challenge your agency is facing, I can help you get through all of it.

There are many topics I can give advice on from what to do when you want to speed up sales processes to how you can build 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!

Want 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.

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.

How DigitalMarketer Increased Traffic by 1125%

Do you think your content strategy is the obstacle in brining increased traffic to your agency's website?

If your agency’s content marketing strategy is blogging - and just blogging - you’ve got to catch this episode. My guest is Russ Henneberry, Editorial Director at DigitalMarketer and he’s here to tell us how he has increased traffic on their front end by 1125%. That’s not a typo - you read it right - 1125%!!!

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• How you can enjoy increased traffic with a content strategy.
• The 3 elements to a successful content marketing funnel.
• How to uncover your marketing agency’s black box.

Russ is All-Pro at the content marketing game. Prior to working at DigitalMarketer, he was on the content team at Salesforce.com. He  also launched a blog for a well-known marketing SaaS where he grew visitors from 0 to 120,000/month in under a year.

Content is where it’s at in digital marketing. The problem is too many people think content just means random blogging. Russ says the solution to is to create your content with purpose and strategy behind it. A successful content funnel will carry your prospect through the various stages of their buying decision. There are three levels to an effective content funnel: Awareness on top, Evaluation at middle, Conversion on bottom.

Content that Raises Awareness

According the Russ, the very first step in a great content marketing strategy begins with prospect awareness. They must become aware there’s a problem. Then they need to be aware that your agency’s service offering is the solution. To create content that raises awareness and increased traffic, ask yourself:

• What do I need prospects to believe or what doubts do they have?
• What do my prospects need to understand, learn or know before they’ll work us?
• What objections might the prospects have to working with us?
• What are my prospects researching prior to hiring an agency?

When you figure all this out you can create all your content around the answers. And remember to be specific - speak to your niche using industry-specific words and phrases. Successful content marketing makes the reader/viewer feel as though it was created specifically for them. Therefore, speak to an audience of one to really nail it.

Content that raises awareness should educate, entertain and inspire so vehicles for this type of content include: blog posts, social media updates, infographics, photos, e-books, podcasts.

Content for Evaluation

This type of content is a level down from Awareness content and is useful for helping a prospect decide between their options. When a prospect is considering working with your agency, this type of content helps facilitate the decision. Prospects have choices and your obligation is to educate on the pros and cons of those choices. Evaluation content should answer things like:

• How does your agency stack up against the competition?
• What are the consequences if the prospect chooses not to solve the problem at all?
• How will working with your agency differ from solving the problem in-house?

Your responsibility with this type of content is to weigh the options and help facilitate a decision. It’s important to be honest and fair with these content pieces because they aren't smarmy sales content. You can use a lead magnet or opt-in, or even retargeting to drive back to your site. The goal is to give your prospect the opportunity to re-evaluate your process compared to their other options. Another effective strategy for Evaluation content is a testimonial where someone walks through the before, during and after process of working with your agency.

Some great vehicles for this type of content is lead magnets such as: educational resources (case study, white paper, etc), useful resources (swipe file, checklist, templates, etc.), webinars and live events.

Content that Converts

So now it’s sale time. What do you need to do or say to tip the scale in your favor? Content that Converts is the final piece. It’s all about making them feel good about signing with your agency. Things like customer stories with results, webinars, live events, mini classes and a great Foot in the Door offer all make great Conversion content.

To create this type of content, you’ll need to ask yourself: “what’s missing?”. Russ says every business has a Black Box that causes mystery or confusion. Creating content that solves the mystery is the final element in a successful content marketing strategy. The key is uncovering our your agency’s black box and eliminating the problem.

How to Uncover Your Agency’s Black Box

You’re too close to identify it right away but it’s there, and mystery and confusion are the #1 things that hinder conversion. When a prospect leaves your site with questions or confusion that is a lost opportunity. They will ultimately go to a competitor, do the work in-house or do nothing. So ask yourself: “what’s missing?” then create content that fills that hole.

Ready to Discover the Best Agency Strategies Working Today?

Most agency owners struggle to scale. We’ve developed an amazing mastermind to guide you through the journey of implementing the right systems so you can scale your agency — instead of feeling overwhelmed by it.

We do this by bringing together successful agency leaders to share strategies, offer advice, and reveal what’s working (and what’s not working) in their agency. The truth is, whatever you want to accomplish in life, nothing will help you go further, faster than getting the right adviser in the context of motivated peers. If you want to GROW fast and smart, Digital Agency Elite mastermind will help.

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.

Need More Advice?

So we’ve taken a closer look at ways of improving your content strategy for increased traffic to gain that exposure and lead building for your business but what other advice do you need right now?

To improve your agency, you should take a step back and really look struggles you need to focus on to improve your business. I have all you need to get through these obstacles.

I have advice to share with you from gaining agency exposure in the news, how to build authority for your agency or even ways to use facebook marketing strategies to expand your brand awareness. If growth is your focus, I’ve discussed the four phases of growth within your agency and how website issues could be holding your business back from reach your potential.

You can learn more about my life and my experience as well as lots of tips, tricks and insights by reading my blogs that cover a wide variety of topics.

If videos are more your thing, did you know I have a Youtube channel?

You can 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.

You aren't alone if you've considered transitioning into a SaaS company; or launching a separate company to sell SaaS. The challenge is educating your team, your clients and yourself on how to go about it.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• Reasons why you might want to develop a SaaS product.
• 4 steps to developing and launching a SaaS company.
• How to roll out your SaaS product and transition your agency.

If you’re thinking about developing or selling a SaaS product, this is the episode for you. My guest is Ethan Denney, founder and CEO of ConvertFlow. Ethan took his company from a service-oriented digital agency to a product-focused SaaS company. He shares the story of his agency’s transition including the steps he took to get there.

Why develop a SaaS product?

As a digital agency, Ethan’s company was focused on driving site traffic and lead generation. However, they found many clients needed site redesigns and lot of other, deeper services were more involved. These issues often decreased profitability and increased the sales cycle. (Not to mention that it created a major time suck.) Clients were not seeing results right away and Ethan’s agency was having difficulty proving their value right away.

In order to solve this issue they created a product that would provide more immediate value and shorten their sales cycle. It would also deliver faster results and more ROI to their clients. This cleared the way for ConvertFlow to charge on value and increase their profits.

Transitioning from digital agency to SaaS company

Often times the logistics of a product business sound much more appealing than a service business, am I right? Product companies have fixed costs, shorter engagement periods, and higher profit margins. But the grass is not always greener on the other side.

“The grass is greener on the side you water.”

Cashing in your digital agency and replacing with a productized company is not for everyone. In order to do be successful, it’s got to be done right. Ethan cautions us - it didn’t happen overnight and it wasn’t easy.

4 BIG steps to developing a SaaS company:

1- Determine your agency’s core service. Then figure out what’s keeping you from doing it. What obstacles do you face? For Ethan’s agency it was cumbersome site redesigns that were keeping them from driving traffic and generating leads for their clients.

2- Develop a solution. Once you’ve identified what’s keeping you from doing what you love doing, play around with possible solutions. Look at it from all angles. What solution can you create to will solve these issues for you or eliminate the obstacles?

3- Decide on the goal for your tool. Will you keep this solution in your arsenal and have it be your competitive advantage? Or will you sell this tool as a stand alone product? There isn’t a right answer - in fact, it’s a very individual decision.

4- Strategically launch your solution. In Ethan’s case, they chose to rollout a product-based solution to their clients that would be a shorter engagement and allow clients to see more immediate value. This included a multi-step launch to their existing digital agency clients.

Rolling out SaaS for your Digital Agency

As Ethan’s agency developed more of the productize business they were able to use it as a low-end “icebreaker” service. They discovered that charging $1,500 - $2,000, they were earning steady recurring revenue. Other benefits are a shorter sales cycle and shorter engagement period with new clients.

Transitioning bigger, long term clients took a little longer and a bit more thoughtful strategy. Digital agency service clients were first transitioned to a productized service where the product was introduced to the client but managed by the agency. Eventually, they transitioned those clients from a productized service to a product they could manage themselves.

Overall, Ethan is thrilled with the entire transition. Now, ConvertFlow is able to concentrate on doing what they love, without getting weighed down by doing the necessary stuff they don’t love.

Analytics Software to Boost Your Business

Klipfolio is a tool that is helping agencies continuously monitor and report analytics. Define KPI’s based on your preferences and filters in this cloud-based software. With 50+ built-in marketing metrics, you can create a dashboard for yourself and your clients which can be viewed on desktop, mobile or old-fashioned PDF.

For a limited time, Klipfolio has a special deal for my listeners. Get a FREE TRIAL and an amazing offer just for The Smart Agency Master Class listeners at Klipfolio.com/SmartAgency.

Are You Ready to Learn More?

If you are looking for advice with your current agency or learning how to start your own digital agency, I can help.

Find lots of tips, tricks and insights by reading my blogs that cover a wide variety of topics. And if videos are more your thing, you can check out the videos on my Youtube channel!

If you're struggling to build the agency or creating the agency vision that you want or having issues taking it to the next level, it could be a lack of clarity.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• #1 Struggle of building an agency team
• How to create and communicate your agency vision
• An on boarding process that sets expectations from day one.

Today’s guest on the show is Danny Gonzalez, co-founder of Perception, the digital agency he and his partner built over the past fifteen years. Danny talks about how they communicate their vision in order to attract and keep top agency talent.

You’ve probably seen some of Perception’s work if you’ve watched Iron Man 2 or Batman vs. Superman. They’re the team responsible for the fictitious technology your favorite superheroes use. They also develop real-world tech solutions (for us non-superhero types), such as UX and UI designs for automotive and technology companies. Pretty cool, right?

#1 Struggle of Building a Team

The most difficult thing about building a team is getting your established clients to trust them. When you operate solo or as a partnership for a long time, your clients are accustomed to leaning on you. Although when you’re growing it becomes necessary to hire. The challenge is getting your existing clients to transfer their trust in you to your new team.

"Hiring the right people frees you up to concentrate on building the business instead of spending time in the weeds."

The key is to start slow. It takes time to educate your current clients and have them accept a reorganization. Be sure display complete confidence in your new hires and over time your clients will feel it too.

With new clients, it’s much easier. Get your team involved from the start. Let go of your need to be involved. Assure the client that you are available if there’s an urgent need or large scale issue but their day-to-day contact is super capable of handling everything.

How to Create and Communicate Agency Vision

For the first few years, it was just Danny and his partner. But as they started growing and hiring, they began making notes about what they wanted for their company - expectations, culture, values and goals. With an agency name of “Perception”, for them it is all about internal and external perception and the senses.

Eventually these bullet point notes of expectations, values and vision turned into a handbook. The handbook is given to new hire candidates before they're even hired. It includes “rules” things like:

• We don’t bullsh*t each other.
• We don’t shoot down each other’s ideas.

As well as the lifecycle of a project with a variety of scenarios that lead to different actions: “If this happens, then do X. If that happens, then do Y.”

This is definitely something that has evolved over time and it’s only one part of Perception’s on boarding process.

In my interview with a Zappos executive, she described their process for communicating Zappos Core Values. As a result, Zappos has increased productivity and creativity, reduced turnover and sick time and has topped many Best Workplaces Lists for several years.

On Boarding Process That Sets Expectations from Day 1

In addition to receiving the handbook, the partners give new hires their “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” presentation. They walk through past projects, clients and situation to go over what went right, what went wrong, what was learned and why sometimes you just have to walk away (that's the ugly stuff :) )

Other aspects of on boarding include communicating very role-specific expectations. Setting very clear expectations from the start also sets your team up for success.

Analytics Software to Boost Your Business

Klipfolio is a tool that is helping agencies continuously monitor and report analytics. Define KPI’s based on your preferences and filters in this cloud-based software. With 50+ built-in marketing metrics, you can create a dashboard for yourself and your clients which can be viewed on desktop, mobile or old-fashioned PDF.

For a limited time, Klipfolio has a special deal for my listeners. Get a FREE TRIAL and an amazing offer just for The Smart Agency Master Class listeners at Klipfolio.com/SmartAgency.

Creating the Best Agency Possible With Your Agency Vision

Creating the agency vision you aspire to will allow you to create the best agency possible moving forward. To maintain this high level of authority and your reputation as an agency owner, you should review if there are other weaknesses within your agency that are causing challenges that need to be resolved.

Don’t worry, i’m here for all the advice you need.

From my own experience running my own digital agency as well as helping other digital agency owners, I can provide advice on many topics. It can be anything from changes you want to make within your established agency or if you are a new agency, you might be unsure of what the different phases of growth will look like. These are just a few topics I can give guidance on.

If it's not the agency itself but your agency team, don't worry as I have you covered. Growing your agency team, I can show you how to recognise when to expand your sales team to perfecting your business strategy with creating a process for performance based pricing as well as keeping big clients happy.

Ready to create something cool and want more advice? 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. Or if videos are more your thing, visit my Youtube channel!

Increase Business: How One Digital Agency Doubled Business in 4 Months

If you're trying to grow an agency, you know you're going to need a foot in a door strategy to increase business and get you to the next level of success. The trouble is, you're selling the wrong service first.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• #1 strategy to increase business with new clients for your agency.
• Why you need a Foot in the Door offer.
• What makes a great Foot in the Door offer?

My guest on the show today is represents every reason why I love my work. Todd Earwood is the founder and CEO of MoneyPath Marketing. We first met when Todd attended one of my two-day workshops. A few months later he called me to share the success story on how his business doubled in just 4 months. Todd shares with us the #1 reason his agency was able to increase business so drastically and how he’s on track to do 3X business within 6 months of the workshop!

MoneyPath Marketing targets SaaS companies and like many agencies they have a hard time getting their foot in the door. Todd attended my workshop hoping to glean a little useful knowledge that he could implement right away. Ask and you shall receive...

#1 Strategy to Increase Agency New Business

Todd wanted more opportunities to get his foot in the door with prospects and that’s exactly what he got on Day #1 of the workshop. We discussed the principle behind the Foot in the Door offer and how one agency did $252K at a tradeshow using this strategy.

(A Foot in the Door offer is a slice off your core services. It is something a prospective will find informative and valuable, but does not solve a problem or involve a large investment.)

Todd found so much value in the Foot in the Door lesson that he implemented it right there during the workshop. That day, he jumped on a call with his salesman and a new business prospect. He offered the prospect a paid discovery (instead of going right away for a full scale project). They landed the paid discovery and nailed it, which lead to another project and eventually retainer business allowing him to increase business overall for his agency.

Why You Need a Foot in the Door Offer:

1- It offers a low cost point of entry. When you are pitching a prospect for a project that is $20K or $50K it’s a huge commitment. And although you are fully committed to being successful, the price tag can make it a tough sell. A Foot in the Door offer is just the bottom rung on your offer ladder. You’ll find you actually make more money when you start small and have your clients stairstep their way up.

2- It’s the courtship before the marriage. I get it - you want the bigger paid projects and retainers. But going for those higher price tags first is like proposing marriage on the first date. A Foot in the Door offer is a great way to get to know each other. You can build your authority and gain more trust, as well as get a glimpse of client’s work style.

3- It helps to determine what the client really wants. Let’s be honest. What the client thinks they need and what they actually need are often two completely different things. That’s why a blueprint or discovery is so valuable. It allows you to dig into the current situation to see what’s missing and provide insight as to how you can help.

4- It pre-qualifies your prospects. Think about it this way. If you have a prospect who balks at spending $2,500 for a paid discovery, how do you think a full scale project proposal will play out? Maybe something like this? By selling a Foot in the Door first, you’ll get the opportunity to qualify your prospects. You can find out if they have the budget to work with you. In addition you can determine in advance if you can help them.

5- It speeds up the sales cycle. When you have a lower price point of entry it’s much easier for your prospects to make the decision to work with you. After you fulfill delivery on the Foot in the Door and wow them with your expertise you’ll find subsequent sales decisions and are made much faster. Why is that? Because once a client buys from you they are 20X more likely to buy again in the future because they already know, like and trust you.

What Makes a Great Foot in the Door Offer?

First and foremost, it needs to be super simple. Make sure you are managing expectations as to what your prospect is getting from the Foot in the Door offer. Call it a discovery, blueprint, consultation or whatever you want... Just be sure it’s something you can explain pretty easily.

The process for proposing and delivering a Foot in the Door offer should be pretty turnkey. No fancy, lengthy proposal necessary. Todd says his agency sells theirs in a two page PDF that documents the timeline, process, deliverables and price.

Don’t over deliver. This was something Todd learned the hard way. He said he was used to doing free consultations, so the first time they did a paid discovery they felt the need to give an abundance of information so he could justify charging for it. He says the prospect actually told him it was too much information and needed a couple days to think about it. That’s not the goal. The goal of a Foot in the Door offer is to provide value and give just enough information that leaves the client wanting to do more.

Your goal is not to make a money on your Foot in the Door offer. Instead you’ll see exponential growth, revenue and profits by the increased business it brings in. Your goal is to build relationships, increase business and move prospects through your offering ladder.

How to Be Viewed as an Expert

Todd says another big takeaway from my workshop was the importance of standing out and not being a “Me Too” Agency. Another contributor to his agency's success is the declaration of a specialization. Although it's counter intuitive, marketing to a specific audience will make a real impact on your business.

When you have a specialization, you are able to create better content that speaks to a specific audience. When you niche down, you are able to use language specific to that particular industry. Focused marketing campaigns show prospects that you understand their problems, issues and challenges. And you will be viewed a subject matter expert.

Don’t be afraid to choose a niche and focus your energy there. This doesn’t mean turning away business. It just means targeting a specific group and saying: “I only help guys like you, I know what I’m doing and I know we can be successful.”

Give it a try... because the only thing worse than not trying is the regret you’ll feel if you don’t :)

Have You Hit a Plateau With Growing Your Agency?

Do you feel that you don't have what it takes to really scale and grow your agency? As you may have noticed, the agency world is definitely going through some changes. If you would like to attend the same workshop that Todd attended and talked about in this article, click here.

Analytics Software to Boost Your Business

Klipfolio is a tool that is helping agencies continuously monitor and report analytics. Define KPI’s based on your preferences and filters in this cloud-based software. With 50+ built-in marketing metrics, you can create a dashboard for yourself and your clients which can be viewed on desktop, mobile or old-fashioned PDF.

For a limited time, Klipfolio has a special deal for my listeners. Get a FREE TRIAL and an amazing offer just for The Smart Agency Master Class listeners at Klipfolio.com/SmartAgency.

Discover the best Digital Agency Strategies today. Get Online Training to help you setup the right systems and strategies to help you grow faster.

Next Level Digital Agency

Now that you have heard from Todd, are you ready to increase business for your agency and take it to the next level?

In order to build as an agency owner and grow your agency to the next level, especially when you are looking to increase business, you need to be able to recognise other issues within your agency that needs your attention.

Look for weak spots in your business and then think of how you can fix them. No matter what challenge your agency is facing, I can help you get through all of it.

There are many topics I can offer guidance from the different phases of growth you will experience to how you can build authority for your agency.

Growing your agency can be a major struggle for any agency owner and I can show from knowing when it’s time to hire a sales manager or expand your sales team, creating a process for performance based pricing which can be the best pricing strategy for your business and learning how to keep your big name clients happy.

Are you ready to create something cool and want more advice? 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.

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.

Looking to land those bigger retainer clients for your agency but don't know how to get there? I've got you covered in this week's episode.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• Why you might need to work for free.
• 5 steps to landing bigger retainer clients.
• How to implement the foot in the door strategy.
• How to stack the deck to gain more new agency clients.

My guest today is Justin Brooke, founder of IMScalable and also known as “The Traffic Guy.” He’s got an awesome story about how he went from not being profitable, to working for free, to landing a couple huge retainer clients. In this episode, Justin shares his strategy for how to land the big clients you want and leveraging them to land more big retainer clients.

Why You Need to Work for Free

If you don’t have a success story or case study to use in your sales pitches, you might want to consider this strategy just get you one... Justin says he spent a couple years being unprofitable. However what he realized was that he needed one really great success story to ignite his business. That’s when he decided to work for free. It started with research.

Justin did some digging to find the right client whom he knew he could help. Then he posed a proposition to the owner - he would work for free to increase traffic and leads if he could use them as a case study for his own marketing purposes.

They agreed. He succeeded. And BOOM! Justin had his first case study to use for future sales pitches.

This is a great strategy whether you’re just getting starting, or if you want to begin targeting a new niche. You need some sort of “proof” that you are valuable. And when you select a business that you’re confident you can help, you’re setting yourself up for success.

How to Land Big Retainer Clients

A lot of us can relate. You’re doing ok, but you know there are bigger clients out there with issues you can solve. You want to catch the bigger fish you just don’t know how.

The key is to NOT go after the big projects right away. Start small. Prove yourself. Then move up the food chain.

Justin broke his strategy down into 5 steps for us:

1. Identify some of the businesses you know you can help and make a short list.
2. Do your homework to find out how the businesses on your list are spending their digital ad budget. Tools such as AdBeat can help.
3. Look for a hole or gap in your prospect’s digital strategy. Pinpoint one, small but specific thing they aren’t doing, or aren’t doing well.
4. Contact the prospect(s) you identified and tell them what you’ve discovered. Something like: “I noticed you aren’t doing ‘X’ and I think it’s because of ‘Y’. I know I can do ‘Z’ to solve your issue and get you better results.”
5. Be specific. Be confident. And DON’T be afraid to promise results.

Stack the Deck to Gain More Clients

The real trick to building your revenue base is to continue working Justin’s 5 step process.

Keep targeting new businesses and researching to find what’s missing in their digital strategy. Keep going after the smaller projects and providing amazing results in order to earn larger ones. This is how you implement your foot in the door strategy and use it to grow your client base.

You can leverage your results from one client to earn you credibility with the next. It just takes some research, persistence and extra effort in your presentation.

When you’re working with another prospect, use your case study to report results however make it unique and relevant. Nothing generic! Do your homework - know your audience. Make it visually stunning, useful and relevant to a specific prospect... Check out Klipfolio (and the special offer below) to create an amazing analytics report.

PRO TIP: As attractive as it might seem, you do not want just a few large clients. Your client mix should be made of a variety of sizes. If you only have 3 large clients and one leaves, you’ll lose 33% of your revenue.

Analytics Software to Boost Your Business

Klipfolio is a tool that is helping agencies continuously monitor and report analytics. It's cloud-based software allows you to define KPI’s based on your preferences and filters. With 50+ built-in marketing metrics, you can create a dashboard for yourself and your clients which can be viewed on desktop, mobile or old-fashioned PDF.

For a limited time, Klipfolio has a special deal for my listeners. Get a FREE TRIAL and an amazing offer just for The Smart Agency Master Class listeners at Klipfolio.com/SmartAgency.

Next Steps For Your Agency

Need help with your agency? If you need advice on any topic, I have probably experienced them myself and can help you from what I learned. 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.

Are you using value-based pricing within your digital agency? Did you know that through value-based pricing, it can support you in increasing the profit of your agency?

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• Why value-based pricing will keep you from losing profit.
• How to setup a value-based pricing model.
• How to understand your client’s perception of value.

This week on the Smart Agency Master Class, we’ll hear from Dan Mall founder of SuperFriendly, a design collaborative. Dan has spent his entire 18-year career in design and in that time he’s grown to understand a ton about pricing. He’s going to share how to develop value-based pricing so you can stop losing profit.

Why a Value-Based Pricing Model?

You are providing a service based on your unique skill set, knowledge and experience. Value-based pricing takes all those elements into consideration and quantifies. Value-based pricing is the intersection between: what it’s worth to the client and the amount of compensation you’re willing to take.

And if that isn’t enough to convince you -- consider this analogy.

A woman calls a plumber to come to her house and fix a leaky faucet. The plumber is there for 5 mins, tightens one screw and the leak is fixed. He hands her a bill for $1,000.

She asks “Why are you charging me $1,000 when you were only here for 5 minutes?”

He says, “It’s $10 to tighten the screw and $990 for knowing which screw.”

When a client has a problem and you know which screw to tighten your value is priceless :)

How to Setup Value-Based Pricing

Dan’s agency is 5 years old and has been using value pricing since the beginning. Here are 3 steps you can take to get started with building this type of price model.

1. Start with pricing that is easy to understand. You have to be able to explain your pricing structure to a client, so make sure you can easily rationalize it.
2. Determine client expectations and the perceived value of the project. You’ll have to ask a lot of questions to get to the real meat of what they want and why. Experiment with pricing over time.
3. Learn from one project to the next and test out different pricing. Figure out what works and what doesn’t. Then apply a combination of experience and gut instinct to get to the right pricing structure.

How to Determine “Value”

It’s not easy! Dan says it takes time and those 3 steps above won’t can’t overnight. But what you can do is gather as much information as possible from your client so you can fully understand what they need or rather, what they think they need and how you can help.

In his experience as a designer, Dan said he’d often learn information a few days or weeks too late. Some issues are preventable and some problems aren’t solvable unless you get to the core of the issue. To do that, you have to ask the right questions. Go beyond the logistical and go deeper to fully understand the expectations/goals.

Great client service starts with building a relationship. And to build a relationship you have to ask questions.

Questions You Need to Ask

If you’re building a new website - don’t just be an order taker and build the website as instructed. Ask why the client wants a new website. Ask what the goals are for the new site. Is it for a better reputation? Is it for lead generation? What you’re doing and why you’re doing it go hand-in-hand.

The goal for asking questions is to identify what the client needs - which can be different from what they're asking for.

Here’s a few questions to get you started:

• What worries keep you up at night?
• How can my agency ease these concerns for you?
• What is your business model?
• How do you make a profit?
• When was the last time you were profitable?
• What is the problem costing you, in terms of revenue/profit?
• How does a solution translate to your bottom line?

Most importantly, you want to understand the 3i’s: Issue, Impact and Importance. You can this information in developing solutions and in handling objections or pricing concerns.

Don’t let a value-based pricing model worry you. People don’t choose to work with you on price alone. And those who do are viewing you as a commodity. If you are viewed as an expert in your field (think plumber!) and can get the results they desire (think leaky faucet!) price won’t matter as much as you think it does.

Resources mentioned:

• Implementing Value Pricing by Ron Baker
• Pricing for Profit by Dale Furtwengler

Hey, Smart Agency Master Class fans! Save time & win more work

Replace your proposals, quotes and presentations with interactive + mobile-friendly webpages that plug into your systems and are as easy to build and reuse as they are beautiful.

Check out Qwilr. Sign up now for free by using the coupon code smartagency while upgrading.

What's Next For Your Agency?

Now that you know the benefits of value-based pricing for your agency moving forward, what's next on your list? Why not take the time to take a step back and look at other processes that need attention? No matter what challenge your agency is facing, I can help you get through all of it.

There are many topics I can give advice on from what to do when you want to speed up sales processes, ways to increase your business profit or how you can build 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!

Want 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.

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.

Stuck finding ways to generate new business for your agency? Then the real question to ask yourself is have you ever considered adding video marketing to your online marketing strategy. If not, this is the episode for you.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• The benefits of rich media in your agency marketing.
• Top 3 mistakes to avoid in video marketing.
• How to repurpose your video content and give it legs.

In this episode of The Smart Agency Master Class, Brian Town, schools us on video marketing. After a 17-year career as a high school TV and video production teacher, Brian switched gears and founded Michigan Creative.

Over the past 5 years the agency has grown to a team of 10 which serves clients in web development, video branding and social media. Brian shares some great tips on starting or improving your video content to it becomes a major lead generator.

Why video marketing?

The real question is, why not video?

1. It’s never been easier or cheaper to produce and edit video.
2. Video content lives forever on multiple formats and can be repurposed in many different ways.
3. No one can replicate you on video.
4. One video, genuine and authentic personalities shine through. People buy from people.
5. Developing a great video takes as much time as writing a stellar blog post and gets just as much SEO juice.
6. Videos are more easily consumed than a written blog post. People would rather watch than read.

Mistakes to avoid in video marketing

1. Not using the right equipment. Brian says video still has reputation for being expensive but all you really need is a few inexpensive pieces of equipment - it’s much more affordable than you’d think.

It’s true you can record great video on your tablet or smartphone. (ALL my videos are done on my iPhone or iPad and a ring-light like this one.) The other two pieces of essential equipment that Brian recommends are a tripod and external mic. There’s a huge difference in sound quality when you’re mic’d.

2. Being “birthday mom or dad." You know the type. They’re the person who records the entire birthday party from start to finish. No one ever wants to watch that video. It’s a total snoozer. People just want the highlights. So capture the special moments - not every minute.

Make sure you communicate the goal of the video right away. Then make your point in a direct, brief manner and include a specific call to action. Be brief - like 60-90 seconds, max.

3.  Unclear or too many call-to-action(s). Your video should solve one problem or ease one pain point for your prospects. If you have more to say or more to accomplish create a new video for it.

Think about how/why you search for a video in YouTube… in most cases you have a problem you want to solve quickly. Brian recommends putting yourself in your prospect’s shoes. Determine what they’re searching by making a list of their common questions, issues and problems.

How to repurpose videos for more impact

Once you’ve got a great list of video topics, Brian suggests spending part of day shooting 5-10 at once. They can then be edited into multiple pieces of content to use in a variety of ways across different platforms.

For example: my #AskSwenk videos are usually 7-10 minutes long and answer 3 questions. (I even did one about video marketing for your agency.) The full video get posted in the blog section on my site. I also slice those into 3 separate, mini-episodes and post them socially. The shorter 2-3 minute videos get even more engagement than the full episodes.

Get creative about where you use video… It can live on your site as a vlog, embedded into emails, posted on social platforms. You can also pull GIFS or sound bites to post on social, you can use it on your About page… the opportunities to use and reuse video are endless.

Hey, Smart Agency Master Class fans! Save time & win more work

Replace your proposals, quotes and presentations with interactive + mobile-friendly webpages that plug into your systems and are as easy to build and reuse as they are beautiful.

Check out Qwilr. Sign up now for free by using the coupon code smartagency while upgrading.

Grow Your Agency

I hope this spotlight on how video marketing can transform your agency was beneficial to your marketing strategy moving forward. Don't just stop there but take a step back and really look struggles you need to focus on to improve your business. I have all you need to get through these obstacles.

I have advice on topics from gaining agency exposure in the news, how to build authority for your agency or even ways to use facebook marketing strategies to expand your brand awareness. If growth is your focus, I've discussed the four phases of growth within your agency and how website issues could be holding your business back from reach your potential.

You can learn more about my life and my experience as well as lots of tips, tricks and insights by reading my blogs that cover a wide variety of topics.

If videos are more your thing, don’t worry, i’ve got you covered! You can 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.

Do you want to learn how you can use Facebook Ads to create lead generation for not only you but for your clients too? Then you need to keep reading.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• Why you should be using Facebook ads and how to get started.
• 5 Do’s and Don’ts of Facebook marketing for your agency.
• How to know if your Facebook ads are working and key metrics to monitor.

Whether you’ve never tried Facebook marketing or you’re just looking to improve at it, you’ve got to hear from my guest Art Malkov. Art is the co-founder of NeedGrowth.com, a digital agency specializing in using Facebook to supercharge lead generation for themselves and their clients. Art shares some great tips on starting and maintaining Facebook marketing as well as some major mistakes to avoid.

Does Facebook really work?

Heck yeah, it does. Agency owners often tell me their audience is not on Facebook. Art says he hears it from clients, too. There are 1.5 billion users on Facebook. (That’s 3X more users than Twitter and Instagram combined.) Your prospects are on Facebook. They aren’t looking for you there, but they’ll definitely find you if done correctly to disrupt their pattern.

How to get started with Facebook ads

The problem with Facebook ads is that there’s no guidebook. There’s no training and no certification. No one really knows how to do it correctly - it’s all trial and error. So, most people end up winging it, become frustrated and feeling defeated. Art says he and his partner created a statistical approach that has been super successful for their agency and their clients.

Art says to think of Facebook ad management like the controls in the cockpit of an airplane. Each dial you turn or switch you flip has to work with the rest of the dials and switches to create a smooth ride. One wrong move and you can mess up the entire flight.

5 Facebook Ads Do’s and Dont's

1. Do a combination of video and still image ads. Don’t just do all video or all image ads. Art says when one client made the switch to combining the two they went from a 1 share : 50 likes ratio to a 1 share : 1 like ratio. (Pro tip: ‘Shares’ are more valuable than ‘likes.’ When people ‘share’ your content they actually reading/watching it and found value in it. When people ‘like’ your content they might be scrolling right past it.)
   

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2. Don’t use traditional ad copy. Generic adss do not get user engagement. Your ad content must be something of value. The headline must resonate with a specific audience and the content must solve a pain point of theirs. Try questions that start with: “Do you struggle with…?” or “Are you feeling…?”. Avoid anything like: “Click here for…”
   

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3. Do be direct to attract the right people. No matter who you’re targeting, call them out in your ad. My audience is Digital Agency Owners - so I have Facebook ads with the headline “Digital Agency Owner?”. Not only do my ads reach the right people, but I’m even seeing people who aren’t an agency owner tag their friends who are - and those tags are getting my ad in front of the right people without costing me anything.
   

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4. Don’t go in blind - educate yourself. Spend a couple weeks understanding all the options that are available. Not all the default settings will work in your favor. For example, there is a default setting for ads to share between Facebook and Instagram. If you don’t turn off the default option on Instagram you will spend a large chunk of your budget on Instagram without knowing it and you’ll think your Facebook ads aren’t working.
   

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5. Do target specific audiences. You can pinpoint a specific geographic region, even a particular section within a city if you want. In fact, targeting can be so impactful that one agency grew their opt-in rate from 0.3% to 32% just by targeting their Facebook ads properly.

How to tell if your Facebook ads are working

Art says you have to have someone appointed to monitoring your Facebook ads all the time. You cannot just “set it and forget it” - you absolutely have to watch and evaluate regularly.

You can gauge your success on user engagement - likes and shares - not on impressions. The more a post is shared the cheaper it becomes with yields amazing ROI’s. Ad prices can drop 3-5X if managed properly. However, if you aren’t monitoring this you will blow through your budget very quickly.

Key Facebook performance metrics to monitor

Relevance Score: This is how Facebook determines which ads to show a person. When your ad is relevant to your audience, its relevance score is higher, and is more likely to be served than other ads targeting the same audience. The more relevant your ad, the lower the cost to you. Relevance score is on a scale of 0 - 10. Once your post reaches 500 impressions you want your score to be a 5 or better. If it’s not, you need to reset your ad.

Cost per Conversion: What’s a lead worth to you and what are you willing to pay for it? In the beginning you cost per lead will be higher, but the cool thing is that Facebook will optimize your ads for you and you’ll see the cost go down.

Frequency Rate: Some people say that you don’t want your Facebook ad frequency to be over a 2 but Art and I agree if an ad is converting, then more is better. People will scroll past your ad the first few times they see it. Shoot for an 8 if you want to be in front of people as often as possible.

These are just some of the top Facebook marketing tips. But, if you’re interested in using Facebook to generate 25+ leads per day like so many of my clients you have to check out my Generate Leads Every Day program. I’ll cover even more in depth Facebook ad training, as well as more strategies so you can stop relying on referrals and fill your pipeline with more qualified leads every day.

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What Else Do You Need Support With?

Now that i've covered using Facebook ads to create lead generation, what else do you need to know to grow your agency and improve as an owner?

I have advice on many topics from the struggles you may face with failing economies to how speaking opportunities can generate new business and using Youtube to boost your marketing for your agency marketing strategy.

You can learn more about me and check out all my tips, tricks and everything you need to know in my blogs. I have covered a wide variety of topics as well as answering your questions in more from my Ask Swenk series.

If videos are videos more your thing, don't worry, i've got you covered!

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.

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.

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.

Want to learn how to increase agency revenue four times over? Or are you having trouble finding your agency's nice and the best sales process for you? Don't worry, this week's Smart Agency Master Class has you covered.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• 2 strategies that helped increase agency revenue & client list in one year.
• How to select your ideal niche to succeed.
• How to create a sales process that keeps your pipeline full.

This week’s podcast guest is my client, Zach Williams who is the definition of crushing it. At his agency Venveo, the client roster has quadrupled year over year, the pipeline is full, sales cycle is shorter and conversion rate is higher. Learn all the strategies Zach and his team are using for such huge success and increase agency revenue.

Zach got his start creating websites at the age of 16 and continued to do it as a freelancer through college. It’s all he’s known, so starting an agency seemed like the natural next step. They grew organically for several years with referrals but hit a plateau where they spent two years. That’s when Zach searched for something to help get them beyond that plateau in order to scale… and found me :)

Strategies to Increase Agency Revenue

Strategy 1 - Focus on a Specialty

WHAT: Focus on a specialty where you can position yourself as an authority.

Venveo is a digital agency specializing in building manufacturing materials but they weren’t always in that niche. In fact, Zach says they had no niche - just another “me too” agency promising they could do everything for everyone. It took him awhile to understand this was the one thing holding them back.

HOW: Stop worrying about what could go wrong and think about what could go right.

Zach said the biggest thing was getting over the initial fear of turning work away and figure out what space you can make yours. Most people fear specializing because they think they will be turning off potential clients. Zach says he learned the opposite is true. When you are aiming at a specific target you have a better chance at hitting it.

It was a tough decision but Zach says he explains it as being the intersection between what you love, what you’re good at and what people need and described it like this Venn diagram:

It’s a stressful decision and once it was made there was a ton of pressure for it to work. Patience is key. It took 1.5 - 2 years for it to feel like selecting this niche was the right move. Zach's advice is to stay the course.

Strategy 2 - Focus on a Sales Process

WHAT: Focus on a sales process for new client acquisition to keep your pipeline full.

New client acquisition is super important to the health of an agency. When Zach started focusing on a sales process he noticed a tremendous impact on his business. Agency clients quadrupled year-over-year.

HOW: Create an irresistible Foot in the Door offer to attract new clients.

Most agencies want to go after the big, high-ticket projects right off the bat. But using a foot-in-the-door offer as a lower-priced, smaller commitment is the way to go. Getting a chance to show your awesomeness in a small way will lead to bigger projects. This gives the client an opportunity to test you out AND gives you the chance to filter out bad prospects with a smaller engagement instead of a huge one.

Have trouble figuring out your Foot in the Door offer? Here's a video all about it. Keep in mind, this is not a “paid proposal”. When you’re deciding on your offer it needs to be something that is valuable and packed full of information. This is bigger than a proposal because it’s your first opportunity to ‘wow’ them. Some ideas might be: a discovery session or audit, a competitive analysis, or an analytics setup.

Beware of these 3 common Foot in the Door mistakes:

1. Over promising. A great Foot in the Door is easy to understand and simple to deliver. After learning this lesson the hard way, Zach’s approach is to set expectations low and knock it out of the park with delivery.
2. Lack of confidence. Remember you are an expert in your field and you see things other people don’t see. Something that might seem very basic to you could be highly valuable to prospects.
3. Not building the relationship. People buy people. The Foot in the Door is your opportunity to build a relationship with a potential client. Work closely and develop a rapport. And for sake - do not send them the finished product - present it.

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.

What Do You Do When You Have Your Ideal Clients?

When you increase agency revenue, you are both opening your business up to new opportunities as well as potential downfalls. This is why it's best to be prepared and be aware of other areas of your business you want to improve. Through 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 me and other agency experts.

What is a Healthy Profit Margin for a Digital Agency?

What is a healthy profit margin goal for your agency? If this is something you have asked yourself more than once or struggle with, this episode is for you.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• What your digital agency profit margin should be.
• How to improve agency profit margins.
• 7 tips for healthy agency financials.
• Building cash reserves and improving cash flow.

Financials can get confusing. We all can agree there are so many different statements and ways of reporting - it’s all very overwhelming. That’s why his agency looks at the big picture and watches for trends, rather than focusing on the details.

Tip #1: Understand Healthy Profit Margins

Most CPA's says a 10% profit margin is good, and 15% is outstanding, but I believe and have seen margins well over the 32% range. If you aren't quite there yet, make this your top priority. A solid profit margin is a key to financial health. There are a variety of ways to calculate profit.

Gross Revenue - Expenses - Owner Salary = Net Profit*

Net Profit / Gross Revenue = Profit

*Note: Owner Distributions and Profit Taxes are taken from the Net Profit)

Tip #2: Make Profit a Priority

Most business owners consider their profit to be simply the amount “leftover” each month after all other expenses are paid. If that’s what you’re doing, you’re going about it all wrong! Jason mentions the book Profit First which explains an accounting method for making sure your business is highly and permanently profitable by setting aside profit before paying other expenses.

Tip #3: Regular Review of Financials

When you’re going over financials, the Income Statement is the #1 document you need to be reviewing regularly. Jason says this is the statement that’s going to give an accurate account of your agency’s financial health. It essentially takes your more detailed line items and lumps them together into larger categories to report gross revenue, expenses, and profit.

Tip #4: Build Cash Reserves

There is no magic number for how much an agency should have in reserve - it all depends on the risk comfort of the owner. However, a good rule of thumb is to keep 3 months of expenses in a savings account. This saves potential headaches and fears, and can also help float your cash flow if needed.

Tip #5: Improve Cash Flow

As you grow, you get bigger clients. The bigger the client, the more hoops there are to jump through to get paid. This drastically slows things down. So one trick Jason talks about it to change your billing cycle from every 30 days to every 15 days. The sooner you invoice, the quicker you’ll get paid.

I also have a blog post about additional ways to improve cash flow, including changing payment terms right in your proposal.

Tip #6: Don’t Let Growth Psych You Out

In a growth phase, cash can be deceiving. It feels like you’re raking in the dough but a lot of people don’t look at the flip side to see what each client is costing them. Sometimes they’re only breaking even. Jason cautions all agency owners to take a regular look at financials to see if you’re as profitable as you think.

And last but not least, meet with your CPA regularly. Agencies who are growing rapidly should meet with their CPA on a monthly basis or even more frequently.

Discover the Best Agency Strategies Working Today by Connecting with the Best Agencies. This collaborative mastermind is filled with other motivated agency owners that are cool, fun, and willing to share their knowledge and wisdom to help catapult you to the next level. Learn more.

Grow Your Agency

Understanding profit margin goals can be the first step into growing as an agency owner and your agency. I always suggest taking a step back to look for weak spots in your business. Are you ignoring these within your agency? No matter what challenge your agency is facing, I can help you get through all of it.

There are many topics I can give advice on from the different phases of growth you will experience to how you can build authority for your agency.

Growing your agency can be a major struggle for any agency owner and I can show from 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!

Want 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.

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.

In this episode, we’ll cover the 7 deadly sins that agency owners commit in their own marketing, and how to quit sinning and start winning new business.

This week on the The Smart Agency Master Class I talk with my friend Diane Young, co-founder of The Drum which is Europe’s leading marketing news platform, and recently has made it’s way to the US. Diane has spent over a decade observing and interviewing agencies. And in that time she’s been able to pinpoint 7 things that agencies do to themselves to negatively impact their own growth.

Diane shares the 7 Deadly Sins for Agency Marketing. Find out if you’re committing them and what you can do to stop before it’s too late!

[clickToTweet tweet="These are the 7 Deadly Sins #Agencies Are Committing. Are You Guilty of Any?" quote="These are the 7 Deadly Sins Agencies Are Committing. Are You Guilty of Any?"]

7 Deadly Sins of Agency Marketing

So what are the 7 deadly sins of agency marketing you need to avoid to elevate your marketing strategy? Let's break them down..

1. Lack of unique selling proposition.

   Agencies often either the lack a USP or lack the expression of it. So many agencies aren’t telling the story about why they’re different. What does your agency do better than anyone else? That’s what you need to communicate. Being a ‘me too’ agency or trying to service everyone is actually a doing a disservice to your business.

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2. Lack of vision.

   Where’s your agency going? What’s your end-game? Your clients and your team want to be part of the amazing journey your on. However, you’ve got to identify and communicate where you’re going so they can get excited about joining you. If you have destination, it’s much easier to get where you’re going.

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3. Lack of commitment.

   A lot of agency owners don’t fully commit to marketing their agency. They can’t or won’t put themselves out there - this is especially true of digital agency owners who are more technical and usually avoid networking and personal connections. Avoid committing this sin by going out of your comfort zone and putting yourself out there. No one knows how awesome your agency is better than you!

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4. Lack of inertia.

   Often agency marketing takes a backseat to clients. And yes, clients do come first. But they can’t first, middle and last. Be sure agency marketing is somewhere on the priority list. You can do this by having a dedicated person or setting aside dedicated time to market. Also, adopt the motto: “done is better than perfect.” Agonizing over the perfect post, the perfect video, the perfect…. Anything, somehow goes from being an obsession to being an excuse. Don’t let it happen. Action leads to transactions.

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5. Overselling or over claiming.

   This one's a doozy. An agency that claims to be the best, first, biggest, fastest, most award-winning is full of it and a prospective client’s BS meter is going to pick up on it. Don’t make claims if you can’t state a source. You don’t have to the best, fastest, most award-winning if you can simply own a specific skill in a specific niche and use your expertise to establish yourself as an authority. Be true and convincing in your agency marketing.

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6. Disinterest or isolation.

   Agency owners, specifically digital agency owners are sometimes so focused on the technical side of their work they forget to spend time in the world around them. Some don’t see the value in getting out from behind their computers, meeting people face to face and learning more about others’ experiences. Professional networking groups like The Drum Network are great for gaining an understanding of what others are doing. When you let your guard down and start sharing your experiences with other agency owners you’ll be able to help each other build and grow, just like this agency that doubled their business in 6 months just by networking!

   ---

7. Lack of insight.

   It’s hard to detach yourself and see things objectively. The sin some agency owners commit is being too shortsighted to recognize their business’ strengths and weakness. You can avoid this by seeking out a third party perspective. Gain valuable insight by researching and understanding what you’re aren’t doing well. Then you can concentrate on getting better at it.

Bottom line, in a wide sea of agencies you’ve got to find your way to stand out. Have a unique selling proposition and a vision for where you’re headed. Then, commit to taking action and pushing yourself out of your comfort zone to get it done. And remember not to commit the 7 deadly sins.

Agency Tools You Need to Check Out...

There's a couple pretty fantastic tools that all agency owners need to check out with some amazing deals just for Smart Agency Master Class listeners...

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.

Klipfolio is a tool that is helping agencies continuously monitor and report analytics. It's cloud-based software allows you to define KPI’s based on your preferences and filters. With 50+ built-in marketing metrics, you can create a dashboard for yourself and your clients which can be viewed on desktop, mobile or old-fashioned PDF.

For a limited time, Klipfolio has a special deal for my listeners. Get a FREE TRIAL and an amazing offer just for The Smart Agency Master Class listeners at Klipfolio.com/SmartAgency.

What Do You Do When You Have Your Ideal Clients?

Being aware of the 7 deadly sins of agency marketing can help you elevate your marketing strategy and bring your digital agency to the next level within the industry but why stop there? Through evaluating other areas of weakness within your agency, you can create a better business and improve as an agency owner. And I can help you get through all of it.

I have provided many successful agency owner with 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 pains within an agency can be a major struggle and I can show you how to identify the different phases of agency growth, why placing a solid process for performance based pricing can be the best pricing strategy and what the three questions you need to ask yourself are for you 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.

Building the Best Sales Team to Grow Your Agency

Want to know what you need to do to build the best sales team to grow your agency and bring in new clients? Looking for a new cold call strategy? I've got all you need to know.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• Understanding and overcoming common sales team problems.
• A NO FAIL cold call strategy for agencies.
• Building the best sales team: finding, hiring, managing, and paying them.
• #1 tip for crushing your sales goals.

My guest on today’s show is Wes Schaeffer, The Sales Whisperer. Wes spent a decade in the Air Force and another in commissioned sales before starting his business as a sales coach and trainer. He shares some great tips for cold calling, as well as strategies for hiring and managing great sales people. His advice is totally practical and will help you develop a killer sales outbound strategy.

Common Sales Team Problems

Wes says most salespeople don’t fully understand the value of the resources and expertise they bring to the table. This causes 2 major issues:

1. Discounting prices - Salespeople undervalue the service they represent and are therefore willing to discount the sale price. Doing this conveys a bargain mentality and undercuts the agency’s level of authority, which also destroys the client’s confidence.
2. Talking too much - Similarly, salespeople who undervalue their agency also end up overcompensating by talking too much, instead of listening. If you’re talking instead of listening you aren’t hearing the needs of your prospect. You can’t fix problems if you aren’t hearing them.

Wes used the example of a heart surgeon: The surgeon is selling heart surgery but he doesn’t have all the answers, he is connected to a team and has confidence that together they can solve the problem. He has confidence in his team of MRI techs, anesthesiologists, etc. He knows he is connected to all the right people to solve his patients’ problems.

The solution for the best sales team for your agency: Sell on the fact that you are connected to all the best people in the industry. Be confident in the value that you represent and the fact that your team can solve the challenges and problems your clients face. Talk the talk and walk the walk. Be the best sales team out there.

A No-Fail Cold Call Strategy for Agencies

People say the old-school cold call is dead but Wes says in B2B, it’s still alive and well. For a successful cold call, you need to find a common connection or mutual relationship - someone or something they know or heard of - then use that as your opening.

Define your dream 100 list and go for it. If you can’t find mutual interest to get a foot in the door, you will have to go old school which can be hard in our technology driven society, BUT...

[clickToTweet tweet="Don’t let your prospect hide behind voicemail, caller ID and email with this strategy." quote="Don’t let your prospect hide behind voicemail, caller ID and email with this strategy."]

You’ll get the best response from a multi-media, multi-touch approach and circle them like a shark.

Develop a nurture series of reaching them via email, voicemail and social media, such as LinkedIn or other industry social communities.

Do your homework first.

Know WHO you’re talking to, WHAT they’re doing and HOW they’re doing it. In your multi-media messages cite case studies and specific examples of what you understand their challenges to be and how you are equipped to solve them.

Create a series of messages (voice, social and email) that are on-point and provide specific information. These can be scripted and follow a template, but you must customize them for this specific prospect. No one wants to hear a generic speech or receive a form letter. Say things like: “I’ll call you at 10AM on Tuesday” then actually follow-up on at that exact day/time.

Using this strategy you will prove that you are unique, thorough, consistent, creative and professional… a refreshing change from the usual cold calls they get.

Do’s and Don’ts for a great initial call:

• Don’t hit them over the head with everything your agency has done and can do. Listen to what they need and determine how you can help meet those needs.
• Do be calm and collected. Speak as though you are talking to your friend or neighbor, not like you're speaking to someone who's about to hang up on you :)
• Don’t bombard them with a bunch of stats and facts about you. Initial calls aren’t about you - they're about them.
• Do more listening than talking. This is the best way to understand their issues and figure out how your can help solve them. Remember, whoever talks the most loses.
• Don’t insult. If you looked at their site and think it’s crappy, keep it to yourself. No good can come when your prospect is immediately put on the defensive.
• Do compliment their current digital advertising. Tell them how great their site is and comment on how well it must be performing. Let them tell you what’s not working.

Finding, Hiring & Paying Great Salespeople

Always, always be recruiting. Don’t just look for great sales people when you have the need but focus on building the best sales team for your agency. Keep your eyes open and notice great skill when you see it. Just like college football recruiters, make room for an all-star even if you aren’t in need of one at the time.

To find exactly the right candidate, write an ad with some specific instructions on how to apply. This weeds out the people who can’t follow direction. To further screen people, put them through a really rigorous process and see how much they push back, even respond to their interview answers with “that was a terrible response” just to see if they’ll take it or defend themselves. Little things like this can give you real insight into their personality type.

When hiring salespeople be clear on duties, expectations and how you’ll measure success. In general, a salesperson should prospect, qualify and build relationships but the agency owner is the best closer.

#1 Tips for Crushing Sales Goals

Wes’s best advice is to manage activity and pay on results.

He says to start by breaking down the numbers. Know your annual sales goal and back out what that means monthly, weekly and daily. Also, track and measure your pipeline in 5-6 stages and know how many prospects you need in each stage to stay on target.

Manage sales activity by knowing how many prospects are in each stage of the pipeline at all times. Pay your sales team based on actual conversions. For an example Account Manager commission structure, check out my #AskSwenk advice here.

Agency Tools You Need to Check Out...

There's a couple pretty fantastic tools that all agency owners need to check out with some amazing deals just for Smart Agency Master Class listeners...

Klipfolio is a tool that is helping agencies continuously monitor and report analytics. It's cloud-based software allows you to define KPI’s based on your preferences and filters. With 50+ built-in marketing metrics, you can create a dashboard for yourself and your clients which can be viewed on desktop, mobile or old-fashioned PDF.

For a limited time, Klipfolio has a special deal for my listeners. Get a FREE TRIAL and an amazing offer just for The Smart Agency Master Class listeners at Klipfolio.com/SmartAgency.

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.

What Are Your Agency Concerns?

So we've covered how you can build the best sales team for your agency but these might not be the only concerns you have for your business.

It doesn’t matter if you have been an agency owner for a while now or have just taken the leap and started a new agency, I have covered topics from the struggles you may face within your agency to leveraging Youtube in your marketing for your agency marketing strategy.

Learn more about me or you can check out all my tips, tricks and everything you need to know in my blogs. I have covered a wide variety of topics as well as answering your questions in more from my Ask Swenk series.

Are videos more your thing?  Don’t worry! 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.

If one of your goals for your agency this year is to have doubled business and client numbers, this is the advice you need.

In this episode we’ll cover:

• How one agency doubled business in just six months by giving work to other agencies.
• Building a network and being a trusted client resource.
• Why you should join a mastermind group to help you grow.

My guest today, Ian Garlic is one of very few two-time guests on The Smart Agency Master Class. He’s the owner of authenticWEB, which he founded 8 year ago. You might also know him from my “I Will Never Do This” Agency Pledge video as the naked ukulele guy. (Don’t worry, he’s not actually naked :) ) In this interview, Ian shares how his agency business doubled in 6 months… check it out.

How to Achieve Doubled Business: Not All Competition Is Bad

I don’t know about you but when I owned my agency I was always very guarded about who and what we were working on. I would never have even considered working with other agencies, let alone idea sharing with them and especially when I wanted to work towards doubled business for my agency.

Ian says he comes from a place of abundance and believes there’s enough work to go around. So share and share alike… Easier said than done though, right? It’s our natural instinct to seek and destroy. But….

[clickToTweet tweet="This is how one agency DOUBLED business in just SIX MONTHS!" quote="This is how one agency DOUBLED business in just SIX MONTHS!"]

3 Steps to Growing A Referral Network

If you want replicate the steps that Ian took to double his business here’s what you need to do:

1. Change your mindset. Agency ownership can be very lonely. No one really ‘gets it’ besides other agency owners. If you look at them as part of your agency family instead of the competition it will open you up to a ton more opportunities.
   

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2. Specialize. You can’t be awesome at all things, so pick one and rock it. You can build a reputation for being the best in a specific area, and when another agency needs that specialty you’ll be the one they call.
   

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3. Do favors without expectation. As you meet other agency owners, build relationships and get to know their areas of expertise. Naturally, you’ll be able to refer your clients to other agencies when their services are needed. Over time, these relationships will evolve into a referral network.

I know what you’re thinking…

You’re skeptical because you think most other agencies will try to steal your clients out from under you. I get it.

Ian said it best, “If someone can steal your clients you’re not doing a good enough job servicing them.”

Be Your Client’s Most Valuable Resource

Your clients trust you. They rely on to bring awesome ideas to the table - even if you aren’t the one to execute them. Use your agency network to connect the dots and get things done for them. When you refer your clients to other agencies that specialize in an area you don’t, you’re proving that you are connected in the industry and they’ll view you as a valuable resource.

The Benefit of Masterminds

Ian credits his involvement in mastermind groups for a lot of his agency’s success. He’s actively involved in 3 different groups right now. He says the idea sharing and accountability are crucial to growing and scaling.

Ian says even if you have the best team ever, you still need a peer group to keep you in check. Mastermind members are great for:

• A different perspective and help you see things differently.
• Giving you crap when you don’t follow-through.
• Advice and the benefit of a similar experience.

In fact, Ian and I have been working together for a while. We both have benefitted from mastermind groups for various aspects of our business and have decided to develop one strictly for agency owners.

Digital Agency Elite is a group of agency owners with the common goal of idea sharing to grow and scale their agency. The group meets monthly by phone and in person quarterly, the day before various marketing conferences around the country.

If you think this format of mastermind is right for you, check out Digital Agency Elite to learn more and apply. We are only selecting successful agency owners who are committed to everyone’s mutual benefit will be accepted.

Agency Tools You Need to Check Out...

There's a couple of pretty fantastic tools that all agency owners need to check out with some amazing deals just for Smart Agency Master Class listeners...

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.

Klipfolio is a tool that is helping agencies continuously monitor and report analytics. It's cloud-based software allows you to define KPI’s based on your preferences and filters. With 50+ built-in marketing metrics, you can create a dashboard for yourself and your clients which can be viewed on desktop, mobile or old-fashioned PDF.

For a limited time, Klipfolio has a special deal for my listeners. Get a FREE TRIAL and an amazing offer just for The Smart Agency Master Class listeners at Klipfolio.com/SmartAgency.

Many agencies make the mistake in believing they just need to report on their analytics rather than monitoring them consistently. I am going to explain why you need to monitor analytics in order to build your business.

In today’s episode, we’ll cover:

• What agencies are doing wrong with analytics reporting.
• 4 steps you need to improve client analytics.
• Ways to monitor analytics to grow your agency business.

My guest on today’s episode is Mychelle Mollot from Klipfolio. She’s got a background in engineering, analytics and marketing… which makes her perfect in her role as CMO for marketing analytics software. Mychelle talks to us about the major differences in reporting vs. monitoring analytics, plus ways you can use analytics to grow your agency.

In our 2016 Future Outlook of Digital Agencies, we reported that brands are hiring 85% of brands are selecting agencies based on their ability to report and react to analytics. Unfortunately most agencies believe they’re being hired for their marketing and creativity.

That means there’s a major disconnect between what clients want and what agencies deliver. Agencies are not meeting expectation in this area - but there's hope!

Reporting analytics isn’t enough

Mychelle says a lot of agencies aren’t reporting analytics to their clients. And if they are, it’s a pretty generic monthly or quarterly overview that gets rolled up and presented in a neat little Powerpoint. That’s the problem, though. It’s a recap of what has already happened. If there’s a change in numbers you might be able to explain why, but you can’t do anything to correct it.

Instead, agencies should be establishing themselves as a valuable asset by bringing business growth ideas and strategies to the client when it’s relevant.

1. Change your mindset to use data proactively.
2. Work with your client to identify the most important metric(s) for their business.
3. Monitor key metrics in the moment (daily or every 2-3 days).
4. Use real time data to proactively change strategy and impact the client’s business.

Monitor analytics to grow your business

Create new opportunities with existing clients.

By monitoring analytics you can leverage your knowledge of real time analytics to pitch new projects to your existing. If you see an area that needs improvement or a different direction the client should be take, present those opportunities to the client with the data.

Analyze your own metrics.

You’re a digital agency but sometimes you’re more like the shoeless cobbler. You can use real time analytics to monitor your agency’s marketing. Just follow the 4 steps above and learn what’s working and what’s not. Tweak things proactively to impact your agency business.

Charge for analytics monitoring.

Agencies who provide analytics reporting usually do it as a built in service. However, if you are continuously monitoring activity there is potential to charge for this service. It can become cyclical this way… you charge to develop the work, you charge to monitor the progress and you charge for new projects that you discover through monitoring.

The KEY is understanding that monitoring is so much different than just reporting. The opportunities and growth potential is limitless.

Klipfolio is a tool that is helping agencies achieve continuous monitoring. It is cloud-based software that allows you to define KPI’s based on your preferences and filters. With 50+ built-in marketing metrics, you can create a dashboard for yourself and your clients which can be viewed on desktop, mobile or old-fashioned PDF.

I've played around with Klipfolio and it's a pretty awesome tool that can give you an edge over your competition.

For a limited time, Klipfolio has a special deal for my listeners. Get a FREE TRIAL and an amazing offer just for The Smart Agency Master Class listeners at Klipfolio.com/SmartAgency.

Growing Your Agency

When you monitor analytics for your agency, it gives you a consistent view of the performance of your business. In order to create the best business possible, you need to look from the foundations up for any other areas you need to monitor. 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.

The post Why Agencies Need to Monitor Analytics, Not Just Report Them appeared first on Smart Agency Masterclass: Podcast for Digital Marketing Agencies.

Have you ever considered starting a podcast to connect with your customers and create an audience for yourself and your brand?

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• 4 big reasons every agency should have a podcast.
• Common fears of podcasting and how to overcome them.
• Starting a podcast and building an audience of new business prospects.

I’m super psyched to have Pat Flynn as my guest on today’s show. He’s the successful guy behind Smart Passive Income - a major resource for entrepreneurs looking to scale their business. He’s also the podcasting guru and is sharing tips with us about the benefits of podcasting, as well as how to get started - including ways to get over your fear of recording your own voice!

Pat got his start as an entrepreneur when he was laid off from the architecture industry in 2008. He started an online study program for architecture’s LEED exam, called GreenExamAcademy.com and it took off. He learned a ton about quickly scaling an online business and over time turned that smart, passive income in another business… hence the name, Smart Passive Income :)

Pat says a HUGE way to nurture leads and establish a relationship is through podcasting.

4 BIG Reasons to Podcast

1. The podcasting space is less crowded. Stats vary but there’s something like 5 million+ active blogs and only 500,000 active podcasts. Those are great odds! Podcasting is far less cluttered so you can find and reach your target audience.
   

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2. Podcasts are evergreen. There’s potential for exponential growth when these shows live out there forever. Pat has episodes from 2010 that are still getting downloaded six years later!
   

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3. People are still discovering podcasts. Listenership is growing and by starting a podcast sooner than later you’ll get in on the ground level. Listeners are downloading podcasts to listen to on the go: during their commute, working out, waiting in long lines, etc. When they find something they love, they’re even binge-listening!
   

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4. You’ll gain credibility. You’re trying to establish yourself as an authority with your audience. And when you interview expert guests you are also adding to your own credibility.

Another bonus? Content can be repurposed. You can turn an episode topic into a blog post or ebook, create a Slideshare or live event, even a lead magnet.

Getting Over Your Fears

Maybe you’ve been thinking of starting a podcast but you’ve got some hang ups about it. You’re not alone. There are several common fears a lot of people face which hold them back from getting started. Here’s how you can get over those fears...

“What if people can’t find it?”

They will find it as long as you’re specific in who you’re targeting. People search for podcasts based on their interests, problems and focus. If you’re searchable in one of those areas, they will find your podcast. It just takes a little time to build your audience so be patient and let it grow.

“What if I can’t come up with show content?”

There’s a couple different formats you can try out and see what sticks.

Invite expert guests on your show to be interviewed on a specific topic that interests your audience. People like: authors, prospects, existing customers, and forum owners make great guests. Interviews are a win-win because you get some great show content and the guest gets to promote their business, book, forum or area expertise.

Another popular show format is Q&A. Take common questions and record your answers, solution or advice. This is an awesome way to establish authority and credibility with your target audience.

“What if people don’t like it?”

The key is to help your audience. Choose topics that are relevant and helpful to them. Don’t guess what people want to know - research it online. Find out where your audience congregates online and see what problems, issues, or questions they are posting. Develop your show topics surrounding those issues and helping solve those problems. Don’t sell right away, just help.

“How can I find my ‘hosting’ voice?”

Everyone feels the same way and you’ll get over it in time. Pat says finding your voice is just trial and error. You’ll get into a groove but in order for that to happen you have to start somewhere. Go back and listen to yourself, critique yourself and do better next time. Also, read the comments that follow your podcasts and make changes based on that feedback.

The best thing you can do is: be you. It’s ok to look at other successful podcasters and model after them, but don’t copy their style. Be authentic and your “hosting voice” will develop by itself.

“I don’t understand the technology and equipment.”

Pat says the technology has come a long way since he started in 2010. You just have to research and education yourself.

The thing about fear of something like this is that is a sign that you’re about to do something that could be a really awesome game changer. So embrace the fear and psych yourself up for extreme awesomeness.

In fact, Pat offers a Podcasting Course which break down everything you need to know about getting started.

Starting a Podcast

To be successful in podcasting you’ve got to fully commit. 

Tell yourself this is something you’re doing and going to continue to do. Then stick to it.

It was December 2008 when Pat first decided he was going to start a podcast. It wasn’t until July 2010 that he actually published his first episode. It took him a year and a half to get started?!?

Pat’s best advice…. COMMIT. Just take action.

Building Your Audience

You absolutely have to specialize. Pick a niche and be super specific on who you’re helping. When you try to serve everyone, you end up serving no one.

The more specific the better. In fact, when you upload your podcast to iTunes, Stitcher etc. you need to select a specific category in order to be searchable.

Specializing doesn’t mean that you have to turn away other prospects. Pat used the example of a video agency that specializes in streaming video classes. The agency owner knew a lot about yoga, challenges, lingo, phrases, etc. and targeted just yoga instructors and studios. She focused her advertising on this niche and was wildly successful. With that success she was able to expand to cross fit gyms, pilates studios etc.

Also, be prepared to be super patient. In Pat’s experience he says it takes a year or two to build a following and see real results. He stresses patience when you are trying to build a community of followers when starting a podcast. If you’re putting yourself out there, word will spread but it doesn’t happen overnight.

An Agency Tool You Need to Check Out...

If you're looking for a tool to help grow your agency you've got to check out Redbooth. Using this software will help you grow your agency and eliminate major profit leaks, such as scope creep. Right now, you can get a FREE TRIAL for 30 days and bonus agency templates for client intake, social media management & more by heading to www.Redbooth.com/Smart. Hurry, this is a limited time offer!

What To Do When A Client Files a Business Lawsuit Against Your Agency

When a project begins to go south, you run the risk of a client filing a business lawsuit against you which can be detrimental to your agency's reputation and future.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• The warning signs of a project that’s going south.
• Why it’s so important to have documented processes for your agency.
• 3 ways to handle a business lawsuit from a client.

This week’s podcast is a little bit of a different format. Instead of interviewing a guest who shares great strategies to help you grow your agency, you get to listen in on a coaching call with a client who is facing a client business lawsuit. I recorded the call with his permission and we chat about how to handle it without wasting outrageous amounts of time, money and emotion.

Before we dive any further, you should know a couple things:

1. This is not legal advice. I’m not an attorney :)
2. In the interest of privacy, names have been changed/omitted.

The Backstory

So today, I’m talking to Jake who owns a small digital agency in the midwest. They work with small and midsize businesses and have been in business for nearly a decade.

Jake’s agency took on a client who was retired from a successful military career. She was starting a side project which included an educational website. Jake’s agency quoted the project at $15,000 with payment terms as: $5,000 upfront, $5,000 at concept approval and $5,000 upon completion.

Why You Should Never Ignore the Warning Signs

Before they knew it Jake’s team was two-thirds into the project, victims of scope creep, way over on hours and project scope had changed many times… Jake admits all the warning signs were there and they ignored them.

He says in hindsight they should have fired the client and walked away. Instead, they kept working in order to recoup their loss and get the last $5,000 installment.

Finally, the project was complete and delivered. They didn’t hear from the client for about a month until she contacted them to help with a server upgrade. Which they did. For free. Again. :/

3 Words to Dread: “You’ve Been Served”

Another month after final contact with this client, Jake says it was business as usual at the agency until a gentleman arrived at the office, asked to speak with the owner, and officially served him with a lawsuit. It was exactly like the movies.

The client is suing Jake’s agency for $5,000… Which is baffling because it’s only for part of the project cost, not the full amount. This has never happened to Jake in almost 10 years in business.

In 12 years running my agency, I went through this process 3 or 4 times. It’s scary at first. The best way to handle it is professionally. Keeping your cool and an open mind.

Why Processes Outperform Talent Every Time

Without knowing the exact reason for the business lawsuit, the first thing to look at is Jake’s agency’s process. Could they be at fault or negligent in delivering what was expected, promised and paid for? He says no.

Jake had purchased my Agency Playbook and has access to all my agency documents. He assures me that his team has documentation of the approved proposal, launch order forms, $0 change orders and project approval. He has full confidence that his team followed their processes and has a paper trail to prove it. So what piece of the story are we missing?

3 Ways to Handle a Client Business Lawsuit

1. Keep attorneys out of it (if possible). In Jake’s case, his agency was being sued for $5,000. Attorney fees would be least that much. This is a small claim should be easily resolved without racking up legal fees.
2. Make a personal phone call. Even though you’re shocked and insulted call and ask for a phone or in-person meeting to discuss her side of the story. There must be a reason she resorted to legal action, so give her a chance to explain.
3. Diffuse the situation. You definitely want to defend your agency and your team, but just ask for her story and then listen without interrupting. Most people want to be heard so let her rant and vent and just hear her out. Brace yourself, because this could be the hardest part.

Moving Past A Negative Experience

Every experience has the potential to be something you learn and grow from… Even something like this. It’s important to me that Jake not only get through this but also walked away learning how to avoid it in the future.

Obviously, this agency’s project delivery process is completely buttoned up. But, I always say there is no bad agency client - only a bad prospect or bad process. So somehow this really bad prospect slipped in and became a difficult client - which is the result of a flawed screening process.

What I wanted to make sure Jake is able to avoid any future issues, so we talked about what he could do differently next time. Here’s my advice to him moving forward:

• Trust your gut and don’t ignore the warning signs. If a project or client is getting out of hand, fire them. Walk away and don’t look back.
• Never, never keep working on a project just because you’re too far in. You might want to recoup what you've already invested but you'll lose so much more. You’ll never get the time back and it’ll cost you even more in lost opportunities.

Jake ended our call with the intention of calling this former client to see if they could meet to go over her complaint.

Justice Is Served

Update since the interview: As it turned out, Jake was forced to meet his former client in court. She was suing the agency on claims that she lost business while the site was being built.

The $5,000 she was suing for included the cost of business trips she couldn't take because the site wasn't finished, as well as her phone bill for the business line that was tied to the website.

Jake and his team went to court in with a 5” binder of every email, signed document and a timeline of the project. When the judge asked questions, they had answers with documentation.

In the end, Jake says it was a really good experience and he feels a new sense of confidence in their work and their processes.

An Agency Tool You Need to Check Out...

If you're looking for a tool to help grow your agency you've got to check out Redbooth. Using this software will help you grow your agency and eliminate major profit leaks, such as scope creep. Right now, you can get a FREE TRIAL for 30 days and bonus agency templates for client intake, social media management & more by heading to www.Redbooth.com/Smart. Hurry, this is a limited time offer!

Moving Forward With Your Agency

Avoiding a business lawsuit moving forward with your agency should be a key consideration when you are looking into project maintenance, communications as well as the customer service between the client, you as the owner and your team.

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.

Creating Fast Track Revenue for Your Agency

If you want to know how to be up there with the big name agencies through fast track revenue, then my interview with Brad Martineau has everything you need to know.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• 2 secrets to building multi-million dollar through fast track revenue.
• 2 things agency owners should quit being afraid of.
• A cool strategy for qualifying and educating new prospects.

My guest on this episode of The Smart Agency Master Class is Brad Martineau, co-founder and Chief Baller (best title EVER!) at SixthDivision. He started his digital agency after leaving a seven year career at Infusionsoft. He shares with us the secret on how he built a $3 million agency in just a few years.

Brad started at Infusionsoft in 2004, as their sixth employee. When he left in 2011 they had 650(ish)! What he discovered over that time is that Infusionsoft is a very powerful tool that very few people can actually use. When he left, he began consulting and eventually founded an agency for helping business owners master automation and technology so they can enjoy greater success and free up more of their time to enjoy life.

Fast Track Revenue: 2 Secrets to Building Multi-Million Dollar Agency

1. Serious focus (to the point of perfection).

Brad says it’s super important to stay focused on building one great, profitable product.

He was first exposed to this idea in book Ready, Fire, Aim: $0 to $100 Million in No Time Flat. His biggest takeaway was that a business owner’s sole responsibility in getting to that first million is to figure out how to sell just one product profitably.

He took this principle very literal and for three years, SixthDivision focused on one single product… The Two Day Makeover. Brad says at first, a "two day" makeover was taking more like two weeks, which obviously wasn’t efficient or profitable.

Working in this way, though, gave the team a chance to get smart about developing a successful process that is profitable, without the distraction of developing and selling other products.

2. Systems and processes that automate the sales process.

Do you have a process for screening your leads? If not, learn how to qualify a prospect quickly here.

Not only does Brad have a screening process, but he also puts his qualified leads through a campaign that establishes the know-like-trust factor before they even jump on the phone together.

Check out this super cool strategy for increasing conversions:

• The prospect requests to chat using the online contact form.
• The prospect answers pre-screening questions before their request is approved.
• If approved, the prospect is put into a “prep and reminder sequence.” They receive emails about how to prepare for the call, as well as videos to watch prior to it. Video include info on what and how SixthDivision works, success stories, etc.
• On the call, the sales person can jump over the informative stuff and dive right into specifics.

Most people are so anxious to jump on the call, they end up doing the rest of the work on the backend. Doing it Brad’s way means spending more time talking about the prospect and their needs, well as more time for objection handling.

This process leads to more efficient sales calls and a higher conversion rate. It also give you the opportunity to elevate the client’s experience on the initial call because they’ve had the opportunity to be educated. (And using software, you’ll know whether they watched the videos or not. So, you’ll know if they’re showing up to your call prepared or not… which gives you the upper hand.)

2 Things Agency Owners Should Quit Being Afraid Of

Here’s a couple things Brad and I find commonly hold back most entrepreneurs from reaching their revenue goals.

1. Raising Prices

My clients often complain about not being profitable but are afraid to raise their prices because they don’t want to lose clients. Brad says he sees and hears the same thing. Most entrepreneurs are stuck on a specific financial model - even if it’s broken. If you’re losing money you need to restructure your pricing. If you lose clients by raising prices, that’s OK because you were losing anyway. Bottom line: take action.

2. Specialization

There’s some sort of weird satisfaction in being able to say you offer everything to everyone… but if as the saying goes, when you are a jack of all trades, you are the master of none. It’s not realistic to say that you’re a full service agency. Let go of your hesitation to specialize. If you need more convincing, check out this interview about one agency owner who increased leads by 30%+ by getting super specific in a niche.

Support Our Sponsor

If you're looking for a tool to help grow your agency you've got to check out Redbooth. Using this software will help you grow your agency and eliminate major profit leaks, such as scope creep. Right now, you can get a FREE TRIAL for 30 days and bonus agency templates for client intake, social media management & more by heading to www.Redbooth.com/Smart. Hurry, this is a limited time offer!

Challenges Growing Your Agency

I hope this episode has helped you take the first steps towards fast track revenue but do you need to focus and improve other aspects of your digital agency to ensure you continue that growth?

I have provided many successful agency owner with 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 pains within an agency can be a major struggle and I can show you how to identify the different phases of agency growth, why placing a solid process for performance based pricing can be the best pricing strategy and what the three questions you need to ask yourself are for you 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.

Is your goal for your digital agency to increase your agency profit but are finding leaks within that are preventing you from achieving your goal?

In today’s episode, we’ll cover:

• Why scope creep happens and how to put a stop to it.
• 5 ways to scale your agency and eliminate the leaks that drain agency profit.

Today’s guest on The Smart Agency Master Class is Charles Studt from Redbooth, which is a project management tool and so much more. Charles shares some amazing advice on ways to make your agency run more efficiently so you can maximize time and profit. He also talks about ways to eliminate the biggest profit drain of ‘em all... SCOPE CREEP.

Why Scope Creep Happens

Charles says most cases of scope creep is not due to an over zealous project team or a super demanding client. In most cases, it’s an agency’s lack of documented processes and lack of client education.

Without a clear definition of the project and deliverables, there’s too much gray area. So, when a client asks for a little something extra an agency instinctively says ‘yes’ without having a plan in place for tracking and billing for it… and the scope creep monster rears its ugly head.

That means you have to have a very specific client onboarding process which spells out what is (and is not) included in their new project.

Do you have a documented client onboarding process? Is it consistent and repeatable? Having a process in place is just one of the 5 Steps to Prevent Scope Creep. And, if you have a client onboarding process, it will be your point of differentiation and part of your value statement.

5 Ways to Scale & Grow Agency Profit

1. Avoid scope creep and create upsell opportunities. Consider your core service and figure out what services you offer that compliment it. Make sure to spell out these “optional extras” to your client so that when they throw you a “special request” or “quick 5 minute change” you are prepared for handling it and charging for it.
   

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2. Become more efficient with your project documentation. Manage your client’s experience with technology so you can keep a project moving. There’s nothing worse than digging through old emails trying to find the one with client approval. Using a tool like Redbooth manages communications, status, revision cycles at a glance.
   

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3. Manage your team more effectively. Charles says that the average employee wants to spend 6 hours per week with their manager in order to feel effective. In a small agency, that level of personal attention can be difficult to achieve without adding to your team. A PM tool can be a great way for managers to be involved in the details of a project, while eliminating time consuming status meetings.
   

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4. Treat yourself like you treat your clients. Internal processes are just as important as client-facing ones. Using a tool like Redbooth can streamline routine HR functions like time-tracking, new hire onboarding, weekly team meetings, annual reviews, etc. In fact, Redbooth has customizable templates that help create and document processes so you’re not reinventing the wheel every time.
   

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5. Get projects completed (and therefore paid) on-time. Ever get tired of waiting for the client to provide feedback or approval? Charles says Redbooth has a feature that allow you to communicate with your client via automated emails, mobile push notifications and real time, in-app instant messaging. Deadlines and tasks can be flagged, users can be gently reminded and you will get more done.

I’ve checked out Redbooth and it’s a pretty fantastic tool for agencies. You can check it out for yourself FREE for 30 days by heading to www.Redbooth.com/Smart. Enroll in your trial PLUS get the agency templates such as: client intake, end of project, social media marketing, agency management, and more... all for FREE.

Creating a Better Agency

Creating a solid strategy to grow agency profit can open up many doors for you as an agency owner.  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.

Have you ever considered direct mail marketing for your digital agency? Not even sure how to develop a strategy for it? I talk with Justin Christianson and he shares how his agency has gained huge success from using direct mail marketing strategies.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• How to define your target market.
• 1 old-school outbound tactic that is getting massive 25% response.
• 4 steps to successful direct mail.

Today’s guest is 14-year veteran entrepreneur, Justin Christianson. After selling his previous business to his partners he began consulting and eventually created Conversion Fanatics, an SEO agency.

Justin happens to also be a client of mine and is seeing some really great results with his outbound efforts. I invited him on the show to share his story, outbound strategy and the cool, old-school tactic that’s getting a up to a massive 25% response rate! Check it out…

Defining Your Market is Crucial

Justin says, at first they were completely non-selective about who they would work for - targeting just about anyone and everyone. But rule #1 when you work with me is to get super specific about who you target… Justin is glad he listened.

To define their target, Conversion Fanatics looked back at their success stories. They discovered patterns and consistencies among their best projects and used that information to create a customer avatar. They define their ideal client based on average spend and traffic type.

Now that they know who they are marketing to, they can really drill down and become a leader in a specific niche.

Justin says they did a ton of research to figure out how to get through to their ideal clients. They want to understand the issues, struggles and pain points of their prospects. They gathered this information in the form of formal surveys and data gathering, along with informal conversations, then use this in their marketing and when speaking to new leads.

Why Outbound is Essential

Cold traffic can be the hardest of the 3 Types of Traffic to go after, but for Conversion Fanatics it’s been critical to their success. In fact, 70% of their marketing is cold outreach. But they’re being smart about it by batching their efforts, and being very selective about who they target.

One Old-School Outbound Tactic

Most of their outbound campaigns are direct mail. YES postal mail - the kind the mailman delivers. They also weave-in custom emails and PURLs (personalized URLs) as well.

They do a ton of research first and get really specific about who they target. Their market is bigger companies with $30+million in revenue so they goal is to stay top of mind for when the time is right.

The direct mail marketing piece is letter from Justin personally. It has customized information about the prospect’s website, issues he sees and opportunities for improvement. It’s short and to the point. And most importantly - it’s not a form letter!

4 Steps to Successful Direct Mail Marketing

1. Provide massive value. Establish credibility by being helpful. Don’t ask for a sale right away. Set-up yourself as the authority.
2. Be specific. Use headlines that ask ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions that are very specific to a problem or issues they face.
3. Don’t mass mail. Control the process by focusing your efforts on a small group of prospects. Send small batches.
4. Have a contingency plan. Justin says his outbound strategy is a lot of work and takes 10-12 touches in order to be effective - but it’s worth every bit of the time and effort it takes. However, unresponsive prospects get a free copy of Justin’s published book. This is helpful, valuable and reinforces his credibility and authority in the industry.

Other tactics Justin is using: plain text emails and PURLs. Just like the hard copy direct mail, he keeps emails personal, short and sweet, with a writing style that is friendly and familiar (not all cheesy, sales-guy style).

And when you get cold traffic to the proposal stage, support our sponsor, Qwirl.

Head to Qwilr.com/welcome/smartagency for a FREE TRIAL and special savings just for Smart Agency Master Class listeners.

Become a Better Agency Owner

Direct mail marketing might be seen as a thing of the past but today's episode has shown there is potential for huge success for your agency. Becoming a better agency owner means understanding that in order to grow, you need to be able to recognise other issues within your agency that needs your attention.

Look for weak spots in your business and then think of how you can fix them. No matter what challenge your agency is facing, I can help you get through all of it.

There are many topics I can offer guidance from the different phases of growth you will experience to how you can build authority for your agency.

Growing your agency can be a major struggle for any agency owner and I can show from knowing when it’s time to hire a sales manager or expand your sales team, creating a process for performance based pricing which can be the best pricing strategy for your business and learning how to keep your big name clients happy.

Are you ready to create something cool and want more advice? 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.

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.

Do you need help in untangling the many pieces of information and advice on how to use social media to elevate your agency and bring in more clients?

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• Advice for keeping up with new social media trends and platforms.
• How to use social media for agency new business. 2 mistakes to avoid using social for your agency or your clients.
• How to sell social media management.

If you’ve been wondering how to manage and optimize opportunities on all the various social networks – for you and for your clients – you must not miss this episode. Today’s guest is with Emeric Ernoult, founder and CEO at Agorapulse, a social media management tool. Pretty cool tool, and I recommend you check it out.

Emeric is a longtime entrepreneur who spent the first part of his career in business law before dabbling in SAAS startups. He says he landed in software and social media because it’s fast-paced and ever-changing, which keeps things fresh and challenging.

Emeric developed Agorapulse as an answer to managing multiple social media platforms, from messaging and notifications to scheduling posts and analytics/reporting. (Plus, there’s a filter for ignoring annoying automated direct messages that clog your inbox!)

Advice for keeping up with social

In short, you can’t. You’ll never keep up with the latest and greatest while also managing what’s current… Not to mention all the other responsibilities you have to your agency. Instead, Emeric says, delegate or outsource to a person or team dedicated to technology research and social management.

If you’re looking to learn a new social channel, Emeric advises us to start small. Learn one and master it, then move to another. All are similar but different, so finding the right platforms just depends on your business goals.

How to use different social channels for new agency business

Twitter is still #1. As a digital professional you should be a thought leader in this space, building your Klout score and positioning your agency in this ecosystem. Use social management tools, such as Agorapulse, to quiet the noise and eliminate the distractions on Twitter.

I believe Facebook is a powerful vehicle for targeting and retargeting. Not many B2B or service businesses are using it yet, most ads are consumer products. Here’s a great post I did on How to Scale Facebook Ads.

As for LinkedIn, you can use it create to create a great inbound strategy. There’s a new content publisher that seems to have fairly good reach. As a matter of fact, I interviewed an agency owner who lands a good majority of her business using LinkedIn. Here’s the post with tips for making your LinkedIn profile a lead generator.

2 mistakes to avoid using social for your agency or your clients

Your social presence can help you establish trust and authority in a low cost, highly effective way. Here are two things to avoid to ensure that happens….

1. Social strategy - you need one! Post with intent and consistency. Know your audience and how to balance the promotional messaging with the helpful information. (If you want to see how it’s done, check out VaynerMedia and Gary Vee on any and every social channel!)
2. Testing - lots of it! Start with a plan and implement it. Analyze results and then tweak. Analyze again. Don’t settle for what you think might be working… Experiment with variables until you hit the jackpot!

Selling social media management

Often clients can be leery of social management as a service because they have a hard time justifying the expense of it. Here are the two things you need to do to help them get on board:

1. Ease their pain. Understand what frustrates them and where they are wasting time in their marketing efforts. Show how you can implement a social strategy with your streamlined processes and systems. (It helps if your social presences is also stellar.)
2. Demonstrate value. Own the numbers. We learned in our 2016 Future Outlook of Digital Agencies, that brands want analytics. They want measurable proof, so use reporting tools and data to your advantage. Hard data is the best way to increase the client’s perceived value of this service.

Support our sponsor

Check out Qwilr.com/welcome/smartagency for a FREE TRIAL and special savings just for Smart Agency Master Class listeners.

How Can I Help?

You now know how social media can generate new business for your agency but you need to consider what will take your agency to the next level. You should take a step back and really look at areas you haven’t explored yet as well as struggles you need to focus on to improve your business and then check out how I have all you need to get through these obstacles.

I have advice to share with you from how to implement Facebook in your marketing strategy, ways of building authority to improve your agency or the best way to pitch to big brand clients. If growth is your focus, I’ve discussed the different phases of growth within your agency and how bad website issues could be holding your business back from reach your potential.

You can learn more about my life and my experience as well as lots of tips, tricks and insights by reading my blogs that cover a wide variety of topics.

If videos are more your thing, did you know I have a Youtube channel?

You can 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.

Profitable Brand Building While Ignoring BS "Best Practices”

Want to know the best ways for profitable brand building while ignoring all the BS best practices out there?

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• 2 ideas for profitable brand building to effortlessly generate more leads without BS best practices.
• How to break the “me too” agency mold.
• The #1 thing to grow your business.

Today’s guest is Matt Giovanisci and, I feel like he’s my brother from another mother… We have a similar quirky sense of humor, we’re both in the digital marketing space, we like to drop F-bombs in unlikely places, and to be honest, we both suck at writing! :)

Matt’s the founder of Money Lab, a business he founded with the sole purpose of making money online. His business model involves some fresh, unique, and humorous attention-getting marketing that ignores all the “rules” of marketing. He shares his story with us and the #1 key to standing out.

Matt got his start in the pool business. Yep, you read that right - pools and hot tubs. After job-hopping between pool companies, he eventually worked his way into digital marketing for them. From there, he gained agency experience and picked up coding, too. He founded and currently runs SwimUniversity.com where is clients learn to care for their pools and hot tubs. He also founded and operates Money Lab, which he calls his experiment for making a passive income online. In addition, Matt is a blogger, video/music producer and a former podcaster. Busy dude, right?

2 Effortless Ideas To Drive Traffic

Matt’s doing a ton of unique stuff to market his online businesses as well as some profitable brand building, but here are just a couple of examples:

1- Opt-in Landing Page

I first discovered Matt’s content when his “I want your email address” landing page went viral. It’s hysterical and you’ve got to check it out here. Basically, it’s an entire landing page he created to poke fun and shed light on the ridiculous marketing practice we’ve gotten into where we literally hit people over the head trying to capture their email address. Think of it like an interactive SNL skit for digital marketers :)

The goal for this page was pure entertainment… but the result was over 1,700 email addresses! The page was only promoted on Facebook, shared by DigitalMarketer.com and picked up by Reddit. Effortless leads.

2- Podcast Guest Interviews

Being a former podcaster, Matt knew the impact of being a podcast guest. He also knew what podcasters aren’t looking for from a potential guest. He decided once more to create a satirical page pitching himself as a podcast guest. It’s all about his qualifications as a guest, but is dripping with sarcasm and all the while making fun of the traditional promotional “one-sheet” most guests use. Matt booked 16 interviews in 24 hours with this tactic, and he’s still seeing results.

How to Break the ‘Me Too’ Agency Mold

I asked Matt how agencies could try to be different… and his perfect response was not to “try”.

That’s the thing that business owners are getting wrong. Everyone tries to be different, when really we are all intrinsically different to start with. So, be you and you will be different. Most people just copy what they see being done because of social acceptance.

Matt’s advice was to stop what you’re doing and talk to yourself:

• Think about what bothers you - then fix it.
• Think about what you find funny - then make fun of it.
• Think about what you wish existed - then create it.

Be different without trying, by being yourself.

In case you missed it, that’s exactly what we did in our Agency Owner Pledge video. This is stuff that bothers agency owners, that they always say they will stop doing but never seem to be able to quit!

#1 Thing to Grow Your Business

Know what you hate doing, or what you suck at doing - and find a tool or outsource for it.

For example, Matt says he’s a terrible writer, and has always hated it. He found a solution for the problem when he discovered HemingwayApp. With the app, Matt writes as much as he wants and the app helps him trim down any unnecessary wordiness, grammatical errors, and typos.

He now approaches writing with intention and purpose. Matt says he likes reading simple text with short and punchy sentences. He has made that his signature writing style and has even incorporated this into Money Lab’s brand guidelines.

If you want to learn more, head over to MoneyLab.com/dingle. Yep, "DINGLE" ...and see more of Matt’s craziness for yourself.

Improve as an Agency Owner

I hope this puts a spotlight on how you can have profitable brand building for your agency without getting swept up in the fake best practices out there. Don't just stop there but take a step back and really look at struggles you need to focus on to improve your business. I have all you need to get through these obstacles.

I have advice on topics from gaining agency exposure in the news, how to build authority for your agency, or even ways to use Facebook marketing strategies to expand your brand awareness. If growth is your focus, I've discussed the four phases of growth within your agency and how website issues could be holding your business back from reaching your potential.

You can learn more about my life and my experience as well as lots of tips, tricks and insights by reading my blogs that cover a wide variety of topics.

If videos are more your thing, don’t worry, I’ve got you covered! You can 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.

How to End the Time Suck of Creating Proposals

When it comes to creating proposals, you may find yourself spending hours upon hours trying to craft the best proposal you can to win that job. But if you are unsuccessful, you will find the time was wasteful.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• The #1 tip for winning a proposal.
• 3 key elements of a successful proposal.
• A super cool tool to put an end to the time suck of creating proposals

Today’s guest on the show is Dylan Baskind, my first-ever guest from Down Under! (I think?!) He shares with us the key elements of creating killer proposals, as well as a way to save you time, energy and frustration on the whole process.

After nearly a decade as a software design/engineer consultant, Dylan had a long list of the things he hated about creating proposals. His proposals had landed him work with all types clients, from small, local ones to large, multinational ones but not without a tons of work and frustration. He wanted something simple yet attractive that would be customizable but uniform. Enter the solution called Qwilr, which Dylan is co-founder and is CEO.... I’ve messed around with this tool myself and it’s a pretty cool tool!

#1 Tip for Winning A Proposal

Case studies!

At the end of the day it comes down to numbers. When you present a proposal you are meeting with a business person who wants a specific business goal met. You need a success story that can prove you are the right person that can deliver the desired results with data to backup your claim.

We learned in our 2016 Future Outlook of Digital Agencies Report that brands want agencies to commit to specific results. Numbers don’t lie. So, Dylan’s advice is to use analytics and metrics and tell your success story in your proposal.

That can be easier said than done, though. If you can’t get a baseline from a prospect, it makes it much harder to prove the value and potential results of your work. However, if you can get them to measure “X” and you promise to deliver “Y” you’re golden.

3 Key Elements of a Successful Proposal

In addition to a case study, there are a few more keys to make your proposal a slam dunk. The upfront section should be dedicated to describing the client’s problem and your proposed solution.

Then, in this order, you want to include the following:

1. Reformulate the problem using industry terminology. Rephrase the 3 I’s (Issue, Impact, and Importance) in your own lingo. This confirms that you understand what needs to be done and why.
2. Tell a compelling story about your team and why their experience and qualifications make them uniquely suited to work on this project. This is the first time in the proposal where you should talk about yourself. Everything up until this point is about the prospect!
3. Provide one call to action. A lot of times proposals offer a variety of 3-4 different options. Eliminate the confusion and make sure you have one single, very clear call to action.

[clickToTweet tweet="Your #proposal is your most important touch point. Here's how to get it right. " quote="Your proposal is your most important touch point. You have to get it right."]

Your proposal is the face of your business. It used to be trendy office space created an  impressive first look at a business. Today, with all things virtual and cloud-based, it’s now the proposal that makes the first real impression.

Dylan says your proposal has to be as good as your business - and it’s where you need to display your innovation and creativity. Meaning, if you’re a video production company your proposal has to have a video element. If you’re in web design it needs to include an actual site. This tactic serves as a dual purpose for both delivering proposal content and a sample of your work.

Crafting the Perfect Proposal

After 8 years Word and PowerPoint just wasn’t cutting it. Dylan says his proposal process was very organized but it was archaic. Since he is trained in both design and engineering he wanted his proposals to be both functional and pleasing to the eye.

Proposals = Major Time Suck

Major struggles included:

• Resizing images in PowerPoint or MS Word.
• Formatting issues when trying to paste an Excel chart into a Word Doc.
• Manual data entry of proposal pricing into accounting software.
• Pulling data from the proposals into the rest of Cloud-based agency business.

Sound familiar? ;)

Dylan created Qwilr as the solution to these problems and it has evolved into so much more. Qwilr saves ton of time, and includes design, quoting, analytics and internal communications features. It’s an interface between your business and the outside world.

It’s the little details that separate you from everyone else… you don’t have to be a designer to create gorgeous, user-friendly proposals.

Check out Qwilr.com/welcome/smartagency for a FREE TRIAL and special savings just for Smart Agency Master Class listeners.

What's Next?

You may think that now you've improved your methods of creating proposals, what's next?

Whether you need advice on growing your agency team, what you need to do as an agency owner or learn how to fast track growth for your agency, I can help.

Find all my tips, tricks and insights in my blog section that covers a wide variety of topics. Videos more your thing? You can check out the videos on my Youtube channel!

Rapid Agency Growth: The 4 Serious Strategies For Your Agency

Every agency owner would most likely have rapid agency growth on their list of aspirations for their business.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• Why you should niche to become more successful and achieve rapid agency growth.
• Ways to change your pricing to increase revenue and profit margins.
• How to use case studies as a lead generator.

My guest today is Dan Lok, a self-made millionaire and entrepreneur who consults businesses for an equity position. He has taken on not one, but three troubled agencies and turned them into 7-figure businesses. So, if you are new to agency ownership or been in the game awhile but need some tips for shaking things up, you’re going to want to know more from this self-made millionaire.

4 Serious Strategies For Rapid Agency Growth

Strategy #1 - Be a specialist.

Does your agency claim to be able to do everything for everyone? Or, is your target something broad, like “small businesses”. You are a generalist but… the riches are in the niches.

You might want to help everyone, you might even think you can. But if you’re busy trying to be good at all things you will be the best of none of them. Every industry has it’s own nuances, lingo, standards, etc. If you specialize within just one, you only have to learn about that specific industry. Then you can dig deeper to get a richer understanding. You become more efficient which saves you time and increases productivity. You also become the authority in the field and get referrals within the industry. There’s a cyclical effective that generalists just can’t achieve.

Case in point... One of Dan’s first ventures was with an agency called Standard Marketing. Lame name, right? You don’t get any more general than “standard marketing” and they were handling all sorts of marketing for all sorts of clients.

The fix... After some analysis, they realized more than 50% of their clients were real estate agents. They decided that was the niche, rebranded the agency, calling it Top Agent Marketing, and wrote a book about real estate lead generation.

The result... Sales nearly tripled in the first year… from $30k/mo to $80/mo! Today, they’re hitting a 6-figure monthly revenue.

Strategy #2 - Revamp your pricing strategy.

There’s two ways to go about this…

1. Performance Pricing: Think of it from the client’s perspective. They want results. If you are getting paid based on the results, you are motivated to deliver better results.

If you follow a pricing model that allows for a base rate + incremental amounts based on performance, you’ll find you work with less clients and make more money.

The key to successful performance-based pricing is creating the right criteria to set up success. Be selective to be effective. For more on implementing performance-based pricing check out this interview with Tom Breeze who’s also mastered this pricing model.

2. “Three Boxes” Pricing: We see it all the time - car washes, movie theater concessions… There are three levels of pricing: basic, moderate and deluxe. The basic package is so lame that no one goes for it. The deluxe package is so outlandish that no one goes for it. These two are the decoys to get people right where you want them - the moderate package. The moderate package is what you’re already best at anyway.

The great thing about these three boxes is that it provides a basic option for budget conscious clients. And for the 80% that end up with the moderate package, it plants the seed that there is more.

Strategy #3 - Use your success stories.

Prove you can do what you say you can do. When you are a specialist in a specific niche you can build recognition and establish authority by featuring case studies in your marketing. It sound elementary but it’s a great way to increase your profits and it’s often overlooked.

Case in point... In early 2013, Dan invested in an agency that specialized in the digital marketing for audiologists. They were making $90K/mo but 0% profit. They were 90 days behind in delivery and $90K in debt.

The fix... They evaluated everything from staffing to clients to pricing. In a short time, the entire team was slowly let go, nearly 25% of the clients left or were let go, and success story marketing was implemented.

The result... In three years, profit margin went from 0% to 35%. The team went from 11 to 16 full-time employees. They are in no debt and have $200K in savings. They are on track to hit $4 million this year.

Strategy #4 - Be your charming self.

You love working on your computer. You ‘get’ your computer. Your computer ‘gets’ you. That's why digital marketers aren’t typically known for being super personable. But hiding behind your computer isn’t going to accelerate your business.

As a digital marketer, you’re selling an intangible service and your clients won’t see results right away. In order to want to spend money working with you, they’ve got to get to know, like and trust you first. People want to work with people.

That means you can’t hide behind your computer screen. You need to connect with people on a personal level by networking, speaking, working trade shows, making phone calls… And last but not least, don’t send proposals via email. Meet to go over them in person!

Growing Your Agency

You now have the strategies to put into place for rapid agency growth for your business but what's next? Consistently improving your business is needed to you are hoping to run your business in the long term. If you achieve rapid agency growth, you also need to have a solid foundation to your agency to ensure you and your team can handle the workload.

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.

Could a killer outbound sales strategy take your agency to a whole other level in how you perform and the clients you attract?

In today’s episode, we’ll cover:

• Why an outbound sales strategy is important.
• One killer outbound sales strategy for new agency business
• 4 steps to a successful 100 Call Challenge.

Today’s guest, Gene Hammett, knows a thing or two about outbound sales. He used to be my agency’s VP of Sales and scored us meetings with huge brands like Home Depot and Porsche just to name a few. He’s now using his knowledge and experience as a writer, speaker and Strategic Coach for competitive service-based businesses. Gene also hosts Leaders In the Trenches, a podcast for entrepreneurs.

Gene recently turned one of his coaching strategies on himself and created a 10-Day, 100 Call Challenge. He’s seeing some fantastic results and shared all the details with us.

Why is a Outbound Sales Strategy Beneficial?

Having an outbound sales strategy has been lost and forgotten. So many business focus solely on lead generation and ways to amplify inbound sales. As business owners, we can’t always expect leads to come to us. Sometimes we have to approach them first and ask for their business. Outbound sales doesn't have to mean cold calls, though. It means defining a criteria for who you want to work with and then seeking them out to showcase your offering.

Gene’s self-imposed 100 Call Challenge is a way to re-introduce outbound sales strategy efforts back into your agency.

What is the 100 Call Challenge?

Most people think it’s 100 cold calls and dread the thought of it. But really, it’s a commitment to having 100 conversations.

Gene breaks his goal setting down into annual, quarterly, monthly and then two week increments. For the first two weeks of February 2016 he decided he needed a jolt in his business - something drastic to stir things up. That’s when he implemented the 100 Call Challenge. The results?

• 3 new speaking gigs that weren’t already on his radar
• 2 new clients
• A booked calendar for an additional 2 weeks
• A flurry of new activity creating a snowball effect on his business

4 Steps for setting up a successful 100 Call Challenge:

1- Decide what you have to offer.

You can’t just start making sales calls to set up appointments. Major turn off.

Time is valuable. So if you’re going to ask people for their time, you better have something super valuable to offer in return.

Think of reasons why prospects might want to spend time with you. What can you offer in exchange for an hour of their time?

• For new prospects:  Develop a great solution to a common problem or something to ease one of their pain points. Then invite them to a cocktail hour, lunch & learn or other live event where you give them this information for FREE. Make a deposit before making a withdrawal. This strategy is HUGE - it establishes authority and creates goodwill. Host a live event and then make calls to get the right people in the room. That’s how you stack the deck in your favor.
• For old leads:  Follow-up is definitely a lost skill. Think about all the “no” or “not right now” responses you’ve gotten in the past year or so. Shoot an email letting them know you’ve been thinking of their X problem (something specific they experiencing the last time you spoke) and that you have some ideas. State that you’ll be calling later that day to talk. Then make your call and provide the information - no strings. Chances are, the problem is still a problem and they’ll be ready to listen to your solution. The goal here is to re-open the dialogue. Not score a sale. 

2- Mindset is KEY.

Gene has no hesitation in making phone calls and no fear of cold calling. (That’s how he scored my agency with meetings with huge brands!) But what he has come to realize is that he wasn’t making time to make calls. He was making excuses.

Gene’s advice is to get over your hang ups. (Pun intended!:) ) Have the courage to create what you want. It’s easy to settle for status quo. You have to find your “everyday courage” which sits inside every one of us but becomes dormant as we get comfortable. Push yourself to go outside that comfort zone. No excuses.

3- Establish initiatives.

For Gene, the goals were revenue-based and he set a two-week time period in order to reach them. He decided there were 3 routes to achieve his revenue target:

• more speaking engagements
• more clients
• higher profile attendance at his live events.

What are your desired results? How can you get there? Be specific and make sure it’s something you can measure. Hold yourself accountable to the timeline and results.

4- Pull the trigger.

If you’re making 100 calls in 10 days commit to roughly 10 calls per day. Even if you’re out of the office. No excuses! Here’s how Gene implemented his three-fold plan:

• More speaking gigs:  Gene paid a Virtual Assistant to create a list of events that met his specific criteria. The list contained URLs, names, email addresses and phone numbers for 52 different events. He used that list to make contact and start a conversation about speaking at the event. (For reference, he paid $5 per name so the list only cost $260 and saved him loads of time.)

• More clients:  Gene decided to initiate contact with old leads. He made follow-up calls - NOT  “checking in” calls. He made note of the last conversation he’d had with them and asked a specific question about something that was discussed. Another tactic Gene used was contacting past clients for referrals. He emailed some past clients and mentioned that he’d be calling them later the same day. Following this ‘heads up’ email he’d make the call and ask for referrals.

• High profile event attendees:  Gene holds live events and wants to fill the seats with his ideal clients… which just happens to be Inc. 500 CEO’s. He used a VA to compile a list with contact info for all 500 and sent emails to each one. Anyone who engaged with the email received a phone call from Gene. Admittedly, getting them on the phone was tricky but he says it just takes dedication and persistence. See #2 about Mindset! :)

Revelations from a 100 Call Challenge:

Not only did Gene experience great results, he’s was able to reflect back on the experience and to share some learning from it, too...

• This goes against the grain and that is a good thing! Think about it… What kind of calls do you get? Does anyone ever follow up with you, after you give a ‘no’? Probably not! Doing it is different, unexpected and often welcomed.

• The more calls Gene made, the easier it got. People actually even called him back from voicemail messages… which is how he ended up with 102 conversations by the end of the 10th day! :)
• If it takes 2-3 phone calls to advance a relationship, then each of those conversations counts toward the 100. It’s all about having conversations that elevate your business toward your goals.

Want to read more about how you can improve your agency and yourself as an agency owner? You can read our blogs that cover a wide variety of topics or if videos are more your thing, visit my Youtube channel!

Do you want to learn how to go from the freelancer life to starting a digital agency and even grow it so it's worth seven figures.

In this episode, I’ll cover:

• 3 steps for transitioning from freelancer to agency owner.
• How to identify and overcome growth struggles.
• How to hire when you’re ready.
• #1 advice for newbie owners.

Rob Riggs has a great story to share about his digital agency journey, and it all begins with freelancing for a pretty awesome guy... ME :)

Seriously though, I met Rob through owning my digital agency and we frequently sent work his way. Over the years Rob has turned his freelance business into a thriving digital agency. In this interview, he tells us about the transition that began in 2004, from a one-man show to 12 person digital agency, Your Design Online. He shares how he overcomes challenges, how his role has evolved, and what he would tell his former self to do differently.

3 Steps to go from freelancer to digital agency owner

1. Identify a narrow niche. Rob says he stopped taking on “just any project.” He drilled down to a specific niche and became a specialist.
2. Go outside your comfort zone. In Rob’s case, he emerged himself in more complex projects that were beyond building websites. He took responsibility for delivering results and showing ROI to his clients.
3. Be self aware. Know what you stand for, what you believe, and what you are (and aren’t) willing to work on. (For more on that check out this post on how to Quit Being a Prisoner to Your Agency, and read about an agency owner who created his agency around his life - not the other way around.)

Solving the biggest growth challenges

Rob says his biggest challenge, at first, was landing projects that were beyond what he could do himself. Once he got over that hurdle and grew to 3-4 people, then they were dropping the ball with details. As they grew even more, their issues were with delivery.

You’re always going to have issues, they just evolves as your business grows. The key is identifying the issue and the need for change. Then take action!

When project details were an issue, Rob says they starting using Basecamp. When they outgrew that tool, they adopted new PM software that did more in the backend. When delivery was an issue, they created standard operating procedures for delivery.

It seems counterintuitive but your need systems and processes that are made the be changed. Have a system in place for everything, but be able to identify when that system needs a makeover.

If you have an isolated problem, you get through it and you learn from it. But if there is an issue that becomes a repetitive problem, there needs to be a standard process for avoiding it. As Rob says, “I never want to type the same sentence twice.” And he’s right - if you have great processes in place, you shouldn’t have to!

How to find talent when you’re ready to hire

Rob’s first hire was a developer, who has been with him since the beginning. His role has evolved significantly over the past 12 years into project manager, problem solver and he’s now a key decision maker who runs things while Rob is out of the office procuring new business. Rob says he always looks to hire people who are sharers. Part of his process is to do a post-mortem after a project wraps. They talk about things that went right and things that went wrong. For this to be a successful process, everyone on the team has to be honest about their own mistakes. He also looks for a good fit with the agency culture - making sure to hire people who can get behind the company’s mission. He uses a lot of hypothetical situations in his interview process so he can look for creativity and problem solving skills.

And, you don’t have to pay top dollar for get great talent... Rob believes even coders making $200,000 are going to be unhappy and won’t work hard if they can’t get behind what they’re working on.

As the agency owner, you want to slowly replace yourself so you can be doing things that generate revenue. Often times that means being out of the office working prospects... not projects. (Not sure how to replace yourself? Check out this interview with an agency owner who fires himself at least once a year.)

#1 advice for starting out?

There’s a reason I say “systems outperform talent every time.” It’s true! In Rob’s case, there’s a delicate balance owning an agency of this size. They are just small enough to be agile and make quick moves and just big enough that they need standardization for consistency’s sake. If he had to do it all over again, Rob says he would tell his former self to this first.

Tired of Being Restricted in the Career Path You’re On?

Are you the owner of a small agency under $300,000? Or a freelancer, marketing professional or agency employee who thinks you can run your own agency better?

Jump Start My Agency is a program that covers everything you need to start a profitable agency and land high paying clients of over $20,000.

This 4 week course is designed to help you find the ideal clients, charge what you’re worth and learn how to build a team.

There are clients waiting to work with you! Let me help you by requesting an invitation to the program.

Are You a Freelancer That Needs More Help?

If you found this helpful but want to know how to grow your agency the best way, I can help.

You can find lots of tips, tricks and insights by reading our blogs that cover a wide variety of topics or if videos are more your thing, visit my videos on my Youtube channel!

Are your team within your agency losing far too much time in email communications both internally and with clients?

In this episode, we'll cover:

• Gaining control of your clogged and cluttered email inbox.
• A system that sorts, organizes and stores emails in a way that makes sense.
• How to save time so you can get busy making money.

Today’s guest is digital agency owner Ian Garlic who owns Authentic Web, a video production and distribution agency and host of the podcast, TAO of Inbound. He shares with us a solution for sorting and organizing internal communication.

Buried by emails?

As his agency grew, Ian was having a problem with his email inbox getting clogged. He was cc’d on everything but wasn’t necessarily involved in the details of every project. So, when Ian needed to jump in on something he was digging through emails trying to get a macro picture of what what going on by having to weed through all the micro details in old emails.

The solution Ian discovered is Slack - a communication tool for tracking, sorting and archiving team communication. (The opinions expressed in this interview are our own. Neither Ian or I are affiliates of Slack.)

Eliminate the time suck of email

[clickToTweet tweet="Get a high-level, quick view of what’s going on in your agency." quote="Get a high-level, quick view of what’s going on in your agency."]

Benefits to Slack:

• Create different channels for sorting and organizing information (client or topic specific). Do you dig through emails looking for information only to realize it’s buried in with something completely unrelated? Slack eliminates this problem by sorting things in the channels your create.
  

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• Tag people when their attention is required. Do you skim (or skip) over emails where you’re cc’d only to realize that your input was needed but you were only half-listening? Slack will keep you and your team in the loop but individuals can be tagged and notified with their attention is needed.

• ---

  Automatically sequences information in chronological order. Ever scroll through an chain of emails trying to determine which parts of the conversation came before others? Who said what and what? Try as it might, Gmail and others can’t always keep it all straight for us. Slack puts communication in chronological order and archives the old stuff for you.

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• Cool integrations with PM software and GoogleDocs. No more switching between email communication and your other agency tools. It’s all in one place on Slack.

Getting started with Slack

3 steps to setting up:

1. Create your teams and invite members.
2. Create your channels. (Authentic Web has channels for: weekly meetings, KPI’s, each client, miscellaneous and one for office humor.)
3. Download the mobile/tablet apps so you can use Slack without going through a web browser.

Struggle to find the work-life balance for you and your agency? As an agency owner, it's so easy to become a prisoner within your business as you strive to make it the best digital agency out there.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• How to build your agency around your life, to find a work-life balance instead of being a prisoner.
• 3 ways to build your agency around your personality.
• How to brand your agency and be the leader in your category.

Today’s podcast guest is Re Perez, founder of Branding For The People, a branding agency for entrepreneurs and small businesses. Re has worked for some pretty huge agencies working on some major Fortune 500 clients. He talks to us about leaving all that behind in order to build an agency around his personality and lifestyle finding the best work-life balance.

Re had a pretty interesting journey that led him to starting his agency.  His highly successful career took him from New York to Dubai and back to New York. Yet despite a successful career he wasn’t fulfilled with the work he was doing. He says that feeling coupled with a negative personal experience left him deeply questioning his next steps in life.

He took 6 months off to travel, meditate, practice yoga and figure out what was next… In his travels, he learned about a yoga studio called “Yoga For The People” and later a restaurant, “Food For The People”. Coincidence or fate?? :) Re took these signs, coupled with his gut instinct to become an entrepreneur, and started his agency Branding For The People - an agency that brings Fortune 500 branding solutions to small businesses.

Branding Your Agency

Re says logos and slogans do not make a brand. Those things support a brand but are only marketing tools for identifying a brand.

Branding is a desired perception. In order to create a desired perception you must first have a desirable perception of yourself.

As a small business, if you want to be perceived as the leader in your category you have to behave like the leader in your category by:

• Practice what you preach. Agency owners are famous for giving great advice to clients and NOT following it themselves. Start taking your own best advice!
• Be genuine. People can smell BS a mile away and they will call you out on it. Be who you are and be willing to let go of clients who aren’t OK with the real you.
• Don’t “act” like the big agencies by copying their behavior. Find your own unique position, while still behaving like a big agency.
• Don’t force a square peg in a round hole. Always align yourself with the projects and brands that excite you. Allow agency’s brand to be determined by your own core values.

Work-Life Balance: How To Build Your Agency Around Your Lifestyle

Re has one key motivator which determined how he would structure his business while staying true to himself:  He didn’t want a traditional office job. Meaning, he didn’t want to work for anyone else or spend a bunch of time in board rooms. He wants to travel and connect with people outside of the office walls. He is very clear on his goals and values. Are you?

3 Ways to Build Your Agency Around Your Personality

1. Change the terminology. Re doesn’t refer to them as “clients” or “projects”, they are “relationships” or “engagements”. He’s a people person and treats each opportunity with care. A change in terminology also changes the perceived value of the experience. Check out my previous post about how changing terminology can even help you increase your prices! {BONUS!}
2. Be self aware. Know how you are (and who you aren’t). You can’t get real clarity on leading your business until you know who you are... Ask yourself: “Is this agency fulfilling?” or “Does the work I’m doing really matter to me?” and “Does my agency support my desired lifestyle?” If not - you can take a sabbatical like Re, or find another way to quiet the noise and distractions that are standing in your way. Here are the 4 common things that could be standing in the way of your clarity.
3. Don’t make decisions based on money. We all take on clients or projects because we need the money. And, you have to have some bad experiences so you know what you don’t want to do. But at some point you also have to realize though that not every person with a credit card was meant to be your client. Instead, think and act like a millionaire, even if you’re not… yet.

Best advice:  Be true to yourself and let the rest unfold.

What’s holding as a prisoner to your agency? Comment below and tell me your biggest challenges.

Discover the best Digital Agency Strategies today. Get Online Training to help you setup the right systems and strategies to help you grow faster.

Building Your Authority

Finding a work-life balance for you as an agency owner will not only benefit your agency but your team as you are establishing a healthy work relationship. But in order to build authority as a business owner and your digital agency, you need to be able to recognise other issues within your agency that needs your attention. No matter what challenge your agency is facing, I can help you get through all of it.

There are many topics I can offer guidance from what the different phases of growth of your business will look like to how working with freelancers can benefit your team.

Growing your agency can be a major struggle for any agency owner and I can show from knowing when it’s time to hire a sales manager or expand your sales team, creating a process for performance based pricing which can be the best pricing strategy for your business and learning how to keep your big name clients happy.

Are you ready to create something cool and want more advice? 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.

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.

If you are looking for technology secrets for your agency to impress your clients, then today's episode is just for you.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• 3 technology secrets that will WOW your clients.
• A Facebook development that every business should be using.
• The hottest trend in live streaming video.
• The #1 easiest hack to boost your Google ranking.

On this episode of The Smart Agency Master Class, we’ll hear from Ryan Steinolfson with some advice that can boost your business and totally impress your clients when you bring these growth solutions to the table.

Ryan’s agency, Accelerate Marketing, specializes in social proof and live streaming video for it’s clients. He says live streaming is a lot more complex than it appears and his agency helps their clients with it in three ways:

1. Live streaming on the client’s behalf.
2. Teaching client teams to live stream, or with their course Live Stream Blueprint.
3. Developing “Advocacy Days”, which are live stream events among multiple strategic partners that are connected using a common hashtag.

According to the 2016 Future Outlook of Digital Agencies, we know brands hire agencies to be their technology leaders. They expect their agency to bring them emerging trends that will build business. I’ve been saying it for months now, Live Streaming is H-O-T and your clients need strategies for using it to their benefit.

Here’s more about live streaming video from a previous podcast guest, Kim Garst, founder of Boom Social.

Here are 3 major technology secrets that will WOW your clients!

1. Facebook Live can now be used for any business page.

As of a few weeks ago (from original post date April 2016), Facebook Live can be used on any business or public profile page. They just flipped a switch and made it available - and this is HUGE NEWS!

Using Facebook Live, you can:

• Stream live video using the Facebook app from your iPhone or Android device.
• Add call to action text over your live stream
• Boost your videos by add keywords optimization
• Embed or repurpose your videos.
• Have your followers subscribe to get notified when you’re broadcasting.
• Allow your followers to comment in real-time, share and embed your video.

(Be sure to “like” my page and check out my Facebook Live videos now!)

And Ryan has learned that right now, Facebook is giving preferential treatment to people/businesses who are using the Facebook Live feature. So live streaming videos are jumping to the top of news feeds (for now)... that means more opportunities and more reach.

2. The next big thing in live streaming video is 360

After Meerkat and Periscope introduced this technology, we’ve seen both Facebook and YouTube jump on board. YouTube allows you to give access to others to live stream on your channel and drop a graphics card into your live video. Which is super cool.

But the next BIG thing in live streaming is 360° videos. Ryan says he’s got his eye on Livit - an app for live streaming in 360°. It integrates with 360° cams for one of the coolest end-user experiences he’s ever seen.

3. The BEST trick for moving up in Google rankings

We know social proof (or social influence) carries huge weight in purchase decisions. Did you know that you can help your clients generate leads and crush it just by getting more reviews?!

According to Ryan, 15% of your Google ranking is based on your social proof.  So more positive reviews, means a high ranking. His agency has even seen movement from a D-position to A-position just from getting 10 or 15 reviews. This is a powerful tool that you and your clients are probably not taking advantage of, but should be!

Are you considering hiring freelancers but don't know the best way to successfully manage remote teams for your digital agency?

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• Creative ways to find top talent.
• Freelancer onboarding… or not?
• Managing freelance and remote teams.

Today’s guest is the co-founder of Hubstaff, a technology solution for managing a remote staff with everything from time tracking and progress monitoring to payables and financials. Dave Nevogt shares with us some great tips on sourcing, hiring and managing freelancers.

Out-of-the-box talent searching ideas:

Often times agency owners don’t know where to look for the right candidates. Most end up relying on referrals or freelance marketplaces. Very few agencies experiment with other sources, such as:

• Check out LinkedIn or AngelList. Create a LinkedIn search filtered by your criteria. You never know who’s looking, who might be employed but unhappy. Reach out in a personalized private message and include a link to the job description. If they’re interested, they’ll reply.
• Use your website to continuously recruit. You should always be scouting for good talent, whether your need extra help or not. Advertise “now hiring” on your website. This portray growth and attracts talent. Post job descriptions, too.
• Run targeted Facebook ads to enlist talent from a specific source, such as a specific company, geographic location, etc.

How to handle freelancer onboarding

Hubstaff has a small team stretched around the globe. Here’s how Dave onboards (... or rather, how he doesn’t onboard) new team members:

• Have a candid conversation about the position and the potential growth. You might see the potential for full-time but don’t start out that way. Get settled in first and see if the person is the right fit. (Note: the U.S. IRS frowns on full-time freelancers. Check out this interview “How to Avoid an Audit” with an agency-focused tax accountant.)
• Don’t fully onboard immediately. Start slow and make sure it’s going to work on a surface level first before you using time and resources to train.
• Spend the first 30-days testing the waters. Learn each other’s personalities traits and work ethic. Get a feel for the freelancer’s effort and response time.
• Start slow with lots of involvement by the manager. But remember, there’s a fine line between “involved” and “micromanaging.”
• Communicate a ton and understand their workload. Make sure requests are filtered through you for now.

Managing freelance and remote teams

How can you ever be totally sure a contractor is working on the project you’re paying for and not watching cat videos online? Truth is, you can’t. What you can do is have an upfront conversation about expectations and your vision for the position.

Tips for managing freelancers:

• Use a collaboration software such as Trello or Slack. This gets everyone OUT of their INBOX. It also allows the manager to see what everyone is working on and upholds a culture built on transparency.
• Hold live, weekly status meetings to see who’s working on what. Even with PM software, private messages and direct requests can hijack a freelancer’s time without your knowledge.
• Communicate goals and priorities. Know what your team is working on and keep it minimal (like, 5 things instead of 25). Often, when someone is overwhelmed they’ll just shut down.
• Use a tool like Hubstaff for tracking progress on projects, budgeting, time tracking and random screenshotting in real-time.

Working with freelancers or a remote team can be SUPER beneficial to both parties. It works for me, it’s working for Dave at Hubstaff and it’s been working for another agency owner I interviewed who has a $3 Million Agency With No Employees.

SYSTEMS to help your GROW & SCALE

My Agency Playbook contains the 12 Systems I used to grow and eventually sell a SUCCESSFUL multi-million dollar agency. It includes all the resources and tools as well as step-by-step strategies to save you tons of time. Everything you learn can be implemented immediately. Learn more by clicking here. 

Build Your Agency

Growing your agency team through freelancers and remote teams can provide many benefits and many businesses in the future will move toward remote working, especially in the digital field. 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.

Top 5 Business Growth Tips on How to Scale Your Agency

Are you struggling on scaling your agency and just can't find the best business growth tips that fit your business model?

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• Top 5 business growth tips to grow and scale your digital agency.
• How to juggle and manage multiple businesses.

If you’re looking for a 7 or 8 figure entrepreneur to model, this guy might be it…

Syed Balkhi is the owner of several multi-million dollar online business and he's crushing it. Syed’s trifecta of online startups includes:  WPBeginner (the largest free Wordpress resource), OptinMonster (lead generation software, and List25 (entertainment site) -- all of which are hitting 7+ figures and combined, serve over 400 million visitors! He’s also a former agency owner and a stakeholder in several other businesses.

In this episode, Syed shares his best advice for getting your business to the next level. He’s got a ton of great tips for growing and scaling.

Top 5 ways to grow and scale

#5 - Answer everybody’s questions. Syed says he spent very little on marketing his startups. Instead he would run hashtag searches on Twitter and respond to every tweet that had anything to do with a particular topic (in his case, Wordpress). Don’t reply with a hardsell. Reply with a helpful tip or solution.

#4 - Identify and solve one problem at a time. We’re entrepreneurs. It’s easy to get distracted by all those fantastic ideas that pop into our heads. Syed says a key factor in his success was concentrating on one idea at a time.

#3 - Use a lead magnet. You’ll have far better success with an opt-in that offers a payoff in the form of a useful checklist or tool. People are always hesitant to opt-in for fear of spammy junk mail. Bribery works so much better :)

#2 - Follow-up is paramount. Once you capture contact info use it to establish trust and gain authority. Don’t just send your monthly e-newsletter, which is all you. Provide goodwill content by offering resources and valuable information that helps them.

#1 - The BEST advice to grow and scale:  Find the right combination of content marketing and marketing automation. Build a system that establishes the "know-like-trust" factor with content and useful tools. Test and tweak often. 

How to succeed at multiple businesses

The key is F.O.C.U.S. - Finish One Commitment Until Success. Syed says your agency should  have to be focused on the strengths of your business.  Identify a problem your prospects experience and then solve that problem differently and better than anyone else.

Sometimes agency owners see a common problem their clients’ experience and want to develop a product solution. Resist the urge. FOCUS. If you do decide to venture into developing a product, make sure it is a separate entity with a dedicated team. Don’t overlap your resources between your service business and your product business. You can’t excel at both simultaneously, so one will always suffer. In the end, neither business will flourish.

In terms of juggling it all… Syed says he doesn’t. He is in regular communication with team leaders that manage each of his businesses. He and his teams use tools like Slack and Basecamp to stay looped in. Syed's role now is mainly marketing, support and coaching his team. In fact, he’s so far removed from daily operations, he doesn’t even have coding access anymore (and he's OK with it!) :)

If you want to grow and scale your agency, check out my Agency Playbook. It includes the 12 systems I used to start, scale, enjoy, and sell my agency. Check out this video on you can use my Playbook to take your business to the next level.

Building Your Business

Using these business growth tips, I hope you begin to see a real difference for your agency.

If business growth tips aren't the only piece of advice you need, what other challenges are you facing?

I have probably experienced all the different struggles for an agency owner through my own experience and I can help you from what I learned. 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 tell you the best ways to stop losing money on projects, why performance based pricing can be the best pricing strategy for your agency as well as why including remote working or freelancers in your team can be beneficial in the long run.

You can learn more 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.

Do you really need to have a big agency experience to truly be successful as an agency owner?

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• What it’s like working at a big agency.
• Why a CCO would leave a large, publicly traded agency.
• Does size matter? 
• How you can determine your purpose and use it to build your brand.

For anyone who has questions or doubts in their own abilities to startup a digital agency and run better than the big dogs, you’ll have to check out this interview. My guest, Kerri Konik, has worked at some pretty huge agencies, and left her latest as Chief Creative Officer in order to start her own agency. She tells us what it’s like at the big agencies and why she left to do her own thing.

The grass isn’t any greener at the big agencies… it’s greener on the side that you water:)

What it’s like at a big agency (...and why leave)?

After years of working at big agencies Kerri started her agency, Brandscape Atelier, five years ago because she felt like she wasn’t making much of an impact on her clients’ businesses.  

Like anything else, there’s pros and cons, of course. First and foremost the resources are top-notch. You have a team full of people who are experts in their specific area - people don’t wear more than one hat. This means, you can learn a lot and get exposure to the big picture. However, big agencies tend to sound very glamorous when in actuality, they are not. Sure a big agency can be very fast paced and they land 2-3 year agency of record contracts, however there are too many layers to be effective. A typical client/agency meeting often included 18-20 people… making execution very inefficient.

Kerri left because she felt like she wasn’t making much of an impact on her clients’ businesses.  She started Brandscape Atelier (translation: “artist workshop”) to bring sophisticated, big agency strategies to small businesses who are looking to grow.

Does size matter?

No it does not. You don’t need a huge team to do amazing work. Kerri’s agency operates with just six core team members and they bring in subject matter specialists as needed. They are in their 5th year and Kerri has no plans to get too big. She feels it’s too difficult to be nimble when you are too big.

More benefits of staying small:

• You make decisions based on the long term. Large corporations look at making growth decisions based on the short term, which doesn’t have lasting effects for sustainability.
• You can turn down the wrong clients or wrong jobs that distract from your long term goals.
• You can make build your brand equity by defining your purpose. Why you do what you do.

How to select clients that set you up for a WIN.

Brandscape Atelier works with startups, small businesses and entrepreneurs that are looking to grow and be competitive with bigger brands. They have a pretty specific criteria on who they will (and will not) work with, including:

1. Businesses that are focused and clear. They want to work with clients who want to make a big impact in their industry.
2. Businesses the agency views as viable and sellable.
3. Businesses the agency can bring to life by bringing the owner’s unique and genuine personality into the mix.

Set yourself up for a WIN by being selective in your prospecting. It’s hard when you’re starting out - sometimes you are hungry enough to take on any work that is thrown your way. If you can avoid making decisions based on short term gain, you will reap long term benefits.

Remember: There’s no such thing as a bad client. Only a bad prospect or a had process! Click here to learn what I mean.

How can you determine your purpose?

In Kerri’s case, she kept finding herself beginning a lot of sentences with with “Someday, I’ll...” She realized she had gotten to a point where she wasn’t really doing what she wanted to be doing. She was just waiting for that “someday.”

If you want to find your purpose, figure out what you’re passion about. Ask yourself questions like:

• “What can’t I help doing?”
• “What do I want to see more of in the world?”
• “What do I want to see less of in the world?”

Sometimes it’s easier to start with what you don’t want to do, then narrow down to what you DO want to do :) Use your findings to position your agency (and yourself) for success. When you’re working on something that moves and inspires you, it also empowers you to be successful.

Bottom line is, you do not need big agency experience to be a successful owner. My best advice is to stay in the game of learning. Stay on top of trends and technology and avoid being viewed as a commodity by your clients by continuing to take your level of knowledge and service up a notch.

No matter what your size, there are five levels of agency service - check out another interview about them here. Comment below and tell me which level of service you provide? Which one are you be striving for?

Building Your Agency

I have more than likely experienced all if not most of the different struggles an agency owner experiences through my own experience and I can help you from what I learned. I have covered many topics from what to do with your sales processes to improve them, how you can increase your agency profit margins or how you can build authority for your agency.

I have the best ways for your business to stop losing money on projects, how performance based pricing models can be the best strategy for your agency and why including remote teams or freelancers in your team can be beneficial in the long run.

Learn more about my career 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.

When building an agency, having big brand clients can elevate your agency to a whole other level. This is where the challenge comes in of how do you grab the attention of those big brands?

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• Grabbing the attention of big brands.
• 5 Steps to creating a winning environment.
• The hierarchy of an agency with big brand clients.

Don’t be a “me too” agency

Mike says the agency’s Founder and Chief Creative Officer, Zak Mroueh, has always made it their mission to capture the attention of big brands and get to the next level. He says agencies are always telling their clients to stand out, be different, and do things that are uncomfortable. However, they don’t “walk the walk” and follow their own advice. For example, ever notice how agency websites all look the same?

That’s why Zulu’s website is one of the most entertaining agency site you’ll see. It pokes fun at the agency industry’s cliches and stereotypes. It’s edgy, it’s funny, and it’s one example of Zulu walking the walk. (I’m telling you that you’ve got to check out their site - it’s pretty awesome.)

5 Steps to creating a winning environment

1. #SayNoToSpec  At Zulu, they don’t make decisions based on monetary gain. They’re OK with turning down work that doesn’t get them closer to their long-term goals. Spec work is a hinderance and an unfair expectation on the client’s behalf. Just. Say. No. When they implemented this 5 years ago they were turning down 80%+ of their RFP's.
   

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2. Focus on long-term dominance. Zulu’s website is just one example of their out-of-the-box creativity. Mike says the humor on the site isn’t for everyone. It’s a turnoff for some - and that’s OK. They take risks in pursuit of new clients. Zulu’s thinking:  If a prospective client doesn’t like their spoofy website, they’re probably not the right fit anyway.
   

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3. Know why you do what you do. What’s your agency’s purpose? What are your core values? Why did you start an agency? (Don’t say you’re in it to make money. Money is an outcome, not a goal.) Determine your answers and communicate them from the top down. When you know your belief system it makes bigger decisions a lot easier to make.
   

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4. Be purposeful in your onboarding. Start day 1 with setting the right tone and helping a new employee adapt to the culture. At Zulu it's an orientation called “The Zulu Way” and it’s a 90-minute one-on-one with the agency founder where a new hire learns expectations and do’s/don’ts of the agency. It sets both parties up for a long and successful relationship.
   

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5. Hire senior people in key roles. This circles back to not making decisions based on money. You need some experienced people - ones who’ve already made their big career mistakes - in leadership roles. According to Mike, one of the best things they did was hire a seasoned CFO and an IT Director. Stop thinking about how these positions re non-billable. Having senior people in place sets a foundation for success and their value to the agency is priceless.

As you grow, structure your agency for greatness

So wait... the Founder is NOT the President?

That’s right. After about one year juggling the roles of Founder and President, Zak Mroueh, realized he’d rather be working IN the business than ON the business. Zak hired Mike Sutton as agency President to deal with all the “business stuff” that was getting in his way of being creative. Today Zak is the Chief Creative Officer and uses his experience and technical skills to oversee all aspects of creative, while Mike is the President overseeing contracts, billing, scopes, and other business details.

Beneath the top tier of agency leadership, each department has 4-5 layers much like a traditionally structure agency.

Moral of the story: know your strengths. Know your team’s strengths. Be the best at one thing. Hire people to do what you can’t (or don’t want to) do.

That’s all great advice but what with the name?

Why Zulu Alpha Kilo? It stems from the global Nato Phonetic Alphabet, the widely known language often used by pilots (aka: the “Alpha Bravo Charlie” alphabet). It’s symbolic of the agency’s dedication to clarity of communication. And it just so happens to spell Z-A-K, which is the founder’s first name :)

By the way - here’s another super cool example of Zulu pushing themselves outside their comfort zone: http://creativity-online.com/work/zulu-alpha-kilo-zulu-blank-canvas/45173

Challenge:  What are YOU doing to stand out? Comment below and share how you separate yourself from the pack.

Discover the best Digital Agency Strategies today. Get Online Training to help you setup the right systems and strategies to help you grow faster.

Bringing Your Agency to a New Level

Landing big brands for clients can really bring your agency to a new level but also improve how you reach out to prospective clients moving forward. I hope you found this beneficial but I know there are other potential struggles you are experiencing in your agency and I can help.

I can give you advice on recognising these new potential client opportunities to creating the best marketing proposal to land these new potential leads.

Issues with growing your agency? I’ve broken down the different phases of growth within your agency and how performance based pricing can be the best pricing strategy for your business. And let's not forget the three questions you need to be asking yourself to sell more!

Learn all 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.