As agency owners, we’re always looking for ways to improve our business development strategies and stand out in a crowded marketplace. This week, I’m flipping the script and sharing an episode where I was a guest on Susan Quinn’s podcast, Better Experiences by Design . Susan asks some great questions to help get to the bottom of the two main biz dev strategies modern agencies can count on today — niching and thought leadership. Doing these two things can transform your agency’s growth trajectory...
Aug 12, 2024•38 min•Ep 462•Transcript available on Metacast Systems and processes are a tough nut to crack for agency owners, and it’s even more challenging once you get clients involved. Many of us are accidental agency owners who thrive in the chaos and disarray of agency life but know that operating this way will reduce profitability. This week, we’re sitting down with Xenia Muntean to share her journey of becoming an accidental agency owner and what it taught her about agency systems and processes as she began to build her own workflow software. We d...
Aug 05, 2024•57 min•Ep 461•Transcript available on Metacast As agency owners, one of the things we fundamentally get wrong in sales is how heavily trust plays a role in the process. We’re selling intangible services and solutions to people with a high price tag, and we expect prospects to trust that we’ll deliver on our promises. It’s a risky proposition, especially for the ones putting their trust (and wallets) in our hands. This week, I’m sharing how agency owners can earn and leverage their trust with client referrals to increase sales. When you sit b...
Jul 29, 2024•45 min•Ep 460•Transcript available on Metacast Agency owners have it tough these days, but we have more control over how hard it is for us than we think. This week, we’re going to talk in-depth about how we can change the course and direction of our business by changing our habits and mindsets. To help us, we’re talking to Jason Yarusi about creating positive momentum around breaking bad habits, choosing to offload tasks that aren’t propelling us forward, and cutting out unnecessary chaos in our lives. You might think there’s nothing you can...
Jul 22, 2024•41 min•Ep 459•Transcript available on Metacast When you’re stacked against other agencies with the same awards, credentials, and impressive case studies as you, it’s tough to stand out above the rest. But with the right pitch deck, you’re sure to catch the attention of your ideal clients. This week, Tom Martin is teaching us a few things about crafting the perfect pitch deck that moves beyond just impressing clients, but making them remember you over the rest. You already have their attention just by getting the meeting, but your pitch deck ...
Jul 15, 2024•58 min•Ep 458•Transcript available on Metacast CMOs have a lot on their plates, and similar to agency owners, their role can be lonely in the C-Suite. Because of this, CMOs rely heavily on agency partnerships to keep them in the know. To help us understand the crucial role of agency-CMO relationships, Liza Adams is giving us an inside look at what it’s really like to be a CMO—what they value in strategic partnerships, what they need from agencies the most, and why agencies are an integral part of doing their job well. This episode is packed ...
Jul 08, 2024•53 min•Ep 457•Transcript available on Metacast The glamor of working for an agency has worn off somewhat since the 80s and 90s. Markets are more saturated, salaries have stagnated, and recruiting top talent has become more difficult — especially since Covid. As agency owners, that means we have to adjust our process to find and hire top talent to meet our clients’ needs. To help us understand all the changes we’re facing today, I sat down to talk with Michael Palma, an agency recruiting and business development expert. With decades of experi...
Jul 01, 2024•48 min•Ep 456•Transcript available on Metacast In the last solocast, we reviewed the agency trends that most affected agency AGI in 2023. This week, we’re pulling back the curtain on the major trends rocking agency owners and their teams in 2024 — and giving you tips to stay ahead of them. We’ll give you a reality check on misguided expectations around agency valuations and sales. And we’ll explore why daily timesheets and utilization metrics are so crucial for retaining your rock star team members. Another big trend we unpack is moving back...
Jun 24, 2024•46 min•Ep 455•Transcript available on Metacast Every year, we go out into the field to understand the biggest pain points and priorities for both agencies and clients. This year, we took data from the 2024, 2019, and 2014 Agency Edge Research studies to compare how client expectations have changed over the years. This year, the burning issue was client-agency trust — what clients look for in an agency, how an agency can retain clients, and what causes a client to look elsewhere for another agency. To help make sense of all the changes, Susan...
Jun 17, 2024•52 min•Ep 454•Transcript available on Metacast The FTC has recently passed regulations against non-compete clauses on a federal level in all work contracts. Starting in the fall of 2024, agencies will have new rules to comply with regarding their employees and independent contractors. This will be a big shake-up for many agency owners, but luckily, Sharon Toerek is always by our side to walk us through any new legal requirements that hit us unexpectedly. In this episode, she covers a lot of ground on how agency owners can comply with the new...
Jun 10, 2024•47 min•Ep 453•Transcript available on Metacast Agency owners who want to scale their business often run into a chicken-and-egg situation. To scale and grow sustainably, you need to hire more people. But to be able to hire more people, you need to scale and grow to have the money to do so. This is where hiring international employees can help solve your problems. This week, we’re diving into the growing trend of hiring full-time international employees with Kim Walker. Kim and her husband Brian initially had reservations about hiring internat...
Jun 03, 2024•54 min•Ep 452•Transcript available on Metacast If you want to future-proof your agency’s success and stability, now is the time to become a fractional CMO. For those unfamiliar with the term, fractional CMOs are hired for their strategy first and execution second. It’s a client-agency relationship built on trust that you know their industry deeply and can execute your strategy to provide a high ROI to your client. The pandemic paved the way for having this hyperfocus on one specialization and highlighted the need for agencies to be trusted t...
May 27, 2024•39 min•Ep 451•Transcript available on Metacast In 2023, about 45% of agencies took an AGI hit — the biggest number we’ve seen for as long as we’ve been tracking agency trends. Last year was tough, but agencies are finally starting to bounce back from growing their AGI. With some of our profitability struggles finally behind us, many of you are wondering how to get ahead of the curve once again. This week, we’re taking a deeper dive into some of the biggest influencers of agency AGI during this time and what agency owners can learn from the t...
May 20, 2024•41 min•Ep 450•Transcript available on Metacast Burnout can sneak up on us; before we know it, we’re ready to sell the agency. But before we get to this critical point, there are usually signs and symptoms of burnout, but it’s not always easy to differentiate them from regular day-to-day stress. In this week’s episode, I’m talking to Eric Recker about those crucial signs that you might be burning the candle at both ends a little too often and how to turn it around for the better. If we can get ahead of our burnout by identifying that we’re he...
May 13, 2024•57 min•Ep 449•Transcript available on Metacast Agency owners like to think they can do it all, but the real gold is in finding and defining your agency niche. To demonstrate, I spoke to Tyler Samani-Sprunk of Simple Strat to get into the head of an agency that learned this lesson the hard way but still did it very well — once they finally committed. Tyler shares the false starts and missteps early on as Simple Strat tried half-heartedly to pick a niche without fully committing. He explained how feedback from prospects asking, “What are you r...
May 06, 2024•50 min•Ep 448•Transcript available on Metacast Clients increasingly want to know exactly what they’re getting in return for their dollars spent with agencies. This data can be tricky to compile, let alone interpret and visualize in a way the client actually understands. So this week, we’re diving deeper into the ongoing AI conversation to dial in on one thing — how AI tools can prove an agency’s ROI to clients. In the episode, our guest, Jonathon Reilly, gives a great overview of how AI can revolutionize this task. The big idea is that AI to...
Apr 29, 2024•51 min•Ep 447•Transcript available on Metacast As agency owners, we all want to be different. We don’t want to be the boss who is a stickler for punctuality or to feel like we’re micromanaging our employees. But HR issues will inevitably arise, and that’s when the reality check sets in. HR issues aren’t always as intense as the term may imply. They could be as small as someone being late to a couple of meetings or an employee missing a deadline one too many times. They’re often small things that build up over time and can balloon into bigger...
Apr 22, 2024•56 min•Ep 446•Transcript available on Metacast Online communities are quickly becoming one of the most powerful biz dev tools out there, but there’s etiquette to starting and maintaining one. It’s not for everyone, but for those who are ready, an online community could be your ticket to selling without ever having to actually sell. This week, we’re continuing the conversation about online communities vs. online audiences, and the vast benefits they can offer to agency owners. Now that we’ve established the differences between an audience and...
Apr 15, 2024•57 min•Ep 445•Transcript available on Metacast Everybody has a story they’re trying to tell, and brands play a massive role in people’s stories, whether they realize it or not. Most of the time, the stories consumers associate with a brand aren’t what we think they are. This is where behavioral economics becomes vital to creating an effective marketing strategy. Behavioral economics is a study that attempts to make sense of people’s behavior around spending. We don’t always make spending decisions in our best interest and often base purchasi...
Apr 08, 2024•47 min•Ep 444•Transcript available on Metacast In-person networking is still a big deal. After a brief Covid hiatus, trade shows, conferences, and workshops are back and bigger than ever. So, if you or your team plan on attending any of these events soon, it’s important to get up to date on the do’s and don’ts of networking at these events. Instead of being stuck with a stack of business cards and struggling to recall conversations with specific individuals from an event, seasoned keynote speaker Dave Delaney shares how to manage and nurture...
Apr 01, 2024•56 min•Ep 443•Transcript available on Metacast After a tough sales year in 2023, many of you have been looking for the next thing to consistently fill your sales pipeline with new prospects. With sales cycles taking longer than before, it’s essential always to have warm prospects teed up and ready to go. But how? The answer is in thought leadership combined with lead gen and lead magnets. Positioning yourself and your agency as an authority in your niche (and giving some of it away for free) generates trust in your agency’s expertise before ...
Mar 25, 2024•54 min•Ep 442•Transcript available on Metacast We’ve all been here before — your agency grows, and your day-to-day is getting a little too chaotic for comfort. Each team member has their own way of doing things, and no one is on the same page about the best approach to doing recurring tasks. As the agency owner, you’re getting pulled into things that you shouldn’t, becoming the organization’s bottleneck. If that’s you, it’s time to break that cycle with some project management software. With a million choices and a few that have become the i...
Mar 18, 2024•49 min•Ep 441•Transcript available on Metacast Humans are hardwired to belong, and the desire to be a part of something bigger than ourselves is in our blood. Whether we connect over shared values, a favorite sports team, a hobby, or even just from living near one another, we can find community and belonging all around us. These days, many of us are finding community online through social media and spreading our social nets wider than ever. This leaves a huge opportunity for agency leaders to build their own online communities to help others...
Mar 11, 2024•36 min•Ep 440•Transcript available on Metacast Sales cycles are elongated, but that doesn’t mean agencies can’t still win new clients. If we change how we think about and approach prospecting, we can up our client outreach game to really hone in on our right-fit clients without being too sales-y about it. In this episode, I talk with Dan Englander about how to stand out against the competition in our prospecting and outreach efforts. He shares how personalized client outreach can cut through the noise and win us new business more often if we...
Mar 04, 2024•47 min•Ep 439•Transcript available on Metacast In a sharp contrast to the earlier pandemic years, many agency owners said that in 2023, they have the best teams they’ve ever had and want to find ways to keep them around. This is great news, and we want to help keep your agency dream team alive and thriving. To help in that journey, HR expert Barbara Mason joins me to share what agency owners and leaders can do to help make their employees feel like valued team members while staying true to the agency’s mission and values. She is a fountain o...
Feb 26, 2024•55 min•Ep 438•Transcript available on Metacast Video budgets are up in 2024, which means the demand for video content from clients will be high this year. For agencies, it also indicates that we must start utilizing this incredible business development tool for ourselves to know what’s up when our clients ask about it. Not only that, but video content creation is an incredible medium for agencies in prospecting, connecting with current clients, and gaining valuable data and metrics on what content is engaging to your audience. Are prospects ...
Feb 19, 2024•52 min•Ep 437•Transcript available on Metacast What exactly makes an insight versus just an observation? What are the different types out there? How the heck do we uncover them? This week, we’re getting insightful about insights and laying out the key characteristics of strong agency insights — like inspiring action and reframing problems. Chris Kocek will share his favorite techniques for generating insights during brainstorming sessions, like continually asking “why” like a toddler until you reach some real gold. With agencies feeling more...
Feb 12, 2024•43 min•Ep 436•Transcript available on Metacast If there’s one word that will send any agency owner or employee running for the hills, it’s timesheets. Although one of the most universally disliked words in the agency world, timesheets are still the number one way to detect and diagnose problems within the agency before they become catastrophes. Essentially, they’re your best friend whether you like it or not. Timesheets, especially when completed daily by all agency employees (including the agency owner), will give you invaluable data about ...
Feb 05, 2024•38 min•Ep 435•Transcript available on Metacast You’ve probably heard of IQ, EQ, or even SQ (spiritual intelligence), but have you heard of NQ? For those new to the term, it’s natural intelligence, or our ability to tap into our inner wisdom to guide us in our decision-making in the most high-stakes situations. In life and leadership alike, we tend to let our ego get in the way of our decision-making. It’s normal, but it’s not often helpful for reaching our goals or leading our teams effectively. Instead, we should be listening to our natural...
Jan 29, 2024•47 min•Ep 434•Transcript available on Metacast It’s clear we can’t keep hiring and managing talent as we used to. Back in the days of the pandemic, and then The Great Resignation right after that, we were afraid to set boundaries and ask for what we needed out of fear of losing great team members. The way we work isn’t the same, either. Many of us are now remote or hybrid, and a fully in-office team isn’t as common as it used to be. So, we have to adapt and change how we hire, train, and problem-solve with our teams scattered all over the pl...
Jan 22, 2024•1 hr•Ep 433•Transcript available on Metacast 
