Build a Better Agency Podcast

Latest Episodes:

EP 393: An accidental agency owner's guide to scaling your business effectively with Herb Cogliano Apr 17, 2023

Show notes

Many of us didn't initially set out to become agency owners when we first started working in the business we're in now. It sort of happened accidentally, and we put our agency together on an as-needed basis as the clients kept coming in and our services and offerings evolved. As accidental agency owners, we're left with a lot of room for error as we try to scale our agencies to fit our core values while also turning a profit. That's where Herb Cogliano's expertise comes in.

As an entrepreneur for over 30 years and a consultant helping scale and grow businesses, he knows all the pain points for agency owners as they navigate growing an agency.

Herb will teach us three major barriers to growth: hiring people in line with your core values, identifying general manager-level leadership, and remaining profitable as you and your team adapt to changes along the way. Herb wants us to run our business rather than the business running us. Tune in to learn how to go from an accidental agency owner to an intentional one.

A big thank you to our podcast's presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They're an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev, or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here.

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

Three major barriers to our growth as agency owners
The decisions around people, strategy, execution, and cash that we need to get right
What we often get wrong about scaling
How to improve cash flow and profits inside the business
How to evolve the business in the right direction
Establishing your core values and sticking to them
What to look for in good leadership as you plan your leadership succession
Creating processes to boost efficiency
How to take the fear out of change for your employees

EP 392: The CRAVE approach to successful agency leadership with Dr. Amin Sanaia Apr 10, 2023

Show notes

How you lead your business is critical to its success. People are the most important assets in our agencies, and without them, we can't deliver our best work to our customers. That's why it's critical to prioritize agency leadership so your teams can do their best work and grow alongside your organization. Dr. Amin Sanaia is an expert in leadership development with extensive experience studying what attributes make the most successful leaders. Today, he shares the top five personality traits of a good leader, also known as CRAVE, and how we can bring leadership development and growth opportunities to our employees.

If you're ready to take your leadership to the next level and start showing up for your people with more empathy and authenticity, Dr. Amin has the tools to get you on the right path.

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

What gets in the way of being a great leader
Finding the balance between servant leadership and honest feedback
Balancing employee wants and running your business profitably
Offering fringe benefits over more money
How agency leadership can show up with more empathy without going overboard
Setting the tone of your agency culture
Coaching and mentoring new agency leadership
How to start behaving like a leader

EP 391: How sales prospects want to be sold to with Jeremy Miner Apr 03, 2023

Show notes

So many of us hate selling or feeling like we are "being sold to" because it has the old reputation of being manipulative, exploitative, and too pushy. Thanks to the sales tactics of the old days, our sales prospects have walls up before a call or meeting even starts.

When we know the psychology of sales and truly understand how people want to be sold to, that's where the magic begins. Jeremy Miner, voted in the top 50 best salespeople worldwide, has some knowledge to share with us about approaching the sales process in a way that sets you up for success from the beginning.

Not only can you ditch lengthy sales pitches and pretend to care about the weather in your prospect's city, but you can also get to the root of their needs much more efficiently and teach them how you fit into that equation. Your prospects win because they learn about their company's problems, you win because you know how to solve them, and you both win again because fixing those blind spots helps you both make more money. What do you have to lose?

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

Jeremy's first door-to-door sales job
How to get sales prospects to pull you in rather than you pushing them to make a decision
Getting to the bottom of your prospect's problems and figuring out how to solve them
The least persuasive way to sell
Leading sales conversations with emotion instead of logic
The NEPQ approach to sales conversations
How Covid impacted selling to prospects
Building a visual gap between where your sales prospects are and where they want to be
Asking the right questions

EP 390: The AMI membership FAQ for agency owners and leaders with Drew McLellan Mar 27, 2023

Show notes

This week, I'm using this episode to talk about some questions I get asked a lot, and that is what we offer in AMI memberships. Many of you want to know what our different tiers of memberships include and what other services we offer. If you're curious about AMI and our membership offerings, this episode is for you. I will break down what we offer for agency owners and leaders and how you can get involved in the AMI community if you feel compelled to do so. We have a ton of different ways to become a community member, get consulting and one-on-one coaching, access our peer networks, and even get help with succession work.

Our goal is always to help small to mid-size agencies reach their goals and get access to the best network possible. You're never too small or far away from us to participate, so if you're feeling compelled to join the community in some way, I'm giving you all the details here today.

For 30+ years, Drew McLellan has been in the advertising industry. He started his career at Y&R, worked in boutique-sized agencies, and then started his own (which he still owns and runs) agency in 1995. Additionally, Drew owns and leads the Agency Management Institute, which advises hundreds of small to mid-sized agencies on how to grow their agency and its profitability through agency owner peer groups, consulting, coaching, workshops and more.

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

The free resources we always offer agency owners and leaders
Our workshops, both online and in-person
Online and onsite consulting with experienced business leaders
Creating a network of agency leaders with Peer Networks and Virtual Peer Groups
How we can help in succession planning and coaching new buyers to acquire an agency
The BABA Summit
How to get involved if you can't travel or just want some content from us
The members-only perks as an add-on to our free content

EP 389: Infusing innovative ideas into your agency operations with Stan Phelps Mar 20, 2023

Show notes

You need innovative ideas to stand out and be ahead of the curve. We often get caught up in the chaos of day-to-day agency operations and retreat into the comfort zone of doing things the same way we've always done them. Today, we're talking you out of that way of thinking and giving you an entirely different framework for approaching client projects. Stan Phelps, an author and keynote speaker with prior agency experience, has a whole new way of thinking about client projects and asking the right questions to build out innovative ideas that will keep clients coming back to you for more.

When we make the time, space, and budget to allow our teams to think outside of the box and take more creative risks, we make space for better, more trusting clients who know you'll hit a home run for them every time.

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

Creating innovation through action and insights
Why we need to be incentivizing our teams and clients to think outside the box
The IDEA Framework for mapping out innovative ideas
Sometimes it's about learning what our clients don't value
Using attribute and journey mapping to learn about customers and how they interact with us
How to start asking your clients the big questions that lead to big ideas
What to internally evaluate before taking your ideas to a client
How to infuse innovation into agency operations as an agency leader

EP 388: Community building as a brand marketing strategy with Mark Schaefer Mar 13, 2023

Show notes

Think about some of your favorite brands for just a moment. What aspects of those brands make you feel the most connected to them? Do you ever find yourself talking to your friends or family about a company you love so much because of what they stand for or how they connect with people? Enter community building as a marketing strategy — the next big thing in brand marketing, according to Mark Schaefer. This week, he will teach us why brands need to hop on this trend as quickly as possible and how agencies can join in on the fun, too.

As business leaders, the best way to reach our audience is to turn that audience into a community and connect with the people who are your biggest advocates. In this episode, we'll talk about the role of creating emotional connections to your brand, the difference between an audience and a community, how agencies can become leaders in community building for brands, and so much more. Mark will leave you thinking about how your agency can evolve into a thriving community while growing your brand organically.

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

Mark's inspiration for writing his book on the next big brand marketing strategies
The 3 trends that came together to bring community building to the forefront of brand marketing
The importance of having an emotional connection with your community
The major difference between audience and community
How can agencies begin helping brands with community building?
Nurturing organic advocacy for your brand
Perfecting community building in both online and face-to-face interactions
Some pitfalls to avoid when beginning to dabble in community building
Can/should agencies create their own communities?

EP 387: The four leadership shifts agency owners need to make to adapt to an evolving workforce with Heather McGowan Mar 06, 2023

Show notes

There's no denying that when the pandemic hit, the workforce changed forever. We experienced some of the most rapid shifts in our economy and lifestyles this century, and we still feel its effects today.

Most notably, our work standards morphed along with how we view leadership and hustle culture. The old ways of working longer hours and devoting yourself to a company to climb your way to the top have dissolved.

This week, Heather McGowan is joining me to talk about the major shifts we've recently experienced and will shed some light on how agency owners can adapt to better fit the new roles employees expect leadership to fill. She'll talk about "The Five Greats" that led to these intense shifts, and four leadership adaptations agency owners should consider making to support the new-age workforce best.

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

How Heather accidentally became an expert in human work culture
"The Five Greats" that collided all at once to shift the workforce
How to change the mindset around hustle culture and where it still has its place
Four shifts an agency owner needs to make to align themselves with the current workforce
Moving from competition to collaboration to motivate your workforce
Polling your workers and being open to feedback as you make changes
How agencies are successfully building a remote culture
What are the new standards of effective leadership today?

EP 386: Restructuring agency billing and pricing models based on scope value with Jonathan Stark Feb 27, 2023

Show notes

If you're tired of assessing your agency's project values based on an average hourly rate and having your team constantly updating timesheets, you'll want to take some notes on this episode. Today's topic is all about restructuring pricing models to focus more on the scope value rather than an average billable hourly rate. Our guest, Jonathan Stark, is a former software developer on a mission to rid the world of hourly billing. He'll teach us to reevaluate the work scopes we're pitching to prospects and customize it so you can focus on their actual needs rather than what they think they need.

By using this method, you will not only remove the headache of hourly billing but also have better conversations with prospects, establish yourself as a thought leader, and have the potential to increase your profit exponentially — just by changing this small aspect of your sales and discovery calls.

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

How and why Jonathan became so passionate about eliminating hourly billing from his agency structure
Why fixed pricing models based on scope value are both easier and more profitable
Asking the right questions to get to the bottom of your prospect's actual needs and weed out bad clients
Talking about the value of the outcome of the work you're going to do for clients
Building proposals with 3 budget options based on a fixed-price value
How to engage with a prospect to discover what they need and how to price it out
The pros and cons of changing your pricing strategy
Productizing some of your services as "off-the-shelf offerings"
How to implement this strategy as a smaller agency without too much risk

EP 385: Taking stock of where you make fear-based decisions in your agency with Drew McLellan Feb 20, 2023

Show notes

One of the most common traps we fall into as agency owners is making decisions based on our fears. Every day we have to make hard choices, and it's easy to fall victim to a fear-based narrative when trying to make everyone happy while keeping a business afloat. But fear not — I have some advice for you that will help you see the bigger picture of where you are likely making fear-based decisions for your agency. This week, my goal is to help you identify the most common fear-based business decisions, understand why this happens almost universally, and learn some tricks to rewire our thinking around these decisions.

As you listen to this episode, take stock of when you've made decisions out of fear. Fear of losing a good employee, fear of losing money, fear of missing out on a good project or client — and see if you can find a better approach to tackling even just one of these examples.

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

The biggest, worst fear-based decision agency owners often make
Acknowledging the truths behind our fears and putting action behind them
Financial decisions (and mistakes) we make when we're afraid
How we hand over control to our clients when we're acting out of fear
The vital role of client and employee satisfaction surveys
The psychology behind fear-based decisions
Why you should step away from a problem and ask for help
How to rewire our thinking around decisions and get out of the fear narrative

EP 384: Strategizing your agency growth plan with Corey Quinn Feb 13, 2023

Show notes

To continue on the sales theme this week, we'll dissect everything you need to know about winning and retaining right-fit clients, honing in on your agency vertical, and strategizing your agency growth plan. Our guest, Corey Quinn, has a 25-year track record of extraordinary success as an entrepreneur, sales leader, and CMO for a $150M+ company. Today, he helps B2B SaaS and Agencies grow from 7 figures to 8 by doing less, not more.

In this episode, Corey will share some wisdom from his successful business career to teach us how we, as small agency owners, can implement an effective agency growth plan. He'll teach us how to keep right-fit clients on our roster and establish a vertical that gets even more customers coming to you for your expertise and fantastic customer service.

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

Growth and retention strategies that are applicable to small agencies
Honing in on your agency growth plan
The power of niching and word-of-mouth connections
Leveraging both inbound and outbound sales tactics
The common mistakes people make when trying to increase sales
How much time an agency owner should dedicate to biz dev
Why specializing in specific customers and industries works so well
2 or 3 things you need to have exponential growth
Sales strategies that will have new customers coming to you for work

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