Build a Better Agency Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Episode 15: Why You Need Weekly One-On-One Meetings With Every Employee, with Drew McLellan. Jan 18, 2016

Show notes

Drew McLellan is the Top Dog at Agency Management Institute. For the past 21 years, he has also owned and operated his own agency. Drew's unique vantage point as being both an active agency owner and working with 250+ small- to mid-size agencies throughout the year, give him a unique perspective on running an agency today.

AMI works with agency owners by:

Leading agency owner peer groups
Offering workshops for owners and their leadership teams
Offering AE bootcamps
Conducting individual agency owner coaching
Doing on-site consulting
Offering online courses in agency new business and account service

Because he works with those 250+ agencies every year — he has the unique opportunity to see the patterns and the habits (both good and bad) that happen over and over again. He has also written two books and been featured in The New York Times, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Fortune Small Business. The Wall Street Journal called his blog "One of 10 blogs every entrepreneur should read."

What you'll learn about in this episode:

How you are preventing your employees from becoming the employees you want them to be
Why every employee needs weekly one-on-one meetings with their direct supervisor
How to get your employees to run these meetings
The form that needs to be filled out before one of these meetings takes place
How these meetings can help you celebrate the wins you might not know about if you didn't have these meetings

Documents:

Direct Report Form

Ways to contact Drew:

Email: drew@agencymanagementinstitute.com

We're proud to announce that Hubspot is now the presenting sponsor of the Build A Better Agency podcast! Many thanks to them for their support!

Episode 14: Using Research to Grow Your Agency, with Susan Baier. Jan 11, 2016

Show notes

Susan Baier began her career as a brand manager for companies like Dial and Conoco-Philips. She also worked agency side and within client companies in their research departments, honing her skills as a research professional.

Recognizing that primary research was often too expensive for small to mid-sized agencies, she launched Audience Audit, where she conducts quantitative attitudinal audience segmented research. She helps her agency clients develop marketing strategy for their clients based on customer insights. They find it much easier to develop messaging, strategic plans, and business development plans with real data that helps them understand how customers who look (demographically) the same behave in very different ways and what motives those choices and behaviors.

Over the past few years, AMI and Audience Audit have partnered together for studies on how business owners find agencies, their attitudes towards working with agencies, and more.

What you'll learn about in this episode:

How the research that Audience Audit does differs from a lot of the research that's out there
How your agency can leverage research inside your agency-client relationships
The ways agencies can better sell the value of research to existing and prospective clients
Why agencies can't build their business around "shiny toys"
The ways research has changed and why agencies shouldn't be afraid to bring it to clients that they haven't done research with in the past
How bringing research to clients can give them a sense of relief and make it easier for your agency to retain their business
A specific example of how this kind of targeted research helped a client in a big way
The mistakes agencies make when trying bring research into their shop
Why niche really matters when it comes to research
Baby steps agencies can take to start incorporating research

Ways to contact Susan Baier:

Website: www.audienceaudit.com
Email: susan@audienceaudit.com
Twitter: @susanbaier

Resources:

We're proud to announce that Hubspot is now the presenting sponsor of the Build A Better Agency podcast! Many thanks to them for their support!

Episode 13: Sales is not a dirty word in the agency business, with Chuck Meyst. Jan 04, 2016

Show notes

Chuck Meyst has been in sales all his life, from his childhood bike route to CEO and founder of AgencyFinder.com, a matchmaking service for agencies.

What you'll learn about in this episode:

Why Chuck started AgencyFinder and how it works
Why agency descriptions of themselves should be results-focused
What both clients and agencies need to do well to find the right partner
The big mistakes agencies make with their websites
Sales: why do agencies not like this word?
The traits Chuck sees in terrible employees
Why processes are so important, especially when it comes to sales
The characteristics in agencies that clients love to see
How agencies win business through pure chemistry
What AgencyFinder does to assess agencies and how to receive that perfect score of 100
How AgencyFinder helps agencies team up with clients that are great matches
Things agencies can do today to improve upon the topics discussed in this episode

Ways to Contact Chuck:

Website: www.agencyfinder.com
Email: chuck@agencyfinder.com
Phone: (804)346-1812

We're proud to announce that Hubspot is now the presenting sponsor of the Build A Better Agency podcast! Many thanks to them for their support!

Episode 12: Growing Your Agency without Growing Pains, with Karl Sakas. Dec 28, 2015

Show notes

Karl Sakas served as the #2 man in a couple different digital agencies before he created the Marketing Agencies community at Inbound.org, which has over 1,000 agencies in 48 countries. As president of Sakas and Company, Karl advises agencies worldwide about strategy, operations, and leadership.

He also volunteers as a bartender on a 1930's railroad car. He has recently published a book entitled, "The In Demand Marketing Agency: How to Use Public Speaking to Become an Agency of Choice."

What you'll learn about in this episode:

Why Karl launched Sakas and Company
High-growth agencies vs. lifestyle agencies
How agency owners can do what they love without getting sucked into the day-to-day client work
How to turn a high-growth agency into an asset that can actually be sold
Things that get in the way of the growth and scaling of agencies and how to fix them
Karl's Time Bucket Template for improving time management
How agency owners looking to sell their agency should spend their time
Action steps agency owners can take to put these theories into practice

Recommended books and resources

The In-Demand Marketing Agency: How to Use Public Speaking to Become an Agency of Choice
Karl's Time Bucket Template
Don't Just Make the Logo Bigger: Taking Clients from Painful to Profitable
Don't Be the Shoemaker: And 11 Other Easy-to-Implement Ideas to Improve Your Agency
Escape Plan: Your Guide to Finally Getting Out of the Office
Website: www.sakasandcompany.com
Email: karl@sakasandcompany.com
Twitter: @karlsakas and @sakasandco

We're proud to announce that Hubspot is now the presenting sponsor of the Build A Better Agency podcast! Many thanks to them for their support!

Episode 11: Recognizing Your Role as an Agency Owner, with Trent Dyrsmid. Dec 21, 2015

Show notes

Before Trent Dyrsmid started a digital agency called Groove, he founded Dyrand Systems, a managed IT service provider that was recognized twice as one of Canada's PROFIT Magazine's 100 fastest growing companies. During his 8 years as CEO, Trent was fortunate to have been recognized as one of the Top 40 under 40 business people in Vancouver, B.C.

In addition to overseeing Groove, Trent is also the host of the Bright Ideas podcast, where he regularly publishes interviews with some of today's brightest entrepreneurs.

What you'll learn about in this episode:

Trent's journey into entrepreneurship, leaving to become an employee, and his return to being his own boss
Why Trent created Bright Ideas and Groove Digital Marketing
The importance of creating a business that works within a niche
Generating leads through a lead magnet
Why you should be targeting leads on Facebook
How to make your agency more valuable by creating systems and getting out of the client work
What's next for agency owners that have successfully built the systems that allow them to take a step away from their agency
Action steps for putting in place the topics discussed in this episode

Trent Dyrsmid Recommends:

E-myth by Michael Gerber
A Stake in the Outcome by Jack Stack
www.brightideas.co/whats-next
Bright Ideas interviews Brian Clark: www.brightideas.co/145

Contact Trent Dyrsmid:

Website: www.brightideas.co

We're proud to announce that Hubspot is now the presenting sponsor of the Build A Better Agency podcast! Many thanks to them for their support!

Episode 10: Establishing Life and Agency Goals for 2016, with Drew McLellan. Dec 16, 2015

Show notes

AMI works with agency owners by:

Leading agency owner peer groups
Offering workshops for owners and their leadership teams
Offering AE bootcamps
Conducting individual agency owner coaching
Doing on-site consulting
Offering online courses in agency new business and account service

What you'll learn about in this episode:

Why planning ahead is so important and why your agency can't ignore it
The Agency Owner Life Plan
The One Page Business Plan
Steps you can take to hold you and your leadership teams accountable on the goals you set together

Documents:

Ways to contact Drew:

Email: drew@agencymanagementinstitute.com

We're proud to announce that Hubspot is now the presenting sponsor of the Build A Better Agency podcast! Many thanks to them for their support!

Episode 9: Understanding Programmatic Buying and Real-Time Bidding, with Jay Friedman. Dec 09, 2015

Show notes

Jay Friedman is a nationally recognized and accomplished digital media expert, speaker, and author. You will often find him speaking at conferences, writing for lead publications, websites, and books. He recently authored the incredibly well written, information packed 7th edition of "Thirty Days to PAID Digital Media Expertise." He is, without question, a well-versed expert on digital media and programmatic buying.

In 2006, Jay joined Goodway Group to launch the digital division. Now in 2015, Goodway has more than 200 clients across the country.

What you'll learn about in this episode:

Programmatic buying: what is it?
Why programmatic buying is much more effective than traditional ad buying models
How to know whether to bring programmatic buying in-house or work with a partner and rules for both options
Jay's action plan for jumping into programmatic
Why programmatic partners have to continually educate their agencies
The qualities that the agencies that do programmatic well all have in common
How agencies can succeed by adapting the Airbnb and the Uber model
What agencies need to do to be good partners to their programmatic partners

Websites Jay recommends:

Ways to contact Jay:

Email: jay@goodwaygroup.com

We're proud to announce that Hubspot is now the presenting sponsor of the Build A Better Agency podcast! Many thanks to them for their support!

Episode 8: Making the Shift to Specialization, with Douglas Burdett. Dec 02, 2015

Show notes

Douglas Burdett is a B2B marketing agency principle. He is a former artillery officer, and his agency, Artillery, helps agencies get found online, convert website traffic into leads, and nurture leads towards a sale. Douglas authors two marketing blogs, Forward Observer and Fire Support, and he hosts The Marketing Book Podcast.

What you'll learn about in this episode:

The importance of niche for creating a market
How to run a niche blog that acts as lure for your other services
Why buying email addresses is a bad idea
Why absolute patience is key whenever you are creating content
The Marketing Book Podcast
How Douglas automates the promotion of his evergreen content
Why Douglas only conducts one podcast interview per week
Great productivity software Douglas and his team use
Tips and resources for getting your own podcast started

Ways to contact Douglas Burdett:

Agency website: www.artillerymarketing.com
Email: douglas@artillerymarketing.com

Douglas Burdett's Blogs and Podcast:

Forward Observer: http://www.artillerymarketing.com/blog
Fire Support: http://www.defensecontractormarketing.com
The Marketing Book Podcast: http://www.artillerymarketing.com/marketing-book-podcast

We're proud to announce that Hubspot is now the presenting sponsor of the Build A Better Agency podcast! Many thanks to them for their support!

Episode 7: Mentoring your best assets, with Mitch Matthews. Nov 25, 2015

Show notes

Mitch Matthews is a keynote speaker, a success coach, and a bestselling author. He has an amazing podcast titled Dream, Think, Do. Mitch works with leaders from companies such as NASA, Disney, Booking.com, and more. He is passionate about coaching entrepreneurs and leaders to dream bigger, think better, and do more of the stuff they love.

What you'll learn about in this episode:

Why mentoring your employees is so important
Mentorship 2.0: how to structure your mentor/mentee relationships to draw out the best results
The dangers of "getting a PhD in mentoring"
Mentoring with the CEO vs. CFO model
How to equip employees to make decisions
The fundamental differences between how we were brought up and how millennials were brought up and how to deal with these differences
How to mentor someone who is skilled in areas that you aren't
Mitch's "Mentor Manager Cheat Sheet"

Book Recommendations:

"Drive," by Dan Pink
"IGNITE" (2nd Edition), by Mitch Matthews
Mentoring Cheat Sheet

Ways to Contact Mitch:

Website: www.mitchmatthews.com
Podcast: www.mitchmatthews.com/blog

We're proud to announce that Hubspot is now the presenting sponsor of the Build A Better Agency podcast! Many thanks to them for their support!

Episode 6: Legal protection for today's agency, with Sharon Toerek. Nov 18, 2015

Show notes

Sharon Toerek is an intellectual and property law attorney. Her national firm, Toerek Law, works with clients all over the country, devoting time to helping creative professionals protect, enforce and monetize their creative assets. Sharon consults with clients on legal issues surrounding copywriting, content protection, licensing of creative content, trademark and brand protection, and more.

She is the former President of the American Ad Federation (AAF) Cleveland and serves on the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4As) Legal Consultant panel.

What you'll learn about in this episode:

The most common legal concerns agencies have
The big misperceptions that get agencies into hot water
How and why you need to structure agreements with freelancers and clients
The Legal and Creative Agency Protection System
The big legal issues that are holding agencies back
Employees and social media: the policies you need to put in place with your employees to protect your agency
Some things you can do at low to no cost to protect your agency legally

Resources Sharon provides: