The Digital Agency Growth Podcast

Have you ever wondered what it would look like to exit your agency and start a SAS product? That’s exactly what Joe Toyer did…three times! And if you’re considering building, scaling, or exiting an agency in 2022, this episode is going to give you clear ideas on how to do all of that and more. This week, episode 143 of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast is about three agency exits, three software products, and the big lessons that were learned throughout that process! Watch our new recorded video training: Relationship-Driven New Business At-ScaleIn this episode of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast, Dan Englander and Joe Troyer share the importance of planning in your business and how that has made a difference in long-term agency growth. They also chat about actionable steps you can take right now to hire the right people in your agency and what those first hires should look like. Joe Troyer is an internet entrepreneur who's been helping businesses grow their online presence and succeed in the digital world since 2005. He is a leading expert in all things digital marketing, having founded successful businesses in the SaaS, marketing services, and agency spaces.Joe is the co-founder of PPC Adlab, a tool that provides Google advertisers with unprecedented market visibility. Review Grower, his most recent venture, is a SaaS company that helps businesses obtain reviews and grow their online reputation. As the former owner of a 7-figure agency, Joe also does some coaching to help others start and grow their agencies and achieve the same level of success.In this episode, Dan and Joe Troyer discuss the following:What inspired the creation, build, and market of a call-tracking platform.The payoff in building, scaling and exiting three agencies. How to determine if a business is no longer a good fit for you as a person.Unique stages of scaling an agency and how Joe decided where it made the most sense for him to exit.What it looks to build and scale an agency in 2022 when the market is more competitive.The power in transitioning from agency to SASAs we’ve seen from this conversation, there are many different ways to build, scale and exit an agency. You are the one who ultimately gets to decide what is going to work best for you. Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to follow, rate and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!CONNECT WITH JOE TROYER:Show Me the Nuggets PodcastLinkedInInstagramDigital TriggersPPC Ad LabPPC PredictReview GrowerCONNECT WITH DAN ENGLANDER:LinkedInSales SchemaLINKS MENTIONED:Dan’s Episode on Show Met the Nuggets PodcastThe Road Less Stupid by Keith J. Cunningham

Hiring sales team members can be overwhelming, especially when you’re new to hiring. However, as we will learn in this episode from Chris O’Riordan, even if you’re the chief expert on the floor or the industry expert on anything, you may not be the perfect candidate or sales member. This week, episode 142 of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast is about building sales teams over decades! Watch our new recorded video training: Relationship-Driven New Business At-ScaleIn this episode of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast, Dan Englander and Chris O’Riordan share the importance of knowing your customer’s pain points and actionable steps you can take right now to create a course of action that works for your customers. Chris O’Riordan is the managing director of sales strategy, training and implementation company, Firestarter Business Solutions.In this episode, Dan and Chris O’Riordan discuss the following:The concept of the phrase, “I’m not young enough to know everything yet,” and how to circumnavigate the idea that we’ll never know it all, and yet there’s a limit at the same time.Why your business cannot survive solely on the passion and energy you bring to it if you plan to scale.Why the foundations of clarity around why your product sells and why your customers buy is the first and most important question to solve before growth can happen.Easy exercises you can do to better understand your ideal client and help you stick to a plan of action for your customers.The hiring process; the questions you should be asking your new potential hires, what to do with references, and more.Creating sustainable success is about more than just having a good service, but rather it’s knowing your customers so well that you know that your product or service is sustainably needed. Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to follow, rate and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!CONNECT WITH Chris O’Riordan:LinkedInCONNECT WITH DAN ENGLANDER:LinkedInSales Schema

Almost all business owners are drawn to the idea that there are little tweaks, or system changes you can make that will magically make your business so much more profitable or make growth exponential. While it would be nice to have these magical little tweaks, it doesn’t really work that way. What I have found is that if you go through the reps enough, you do kind of land on these little nuggets of changes that will improve our systems, and with that in mind, I am excited to welcome back Marquis Murray. This week, episode 141 of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast is about Agency Tools, Systems, and the Most Profitable Operational Tweaks! Watch our new recorded video training: Relationship-Driven New Business At-ScaleIn this episode of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast, Dan Englander and Marquis Murray share the importance of efficiency for team and company growth and actionable steps you can take right now to have the most profitable operational system possible. Marquis Murray is the CEO and Founder of Ditto — a systems and processes consultancy for organizations who need help creating clarity around the work done inside their companies. He found that the need to create order in the chaos was a common trend that he saw with his clients, and this discovery helped him to realize his true passion (operations) and eventually led him into a career creating SOPs, process workflows, and automation to make work easier.In this episode, Dan and Marquis discuss the following:What Marquis believes makes a good operator in terms of skill sets to have or learn in order to establish trust within your team.How he has established a feedback and ideas box in his office, and what that looks like in terms of determining ideas as opportunities for growth.What Marquis’ meeting cadence looks like, and how it has shifted over time to be more efficient and the best use of time for all team members.How they build culture in an efficient business setting, and where that can be found and implemented in your own business.If you’ve been looking for ways to be more efficient, get your production costs lower, or even build culture in a tight ship, this episode is for you.  CONNECT WITH Marquis Murray:LinkedInYoutubeWebsiteCONNECT WITH DAN ENGLANDER:LinkedInSales Schema

If you’ve spent any amount of time in the agency world, you’ve probably heard of directory-based marketing opportunities and search consultant niche. Today’s guest sits in an interesting space right in the middle of these two. John Doherty has 11 years of SEO and digital experience and lots of experience with lead generation. John’s perspective is very interesting, especially if you’re in that growth stage in your own agency. This week, episode 140 of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast is about qualifying leads from the beginning! Watch our new recorded video training: Relationship-Driven New Business At-ScaleIn this episode of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast, Dan Englander and John Doherty are sharing the importance of qualifying your leads and actionable steps you can take right now to stop wasting time with directories that aren’t providing top leads. John Doherty is a Denver, Colorado-based entrepreneur and marketing consultant. He's the founder of Credo, which helps companies find the best digital marketing agency for their needs. He has 11 years of SEO and digital experience across agencies and in-house and has worked with some of the largest websites on the internet to drive growth. Living in Denver, CO, with his wife and dog, John is an entrepreneur, speaker, writer, skier, and mountain biker and plans to visit every continent on Earth.In this episode, Dan and John Doherty discuss the following:Spending too much time on the leads that aren’t a good fit and why that drains your energy and profit margins.Why the most difficult part of the lead generation process is getting a potential client in the door and what you have that’s special after that happens.Why it’s important to qualify your potential clients before starting work with them, and how to qualify leads.How the cost per lead has increased over the last 18 months or so exponentially, and why John believes this is happening.John’s perspective on entrepreneurship and growth as an agency is a unique one that will leave you itching to jump in and take a second look at your current lead generation strategy.Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to follow, rate and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!CONNECT WITH John Doherty:WebsiteTwitterLinkedInCONNECT WITH DAN ENGLANDER:LinkedInSales Schema

If you are going after a niched B2B audience and have limited bandwidth, then you probably struggle with trying to figure out where to focus your time. There are so many content and marketing strategies to choose from, and that can feel overwhelming. This week, episode 139 of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast is about effective B2B marketing systems for those who have small teams! Watch our new recorded video training: Relationship-Driven New Business At-ScaleIn this episode of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast, Sarah Noel Block shares the importance of batching your content to ensure that you have a plan and strategy going in.  She also shares actionable steps you can take right now to get your marketing in front of the right people. Sarah Noel Block is the founder of Tiny Marketing, where she offers content marketing strategies to support tiny teams. During her time as a marketing team of one for five different companies simultaneously, she was able to build a system that allowed her to expand their bandwidth without expanding the budget. Now, she partners with tiny marketing departments to help them get noticed and close more sales without adding to their headcount. In this episode, Dan and Sarah discuss the following:How Sarah learned to make content marketing the core strategy for all marketing to ensure it could be distributed in a way that kept them in front of their audience.Ways to create bigger pieces of content and then break them down further into 10+ pieces of content that can be used across multiple platforms.How to connect with ideal clients–no matter how niche–while creating content that they actually see and can take action on.Using partnerships with other companies to create content that can be marketed effectively to your ideal client.The power in asking for referrals and getting connected with more people who can support your content and marketing.A few different ways that you can create the content without having a weekly podcast.The importance in surveying your audience, so you know the type of content they like to consume.It all comes back to how you can effectively pull your ideal clients into your content and marketing to ensure brand awareness and conversions.Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to follow, rate and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!CONNECT WITH SARAH NOEL BLOCK:Tiny MarketingTwitterInstagramLinkedInCONNECT WITH DAN ENGLANDER:LinkedInSales SchemaLINKS MENTIONED:SuperPath

Erik Huberman knows what it means to buckle down and work hard for an agency’s growth. Through the many years that he’s worked in the space, Erik has focused on the values of the business and tasks at hand to make huge growth opportunities and put the businesses first in order to become as successful as his is today. This week, episode 138 of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast is about client retention and why Erik chose not to niche down in the growth of his business! Watch our new recorded video training: Relationship-Driven New Business At-ScaleIn this episode of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast, Erik Huberman shares the importance of communication with your clients and actionable steps you can take right now to take a step back in your own business to allow it to grow. Erik is the founder and CEO of Hawke Media, the highly successful marketing agency known as Your Outsourced CMO® that’s helped grow over 3,000 brands worldwide, and is valued at more than $150 million. Erik is a lauded recipient of a number of honors and awards, including: Forbes 30 Under 30, CSQ’s 40 Under 40, Inc. Magazine’s Top 25 Marketing Influencers, The International Business Awards’ Entrepreneur of the Year, and a Telly Award for the Hawke Media commercial he co-wrote and starred in. In this episode, Dan and Erik Huberman discuss the following:Why Erik chose to focus on accessibility instead of niching down when it came to expanding and marketing his start-ups.How communication, along with a few other smart techniques, helps Erik keep up retention in a market where one bad week can ruin 2 years of work.Mistakes Erik has made in the early stages of hiring for sales that he learned from quickly, and ways to avoid the same mistakes in your own agency.What drove Erik to step back from being the main closer in his agency, even though it meant losing half his new client revenue, in order to buy back time elsewhere in the business.Stay around to the end of the interview to hear why you shouldn’t worry about the recession looming amongst us and how to be optimistic about it instead of frightened. Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to follow, rate and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!CONNECT WITH ERIK HUBERMAN:LinkedInTwitterInstagramThe Hawke Method: BookCONNECT WITH DAN ENGLANDER:LinkedInSales Schema

Dan is returning from vacation, and instead of a guest episode, he was featured on the Digital Agency Show podcast. So today, we are sharing that episode with you. On the Digital Agency Show, Brent Weaver interviews successful agency owners and leaders on the best practices for agency growth and success. This week, episode 137 of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast is an episode Dan was on over on the Digital Agency Show podcast! Watch our new recorded video training: Relationship-Driven New Business At-ScaleIn this episode of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast, Dan Englander chats with Brent to share the importance of breaking down barriers in cold messaging strategies, which are covered in his book. He also shares actionable steps you can take right now to build deeper connections with your audience. In this episode, Dan discusses with Brett the following:The timeless power of de-risking conversations with commonalities instead of boring, publicly available information. Tips for messaging copy that truly converts instead of being left unread or sounding like a bot, even if that copy is created in advance.How to balance personalization and scale without being bogged down with too many tasks or feeling like a robot and impersonal.This fun podcast episode was shared graciously with us by the Digital Agency Show Podcast, and we are very thankful to have been on the show to share about the new book and share some wisdom with their audience.Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to follow, rate, and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!CONNECT WITH The Digital Agency Show podcast:WebsitePodcastOriginal EpisodeCONNECT WITH DAN ENGLANDER:LinkedInSales Schema

Ever been curious about which books on your to-be-read list need to be bumped to the top? Experiencing a struggle in your agency and need a good read that will help you without overwhelming you? In this week’s episode, Dan sits down with Jon Tsourakis again to dissect their favorite books and discuss which ones should be on your TBR list, and which aren’t that entertaining for the agency owner. This week, episode 136 of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast is about our favorite business books lately and how we apply the teachings in these books to our businesses! Watch our new recorded video training: Relationship-Driven New Business At-ScaleIn this episode of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast, Dan Englander and Jon Tsourakis share the importance of reading to shake up your thinking and take you to the next level in your business and actionable steps you can take right now to gain insight and value from reading. Jon Tsourakis is the President of Oyova, a web app and digital marketing agency, recently featured on INC 5000's fastest-growing companies list. He also hosts a podcast, The Climb, produced by the Digital Mastermind, a mastermind group of digital agencies from around the world.In this episode, Dan and Jon discuss the following:Hiring and work culture styles based on popular books, like Rework or The Smart Bear blog, and how we apply the teachings of these cultures and dynamic shifts to our own agencies.The power Jon finds in doing Sunday work and scheduling Monday emails to his team and employees. How we both took away the power of certainty through a book that was not a business professional development book, and how we can learn from different perspectives.The book(s) that shook our thinking up, that we revisit, and that we recommend to our team to read.This episode will fill your kindle or bookshelf with powerful reads that you’ll want your whole team to read.Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to follow, rate and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!CONNECT WITH JON TSOURAKIS:LinkedInDigital MastermindCONNECT WITH DAN ENGLANDER:LinkedInSales SchemaLINKS MENTIONED:Jon Tsourakis – A Battle-Tested Sales Process for Complex Marketing ServicesAgency New Business Year in Review with Special Guest Jon Tsourakis

A few years ago Dan self-published a few books and then years went by. At Sales Schema, they started getting really busy with clients and outreach, and Dan learned a whole lot throughout that process. He decided a while ago that he wanted to write a new book, but he wanted this one to be different. This week, episode 135 of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast is a sneak peek at Dan’s new book, Relationship Sales and Scale; How to find your virtual tribe and reliably grow your professional service business! Watch our new recorded video training: Relationship-Driven New Business At-ScaleIn this episode of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast, Dan is sharing the importance of personalized relationship sales and actionable steps you can take right now to change your sales process to improve conversions and cold-messaging tactics. In this episode, Dan discusses the following:How older styles of sales are outdated, and why it’s so important to understand that a change must happen in order to succeed in sales nowadays.Relationship-focus messaging to conversions, and how shifting our model with our own clients has increased our conversations on open and response rates by over 40%.The importance of trust, both in the sense that it’s a scarce resource, but also how best to establish it quickly to build your client list.This is just the first part of Dan’s new book, which will be released soon. We will keep you updated on how to gain access to the link to buy your copy soon. Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to follow, rate and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!CONNECT WITH DAN ENGLANDER:LinkedInSales Schema

You may think you have your contracts for clients and you think you have all your boxes ticked - but you are probably missing something very important. Do you have all the client contracts and other legal bits for your toolkit? You’ll find out in this episode! It’s always helpful to have Sharon Toerek on to talk about the changing landscape of legal, and especially today to discuss why you need more than a contract or your boxes have been ticked. This week, episode 134 of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast is about your business legal toolkit! Watch our new recorded video training: Relationship-Driven New Business At-ScaleIn this episode of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast, Dan Englander and Sharon Toerek share the importance of being legally prepared for potential clients asking for exclusivity and actionable steps you can take right now to protect your legal ideas and formulas while also providing more one to many opportunities for growth in your service options. Sharon Toerek is a marketing law and intellectual property lawyer dedicated to serving agencies. She's also the host of the Innovative Agency Podcast. Sharon is a former President of the American Ad Federation (AAF) Cleveland and serves on the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s) Legal Consultant panel. In the advertising and communications industry, Sharon writes and frequently lectures on the topics of intellectual property protection, marketing agency relationships, and the legal implications of social media.In this episode, Dan and Sharon discuss the following:What Sharon and her clients are really focusing on in terms of IP as things shift and change in the landscape of legal.When to know when it’s time to legally protect an idea, project or product, and when you should expect it to pay off.How you can protect yourself legally and what you need to have in your business legal tool kit. How negotiating with brands and potential clients is changing to the clients asking for exclusivity, and how to navigate that to keep your niche and protect both you and your client's best interests.After this episode, you’ll feel more prepared for both negotiations with future clients and your own agency's legal toolkit.Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to follow, rate and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!CONNECT WITH SHARON TOEREK:WebsiteLinkedInTwitterCONNECT WITH DAN ENGLANDER:LinkedInSales Schema