The Innovative Agency

Intro In this episode of the show, we discuss the ways agencies can better serve their clients’ needs through outsourcing and white labeling their production work. And in the process, how they can add revenue streams by monetizing their agency’s intellectual property. Brian Gerstner, president of White Label IQ, tells us how his agency did it, and also discusses its business model and its philosophies when it comes to identifying a niche and capitalizing on it to provide value to a specific group of customers – and how to determine what that group is. What you will learn in this episode: How to value your intellectual property as an agency. How to learn how your agency can provide value to a niche. Agencies who know what they’re good at – what their wheelhouse is – are the ones who succeed in white labeling. Success tips for agencies working with white label partners. Why agency-to-agency collaboration and teamwork are so important in white labeling. Bio Brian Gerstner is the President of White Label IQ. He has over two decades of client-facing and agency-to-agency experience creating, directing, and leading teams to develop digital and software solutions to empower sales, communication, and digital operations. In his role with White Label IQ, he works with over 50 agencies providing white-labeled specialized skill sets for design, development, and paid media services. Resources: Website: https://www.whitelabeliq.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/white-label-iq/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WhiteLabelIQ/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/whitelabel_iq?lang=en

Intro Consumers increasingly want to align with businesses that clearly align their marketing with their corporate purpose. Lyn Wineman, president and chief strategist at KidGlov, specializes in helping agencies define and effectively market via their purpose. She believes that your employees are your number one audience for launching your purpose statement; and once you do, they’ll be the ones to help you live that purpose. What you will learn in this episode: How to define your purpose as an agency. Why businesses across the board are wanting to do something different, and how they live their purpose. How to use your purpose to stand out and set yourself apart. Why it’s hard to recover as a business once you’ve lost your customers’ trust. How purpose-driven marketing allows smaller entrepreneurial companies to compete with larger enterprises. How to leverage your B Corp certification into a marketing tool to further live your business’ purpose.  Bio Lyn Wineman is President and Chief Strategist at KidGlov. She is a marketing veteran with over 30 years of experience. She now leads a diverse team of passionate and talented professionals to drive growth through strategic branding and marketing communications. In addition to founding KidGlov, Lyn has played key leadership roles including: president, Pickering Creative Group; senior vice president, Swanson Russell Associates; and marketing director, Tabitha. Lyn has extensive brand advancement experience. She has been instrumental in marketing and branding efforts for regional and national organizations such as Immanuel, Lincoln Community Foundation, HopeSpoke, St. Monica’s, Regency Shopping Center, MembersOwn Credit Union, Farmers & Merchants Bank, Union Bank and Bryan Health. Resources: Website:https://kidglov.com/ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/company/kidglov/ Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/KidGlov Twitter:https://twitter.com/kidglov Agency for Change Podcast:https://kidglov.com/podcasts/ Blog:https://kidglov.com/blog/when-should-your-company-speak-out-on-social-issues-3-questions-every-purpose-driven-business-should-ask-itself/

Intro This episode focuses on the goals that an agency should outline to create a roadmap for their growth. Jon Morris joins the podcast today to discuss his innovative framework around how agencies should look at goal-setting. Having owned agencies, he brings a lot of experience to the discussion, particularly how he was able to grow his agency to two hundred and fifty employees before selling it. His formula highlights four different types of goals for growing an agency’s revenue. What you will learn in this episode: How you can triage what’s most important for your company, so you can outline concrete goals. How to define dollar amounts for each of the four agency goals: revenue, profit, cash, and infrastructure. What kinds of investments your agency should be making in training & recruiting, to maximize growth. How to organize your agency’s accounts to create a clear-cut safety net and understand your company’s outlook. The best way to institutionalize your agency’s goals, so your team can understand them and ultimately help you achieve them. Bio Jon Morris is the founder & CEO of Ramsay Innovations and a serial entrepreneur. Prior to Ramsay, he established Rise Interactive in 2004 with prize money from his second-place finish in the University of Chicago's prestigious New venture Challenge. Over the next 16 years, he grew Rise from a one-person shop to one of the largest independent marketing agencies in the world. After selling Rise, Jon pondered his next move and realized that he was most energized when connecting and helping fellow entrepreneurs grow their businesses. Ramsay Innovations is the product of this inspiration. Like at Rise, Jon developed a proprietary, tech-enabled approach for surfacing hidden financial insights that drive critical business decisions. Ramsay Innovations’ mission is to transform marketing agencies by providing them with world-class, agency-specific financial management and strategic planning at a fraction of the cost. In his spare time, Jon enjoys spending time with his wife, three daughters, and two dogs. He loves soccer, having played on his alma mater’s team, Kenyon College, and he now coaches his daughter’s two soccer teams. Resources: Website:https://ramsayinnovations.com/ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonmorrisramsayinnovations/ Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/RamsayInnovations Twitter:https://twitter.com/JonBMorris

Intro What could you do to position your agency for higher profitability and greater overall success? Rather than following the age-old trend of attempting to shave pennies off of costs to achieve higher profitability, Alyson Caffrey recommends focusing on optimizing backend operations like fulfillment and delivery instead. In this episode, she expounds on what agencies can do to increase efficacy by improving systems that function behind the scenes. What you will learn in this episode: How to identify the symptoms of a struggling agency. Why you should move away from billable rates to value-based pricing. How to start charging prospects for discovery, rather than doing it for free. What agency owners can do to secure the backend of their business. Why you should establish one “king” metric during the sales process. The benefits of productizing your intellectual property to increase profitability. Bio Alyson Caffrey is the founder of Operations Agency and co-creator of the Operations Simplified™ Framework. She's commonly referred to as ‘The Wolf' among her clients because she just gets stuff done. Alyson is best known for helping streamline the back-end ops for a multitude of brands, but mostly digital and creative agencies. As a fractional COO for many high-growth businesses, Alyson fell in love with the results that clear ops bring to a service business. She and the team at Operations Agency are determined to help businesses thrive profitably, serve more clients and create high-performing teams. Alyson is a mom to two sons and enjoys spending her time at home with her growing family. Resources: Website: https://operationsagency.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alyson-caffrey-26723990/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/operationsagency

Intro Agencies and clients have done a lot of online training in the past two years. During this time of agencies operating from behind their screens, Joel Erway has been helping agencies deploy webinars for their clients, regularly boosting their revenue to six figures and beyond. In this episode, Joel speaks about his expertise in the space, and why he thinks webinars are so effective in the age of online businesses. What you will learn in this episode: How to determine when a webinar is the right fit for your clients. There are two types of webinars: those for marketing-qualified leads, and those for sales-qualified leads. Learn when to deploy one versus the other. What questions an agency needs to be asking its clients to figure out which type of webinar is right for them. How interviews and “infocasts” can be an effective form of webinar, to help your audience stay engaged. Where webinars are headed over the next 1-2 years, and how you should expect them to evolve. Bio Joel is a master at helping Experts break 7-Figures without being expert marketers. People call Joel Erway “The Webinar Guy” but that’s a tiny slice of his expertise. Joel’s a master at crafting high-converting offers and helping Experts scale their business with High Ticket Courses. He authored the book, "High Ticket Courses" to help show Experts how to create leveraged offers to scale their business with programs valued at $2,000 or more. Between his own personal sales and his clients, he's helped generate $100+ million over the past few years. He’s also a long-time podcaster and the host of Sold With Webinars and Experts Unleashed. Resources: Website: https://www.joelerway.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelerway/

Intro This episode is all about email marketing. Our guests, Alex Melone and Andrei Marin of CodeCrew, believe that utilizing email for customer acquisition and retention is an often underlooked opportunity for agencies to grow. They outline the tactics and techniques through which they’ve seen immense success for their clients. What you will learn in this episode: How to have a conversation with your client about implementing a plan for email marketing How to use email for customer acquisition – and more importantly, retention The importance of developing a testing framework to generate customer data How to analyze your data to determine how many emails you should be sending – “The sweet spot” How the pandemic has influenced the way email marketing performs Where email marketing as a tool for agencies is headed over the next 12-18 months Bio Alex Melone & Andrei Marin are 2 of the 3 co-founders at CodeCrew. With over 2 decades of combined experience in email marketing amongst the founding team and a team of 40 email experts, they've seen it all, done it all, and improved countless programs' email marketing ROI. Resources: Website: https://codecrew.us/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/codecrewinc/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/codecrew.us/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/CodeCrewUS

Intro As an agency owner, you certainly collect data — but are you leveraging that data to fully empower your agency? Even if your agency has doubled in size recently, if you are not making money, something is missing. In this episode of The Innovative Agency, Marcel Pettipas explains how agency owners can start using their data to gain more insights into their business and get ahead of the curve. What you will learn in this episode: How to empower your agency using key data points The best ways to leverage financial reporting data in an agency How to share financial data with team members in an effective way The difference between “revenue” and “agency gross income (AGI)” and why it’s important How time tracking can be leveraged to collect more information about your business How to bill customers based on perceived risk and value Bio Marcel Pettipas is the CEO & Co-Founder of Parakeeto, a company dedicated to helping agencies measure and improve their profitability by streamlining their operations and reporting systems, a problem he discovered while running his own agency back in his early 20’s. He’s also the fractional COO at Gold Front, an award-winning creative agency in San Francisco working with brands like Uber, Slack, Keap, and more. As well as the head strategic coach at SaaS Academy by Dan Martell, the #1 coaching program for B2B SaaS businesses in the world. In his work as a speaker, podcast host, and consultant, specializing in Agency Profitability Optimization, he's helped hundreds of agencies around the world improve profitability and cash flow in their business. Resources: Website: www.parakeeto.com Agency Profitability Toolkit www.marcelpetitpas.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcel-petitpas-20059588/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/agencyprofitability Twitter: https://twitter.com/Parakeeto

Intro Today’s episode is more about clients than it is about agency owners. Our guest, Daniel Fernandez, shares his understanding of what clients value and how agency owners can keep them around for longer. His strategy hinges on retaining clients by systematizing a roadmap to their success. In doing so, you give them the opportunity to be active in the process of strengthening your agency-client relationship. What you will learn in this episode: How to create a definite pathway that ensures success for your clients. The value of systematizing your processes, rather than relying on instinct. How to make clients more enthusiastic to continue working with you. What you can do to get clients to raise their concerns sooner, rather than later. How to decrease complaints and increase client retention. The benefits of increasing the number of times you speak face-to-face with clients. Bio Daniel is the founder and CEO of AMZclever.com, a full-service agency that manages and grows brands on Amazon and Walmart since 2015. He has worked with several 7, 8, 9-figure brands; public companies; and product startups on launching and expanding in the Amazon and Walmart platforms, as well as taking many of them internationally. Daniel spent some years living in China; he has spoken at several industry-leading conferences in US, Canada, China, Netherlands, Hong Kong; and is a frequent contributor to different publications in the Amazon and e-commerce space. Currently resides in Florida, where he leads his global team and enjoys the sunny weather. Resources: Website: https://www.amzclever.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielfernandezamazon/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AMZcleverAgency Twitter: https://twitter.com/danielamzclever Instagram: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amzclever/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYbzTlGWW_XUa1y90THJCPQ

Sometimes, people look at others in their space as competition. But the most successful leaders of business often recognize that collaboration and networking with others can push their business forward faster than if they were to try to tackle everything independently. In today’s episode of The Innovative Agency podcast, my guest is Rob Kischuk, a builder of more than just software products. His adept skills and leadership qualities have allowed him to build companies, teams, partnerships, and relationships. He started Bellwood Labs because he saw the disconnection between a business’s problems, its objectives, and the software product. He has been recognized in Atlanta’s “Top 40 Under 40” and has helped startups with successful exits. He’s also comfortable with the podcasting world too, as host of a podcast about agency owners and leaders. What you will learn in this episode: How a developer and agency leader thinks about building a product and establishing a niche of specialty and competency Learning the benefits of being willing to network, connect, and talk with other agencies to refer work to one another. Tips for working in an agile and scrum mindset to build something and anticipate challenges in the process Product development lifecycle challenges and how they interact with agency ownership Bio Rob Kischuk is a builder of more than just software products - he’s a builder of companies and teams, as well as partnerships and relationships. Ever since he learned how to code, Rob’s fascination with transforming ideas into action has enabled him to create great software products that empower people to do the work that matters most to them. Throughout Rob’s career, he’s always strived to be an invested partner - not an order taker. He started Bellwood Labs because he saw the disconnection between a business’ problems, its objectives, and the software product. From helping startups like Proficient Systems and Air2Web achieve successful exits, to driving digital transformation for enterprise-level companies like Chick-fil-A, Delta Airlines, PGi, and more, Rob’s caring and collaborative approach has been at the center of it all. In addition to serving on the board of the Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association (AIMA), Rob has been recognized time and time again as a key figure in Atlanta’s vibrant business community. Rob has been named to Atlanta’s Top “40 under 40,” and he has also been a finalist in TIE Atlanta’s “Top Up-and-Coming Entrepreneur.” Outside of work, you can find Rob slipping into sporting events, exploring Atlanta’s foodie scene, or volunteering at Cumberland Community Church. Rob holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, as well as an MBA from Georgia State University. Resources: Website: https://www.bellwood.io/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bellwood-labs/?viewAsMember=true Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BellwoodLabs

Does your agency provide something unique and valuable that only you can offer? In this episode of the Innovative Agency podcast, we are joined by the founder of BitMoto, Matthew Strunk. Matthew, along with cofounder Devin Peterson, created BitMoto to help car dealerships with digital marketing, a function that many dealerships struggle with, especially when BitMoto first started out in 2015. What you will learn in this episode: How Matthew and BitMoto anticipated a niche that was underserved, and how they developed a process to enter into it The value of leveraging your IP to provide incentives to clients. The process of creating, evolving, and improving proprietary software as a revenue generator Advantages of considering worldwide development strategy and the cost-savings that can come with that How the development of a product can allow your business to generate revenue, and also set you up for success in an exit strategy Bio Founder & CEO Matthew Strunk started BitMoto in April 2015 with long-time friend Devin Peterson. Matthew had worked in the automotive space for over a decade, serving as a sales consultant, internet manager, internet director, and sales manager during his career. It became clear that the majority of car dealerships didn’t truly understand digital marketing beyond the fact that it was something they had to do. They needed a trusted solution to help them gain market share and be more efficient with their ad spend. And so, BitMoto was born. BitMoto created a software solution to help dealerships create copy and ads for their digital marketing by simply entering their deals and pricing information, and then auto-generating copy for their marketing. Their proprietary software continued to evolve and allowed them to become leaders within the automotive industry niche. Resources: Website:https://www.bitmoto.com/ Website: https://www.strunkmedia.com Website: https://www.autosigma.com LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/company/bitmoto/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/strunkmediagroup Twitter:https://twitter.com/bitmotomktg Twitter: https://twitter.com/strunkmedia Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StrunkMediaGroup/