Smart Agency Masterclass with Jason Swenk: Podcast for Digital Marketing Agencies

Is your agency's profitability falling short? Do you lack clarity about your real margins? Many agencies struggle to maximize performance due to a core issue - not accurately calculating gross margin. Misconceptions around margin math sabotage profits. Today’s guest specializes in increasing agency profitability by solving the single but costly problem of suboptimal agency margins. He shares how he helps agencies boost margins by correcting common errors in delivery margin calculations. Marcel Petitpas is the founder of Parakeeto, a technology-leveraged service firm, specializing in helping agencies measure and improve their performance. His firm exists to solve one problem: Agency Profitability. Marcel discusses his experience helping agencies increase their profitability and shares what many firms are getting wrong about how to calculate their delivery margin. In this episode, he'll share valuable insights and strategies for agency owners looking to boost profitability. In this episode, we’ll discuss: Calculate gross income and delivery margin. 3 Ways to increase agency profitability. Specialization is the key to improving profitability. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources Agency Analytics: Tired of endless manual reporting in order to show your clients the value your agency delivers? It's time to check out AgencyAnalytics, the best-automated client reporting solution for marketing agencies. Try it for FREE for 14 days when you head over to  AgencyAnalytics.com/Smart and sign up. It's time to see how life feels on the other side of manual reporting madness!   Before pandemic-fueled virtual tours, Marcel built 3D home models in a glacial 2015 market. With houses languishing for years, his niche hobby lacked scale potential. So he pivoted into software, soon meeting an agency owner drowning in spreadsheet tedium. This agency owner spent up to two precious days a week answering questions about his business like Can we take on more clients? Do we need more staff? Who's performing and who's perishing? There had to be a better way to operate and strategize. In that moment of shared pain, Marcel's purpose sparked - a business focused on solving that problem and making it easier for small businesses to answer those questions. And so Parakeeto was born, to liberate founders from manual metrics and maximize their potential. Opaque Profits: Shedding Light on Delivery Margin for Agencies The big issue Marcel sees in many agency owners is that they don’t know what their gross margin is. Personally, he prefers to call it delivery margin to prevent any confusion. You can obtain an agency's delivery margin by answering how much of every dollar that clients paid to you after fulfilling on your promise is now left to you to have a profit? Most firms can’t answer that question when looking at their financials. In most cases, they're just a few steps away from being able to answer it but don’t know how to. For Marcel, it all starts with how we measure profitability, which is a framework still stuck in the past. The growth of a firm still being predicated today is getting more bodies and utilizing them to grow. However, this is not necessarily how it works in a modern context. A lot of companies are doing at least some amount of flat-rate or value-based pricing so they don’t actually know how much money they make spending a certain amount of time on a client. As a result, the basis for their profitability is opaque and they're unsure how to do better. How to Calculate Your Agency's Gross Income and Delivery Margin According to Marcel, calculating your delivery margin shouldn't be so complicated if you've first established your revenue and pass-through expenses (which are third-party expenses the agency incurred by outsourcing work to satisfy client demand). The formula is: Revenue - Pass-through Expenses = Agency Gross Income (AGI) Once you have the Agency Gross Income (AGI), you can calculate the Delivery Cost, which is what it costs you to earn that revenue. Most of this will be your team’s time. On an agency basis, you are looking at the amount of your payroll is allocated towards delivery. On a project basis, you’d need to answer how much time you spent completing a project and the cost of that time. The formula is: AGI - Delivery Cost/AGI. Ex: If you made $1 million and spent $400K on Delivery Costs, then you have a 60% delivery margin. The challenge a lot of agencies have to really get a clear idea of their delivery margin is that in many cases they have all their payroll costs on the P&L in one bucket. In those cases, they may think they have a great gross profit, but what they’re looking at on the P&L is their gross income including delivery costs. Three Ways to Improve Agency Profitability According to those formulas, Marcel identifies three ways to increase delivery margin. You can either decrease your costs or increase the amount of revenue generated with the costs you have: Decrease costs: Do you know your average cost per hour? This is the cost of every hour the team spends on client work. You can lower it by reducing the level of judgment required for the majority of the work in a deliverable. When there are no clear processes or requirements, it often takes a senior team member to ensure a successful outcome. Having clear processes, conducting thorough intake with clients, and leveraging technology and templates will allow you to lower the total payroll you need to get the same results. Improve Average Billable Rate: This metric measures how much revenue is earned for every hour the team spends on any kind of work. It applies to businesses that bill by the hour as well as all other billing models. You can improve your average billable rate, either through pricing increases or by decreasing the time it takes to complete a deliverable. By doing this, agencies can effectively increase their revenue without needing to make any changes to their team or resources. Utilization or "The Darksaber": This strategy comes with great power but also great responsibility. Used improperly, it can cause all kinds of damage to the agency. Utilization rate measures team efficiency by looking at the percentage of a team's capacity that is being used to generate revenue at the average billable rate. It’s a metric for the management team and it should not be used to hold individual team members accountable. Calculating this metric will allow agencies to make informed decisions about strategic moves like hiring more staff. Why Specialization Is Key to Improving Your Agency's Profitability Specialization is the key to improving your profitability. Specializing and eliminating non-profitable services will help you streamline operations and allocate resources more effectively. Identify the services not generating sufficient revenue and determine whether they contribute to your agency’s overall profitability. If these services do not lead to profitable outcomes, consider eliminating them. For Marcel, instead of offering a wide range of services, agency owners should focus on providing a complete solution to a specific problem. In addition to specialization, agencies can also consider outsourcing certain tasks or partnering with other agencies that excel in areas where they may not be as proficient. Some of the most profitable agencies Marcel has audited outsource part of their work. This deliberate choice can be beneficial in terms of efficiency and profitability. In his opinion, just like the last 10 years have been about specialization in terms of what the client can see, the next 10 years are going to be about specialization inside the agency. It’ll be a time for agency owners to ask themselves, what are we good at doing? And cut the fat in terms of what they're doing operationally. Outperforming Outdated Benchmarks It’s really important to remember that no single path dictates profitability. With the right processes, even unconventional models like 4-day weeks can succeed. Explore various strategies aligned to your specific circumstances. The key to profitability is to hit at least 50% delivery margin, enabling 30% for overhead and 20% EBITDA. Adjust billable rates and utilization to reach targets based on goals, constraints, and positioning. But beware of over-reliance on benchmarks, Marcel warns. Definitional differences in billable hours or capacity distort comparisons. Instead of arbitrary standards, evaluate metrics in your context. Profitability demands knowing your specific business, not the abstract industry. Define success on your terms, for your team. Then design the path to get there. With creativity and commitment, agencies can prosper on their own terms. Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset? If you want to be around amazing agency owners who can see what you may not be able to see and help you grow your agency, go to Agency Mastery 360.  Our agency growth program enables you to take a 360-degree view of your agency and gain mastery of the 3 pillar systems (attract, convert, scale) so you can create predictability, wealth, and freedom.

Graeme Barlow, a tech entrepreneur, shares his journey of scaling his agency to an eight-figure business. He discusses the impact of a transparent pricing model, marketing strategies for attracting big brand clients, and transitioning to a remote organization. He also explores the benefits of partnering with a white label agency for agency growth.

Have you struggled to build an ethical yet profitable agency model? Do you want your brand to attract clients through value rather than hype? Are you unsure how to leverage personal branding effectively online? Today's interview tackles it all. Today’s guest is passionate about helping people build their personal brands and counteracting the lack of integrity in the agency space. Although he dislikes the term "agency" he built one focused on really helping his clients and making sure their win is also his team’s win. Tune in to gain insights into Grant's journey and learn about the importance of personal branding in the online coaching industry. Grant Owen is the owner of Integrity Media, a media company that helps clients create short-form and long-form content, as well as podcasts. More recently, his company has been shifting towards a CMO model where they help people with their brand foundations and scaling their own in-house team. In this episode, we’ll discuss: Building personal brands with integrity. Will hiring friends inevitably lead to disaster? Diversification vs. Specialization. Why the agency model is here to stay.   Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Sponsors and Resources Agency Analytics: Tired of endless manual reporting in order to show your clients the value your agency delivers? It's time to check out AgencyAnalytics, the best automated client reporting solution for marketing agencies. Try it for FREE for 14 days when you head over to  AgencyAnalytics.com/Smart and sign up. It's time to see how life feels on the other side of manual reporting madness!   Developing Your Personal Brand with Integrity at the Core Grant's agency began with impromptu business strategy sessions with friends. He found fulfillment in dispensing actionable advice. Soon he realized - these skills could help counter unethical hype plaguing online marketing. By sharing his mastery, he saw an opportunity to restore trust by offering consulting services with integrity at the core. His tools empowered clients to build brands "the right way"- with their success tied to his. Grant believes everyone has a story worth sharing. Especially online coaches - personal brands build trust, credibility, and community. They provide a platform to move audiences through narrative. It became his mission to help coaches develop reach through radical honesty. In a crowded space, the character stands out. Lead with your human story and the rest will follow. However, he has made some mistakes, like charging way below the value he actually provided, something he quickly sought to correct once he realized the agency was just not profitable. Overall, he’s made many mistakes in his journey and has learned a lot about his own shortcomings and the challenges standing in the way of growth. Delegating and Outsourcing as the  Key to Agency Growth By now, Grant has started delegating tasks. However, his input still powers the agency. His goal is to reach the summit where operations run smoothly without his constant direction. First on the outsourcing list are low-value marketing tasks devouring his days. No more content editing and video production that takes time from sharing his insights to attract ideal clients. Next, he plans to build a team dedicated to handling the services he provides. With these functions supported, Grant will be able to optimize his time for high-impact priorities. As for sales, Grant cherishes the thrill of the close. This highlights the balancing act and sheds tedious tasks but retains activities aligned with his strengths and passion. By outsourcing wisely, entrepreneurs unlock new heights. Pass the baton on duties that drain, and your energy will soar toward vision fulfillment. The summit is closer than it appears. Does Hiring Friends Inevitably Lead to Disaster? Grant leverages his network and personal connections to find the right people for his team. One thing he has learned is that creatives usually suck at business because they don’t know their value. On the other hand, business types are great at business and suck at creative, which really shows in the quality of their work. Grant realized he had a network that could bridge that gap so he started hiring his friends in the creative space and providing them with the right opportunities. Of course, hiring friends as employees often doesn't work. You could end up with employees who treat you like a friend rather than a leader. This can lead to a lack of productivity and a failure to meet the necessary requirements of the job. A better alternative might be hiring acquaintances and building a strong enough relationship that develops into a friendship. Still, as long as both parties have their goals aligned and work towards mutual benefit, it can lead to successful work relationships. Things will usually fall apart when one party’s self-interest is at the detriment of the other party’s goals. Shared values also cement fruitful client relationships that can lead to a more productive and harmonious working environment. Grant refers prospects out if core tenets clash. Authentic connections matter most. It’s very common in marketing to see people showcasing a lavish lifestyle or using vanity metrics in marketing and social media content. These temporarily grab attention but erode long-term growth. Instead, he strived to provide genuine value and partner with agencies that prioritize client fulfillment over fast bucks. Give Away Your Best Stuff to Establish Yourself as an Authority Instead of selling people the idea of an expensive lifestyle, what they probably need more is your knowledge.  Just remember that, in order to establish yourself as an authority in your niche, you should be giving away your best stuff. Most people are hesitant to take this approach. However, the alternative of giving away mid advice just to “protect the secret sauce” can lead to people thinking that’s the best you got. Don’t be afraid to share their knowledge and expertise with others. It’s a way to demonstrate your expertise and have clients compare everyone else to you. You’ll be seen as and it will ultimately lead to more business opportunities and a stronger reputation in the industry. Understanding Diversification vs. Specialization Oversaturation is very real in the agency space and ethical agencies will have to differentiate to rise above noise. Early on, diversification tempts before niche focus crystallizes. However, finding your niche, offering value, and aligning pricing and services accordingly will be an important part of your business’ growth. What you would be doing if you could only charge on the performance and results? Eliminate everything else. Once you’re THE authority in your niche, clients may beg you to expand offerings. Resist diluting focus to appease them. Either build new departments under subject matter experts or acquire niche agencies stacking expertise. Stay laser-focused on refining your craft and outsourcing the rest. Trying to conquer too much risks mastery of too little. Partner with those owning adjacent pieces of the puzzle and together a fuller picture emerges. Why the Agency Model Will Stand the Test of Time According to Grant, the agency model will stand the test of time because there will always be a need for outsourced help in various niches. In particular, while execution is important, it will eventually be automated and replaced by technology such as AI. However, strategy and idea generation will always be necessary and will not be replaced by automation. Agencies that are thriving and will continue to thrive are ones solving specific problems in specific niches. Which niches are most likely to succeed? Better ask yourself if you picked the right niche for the right reasons. By choosing a niche in which they have deep knowledge and expertise, agency owners can provide exceptional value to their clients. If you need any help, try our niche grader tool that can help agency owners determine which niche is the most suitable for your agency. Pro Tip: Give your chosen niche enough time to succeed by trying it out for at least a year before deciding if it is working or not. Patience and perseverance will get you that competitive edge and help you achieve long-term success. Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset? If you want to be around amazing agency owners that can see what you may not be able to see and help you grow your agency, go to Agency Mastery 360.  Our agency growth program enables you to take a 360-degree view of your agency and gain mastery of the 3 pillar systems (attract, convert, scale) so you can create predictability, wealth, and freedom.

Experienced sales trainer and coach, Scott Scully, shares insights on building a winning sales script, handling outreach by creating exclusivity, and gamifying growth. He emphasizes the importance of outbound calls and setting appointments, as well as ongoing training and professional development for salespeople. The podcast also discusses recommended resources for directors, the evolution of the hiring process, and remote work policies and collaboration.

Are email newsletters out? Do people want or even read those anymore? Actually, yes! Old-school agency newsletters are a great way to position yourself as a trusted expert. Eager to learn proven strategies for engaging and valuable newsletters? A newsletter can be an invaluable tool to position yourself as a trusted advisor and expert by offering information that the audience genuinely wants to engage with and learn from. Today’s guest shares his experience transitioning from owning a marketing agency to building newsletters for his media company. He shares his insights about the ways a newsletter should provide value and the type of content it should contain. Tune in to discover some truly helpful information on how to build a successful newsletter. Nate Kennedy is an entrepreneur and philanthropist who has been in the online marketing world since 2006. He has worked for many businesses in different niches and personally built and sold 7 different online businesses with 6 and 7 figure exits. More recently, he changed pace and now focuses on building newsletters for his media company. In this episode, we’ll discuss: Being the curator vs. being a creator. Turning your newsletter into a business tool. How often should you send out a newsletter to be relevant?   Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Sponsors and Resources Agency Analytics: Tired of endless manual reporting in order to show your clients the value your agency delivers? It's time to check out AgencyAnalytics, the best automated client reporting solution for marketing agencies. Try it for FREE for 14 days when you head over to  AgencyAnalytics.com/Smart and sign up. It's time to see how life feels on the other side of manual reporting madness!   How to Curate an Engaging Newsletter After working in online marketing for many years and building multimillion-dollar companies, Nate felt stressed with clients calling him at all hours and crushed under the pressure of what he had built. It was time for a change. Rather than relying solely on platforms like Facebook or Google for traffic, Nate was fascinated by the possibility of owning his audience. By building a targeted and engaged subscriber list, he could have more control over their reach and generate revenue through sponsorships and affiliate offers. Instead of going to these other networks and paying them to buy the audience, he could own even a small piece of that pie. In his experience, a newsletter should deliver valuable content for a specific niche or industry to provide maximum value to the target audience. This could be achieved in two ways: Build a newsletter around your thoughts, insights, and content to help said niche audience. Building it around curated content with a variety of useful sources within that industry. For instance, Nate sends out a newsletter focused on financial literacy for a specific audience. It’s aimed at teaching consumers how to become financially smarter. This is not content he writes, he just curates it from different sources. On the other hand, he also has a different newsletter for entrepreneurs written by him with his thoughts and insights. How Should a Newsletter Look to Get People’s Attention? This will depend on your goal and target audience. A more personalized newsletter with your insights on a matter should probably contain mainly text and not be filled with images and videos. As opposed to a more e-commerce-style newsletter aimed at selling products, which will contain more images, links, and videos. A lot of people go for a hybrid approach. How The Newsletter Can Become a Tool for Agency Business When it comes to building the subscriber list, Nate suggests running ads specifically promoting the newsletter and its benefits. However, right now he gets most of his new subscribers from one-step funnels, such as polls or surveys. This way, he engages potential subscribers and gathers information about their interests and preferences. This targeted approach ensures that the newsletter is attracting the right audience and providing content that resonates with them. By consistently sending out newsletters, agency owners can stay at the forefront of their client's minds and remind them of the reasons they initially hired the agency. This is particularly important in the competitive agency industry, where other agencies may attempt to win over clients with lower prices. Once, you’ve built an audience and started getting some traction, you might want to partner with some businesses that align with your values and beliefs. Sponsorships can provide an additional revenue stream without the need for hard selling. Just make sure to only recommend products that the business genuinely believes in. Recommending subpar products can damage the relationship with readers. How Often Should You Send  Agency Newsletters? While the frequency of sending newsletters may vary, it will ultimately depend on your goal. A curated newsletter with advertisers can go out daily to be profitable while the more personal one aimed at building your brand can be sent out just once a week because the focus will be having the best possible content tailored to your audience. In the case of agencies, Nate suggests sending out newsletters two to three times a week. You don’t want to bore your audience. As to the format, he favors a combination model, with a bit of curated content and links around the marketing world and some created content that provides value. The curated content can contain different sections, including the latest podcast, success stories, a tool section, and links to other videos they have created. This part will get you more clicks while the insights will help you build trust and rapport. Leveraging AI to Keep Our Newsletter Crisp, Clever, and Compelling Once your newsletter blueprint is complete, optimization begins. Nate A/B tests sections and subject lines for maximum engagement. He crafts subject lines to drive readers to buried treasures below the fold. Though the above holds attention, compelling lower hooks ensure total reads. For curated content creation, Nate enlists AI's aid. He feeds it articles, prompting paragraph summaries for each section. The AI delivers raw materials to refine. Furthermore, to get more specific results you could feed the AI with your agency’s stories and results and then ask for ideas for blog spots. With the right prompt, it can be an amazing tool to get your creative juices started and provide something you can then add to with your own words. Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset? If you want to be around amazing agency owners who can see what you may not be able to see and help you grow your agency, go to Agency Mastery 360.  Our agency growth program enables you to take a 360-degree view of your agency and gain mastery of the 3 pillar systems (attract, convert, scale) so you can create predictability, wealth, and freedom.

How are you leveraging AI to increase your agency’s productivity?  Which tools are you currently using? Is there a new skill you’d like to master but don’t know where to start? Artificial intelligence (AI) brings a new world of possibilities for agency owners that goes beyond just creating content. Today’s guest shares his expertise in leveraging artificial intelligence with a problem-solving approach for marketing. He discusses the use of AI to optimize bidding algorithms and drive better results for multi-location brands. David also reflects on his journey into digital marketing, his impostor syndrome when it comes to being an agency owner, how he leverages AI to master new skills, and the impact the mastermind has had on his confidence. David Melamed is an entrepreneur and the founder of Tenfold Traffic. Even though he had very limited exposure to advertising, he describes himself as someone who was born to do marketing and pursued it from a young age. Much of what he was able to learn back then was through the blogosphere “sprinkled with a few doses of back-against-the-wall reality,” he adds. Because of this, he loves to teach and help curious marketers make the smartest marketing investments possible. Currently, David’s work focuses on wherever emerging technology meets marketing. For the past year, he’s been focusing on the legal industry and helping brands close the loop in their marketing using automation to drive better results. In this episode, we’ll discuss: How to leverage AI beyond content creation. Useful tools to help you master new skills. The power of peer support to propel agency growth.   Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service.   The Revelation That Led to an Interest in Digital Marketing David's passion for marketing began bubbling at age 9 - when his pickle sale business got shut down by school authorities. But the seeds were planted. At some point, he dreamt about building shopping centers. However, a retail leasing gig unlocked a revelation: Brands just needed demographics, accessibility...and search engines. With this epiphany, David saw a future beyond shopping centers. He knew he needed to master digital marketing. But theory lacked application. When dream SEO jobs passed him over for experience, David spent two weeks absorbing everything he could on optimization, wowing in round two. Though still green, it was enough to get him his first opportunity. Leverage AI to Master New Skills with a Problem-Solving Approach With years of work in the marketing space under his belt, David has now moved to focus on the possibilities AI development brings for businesses. To him, AI has not really been a pivot from what he’s been doing for years. For instance, he admits he’s never been good at scaling a team, which is why he has resorted to scale with automation. “It was easier for me to master automation than finding a team of really awesome people and training them,” he admits. Once AI came along, he wasn’t sure about its potential but six months ago he decided to just dive into it. What could AI enable him to do that he couldn’t do yesterday? Most people look for the low-hanging fruit to find ways to save time in content creation. What piqued David’s interest was the possibility to dive into areas he couldn’t before because he didn’t have the expertise to use the tools himself. He’s not a developer, but he now builds and runs software codes every day with the help of ChatGPT. In his experience, David is getting massive leverage on AI by just asking for help with things he doesn’t entirely understand. To him, it's not about something he wants to delegate but rather needs help mastering. Experimenting at the Intersection of Creativity and AI David is a big believer in creating community and helping others with their projects whenever he can. One of the tools he uses all the time and highly recommends is Notion AI, which he uses to create all sorts of things, like a tool to help a 17-year-old entrepreneur with his dropshipping business. “AI today has what I call a last mile problem,” he says. It gives you a great output but it still has limits and Notion is very versatile and quick. Though acknowledging limitations, David sees large language models replacing up to 30% of agency workflows through automation. Beyond workflow efficiencies, David engages in prompted experimentation to extract insights. Testing platforms like Prompt Meteus help him craft and perfect prompts for optimal results. And for both content and creative code, he leverages ChatGPT. For David, AI represents boundless potential - faster database builds, marketing strategy, competitive research, and more. He urges fellow marketers to tap into creative problem-solving through tireless trial and error. He’s always looking for ways to leverage these tools in his benefit and finds this has made him ten times more creative than I ever was. The Power of Peer Support for Propelling Agency Growth There was a time when David couldn’t get past mental blocks around his pricing and growth. This is why he finds it so important for agency owners to recognize these struggles. In his personal experience, joining Jason's mastermind helped him find a community where he felt appreciated and understood. The first time he attended an in-person meeting with agency owners and realized they all faced common struggles, such as imposter syndrome and self-sabotage. This helped him feel less alone in his journey. Now, David champions masterminds' exponential benefits for agency growth. The connections, accountability, and normalization reframe "failures" as shared struggles. And the price tag becomes a feature, not an expense; higher investment means greater engagement and outcomes for all. In the end, humans thrive supported, not alone. If agency life wears you down, find your people, join a mastermind, and watch obstacles transform into opportunities. You'll emerge healthier, wiser, and ready to reach the next level together. Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset? If you want to be around amazing agency owners who can see what you may not be able to see and help you grow your agency, go to Agency Mastery 360.  Our agency growth program helps you take a 360-degree view of your agency and gain mastery of the 3 pillar systems (attract, convert, scale) so you can create predictability, wealth, and freedom.

How are you planning to leverage AI for marketing insights? Want to know the best tools to utilize artificial intelligence in your agency? For years, we’ve known AI would revolutionize marketing through real-time insights and automation. However, for it to provide accurate insights and recommendations, it needs a comprehensive understanding of how a company is performing in relation to the overall market. Today's guest knew this was where AI was moving towards and decided to jump to the challenge of building a platform that would best utilize these developments for agencies. He'll share his journey from identifying AI as the future for agencies to years of failed attempts at development and finally finding the ideal partner to build his vision. He also talks about what he looks for in an acquisition and how he deals with burnout. Erik Huberman is the founder of Hawke Media, an outsourced CMO and marketing team that customizes data-driven, performance solutions to help launch, scale, and invigorate businesses. Check out Erik’s previous interview, where he talked about setting financial goals, his marketing methodology, and his book, The Hawke Method.  In this episode, we’ll discuss: Learning to align systems to talent. Why he set out to leverage AI for marketing insights. Can agency owners avoid burnout?   Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Sponsors and Resources Agency Analytics: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by Agency Analytics, an automated client reporting solution for marketing agencies. Go to agencyanalytics.com/smart to sign up for a 14-day FREE trial and see how life feels on the other side of manual reporting madness. Podcast Takeover!! Get to know your Smart Agency Guest Host: Dr. Jeremy Weisz is the co-founder of Rise25, an agency that helps companies launch and run podcasts profitably. He followed Jason’s podcast and eventually joined the mastermind and has been a guest on the podcast before. Today, he’s helping Jason bring something new to the Smart Agency podcast audience by interviewing a special guest and getting a new perspective to the show.   Early Lessons on Aligning Systems to Talent to Boost Retention As an entrepreneur, Erik had started a few e-commerce companies and was unimpressed by the agencies he had worked with. He decided to form a small team that could assist his clients and quickly saw a positive response. Initially, he attracted people to work with him for a low base pay and a percentage of revenue. In his mind, the sky was the limit and any one of those workers could make a lot of money under that model. However, within six months most of them were gone. This is how he realized most people are not entrepreneurial and would rather have consistency over volatility. With this lesson learned, he pivoted to attract talent seeking consistency over shoot-the-moon potential. With the model adjusted, growth exploded and revenue was $1 million in their very first year. As expected, the growth percentage leveled off, but steady year-over-year expansion continued. Erik realized different motivations drive people. Some thrive on uncertainty, but most need security. Neither is right or wrong - smart leaders align systems to talent. Once he matched incentives to appetite, talent and growth flourished. Know your team and they'll drive you anywhere. Why You Should Stay Ready to Replace Irreplaceable Talent After starting several enterprises Erik learned you’ll always be hiring and rotating key roles. Would it be ideal to find the perfect person who will stay for the next 30 years? Of course! However, life happens so now he stays ready to perpetually replace irreplaceable talent. Except one - his strategist-turned-president partner. So far, he’s the only hire who came into the agency with an attitude of owning his work, treating it as more than just another job. He definitely earned the leap from employee to co-owner carrying that weight from day one. It’s a decision Erik definitely doesn’t regret. When it comes to building leaders, he has also learned the importance of dedicating more time to their training. “I used to just rush through meetings with my leaders,” he admits. Now he prefers to spend time in the weeds with them and collaborate, instead of just expecting them to solve any problem that may come up. Building a Platform to Leverage AI for Marketing Insights Seven years ago, Erik had a meeting with Marcus Shingles and Peter Diamantes. They talked about rapid disruption and got to wondering about what was going to disrupt marketing agencies and what they do. At the time, Marcus and Peter thought it would be freelancers. Erik disagreed and leaned more toward AI as a disrupting force. In his opinion, AI would first offer insights into an agency’s marketing channels to see what’s working and what’s not. At some point, instead of just telling you what wasn’t working, AI would also offer to fix it for you in real time. Their response to his predictions was “Well, why don’t you build that?” His company was young but he decided to jump at the challenge. Step one had to be data. He would need data from thousands of companies to educate an individual platform. Next, he focused on building a visualization platform that would do an automated audit to show companies how they’re performing and where they can do better. Six long years later, the platform vision was still incomplete. Three failed tech teams couldn't deliver. Then he was approached by a dashboard developer who had the missing puzzle piece. Erik had the data and team; they had the tech. A partnership was born. Although slow, their collaboration clicked - seamless negotiations gave way to immediate execution. Today, they have over 2,000 customers and growing. Why No Acquisition Should Move Forward Without the Right Culture Fit For acquisitions, Erik seeks agencies that complement Hawke Media's core. Geographic fills, service expansions, strategic bolt-ons - any over $1M revenue with scale potential. He loves founder-led shops where Hawke's infrastructure can partner to rapidly expand capable teams 8-9X in just a couple of years. However, without cultural alignment, even winners go nowhere. So beyond financials and operations, Erik probes for shared values and vision. With those locked in, holding back becomes impossible. They nourish talent and stoke significant growth. In the end, systems may stimulate but only engage humans who are able to innovate. That's why no acquisition moves forward without the right cultural fit. The rest can be learned, but passion and purpose must already live within. Can Agency Owners Avoid Burnout? Before this year, Erik never understood the talk about burnout. He had never experienced it. Now that he has, he can only say it’s inevitable, despite preparation and passion. Building a business is hard. Even someone like Mark Zuckerberg, who built one of the biggest companies of our generation, has to deal with stress and burnout. It won’t always be butterflies and rainbows. Add that to the stress of the state of the world and, overall, mental health is not great for most adults right now. Personally, he prefers to put things in perspective because stress can affect your ability to function in your everyday life. Does this really matter? Is it worth so much stress? Is it worth compromising his health for? Other than that, he makes sure to meditate and exercise and informs himself to understand the market. Being very aware of the shifts in the economy, how they have historically played out, and how you can prepare for hard times can really help reduce the fears that come with uncertainty. Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset? If you want to be around amazing agency owners who can see what you may not be able to see and help you grow your agency, go to Agency Mastery 360.  Our agency growth program helps you take a 360-degree view of your agency and gain mastery of the 3 pillar systems (attract, convert, scale) so you can create predictability, wealth, and freedom.

Are you struggling to step into your own as an agency leader? Looking to rapidly grow your boutique agency? In this episode, our guest shares her journey as an accidental agency owner and how she has grown her boutique communications agency by over 75% in the past two years. She discusses the importance of focusing on the type of agency you want to be, the clients you want to work with, and the type of work you want to do. Pilaar also highlights the benefits of organic growth and embracing mistakes to empower your team. She shares some of her experiences having grown her boutique agency quite fast and the role that stepping into her own as a leader played in their success. Pilaar Terry is the managing partner and COO of POV Agency, a fully remote boutique communication agency that reimagines how PR is done and more importantly who it’s done by. She and her partner built the agency on the belief that a varied, nuanced, and colorful perspective is a strength. Tune in to learn from Pilaar's experience and discover how you can achieve similar growth for your agency. In this episode, we’ll discuss: Growth by design and the importance of having a deliberate focus. Prioritizing diversity and inclusion. Allowing employees to learn by embracing their mistakes.   Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service.   Growth by Design: The Importance of Deliberate Focus Pilaar attributes her success to a deliberate focus on her desired agency identity, clients, and work. She and her partner have been in the agency business for 20 years, worked with tons of brands, and remained just people who do good work. This led to a lot of good word of mouth and referrals once they joined forces. However, a more intentional and strategic approach was necessary to reach their goals. By aligning their intentions with the type of agency they wanted to be, the clients they wanted to work with, and the work they wanted to do, they were able to achieve significant growth. She emphasizes the importance of creating a plan around your goals and intentions based on your vision. This was a key component in their success. Becoming the Leader Your Agency Needs One of Pilaar’s biggest challenges while growing her agency was coming into her own as a leader. Basically, she struggled to find a balance between the needs of the company, the team, and herself as a leader. As the owner of a small agency with a handful of employees, she defaulted to putting her team’s needs first. Of course, this is not necessarily a bad thing but it came to a point where it was to her detriment. She was taking on a lot of work not wanting to burn out her employees. Looking back, she knows she needs to learn to be a leader, delegate, and give constructive feedback. What was she afraid of? Coming from working at really big agencies and now owning a very small boutique business, Pilaar was afraid people wouldn’t want to work at her agency. Any time someone chose her agency she felt grateful that they would take a chance on her. In reality, she was also taking a chance on them. At some point, she was no longer sure she had the team she wanted to grow the agency with, even though she had hand-selected each one. Thankfully, her agency started to invest in a really amazing partner that does team training and organization development. She realized she was hiring for the wrong reasons. Once she understood this, she came into her own as a leader. Prioritizing Diversity and Inclusion at Her Agency Working at bigger agencies helped Pilaar learn so much about structure, skills, and dealing with clients. However, she was consistently sidelined. By the time she became senior vice president, she hoped it was her time to have a voice and be valued. When that didn’t happen, she wondered what she was doing there. This negative experience served as a catalyst and her motivation to create an agency where everyone's voice is valued. It fueled her desire to create an agency that prioritizes diversity and inclusion. At their current agency, the majority of the team consists of people of color, working parents, individuals in the military, neurodivergent individuals, and people from different sexual orientations. She aims to create an environment where individuals from diverse backgrounds and perspectives can contribute and be valued for their unique insights. Seeing Employee Mistakes as Agency Opportunities The feeling of not being valued motivated Pilaar to create a great culture at her agency, but she admits to sometimes swinging too far in the other direction. Not wanting to demotivate employees, she was operating off of what she didn’t want to be. Instead, she should have embraced the type of agency she wanted to create. She was coddling her team and therefore getting in the way of them gaining experience. One of her biggest worries was that, as a smaller agency, her team would resent not getting the experience of handling big clients and big budgets. However, she eventually learned to lean on what made her agency unique and not focus on what they didn’t have. This way, she was able to start guiding them toward the overall vision, let them make mistakes and learn. Agency leaders often feel a strong attachment to their reputation and may be hesitant to let others make mistakes. This fear can lead to micromanagement and hinder the learning process for their teams. Once she was able to shift this mindset and recognize that mistakes are opportunities for growth and learning, she was able to create a culture of continuous improvement and development. Why You Should Embrace Mistakes Pilaar encourages agency owners to allow themselves to make mistakes because she wishes somebody had told her. In the end, of course, everyone makes mistakes. It’s inevitable and you will learn from it. Mistakes can also be an opportunity to restart and it’s okay to embrace that. Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset? If you want to be around amazing agency owners who can see what you may not be able to see and help you grow your agency, go to Agency Mastery 360.  Our agency growth program helps you take a 360-degree view of your agency and gain mastery of the 3 pillar systems (attract, convert, scale) so you can create predictability, wealth, and freedom.

What is the key to unlocking strategic partnerships in order to grow your agency? Wondering how to identify promising collaboration opportunities? The most mutually beneficial strategic agency partnerships are with tangential agencies that align in vision and share in collaboration. Today’s guest has great insight and information about what the most successful agencies are doing to find the best partnerships to grow. Learn how to identify and approach high-potential partners hungry for help only you can provide. Alex Glenn is the founder & CEO of Partner Programs Inc., a parent company that operates Partner Program Collective, Agency Partners Collective, and Partner Hub, a platform built for agencies who want to find and manage their partnerships. Overall, Partner Programs Inc. works as an ecosystem that offers community support and training services for both sides of the partnership equation. Alex will offer his unique perspective on how agency owners are using partnerships to grow their businesses and the things they should avoid to protect their agencies. In this interview, we’ll discuss: Which partnerships offer the most growth for agencies? What you should be looking for in a strategic partner. A trap you should avoid at all costs.   Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Sponsors and Resources Agency Analytics: Tired of endless manual reporting in order to show your clients the value your agency delivers? It's time to check out AgencyAnalytics, the best automated client reporting solution for marketing agencies. Try it for FREE for 14 days when you head over to  AgencyAnalytics.com/Smart and sign up. It's time to see how life feels on the other side of manual reporting madness! How You Should Be Using Strategic Agency Partnerships to Grow According to Alex, the past five years have seen a whirlwind of partnership experimentation as strategies trickle from tech giants down to digital agencies. But what options offer the most growth for agencies today? E-commerce. E-commerce has historically been ahead of the curve in terms of software and in the agency world. Usually, e-commerce brands know they have a short window to either make it or land on their face once they launch. To make the most of their go-to-market, they need strategic partnerships.Typically, they’ll go for agencies that already have a channel of influencers, past products they’ve brought to market, and partners that will help increase the reach of that go-to-market. These are agencies that can almost guarantee success. Niche agency. After e-commerce, the typical agency partnership would be a niche agency that has demand for software, web development, etc. These agencies are so niched down that partner agencies know they won’t have to worry about them cannibalizing their service offering. Across categories, Alex sees partners thriving by playing to niche strengths versus chasing full-service breadth. As competition stiffens, agencies build leverage, mitigate risk, and open new doors through collaboration. The future for agencies favors focused vision and allies rather than being isolated and siloed. What Should You Be Looking for in a Strategic Partnership? Picking partners requires savvy calculation. Alex says sometimes white labels can still drop balls, leaving you to blame. To reduce this risk, get in the habit of referring at least three partners to a client. If it all goes south, you can argue you provided two other good options they didn’t pick. You should also keep track of your referrals. If the referrals are only flowing one way, it’s time to find another partner. Ultimately though, it boils down to your core offerings - that's the magnet attracting partners. For example, if you're a boutique creative agency, supplement with tech partners in ecosystems granting access to ready-to-go business. Even creative-focused agencies should dip into these pools of opportunity. Initial referral wins, when reciprocated, start an upward spiral of exponentially increasing referrals. But don't waste time on partners not returning the favor. Alex sees this optimization process as the path to bigger contract proposals. So choose allies wisely, perfect your craft, and integrate into collaborative ecosystems. Then watch the referrals and opportunities multiply. Avoid this Common Trap at All Costs About 90% of agencies have around 20 employees and sit in a creative niche category. If this is your case, you should be looking for strategic alliances with tech partners. However, if your business is based on word of mouth and referrals, you’re basically very vulnerable. Some big agencies will find agencies in that 90% and white label the heck out of them. It’s often the case that for those smaller agencies, the majority of their business is coming from this big agency partner. If you’re a smaller agency and your partner says “I want to buy you” you’ll of course be very excited. That is, until they want to lower the price arguing they’re your entire source of business. At this point, your valuation gets slashed and now you’re not making nearly the amount you expected to make. Avoid the trap of having all your eggs in one basket. Vet relationships to ensure no single client consumes most of your time and resources. Monitor for hostile takeover risk where one buyer makes demand overly burdensome. Instead, scale smartly via a three-pronged strategy: strategic partners, complemented byinbound and outbound approaches. Diversity eliminates overexposure so no single source can cripple you if compromised. With balance, patience, and calculated growth, agencies gain resilience against predatory relationships. Don't sacrifice long-term health for short-term hypergrowth at any cost. Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset? If you want to be around amazing agency owners that can see what you may not be able to see and help you grow your agency, go to Agency Mastery 360.  Our agency growth program enables you to take a 360-degree view of your agency and gain mastery of the 3 pillar systems (attract, convert, scale) so you can create predictability, wealth, and freedom.

Do you want to learn strategies for overcoming obstacles and fixing mistakes? Interested in fostering strong agency client relationships through communication? Today’s guest shares his journey discovering e-commerce and the strategies that helped him scale his agency under extreme circumstances. He recalls some of his struggles identifying and fixing mistakes. He also shares his gratitude for clients who recognize the process of enhancing an online business requires time and effort. Overall, he encourages communication and education between agencies and clients to foster a mutual understanding of the work being undertaken and the value it brings. Anatoliy Labinsky is the founder of Golden Stream Media, an e-commerce growth agency that helps generate 6 and 7-figure results for their clients. In just five years, he went from waiting tables to being a successful business owner. As part of his model, he gives away some of his secrets and shares his formulas and ad templates so anyone can plug and play his winning ads. In this episode, we’ll discuss: The importance of mentorship learn from early mistakes. How clear client communication and understanding leads to success. How radical transparency can fuel your agency's growth.   Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service.   How Mentorship Helped Turn Failures into a Multi-Million Dollar Agency Anatoliy has had his share of failures early in his career. His journey is certainly not one of overnight success. In fact, finding the right path was initially challenging and he felt lost. In August 2017 living in Dubai and actively seeking opportunities, he had an "aha moment" after discovering the potential of e-commerce and Facebook advertising. Intrigued by this concept, he wanted to dive deeper into these areas and understand how they could be leveraged in business. This is where his journey in e-commerce and his first failure both began. He launched his first store and soon lost everything he had, from his main job to his part-time jobs and savings. Nothing seemed to work. Looking back, he wasn’t really looking at KPIs and tracking didn’t understand what wasn’t working and why. Luckily, in January 2018 he met his mentor. By this time, he owned money and had several part-time jobs, but kept investing in his dream. “I was addicted” he admits. He invested $47 on each coaching call with his mentor and quickly started to realize everything he was doing wrong. Following his coach’s advice, he made his first $8,000 in the first fifteen days of working together. When Client Communication & Trust Trumps Early Struggle Anatoliy’s successes started with My Kitty Cat Store and some fashion, health, and beauty stores. He was one of the first to make a health product store to alleviate back pain, which presented the opportunity to scale without much competition. From the ad perspective, it was super simple. They got results without doing any detailed research and found an audience. There was no need for storytelling and long copy explaining its benefits. A picture of the product and a short and to-the-point headline did the trick. On the other hand, he also had some difficult campaigns that took up to seven months to start showing results. It’s been one of the hardest projects they’ve done considering there were zero results for the first months. They tried several creative solutions without seeing many sales. The most surprising thing for Anatoliy was seeing the client stuck with his agency throughout the struggles. She was very appreciative of all the effort they were putting into her business and, ultimately, could see they were getting better results than she’d gotten for herself in three years. Finally, seven months later, they found the right formula and jumped from zero sales to $27,000 in sales. Anatoliy knew it was a matter of finding the right combination of mastering the algorithm, having the right creatives, and finding an audience. In the end, it was his team’s hard work and the client’s trust that got them over the number one hurdle for any online business, which is clients solely focusing on the money spent on advertising. There’s extensive behind-the-scenes work required to implement changes and enhance online business and not fully comprehending this will lead to giving up on projects that can prove to be very profitable. Staying the Course and Growing with a Mostly Ukraine-Based Team Anatoliy’s agency is now US-based but part of his staff is in Ukraine, which has of course presented unique challenges in the last couple of years. Overall, he’s very happy they’ve all risen to the occasion in the face of unique difficulties. The team has managed to stay focused on their work and not be consumed by external circumstances. Although initially concerned about potential repercussions for his business, Anatoliy feels very grateful they’ve been understanding of the situation. Clients have demonstrated patience and were even willing to pause projects, which was surprising for him. However, it wasn’t necessary because the team was willing to do whatever it took to continue working as usual. Even in the case of straining circumstances like power outages, they’ve been able to work using generators. It may sound extreme, but the team saw work as a distraction from everything going on around them. The effort was so successful that some clients didn't even notice the challenges his team faced. They all went above and beyond to reassure clients that they would continue working despite the challenging circumstances. How Radical Transparency Fueled This Agency's 8-Figure Success Every agency owner has their own secret formula they keep close to their chest. It’s the result of years and years of work and people are not usually as eager as Anatoliy to share them. For his part, he’s convinced that sharing as much as he can will help him succeed. It’s the vision his mentor helped him create when he was just starting out. He believes he’ll never have a problem finding clients or escalating your success as long as he shares his knowledge and, therefore, gets a reputation as an authority in this field. In fact, he insists this has helped them get over the 8-figure mark. Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset? If you want to be around amazing agency owners who can see what you may not be able to see and help you grow your agency, go to Agency Mastery 360.  Our agency growth program helps you take a 360-degree view of your agency and gain mastery of the 3 pillar systems (attract, convert, scale) so you can create predictability, wealth, and freedom.