Build a Better Agency Podcast

We all want to get paid what we’re worth. But it’s more than likely that we’re downplaying our agency’s value because we’re too worried about pricing ourselves out or overcharging. This week, our guest, Casey Brown, will explain why that’s wrong and how to get out of a fear-based pricing mindset for good. Casey has been serving small to mid-sized agencies for the past 15 years to bring her corporate pricing expertise to private companies. She’ll teach us why it’s probable that we’re talking ourselves out of charging what we’re worth and giving discounts where they’re not needed.   Our time is valuable in a typically creative industry, and we deserve to be paid what we’re worth. Get ready to take action after listening to this episode so you can start having better pricing conversations with customers and stand up for your true worth as an agency. A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev, or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here. What You Will Learn in This Episode: Why you should never pre-discount in pricing conversations The questions you should be asking when a client pushes back on price How to establish pricing integrity that establishes trust between you and the customer How to gauge if a client’s low budget is real Building confidence in your pricing How to get out of a fear-based mindset The best approach to raising prices on legacy clients Protecting your margins in this current economy How to know if your pricing is right

This week, I’m covering an important topic I haven’t covered on a solocast before — agency owner work balance. Often, agency owners get pulled into too much of the day-to-day client work or aren’t correctly staffing the agency to get the support they need on the work they have. There’s a formula you should be following for how you break down your workday or workweek to be a successful business leader, and I’m going to map it out in an easily applicable formula. It’s not always easy to get ourselves out of the daily client tasks, but the recipe I’m sharing with you today will help you block out more time for the things that matter the most. If you’re not doing your job, nobody else is going to do it, either. And your job is the most important job in the entire agency. So tune in to learn how to map out your days better, get out of the day-to-day, and focus your attention where you’re needed most. For 30+ years, Drew McLellan has been in the advertising industry. He started his career at Y&R, worked in boutique-sized agencies, and then started his own (which he still owns and runs) agency in 1995. Additionally, Drew owns and leads the Agency Management Institute, which advises hundreds of small to mid-sized agencies on how to grow their agency and its profitability through agency owner peer groups, consulting, coaching, workshops and more. A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev, or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here. What You Will Learn in This Episode: Getting out of the day-to-day client work The percentage breakdown of how an agency owner should spend their day Why blocking your time efficiently and effectively is incredibly important The key factors that add value to your agency How to shift to this new breakdown of work Why biz dev is the most important task How to delegate and divide tasks between you and your business partner The importance of making yourself unavailable sometimes

Podcasts, radio, and TV are all similar mediums with a broad reach across the US. But over the years, younger audiences have moved away from radio and TV in favor of other platforms that offer ad-free subscriptions. Quickly rising to the top amongst millennials and Gen Z is podcasting. So how do we still reach people who are consistently opting out of popular advertising avenues? Tom Webster has some answers for us.   He’s on the podcast today to break down the findings from The Media Moves the Message study that his firm, Sounds Profitable, did on advertising performance between cable TV, AM/FM radio, and podcasting. This deep dive will give you all the evidence you need to understand that podcasting has a bright future. And as long as we don’t oversaturate it with advertising, it will be here to stay amongst audiences, both old and young, as the medium grows. A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev, or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here. What You Will Learn in This Episode: How we can take advantage of the podcasting medium as advertisers The Media Moves the Message study The most noteworthy takeaways from the study How podcast listeners skew age-wise and where we can make improvements What the study results mean for agency owners and leaders Will we eventually oversaturate podcasts with ads? What the study means for content creators and podcast hosts Trusting that a podcast host knows how to advertise to their audience Areas where podcasting is lacking The power of small podcasts

Herb Cogliano, expert in scaling agencies, shares his insights on overcoming barriers to growth for accidental agency owners. He discusses hiring according to core values, finding general manager-level leaders, and remaining profitable. Learn how to go from accidental to intentional agency owner.

How you lead your business is critical to its success. People are the most important assets in our agencies, and without them, we can’t deliver our best work to our customers. That’s why it’s critical to prioritize agency leadership so your teams can do their best work and grow alongside your organization. Dr. Amin Sanaia is an expert in leadership development with extensive experience studying what attributes make the most successful leaders. Today, he shares the top five personality traits of a good leader, also known as CRAVE, and how we can bring leadership development and growth opportunities to our employees.   If you’re ready to take your leadership to the next level and start showing up for your people with more empathy and authenticity, Dr. Amin has the tools to get you on the right path. A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev, or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here. What You Will Learn in This Episode: What gets in the way of being a great leader Finding the balance between servant leadership and honest feedback Balancing employee wants and running your business profitably Offering fringe benefits over more money How agency leadership can show up with more empathy without going overboard Setting the tone of your agency culture Coaching and mentoring new agency leadership How to start behaving like a leader

So many of us hate selling or feeling like we are “being sold to” because it has the old reputation of being manipulative, exploitative, and too pushy. Thanks to the sales tactics of the old days, our sales prospects have walls up before a call or meeting even starts. When we know the psychology of sales and truly understand how people want to be sold to, that’s where the magic begins. Jeremy Miner, voted in the top 50 best salespeople worldwide, has some knowledge to share with us about approaching the sales process in a way that sets you up for success from the beginning. Not only can you ditch lengthy sales pitches and pretend to care about the weather in your prospect’s city, but you can also get to the root of their needs much more efficiently and teach them how you fit into that equation. Your prospects win because they learn about their company’s problems, you win because you know how to solve them, and you both win again because fixing those blind spots helps you both make more money. What do you have to lose? A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev, or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here. What You Will Learn in This Episode: Jeremy’s first door-to-door sales job How to get sales prospects to pull you in rather than you pushing them to make a decision Getting to the bottom of your prospect’s problems and figuring out how to solve them The least persuasive way to sell Leading sales conversations with emotion instead of logic The NEPQ approach to sales conversations How Covid impacted selling to prospects Building a visual gap between where your sales prospects are and where they want to be Asking the right questions

This week, I’m using this episode to talk about some questions I get asked a lot, and that is what we offer in AMI memberships. Many of you want to know what our different tiers of memberships include and what other services we offer. If you’re curious about AMI and our membership offerings, this episode is for you. I will break down what we offer for agency owners and leaders and how you can get involved in the AMI community if you feel compelled to do so. We have a ton of different ways to become a community member, get consulting and one-on-one coaching, access our peer networks, and even get help with succession work. Our goal is always to help small to mid-size agencies reach their goals and get access to the best network possible. You’re never too small or far away from us to participate, so if you’re feeling compelled to join the community in some way, I’m giving you all the details here today. For 30+ years, Drew McLellan has been in the advertising industry. He started his career at Y&R, worked in boutique-sized agencies, and then started his own (which he still owns and runs) agency in 1995. Additionally, Drew owns and leads the Agency Management Institute, which advises hundreds of small to mid-sized agencies on how to grow their agency and its profitability through agency owner peer groups, consulting, coaching, workshops and more. A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev, or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here. What You Will Learn in This Episode: The free resources we always offer agency owners and leaders Our workshops, both online and in-person Online and onsite consulting with experienced business leaders Creating a network of agency leaders with Peer Networks and Virtual Peer Groups How we can help in succession planning and coaching new buyers to acquire an agency The BABA Summit How to get involved if you can’t travel or just want some content from us The members-only perks as an add-on to our free content

You need innovative ideas to stand out and be ahead of the curve. We often get caught up in the chaos of day-to-day agency operations and retreat into the comfort zone of doing things the same way we’ve always done them. Today, we’re talking you out of that way of thinking and giving you an entirely different framework for approaching client projects. Stan Phelps, an author and keynote speaker with prior agency experience, has a whole new way of thinking about client projects and asking the right questions to build out innovative ideas that will keep clients coming back to you for more.   When we make the time, space, and budget to allow our teams to think outside of the box and take more creative risks, we make space for better, more trusting clients who know you’ll hit a home run for them every time. A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev, or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here. What You Will Learn in This Episode: Creating innovation through action and insights Why we need to be incentivizing our teams and clients to think outside the box The IDEA Framework for mapping out innovative ideas Sometimes it’s about learning what our clients don’t value Using attribute and journey mapping to learn about customers and how they interact with us How to start asking your clients the big questions that lead to big ideas What to internally evaluate before taking your ideas to a client How to infuse innovation into agency operations as an agency leader

Think about some of your favorite brands for just a moment. What aspects of those brands make you feel the most connected to them? Do you ever find yourself talking to your friends or family about a company you love so much because of what they stand for or how they connect with people? Enter community building as a marketing strategy — the next big thing in brand marketing, according to Mark Schaefer. This week, he will teach us why brands need to hop on this trend as quickly as possible and how agencies can join in on the fun, too.   As business leaders, the best way to reach our audience is to turn that audience into a community and connect with the people who are your biggest advocates. In this episode, we’ll talk about the role of creating emotional connections to your brand, the difference between an audience and a community, how agencies can become leaders in community building for brands, and so much more. Mark will leave you thinking about how your agency can evolve into a thriving community while growing your brand organically. A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev, or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here. What You Will Learn in This Episode: Mark’s inspiration for writing his book on the next big brand marketing strategies The 3 trends that came together to bring community building to the forefront of brand marketing The importance of having an emotional connection with your community The major difference between audience and community How can agencies begin helping brands with community building? Nurturing organic advocacy for your brand Perfecting community building in both online and face-to-face interactions Some pitfalls to avoid when beginning to dabble in community building Can/should agencies create their own communities?

There’s no denying that when the pandemic hit, the workforce changed forever. We experienced some of the most rapid shifts in our economy and lifestyles this century, and we still feel its effects today. Most notably, our work standards morphed along with how we view leadership and hustle culture. The old ways of working longer hours and devoting yourself to a company to climb your way to the top have dissolved. This week, Heather McGowan is joining me to talk about the major shifts we’ve recently experienced and will shed some light on how agency owners can adapt to better fit the new roles employees expect leadership to fill. She’ll talk about “The Five Greats” that led to these intense shifts, and four leadership adaptations agency owners should consider making to support the new-age workforce best. A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev, or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here. What You Will Learn in This Episode: How Heather accidentally became an expert in human work culture “The Five Greats” that collided all at once to shift the workforce How to change the mindset around hustle culture and where it still has its place Four shifts an agency owner needs to make to align themselves with the current workforce Moving from competition to collaboration to motivate your workforce Polling your workers and being open to feedback as you make changes How agencies are successfully building a remote culture What are the new standards of effective leadership today?