Build a Better Agency Podcast

If you're in a creative role at your agency, you're probably familiar with receiving creative briefs that just don't measure up. Instead of getting inspired to do great work, you're left wondering where to start or what the point of the project is. If you've ever created or pitched a brief, on the other hand, you've probably worked from a template or simply checked off the boxes of the bare minimum — it happens to the best of us! This week, I'm interviewing Tim Brunelle, a creative director with decades of experience in marketing and advertising. Over the years, he has seen hundreds of creative briefs that span the whole spectrum between gold and garbage. When our brief falls flat, it won't inspire our creative minds to do great work. In this episode, Tim challenges us to think bigger and better rather than checking off the boxes and reading from a sheet of paper in our briefing meetings. When we think creatively about our creative briefs, we get a wealth of inspiration in return. 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 creative briefs often fall flat for creative teams Why brief-makers should care about the project just as much as the creative team they're hiring The two core functions of creative briefs What the pipeline of the creative briefing process should look like How to mentor and inspire creativity across teams to collaborate on the briefing process Why location is important when discussing your vision Determining when a creative brief is necessary to inspire a team to do ground-breaking work

When you're running an agency, you know you will not have it forever. While your goal could be to sell it eventually, you must consider retirement, career pivots, or plain old ownership fatigue as part of your succession planning strategy. Most of us aren't thinking about what's happening 3, 5, or even 10 years down the road in day-to-day agency operations. But, it's very important to understand how your decisions today could impact the future value of your business. Today's solocast covers everything you need to know about what you should focus on to increase your valuation and why it matters to start thinking about your succession planning strategy right now. 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: Why your agency isn't as valuable as you might think The importance of thinking toward the future when making current agency decisions The recipe to increase your agency's valuation when it's time to sell Why profitability and where it's coming from matters Why you should be making yourself irrelevant as your agency grows How agency culture plays a role in your succession planning strategy Why you should avoid "gorilla clients" that make up too much of your AGI Where else you should invest your money outside of the agency

The guest on this podcast is Juliana Marulanda, an expert in creating systems and processes for agencies. They discuss how to scale agencies, get unstuck from productivity bottlenecks, reduce chaos, and increase profits. Juliana shares her 20+ years of knowledge and helps agency owners free up at least 30 hours per week. Topics include freeing up space for creativity, creating systems for remote work, and the power of processes in agencies.

When running an agency, efficiency is key. While we would probably prefer to focus on any other task, establishing effective systems and processes is imperative to our agency operations. The systems we create and teach our team members will ultimately define our day-to-day, client satisfaction, and employee retention. This week, Marquis Murray of Ditto will share his knowledge on implementing agency operations adjustments into our team culture. Whether it's project management software, a well-organized Excel sheet, or simply improving team communication across the board, Marquis knows exactly how to work with agencies to identify where they have the most room for improvement. When everyone gets on the same page and knows exactly where they belong and what is expected of them, the whole team can focus less on who's doing what and more on what's important to their specific role. It doesn't need to be complicated or high-tech, but it does need to be sustainable, scalable, and repeatable so your team members can do what they do best, effectively. Marquis Murray is the CEO and Founder of Ditto, a systems and processes consultancy for organizations who need help creating clarity around the work done inside their companies. Partnering with companies like Asana, HubSpot, PandaDoc, LogicGate, and Kanbanize allows him to offer some of the best in class solutions for clients. His goal is to eliminate team burnout for good so that teams can focus more on the work they do without the stress of not knowing where or how the work is happening. 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 it's so important to implement and codify SOPs in your agency, especially if your team is growing Identifying where your agency has room for improvement and how to start making changes How to set boundaries around SOPs to get your employees to adopt the same agency operations strategies Why having agency owners and leaders on board with systems adjustments matters The bumps in the road agencies often face when switching up agency operations How to make the changes stick beyond the 45-60 day adjustment window The most broken areas of systems and processes and what you can do to improve on them Everything you need to know about project management tools—which ones are right for your agency, how to get started using them, and how to vet these tools within your team

The talent we hire is often one of our greatest assets as agencies. Building our talent pool and promoting connectedness is integral to agency culture, and we spend a lot of time finding the perfect fit for our team. On one hand, you want a team that can come together, easily collaborate on tasks, and understands one another closely. On the other hand, casting a wider net can find you more people who are good at helping get specific jobs done independently. How do we marry these two ideas together? Noel Andrews of Jobrack has some answers for us. This week, we're talking with him about what he does best—helping agencies hire remote talent who want to be part of a team and can do great work at a lower cost. It's truly a win-win, and we can all have this. In this episode, he will teach us how to build a remote team, how to create a positive agency culture, and what to look for when hiring remote workers. Noel Andrews bought Jobrack in 2018 after 10 years of building and leading large teams in the corporate tech world. Since then, he has helped businesses all over the world hire more than 1,000 remote team members from Eastern Europe. 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 do you make workers physically distant from one another feel like they're part of the team? What do you need to do as an agency owner to hire remote workers successfully? Why you should reconsider doing a standard interview to vet remote talent and instead assess their skills directly How to take the stress out of hiring by leveraging the talent you already have in your agency Changing our thoughts around remote workers as only "task-doers" Why it's essential for agency culture to make remote hires feel like they belong to the team How to manage and build a remote team across multiple time zones How to build agency culture and promote connectedness around remote teams How to set expectations and compensate your remote teams well for their skills

For many of us, agency ownership means that most of our time and energy goes into our work. Even when trying to sleep, we're replaying a frustrating conversation we had earlier that day, doomscrolling, or even dreaming about everything on our to-do lists. When we can't turn off our minds at the end of a long day, we set ourselves up for occupational burnout. As some of you know, I learned the hard way that staying overly connected to our work can have severe consequences. I brought Dr. Gerry Farris on the podcast today to talk about how we can take care of ourselves to feel better daily, stay mentally strong and healthy, and why taking breaks is so important. With many years as a physician and working with patients who have experienced occupational burnout, Dr. Farris is the perfect person to educate us on how to be smarter about living our overly-connected lives. Dr. Gerry Farris has been an Emergency physician for 30 years and a Functional Medicine physician for 10 years. His current practice focuses on healthy living and age management and he is a former triathlete who competed for 31 years. His goal is to help patients and persons be healthy, mitigate disease and aging, and live well for a long time. He is a double Board Certified physician with a wealth of experience and knowledge. He is practicing the "Medicine of Tomorrow, Today!" 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 to know if you're experiencing occupational burnout or heading in that direction How information overload leads to hypervigilance and why it happens The effects that elevated cortisol levels have on our brains and bodies How to build resilience against neuroinflammation and bodily dysregulation What does burnout recovery look like? Why sleep is one of the most essential things for recovery and burnout prevention What 37 minutes a day can do to improve your overall health How to make healthy lifestyle changes that you can stick to

Some of the most significant innovations have been born out of the most challenging hardships, and agency innovations are no different. For the past two years, agency owners have been through the wringer. Some of you have even wondered if it's time to shut your doors and move on to something different. You're all. Just. Exhausted. I often use the analogy that your agency is a ship, and you are the captain. It's your responsibility to make sure that the ship doesn't sink. For the past 24 months, this meant finding shelter and waiting out the storm. But we must rethink that analogy for the new times we're finding ourselves in. With pandemic days easing up, I'm now telling you it's time to head back into open waters. While things haven't completely settled down yet, this is our time to shine. We've spent the past two years adapting, changing the game plan, and moving through a figurative storm of hardship. But that has primed us for greatness and equipped us to move forward into a new renaissance of ideas and agency innovation. It's time to relinquish control, take new risks, and see that these hard times have made you and your agency stronger and ready for brand new ventures. 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: I made a mistake in overemphasizing the importance of finding a safe harbor to get us through the pandemic. We need to rethink this. Where your focus should be turning now to drive your agency innovations Why control and leading with a type-A personality was suitable for the pandemic but might not be as supportive now Why creativity and agency innovation is so important right at this moment How taking risks will push your agency forward into the new era What past tragedies and renaissances can teach us about where we're heading in the future That your only choice as an agency owner right now is to leave safe harbor no matter whether you're ready to close up shop or move forward as an agency The questions you should be asking yourself as an agency owner to be a renaissance leader

As agency owners, we're often dedicated to the niche we've carved out for ourselves and can get very comfortable serving our clients within those parameters. It's easy to become highly committed, and stubbornly so, to that one niche. When it stops working for us the way we want it to, deciding to pivot can be difficult. Today, the CEO of PredictiveROI, Stephen Woessner, came on the podcast to share his experience with this exact situation. His agency had been working in a niche for many years as a podcast shop that helped clients produce content. After some time, it started to become clear to the team that there was a better way they could be approaching business. Thus, a new agency niche was born, which began their great pivot to becoming the authority in teaching clients how to be the authority of their industries. Stephen shares with us what led to the decision to pivot, the decisions he and his team made during the shifting process, and how they re-established their cornerstone content to align with their new niche. If you take nothing else away from this very transparent and open discussion today, you should at least know that you have permission to think differently about how you want to position your agency to potential clients and that it's okay for your agency niche to not be permanent. Sometimes, to build better, you need to pivot. 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 choosing your agency niche doesn't have to be a permanent decision How Stephen Woessner of PredictiveROI knew it was time to pivot to a new niche Why sometimes throwing out the playbook and rebuilding in a different direction is a better move for your agency, even if it doesn't seem that way at first What pushed Stephen and his team to rethink their agency niche and the value they were providing to their clients How to know which types of clients you're already serving the best (this could be your new niche) What is cornerstone content, and why is it so important to establish? The importance of building a community of people wanting to learn from you and others to make more effortless sales You have permission to think differently about your agency and how you want to position it in your industry

We all know the phrase, "what we don't know, can't hurt us." But, it also can't make us any more money. That's why this week, we're kicking things off with another solocast episode where I'll be discussing the two agency growth secrets that are guaranteed to put more money in your pocket and bring clients to you effortlessly. To demonstrate this, I'm using Flying Camel as an example of how a few small tweaks can up-level you from an A– to an A-grade agency. They've already established themselves as an agency that has honed its expertise within a niche, they're sought-after to speak at events all over the world, and are overall doing everything right. But, they knew they could be doing more, and they contacted me to help them figure out how to tackle it. While we didn't need to change much, we still gave them two areas to work on that will almost instantly make their agency even more attractive to potential clients. And on today's episode, I'm going to break down those topics so that you can start up-leveling your agency, too. 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 agency growth secrets that can uplevel your agency, even if you're already doing everything right Two ways that you could easily improve your agency's profitability and bottom line every year The value of understanding the money metrics in your agency, even if you're not a numbers person Why carving out a niche and honing your expertise will establish you as a leader in your industry The reasons you should not be dismissing your own expertise, but rather, magnifying it How to be sought-after specifically for your expertise with very little change to your day-to-day operations Why being a thought leader matters when running an A-tier agency How to carve out time to create content that sets you apart from other agencies

This holiday week, the idea of freedom is at the forefront of many people's minds. It's a topic that touches so many facets of our lives every day. In today's episode, I want to turn my focus to agency owners, and what freedoms we should be taking full advantage of that will ultimately benefit your agency culture. Many of us chose to start our own agencies because it granted us privileges that being an employee did not. And while we may think we're taking full advantage of them, the reality is that we could be offering ourselves so much more. Today, I'll cover seven freedoms that agency owners can (and absolutely should) be taking advantage of. From who you work with and hire, how you spend your work time, to your own role in your agency, and more. You chose to work for yourself, and now is the time to reflect on if you're making it work for you. 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 we should take full advantage of our freedoms as agency owners What specific privileges we have, and how to leverage them to work for you and your agency Why agency owners shouldn't hire employees based solely on their talent Why it's important to share your vision when choosing who you hire How putting up with bad attitudes from employees limits the freedoms we have as agency owners Why we should have more freedom than our employees when it comes to our schedules Why your time should work for your life, and not the other way around What you should be doing when it comes to leveraging your financial freedoms as an agency owner The freedoms agency owners have when it comes to walking away or staying in the business Why agency owners take on the risk of running a business but aren't comfortable taking the rewards