Smart Agency Masterclass With Jason Swenk: Podcast For Digital Marketing Agencies

Are you having a hard time hiring the right talent to build your agency team? Manish Dudhareija first started his journey as an entrepreneur nine years ago when he noticed there was a huge demand for skilled developers trained in the latest technologies and there was a gap in hiring, training that fit his expertise. He created E2M Solutions, a full-service agency that offers website design & development, SEO, copywriting, and content marketing. In this interview, Manish shares how agency owners can address the common struggle of finding and hiring new talent. He also talks about how advertising your culture can help attract the right people, and the creative ways you can make your agency stand out to top talent. Advertising your culture. We’ve talked about how many agency owners need to do more to market themselves to potential clients. Manish adds another layer to this: marketing aimed at attracting the best people to your team. You’re really missing out if you’re not marketing your culture to attract t

Are you using your resources wisely in order to scale content creation? Are you leveraging partnerships that will help you grow your agency? Content creation is following a classic marketing channel trend and continually evolving every year. If your agency is not keeping up with the increased demand, you're missing out. In this episode of the podcast, Jason talks with Laura Smous and Steve Pockross from Verblio about how agencies are helping their clients do more with content, as well as some common mistakes agencies make when it comes to content creation. They'll also share the biggest investments your agency needs to make in 2022 and how your content efforts can work with AI. Laura Smous is the VP of Product Marketing at Verblio and Steve Pockross is the CEO at Verblio, and a three-time guest of the Smart Agency Masterclass. He believes content is still king, especially in a struggling economy. 3 Golden Nuggets Top trends in content creation entering 2022. Keeping up with content demands has become increas

Is it time to sell your digital agency? Considering a merger or acquisition in the near future? John Burns worked in mergers and acquisitions for 15 years when he realized a gap in the market, specifically for agency owners. So 7 years ago, he started Clare Advisors, a company that provides mergers, acquisitions, and financial advisory services to privately-held digital agencies and companies in the marketing, media, and business services industries. In this interview, John discusses what owners should consider preparing to sell their agencies, the common misconceptions of when to sell, and why now is a good time if you're considering selling in the next three to five years. What you need to start preparing. There's a number of factors a buyer would potentially look at in evaluating whether or not they should buy your agency. One of them is profit margin, whether you're consistently making profit and whether your profit is expanding. Also, revenue growth and scalability, since obviously buyers want to buy ag

Are your wondering how to get bigger clients and grow into a multi-million dollar agency? Mary Ann Pruitt has a background working in media and was unsure about starting her own agency. Now at her agency, Mosaic Media, she works hand-in-hand with other agency owners, business owners, marketing departments, and media buyers to provide a multi-pronged strategy supporting clients' marketing goals. On the show, Mary Ann talks about the early days of having a full-service integrated media agency and how things changed once she took the step to niche down. She also shares why agency owners should trust their team and stay in their lane to focus on business development and growth. 3 Golden Nuggets Focusing on what you do best. Like most agencies, Mary Ann’s started being a full-service integrated media agency. It worked for a while, but she says she was constantly banging her head against the wall feeling frustrated. She felt like they could never land a big brand or were not able to make it. That all changed once

Want to build an amazing agency culture and brand? After running his own agency, Historic, for eight years and leading teams of creatives, Ted Vaughn took on the task of co-writing the book on all aspects of building your agency's brand and how leadership shapes its culture. Ted is on the show talking about how you can use culture to help further grow your agency. He covers the six parts of marquee culture established in his book, Culture Built My Brand, the biggest gap he’s noticed in company culture, and how to align your principles and values to attract the right people. 3 Golden Nuggets Shaping culture to grow your agency. If you’re an agency owner looking to create a brand and culture that can help grow your business, remember your leadership, the decisions that you make, the ways in which you operate all become more critical than technical expertise or unique ability. Your role as a leader determines how the culture works or if it becomes toxic. Ted explains one of the biggest gaps he’s seen in company

After working for big agencies for part of her career, Josy Amann decided that starting her own business and getting rid of the commute would align more with her plans to have a family, so she co-founded Media Matters Worldwide. Today, her agency is an experienced, independent media strategy, planning, buying, and analytics partner that has grown beyond the eight-figure mark. In her interview with Jason, she talked about the "scrappy" first years of starting an agency, how she realized they needed layers and strategy to beyond the 3-million mark, and the three pillars to build your pipeline. 3 Golden Nuggets Learning to implement layers. They were a very linear organization for a long time and that worked well for them, but growing their business beyond the 2 million mark required a leadership team, as Josy realized, she calls this “putting layers in place”. Josy and her partner needed to get out of the business to run the business, and their leadership team was pivotal for that. So, when they first started

Would you like to successfully bootstrap your way into a thriving agency? Rich Kahn has been fascinated by the internet since its very beginning in the 90's. He started a newsletter to talk about new internet developments and grew his audience to a point where he got offers to advertise products. He realized with a relatively small investment in hardware and his home internet connection he could make profits of thousands of dollars. From that point, he made sure every little success in his business could lead to further success by testing his ideas small and not going over budget. In his conversation with Jason, they talked about his formula for bootstrapping a business into success, why a bootstrapper should always be willing to learn everything they can about a business, and the importance of differentiating between profit and profit margin. 3 Golden Nuggets Bootstrap from success to success. The internet has been a passion for Rich from day one and led him to start his first business, a newsletter. He qui

Is your agency constantly innovating and evolving in order to stay relevant? Clients needs are constantly changing as technology evolves. Are you keeping up with what clients need? Julia Smith has worked in digital advertising for over 25 years and has made a name being her client's mouthpiece. They even call her "the voice." She took that concept and formed her agency The Digital Voice, a B2B boutique PR agency that brings brands to life through engaging PR campaigns, awareness-driving communications, and immersive virtual experiences. Julia sat down to talk to Jason about how her agency has changed over the years, especially after the pandemic, and how this has ultimately had a positive impact on the agency. She also discusses the transition from being just a PR agency to being an experience agency, and what she wishes she had known when she first started. 3 Golden Nuggets Being a virtual voice. Before she started her own business, Julia worked at a company that didn’t quite know how to label what she did.

Scott Harkey had a rocky start in the agency business, having to keep other jobs while he tried to get his agency, OH Partners, off the ground. It took time, but he built his reputation and now runs a stable of agencies, as he says. Scott talks about how the first years of agency growth are always difficult and why new agency owners should give themselves a long runway to get their business off the ground. He also reflects on the mistakes he made and why he should have focused on strategic growth and talks with optimism about the future of the agency business, where he sees tons of opportunities for independent agencies that are starting out as well as opportunities to rebuild trust with clients, which is at an all-time low. 3 Golden Nuggets Getting your agency off the ground. For Scott, the biggest challenge to getting over the million-dollar mark was gaining the experience he needed to project the confidence that would actually lead him to land jobs. “You almost have to earn confidence in this business,” h

Ben Worthen was a journalist for most of his professional career. During those years, he heard many marketing pitches and grew to dislike the type of marketing that focuses exclusively on selling a product. That's why, when making the transition to creating his own digital agency Message Lab, he focused on combining journalism, data, and design to create content that resonates with people. In this interview, about how he has focused on marketing that creates meaningful interactions. Ben also shares his agency’s growth strategy and why it's important to grow smart rather than growing fast. 3 Golden Nuggets Creating meaningful interactions. Most companies are focused on trying to sell you something all the time and are missing 90% of the chances to create opportunities for meaningful interactions. In this sense, Ben has never really liked the type of marketing that focuses exclusively on selling a product. Instead, when he transitioned from working in journalism to working in the marketing industry, he knew he

Do your clients have trust issues with your agency? How can you go about creating an honest rapport to build trust? Working at a larger agency Bob Bailey started to notice a trust problem. Clients are losing trust in their agencies. This trend has actually increased over time, with clients moving to in-house services. This is the opportunity he and his partners saw when they created their agency Truth Collective. They wondered "wouldn't it be great if a marketing agency could thrive by just telling the truth?" Then they set out to have honest conversations about strategy, creativity, and relationships. In his conversation with Jason, Bob spoke about all-time low trust levels in agencies, how he tries to build trust with potential clients from the first meeting, how he has built leadership teams in his agency, and why agency owners must themselves from being the fixer to empower their teams. 3 Golden Nuggets Honest rapport with clients. Trust in agencies has hit all-time lows, according to Bob. That’s not a p

Dmitriy Pisarev became fascinated with computers and started building his first website at a very young age. He never lost that fascination and eventually got interested in direct response marketing, copywriting, and e-commerce marketing optimization, which is what led to starting his agency Conversion Whisperer. However, with diverse interests and a wide range of skills, Dmitriy has had a hard time choosing a specific niche. In this conversation with Jason they talk about how he changed his perspective on what his agency is, the struggle between niching down or going wide, and how figuring out your 'why 'should always be at the core of everything you do. 3 Golden Nuggets Should you niche? Dmitriy loved to lead his business by looking for new challenges that sound interesting, fun or like a difficult problem. However, he was made aware of a rule in business that you should pick a market, pick a service, and focus on that. “It sounds very easy,” he comments, “but in a way, it’s more difficult”. He can see the

What metrics should you track to create a successful lead generation strategy? Kara Brown had been working on a string of supply chain corporate jobs where she oversaw IPOs and eventually decided to create her own business and focus on lead generation. She believes filling the top of the funnel now will be the first to capture market share in the recovery. With LeadCoverage, she focuses on B2B revenue operations and acquisition strategies for scaling companies. In her conversation with Jason, they spoke about what she has seen working for lead generation, what every company should be measuring to keep a profitable business, and how you can save time on prospects that won't become customers. 3 Golden Nuggets Measure what’s happening in your funnel. Many agencies don't have a really good lead generation source and are leaning on word of mouth to get new clients. You really have to find that source to keep growing. Where do most businesses fail? Kara says most companies she works with fail at truly measuring wh

Do you know how using AI and data-driven algorithms could help you save money on inefficient positioning? Anne Cheng is an entrepreneur that started her business with an idea in mind: what if she could get inside the heads of people and understand what information they required to make decisions? Supercharge Lab is a cognitive artificial intelligence company that uses AI and data to try to understand what goes on inside customers' heads, or rather listen to the voice in their head. In this episode, Anne sat down with Jason to explain how this AI technology works, why business owners should embrace that it is the future and use this innovation to their benefit, and how agency owners could use it to create specific targeting and sales and marketing content that resonates with its audiences and find their sweet spot in the market. 3 Golden Nuggets Getting inside people’s heads. How can we really understand what goes on inside someone’s head? Anne explains that what really gives us away is how we write, instead

Do you know how relationship equity could help you grow your business and establish yourself as a category of one? Michael Stamatinos has always thought of himself as a connector. His love for building bridges and connections led him to the business development, marketing, and sales world. He founded Omorfi, an agency that empowers individuals to take a leadership role in their community and he focused on his passion for the healthcare sector, the role of leadership in communities, and helping people make connections. In this episode, he sat down with Jason to talk about how relationship equity became the core of all his interactions with the people in his life, how agency owners could use this concept to improve their relationships with clients and peers, and how being passionate about your business can really help you establish yourself as a category of one. 3 Golden Nuggets Relationship equity. Michael considers himself to be a connector. He loves creating connections between people and really believes in

Are you looking for the right formula for quick agency growth? When Ellen Jantsch was working as a head of growth in a small tech startup, she felt there was space for an agency focused on testing and executing strategies into long-term sustainable growth. She held on to that idea while she worked as a freelancer and when she started Tuff, a remote growth team for hire. They work with teams in nearly every industry to deliver actionable strategies to attract and keep more engaged customers. Today she joins the podcast to talk about how she found the right formula for quick growth for her agency, her strategic move to grow the agency's most valuable asset, and the moment she started thinking of a more repeatable formula to generate new business. 3 Golden Nuggets Test to find the right formula. When discussing how to find the right formula to grow your business, Ellen recalls that, more than anything, what helped her find the right fit for her agency was finding what didn’t work for them. “Testing and experime

Are you looking to start your transition to the role of agency CEO? David Anderson started living the entrepreneurial dream more than twenty years ago when he started Off Madison Ave, a full-service marketing agency he founded with his partner after getting fired from his agency job. After two decades as a business owner, David has experienced success and failure. Having learned from many successes and the hard knocks of business and life. In his conversation with Jason, he talks about the many challenges and mistakes that helped him learn, why taking a step back from day-to-day operations is a marathon, not a sprint, the importance of building your leadership team and letting them make their own mistakes, and what he has learned after many agency acquisitions. 3 Golden Nuggets Taking a step back is a process. After many years in the business and finally being able to take a step back to being his agency’s CEO, David admits that he made many mistakes along the way. The first time, he recalls, he hired someon

Forbes has called Nancy A. Shenker a “bad girl” because she selectively breaks rules and takes calculated risks to help companies innovate and grow. Nancy had worked as a CMO for big brands like MasterCard and Citibank when she ventured to start her own business, TheONswitch. That was more than 18 years ago and she credits her client side work for providing the insight needed when she first started. Those experiences are what contributed to her still being in the agency world today. In her conversation with Jason, they talked about how staying in business through the years has meant adapting to different challenges. They also touched on some of the lessons learned in more than 18 years of owning her business, and why people shouldn't underestimate experience and the wisdom that can come from it. 3 Golden Nuggets On adapting to changes. Nancy actually credits the hard times of the 2008 recession for preparing her for the pandemic. “When the economy takes a downturn, you're sort of stuck throwing all of this s

Do you know which levers you can pull in order to scale your agency faster? Greg Bond believes his purpose in life is to add value to other people's lives. He is the head of revenue at SharpSpring, a company that aims to help businesses better understand their customers so they can maximize their value proposition. Greg oversees the sales function and works really close with the marketing team. He understands what it is agencies, and end-users, are really trying to do with that platform. Greg discussed the levers agencies need to pull to scale faster, some of the challenges agencies face, and what works for showing ROI and continuing to grow. 3 Golden Nuggets Levers you can pull to scale faster. One of the biggest challenges for agency owners is when they need to hire new employees and must raise their prices to be able to afford that. Will their clients pay that? Well, that depends. Do they know how much value they are delivering to their clients? Sharpspring focuses on ROI and being able to report specific

Do you know the importance of building relationships to help your agency scale faster? Brian Cosgrove was doing well at a big agency but felt it kept him from doing what he really wanted to do, which was starting his own business and bringing innovation to the way the services are provided. Once he founded BrainDo, they started scaling and, within a year, had already grown from two to eight employees. In this conversation with Jason, he talked about the important role that building relationships & collaborative culture played in getting his agency off the ground, why he was always confident that they could run a big program, and what bringing value to his clients really means for him and why it is one of the guiding principles for everyone working at his agency. 3 Golden Nuggets What contributed to their growth. Once he and his partner hired their first employee, figuring out how to get benefits for their staff, how to do payroll, and making everything official with the agency made it a lot easier. They