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

Are you going wrong when it comes to creating proposals and the proposal percentage you give your clients? In this episode of The Smart Agency Master Class, I chat with Ruben Gamez, founder of Bidsketch, about what agencies are doing wrong on their proposals and you can do to win new business. Bidsketch is a web application that helps create professional looking client proposals in minutes. Common Proposal Mistakes Most Agencies Make The #1 mistake is talking about yourself in the proposal. If you’re not talking about the client, the client’s problems, and solutions you can offer, then you’re proposal isn’t doing you any favors. Clients want to know that you understand their problems and that you have actual solutions for them. Those are the kinds of proposals that have the most appeal. You also need to take the time to understand the buying process from the other side. Most companies go out and get a lot of proposals, meaning they talk to several agencies at the same time. It’s not the ideal place for you to

In this session of The Smart Agency Master Class I sit down with Tim Paige who is going to talk with us about how to increase website conversions and double your revenue. Tim is the Conversion Educator at LeadPages, where he has helped them grow their customer base to 16,000, and increase their list by another 10,000 leads. Building your list is one of your most valuable assets. For Tim and LeadPages, list building is what they’ve found to be the most valuable. Think of email addresses as a form of currency. People guard their email address like they guard their wallet. If someone is willing to give you their email address, that is a big deal. But if it’s so valuable, why aren’t agencies building their lists on their website? According to Tim, it has a lot to do with the sheer volume of misguided information out there. Right now, there’s so much talk about social media that people are putting all of their focus there. Seriously, folks - don’t make the same mistake I did. Start building your lists! Don’t lose

In today’s session of The Smart Agency Master Class I chat directly with you. That’s right - no guest! I wanted to talk with you about putting together the right legal documents before you run into a problem. I’ll admit, this is something I should have done much sooner in my own agency. After all, the time to prepare is before there’s an issue. So you’ll get to learn from my mistake and pick up some valuable resources. Now, I am not a lawyer, so this isn’t legal advice. These are tips for finding the right kind of legal documents for your business. Who should you have agreements with? Hopefully you already have some agreements in place. If you don’t start thinking about all of the people you are doing work with and for - clients, partners, contractors, employees, etc. For these relationships you should have nondisclosure agreements, contractor agreements, and employment agreements. Sure, everything may seem all peaches and unicorns in the beginning, but it isn’t guaranteed to stay that way. Don’t be so caught

In this episode of The Smart Agency Master Class, I sit down with Joe Grano who is going to talk to us about who to hire, getting that next level agency, and making the transition from a small, one person agency to bringing on full-time employees. Joe is the president and founder of Next-Mark, a full-service marketing, communications, public relations, and business strategy solutions company based in Sarasota, FL. When to hire full-time employees. Joe once said to me, “I never want to hire employees.” He’s since changed his tune and now has several full-time employees on his team. In fact, he prefers them to contractors. Here are the questions Joe considered when making the full-time leap: Can you really afford to do it? There’s a level of financial stability needed. Are you willing to give anything up to ensure your employees get paid? If you’re not, then you aren’t ready yet. Do you know how to hire? Bringing on just anyone can be a disaster. Other considerations: You need to really think about how you w

Creating Valuable Content for Your Agency In this episode of The Smart Agency Master Class, I talk with Ahava Leibtag, and she is going to explain the six steps for creating valuable content to help you reach your target audience and increase your impact. Ahava is the president and owner of Aha Media Group, a content strategy and content consultancy in Washington, D.C. How can you generate leads for your agency? If you ask Ahava how to create great content, she will tell you step one is understanding your target audience. You need to know their business, understand their pain points, and know what solutions they are seeking. Know this before anything else because you can’t start talking to people without knowing what they want to hear. You also need to spend time where your target audience is spending time. Don’t feel like you need to be on all the social channels. If your target audience isn’t on Twitter, why are you wasting your time and energy on Twitter? Once you’ve located your target audience make sure

Facebook Marketing - How You Can Generate New Business With It In this session of The Smart Agency Master Class, I chat with Kim Walsh-Phillips who is going to share with us how to get new business through Facebook marketing, which is one of the most powerful marketing tools out there. Kim is the CEO of IO Creative Group and is a speaker, author, and a ROI enthusiast. Why your current Facebook engagement is so low. Because Facebook is free, you may have just jumped on all willy-nilly and started posting. According to Kim, that’s not the way to go about it. After all, you wouldn’t do that with a direct mail campaign, would you? No, of course not. You would put a lot of strategic thought into what you were going to say. Kim suggests thinking of each Facebook post the same way. Your posts have the potential to be seen around the world, so each should be part of a strategy for your Facebook marketing. The engagement formula to make Facebook work for your ad agency. Your Facebook marketing posts should be 85% PBS

Are you struggling with generating new business and grow your digital agency? In this episode of The Smart Agency Master Class, I talk with Michael Gass who is going to share with us his steps for driving new agency business. Positioning is the foundation of generating ad agency new business. Historically, agencies have problems when it comes to generating new business. There’s little differentiation; every agency sounds just like the next. It’s like you’re forgetting your marketing minds when it comes to promoting your agency. Think having great creative makes you different from the next guy? Michael doesn’t. “Great creative isn’t a point of differentiation, it’s an expectation.” If you really want to stand apart you need to narrow your focus - find that niche - and give the prospects a reason to want to work with you. Stop being your own worst client and making it harder than it should be! The paradigm shift. Let’s face it - it just isn’t how it used to be. Many agency founders, who were once great at worki

Are you looking into business scaling for your agency but just can't seem to getting the wheels in motion? The Four Pillars of Business Scaling In this session of The Smart Agency Master Class, I talk with Kyle Porter, founder and CEO of SalesLoft, a software that searches through social profiles to help find prospects. Kyle is going to tell us the four things that contributed to the growth of his business, as well as some inbound and outbound marketing strategies and how to build culture. Kyle attributes SalesLoft’s growth to these four areas: Focus on product market fit. The more you can understand your customer’s pain, the better solutions you can offer. Creating an engine for client acquisition via inbound and outbound marketing, as well as a team of closers. Client delightment. It’s about exceeding expectations and taking them beyond just being satisfied. Culture. Kyle says this is the area he focuses on most. By creating these systems, you will have a foundation for success for business scaling. Each

In this session of The Smart Agency Master Class, I chat with Gene Hammett about how to get unstuck so we can each reach that next level. Gene is a business coach who loves working with businesses to find new strategies including marketing strategies to move forward. He is also the host of Leaders in the Trenches, a podcast where he offers insights and tips from leaders and today’s entrepreneurs. You should definitely check it out, especially episode 6, featuring me. Getting your business unstuck. You probably do a lot of marketing for your clients but hardly any for yourself. Sure, referrals come in because you’re great at what you do, but it doesn’t happen frequently enough to help move to the next level. And the clients coming in aren’t always the right kind of clients. Being really intentional about the kind of agency you want to be gives you the freedom to create amazing solutions and land those high-profit projects. You want big names; the ones that really allow you to be creative. But you’re not going

In this session of The Smart Agency Master Class, I chat with Joe Koufman who gives us insights into setting up technology to build leads over time, and tips for winning big pitches for your agency. Joe has been doing business development for digital agencies for over a decade. Most of us rely on referrals from clients to grow our business. In fact, we get excited when someone from an existing client changes jobs because it gives us a new referral opportunity. Now, I’m not knocking referrals but as Joe points out, it’s not sustainable. Use technology. According to Joe, you need to implement best practices and repeatable marketing practices. Utilize CRMs and marketing automation to create content and nurture your leads over time. It’s something that very few agencies do, but it’s an invaluable practice. In addition to using tech to help you create content, it will also help you determine whether a lead is really dead or not. Don’t just assume! You won’t know if you aren’t keeping track of your leads and intera

In this session of The Smart Agency Masterclass, I chat with Don Beehler who tells us about how to get more press, what free tools are available to get agency promotion in the press and some of the biggest mistakes agencies make. "Use PR to gain credibility and level the playing field." ~ Don Beehler It’s all about helping your agency or business tell its story to the audience you want. Unfortunately, a lot of smaller companies just don’t recognize the power of PR and how it can help them gain credibility through agency promotion. Or, if they do understand PR’s power, they’re too busy. With good PR, you don’t need teams of people and tons of money to get yourself noticed. Third parties - like news and influential bloggers - can essentially endorse you as an expert in your niche. After all, they wouldn’t be talking about you if you didn’t know what you were talking about, right? Don’t just sporadically spout on social media. Okay, you don’t exactly know what you’re doing, so you just post here and there about

In this session of The Smart Agency Master Class, I chat with Alex Harris, of Alex Designs,  a company specializing in conversion rate optimization, landing page optimization, and e-commerce web design. Alex talks to us about value propositions and what your agency website is doing wrong right now. I've said it before, and Alex will say it again - it's all about your niche. You need to define your unique role within your own space. You have to understand who your target audience is so that you can gain a clear understanding of their needs. Once you've identified these two things, you will be able to create your unique value proposition and target to your audience. This value proposition will help show the target audience you are a credible authority within your niche. Alex was doing conversion rate optimization before anyone else. This was (and is) his value proposition, and he positioned himself as the leader. He remained number one in the industry for years and did so by clearly defining his goals and under

Inbound Marketing as a Tool for Agency Business In this session of The Smart Agency Masterclass, I chat with Max Traylor, director of client services for Innovative Marketing Resources, an inbound marketing agency. Max tells us how he got started in inbound marketing and explains how it can be an amazingly profitable tool for your business. Max's ah-ha moment. The concept of growing your business by providing valuable information has been around a long time. "I remember my father and grandfather doing it as part of their businesses," Max recalls. Inbound marketing is based on the same concept, just with different technology. Take a look at the money you're spending on marketing. Is it generating business for you? If not, you need to look into inbound marketing. But why would I give it away for free? It does seem counterintuitive. Why would you just give away your knowledge? It really does work; all you need is that first little win. Max remembers his ah-ha moment as being life-changing. [quote]Someone calling

In this session of The Smart Agency Masterclass, I chat with Raj Choudhury, co-founder of Spunlogic — which became one of the largest privately held digital agencies in the Southeast, before it was acquired by Halyard Capital in 2008 to form Engauge. We discuss the journey Raj had in growing his business and his advice for owners out there looking to take their agency to the next level. In the beginning. Raj started out doing what he loved. In their early 20's he and his business partner, Jeff Hilimire, were building basic websites mostly for the tourism industry. Raj traveled the globe, building websites for ski resorts and backpacking groups in exchange for passes. "We didn't really realize what we were doing. We didn't even know what an agency was." According to Raj, "There were no real barriers. We just did something we were passionate about." In fact, it wasn't until they landed a gig for $65,000 that they realized they really had a business on their hands. The realization that they could sell. Like most

Are you ready to make your agency the niche authority in your industry? In his second appearance on my show, Simms discusses the big impact writing a book had on growing his business, in both expected and unexpected ways including giving his agency niche authority. If you have ever wondered how to become a leader in your market and a niche authority, you've got to listen to this episode. Simms Jenkins is the CEO of Brightwave Marketing, which is a full service email marketing agency with big clients like The Weather Channel, Cox, and Lowes. Don't be afraid to be special. Sometimes we find ourselves thinking doing more is better, and doing a lot is great. Simms doesn't want us to be afraid of being specialists. He points out that a lot of agencies are good at the things they're doing, but they aren't actually great at any of them. We decided early on that we were going to be great at what we did. Brightwave's goal was to be the best in email, so they chose to focus on it entirely. It was this singular commitme

How to Transition to From a Small to Big Agency Growth Rich Wilson is the CEO of Big Scary Cranium who recently transitioned from a one man shop to achieve big agency growth transforming into a million dollar agency. (With a bunch of full time employees!) I talk with Rich about some of his biggest challenges, what he's learned, and mistakes he's made along the way. Failure is forensic. If you're an entrepreneur chances are you expect success, and probably put a lot of pressure on yourself to succeed.  And like most entrepreneurs, you're terrified of failing. Rich recommends looking at failure in a different way. "Look at what went well. Look at what went wrong." For Rich, being able to moderate and handle failure is an important skill for entrepreneurs. Expect there to be disappointments. Learn from them and move on. Don't neglect your relationships. Rich works hard at maintaining his relationships, even when he's busy. While he admits that following up isn't always the easiest thing to do, he strives to do i

How to Land Big Name Clients For Your Agency Want to know how out how a Digital Agency (TwentySix2 Marketing) agency went on to land big name clients ranging from Coke, AutoTrader, Microsoft, and Verizon Wireless. TwentySix2 Marketing has been a leader in the online marketing industry for over a decade, providing services in search engine optimization, paid search, social media marketing, and content marketing. This Internet thing is going to be huge. John remembers starting out at a cheap wooden desk, making cold calls and contemplating the enormity of this new thing called the Internet. He and his company have come a long way since then and have been able to land big name clients but he shares some of the biggest challenges he had starting out. He talks about how creating momentum was a problem, "There was a time when I wanted to quit everyday." Thankfully he didn't quit and attributes a lot to the people around him who encouraged him to keep going. He also points out that networking can be a challenge, but

Land Big Clients Want to know how you can land big clients and take your agency to the next level? In this episode I’m happy to welcome Del Ross. He was the Vice President of Sales & Marketing of InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG). Del gives his perspective on the do’s and don’ts to land big clients and tells us the #1 thing an agency needs to do to land the big accounts. We talk in length about what he looked for in picking an agency to work with and how to land a big account like IHG. More specifically, during our chat you’ll find out... As a big brand, what did you look for when choosing an agency? Expertise and specialization in certain type of media or types of engagements. Del says he wanted agencies that could define what they were best at versus agencies that claimed they could do everything. He was never in the market for everything - he needed certain things at certain times. How can you get your foot in the door of a major brand? Pitch the new and disruptive stuff that a brand might be thin

In this episode, I chat with Richard Warner.  Richard is the founder and CEO of What's Up Interactive, a business he started 24 years ago and took from "high tech" fax company to successful digital agency. He is also a nationally syndicated broadcaster, entrepreneur, and business expert. If you want to know how to build long lasting agency business in a competitive industry, this is the advice you need. First who, then what. The "first who, then what" principle from the James Collins book Good to Great, spoke volumes (no pun intended) to Richard. This principle is all about getting the right people on board. Who is going to fit in best with your culture and who is right for the company at the time? Then figure out where they fit within the company. "As we maneuvered, it turned out they weren't the right people. But some people who couldn't find success here, almost always found it somewhere else." He also warns against hiring for growth, a trap many fall into, especially in their early days of business. You n

Whether you are starting an agency or you have an established digital agency, growing your business is usually always a goal. In this article, I share all the tips you need to know to achieve business growth from your agency from an agency owner who grew his agency to one of the best in the country. In this episode we cover: The steps needed to grow and/or sell your business - from hiring the right people to  forming a board of directors to defining a niche in your market. How Jeff Hilimire grew his digital agency to one of the best agencies in the country with top clients such as Chick-fil-a, Coke and CISCO. How he sold the agency twice, and what he recommends for take your agency to the next level. What Jeff considers his biggest mistake and his the secrets to successfully growing a digital agency. And finally, learn about the sale process when Jeff sold both Spunlogic (2008) and Engauge (2013). Setting a clear goal for the business. In Jeff’s case, the end goal was to be acquired and to make sure decisio