The Innovative Agency: Recent Episodes

Sharon Toerek

The Innovative Agency is a podcast that exists to help marketing agency leaders answer the question: “What’s Next?”. How are agencies staying on the cutting edge of marketing trends? How are they adapting their businesses to meet new business challenges in the agency world?Hosted by marketing law and intellectual property lawyer Sharon Toerek, we’ll talk with agencies who are at the cutting edge of innovation and industry experts who have a front row seat to the practice of innovation in today’s marketing, communications and creative agencies. The goal is to help listeners learn to look around the corner to spot their next opportunity. Sharon will share her expertise along the way about how to legally protect your agency’s assets, and how to turn your agency’s innovation into cash.

Intro

Are you tracking and analyzing key metrics to streamline your agency’s operations? We recognize that tracking metrics often proves difficult for agencies, but today’s guest Jody Grunden explains which metrics are easiest to start with. Having helped countless agencies identify weak points in their operations during his decades-long accounting career, Jody is well-positioned to help you start tracking the metrics you need to keep an eye on.

What you will learn in this episode:

Which key metrics are most important to track?
How tracking metrics can improve forecasting for agencies.
The importance of engaging with accounts receivable to ensure that income is flowing in at the expected rate.
How to sure up your pipeline to improve the accuracy of your forecasts.
The benefits of finding a partner who understands how to provide accurate information about the current state of your firm.
What it takes to transition away from operating a cash-starved agency to having cash savings on hand.

Bio

Jody Grunden is an accounting visionary with over 20 years of experience. He has helped pioneer innovative changes within the industry, including the introduction of the first subscription-based billing method employed by an accounting firm. He is the author of two books, Digital Dollars and Cents and Building the Virtual CFO Firm in the Cloud.

Together with his partner Adam Hale, Jody co-founded Summit CPA Group (Summit) in 2002, which merged with Anders CPAs + Advisors (Anders) in 2022.

Summit, now a division of Anders, was the first fully distributed firm and the leading provider of Virtual CFO Services in North America. With this merger, Summit brings to Anders a number of benefits which will help continue Jody’s vision of changing the way people think about accounting, including strengthening the now “hybrid” work environment, building out the advisory side of Anders with a Virtual CFO service model, and implementing weekly subscription billing rather than hourly billing. His specialties include Virtual CFO Services, Creative Agencies, and Remote Team Management.

Resources:

Website: https://www.summitcpa.net/
LinkedIn Personal: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodygrunden/
LinkedIn Business: https://www.linkedin.com/company/anders-cpas-advisors/
Jody's Book: https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Dollars-Cents-Companies-Financial/dp/1973267373

Digital Dollars and Cents: A Virtual CFO’s Playbook to help Digital Companies Create a Financial Roadmap to Success

Intro

Regardless of the size or complexity of your agency, you must embrace your role as a leader to encourage optimal performance from your team. In this episode, Peter Levitan shares his perspective on critical areas where many agency leaders are lacking. Then, he discusses several strategies that leaders can implement to enhance business development and overall profitability.

What you will learn in this episode:

The impact company culture has on attracting and retaining employees.
The value of engaging directly with team members as a mentor.
Why the quality of meetings is far more important than the total number of meetings.
How to routinely gain new business from existing clients.
How to translate thought leadership and authority into authentic connections with clients.
The benefits of productizing your services and IP to produce revenue streams.
Why agency leaders should prioritize business development.

Bio

During 16 years at Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising Worldwide, Peter Levitan ran business development across Europe and the USA, was EVP Management Director in London and New York and was GM of the Minneapolis office.

From 2002 to 2012, Peter owned Citrus Advertising in Portland and Bend Oregon. Clients included Nike and the U.N.

He was CEO and a founder of two major Internet startups during the dotcom boom. Advance Publication’s New Jersey Online was an early leader in online news, and the intelligent bot company ActiveBuddy was sold to Microsoft in 2006.

Resources:

Website: https://peterlevitan.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterlevitan/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PeterLevitan

Intro A crisis scenario can detrimentally affect your bottom line, as well as that of your clients. Many agency owners understand that how you respond to crises is essential, but often less attention is paid to handling the stages leading up to crises. To provide a greater perspective on crisis management, Jon Goldberg, the founder and chief reputation architect of Reputation Architects Inc., offers his distinct insights into how agencies should preemptively prepare their clients for potential moments of crisis. What you will learn in this episode: * Why crises happen to agencies and their clients. * The role agencies play in keeping their clients out of a crisis. * The value of putting all work recommendations through a risk review process. * The importance of developing a preemptive crisis avoidance strategy. * What makes a crisis a legal threat.

Bio Jon Goldberg is the founder and chief reputation architect of Reputation Architects Inc., a strategic communications and reputation risk management advisory firm dedicated to building, protecting, and restoring reputations in a world of evaporated trust and unprecedented stakeholder engagement. Resources: Website:https://www.reputationarchitects.com/ LinkedIn Personal:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonwgoldberg/ LinkedIn Personal:https://www.linkedin.com/company/reputation-architects/ Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/reputationarchitects

Summary

Laurie Mikes, chief operating officer of Second Wind, an advocacy and resource organization for small- and mid-sized agencies, joins the discussion on attracting, retaining and developing talent post-pandemic. Set your agency up for success by honing in on your greatest asset — your people.

Intro

As an agency owner, your people are your greatest asset. But challenges around staffing are keeping many leaders up at night. For this episode of the Innovative Agency, we’re diving into what you can do to attract, retain and develop talent in order to put your business on the right path.

What You Will Learn in This Episode

The silver lining of lean agency teams
How to find balance in salary disparity between new hires and legacy employees
How to structure job growth and advancement
Why transparency is key for agency owners
How to think about remote working options to retain employees
Where agencies are having success finding candidates

Bio

Laurie Mikes has been with Second Wind since 1996 and currently acts as Chief Operating Officer. She oversees the daily operations of the business while keeping one finger on the pulse of the industry. Laurie is deeply involved with member agencies, emailing and speaking with them on a regular basis. Whether it's providing guidance about financial matters, agency growth or operations, her years of experience bring valuable insight and perspective to agencies looking to build a successful sustainable business. When not at work, Laurie can be found enjoying outdoor activities with her two sons, volunteering her time at school and renovating old properties around town with her husband.

Resources

Website: https://www.secondwindonline.com/
LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurie-mikes-9366111/
- https://www.linkedin.com/company/second-wind/
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/secondwindonline

Summary

Manish Dudharejia, founder and CEO of E2M Solutions, joins the discussion to lay the groundwork on what a successful white label partnership looks like, including the importance ethics plays in client relationships. Set yourself up for success in 2023 business-wise and with a white label partner.

Intro

We’ve been focusing a lot on collaboration lately, and in this episode of the Innovative Agency, we’re discussing how to have a successful white label partnership. As we look ahead to 2023, investing in this type of relationship can make all the difference in setting yourself up for success in the New Year and beyond.

What You Will Learn in This Episode

What ethics mean in the marketing world and why it matters
Why focusing on niching can leave room for more lucrative opportunities
Quick tips for agency leaders who want more successful white label partnerships
Why the No. 1 challenge agencies have is a margin problem
What agency owners can do to set themselves up for success in 2023

Bio

Manish Dudharejia is wizard of E2M. He has over 15 years of experience in digital agency space, working closely with lots of different people associated with technology, entrepreneurship, and digital marketing. E2M helps digital agencies solve bandwidth problems with their strategic white label services. They have a team of over 150+ vetted experts in WordPress, Shopify, BigCommerce, SEO, copywriting and more. E2M is currently helping over 150 agencies across the US and other parts of the world grow and scale their agency businesses with piece of mind. Manish is responsible for their overall company operations, sustainable strategic growth, team mentoring and retention, and so much more.

Resources

Website: https://www.e2msolutions.com/
LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/company/e2m-solutions/
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/manishdudharejia/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/E2MSolutions
Twitter: https://twitter.com/e2msolutions
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/e2msolutions/

Summary

Ryan Watson, a partner at Upsourced Accounting, joins the discussion to highlight how financial forecasting before a crisis can actually help you avoid one. Understanding which metrics are important – and which ones are distracting – can help agency owners avoid the overwhelm and achieve forward momentum and progress.

Intro

In this episode of the Innovative Agency, we are looking ahead to 2023. If you’re like most agency owners, you have probably been planning for the new year and thinking a lot about metrics, numbers, money, and how to improve your profitability. As talks about a possible recession heat up, many have been wondering how they can prepare for tomorrow, today.

What You Will Learn in This Episode

How forecasting, strategic planning, and KPI reviews can help you plan for the next 1, 3, or 5 years
Why being financially responsible every day will set you up for success regardless of the economy
The challenges many agency owners face when getting their finances in order
What the “Million-Dollar Moment” is, and how that shifts an agency’s mindset around finances
The “Hierarchy of Needs,” and the questions you should be asking to assess the financial health of your agency
How to overcome overwhelm by focusing on the metrics that are relevant and deciding which ones are distracting

Bio

Ryan Watson is an experienced operations and finance leader for creative agencies and venture-funded startups. By day, he is a partner at Upsourced. Ryan helps scaling creative agencies see the future and drive profits. By night, he runs a tech startup and helps other startup founders avoid some of the mistakes he made in his career.

Previously, Ryan served as COO and CFO of Ahalogy, a venture funded influencer marketing agency, which exited to Quotient Technology, Inc (NYSE: QUOT) in June 2018. Prior to Ahalogy, he cut his teeth at Sqrl - a SaaS product incubated out of Upsourced that automated document collection for service firms. Sqrl received an Entrepreneur of the Year EDGE Award from Ernst & Young and 'Outstanding Emerging Innovation’ honors from the Cincinnati Business Courier.

Resources

Websites:
- https://ryankwatson.com/
- https://upsourcedaccounting.com/
LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryankeithwatson/
- https://www.linkedin.com/company/upsourced-accounting/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/upsourcedaccounting/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Upsourced?s=20&t=x1hKhOkI_oA2Z3Lhsyc_Bg
Recession diagnostic:https://upsourced.typeform.com/to/DhjP6oh8
Recession Guide: https://hubs.ly/Q01rFvjq0

Summary

Logan Lyles joins us to discuss marketing agency profitability — how it is achieved and how it is best maintained and nurtured. His insights will help you ensure that your team isn’t over or underutilized, which will allow you to maximize profit without resulting in churn.

Intro

Agency owners and their employees are notorious for working hard. But, how many are paying close attention to where their working hours are being spent and how those efforts affect overall profitability? Today’s guest, Logan Lyles, provides insight into the methods agencies can use to implement time-tracking strategies that illuminate vulnerabilities and new profit opportunities.

What You Will Learn in This Episode

How to implement a time-tracking strategy that your team doesn’t hate.
The value of viewing your billable hours as “shelf inventory.”
The importance of recognizing how you are billing and what can be done better.
How to eliminate scope creep using time tracking.
How to prepare clients for pricing changes by setting up trigger points in their contracts.

Bio

Logan Lyles is the Head of Partnerships at Teamwork, a project management platform built for scaling client work. Logan previously served in several leadership roles at Sweet Fish, a B2B podcast agency serving mid-market SaaS companies. Taking over sales from the agency founder in 2018, Logan helped triple the business in his first 6 months. He also played a key role in landing the agency on the Inc 5,000 List (twice), while helping the company both 10x headcount & increase ARR by 1,283%. Logan works from his home office (that’s slowly becoming a mini video studio) alongside his labradoodle, Mack, in Castle Rock, CO.

Resources

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/loganlyles

https://www.linkedin.com/company/teamwork-com

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/TeamworkHQ

Twitter:https://twitter.com/teamwork

Intro

The most valuable thing you have within your agency’s inventory is the intellectual property you create. With the right strategy — your team could turn your IP into a standalone revenue stream(s). Agencies are creators — and because of that — agencies are IP generators every single day. In my opinion, agencies often overlook this because their business model tends to focus on monetizing the production — doing the stuff. But — I believe agencies can flip that script because the ideas and the way they get expressed in the strategies you develop for clients, the brands and campaigns you build — or whatever it might be — that’s where the real money could be for the agency.

If you’re looking for new ways to think about profitable revenue streams for your agency in 2023 and beyond — then this is the episode you don’t want to miss.

I break down what I call the “IP Triangle” so you can take and apply all the steps to make going from IP to Income in 2023 possible.

What you will learn in this episode:

Why more than 50 percent of all agencies overlook the value and potential revenue streams their IP could represent
How to use the “IP Triangle” to inventory the intellectual property that you most likely already have inside your agency
How to harness all of the “gold dust” that’s being scattered around every day within the walls of your agency and turn it into a highly profitable revenue stream
How to protect your portfolio of trademarks, taglines, product and system names, etc
How the value of your IP directly impacts the valuation of your agency

Bio

Sharon Toerek is Principal of Toerek Law, where she focuses her law practice on helping professionals in the advertising, marketing, and creative industries monetize their intellectual capital and manage the legal risks of their work. Sharon provides proactive, strategic counsel to marketing agencies on legal issues they continually face in their work, including agency-brand contracts, social media, content marketing legal compliance, and trademark and copyright protection.

Sharon also created the Legal + Creative Agency Protection System, a subscription-based legal toolkit for marketing agencies.

In 2018, Sharon launched The Innovative Agency, a podcast on innovation for marketing agency leaders.

Resources:

Website:https://www.legalandcreative.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharontoerek/
Twitter:https://twitter.com/SharonToerek

Intro

This episode covers a few ways an agency can branch out, capitalizing on techniques they’ve perfected through conducting business, after the point at which they achieve self-sufficiency. David Riggs joins us to discuss how he led a web development and SEO agency to success and wrote his company’s playbooks. He also speaks about how he now monetizes those core concepts to help other agencies reach the point of self-sufficiency, all while growing his own agency.

What you will learn in this episode:

How to document your agency’s processes and operations.
How to invest in newer companies and teach them how to succeed – and how to pick the right ones.
The concept of trading playbooks – not money – for minority shares in a company.
The 80/20 rule: finding the 20% that gets things moving for a new company; the other 80% will come with time.
How problem-solving skills can be valuable for someone trying to break into this business model.

Bio

David Riggs, founder of Pneuma, a full-service web and SEO company, has been running businesses since he was seven years old. Where most kids dip their toes in lemonade sales, David did things a bit differently. He caught the “leadership bug” early on and never quit.

He structured his first “venture debt deal” when he asked his grandmother to loan him ten dollars for ten percent of his earnings. A few years later, while living next to a golf course, David gathered all of the errant balls that landed in his backyard and sold them at a yard sale. He then started flipping sneakers (think Jordans and other in-demand brands) for profit.

David graduated at the height of the pandemic in May 2020 and took a remote job that allowed him to continue working on Pneuma. David says, “I hired a co-founder to help run things while I closed deals on lunch breaks.” Many mornings, he would appear on podcasts before starting his day job. He spent a lot of his time “focusing on how to get the momentum rolling.” Eventually, he switched to Pneuma full-time and was joined by a CMO and CTO

Resources:

Website: https://www.pneumallc.co/
pneumallc.co/get-a-free-assessment
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dwilliamriggs/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/pneumamedia/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/dwilliamriggs

Bio

Simon Severino helps business owners in SaaS and Services run their company more effectively which results in sales that soar. Trusted by Google, Roche, Consilience Ventures, Amgen, and AbbVie, he created the Strategy Sprints™ Method that doubles revenue in 90 days by getting owners out of the weeds. Simon is a TEDx speaker, Contributor to Forbes and Entrepreneur Magazine, and member of the SVBS Silicon Valley Blockchain Society.

Intro

This episode explores why agencies get stuck and what they can do to breathe new life into their operations. Our guest, Simon Severino, offers a unique solution that hinges on paring service offerings down to the bare minimum. His consulting business has proven that once you’ve got your offering down to one service, it will be much easier to scale efficiently and effectively.

What you will learn in this episode:

The benefits of limiting your scope to a single service offering.
How to standardize core processes.
The value of showing clients that your offering actually works.
How to avoid scope creep leaving your team unsatisfied with their work.
A method to find out what the margin is on your current offering.

Resources:

Website:https://www.strategysprints.com/

LinkedIn:

Personal: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonseverino/
Business: https://www.linkedin.com/company/strategysprints/

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/strategysprints/

Twitter:https://twitter.com/strategysprints

Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnSFgJd0CrsEdQdO21txR2A

Podcast:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/strategy-sprints/id1299008831

Book:https://www.amazon.com/Strategy-Sprints-Accelerate-Growth-Business/dp/139860349X

Strategy Sprints: 12 Ways to Accelerate Growth for an Agile Business

Intro

In this episode of the show, we discuss the ways agencies can better serve their clients’ needs through outsourcing and white labeling their production work. And in the process, how they can add revenue streams by monetizing their agency’s intellectual property. Brian Gerstner, president of White Label IQ, tells us how his agency did it, and also discusses its business model and its philosophies when it comes to identifying a niche and capitalizing on it to provide value to a specific group of customers – and how to determine what that group is.

What you will learn in this episode:

How to value your intellectual property as an agency.
How to learn how your agency can provide value to a niche.
Agencies who know what they’re good at – what their wheelhouse is – are the ones who succeed in white labeling.
Success tips for agencies working with white label partners.
Why agency-to-agency collaboration and teamwork are so important in white labeling.

Bio

Brian Gerstner is the President of White Label IQ. He has over two decades of client-facing and agency-to-agency experience creating, directing, and leading teams to develop digital and software solutions to empower sales, communication, and digital operations.

In his role with White Label IQ, he works with over 50 agencies providing white-labeled specialized skill sets for design, development, and paid media services.

Resources:

Website: https://www.whitelabeliq.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/white-label-iq/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WhiteLabelIQ/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/whitelabel_iq?lang=en

Intro

Consumers increasingly want to align with businesses that clearly align their marketing with their corporate purpose. Lyn Wineman, president and chief strategist at KidGlov, specializes in helping agencies define and effectively market via their purpose. She believes that your employees are your number one audience for launching your purpose statement; and once you do, they’ll be the ones to help you live that purpose.

What you will learn in this episode:

How to define your purpose as an agency.
Why businesses across the board are wanting to do something different, and how they live their purpose.
How to use your purpose to stand out and set yourself apart.
Why it’s hard to recover as a business once you’ve lost your customers’ trust.
How purpose-driven marketing allows smaller entrepreneurial companies to compete with larger enterprises.
How to leverage your B Corp certification into a marketing tool to further live your business’ purpose.

Bio

Lyn Wineman is President and Chief Strategist at KidGlov. She is a marketing veteran with over 30 years of experience. She now leads a diverse team of passionate and talented professionals to drive growth through strategic branding and marketing communications.

In addition to founding KidGlov, Lyn has played key leadership roles including: president, Pickering Creative Group; senior vice president, Swanson Russell Associates; and marketing director, Tabitha.

Lyn has extensive brand advancement experience. She has been instrumental in marketing and branding efforts for regional and national organizations such as Immanuel, Lincoln Community Foundation, HopeSpoke, St. Monica’s, Regency Shopping Center, MembersOwn Credit Union, Farmers & Merchants Bank, Union Bank and Bryan Health.

Resources:

Website:https://kidglov.com/

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/company/kidglov/

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/KidGlov

Twitter:https://twitter.com/kidglov

Agency for Change Podcast:https://kidglov.com/podcasts/

Blog:https://kidglov.com/blog/when-should-your-company-speak-out-on-social-issues-3-questions-every-purpose-driven-business-should-ask-itself/

Intro

This episode focuses on the goals that an agency should outline to create a roadmap for their growth. Jon Morris joins the podcast today to discuss his innovative framework around how agencies should look at goal-setting. Having owned agencies, he brings a lot of experience to the discussion, particularly how he was able to grow his agency to two hundred and fifty employees before selling it. His formula highlights four different types of goals for growing an agency’s revenue.

What you will learn in this episode:

How you can triage what’s most important for your company, so you can outline concrete goals.
How to define dollar amounts for each of the four agency goals: revenue, profit, cash, and infrastructure.
What kinds of investments your agency should be making in training & recruiting, to maximize growth.
How to organize your agency’s accounts to create a clear-cut safety net and understand your company’s outlook.
The best way to institutionalize your agency’s goals, so your team can understand them and ultimately help you achieve them.

Bio

Jon Morris is the founder & CEO of Ramsay Innovations and a serial entrepreneur. Prior to Ramsay, he established Rise Interactive in 2004 with prize money from his second-place finish in the University of Chicago's prestigious New venture Challenge. Over the next 16 years, he grew Rise from a one-person shop to one of the largest independent marketing agencies in the world. After selling Rise, Jon pondered his next move and realized that he was most energized when connecting and helping fellow entrepreneurs grow their businesses.

Ramsay Innovations is the product of this inspiration. Like at Rise, Jon developed a proprietary, tech-enabled approach for surfacing hidden financial insights that drive critical business decisions. Ramsay Innovations’ mission is to transform marketing agencies by providing them with world-class, agency-specific financial management and strategic planning at a fraction of the cost.

In his spare time, Jon enjoys spending time with his wife, three daughters, and two dogs. He loves soccer, having played on his alma mater’s team, Kenyon College, and he now coaches his daughter’s two soccer teams.

Resources:

Website:https://ramsayinnovations.com/

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonmorrisramsayinnovations/

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/RamsayInnovations

Twitter:https://twitter.com/JonBMorris

Intro

What could you do to position your agency for higher profitability and greater overall success? Rather than following the age-old trend of attempting to shave pennies off of costs to achieve higher profitability, Alyson Caffrey recommends focusing on optimizing backend operations like fulfillment and delivery instead. In this episode, she expounds on what agencies can do to increase efficacy by improving systems that function behind the scenes.

What you will learn in this episode:

How to identify the symptoms of a struggling agency.
Why you should move away from billable rates to value-based pricing.
How to start charging prospects for discovery, rather than doing it for free.
What agency owners can do to secure the backend of their business.
Why you should establish one “king” metric during the sales process.
The benefits of productizing your intellectual property to increase profitability.

Bio

Alyson Caffrey is the founder of Operations Agency and co-creator of the Operations Simplified™ Framework. She's commonly referred to as ‘The Wolf' among her clients because she just gets stuff done. Alyson is best known for helping streamline the back-end ops for a multitude of brands, but mostly digital and creative agencies.

As a fractional COO for many high-growth businesses, Alyson fell in love with the results that clear ops bring to a service business. She and the team at Operations Agency are determined to help businesses thrive profitably, serve more clients and create high-performing teams. Alyson is a mom to two sons and enjoys spending her time at home with her growing family.

Resources:

Website: https://operationsagency.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alyson-caffrey-26723990/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/operationsagency

Intro

Agencies and clients have done a lot of online training in the past two years. During this time of agencies operating from behind their screens, Joel Erway has been helping agencies deploy webinars for their clients, regularly boosting their revenue to six figures and beyond. In this episode, Joel speaks about his expertise in the space, and why he thinks webinars are so effective in the age of online businesses.

What you will learn in this episode:

How to determine when a webinar is the right fit for your clients.
There are two types of webinars: those for marketing-qualified leads, and those for sales-qualified leads. Learn when to deploy one versus the other.
What questions an agency needs to be asking its clients to figure out which type of webinar is right for them.
How interviews and “infocasts” can be an effective form of webinar, to help your audience stay engaged.
Where webinars are headed over the next 1-2 years, and how you should expect them to evolve.

Bio

Joel is a master at helping Experts break 7-Figures without being expert marketers. People call Joel Erway “The Webinar Guy” but that’s a tiny slice of his expertise.

Joel’s a master at crafting high-converting offers and helping Experts scale their business with High Ticket Courses.

He authored the book, "High Ticket Courses" to help show Experts how to create leveraged offers to scale their business with programs valued at $2,000 or more. Between his own personal sales and his clients, he's helped generate $100+ million over the past few years.

He’s also a long-time podcaster and the host of Sold With Webinars and Experts Unleashed.

Resources:

Website: https://www.joelerway.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelerway/

Intro

This episode is all about email marketing. Our guests, Alex Melone and Andrei Marin of CodeCrew, believe that utilizing email for customer acquisition and retention is an often underlooked opportunity for agencies to grow. They outline the tactics and techniques through which they’ve seen immense success for their clients.

What you will learn in this episode:

How to have a conversation with your client about implementing a plan for email marketing
How to use email for customer acquisition – and more importantly, retention
The importance of developing a testing framework to generate customer data
How to analyze your data to determine how many emails you should be sending – “The sweet spot”
How the pandemic has influenced the way email marketing performs
Where email marketing as a tool for agencies is headed over the next 12-18 months

Bio

Alex Melone & Andrei Marin are 2 of the 3 co-founders at CodeCrew. With over 2 decades of combined experience in email marketing amongst the founding team and a team of 40 email experts, they've seen it all, done it all, and improved countless programs' email marketing ROI.

Resources:

Website: https://codecrew.us/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/codecrewinc/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/codecrew.us/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CodeCrewUS

Intro

As an agency owner, you certainly collect data — but are you leveraging that data to fully empower your agency? Even if your agency has doubled in size recently, if you are not making money, something is missing. In this episode of The Innovative Agency, Marcel Pettipas explains how agency owners can start using their data to gain more insights into their business and get ahead of the curve.

What you will learn in this episode:

How to empower your agency using key data points
The best ways to leverage financial reporting data in an agency
How to share financial data with team members in an effective way
The difference between “revenue” and “agency gross income (AGI)” and why it’s important
How time tracking can be leveraged to collect more information about your business
How to bill customers based on perceived risk and value

Bio

Marcel Pettipas is the CEO & Co-Founder of Parakeeto, a company dedicated to helping agencies measure and improve their profitability by streamlining their operations and reporting systems, a problem he discovered while running his own agency back in his early 20’s.

He’s also the fractional COO at Gold Front, an award-winning creative agency in San Francisco working with brands like Uber, Slack, Keap, and more. As well as the head strategic coach at SaaS Academy by Dan Martell, the #1 coaching program for B2B SaaS businesses in the world.

In his work as a speaker, podcast host, and consultant, specializing in Agency Profitability Optimization, he's helped hundreds of agencies around the world improve profitability and cash flow in their business.

Resources:

Website: www.parakeeto.com
www.parakeeto.com/toolkit
www.marcelpetitpas.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcel-petitpas-20059588/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/agencyprofitability
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Parakeeto

Intro

Today’s episode is more about clients than it is about agency owners. Our guest, Daniel Fernandez, shares his understanding of what clients value and how agency owners can keep them around for longer. His strategy hinges on retaining clients by systematizing a roadmap to their success. In doing so, you give them the opportunity to be active in the process of strengthening your agency-client relationship.

What you will learn in this episode:

How to create a definite pathway that ensures success for your clients.
The value of systematizing your processes, rather than relying on instinct.
How to make clients more enthusiastic to continue working with you.
What you can do to get clients to raise their concerns sooner, rather than later.
How to decrease complaints and increase client retention.
The benefits of increasing the number of times you speak face-to-face with clients.

Bio

Daniel is the founder and CEO of AMZclever.com, a full-service agency that manages and grows brands on Amazon and Walmart since 2015. He has worked with several 7, 8, 9-figure brands; public companies; and product startups on launching and expanding in the Amazon and Walmart platforms, as well as taking many of them internationally. Daniel spent some years living in China; he has spoken at several industry-leading conferences in US, Canada, China, Netherlands, Hong Kong; and is a frequent contributor to different publications in the Amazon and e-commerce space. Currently resides in Florida, where he leads his global team and enjoys the sunny weather.

Resources:

Website: https://www.amzclever.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielfernandezamazon/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AMZcleverAgency
Twitter: https://twitter.com/danielamzclever
Instagram: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amzclever/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYbzTlGWW_XUa1y90THJCPQ

Sometimes, people look at others in their space as competition. But the most successful leaders of business often recognize that collaboration and networking with others can push their business forward faster than if they were to try to tackle everything independently.

In today’s episode of The Innovative Agency podcast, my guest is Rob Kischuk, a builder of more than just software products. His adept skills and leadership qualities have allowed him to build companies, teams, partnerships, and relationships. He started Bellwood Labs because he saw the disconnection between a business’s problems, its objectives, and the software product. He has been recognized in Atlanta’s “Top 40 Under 40” and has helped startups with successful exits. He’s also comfortable with the podcasting world too, as host of a podcast about agency owners and leaders.

What you will learn in this episode:

How a developer and agency leader thinks about building a product and establishing a niche of specialty and competency
Learning the benefits of being willing to network, connect, and talk with other agencies to refer work to one another.
Tips for working in an agile and scrum mindset to build something and anticipate challenges in the process
Product development lifecycle challenges and how they interact with agency ownership

Bio

Rob Kischuk is a builder of more than just software products - he’s a builder of companies and teams, as well as partnerships and relationships. Ever since he learned how to code, Rob’s fascination with transforming ideas into action has enabled him to create great software products that empower people to do the work that matters most to them.

Throughout Rob’s career, he’s always strived to be an invested partner - not an order taker. He started Bellwood Labs because he saw the disconnection between a business’ problems, its objectives, and the software product. From helping startups like Proficient Systems and Air2Web achieve successful exits, to driving digital transformation for enterprise-level companies like Chick-fil-A, Delta Airlines, PGi, and more, Rob’s caring and collaborative approach has been at the center of it all.

In addition to serving on the board of the Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association (AIMA), Rob has been recognized time and time again as a key figure in Atlanta’s vibrant business community. Rob has been named to Atlanta’s Top “40 under 40,” and he has also been a finalist in TIE Atlanta’s “Top Up-and-Coming Entrepreneur.”

Outside of work, you can find Rob slipping into sporting events, exploring Atlanta’s foodie scene, or volunteering at Cumberland Community Church. Rob holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, as well as an MBA from Georgia State University.

Resources:

Website: https://www.bellwood.io/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bellwood-labs/?viewAsMember=true

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BellwoodLabs

Does your agency provide something unique and valuable that only you can offer?

In this episode of the Innovative Agency podcast, we are joined by the founder of BitMoto, Matthew Strunk. Matthew, along with cofounder Devin Peterson, created BitMoto to help car dealerships with digital marketing, a function that many dealerships struggle with, especially when BitMoto first started out in 2015.

What you will learn in this episode:

How Matthew and BitMoto anticipated a niche that was underserved, and how they developed a process to enter into it
The value of leveraging your IP to provide incentives to clients.
The process of creating, evolving, and improving proprietary software as a revenue generator
Advantages of considering worldwide development strategy and the cost-savings that can come with that
How the development of a product can allow your business to generate revenue, and also set you up for success in an exit strategy

Bio

Founder & CEO Matthew Strunk started BitMoto in April 2015 with long-time friend Devin Peterson. Matthew had worked in the automotive space for over a decade, serving as a sales consultant, internet manager, internet director, and sales manager during his career.

It became clear that the majority of car dealerships didn’t truly understand digital marketing beyond the fact that it was something they had to do. They needed a trusted solution to help them gain market share and be more efficient with their ad spend. And so, BitMoto was born.

BitMoto created a software solution to help dealerships create copy and ads for their digital marketing by simply entering their deals and pricing information, and then auto-generating copy for their marketing. Their proprietary software continued to evolve and allowed them to become leaders within the automotive industry niche.

Resources:

Website:https://www.bitmoto.com/
Website: https://www.strunkmedia.com
Website: https://www.autosigma.com
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/company/bitmoto/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/strunkmediagroup
Twitter:https://twitter.com/bitmotomktg
Twitter: https://twitter.com/strunkmedia
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StrunkMediaGroup/

Would a white-label partnership be beneficial to your agency?

In this episode of the Innovative Agency podcast, we are joined by the founder of Conduit Digital Media, Tim Burke. Tim helps successful agencies scale through white-label partnerships. During our conversation, he shares how white-label partnerships can help improve the performance and communication of your agency.

What you will learn in this episode:

The signs that agency owners should look for when deciding if it’s the right time to form white-label relationships
What an agency owner should expect from a white-label partnership
How communication influences the performance of a white-label relationship
Should white-label partners be client-facing for your agency
What should agencies do to receive client data from white-label partners to prep for meetings
Should agencies be transparent with clients about using a white-label partner

Bio

Tim Burke has run media sales organizations in television, cable, and radio. His last position before starting Traffic Builders/Conduit Digital was as the Director of Sales for Comcast in the New York DMA. Tim worked as a national advertising sales consultant for Jim Doyle & Associates during two different tours and started an advertising sales consultancy, Burke Advertising & Marketing.

Tim has consulted with media sales teams and local businesses in over 95 US markets and has industry insight that helps him to maximize the opportunity for his clients.

Conduit Digital Media is built on the experience of over thirty years in media management and the education that comes from working hands-on with literally thousands of businesses. Tim brings a client-first marketing mindset and old-school values like hard work and integrity to this new media company.

Resources:

Website: conduitdigital.us/
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timburkesalesconsulting
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MediaConsultUSA

Should you be using LinkedIn ads to grow your agency?

In this episode of the Innovative Agency podcast, we are joined by the founder of B2Linked, AJ Wilcox. AJ is a LinkedIn ads pro who has managed over $150 million in spend on the platform. During our conversation, he shares his insights on how to create high-converting ad campaigns for your agency.

What you will learn in this episode:

How to determine if investing in LinkedIn advertising is the right platform for your agency
Why LinkedIn is great at developing high-quality client personas
Why people spending less time on LinkedIn vs Facebook is better for marketers
What is the primary challenge with running authentic LinkedIn ads
How to develop more of a connection with your audience as a business account
What expectations should agencies have when starting LinkedIn advertising
When should an agency prioritize organic vs paid strategy on LinkedIn
Why LinkedIn is the easiest network for your content to go viral
What types of content should agencies use in LinkedIn ads and why
What are the biggest mishaps that people make with their LinkedIn ads

Bio

AJ Wilcox is a LinkedIn Ads pro who founded B2Linked.com, a LinkedIn Ads-specific ad agency, in 2014. He's managed over $150M in spend on the platform, they're official LinkedIn partners, he's the host of the LinkedIn Ads Show podcast, and has managed 5 of the world’s top 10 LinkedIn Ads accounts. He's ginger and a triathlete. He lives in Utah, has 4 adorable kids, and his company car is a wicked-fast go-kart.

Resources:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wilcoxaj/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/B2Linked
The LinkedIn Ads Show Podcast: https://b2linked.com/podcast/

Could your agency be doing more to retain clients?

In this episode of the Innovative Agency podcast, we are joined by the founder of DOT & Company, Taylor McMaster. She and her team help digital marketing agencies keep their clients happy—and keep agency owners focused on what they do best—with full-service client account management (CAM) services. During our conversation, she shares her insights on hiring the best account manager for your agency.

What you will learn in this episode:

How to gauge how many account managers your agency needs
Why hiring an account manager is crucial for client retention and agency growth
When is the right time for an agency to hire their first account manager
How to set your account management team to be successful in their roles
What skills an account manager needs to have that are non-negotiable

Bio

Taylor McMaster is the founder of DOT & Company where she and her team help digital marketing agencies keep their clients happy—and keep agency owners focused on what they do best—with full-service client account management (CAM) services.

Taylor leads a team of Client Account Managers at DOT & Company, training the CAMs to work with different agencies. To date, they have helped dozens of digital marketing agencies free up their time to prioritize the money-makers in their businesses, while the DOT & Co. team ensures their client experience is smooth like butter.

She is also the host of The Happy Clients podcast, where she interviews top names in the industry, diving deep into what makes clients happy in the agency world.

Resources:

Website: www.dotandcompany.co
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dotandcompany
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylormcmaster/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CompanyDot

Can artificial intelligence (AI) help your agency grow?

In this episode of the Innovative Agency podcast, we are joined by the founder of Agency Growth Secrets, Josh Harris. Josh helps companies stop wasting money on customer acquisition using artificial intelligence to optimize marketing campaigns. During our conversation, he shares his insights on how to integrate AI into your agency for growth.

What you will learn in this episode:

How integrating artificial intelligence (AI) can help your agency’s growth
What are the common objections to implementing AI and how have they changed in recent years
What is the difference between a trend and a fad, and why it’s important to learn to spot them in your industry
Why efficiency and effectiveness are the most important requirements of technology
How can agencies begin to implement AI into their lead generation and sales processes
What are the two most important categories that agency owners should prioritize for AI

Bio

Josh Harris developed an entrepreneurial spirit at a young age. Growing up in Illinois, he found himself creating businesses to help his neighborhood. He quickly learned that your paycheck doesn’t have to be directly tied to a set number of hours worked. Instead, he discovered that money is tied to your personal productivity. This caused the marketing mogul to face the internet head-on. He wanted to be the man in charge and the web would be his path to opportunity.

Josh created a marketing and website business that saw some success, but not enough. He desired a better life without the money woes he was so familiar with. After struggling to scale his business, and enacting the help of a mentor, he finally honed in on a successful approach to business growth. His marketing and website company grew rapidly, and Josh soon sought other ventures.

In 2014, Josh founded Agency Growth Secrets, an advanced data-targeting company that uses artificial intelligence to optimize marketing campaigns. Through technology and machine learning, AGS allows companies to pinpoint individuals who are ready to purchase. This saves the companies from money wasted on customer acquisition.

Resources:

Website: https://joshuaharris.co/
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/joshuaaharris
Twitter:https://twitter.com/joshharrislife
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/agency-training/
https://aisales.systems/ai-vsl

How does culture impact the growth of your agency?

In this episode of the Innovative Agency podcast, we are joined by the founder of Austin Amplifies, Doug Austin. Doug is a growth consultant who helps agencies of all types and sizes grow and thrive. During our conversation, he shares his insights on the intersection of culture and growth within agencies.

What you will learn in this episode:

How do growth and culture complement each other within agencies
What are the two most important factors in creating a safe work environment
How a growth culture helps to avoid losing your “A-Player” employees
How agency owners can maintain culture and talent development in a hybrid or virtual working world
Why agencies should conduct a third-party audit to help foster growth and culture

Bio

Doug Austin is the founder of Austin Amplifies - a business growth consultancy that helps agencies of all types and sizes grow and thrive. Doug spent a career in the advertising agency world working for some of the country’s best independent shops from NYC to Dallas to Missouri. Today, Doug spends his time coaching agency owners and their teams on how to create a culture of growth and position themselves to win.

Resources:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/doug-austin-b978915/
Book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Permission-Win-Douglas-V-Austin-ebook/dp/B08ZKN9H21/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3BCNKGKC626ER&keywords=permission+to+win&qid=1649711363&sprefix=permission+to+win+%2Caps%2C229&sr=8-2

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Does your agency have recurring revenue?

In this episode of the Innovative Agency podcast, we are joined by the founder and CEO of uGurus, Brent Weaver. Brent is on a mission to help 10,000 digital agency owners achieve freedom in business and life by helping them own their market. During our conversation, he shares his insights on building an agency with recurring revenue streams.

What you will learn in this episode:

Why it’s important for agencies to have recurring revenue
How financing differs from recurring revenue in agencies
How to determine what services are great -- and which ones are not great -- for recurring revenue
Why customer development interviews are crucial for determining your pricing
What should agency owners consider when developing service packages
Why agencies can begin to offer fewer services at higher prices over time

Bio

Brent is on a mission to help 10,000 digital agency owners achieve freedom in business and life by helping them own their market. Brent is the founder and CEO of uGurus, a business training, and education company dedicated to this mission. He also hosts one of the leading podcasts in the business niche—The Digital Agency Show and is the author of Get Rich in the Deep End: Commit to Your Niche, Own Your Market, and Audaciously Scale.

Resources:

Website: ugurus.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ugurusweb
Twitter: https://twitter.com/u_gurus
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ugurus

Are you searching for more ways to keep money in your agency?

In this episode of the Innovative Agency podcast, we are joined again by CPA, Chris Hervochon. Chris provides outsourced accounting and tax preparation for small businesses and individuals. During our conversation, he shares insights on avoiding scope creep and updating your agency’s pricing model.

What you will learn in this episode:

Two ways that agency owners can avoid scope creep
How after-action reviews can help make sense of time and scope of projects
Why a subscription-based pricing model is the best option for agencies
What is the difference between scope creep and margin bleed
How to address pricing changes during our current market

Bio

Chris Hervochon, CPA, CVA is the sole proprietor of his CPA firm. Chris Hervochon provides outsourced accounting and tax preparation for small businesses and individuals.

Before starting his own CPA firm, Chris spent ten years between forensic accounting and corporate accounting and finance. He has been featured in publications such as the AICPA Certificates Wall of Fame, Accounting Today, AMEX Open Forum, LendingTree, the IAMCEO podcast, the Success Defined podcast, CMS Wire, CEO Blog Nation and WINSAVVY for his industry knowledge and accounting expertise.

Resources:

Websites: https://www.betterwaycpa.com/recent-press/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BetterWayCPA/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/betterwaycpa/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ChrisHervochon/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/betterwaycpa/_created/

Are you helping your clients achieve revenue growth?

In this episode of the Innovative Agency podcast, we are joined by the Founder of The Pedowitz Group, Jeff Pedowitz. Since 2007, Jeff and his team have helped over 1,400 companies engage customers, go digital, and grow revenue. During our conversation, he shares his unique model and insights for creating a better customer experience.

What you will learn in this episode:

How the customer journey has changed in recent years
What is the loop model, and how can it be used to engage customers
How does the funnel differ from the loop model, and why the funnel may not account for multiple buying stages
Why marketers should prioritize storytelling and the customer experience
What questions agencies should ask their clients that are often missed
How can agencies conduct valuable customer research for themselves and clients
How buying patterns have changed in the B2B industry, and how it impacts digital marketing
What agency owners should do if they want to reconsider revenue growth

Bio

Jeff Pedowitz grew up working in the restaurant business and learned firsthand the value of good operations. He used to curse at the owners of the Greek diner for making him scrape out ketchup bottles, but it taught him the value of a dollar – and not to waste it. When his parents bought him a Commodore 64, he taught himself how to program and began a life-long love affair with software and technology. Jeff's parents were teachers who later transitioned into sales for World Book/Childcraft. They took him to their trade shows and corporate events, and he listened to Zig Zigler and Dennis Waitley in the car on the family's 8-track cassette.

All those years, growing up in and around businesses instilled a passion for business. Now, every day he gets to live his passion, traveling the world to teach companies how to build better marketing organizations and drive repeatable, predictable, and scalable revenue.

Jeff started The Pedowitz Group in 2007 and has been blessed with an amazing team that he calls family. Together, they have helped over 1,400 companies engage customers, go digital, and grow revenue.

Resources:

Website: pedowitzgroup.com
Revenue Marketing Basics - https://rmu.pedowitzgroup.com/p/revenue-marketing-basics
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jeffpedowitz
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JeffPedowitz

How can you continue to grow your agency after the pandemic?

In this episode of the Innovative Agency podcast, we are joined by Tim Kilroy. He has helped over 100 agencies drive dramatic growth results — like growing 8x in a year, or by 3x in 90 days. During our conversation, Tim discusses the challenges that agency owners are facing today and strategies for growth in all stages.

What you will learn in this episode:

Why growing and starting an agency was easier during the pandemic and how things have recently changed
Why Tim believes that return on ad spend (ROAS) is a ridiculous metric
What are inexperienced marketers and agency owners missing, and what insights do they need to bring to the table
How agency work has transitioned from more technical work to more marketing and strategy work
What are the differences in the growth strategy for emerging agencies vs established agencies
What is the concept of “return of understanding” and why it’s important for emerging agencies to niche down
Why bigger agencies should prioritize learning how to create engaging management structures
Why agency leaders should plan for their own exit, even if they don’t plan on selling

Bio

“I help digital agencies (and digital agency owners) generate more revenue, more profit & more happiness without working a million hours, being ‘sales-y’ or doing anything else gross,” Tim says of his business strategy.

Tim has worked with over 100 agencies to help them solve problems ranging from “How do I get my 1st client?” to “How do we maximize our exit value?” Tim also focuses on driving dramatic growth by collaborating with agency owners and management teams. He has helped his clients do amazing things – like grow 8x in a year, or by 3x in 90 days. In addition, Tim has helped agencies create account management structures, and coached them through various situations, such as a founder moving to another opportunity.

Resources:

Websites: The Kilroy Report Podcast: https://www.thekilroyreport.com/
Consulting Offers: https://timkilroy.com/agency-growth-consulting/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/agencygrowthcoach
Twitter: https://twitter.com/timkilroy
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timkilroy/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/agencygrowthcoach
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/timkilroy_agencygrowth/

Have systems and processes been put on the backburner in your agency?

In this episode of the Innovative Agency podcast, we are joined by entrepreneur and self-proclaimed process nerd, Gray MacKenzie. In only nine years he’s helped more than 2,400 digital agencies build more productive and profitable agency teams. During our conversation, Gray shares the most common operational issues, and how to begin implementing a more efficient project management framework.

What you will learn in this episode:

The most commonly encountered agency operational issues
Why agencies need systems to accurately determine profitability
What internal agency metrics do clients frequently ask for, and why a client would typically ask for agency metrics
How agencies can improve their project management framework
Why it’s more efficient to build your processes within your project management tool
How systems and processes can impact agency ROI and internal retention
Where agencies should begin with selecting and implementing a project management tool

Bio

Gray MacKenzie from ZenPilot is a bona fide process nerd who has gone under the hood with 2400+ digital agencies over the past 9 years in search of the best way to build and lead healthier, more productive, and more profitable agency teams.

Resources:

Website: https://www.zenpilot.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ZenPilotHQ
Twitter: https://twitter.com/sgraymackenzie
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/graymackenzie
How to Choose the Best Project Management Tool for Your Agency

Are you struggling to scale and sell in your agency?

In this episode of the Innovative Agency podcast, we are joined by CEO, Founder, and Author, Daniel Englander. He helps marketing agencies and B2B service companies accelerate their business growth. During our conversation, Daniel discusses the struggles that agencies face in their business development, as well as the most important tactics for building relationships and accelerating growth.

What you will learn in this episode:

Why it’s important to prioritize building trust with connections and targets
The most significant missed opportunity for business development in agencies
How to be more proactive with relationship mapping in your agency
Why reengagement over longer periods of time is crucial for winning clients
How thought leadership interacts with, and aids in, business development and sales
Why outbound marketing is the best option if you have limited time
How writing and publishing a book can help to sell your professional services easier
How to integrate your book to accelerate business growth for your agency

Bio

Dan Englander is the CEO and Founder of Sales Schema, a fractional new business team for marketing agencies and B2B service companies, and he hosts The Digital Agency Growth Podcast. He's the author of Relationship Sales At Scale and Mastering Account.

Resources:

Dan's Book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09XRD71P3
Website: https://workwith.salesschema.com/rsas
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danenglander/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/sales-schema

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Is your agency charging for more than just tangible deliverables?

In this episode of the Innovative Agency podcast, we are joined by Brand Strategist and Business Growth Accelerator, Karley Cunningham. She takes businesses from overcrowded, competitive spaces out into blue ocean territory where they can confidently stand out and thrive as brand leaders in their sector. During our conversation, Karley discusses the challenges that come from selling services and the benefits of collaborating on strategy.

What you will learn in this episode:

Why agencies are hesitant to charge separately for strategy
How being seen solely as a creative can limit your ability to be seen as a strategic thinker
How to help clients see the value in the process instead of just the deliverables
What are the five value points that you explain to clients during the sales process
How to shift your mindset into being brave enough to propose strategy as a stand-alone service
What is the difference between a consultation and a strategy session
Why working in stages or phases is beneficial to both the client and agency
How to transition from work-for-hire to fee-for-strategy in your agency

Bio

Having built three successful businesses, Karley knows what it takes to start, develop and lead a company that delivers results. Her entrepreneurial success story is featured in the awarded book, The Widest Net by Pamela Slim. In addition, she's a sought-after mentor and speaker for national and international business organizations and the host of The Made Possible podcast.

Believing deeply in the practice of givers gain, she is well-known and networked and rarely goes a day without making a referral or connection. As a former pro athlete, Karley is performance-driven. An avid mountain athlete, she is a two-time finisher of the BC Bike Race, a seven-day, 325 km mountain bike stage race, and is always looking out for her next trail running adventure. When not focusing on the business or expanding her network, she can be found somewhere in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest with her wife and dog in their 4x4.

Resources:

Website: www.bigboldbrand.com
Free Brand Audit & Guide: https://www.bigboldbrand.com/surefireaudit/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karleycunningham/

Are you hoping things will change in your agency?

In this episode of the Innovative Agency podcast, guest Blake Mahon is the founder of media and creative powerhouse, Triarc. He helps leaders find dynamic solutions for rapid and sustainable growth. During our conversation, he shares how he developed core systems and client packages that allow his agency to continue on a path of rapid growth.

What you will learn in this episode:

Why it’s important for the core of your systems and processes to be consistent throughout your agency
When you should begin to include team members in new frameworks and systems
How to build packages and products to meet individual client needs
What are the advantages and disadvantages of working in yearly contracts
Where to begin when pivoting and adapting to economic changes
Why it’s becoming more common for agencies to collaborate for the common good of a mutual client

Bio

Rapid and sustainable growth is Blake Mahon’s true passion. Getting dynamic solutions into the hands of leaders is his calling. Empowering a team to do the above provides him with sustained gratification. As the founder of Triarc, a media & creative powerhouse, Blake has the unique privilege to indulge in all of the above. Triarc is a nimble and fast-paced startup that is set to disrupt the traditional agency model.

Resources:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thinktriarc
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/18260874/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/thinktriarc

Have you considered exiting your agency recently?

In this episode of the Innovative Agency podcast, guest Drew McLellan has been in the advertising industry for over 30 years. Today, he advises hundreds of small to mid-sized agencies on how to grow their agency and their profitability. During our conversation, he shares the recent challenges agency owners have faced and how to prepare for a successful succession.

What you will learn in this episode:

What are some of the biggest challenges that agency leaders are currently facing
Why agencies have lost some of their largest clients over the last year
How offering strategy and insights help differentiate agencies from others
How outside buyers are taking advantage of agency owners experiencing fatigue
How to recognize the predictors and traits of internal employees that make good candidates for buying the agency
How agency owners can prepare to exit their agency and make the transition easier
Why agency owners should separate their IP from the agency during an exit

Bio

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 their profitability through agency owner peer groups, consulting, coaching, workshops, and more.

Resources:

Email: drew@agencymanagementinstitute.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drewmclellan/
Facebook:
- https://www.facebook.com/agencymanagementinstitute
- https://www.facebook.com/McLellanMarketing
Twitter: https://twitter.com/drewmclellan/

Are you prepared to take your agency to the next level?

In this episode of the Innovative Agency podcast, guest Jason Swenk discusses scaling your agency from the first stage to 8 figures. Jason is a highly sought-after agency advisor and the host of the Smart Agency Masterclass podcast. During our conversation, he shares his expertise on acting as the true CEO of your agency, productizing solutions, and defining your niche.

What you will learn in this episode:

What is the biggest challenge for entrepreneurs in the first stage of growing an agency
How narrowing your focus gives a greater opportunity to increase prices and efficiency
Why client expectations and value of services should be accounted for in pricing
How replicable processes and expertise are the keys to building an agency to exit
How to transition from an agency owner to acting as a true CEO
Why do many entrepreneurs often experience a sense of depression when transitioning to CEO
How to productize solutions for clients in your agency, and why it’s important to allocate a separate team and resources for your product

Bio

Jason has literally written the book for growing an agency from nothing to two 8 figure agencies. He is an in-demand advisor to agencies, helping them scale by showing them an 8 system framework that worked for growing his agency, working with brands like AT&T, Hitachi, and Lotus Cars, and eventually lead to selling his agency.

Jason currently hosts the Smart Agency Master Class Podcast, the #1 Digital Marketing Agency Owner podcast for sharing the strategies and stories from real agency owners of what is working today in the agency world, and how they got to where they are now.

Resources:

Website: https://jasonswenk.com/
Podcast: http://smartagencymasterclass.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jasonswenk
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jswenk
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonswenk
Medium: https://medium.com/@jswenk/

How can research help generate more revenue for your agency?

In this episode of the Innovative Agency podcast, guest Susan Baier discusses three unique ways to utilize research to increase your ROI. Susan is a Marketing Strategist & Researcher at Audience Audit. During our conversation, she shares her thoughts on the benefits of conducting research for your agency - not just your clients.

What you will learn in this episode:

How agencies can leverage research for revenue generation
What are the benefits of conducting research for agencies rather than clients
How thought leadership impacts the return on investment (ROI) for agencies
What three things thought leaders need to do, and how does research aid these efforts
Why research reduces the amount of outbound selling needed
How to utilize research to identify your niche and attract ideal clients
How to monetize your agency research, and create additional revenue opportunities
Why agencies should collaborate with other agencies with the same audience

Bio

Susan Baier is an Audience and Marketing Strategist and Researcher of Audience Audit (www.audienceaudit.com). Susan is sought after by marketing agencies and their clients for her attitudinal segmentation research supporting thought leadership and marketing.

Resources:

Website: audienceaudit.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWGXg7e0se0MO4L8bKhCfiw
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AudienceAudit
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/audience-audit-inc

When you think of inventory for your firm, what comes to mind? Or maybe more importantly, what doesn’t come to mind?

The truth is that most agencies have a storehouse of intellectual firepower and aren’t taking advantage of the options and opportunities to leverage their intellectual property.

In this solocast episode, Sharon discusses the importance of thinking about and monetizing intellectual property, and how agency owners can use various methods to protect their IP.

What you will learn in this episode:

What options and opportunities do you have to leverage intellectual property
What are four common scenarios that have IP consequences in agencies
What is the gold standard for collecting your intellectual property
How independent agreements and licenses allow you to leverage intellectual property
How agencies monetize IP beyond the scope of client deliverables
What steps can you take to find and protect your IP

Bio

Sharon Toerek is Principal of Toerek Law, where she focuses her law practice on helping professionals in the advertising, marketing, and creative industries monetize their intellectual capital, and manage the legal risks of their work. Sharon provides proactive, strategic counsel to marketing agencies on legal issues they face continually in their work, including agency-brand contracts, social media, content marketing legal compliance, and trademark and copyright protection.

Sharon also created the Legal + Creative Agency Protection System, a subscription-based legal toolkit for marketing agencies.

In 2018, Sharon launched The Innovative Agency, a podcast on innovation for marketing agency leaders.

Resources:

Website: legalandcreative.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharontoerek/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SharonToerek

To our host and founder, Sharon Toerek, reaching over 150 episodes of The Innovative Agency podcast is as much about taking stock of what we’ve learned from our terrific guests as it is about planning for the content we’ll continue to share on the show.

In this quick and first-ever solo episode, Sharon discusses what she has learned over the past three years through her interviews with hundreds of amazing guests. Her biggest takeaway? Innovation impacts all agencies, and just about every agency has a story to prove it.

Sharon also talks about the innovation and stories she’ll continue to explore in future podcast episodes.

What you will learn in this episode:

How innovation can impact every agency’s ability to better its fortunes
Why riches in agencies are not in time or production capacity
How the ability to use innovation to pivot can help you scale or even save your business
What you can expect from the podcast in upcoming episodes

Bio

Sharon Toerek is Principal of Toerek Law, where she focuses her law practice on helping professionals in the advertising, marketing, and creative industries monetize their intellectual capital, and manage the legal risks of their work. Sharon provides proactive, strategic counsel to marketing agencies on legal issues they face continually in their work, including agency-brand contracts, social media, content marketing legal compliance, and trademark and copyright protection.

Sharon also created the Legal + Creative Agency Protection System, a subscription-based legal toolkit for marketing agencies.

In 2018, Sharon launched The Innovative Agency, a podcast on innovation for marketing agency leaders.

Resources:

Website: legalandcreative.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharontoerek/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SharonToerek

Wondering how big agencies like VaynerX keep up the pace while rapidly growing? In this episode of the Innovative Agency podcast, guest Marc Yudkin discusses how to maintain structure and process without slowing down. He is the Chief Operating Officer & General Counsel of VaynerX. During our conversation, Marc shares thoughts on recruitment/retainment challenges, and key skill sets needed to be a successful leader.

What you will learn in this episode:

How to maintain structure and operations while experiencing rapid growth
Why trusting your gut is critical in being a successful agency leader
What the #1 problem is in the agency world right now
How well-known agencies like VaynerX are handling talent recruitment and retainment challenges
What key skillset is needed by managers looking to focus on employee retention
How to help employees of all levels ideate and contribute creatively
What visionary leaders need to do to understand operations
How fear impacts the success of your agency

Bio

Marc Yudkin is currently the Chief Operating Officer & General Counsel of VaynerX, LLC - the parent company of various international digital marketing and advertising businesses including VaynerMedia, The Gallery Media Group, VaynerProductions, and Tracer Labs, LLC. As Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel for all of these businesses, Marc is responsible for all of the Company’s global operations, acquisitions, employee relations issues, and other matters relating to the overall operation of a 900-person global agency. Marc also ensures that services provided adhere to the many regulations and guidelines promulgated by governmental authorities and other self-regulatory bodies.

In January of 2020, Marc received an Icon Award as one of the top 100 US Corporate Counsels. He has been a guest lecturer at New York Law School and Pace University School of Law and previously presented at the Annual Meeting of the New York State Bar Association.

Marc was appointed Chief Operating Officer in 2020 after serving as the Company's General Counsel for the previous eight years. Prior to becoming General Counsel of VaynerX, Marc was at Riker, Danzig, Scherer, Hyland & Perretti, LLP where he was selected by his peers as a New Jersey Super Lawyer for four straight years. His practice focused on representing middle-market companies on a wide scope of advertising, intellectual property, and transactional matters, including; private equity and venture capital financing, mergers and acquisitions, and joint venture arrangements.

He earned his J.D from Emory University School of Law and his B.A. from the State University of New York at Binghamton where he double majored in Philosophy, Politics, and Law and Economics. Marc currently resides in New Jersey and is admitted to practice law in the States of New York, New Jersey, and Georgia.

Resources:

Website: https://vaynerx.com/
LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/marc-yudkin-81400670/
- https://www.linkedin.com/company/vaynermedia/people/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VaynerMedia/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/vaynermedia

Are you worried about building a legacy for your family with your marketing agency? If so, working with your adult children may be the answer! In this episode of the Innovative Agency podcast, guest Sophie Gibson shares that she’s breathing easier since her children have joined her agency. She is the founder, CEO, and force behind VIVO. During our conversation, Sophie covers the benefits and struggles of working with your children, and if your kids really need the same structure as other employees.

What you will learn in this episode:

How Sophie started her agency when she had a 5-week old newborn
How has the integration of personal and professional lives changed in recent years
Why does the time and place we are living impact the way we experience situations
What has recently caused us to become more culturally conscious
How Sophie has seen budgets change for culturally diverse marketing campaigns
What challenges and benefits stem from having adult children in your business
Why do adult children need the same processes and systems as other employees

Bio

Pioneer in the Digital World and respected expert in digital communications. Sophie Gibson is the Founder and President of VIVO360, Inc. and the driving force behind the Digital Creative Agency she formed 20 years ago. Today, VIVO360 continues to deliver exceptional digital, marketing and technology solutions to some of the World’s most influential brands, including; Voya Financial, Delta Air Lines, Turner Broadcasting, The City of Atlanta, and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

The Agency attracts and inspires like-minded professionals, who are knowledgeable and innovative achievers and make VIVO360 a force to reckon with in the world of digital communications. Sophie and her team focus on understanding their clients’ businesses and the user experience of clients’ customers, resulting in more web traffic, more leads, more business, more revenue, and greater overall positive global impact for our clients.

Sophie’s passion professionally is meeting and learning from extraordinary leaders around the world and sharing innovative ideas on the disruptive forces reshaping the global economy and helping her clients to adapt to changing conditions that create long-term value for the companies and organizations they lead.

Sophie is also the founder, host and moderator of Reach Your Higher Self, a truly interactive organization aimed at exploring and inspiring conversations about a myriad of spiritual teachings and principles. In addition, she spearheads Show You Care; a non-profit organization dedicated to educating and building awareness about sexual, verbal, and emotional abuse.

Resources:

Website: www.vivotheagency.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sophiegibson
Facebook: facebook.com/vivotheagency
Twitter: twitter.com/vivotheagency
Email: Sophie.Gibson@vivo360inc.com
Phone: 404-784-4688

Delivering an effective creative product can be a moving target, especially considering how quickly things change in the fast-paced world of marketing and advertising.

After a lot of talk about strategy and metrics on this podcast, we’re circling back to the bread and butter of the industry—the creative product.

I talk with Ryan Gray, Partner and Co-Founder at Beckert, about how the creative product has evolved, the trends of the current moment, and how to improve campaign development for the future.

We discuss:

How micro creatives address common client complaints
Tips for advising clients on the right mix of channels
The right way to set client expectations
The Apple update and other trends in ad buying and creative development

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

Over the last few years, podcast listenership has exploded. As a result, many companies are adopting this medium to boost their content marketing efforts.

But with more people entering the podcast game, it’s becoming harder and harder to gain traction.

So, how do you develop a podcast that resonates from the start and rises above the noise?

Harry Morton , CEO of Lower Street Media , joins the show to share tips and tricks for crafting a compelling podcast format and strategies for standing out in a crowded marketplace.

We discuss:

How the podcasting world has changed over the last few years
How to create a podcast that resonates and measure its success
Strategies for monetizing your podcast
Predictions for the future

Mentioned during the podcast:

PodcastingwithHarry.com

-Tweet at Harry: @podcastharry

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or on our website .

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

Creativity should be more than an afterthought for an agency looking to produce differentiated ideas. And yet, many just don’t make the time for it.

Agencies will struggle with time constraints or thinking from a place of scarcity. The way to be better? Break the bad habits.

In this episode, I speak with Cami Travis-Groves, Transformational Coach, National Speaker, Good Juju Spreader at Coach Cami, about how agencies can help creativity flourish and how the brain will fight change every step of the way.

We discuss:

Where agencies struggle in their pursuit of creativity & how to get started
Removing obstacles to let creativity grow
Reaching out to your team to see what inspires them & helping them on their journey

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

Having the hard conversation between agency and client around what they collectively want success to look like isn’t the simplest task — and it’s exactly why the conversation isn’t had more often.

Sometimes what the client wants just isn’t realistic.

In this episode, I speak with Gogi Gupta, Founder at Gupta Media, about these hard conversations and why avoidance is setting unrealistic expectations on both sides.

We discuss:

Why siloing causes disconnect between agency & client
Why hard conversations aren’t occurring
Guiding the client journey w/ education
Advice for agencies looking to start these hard conversations

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

Every once in a while, you need to take up a broom and sweep out the corners.

All those assets you’ve been creating that you thought were customer-specific or agency-specific? You can turn those into products to help others solve the same problems.

In this episode, I speak with John Readman, Founder and CEO at Modo25, Founder and Product Owner at Ask BOSCO, a SaaS product he created to actually avoid having a massive agency and to have a reliable revenue stream instead.

We discuss:

Creating recurring revenue and sharing expertise
Tapping into your team’s creative product ideas
How productizing your skills raises the value of your agency
Why the ideal software is just like Mailchimp
Overcoming your fears about software developers

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

We're at the cusp of working with some of the most amazing innovations that humanity has ever seen.

If you haven’t yet entered the dynamic conversation about the intersection between humans and technology, you are missing opportunities to innovate.

Donna Loughlin, PR & Corporate Communications at LMGPR and host of Before It Happened, joins the show to trace the human thread that runs through the stories that we agencies tell for our brands and clients.

Join us as we discuss:

Working with emerging market innovators and futurists
Differentiating the human story in technological advancements
Asking what you do and how you do it better
Why the human touch will define the next generation of messaging in tech

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

New business gets a lot of attention. In most agencies, the champagne starts flowing when you close a new deal.

But in the process of focusing your resources on new clients, are you overlooking big opportunities for growth that are right in your backyard?

Stacey Singer, Client Retention and Growth Specialist at Stacey Singer Consulting, joins the show to discuss organic growth, an easier and more profitable way to expand your revenue.

We discuss:

What’s standing in the way of organic growth
Creating a culture that prioritizes the client experience
The top things agencies do that clients hate
Building an internal growth plan for each existing client

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

Could your next client be another agency?

In this episode, Tyler Horsley, Founder and CEO at Nuclear Networking, joins the show to break down the topic of partnerships and strategic alliances with other marketing service providers. Plus, he shares his perspective on the dynamic M&A market within the agency world.

We discuss:

The pros and cons of onboarding services vs outsourcing
How to manage the relationship with strategic partners
Navigating the handoff process to a strategic partner
What’s going on with mergers and acquisitions in the agency world

Email Tyler if you’re looking for an SEO or digital advertising partner.

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

What does your client want?

It’s the question at the crux of what marketing and advertising is all about.

In past episodes, we’ve answered that question from the perspective of marketing agencies and their advisors, but in this episode, we’re going to hear the perspective of an actual client.

RJon Robins, CEO & Founder at How to Manage a Small Law Firm, joins me to share insights into the client-marketing agency relationship and what he thinks agencies should do to gain more business and retain more clients.

We discuss:

How the initial client-marketer discussion can go wrong
Why marketing agencies need to have a fully developed business plan
Why leading with fear will torpedo your agency
How to communicate with clients

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

Successful marketing hinges on the principle of asking enough questions and asking the right questions.

Think about it.

We can all remember marketing campaigns that went sideways because the wrong questions were asked, and as a result, not enough relevant information was available to get it right

Matt Seltzer, Market Researcher and Founder of S2 Research, is an expert at asking the right questions, and in this episode, he offers his insights on the topic.

We discuss:

The importance of research in marketing
How to move past roadblocks
How agencies and clients evaluate ROI
How agencies can level up their research game

Resources mentioned during the podcast:

The Creative Catalyst: How to Create Better Marketing By Asking (And Answering) Better Marketing Questions
Reach out to Matt at Matt@s2research.com

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

Do you remember when running an agency was fun?

The emergence of digital tools has led to a focus on measurement and metrics, but it has come at the expense of process innovation and creativity—and that, ultimately, has led to a lot of uninspired work.

It’s time to rediscover the fun of the creative process.

Paul Charney, Founder and CEO at Funworks, joins the show to talk about using fun to help you achieve your agency’s goals—both creative and financial—and spark new ways of achieving business results for your clients.

We discuss:

How the dawn of digital stripped the fun out of the advertising process
How improv comedy fundamentals can shake up the creative process
Why focusing on the voice of the customer means you no longer have to guess what’s inside your client’s head
How to bring joy back into the creative process

Reach out to Paul: paul@howfunworks.com

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

All executives have an online presence, and that presence matters.

It matters to the individual, but it also matters with respect to the reputation of the business—because in a digital world, every individual who works for a company represents that brand.

Bant Breen, Founder & Chairman at Qnary, explains how agencies can empower their clients to embrace reputation management as an important pillar of overall brand strategy.

We also discuss:

Why reputation management is often not given a seat at the table
How agencies should advise their clients on executive reputation management
When to focus on reputation management vs brand management
The evolution of LinkedIn as a reputation management tool

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

Content marketing has been around since the original Michelin Guide was created by a tire company over a century ago to get more people to drive to restaurants.

The concept behind content marketing has not changed. What has changed is it has gotten harder and harder to do it well and to break through the noise.

Brad Smith, Founder & CEO of Codeless Interactive and CEO at Wordable, joins the show to explain what’s going on in the world of content marketing and what your marketing agency needs to know to do it well.

We discuss:

The larger content marketing trends taking place
The stair step approach to content marketing
How to decide on the right mix of content
The best way to use content platforms
How to prepare clients for 2022 and beyond

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

Content is king. Accordingly, more and more brands are collaborating with micro influencers to create the sheer amount of content that is needed to gain traction today.

But working with micro influencers can be complicated. In order to keep the machine in motion, an agency needs to wear many hats and stay in touch with many individuals.

In this episode, David Morneau , Managing Partner and Co-Founder at inBeat Agency , digs into the details—the what, the why, and the how—of micro influencer marketing.

We discuss:

The different categories of influencers
The content creation process
Managing disputes over content ownership
Safeguarding campaigns against negative associations

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

Programmatic advertising: Every agency has heard of it. You might have even included it in a recommendation set for clients. However, not many agencies are fluent in it.

In this episode, we take some of the mystery out of this high-tech digital marketing solution.

Our guide, Lacie Edgeman, Partner at PrograMetrix, explains what programmatic advertising is and why the need to be in the digital space has never been greater.

We discuss:

Misconceptions agencies have about programmatic advertising
Tips for how agencies should discuss it with clients
What you need in your Ad Tech stack
Picking a good partner for programmatic solutions

Resources mentioned during the podcast:

eBook: Programmatic Agency Partnership Overview

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

When two people are typing in the same keyword, how do you identify which one is statistically more likely to become a paying customer for your clients?

That’s the big question Jordan Bell, Founder and Chief Strategist at Agency Bell , wanted to answer.

The answer lies in teaching the system to find things—behavioral cues within months of online behavior data—that we can’t see. That’s where artificial intelligence and machine learning come in.

Far from something to be feared, they represent the future of marketing services.

In this episode, we discuss:

Embracing technology, data pipelines, and automation in legal marketing
Managing the privacy implications of data within the system
Best practices for agencies looking to leverage AI

Resources we mentioned during the podcast:

MAICON - Marketing Artificial Intelligence Conference
Contact Jordan at jordan@agencybell.com

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

There’s a channel at the intersection of OOH, broadcast media, digital media, and mobile media, where you can garner the undivided attention of millions of Americans.

It involves a unique moment in a consumer’s routine — a moment of consumer pause where brands can have a one-on-one conversation — and the messaging delivered at this moment has the potential to drive measurable results and create lasting brand impressions.

Any idea what it is?

Sean McCaffrey , CEO at GSTV, joins the show to talk about this unique media channel, a data-driven, national video network that reaches more than 1 in 3 American adults monthly when they fuel up their vehicles at the pump.

We discuss:

How GSTV determines segmentation
Using attention as a metric
Partnering with agencies
The effect of the pandemic on consumer driving patterns

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

Many agencies choose a vertical and use that to define who they are, what they believe in, and how they are positioned in the marketplace.

But what if you chose to define your agency based on your core philosophy? How would that affect your services, your positioning, and your recruiting practices?

Sue Kruskopf, CEO at KC Truth, joins me to share how her agency has taken the core belief of truth and incorporated it into every aspect of the business.

We discuss:

Positioning based on a belief system
Translating a core belief into systems and processes
How a core philosophy can influence the physical space and recruitment

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

There’s a lot of fear surrounding data regulations right now. No marketing agency wants to get caught holding the bag when new regulations come down the pike. There’s also questions around who should be responsible for compliance — the agency or the client?

An agency that can navigate these complex waters — in a way that generates deep customer insights for both themselves and their clients — will have an immense strategic advantage over the competition.

Phil Case, President & Chief Client Officer at Max Connect Marketing, shares why investing in first-party data is the key to gaining that advantage.

We discuss:

Creating a product that helps clients understand data and data privacy laws
Why it’s important to invest in gathering first-party data today
Moving from targeting individual users to categories of users

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

As far as marketing segments go, college students skew towards being more environmentally and socially conscious. As a group, they also tend to respond to authentic messaging.

But don’t let that lead you to think that they are one broad homogenous category. College students, on the contrary, are a diverse and dynamic group, and for your marketing to be successful, segmentation is key.

In this episode, I talk with Steve Schubert, Co-Founder & Partner at Newbridge Marketing Group, about how to create resonant messaging for college-aged students.

We discuss:

How to segment such a diverse group of people
The power of a peer-to-peer model
Misconceptions around the college student audience

Mentioned during the podcast:

Door of Clubs
Campus Collaborative
Campus Causes
Reach out to Steve: Steve@NewbridgeMG.com

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

The RFP process — it’s a process many agency owners love to hate.

What if I told you there was a more efficient way to win new business?

In this episode, Christian Banach, Principal at Christian Banach LLC, tells me about a more proactive, outbound approach to business development that helps you use agency resources more effectively and land clients that are a better fit.

We discuss:

The shortcomings of the RFP process
Getting more systematic about business development
How thought leadership plays into it
Overcoming the mental block of proactive outreach

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

Online is the new brick and mortar — and competition is fierce. Even one extra second trying to find a button online will cause a client to shop somewhere else.

In this episode, I speak with Darwin Liu, CEO at X Agency, about the biggest changes he’s seen while helping brands that sell to ecommerce buyers.

We discuss:

Competition, diversification, and setting expectations
The importance of shaving clicks off the checkout experience
How online shopping has changed brick and mortar
The rise of social shopping and online marketplaces

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

When it comes to creating impactful marketing that moves the needle, an effective ad is more valuable than a beautiful one. In the end, results are what matter to clients.

In this episode, I speak with Wayne Mullins, Founder at the aptly-named Ugly Mug Marketing, about why he embraces this results-oriented philosophy and how he institutionalized it within his agency.

We discuss:

Focusing on the metrics that actually mean something
How this philosophy manifests in the day-to-day of the agency
Foster a culture of peer-to-peer accountability

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

Most agencies are occupied with the day-to-day responsibilities of client services — producing deliverables, meeting deadlines, and just keeping the ship afloat. But too often, that preoccupation comes at the expense of making time for incubating truly innovative ideas.

In this episode, I speak with Kate Jeffers, Partner & President at Venables Bell and Partners, about how her agency built a culture around innovation and how your agency can too.

We discuss:

Talking about innovation with clients
Risk assessments on innovative ideas
Building a culture that supports innovation
How COVID sparked an appetite for innovation

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

There are many misconceptions about website accessibility under the ADA. In many cases, agencies are confused about which actions are legally required and which are simply guidelines. To complicate matters, there is no federal standard, which leaves a lot of room for interpretation in the eyes of the law.

Fortunately, there are resources and expert partners that can provide guidance on ADA accessibility for websites.

To do a deep dive on the topic, I invited three experts:

Jenna Reardon - Co-Founder of ilumino
FM Byers - CMO of SM Digital
Erica Canas - Senior Attorney at Legal + Creative | Toerek Law

We discuss:

How client expectations have changed around accessibility
What the actual legal requirements are for accessibility
Educational resources and technical tools available
How agencies should approach the accessibility conversation with clients

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

The world is very different than it was 18 months ago. That means that our clients are thinking, feeling, and making decisions differently too. So what has changed?

To get the scoop, I welcome back Susan Baier, CEO of Audience Audit Inc., to talk about how we can better understand our clients through research into why they do things, rather than what they do or which demographic groups they belong to.

We discuss:

The importance of knowing the why behind what clients do
Gaining insight from research, whether or not your assumptions are correct
3 things agencies should consider around research

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

Real world products pop up in movies and TV shows all the time. But have you ever wondered what occurs behind the scenes to make those deals happen and to ensure that both the brand and the production are happy with the final product?

Stacy Jones, CEO and Founder at Hollywood Branded, talks with me about the world of product placement and influencer campaigns.

In this episode, we discuss:

How product placement deals work
The industry knowledge transfer required to scale a marketing agency
How COVID amplified the impact of product placement
New trends in influencer campaigns and partnerships

Listen to Stacy’s podcast Marketing Mistakes (+ How to Avoid Them).

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

Branding — it’s a much-discussed and often misunderstood topic within the marketing world. There are many clients out there who don’t invest in it because they don’t believe it provides ROI. But the truth is, given time, it can deliver tremendous impact to the bottom line.

Todd Irwin, Chief Creative Officer and Founder at brand x, chats with me about the power of branding and how it builds trust.

We discuss:

How B2B companies perceive the brands of the people that sell to them
How branding agencies can work more effectively with other agencies
Why brand should start internally
What to do when rebrands go wrong

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

In the last 10 years, there has been a 5,000% increase in the amount of data that exists.

This data explosion presents a challenge for brands and agencies alike — if you don’t understand what to prioritize, you could be spending a lot of time and money using data incorrectly.

Our latest guest, Brandon Starkoff, CEO at Transparent, has the experience and insights to help you avoid such costly mistakes. He joins the show to explain today’s shifting data landscape and how you can make the most of it.

In this episode, we discuss:

Why focusing on your core business will ensure you prioritize the right data
Why brand is important, but secondary to customers
The future of first-party data

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

Some think that being everything to everybody drives success for a marketing agency. But the truth is that there are far more advantages to finding a niche and growing your expertise.

Alex Membrillo, CEO of Cardinal Digital Marketing, joins me to share why you should niche down and how to go about doing it.

Topics covered:

Choosing to focus on the healthcare industry
Creating opportunities for authority building and thought leadership
Developing a proprietary data analytics tool

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

Out of every crisis comes opportunity.

When live sports came to a halt in March of last year, sports marketing agencies had to scramble to find new opportunities to bring value to their clients all while supporting a heavily impacted industry.

In today’s episode, Michael Neuman — Founder, EVP, & Managing Partner of Scout Sports and Entertainment — talks with me about driving innovation in chaotic times.

Topics we cover:

Tracking lost client value and understanding changing fan behavior
Pivoting to new opportunities
The challenges of an agency leader in a vulnerable industry
Changes that will remain moving forward

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

When COVID hit, experiential marketing agencies specializing in in-person events were forced to adjust.

In this episode, Rick Kiley and Jeff Boedges, Partner and Managing Partner, respectively, at SoHo Experiential, share how they were able to leverage the networks they had in place to pivot their business.

What we talked about:

How COVID accelerated changes to their business
Educating clients on delivering high-quality, virtual experiences
Finding a new revenue stream with marketing sports book gambling

-Opportunities in cannabis marketing

To learn more about the topics discussed in this episode, email Rick (rick@sohoexp.com) or Jeff (jeff@sohoexp.com) or listen to their podcast, The Green Repeal.

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

A lot has changed in content marketing over the last year. So much, in fact, that it brought the man who wrote the book on content marketing out of retirement to update his seminal work.

On today’s episode, Joe Pulizzi, Founder of The Tilt and author of Content Inc, joins me to talk about what content marketing looks like today.

Topics we covered:

Why it was time to update his book
Asking hard questions before diving into content marketing
Focusing on one main content type on one channel
The genesis of The Tilt

Pre-order Content Inc at content-inc.com and sign up for The Tilt at TheTilt.com.

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

There’s no denying we’re in a video content boom — even shorter-form videos can have outsized impact. And when you add the brand equity, audience reach, and production expertise of an influencer, your video content can attain even greater levels of success.

In this episode, Gabe Gordon, Co-Founder at Reach Agency, speaks with me about the ins and outs of video-driven influencer campaigns.

What we talked about:

Starting out in a niche, then expanding out to other corners of the market
Trends in video consumption
Tips for collaborating with influencers

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

Inbound referrals can only provide a limited amount of a marketing agency’s new business. At some point, you need to diversify your lead generation.

Today’s guest, James Harper, Founder of Agency Flare, tells me that we’re at a tipping point where marketing agencies need to adopt a blended approach to lead generation — using both inbound marketing strategies and a cold sales approach.

Topics we talk about:

The role of the agency owner in the sales process
Using a blended approach of inbound and outbound tactics
Adopting a “serve” rather than “sell” mentality
The value of niching up

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

Recently, I was invited on The Climb hosted by Jon Tsourakis, President and Chief Revenue Officer at Oyova, to talk about the legal counsel I provide to agencies.

In this crossover episode, the tables are turned.

Jon joins me to talk about how an agency leader approaches legal issues and to share his advice for other agency owners.

We cover topics like:

Negotiating contracts with clients, other agencies, and freelancers
Properly valuing and charging for your expertise
Asking clients the hard questions upfront

Other resources mentioned during the podcast:

Digital Mastermind Group Annual Event
Want to join the Digital Mastermind Group? Email Jon at Jon@digitalmastermind.com

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for #FlipMyFunnel in your

For small and mid-sized agencies, client work comes first — but often at the expense of new business development. So how do you go about refocusing efforts on your agency’s growth engine?

Lee McKnight, Vice President at RSW/US, has some ideas for you. He joined me to talk about the opportunities and challenges facing agencies today and how to recalibrate the way you approach new business.

What we talked about:

The state of new business for small and midsize agencies
Why you shouldn’t wait to go after new business
Taking a step back to instill an agency-wide culture around new business

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

Working with startups isn’t for everyone. In fact, many agencies avoid them completely. But for an agency with the right skills and fortitude, the experience can be incredibly fulfilling.

In this episode, I interviewed Melissa Wallace and Laura Maiurano, the co-founders and chief executives of fivefoottwo marketing. We talked about how to be effective when working with entrepreneurs and startups.

What we discussed:

Misconceptions agency owners have about working with startups
How to build effective agency-to-agency collaboration
Constructing a fair compensation package with a startup
Why a small, independent agency can be a perfect match for a startup

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for #FlipMyFunnel in your favorite podcast player

If you want to build brand demand over time and stop having to rely on advertising to get clients, you need to get serious about building your personal brand on LinkedIn.

You will need to move far beyond your company page. You will need to humanize your personal profile by sharing both valuable content as well as stories, thoughts, and experiences.

In this episode, I interview Mandy McEwen, Founder & CEO at Mod Girl Marketing, about demystifying LinkedIn and personal thought leadership.

What we talked about:

First steps for getting started growing your LinkedIn presence
What happens when you stop selling and start providing value
Building LinkedIn cadences and using direct messaging
The challenge to be vulnerable online

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

You’ve owned your agency for 15 or 20 years now, but it’s never looked exactly like you imagined it. That’s because you’re letting your clients lead.

In this episode, I interview Robert Patin, Managing Partner at Patin &

Associates, about the most common missteps he sees as an agency coach.

What we talked about:

Knowing & owning your value in negotiation
How to set your fees
Niching, exclusivity, and freelance workers
Trends for agencies in 2021

Resources we mentioned during the podcast:

I was recently a guest on Robert’s podcast, Agency Blueprint

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

Revenue-producing opportunities most agencies haven’t thought of include fractional CMOs, becoming an AOR, technological agility, and… the ability to be fired.

In this episode, I interview Alex Hultgren, Founder & CEO at Customers 1st Marketing, about opportunities for agencies to both pivot and niche down:

What we talked about:

What fractional CMOs are and why they are a brilliant idea
All about the modern agency of record
Brand strategies for mid-size businesses, including securing a budget
Why the ability to be fired gives you standing with your clients

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

Find fractional CMOs at Chameleon Collective
Also at Voyager You
Also at Authentic Brand

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

Every agency is charged with growing its clients. But there’s a big difference between the growth traditional marketing offers and the supercharged results that growth marketing delivers.

In this insightful episode, I sat down with Jim Huffman, CEO of GrowthHit, to deep dive into how growth marketing actually works.

Some topics we covered:

How GrowthHit is able to achieve rapid growth quickly
How to approach customer intelligence
The difference between traditional marketing and growth marketing
The advantages of having difficult client conversations upfront
Turning intellectual capital into revenue streams

Here are some resources we mentioned during the podcast:

Email Jim: Jim@growthhit.com
Follow him on Twitter
Check out The Growth Marketer’s Playbook

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Innovative Agency in your favorite podcast player.

Not everyone can be a thought leader. In fact, thought leadership isn’t about being smart at all. It’s about being genuine and caring.

In this episode, I interview Tracey Fudge, Founder at The Thrive Agency, about cutting through the noise online.

What we talked about:

Being picky about client selection
What thought leadership really is & strategy to grow it
Differentiating yourself from market competitors with niching
Tackling the longer sales cycle of B2B tech sales

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Customer lifetime value. You buy till you die.

Seriously, though. We’ve all heard a lot about CLV, but most of us don’t know how to leverage it. Savvy agencies realize that lifetime value is the new metric that matters.

Recently on The Innovative Agency, I chatted with Michael Greenberg, Founder & CEO at Retina.ai, about CLV, lifetime value, and accurate predictions.

What we talked about:

The meaning of CTV & LTV, and how to measure them
Mediating between agency, customer, and brand
Developing meaningful lifetime value metrics
How to talk about LTV with CMOs
Creating models based on LTV

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Don’t allow your people to do agency work off the side of their desks. Instead, treat yourself as a client by giving your team actual hours to utilize.

In this episode, I interview Jillian Bannister, CEO at Ext. Marketing Inc., about what your agency needs from you. In other words, self-care.

What we talked about:

The rule of thirds for budgeting time
Employee recognition and confidence
Agency self-care and client responsibility

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

How do you stay in your respective swim lanes when you're running a business with somebody you're married to?

In this episode, I interview Jean Freeman, Principal + CEO at Zambezi, LLC, about how she worked with her spouse to build the largest female-owned business in the advertising industry.

What we talked about:

The key to thriving as an agency in a recession
How to evolve an inclusive culture and why publishing your diversity stats is critical
What entrepreneurial maturity really looks like
How to scale your business and live your life with the same partner

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Your conversation rates could be between 70 and 100 times better if you do this right. Lose the MQL metric and learn this: the brand creates the most demand.

In this episode, I interview Chris Walker, CEO at Refine Labs, about why his agency says no to most clients and the differences between performance and brand.

What we talked about:

All about metrics: what to measure and what not to measure
Finding and keeping talent and what agency talent does better than in-house
Why brand is a tangible business metric
Telling clients things they don’t want to hear for their own good

Resources we mentioned:

Chris’s podcast is State of Demand Gen

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

What a tough year for everyone. (Tough does not describe it.)

Some agencies have done well, though. Some of the lessons they’ve learned are translatable beyond 2020.

My recent guest on The Innovative Agency, Anson Sowby, Cofounder and CEO at Battery, shared how to thrive in uncertain circumstances.

What we talked about:

Growing and scaling an independent agency
How being a serial entrepreneur affects your 2nd agency
Takeaways from 2020 beyond the pandemic

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Just like a tree grows toward the best sunlight, your agency needs to be open to innovation in order to survive.

This is how it worked out for David Searns and his agency, Haley Marketing. Due to the evolving landscape of his market, David found himself in a very particular niche.

In this episode, David and I discussed:

Looking for opportunities to pivot
Adjusting to demands in your market
Optimizing your assets
Finding a narrow niche

To hear this episode and many more like it, subscribe to The Innovative Agency Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Your proposal sucks. And by the way, your content is not nearly specific enough.

And if you’re going to sell to entrepreneurs, you need to throw B2B out the window and embrace B2E.

In this episode, I interview Maggie Patterson, Owner & Editorial Director at Scoop Studios, about why she embraces specificity as a lead gen approach.

What we talked about:

Be specific about your 3-5 core competencies (& get your clients to do the same)
How B2E is different than B2B
What it means to take ownership of the result

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

The design of a content marketing program seems simple - most agencies do it every day. But it creates challenging questions for agencies and clients: What metrics of success should be used? How are we going to collaborate? How does each piece of content fit into a client’s broader marketing strategy?

These are questions every agency has faced, and Xenia Muntean knew these issues far too well at her digital marketing agency. So, she founded Planable — a tech company designed to help approve and create content.

On this episode of #BestofTIA, Xenia gives agencies 4 ways they can ensure a smooth content creation process with their clients.

Xenia is the CEO & Co-Founder of Planable and a Forbes 30 Under 30.

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Mixed reality is how your customers want to interact with your brand. Why haven’t you made it there yet?

In this episode, I interview Taj Forer, Cofounder & CEO at Fabl, and Daina Middleton, advisor to Britelite, about what mixed reality means for agencies.

What we talked about:

What mixed reality is & isn’t
How the last 9 months have accelerated technology
The importance of putting customer experience first
How agencies should respond to mixed reality
Tons of examples of successful pivots into mixed reality

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

How do you stand out in a cluttered space? A couple of ways: education & diversification.

In this episode, I interviewed Kurt Ouchida, Managing Partner at Braintrust Agency, about how he pivoted by positioning his agency as an educator for his clients.

What we talked about:

Delving deeply into digital (with Braintrust’s Director of Digital Marketing, Dustin Klein)
How the language of hospitality can communicate shared goals with other industries
What it’s been like in Las Vegas with hospitality & gaming hit so hard
Fostering relationships by being available

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

What happens when you can no longer scale up? Or your core business just got commoditized and now everybody thinks they can DIY it on the cheap?

Keith Scandone, creator of O3 World, a digital product agency, found his company in just that place about eight years ago.

After building websites for traditional marketing agencies and their clients, O3 World suddenly faced unexpected competition from Wordpress. Who needed an agency to build a website anymore?

Keith knew he'd have to innovate if O3 World was to stay open. But while everyone likes to talk about innovation, who knows what it means? Or how to do it?

Keith tells us all about how to innovate in the face of technological change in this episode of the #BestofTIA series.

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

“Values-based” is a great SEO keyword, isn’t it? It can be so much more than that, though.

If values drive your agency to the point of shaping your entire business model, you might be ready for B Corp certification.

In this episode, I interview Ben Herman, President and Co-Founder at Mad Fish Digital, about values-based businesses.

What we talked about:

Becoming a B Corporation
The certification process & whether it affects your profits
How to keep a focus on culture
Where to start on promoting employee engagement and agency culture

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

The B Corp certification website
Scaling Up by Verne Harnish
Officevibe

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't (Rockefeller Habits 2.0)

Agency owners go straight to global when they think SEO, but their clients need them to think local.

If you’re a brick-and-mortar, having local SEO strategies in place is a must.

In this episode, I interview Monica Garrett, Founder & CEO at Margaux Agency, about how the fitness and wellness niche has pivoted in the last 6 months.

What we talked about:

Her amazing experience of moving her agency into the fitness niche
Branding in gyms means encouraging ambassador employees
Local SEO tips & insights

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

If you hear ROI, you’re either groaning or super excited.

These are the 3 letters that most agency owners talk about, regardless of whether their return on investment philosophy is a source of joy.

In this episode of #BestofTIA, I interview Mike Krass, co-founder and CEO at MKG Marketing, about why he loves having the ROI conversation with clients, prospects, and teams.

What we talked about:

Choosing measurable metrics & client verticals
Doing vetting and discovery with scorecards
Why agencies really get hired.

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

It might sound absolutely basic, but successful agencies — the ones with 2020 as their best year ever — have a business plan & manage cash flow.

In this episode, I interview The Innovative Agency’s first CPA guest, Chris Hervochon, Owner and Virtual CFO at Better Way CPA, about, well, money.

What we talked about:

It’s not enough just to have a business plan, but you also have to revisit it
Cash flow also means having substantial cash reserves
Things to do right now if you need to measure your revenue health

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

You want to be an ally to the Black community, but you have no idea how to get started.

The first and most important step is willingness to change.

In this episode, I interview Dr. Rachel Talton, CEO at Synergy, about actions that agency owners can take to support the Black community.

What we talked about:

How to LEAP into 2021 better than we were
What it means to take a realistic look at your agency’s diversity & inclusion
4 actions agency owners can take today to support the Black community

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
The Flourish Conference for Women in Leadership

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

How to Be an Antiracist

The age-old dilemma: how to build an agency that makes sense for you plus makes you attractive to your clients.

Arguably the best form of marketing is to pay for your marketing after you get your customer. Also known as performance-based marketing.

In this episode of the #BestofTIA series, we revisit my conversation with Robert Glazer, Founder and CEO at Acceleration Partners, about how to implement performance-based marketing in the agency world.

What we talked about:

Robert’s litmus test for whether a firm is best-in-class
What it takes to do affiliate program management
The differences between newer agencies and traditional digital agencies
Challenges to rapid growth for performance-based marketing

Check out these resources we mentioned:

Robert wrote Performance Partnerships about affiliate marketing
The Friday Forward podcast

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Longtime listeners of my podcast know how much I believe agencies need to develop multiple revenue streams.

Just in case I couldn’t persuade you, today’s guest can.

In this episode, I interview Matthew Scott, Principal at FEED, about thriving during change with multiple revenue streams:

What we talked about:

Starting with what has not changed
Being easy to do business with
Pivoting to sell a process, not a product
How to develop multiple revenue streams

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

Ignore SEO at your own risk.

Today’s guest has focused so well on SEO that he’s scaling from 230+ to 500 content writers by 2021.

In this episode, I interview Vincent D’Eletto, Owner at WordAgents.com, about the importance of SEO for marketers.

What we talked about:

Where to find writing talent & how to keep it
Why he always seeks generalist writers
SEO tips & strategies
How agencies can leverage data to reach prospects

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

The conversation I’m featuring on today’s episode of #BestofTIA is with Grayson Lafrenz, Founder and CEO at Power Digital Marketing, about agency growth and what prevents it.

We talked about:

The 5 pitfalls that hinder your growth…

And 5 ways to grow your business

How much of your time should be spent on RGAs

How fast star talent will pay for themselves

The 4 pillars of diversifying deal flow

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

It’s easier than you think to provide opportunities for your agency team members to display thought leadership.

They already do every day in your agency.

You just have to hit the “record” button.

In this episode, I interview Robin Emiliani, Founder at Catalyst, about the inspiration behind Marketing Rants.

What we talked about:

Positioning your team members as thought leaders
Social responsibility starts internally with employees
Tips for video, including to chuck out the script

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

Several Marketing Rants are about social responsibility
Check out Robin’s agency blog

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

If you polled your clients, how would they answer these 2 questions?

Do we speak the language of your company?
Are we relevant to your revenue?

Recently on The Innovative Agency, I spoke with Chris Schermer, President at SCHERMER, about what he did when the 2 answers were “No.”

What we talked about:

Focusing on your clients’ customers is the best path for a B2B marketing agency
The 3 pillars of “relevance to revenue”
More profit, fewer employees: How to chase profit as an agency

Check out this resource we mentioned during the podcast:

SCHERMER’s News + Views blog

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

During this episode of the #BestofTIA series, we’re revisiting my chat with Patricia Beitler, President at Velocitas, and Abigail Sierra, Director of Content Strategy at Velocitas, to talk about trends in marketing that are actually working for agencies.

What we talked about:

3 strategies that the average B2B company should just toss
3 classic strategies that will endure beyond 2020
Video gives potential customers a way to meet you before they meet you
Video and email campaigns are meant for each other

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, check out the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

His background is cosmetology, not marketing. He owned a salon, not an agency.

That is, until he recognized that Black salon owners are powerful influencers.

Recently on The Innovative Agency Podcast, I interviewed Wil Shelton, CEO of Wil Power Integrated Marketing, about his agency’s origin story.

What we talked about:

How Wil broke into marketing without any connections
Niche marketing is a winning strategy
Timely advice to brands about diversity & inclusion

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

When you’ve never had a brick and mortar agency, there’s one thing you want to tell people working remotely…

It doesn’t have to be this hard to connect with each other.

In this episode, I interview Anne Stefanyk, CEO & Founder of Kanopi Studios, about insights for virtual from her web-first agency.

What we talked about:

Putting humans — specifically employees — at the center of your why
Strategies for culture, communication & connection
How to build clients a website that lasts
You’re forgetting about maintenance services

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

Simon Sinek’s Start with Why
Brené Brown on operationalizing vulnerability
It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work by Jason Fried
Profit First by Mike Michalowicz

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine

It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work

Today on the #BestofTIA series, we’re highlighting my conversation with Darren Magarro, Founder and President of DSM.

We talked about:

Where to invest (people)
Knowing your goals
You won’t be judged on how you’re knocked down but how you get back up
The mindset of a leader

Check out this resource we mentioned during the podcast.

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

The reason people don’t produce content is that they don’t know what to produce.

(Hint: It shouldn’t be promotional content.)

Welcome to your step-by-step guide to building out a content-based relationship agency development strategy.

In this episode, I interview Dylan Hey, Cofounder at Hey Digital, about how to win on LinkedIn.

What we talked about:

His amazing journey to building an all-virtual agency
In the second year, he topped his year 1 revenue by 3-5x
Exactly what & how to post on social platforms
Designing your content sharing schema
Why you really do have time to launch a podcast

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

Dylan’s podcast is The SaaS Marketing Show
James Carbary at Sweet Fish Media (which also produces The Innovative Agency) helped Dylan launch

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

There used to be just a couple of ways a customer could interact with your company. Now there are a dozen.

Brand unity is desperately important, and at the foundation of consistent messaging is… design.

In this episode, I interview Angela Hill, CEO of Incitrio, about the importance of design in branding.

What we talked about:

Design is crucial despite the prevalence of other methods & tactics in marketing
Crowdsourcing your logo just won’t work
4 marketing packages & access levels
The steps in developing monthly marketing retainers

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

In the first episode of the #BestofTIA series, I’m featuring my conversation with Jeff Pedowitz, President and CEO at the Pedowitz Group.

Tune in to hear us talk about:

What’s broken about the traditional revenue model
How value-based pricing works
3 myths that keep agencies from unlocking passive revenue
Salons and tiered subscriptions

Check out this resource mentioned during the show:

Pedowitz Group’s Revenue Marketing University

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

We can’t always rely on referrals and personal networks to answer this question: Where will the new business come from?

In this episode, I interview Dan Englander, Founder at Sales Schema, about cultivating a business development mindset.

What we talked about:

Don’t hire a salesperson before your agency is ready
How specialization will serve you best (even during the pandemic)
Steps for avoiding self-centeredness in your messaging
If you can’t sell, teach; if you can’t teach, listen

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

Sales Schema’s podcast: Digital Agency Growth
How to adapt your messaging for a crisis: salesschema.com/crisisprospecting
Andrew Chen’s “Law of Shitty Clickthroughs” article

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Most people treat a crisis as a good time to panic, when it’s actually the opportune moment to make a dramatic change decision. Narrowing your focus in content and raising your confidence with data are the right things to do right now.

In this episode, I interview Greg Linnemanstons, President at Weidert Group, about how he pivoted during the last recession to thrive during this one.

What we talked about:

Inbound was his Eureka moment
The power of focused content and narrowing the scope
How it’s not good enough “just” to publish now
Metrics evaluation! More fun than you think

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

Weidert Group Marketing & Sales Blog
HubSpot’s Inbound course

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Consumers hate being tracked. But marketers need data to create precision ads.

Today’s guest brings his problem-solving skills to the cutting edge of data intelligence and data privacy.

In this episode, I interview Harry Maugans, Founder and CEO of Clickagy, about privacy clusters.

What we talked about:

The genuine, creepy truth that cookies can track us within a foot of our position & feed us custom ads

The problem of privacy regulation compliance & the solution of one to few

Marketers who rely on cookies can only reach 50% of devices

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

In the classic debate about brand vs. demand, there is no 1 winner. There’s only the perfect fusion of both.

Smart agencies know which levers to pull to harmonize brand & demand.

In this episode, I interview Carl Fremont, CEO at Quigley Simpson, about key levers for brand and demand.

What we talked about:

The marriage of brand with data & analytics
Performance marketing alone is an old system & needs to go away forever
As yourself this: Do I need to invest more in the brand side for a longer term gain in the demand?

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

In the eternal struggle between the urgent and the important… our clients often win, and our agencies often lose.

But treating your agency like your most important client is the best way to serve both your agency and your clients.

In this episode, I interview Veronique James, Founder and CEO at The James Agency, about prioritizing your agency.

What we talked about:

Tactical strategies for treating your agency like a client (including budgets and billable hours)
How to assess what is urgent vs. what is important, especially when you’re busy
Positioning your communications during this tender time of global crisis
The necessary mindset for prioritizing your agency’s needs

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

Is it scary to put all your eggs in one basket? We’re talking about going niche with your ABM outbound strategy.

Yes, of course, it is. But outbound is the future of marketing.

In this episode, I interview Joy Milkowski, Founding Partner at Access Marketing Company, about inbound vs. outbound and the future of ABM.

What we talked about:

Taking a journalistic approach to marketing
Who PAM is and why Joy’s office can’t live without her
Future trends in outbound & building a niche ABM strategy

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

We’re being overrun with technologies that are supposed to make digital marketing more efficient.

The reality is that AI doesn’t always work the way you think it will. Algorithms are only as good as the person who decides what data will be used for a campaign.

In this episode, I interview Raquel Rosenthal, CEO at Digilant, about all things digital media.

What we talked about:

The need for human curation
2 ways to increase trust in a difficult climate
Trends in the future of digital media buying

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Some agencies approach both brand and demand simultaneously, while some hope the issue of prevalence never arises.

On a recent episode of The Innovative Agency, we discussed how to solve both of those problems…

With workshops.

In this episode, I interview Mark Emond, Founder and President at Demand Spring, about brand, demand, and education..

What we talked about:

Brand vs. demand are tied up in sales and marketing alignment
Clients are in transition and need your expertise
Best practices for workshops and raising the bar on your reputation

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

Simon Sinek’s Start with Why
Demand Spring’s fantastically named Spring Training workshops

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

Yes, okay, agile is a buzzword… but we do actually want to be agile, right?

Actually, agile just means a way of managing projects.

In this episode, I interview Joe Teo, CEO at HeyOrca, about the 4 principles of his agile methodology.

What we talked about:

What agile really meals for social
4 pillars of an agile manifesto
3 huge don’ts for agencies’ social strategy
To what extent should you collaborate with clients

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

The HeyOrca site offers free resources
HeyOrca’s Facebook community is called Life in Social

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

There’s a not often talked about aspect of agencies that’s massively important: technology.

Mobile technology, mobile strategy, and the interplay between mobile and marketing campaigns all have a huge impact on your clients’ successes.

In this episode, I interview Todd Wooten, Founder and President of VRTCAL, about his mobile first strategy.

What we talked about:

5 reasons why mobile first is your best (only) option
Mobile first builds trust and confidence
The fascinating shift from PII to DII
The ultimatum: Innovate or die

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

The spring of 2020 has been an interesting time to do business, to say the least.

One of the most valuable things we could dwell on in the industry right now is how to navigate the turn around the corner as we are beginning to hear some hopeful pandemic-related news — while still feeling ourselves in the midst of an unprecedented challenge.

Recently on The Innovative Agency, I chatted with Scott Baradell, Founder and CEO of Idea Grove, about adapting communications and marketing during a crisis.

What we talked about:

Ways to adapt your marketing to show leadership
Scott’s raw story about loss and digging deep
Focusing on helping and caring instead of selling

Check out this resource we mentioned during the podcast:

Scott’s blog post, “The Importance of Getting It Together In Times Of Crisis”

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

If you're an agency owner or a leader listening to this right now, you’re probably considering pivoting your agency — especially if you’re in a position of challenge.

Frankly, no matter what your story of challenge is right now, someone else is facing the same difficulty.

For most of us, that’s how to pivot.

In this episode, I interview fellow podcaster Nicole Mahoney, CEO and owner of Break the Ice Media, about pivoting and transforming her agency.

What we talked about:

Packaging your expertise — virtually
The unexpected benefit of hosting a virtual summit (doubled website traffic)
Serving a larger audience by evolving your content

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

Destination on the Left, Nicole’s podcast

Destination on the Left, Nicole’s virtual summit

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

There's already a lot of great content out there about how agencies can and should adapt their businesses because of COVID-19.

One aspect of these changes that isn’t as widely discussed is how agencies can help their clients be effective in a time of crisis — ethically.

In this episode, I interview Bryn Tindall, CEO and Owner of Rebel Interactive Group, about ethical considerations brought about by the current crisis.

What we talked about:

Elements that affect marketing during a crisis
Creative communications & 3 messages to send
Trends stemming from COVID-19 that could stick when it’s over

Check out this resource we mentioned during the podcast:

I appreciated the Rebel Interactive blog post about COVID-19 facts & opinions

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Creativity has many facets.

It means different things depending upon the clients that your agency might serve and how you might attack creativity depending upon their goals.

In this episode, I interview Gal Borenstein, Founder of the Borenstein Group, about aspects of creativity for a B2B marketing agency.

What we talked about:

The 4 pillars of creating trust
Do psychological research on your client’s customers’ decision makers
Understand the misalignment between messaging and belief
Trust is something you have to earn, not assume

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Given the amount of time that most agencies spend on building a new business pipeline, hiring talent, and the amount of time and money that goes into trying to acquire those clients.

There's a big opportunity to be lost once you advance in those conversations.

That moment when you realize your client isn’t ready for what you offer.

Recently on the Innovative Agency Podcast, I talked with Cat Bradley, Founder and CEO of SewEthico, about creating successful relationships between your agency and the clients that you serve.

What we talked about:

The question agencies aren’t asking
When it’s fine to frustrate your clients
3 reasons to send a client back to the foundational profit models

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Gone are the days of the teenager in the basement with the Xbox.

The Fortnight World Cup was recently won by a 16 year old who earned a prize of $3 million.

That’s $1M more than Tiger Woods took home for the U.S. Masters.

In this episode of The Innovative Agency, I interview Larry Jaeger, Founder and CEO at Sponsor Burst, about marketing in the world of esports.

What we talked about:

Creating a niche market
How to reach Gen Z
Research techniques for esports and other niche industries
The importance of credibility in your marketplace

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Authority drives agency choice 62% of the time.

Establishing your agency as an authority, then, should be one of the main goals of an agency.

In this episode, I interview Drew McLellan, owner of Agency Management Institute and McLellan Marketing Group, and Stephen Woessner, owner of Predictive ROI:

What we talked about:

3 essentials to becoming an authority
Using cornerstones & cobblestones to go multichannel
Deciding whether to speak or write
Developing authority is a long-term play (but you can accelerate it)

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

Drew is the host of the Build a Better Agency podcast
Stephen is the host of the Onward Nation podcast
Stephen also wrote Profitable Podcasting

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website

Profitable Podcasting: Grow Your Business, Expand Your Platform, and Build a Nation of True Fans

90% of consultants and agencies in the US are between $300,000 and $3 million in revenue.

If you’re in that bucket and you’re listening to this, what would you do $1 million of free flowing cash flow each year?

If you don’t think that’s possible, you’re probably stuck in a traditional agency revenue model.

In this episode of The Innovative Agency, I interviewed Jeff Pedowitz, President and CEO at the Pedowitz Group, about innovation around agency pricing models.

What we talked about:

What’s broken about the traditional revenue model
How value-based pricing works
3 myths that keep agencies from unlocking passive revenue
Salons and tiered subscriptions

Check out this resource we mentioned during the podcast:

Pedowitz Group’s Revenue Marketing University

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Connecting with others through compassion and empathy...

Nobody thinks you’re a jerk when you’re trying to do this.

In fact, people will deeply appreciate your human-focused leadership if you practice this mindset during good times and bad.

In this episode, I had a timely interview with Darren Magarro, Founder and President of DSM, about leadership during a crisis.

What we talked about:

Where to invest (people)
Knowing your goals
You won’t be judged on how you’re knocked down but how you get back up
The mindset of a leader

Check out this resource we mentioned during the podcast.

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

The advent of 5G has enhanced what was already a trend in marketing: Video consumption. Video traffic is anticipated to account for 82% of all IP traffic by 2022 — which puts us up from 75% in 2017.

Agencies need to be having the conversation right now about developing a 5G brand strategy. (Because if we aren’t, someone else is.)

In this episode of The Innovative Agency, I discuss all things 5G with Katie Patterson, Founder and CEO of Happy Medium, a full service digital marketing agency headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa, the 20th city in the U.S. to have 5G.

What we talked about:

The ramifications of 5G on the consumer experience
The end of single-use ads
The explosion of data and the Internet of Things
Top tips for developing a 5G brand strategy

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Transforming your agency from a long format agency to one focused on data analytics is a long, involved process.

It takes about 15 years, to be exact.

In this episode, I interview Jessica Hawthorne-Castro, CEO of Hawthorne, a national agency based in Los Angeles.

What we talked about:

Your employees are your customers, too
Why agency transformation takes 15 years
Challenges to transformation
How to be strategic when implementing change

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Having first-party data is one thing, but knowing what to do with it is another.

On a recent episode of The Innovative Agency, I interviewed Andrew Eklund, Founder and CEO of Ciceron, a digital agency that blends media, creative, and data. We talked about digital marketing today and how to navigate privacy in an online context.

What we talked about:

Developing tech solutions out of necessity
The generational shift in leadership
Why people actually don’t hate advertising
3 tips that Andrew frequently gives about data

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

About 15% of 2020 is already gone — making this the perfect time to review our plans and think about what’s working and what’s not.

In my view, this was a masterclass episode in strategies that are evergreen and strategies to reevaluate.

I got to sit down with Patricia Beitler, President at Velocitas, and Abigail Sierra, Director of Content Strategy at Velocitas, to talk about trends in marketing that are actually working for agencies.

What we talked about:

3 strategies that the average B2B company should just toss
3 classic strategies that will endure beyond 2020
Video gives potential customers a way to meet you before they meet you
Video and email campaigns are meant for each other

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

As a small, recently founded agency, committing to a growth strategy can be intimidating, to say the least.

More than likely, you’re going to overanalyze instead of choosing a strategy and executing on it.

Recently on The Innovative Agency, I interviewed Grayson Lafrenz, Founder and CEO at Power Digital Marketing, about agency growth and what prevents it.

What we talked about:

The 5 pitfalls that hinder your growth...
And 5 ways to grow your business
How much of your time should be spent on RGAs
How fast star talent will pay for themselves
The 4 pillars of diversifying deal flow

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

The age-old dilemma: how to build an agency that makes sense for you plus makes you attractive to your clients.

Arguably the best form of marketing is to pay for your marketing after you get your customer. Also known as performance-based marketing.

In this episode, I interview Robert Glazer, Founder and CEO at Acceleration Partners, about how to implement performance-based marketing in the agency world.

What we talked about:

Robert’s litmus test for whether a firm is best-in-class
What it takes to do affiliate program management
The differences between newer agencies and traditional digital agencies
Challenges to rapid growth for performance-based marketing

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

Robert wrote Performance Partnerships about affiliate marketing
The Friday Forward podcast

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Ad agencies aren’t known for taking things slowly or being highly conservative. At least, a lot of the best ones aren’t.

Is that growth all coincidence, or does it stem from a carefully plotted strategy?

In this episode, I interview Scott Harkey, Cofounder and Managing Partner at OH Partners, about strategies for agency growth.

What we talked about:

How corporate leads and managing partners are alike
Agency organization and his choice to be a house of brands
Tactical strategies for agency growth, including…
3 tips for staying opportunistic while having an overall growth plan

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

If you hear ROI, you’re either groaning or super excited.

These are the 3 letters that most agency owners talk about, regardless of whether their return on investment philosophy is a source of joy.

In this episode, I interview Mike Krass, co-founder and CEO at MKG Marketing, about why he loves having the ROI conversation with clients, prospects, and teams.

What we talked about:

Choosing measurable metrics & client verticals
Doing vetting and discovery with scorecards
Why agencies really get hired.

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

You want to get into podcast guesting, but you have no idea how. (Frankly, you don’t even have a message yet, much less a brand strategy.)

You just know podcast guesting is going to be big for you. And you’re right.

In this episode, I interview Kelly Glover, Podcast Guest Booker at the Talent Squad, about the art and science of how to podcast successfully as a guest.

What we talked about:

Your most important relationship is with the host, not the audience
What to do before & after you guest
How to package yourself
Why winging it just doesn’t cut it in podcast guesting

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Advertising work doesn’t have to be sexy, shrouded in technical lingo, or confined to just one package. Actually, it’s mostly just words and pictures.

I recently interviewed Richard Kaiser, CEO and Founder of Wilderness Agency, which is based in my home state of Ohio in Dayton, about why he is proudest of his “ugly baby” clients.

What we talked about:

He got his start working in manufacturing… at age 8
Advertising consists almost exclusively of words and pictures
Flexibility is a key principle behind the success of Wilderness Agency
Talent poaching is a problem in advertising as well as manufacturing
Richard’s ugly baby clients are his faves

Check out this resource we mentioned during the podcast:

Richard’s life changed when a professor handed him Ogilvy on Advertising

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Ogilvy on Advertising

“Values-based” is a great SEO keyword, isn’t it? It can be so much more than that, though.

If values drive your agency to the point of shaping your entire business model, you might be ready for B Corp certification.

In this episode, I interview Ben Herman, President and Co-Founder at Mad Fish Digital, about values-based businesses.

What we talked about:

Becoming a B Corporation
The certification process & whether it affects your profits
How to keep a focus on culture
Where to start on promoting employee engagement and agency culture

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

The B Corp certification website
Scaling Up by Verne Harnish
Officevibe

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't (Rockefeller Habits 2.0)

As a marketing agency, your client’s customers are like tourists standing in Times Square, bombarded with billboards and bright lights on all sides…..

And without any idea where to look.

That’s a metaphor for brands today -- so how do you cut through the clutter?

On this episode, I interview Ron Tite, author, speaker, and founder at Church+State, about brand development.

We talked about how nurturing relationships is crucial to founding an agency, how to develop your brand with 3 actions, and agency challenges & why to fire a client.

Check out this resource we mentioned during the podcast:

Think. Do. Say. -- This is Ron’s book about brand.

To hear this episode and many more like it, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

Think. Do. Say.: How to seize attention and build trust in a busy, busy world

With 100 million Prime members in the U.S. alone, Amazon is the place to sell products online. Marketing agencies focused on Amazon can help a lot of clients. To do that, however, those agencies must understand how to operate a proper Amazon business.

Dan Brownsher, President, CEO, and Co-Founder at Channel Key LLC, an agency focused on selling, marketing, and building brands on Amazon, joined our podcast to talk about how agencies can help clients change that.

Dan began his career sourcing products and selling them on eBay. That project morphed into a company that now holds a place in the top 200 sellers on Amazon. Dan then leveraged what he'd learned to help brands drive high-volume sales on the platform.

Building a successful Amazon-based company means more than amazing product photography, the best titles, and top-of-the-line advertising campaigns. It also means keeping inventory in stock, maintaining service levels, and much more.

Dan gives us his insights into how to help clients build Amazon-based retailers right here on The Innovative Agency Podcast.

What happens when you can no longer scale up? Or your core business just got commoditized and now everybody thinks they can DIY it on the cheap?

Keith Scandone, creator of 03 World, a digital product agency, found his company in just that place about eight years ago.

After building websites for traditional marketing agencies and their clients, 03 World suddenly faced unexpected competition from Wordpress. Who needed an agency to build a website anymore?

Keith knew he'd have to innovate if 03 World was to stay open. But while everyone likes to talk about innovation, who knows what it means? Or how to do it?

Keith tells us all about how to innovate in the face of technological change right here on The Innovative Agency Podcast.

The design of a content marketing program seems simple - most agencies do it every day. But it creates challenging questions for agencies and clients: What metrics of success should be used? How are we going to collaborate? How does each piece of content fit into a client’s broader marketing strategy?

These are questions every agency has faced, and Xenia Muntean knew these issues far too well at her digital marketing agency. So, she founded Planable — a tech company designed to help approve and create content.

On this episode, Xenia gives agencies 4 ways they can ensure a smooth content creation process with their clients.

Xenia is the CEO & Co-Founder of Planable and a Forbes 30 Under 30.

We talked about 4 pillars of content marketing for agencies: (1) Set KPIs/metrics with each client, (2) Map out the strategy at the beginning, (3) Determine how you are going to communicate, (4) Get feedback early.

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

The marketplace has shifted. Retainers/AORs are becoming less common, and brands are moving toward project-based client/agency relationships. But that shouldn’t worry agency owners, because there’s plenty of opportunity within that trend. Just ask Rudy Fernandez.

Rudy founded his entire agency, Creative Outhouse, on the idea of project-based work in October 2001. He’s managed to successfully grow his agency without a single AOR contract in almost 2 decades.

He came on The Innovative Agency podcast to highlight 7 ways agency owners can leverage the trend towards transactional-based client relationships.

What we talked about:

(1) Monetize the idea rather than the production

(2) Find pockets of money (even at larger brands)

(3) Leverage the shorter lifespan of CMOs

(4) Collab with larger agencies by leveraging your niche

(5) Have some ‘Street Fighter’

(6) Maintain robust freelancer relationships

(7) Recognize referrals as the main business driver

Bonus friendly reminder: leave your creatives alone

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Agency owners constantly worry about the threat of in-house agencies.

David Freedman has a few tips on what agencies can do to compete, and the good news is, none of them are based on price.

David is the co-founder of Freestar, a company that helps publishing websites with monetization.

What we talked about: Programmatic, Ad spend, Digital ad spend, Finding a niche

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

“If I had time to take photographs, I wouldn't have hired a PR agency.” — Every non-agency business owner, ever.

Business owners don’t care how the social media sausage is made. They just want it done, they want it posted, and they want results.

On this episode, we invited Lauralie Levy, CEO of Crowd Siren, to share her social media expertise.

What we talked about:

Social media platforms
Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp
How business owners don’t have time, they just want it done
Why you’ll almost always be collaborating with other agencies
Short-form videos aren’t going anywhere

To hear more from Innovative Agency owners, listen to The Innovative Agency podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Are you an entrepreneur that didn’t plan on being one?

This exact scenario actually plays out more than you might expect.

It’s what happened to Indra Gardiner Bowers, the co-founder and CEO of i.d.e.a. She shares her story of resiliency and adaptability with us on the latest episode of The Innovative Agency.

We discuss:

How to handle evolutions in your agency
Learning when to take risks and scale back
Forecasting in an ever-changing landscape
Complying to new legislation concerning employees

Resources mentioned in this episode:

The ABC test for independent contractors in California
theideabrand.com

This blogpost is based on an interview with Indra Gardiner Bowers from i.d.e.a.

To hear this episode, and many more like it, you can subscribe to The Innovative Agency Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Just like a tree grows toward the best sunlight, your agency needs to be open to innovation in order to survive.

This is how it worked out for David Searns and his agency, Haley Marketing. Due to the evolving landscape of his market, David found himself in a very particular niche.

On this episode, David and I discuss:

Looking for opportunities to pivot
Adjusting to demands in your market
Optimizing your assets
Finding a narrow niche

To hear this episode and many more like it, subscribe to The Innovative Agency Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Agencies are typically known for lacking in internal communication and being resistant to change.

However, today’s guest on the Innovative Agency podcast, Mark Gale CEO of Charleston Orwig sits down to share with us how his agency is doing things differently.

Charleston Orwig has been around for nearly three decades. Because of their familiarity with clients they need to be nimble to shed the legacy that can sometimes lead other agencies to become complacent or stagnant.

Instead, they work very hard to stay relevant in the ever-changing food and agriculture space.

Marketing and Advertising in a category that doesn’t really reflect the reality of how nuanced the work they do is.

A testament to that is the fact that their top concern is talent, and in order to keep that talent they’ve employed a visionary tactic of using ESOP.

Few people know this as well as Mark, who is also the ESOP Board Director at Charleston Orwig.

In the beginning they financed 100% of the ESOP plan for their employees at Charleston Orwig. Agencies are typically really bad at communicating within themselves. Charleston Orwig is not.

They are really pushing to be transparent about things such as billable hours, how they make money, and how they make decisions.

Every single person on the planet can and should do what they love to do. That’s a tall order, but if we all took the time to discover our purpose, we’d be that much closer to accomplishing it.

On this episode, I interview Roy Abdo, CEO of Digital Revamp Marketing Agency:

What we talked about:

How entrepreneurs can translate personal experiences into building a business
Roy’s inspiring citizenship story
3 things you need to convert your experience into entrepreneurship
The importance of finding your why

Checkout these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

Start with Why by Simon Sinek
Gallup’s StrengthsFinder 2.0

To hear this episode and many more like it, subscribe to The Innovative Agency Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

The creative agency industry is constantly evolving.

For this reason, it’s good to keep your agency’s strategy fresh.

Founder and CEO of Big Sea, Andi Graham, fills us in on why the agile approach isn’t just a software development strategy anymore.

We also cover:

Educating your team about agile
Embracing the discomfort of change
Developing a feedback loop
Real-time collaboration

Resources mentioned in this episode include:

"Manifesto for Agile"
Scrum Methodology
“Transforming to Agile: How We’re Doing It”

This blogpost is based on an interview with Andi Graham from Big Sea.

To hear this episode, and many more like it, you can subscribe to The Innovative Agency Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Balancing the financial needs of your agency with the practical expectations of your clients can be a tricky tightrope to walk. The best perspectives on these sorts of balancing issues often come from someone who’s been on both sides of the equation.

Andrew Stanten fits that description perfectly; he’s worked both on the brand side with agencies, and also as the president of Altitude Marketing (one of Inc’s 5000 Fastest-Growing Companies).

He came on this episode to discuss:

His 3-step process for agency pricing
Why you should start with strategy
Using data as evidence to make suggestions (& calculate pricing)
How data jumpstarts your work after you land a contract
How to upsell & pivot ad spend
Data and process transparency

This is an interview with Andrew Stanten from Altitude Marketing.

To hear this episode, and many more like it, you can subscribe to The Innovative Agency Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Chris wanted to reduce the time it takes to find top talent at his agency. He found it took an average of 36 days to onboard and find talent for projects. Chris wanted to reduce that to 36 hours.

And he did it.

On this episode, we interview Chris Kneeland, Co-founder & CEO of Cult Collective LP.

What we talked about:

How size ≠ success at agencies
Why talent may not be as important as you think
How talent shifts from asset to liability in <12 months
Why your core competency should be proprietary and in-house
Positioning
Hiring freelancers

Checkout these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

Chris’s LinkedIn
Communo app — marketplace for connecting freelance talent with agencies

This is an interview with Chris Kneeland from Communo.

To hear this episode, and many more like it, you can subscribe to The Innovative Agency Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Joe Gagliese has been doing influencer marketing since the very beginning. So, he’s an expert.

That’s why I’m so excited he was able to come on this episode of The Innovative Agency to share some of his expertise with us. Joe is Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Viral Nation, an influencer talent agency and marketing firm.

Here’s what we talked about:

Why influencer marketing can’t just be an afterthought
How to increase the effectiveness of your micro influencer campaigns
How his team is leveraging their intellectual capital to generate competitive advantages

You probably know that I’m really passionate about agencies drawing upon their ideas and resources to create new opportunities — new revenue streams, new businesses, or whatever it might be.

So, I'm really excited to talk to today’s guest, Daniel Herndon, because his agency, MilesHerndon, did just that.

We talked about:

Daniel’s unique background
Why he decided to turn the lobby of his office space into a coffee shop and cocktail bar
How that decision has created some great opportunities
Bonus — how Daniel handles client confusion when it comes to defining industry terms

This blogpost is based on an interview with Daniel Herndon from MilesHerndon.

To hear this episode, and many more like it, you can subscribe to The Innovative Agency Podcast.

If you don’t use iTunes, you can listen to every episode here.

Working on a Hollywood set seems like one of the most glamorous gigs out there. But, have you ever considered the logistics it takes to coordinate all of those names mentioned in the closing credits?

Anson Sowby isn’t a Hollywood producer. He is, however, the CEO and co-founder of, a Battery three-time Ad Age Small Agency of the Year recipient.

On this episode, we discuss:

On-demand staffing structure
Aligning with a larger partner
How Hollywood’s staffing & selling has influenced Battery

A few resources we mentioned during the podcast:

Anson Sowby’s LinkedIn
Battery’s home page
Ad Age Awards

To hear this episode, and many more like it, you can subscribe to The Innovative Agency Podcast on Apple Podcasts or or you can find every episode on our homepage.

Is your story woven into every touchpoint of your customer interactions?

On this episode of the The Innovative Agency, Olivier Roth, shows us how to take your brand’s story from origin, into every visual expression of the brand.

Olivier is the Founder & CEO of Timelapse, a digital marketing and design studio. He came on the show to walk us through the issue of metabranding, and how we can create a visual identity that translates who we our through our brand, our website, directmail, and any other customer touchpoint.

Well-executed experiential marketing can be a seamless, simple transition from reality, to brand engagement.

But marketers know the truth: Creating that transition was anything but simple.

(And pulling it off was probably anything but “seamless.”)

Basically, it was a magic trick.

(This makes sense — my last podcast guest, Justin Lefkovitch, is a magician.)

But Justin also owns a marketing agency that specializes in experiential marketing, and he said two big rules of magic still apply:

Illusion & details.

On this episode, Justin gives us 4 big ideas to consider at your next experiential marketing event. He also gives us tips on working with influencers, micro-influencers, celebrities, and musicians at experiential marketing events.

These days it can be very difficult to attract talent — and keep them engaged. People want to see evidence of engagement and purpose where they work.

One agency found an innovative way to demonstrate that meaning and purpose for employees. Their solution sparked a lot of attention, so while it’s primarily a lesson in employee engagement, it’s also a case study on handling communications, leadership, and client relations during a crisis.

Adam Kleinberg, Co-Founder and CEO of Traction, came on a recent episode of The Innovative Agency to tell us all about their Days of Action policy and how they handled the controversy that resulted.

Sometimes, the most innovative thing an agency can do is really take a hard look at its business model. Even though taking a look at the business model is one of the most beneficial things an agency can do, it’s also one of the most avoided. Agency owners agree that it would be a good idea, but in the hustle and bustle of serving clients, it gets brushed aside.

But is there a way for agency owners to make room for looking at the business model? Well, according to Gray MacKenzie, Co-Founder of ZenPilot, there is. In addition to coaching agency owners on how to do this, Gray's also been in the trenches as an agency owner himself. He gets it.

He came on the latest episode of The Innovative Agency to talk about the problem most agencies face in their business model, what a better model would look like, and how you can make room to address these issues.

Let’s get back to the basics of agency work by finding out what differentiates our clients, who their audience is, where to find them, and how to engage their audiences.

On this episode of The Innovative Agency, Jeff Swystun came on board to share 3 questions he asks every client every time.

Too often, he sees people jumping straight to tactics (like social media), without understanding their strategy. But if you ask these 3 basic questions, you’ll never start implementing a good-looking campaign that does little for your client (or yourself) in the end.

A lot of you probably already use video in a variety of ways to help your clients reach their goals. But there's a lot of ways that you can use video within your agency to expand your own results, too.

There’s probably no better person to discuss why and how you should use video than Ethan Beute. He’s the VP of Marketing at BombBomb, a platform that focuses on using simple, personal videos in emails, text messages, and social messages to increase conversion.

Ethan came on this episode of The Innovative Agency to talk about why and how you can use video within your agency to build relationships and deliver results.

Long-term growth is a key concern of every agency owner (and, really, any entrepreneur).

Often times, it can be difficult to switch from hammering out the day-to-day work to focusing on the tasks that help sustainable, exciting growth.

Joe Apfelbaum was in the same position as an agency owner not too long ago. But he broke free and is now experiencing tremendous growth. He’s also loving the work he and his employees are doing at his agency, Ajax Union. On this episode, he gave us 5 shifts he had to make to break free from the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle of his agency

The 1 question every agency is constantly chasing: How can we land new business?

We can help with that.

We interviewed Doug Austin, CEO at Austin Amplifies, where he helps agencies and brands zero in on their best-fit prospects, and land new deals. Doug’s whole concept can be summarized with his catchphrase:

Pitch to win.

On this episode, we discuss issues like:

How to land new business
How to avoid spinning your wheels on business you aren’t likely to win
4 questions you should ask yourself before any pitch
When to sink your teeth in

You’ve heard of Gary Vee.

And you’re probably familiar with his newest venture, The Sasha Group.

Well, on our most recent episode of The Innovative Agency, James Orsini, President of The Sasha Group, came on the show to tell us all about it.

Here’s what he had to say.

Our most recent guest on The Innovative Agency podcast was Stephanie Olson. She’s the Founder of We are Rosie, the advertising marketplace of the future.

Stephanie and her team are disrupting how work happens as they focus on connecting brands and agencies with exceptional talent wanting, or needing, to work in flexible ways. Oh, and they have a 100% client retention rate.

So, these are her thoughts on the future of work and how you can integrate remote teams into your business model and company culture.

It's no surprise to anyone listening that, in addition to all the other pressures agencies are under, trust in marketing continues to be challenged.

There’s a lot of theories out there for why that is, and I’m sure there are also a lot of suggestions on how to rebuild trust.

But Aaron Templer, the latest guest on The Innovative Agency podcast, has taken a unique approach to building trust with clients in his own agency.

Instead of trying to make sales or drive revenue, he says that marketers can think of themselves as community builders, applying principles of leadership to build that trust.

Aaron came on the show to share four leadership principles that you can begin implementing today to start building trust with your clients.

“Youth culture.”

Even the phrase is a bit intimidating.

But Jeff Fromm has researched the ins and outs of young cohorts as consumers. And not just the high level — he gets into the details, breaking it down between millennials, Gen A, and even the nuances in between (like married, single, with kids, etc.).

This episode of The Innovative Agency, we dive into a few “ahas” that Jeff Fromm has discovered from his extensive research on youth culture as consumers.

Jeff is the President of FutureCast, an agency collective and consultancy.

Ever feel as if your creative juices are being stifled by risk-aversion? Maybe your marketing gut pushes you toward a messaging approach, but your client pulls in the reins: “That’s too controversial.” “We don’t talk about that.” “That’s too risky.”

Katie Keating and Erica Fite heard these comments for about 16 years, on the agency side and in-house for brands. It didn’t matter where they went, their creative ideas were pulled way back.

So they started Fancy, a truly Innovative Agency geared towards helping brands defy stereotypes, give a voice to the voiceless, and tackle taboo subjects.

There’s a ton of technology out there. Knowing which ones to invest will be the most beneficial for your clients, can be overwhelming for agency owners.

David Lewis gets it. He’s the founder and CEO of DemandGen, a marketing technology and services consultancy. He came on The Innovative Agency to share his thought leadership on marketing technology.

We discuss:

Tech in marketing
Marketing automation
Tech implementation
Tools & tactics we all need to help our clients go further

(David also hosts his own podcast, called Demand Gen Radio, and is the author of Manufacturing Demand.)

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Ian Lurie is a “recovering” lawyer who, a few years out of law school, founded Portent, a Seattle internet marketing agency.

Ian was able to harness great technical development talent, plus great content writing, to grow Portent into an attractive acquisition target.

Today, Ian is the executive vice president of ClearLink, which acquired Portent several years ago. Ian visited The Innovative Agency podcast to share lessons learned in his more than 20 years as an agency builder. If you’re an agency leader looking to scale, this episode is for you.

Everyone likes to believe they’re thinking outside of the box.

But are you really thinking creatively?

Michael Cardwell, and his team are without a doubt creative (they literally posted wanted posters of people they wanted a meeting with.)

On the latest episode of The Innovative Agency, Michael shared his thoughts on creativity, being a great partner, and thinking outside the box to maximize your lead gen efforts.

Michael is the Founder and President of Digital Brew, a video production company based in Orlando. Digital Brew creates both live action and animation videos to help brands tell their stories.

Rob Shepardson is an expert at working with clients to make an impact, even in volatile circumstances.

Founding Partner at SS+K, Rob and his team lead clients to marry business and impact. With a foundation in political campaigns, the team has mastered the art of working with clients to make an impact, even in volatile times or treacherous industries.

That’s exactly what Rob came on the latest episode of The Innovative Agency to talk about. He shared his expertise on navigating sensitive climates, working with a brand to effectively weigh in on social issues, and how to get started helping clients who want to make an impact.

Here’s what he had to say.

You don’t become one of the most influential marketers in the country without a great deal of formative experience.

That’s what Nancy Hill, former President and CEO of The 4 A’s turned Agency Founder, is widely considered. Her reach into the agency world is deep and profound from years of experience and success.

From seeing the first mobile phone to her more recent consultancy, Nancy is changing the way agencies do business.

She talked with me about the attributes of success indicative of a long and ongoing successful agency career on this episode of The Innovative Agency Podcast.

One of the most profitable revenue streams remains untapped at most agencies: thought leadership.

The phrase may sound akin to an over-utilized buzzword, but Josh Steimle, agency owner at MWi would disagree.

Using his publications in Forbes, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, and industry publications, he’s generated $5M in revenue.

And no, it wasn’t difficult to get in. He simply joined contributor programs at each, published his articles without pay, and went from near-bankruptcy to a flourishing agency in a matter of months.

He broke down a very easy 4-step process to publication that leads to revenue right here on The Innovative Agency Podcast.

Susan Baier has been a marketing strategist for a long time, both on the agency side and the client side.

Throughout her career, Susan noted that people often stick to two types of audience segmentation strategies: demographic or behavioral. While these strategies can provide valuable insights, Susan had a new goal that she wanted to achieve.

She wanted to be able to offer audience segmentation to small and mid size agencies that was based on attitude. In other words, why do people do what they do.

So, at the beginning of the Recession, Susan founded her company, Audience Audit.

Our latest guest on The Innovative Agency, Susan talked with us about different types of segmentation studies, using research to differentiate your agency, and how to use your intellectual capital to generate additional revenue.

This episode features Dennis Carlson, founder of Agency Leverage.

Dennis has a fascinating background. Before he became an agency owner, owned his own insurance brokerage. He was landing amazing corporate deals, and his brokerage competitors kept asking him, “What are you doing for marketing?”

That’s when it hit him: His real gift wasn’t in brokering insurance deals, it was in marketing. So he became a niche marketing agency that works specifically with the highly regulated insurance industry.

On this episode we discuss finding your niche, why agencies are educators for their clients, marketing automation, and, how to help your client bridge the sales and marketing gap.

Agency owners face continually fiercer competition: from accelerating technological innovation, from in-house marketing, and from consultancies.

But David C. Baker believes there is no better time to be alive for agency owners. He believes those who think clearly are positioned to make wonderful profits and perform highly rewarding work in today’s market.

David’s the author of a phenomenal book called The Business of Expertise, which shows agency owners (and any business owner) how to take control of their business.

He came on The Innovative Agency podcast to share some of his secret sauce, and we captured it all right here.

With e-commerce clients, a major focus of digital marketing should be optimization. It’s crucial. Businesses can pull in millions in revenue but still go out of business if their acquisition cost is too high.

That’s where you, the agency, come in.

We brought in a rockstar on optimization and conversion for this episode of The Innovative Agency.

Justin Christianson is the president and co-founder of Conversion Fanatics, as well as the author of the best-seller Conversion Fanatic: How to double your customers, sales and profits with A/B testing.

He delivered 5 insights into how agencies can help e-commerce clients optimize their ad spend and convert potential into customers.

Increasingly, brands are using the power of smartphones to develop applications and experiences for their customers. Often, they come to agency owners with questions about mobile strategy. Agency owners must understand how mobile applications and UX/UI will impact them and their clients.

We brought on an expert in UX/UI and mobile app development: His name is Marc Fischer, and he’s the CEO and co-founder of Dogtown Media, an end-to-end mobile application development company.

And we aren’t the only ones who think Marc’s a pro: Forbes brought him on as a member of their invitation-only Technology Council.

Marc also gets agencies: Before he started Dogtown, he was an agency owner. So his perspective is incredibly helpful to other agency owners. He came on The Innovative Agency podcast to give some advice on how agencies can make recommendations to their clients when it comes to mobile application development.

Are you ready to have an irreplaceable agency, at scale?

Determining the vertical (or horizontal) positioning of your agency can be difficult, and a somewhat painful process. Ultimately, however, it can be the deciding factor on profit margins, longevity, and the happiness of you and your employees.

Kelly Campbell has helped numerous agencies through such a process. She’s an agency growth consultant who sold her own agency back in 2016. She personally went through the process of positioning her agency and doubling down on her best efforts before she received 3 unsolicited offers for her exit.

She came on The Innovative Agency podcast and shared the i

The direct-to-consumer industry isn’t coming. It’s here. We can see the effects of it everywhere.

But how does this affect independent agencies?

Are there opportunities available for independent agencies to provide additional value to their clients? Yes.

We say we’re living in the golden era for agencies. We know, it sounds crazy, but Mark DiMassimo believes it, too,

Mark DiMassimo is the CEO and Chief Strategy Officer at DiMassimo Goldstein. He joined us on on our Innovative Agency podcast to share the 4 opportunities agencies have to excel under the direct-to-consumer marketplace.

Don’t miss what he had to say.

Many agency owners enjoy having the freedom to make 100% of their own decisions. Other owners hope to sell one day for liquidity reasons, or perhaps they want the support of a larger holding company.

David Rodnitzky has done it all

He founded his agency 3Q Digital, then sold it to a holding company, then bought it back again. Currently, they manage about $1 billion in annual spend, and their clients include Instagram, Facebook, GoDaddy, and other “who’s who” of Silicon Valley.

David hopped on The Innovative Agency podcast to share 3 technology changes that will dramatically shift the world of digital and offline advertising.

As your agency scales, you want to continue your growth trajectory, but in a sustainable way that keeps your customers happy, employees satisfied, and your sanity intact.

Growing pains often come with accelerated agency growth — delivering on deadlines, increased production, employee retention, are all added concerns

Recently on The Innovative Agency Podcast, we asked Karl Sakas what agency owners can do at a time of intense growth. Karl specializes in this exact field — he helps agency owners who are experiencing growing pains strategize and scale their business in a sustainable way that reaches their goals.

Karl has delivered his advice in 31 countries to hundreds of agencies, and he gave away some of his best info right here.

Innovation is phenomenal. In every way — for pleasure, for necessity, for business. The world is constantly changing because of innovation, and our entire company is built around such creativity.

But just because it shines, doesn’t mean you need it. Pacing is important in marketing innovation … or perhaps especially in marketing innovation.

Take it from Kevin Hourigan, President and CEO of Bayshore Solutions, a leading digital advertising agency.

Kevin has seen digital advertising and marketing grown from its infancy in the 90s to its current state of ever-changing technology. Kevin has an amazing grasp of when to pump the accelerator, and when to proceed with caution around innovation.

He’s dealt with a variety of customers: from those who believe they don’t need a website, to others who believe they need a mobile application simply because they heard their competitor had one.

Kevin came on our Innovative Agency Podcast to show how to deal with clients who may not understand their own needs — what questions to ask them, what products to deliver, and how to guide them toward the correct KPIs.

We caught it all right here.

Experiential marketing is all around us. Whether you’re walking past a booth at a trade show, attending an event hosted by a brand at a festival, or even just going to Disney World with your family, you’ve probably been a part of some sort of experiential marketing.

David Title is the Chief Engagement Officer at Bravo Media, an experiential marketing studio with an in-house team of producers, animators, designers, and creators. Together they produce dynamic, live content for clients who want to increase brand awareness and drive action.

For David, experiential marketing is any kind of marketing that is happening in real-time in the real world. It can be related to theater, performance, and/or experiences you manufacture at the moment of contact with a potential customer to create a desired result.

In tech companies, usually the last people to get hired are HR and Marketing, and usually the first to be fired are HR and Marketing.

That’s the mentality that brought Marie Wiese to build her agency Marketing CoPilot and write her book, You Can’t Be Everywhere. Marketing CoPilot helps B2B companies define and improve their marketing ROI so that they become an indispensable part of the team.

Having served as a VP of sales and marketing for a software company, Marie realized how difficult it was for CEOs to make decisions regarding their marketing services. She wanted to bring all of the various parts together in order to create a simple, repeatable process in hiring marketing professionals.

So she set out to create a methodology that would show people how they could be where they needed to be. To lead them to where their customers are, what kind of content they were looking for, and when was the right time to engage them.

Most business owners know it’s important to have multiple revenue streams. If one stream tanks, even for a season, the others give you a safety net to keep going. Despite this knowledge, it’s hard to focus on other revenue streams when you’re so busy trying to just make the main one work.

That was Gini Dietrich, founder and CEO of Arment Dietrich PR and Spin Sucks. In 2010, during the heat of the recession, Gini had to lay off half her team. The unfortunate reality was that when purse strings got tight, communications and PR were one of the first budgets to get cut.

This wake up call pushed her to figure out a way to build more revenue streams. Her company may have survived this time around, but there was no telling what could happen if another disaster struck. Her company simply needed more passive income to fall back on apart from client retainers.

Growing an agency is hard.

You start with nothing but a laptop and a bus pass, and you commit yourself to developing a customer base and establishing an agency.

But markets turn down, customer bases dry up, technology grows faster than you can, and all of a sudden you find yourself struggling to stay afloat. They find themselves staring down a payroll deadline they’re not going to make, or a balance sheet with way too much red.

Thankfully, this has not been the case for this episode’s guest.

“Why should we go with you?” is perhaps one of the most dreaded questions that a potential client can ask you when considering whether or not to do business with your company.

Eric Sharp, the Founder and CEO of ProtoFuse, said that at one point in time his only answer to this question was, “Because we are better.” Whether that be in design, processes or workflow, his only retort was that they were better than the competition... But, “Being ‘better’ is not a strategy.”

The secret to success nowadays is through focus, developing a deeply-integrated vertical niche, and taking what you’ve learned in that well defined vertical, so your agency can keep moving towards the next level.

So much of the conversation about being innovative centers around what agencies do after they’ve won clients.

On this episode, I ask Lisa Colantuono, President of AAR Partners, how innovation can win new business for agencies.

Lisa has been successfully matching agencies and clients for more than seventeen years, and what she has to say might surprise you!

It doesn’t matter if you’re a small, medium or large company. When it comes to content marketing, the guiding principles are exactly the same. But in order to differentiate yourself and your agency, one principle matters most.

According to Simon Thompson, the founder of Content Kite, to give yourself a huge leg up on your competition you need to: “create content to attract a certain type of audience”.

It comes down to these three key ideas:

Personality and perspective are one of your biggest differentiators
Play to your strengths for the most effective forms of content
Expectations will determine your content ROI timeline

If you’ve got the right audience that you understand, and they understand you, then they’re going to stick around for the long-form (content).

Anyone who follows the world of marketing and advertising understands that video is exploding.

As a centerpiece or key component of most campaigns, video is projected to be a 70 billion dollar industry by 2021.

Sam Brenner is the Executive VP of Marketing at Boxcast, a Cleveland grown agency that is merging technology and marketing smarts to take the world by storm when it comes to video streaming.

Listen to hear some ways you can utilize livestreaming in your agency.

Every entrepreneur has a unique story about how their journey led them to create an agency.

James Carbary is the Founder of Sweet Fish Media, a company that produces podcasts for B2B companies. His story is one of discovery and transition.

Having the flexibility and courage to take a risk and transition into a new niche with an agency resonates with other entrepreneurs who have experienced the same or are considering something similar.

The real question, as marketers, is how can we leverage the power of artificial intelligence, why does it matter in the agency world, and how do you square the implementation of artificial intelligence with the ever changing data privacy laws that are popping up all over the world?

Artificial intelligence is going to disrupt everything. From the way you staff your agency, to the way you do operations, services, hiring, & pricing, it’s all going to change.

Everything that anybody thinks that they know about their business is going to change within the next decade, if not sooner.

On a recent episode of The Innovative Agency, Jody Sutter from The Sutter Company stopped by to chat about the 4 business development personalities, why the pitch shouldn’t be your main focus, and why being a niche agency can be a good thing.

Being an agency owner is a tough gig. You’ve got a host of things to deal with. Employees, budgets, a board, leadership, the list goes on and on.

It can all be a little overwhelming at times, and if you’re not careful, you can start to second guess yourself. You can start to let doubt and fear creep in and undermine your decision making.

So how do you stop it? Is there a role for bravery and courage in an agency owner’s tool-box of emotions?

Ask 100 agencies how they measure success, and odds are you’re going to hear some iteration of the same thing.

It will involve revenue, profits vs. losses, time, resources, and any number of other things that might show up on a financial report or a revenue report.

The tendency to focus on “lagging indicators” such as numbers, financials, revenue, & profit, is human nature.

But what if there was a better way to measure success? What if numbers weren’t the only metrics that mattered? What if there were a host of other metrics that were just as important, if not more so, than those numbers?

Sharon Toerek is an Intellectual Property and Marketing Lawyer with a national practice based in Cleveland, Ohio. What Sharon does best is help Marketing and PR agencies protect their assets and turn their intellectual capital into revenue.

Sharon loves the pace and blend of innovation, art, and pop culture that the marketing industry provides. She is looking to recreate that energy in the new podcast, The Innovative Agency.

This new podcast will bring together marketing industry thought leaders and agency owners to talk about what is new in the agency industry. The goal of this podcast is to help agencies go farther faster when it comes to their intellectual capital. Stay tuned for more!