Agency Forward

On this episode of Agency Forward, I'm joined by Nick Bennett and Erica Schneider.

Nick and Erica run Duo Consulting, an offer design consultancy for solo consultants and small agencies who want to grow past what one person can carry. Nick came up in demand gen at a HubSpot partner agency and was last on the show in episode 75. Erica is a writer and editor who ran her own content business, Cut the Fluff, before the two of them teamed up.

I wanted them on because they have put a name and a shape on something a lot of agency owners want and can't describe: a business bigger than a solo practice that never turns into the agency they hated working at. Their version is one offer, one delivery pod of senior people, around 60% margin, and a ceiling the owner picks on purpose.

In this episode, we discuss:

• What makes a microagency, and why it has a ceiling by design
• Putting contractors across accounts by skill, instead of giving one person everything on one account
• Variable pay for senior people, and why junior hires dilute the work
• Why the founder stays on as principal strategist, so the client never gets handed off
• "When is enough enough?" with clients cruising at $25K, $140K and $330K a month
• Which services fit the model (demand gen, content) and which fight it (coaching)
• The revenue wall most solo operators hit between $30K and $50K a month
• Why the offer comes first: keep the main thing the main thing
• Writing a book one monthly mini book at a time, and how it became their most cited source of new deals after LinkedIn
• And more...

You can learn more about Nick and Erica on LinkedIn, at DuoConsulting.co, and at How Solos Scale.

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No one was asking for another community. But I've made one anyway.

So what's different?

The Dynamic Agency Community is designed around access rather than content.

Access to peers who've done it before.

Access to experts who've designed solutions.

Access to resources that have been battle-tested.

And right now, the price for founding members is only $97/year.

Join today so your agency has immediate access to everything you need to grow.

You can join at dynamicagencyos.com/community.

-----------

Subscribe to the Agency Forward blog on Substack.

We have weekly blog content with practical advice to help you advance your agency.

-----------

And if you're ready for 1-on-1 help to create some mind-blowing offers for your agency, visit DynamicAgencyOS.com to schedule a free consultation. Running an agency is tough, but you don't need to go it alone.

On this episode of Agency Forward, I'm joined by Leslie Camacho.

Leslie is an EOS Implementer who works only with agencies. Leslie helps owners run on the Entrepreneurial Operating System, with most of the work going into the "healthy" half of healthy and smart: core values, team health, and how owners lead and manage.

I wanted Leslie on because of a sharp take on what AI does to an agency: it makes you faster at everything, including the things that are already broken. If your culture is weak, AI just grows the people problems along with the output. We talked about why that happens, how a role can change in a few weeks without anyone saying it out loud, and the small, consistent habits that keep a team healthy while the work speeds up.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why AI exposes weak cultures, and why "culture is how you do everything"
• How AI piles on decisions and changes someone's job, especially for people with ADHD or trauma
• Core values you can hire, fire, review and reward against, and revisiting them every quarter
• Delegate and Elevate as a way to catch burnout in the "good at it but don't like it" work
• Why owners who hate the word "management" should learn to be a great boss, and how AI can teach you
• Two book picks: Heal to Lead by Kelly Campbell and The Book of Joy
• And more...

You can learn more about Leslie on LinkedIn and at LeslieCamacho.com. 

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Lead Gen is the hardest part of running an agency.

For most, it's unpredictable, it's slow, and it's usually expensive.

Gia flips that.

It's the all-in-one growth platform that turns your existing relationships and client work into a steady pipeline.

Gia automates lead gen follow-up and content, and it's all from the work you're already doing.

You can check it out and get some free bonuses at getgia.ai/dynamicagency

-----------

No one was asking for another community. But I've made one anyway.

So what's different?

The Dynamic Agency Community is designed around access rather than content.

Access to peers who've done it before.

Access to experts who've designed solutions.

Access to resources that have been battle-tested.

And right now, the price for founding members is only $97/year.

Join today so your agency has immediate access to everything you need to grow.

You can join at dynamicagencyos.com/community.

-----------

Subscribe to the Agency Forward blog on Substack.

We have weekly blog content with practical advice to help you advance your agency.

-----------

And if you're ready for 1-on-1 help to create some mind-blowing offers for your agency, visit DynamicAgencyOS.com to schedule a free consultation. Running an agency is tough, but you don't need to go it alone.

Hey everyone, today I'm joined by Tim Kilroy, back for his third time on the show.

Tim is the founder of the WTF Agency Method and Build Your Agency Better. He's founded, scaled and sold multiple agencies over 25+ years in digital marketing, and now coaches agency owners full-time. He writes the Agency Inner Circle newsletter twice a week, and he recently launched the Agency Field Guide, a directory that only lists agencies willing to show evidence of their work.

I wanted Tim back because a lot of agencies are pouring money into AI tools and workflows to do the same work they've always done, faster. Tim calls it arming yourself to fight the last war. We talked about where AI earns its keep in an agency, and where leaning on it makes your work blander and your agency easier to forget.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why AI-written marketing misses the overlap between what the brand knows and what the buyer knows
• Why an agency selling its own software is usually competing with a VC-funded company and losing
• Why the job is to be unforgettable rather than efficient, and how AI rounds off your sharp edges
• What to hand AI (research, finding what you missed) and what to keep (writing and decisions)
• Why AI pushes agencies out of the execution room and into the strategy room
• And more...

You can learn more about Tim on LinkedIn, at timkilroy.com, or at agencyfieldguide.com.

-----------

Lead Gen is the hardest part of running an agency.

For most, it's unpredictable, it's slow, and it's usually expensive.

Gia flips that.

It's the all-in-one growth platform that turns your existing relationships and client work into a steady pipeline.

Gia automates lead gen follow-up and content, and it's all from the work you're already doing.

You can check it out and get some free bonuses at getgia.ai/dynamicagency

-----------

No one was asking for another community. But I've made one anyway.

So what's different?

The Dynamic Agency Community is designed around access rather than content.

Access to peers who've done it before.

Access to experts who've designed solutions.

Access to resources that have been battle-tested.

And right now, the price for founding members is only $97/year.

Join today so your agency has immediate access to everything you need to grow.

You can join at dynamicagencyos.com/community.

-----------

Subscribe to the Agency Forward blog on Substack.

We have weekly blog content with practical advice to help you advance your agency.

-----------

And if you're ready for 1-on-1 help to create some mind-blowing offers for your agency, visit DynamicAgencyOS.com to schedule a free consultation. Running an agency is tough, but you don't need to go it alone.

Hey everyone, today I'm joined by Raul Hernandez.

Raul is the founder of Do Good Work, a growth and operations advisor who helps founder-led B2B service businesses build and own their own AI systems instead of renting someone else's.

He built and led a revenue team that produced $50 million and made the Inc. 5000 the same year, and he's hosted the Do Good Work podcast since 2019, now around 300 episodes. Raul built his first agency on an 11-inch MacBook Air, grew it to 19 clients, and has since packaged his own operating systems into productized agents and skill sets that other service businesses now run on.

I wanted to have Raul on because agency owners keep getting hit with "can't you do this cheaper with AI," and most of them don't have a real answer. Raul does. He's actually built and priced the systems that answer it instead of just talking about it.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why "cheaper with AI" is the wrong client question
• Owning your data and AI agents instead of renting a model
• Pricing agency services four new ways in the AI era
• And more...

You can learn more about Raul on LinkedIn, or at dogoodwork.io.

-----------

Lead Gen is the hardest part of running an agency.

For most, it's unpredictable, it's slow, and it's usually expensive.

Gia flips that.

It's the all-in-one growth platform that turns your existing relationships and client work into a steady pipeline.

Gia automates lead gen follow-up and content, and it's all from the work you're already doing.

You can check it out and get some free bonuses at getgia.ai/dynamicagency

-----------

No one was asking for another community. But I've made one anyway.

So what's different?

The Dynamic Agency Community is designed around access rather than content.

Access to peers who've done it before.

Access to experts who've designed solutions.

Access to resources that have been battle-tested.

And right now, the price for founding members is only $97/year.

Join today so your agency has immediate access to everything you need to grow.

You can join at dynamicagencyos.com/community.

-----------

Subscribe to the Agency Forward blog on Substack.

We have weekly blog content with practical advice to help you advance your agency.

-----------

And if you're ready for 1-on-1 help to create some mind-blowing offers for your agency, visit DynamicAgencyOS.com to schedule a free consultation. Running an agency is tough, but you don't need to go it alone.

Hey everyone, today I'm joined by Carson Pierce.

Carson leads the team at Parakeeto, where he helps agency owners get clear on their numbers and fix their profitability problems. He meets with agency owners every month to walk through what their numbers mean, how they affect each other, and which ones deserve their attention.

I wanted to have Carson on because when the pipeline dries up, most agency owners go chase more work. Carson makes the case for checking your delivery margin, team utilization and rates first, because more work poured into a business that loses money on every hour just makes the hole deeper.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why chasing more work can backfire when revenue dips
• Delivery margin, the one number Carson would chase first, and why it should sit at 50% or less
• Why your team can feel slammed while the utilization numbers say they have room
• How AI is putting pressure on agency pricing, and why faster work rarely earns a higher price
• And more...

You can learn more about Carson on LinkedIn, or grab the free toolkit at Parakeeto.com.

And here are some other fun links for you:
Agency Profit Podcast
Agency Profit Toolkit
Book a call with Parakeeto

-----------

Lead Gen is the hardest part of running an agency.

For most, it's unpredictable, it's slow, and it's usually expensive.

Gia flips that.

It's the all-in-one growth platform that turns your existing relationships and client work into a steady pipeline.

Gia automates lead gen follow-up and content, and it's all from the work you're already doing.

You can check it out and get some free bonuses at getgia.ai/dynamicagency

-----------

No one was asking for another community. But I've made one anyway.

So what's different?

The Dynamic Agency Community is designed around access rather than content.

Access to peers who've done it before.

Access to experts who've designed solutions.

Access to resources that have been battle-tested.

And right now, the price for founding members is only $97/year.

Join today so your agency has immediate access to everything you need to grow.

You can join at dynamicagencyos.com/community.

-----------

Subscribe to the Agency Forward blog on Substack.

We have weekly blog content with practical advice to help you advance your agency.

-----------

And if you're ready for 1-on-1 help to create some mind-blowing offers for your agency, visit DynamicAgencyOS.com to schedule a free consultation. Running an agency is tough, but you don't need to go it alone.

Hey everyone, today I'm joined by Tracey Burnett.

Tracey runs Leads to Success Global and hosts the Marketing Momentum for Agencies podcast. Before working with agencies, she spent years running lead generation and marketing for companies like Unilever and Barclays.

I wanted her on because agencies are often the worst at marketing themselves, even though it's exactly what they sell everyone else. After 80-plus interviews with agency owners on her own show, Tracey sees the same pattern every time: owners chase a tactic, more content, another podcast, outbound, before they've fixed what she calls their "unshakable business foundation," and their own marketing is always the first thing to get cut when client delivery gets busy.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why agencies look for a marketing tactic before diagnosing the actual business problem
• The "unshakable business foundation" she builds before touching a single tactic
• Why an agency's own marketing always loses to client delivery, and how to stop that
• How to build a marketing rhythm a founder or team will actually keep doing
• And more...

You can learn more about Tracey Burnett on LinkedIn, or check out her podcast, Marketing Momentum for Agencies.

-----------

Lead Gen is the hardest part of running an agency.

For most, it's unpredictable, it's slow, and it's usually expensive.

Gia flips that.

It's the all-in-one growth platform that turns your existing relationships and client work into a steady pipeline.

Gia automates lead gen follow-up and content, and it's all from the work you're already doing.

You can check it out and get some free bonuses at getgia.ai/dynamicagency

-----------

No one was asking for another community. But I've made one anyway.

So what's different?

The Dynamic Agency Community is designed around access rather than content.

Access to peers who've done it before.

Access to experts who've designed solutions.

Access to resources that have been battle-tested.

And right now, the price for founding members is only $97/year.

Join today so your agency has immediate access to everything you need to grow.

You can join at dynamicagencyos.com/community.

-----------

Subscribe to the Agency Forward blog on Substack.

We have weekly blog content with practical advice to help you advance your agency.

-----------

And if you're ready for 1-on-1 help to create some mind-blowing offers for your agency, visit DynamicAgencyOS.com to schedule a free consultation. Running an agency is tough, but you don't need to go it alone.

Hey everyone, today I'm joined by Albert Banks.

Albert runs Apertus, an advisory firm that helps agency and professional services owners get their operations and finances ready for a sale, whether or not they ever actually sell. He built and sold two agencies himself, first Myjive in a partner-driven exit, then Union in a fully deliberate process he ran years in advance.

I wanted him on because most agency owners never seriously prepare to sell, even though it's probably the biggest asset they'll ever own. Albert is blunt about what that takes: chasing profitability over vanity revenue, building a business that runs without you, and knowing exactly how a buyer will value your agency before you ever sit across from one.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why only about 1% of agencies ever reach a real exit
• The real reason owners get stuck and can't get out of their own business
• How agencies are actually valued, and the biggest surprise owners get about their own pay
• Why more agencies are doing "bolt-on" acquisitions instead of waiting for a full exit
• And more...

You can learn more about Albert Banks on LinkedIn, or check out Apertus if you want help running your agency like you're built to sell it.

-----------

Lead Gen is the hardest part of running an agency.

For most, it's unpredictable, it's slow, and it's usually expensive.

Gia flips that.

It's the all-in-one growth platform that turns your existing relationships and client work into a steady pipeline.

Gia automates lead gen follow-up and content, and it's all from the work you're already doing.

You can check it out and get some free bonuses at getgia.ai/dynamicagency

-----------

No one was asking for another community. But I've made one anyway.

So what's different?

The Dynamic Agency Community is designed around access rather than content.

Access to peers who've done it before.

Access to experts who've designed solutions.

Access to resources that have been battle-tested.

And right now, the price for founding members is only $97/year.

Join today so your agency has immediate access to everything you need to grow.

You can join at dynamicagencyos.com/community.

-----------

Subscribe to the Agency Forward blog on Substack.

We have weekly blog content with practical advice to help you advance your agency.

-----------

And if you're ready for 1-on-1 help to create some mind-blowing offers for your agency, visit DynamicAgencyOS.com to schedule a free consultation. Running an agency is tough, but you don't need to go it alone.

Three ideas today, no guest.

School is back and the dog needs walking, so between drop-off, pick-up, and laps around the back porch I have time to talk through concepts I've been chewing on. This is the first of those.

Green pen, red pen, blue pen. A strategy-making order I pulled from intelligence preparation of the battlefield in the Army, and it only works in that order. Green is the terrain: the market conditions everyone has to deal with, you and your competition alike. Red is the competition itself, their most likely course of action and their most deadly one. Blue is your plan, which you don't get to write until the other two are on the map.

The 10/80/10 rule. Spend 10% of a task's hours prepping the person who's going to do it, hand off the 80%, keep the last 10% for your edits. Every correction you make in that final 10% gets documented and goes into the next brief, so the prep shrinks over time. Run the same split on AI instead of one-shotting a prompt and you'll stop wasting an hour arguing with an output you never gave context to.

Platforms, channels, and rooms. LinkedIn is a platform. Organic posting, ads, DMs, commenting, your profile: those are channels. The room is the contained space where everyone in it is already your ICP. Most agencies pick a platform, post into their old contact list, and wonder why the algorithm buries them.

In this episode, I cover:

• Why writing your plan before reading the market wastes both
• How to delegate a 10-hour task and only spend two hours on it, and why the same split fixes your AI output
• Why your LinkedIn contact list is the reason your posts don't reach anyone
• And more...

If you have a challenge you want a framework for, send me a message and I'll work it into a future episode.

Also, check out our snapshot so you can see how the market sees you at DynamicAgencyOS.com/Snapshot

-----------

Lead Gen is the hardest part of running an agency.

For most, it's unpredictable, it's slow, and it's usually expensive.

Gia flips that.

It's the all-in-one growth platform that turns your existing relationships and client work into a steady pipeline.

Gia automates lead gen follow-up and content, and it's all from the work you're already doing.

You can check it out and get some free bonuses at getgia.ai/dynamicagency

-----------

No one was asking for another community. But I've made one anyway.

So what's different?

The Dynamic Agency Community is designed around access rather than content.

Access to peers who've done it before.

Access to experts who've designed solutions.

Access to resources that have been battle-tested.

And right now, the price for founding members is only $97/year.

Join today so your agency has immediate access to everything you need to grow.

You can join at dynamicagencyos.com/community.

-----------

Subscribe to the Agency Forward blog on Substack.

We have weekly blog content with practical advice to help you advance your agency.

-----------

And if you're ready for 1-on-1 help to create some mind-blowing offers for your agency, visit DynamicAgencyOS.com to schedule a free consultation. Running an agency is tough, but you don't need to go it alone.

Hey everyone, today I'm joined by Chris Bolton.

Chris runs Diviner, an SEO and marketing consultancy. Before that he spent about twenty years building Murmur Creative with his brother, and leaving it was hard enough that the two of them ended up in therapy over it.

Since going out on his own he has done the thing most agency owners only talk about. He canceled nearly every software subscription he was paying for and spent a year building his own replacements. That became Diviner One, the CRM and review platform his clients now run on, and Crystl, a tool for managing AI agents that about a thousand people have downloaded.

I wanted him on because build-versus-buy has changed. One person can now replace a stack that used to cost an agency thousands a month. Chris did it, and he is straight about both halves: the credibility it added to his consulting, and the year he spent building software that was never tested against anything besides his own imagination.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Where the money goes when an agency stops renting its software
• Why AI only burns you in the areas where you are not already the expert
• What it costs to leave an agency you built with your brother
• And more...

You can learn more about Chris Bolton on LinkedIn.

Also, check out Chris' Grow Your Agency community. And if you want marketing help, check out Diviner. 

-----------

Lead Gen is the hardest part of running an agency.

For most, it's unpredictable, it's slow, and it's usually expensive.

Gia flips that.

It's the all-in-one growth platform that turns your existing relationships and client work into a steady pipeline.

Gia automates lead gen follow-up and content, and it's all from the work you're already doing.

You can check it out and get some free bonuses at getgia.ai/dynamicagency

-----------

No one was asking for another community. But I've made one anyway.

So what's different?

The Dynamic Agency Community is designed around access rather than content.

Access to peers who've done it before.

Access to experts who've designed solutions.

Access to resources that have been battle-tested.

And right now, the price for founding members is only $97/year.

Join today so your agency has immediate access to everything you need to grow.

You can join at dynamicagencyos.com/community.

-----------

Subscribe to the Agency Forward blog on Substack.

We have weekly blog content with practical advice to help you advance your agency.

-----------

And if you're ready for 1-on-1 help to create some mind-blowing offers for your agency, visit DynamicAgencyOS.com to schedule a free consultation. Running an agency is tough, but you don't need to go it alone.

Hey everyone, today I'm joined by Dave Plunkett.

Dave is the founder of Collaboration Junkie, where he helps agencies turn referrals and partnerships into a deliberate system instead of something that just happens to them.

He calls himself a referral evangelist, and he built DANCE, a five-part framework covering discovery, assembly, nurturing, connection and engagement. The partnerships half of that framework is now a book, currently with his editor and launching in January.

I wanted him on the show because most agencies grow to a certain size on founder-led referrals and then treat that channel as something to graduate out of. Dave's argument is that it's the cheapest, most compounding channel they will ever have, and the work is building a culture that keeps it producing after the founder stops being the one asking.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why more partners is the wrong fix for weak partner referrals
• Why your partner pitch needs its own value proposition, separate from your client one
• Situational niching: teaching referrers the trigger words a buyer actually uses
• And more...

You can learn more about Dave on LinkedIn. And don't forget to check out Collaboration Junkie.

-----------

Lead Gen is the hardest part of running an agency.

For most, it's unpredictable, it's slow, and it's usually expensive.

Gia flips that.

It's the all-in-one growth platform that turns your existing relationships and client work into a steady pipeline.

Gia automates lead gen follow-up and content, and it's all from the work you're already doing.

You can check it out and get some free bonuses at getgia.ai/dynamicagency

-----------

No one was asking for another community. But I've made one anyway.

So what's different?

The Dynamic Agency Community is designed around access rather than content.

Access to peers who've done it before.

Access to experts who've designed solutions.

Access to resources that have been battle-tested.

And right now, the price for founding members is only $97/year.

Join today so your agency has immediate access to everything you need to grow.

You can join at dynamicagencyos.com/community.

-----------

Subscribe to the Agency Forward blog on Substack.

We have weekly blog content with practical advice to help you advance your agency.

-----------

And if you're ready for 1-on-1 help to create some mind-blowing offers for your agency, visit DynamicAgencyOS.com to schedule a free consultation. Running an agency is tough, but you don't need to go it alone.