Agentic Shift

Agentic Shift

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Agentic Shift episodes

  • Marcel Petitpas, CEO and Co-Founder of Parakeeto
    Marcel Petitpas, CEO and Co-Founder of Parakeeto, talks about how his firm helps agencies and professional service firms measure and improve profitability. He outlines the primary reasons agencies struggle with profitability, which often boils down to "poor delivery margins." He discusses key issues like underpricing, inefficient use of labor, and poor utilization of staff as common causes for low profitability. He explains how agencies should focus on improving operational efficiency by either lowering labor costs or increasing revenue from labor.
    32 min
  • Matt Widdoes, Founder of MAVAN
    We talk to Matt Widdoes, founder of MAVAN. Matt tells us how he has been able to effectively and profitably work with startups, often with less than 10 F/T employees, how he recovered from the sudden loss of several large clients simultaneously, how he successfully spent years as a professional poker player and how it helped him become a better marketer, and why we should all be playing backgammon!
    47 min
  • Kris Tait, Managing Director, US, of Croud
    We talking to Kris Tait, managing director, US for Croud. Kris tells us what he learned from door-to-door sales in the early days of Croud business, how he grew the US presence of Croud from nothing to a leading agency, why he believes in hustle and a bias for action, what a Croudie is and how it has differentiated their agency, and lastly, how to deliver a smart acquisition strategy to grow your agency.
    38 min
  • Jon Morris, Founder of Fiscal Advocate and Rise Interactive
    We talk to Jon Morris, formerly the founder of Rise Interactive and currently the founder of Fiscal Advocate. Jon tells us how he created a screening test that only 22% of applicants passed, how to navigate the four stages of of a CEO, how his algorithm called CPR measures the effectiveness of an agency and the two most important financial metrics every agency should focus on.
    26 min
  • Bryan Wish, CEO of Arcbound
    We talk to Bryan Wish, founder and CEO of Arcbound, a full service personal branding firm. Bryan tells us why publishing a book doesn’t magically build your personal brand, why getting press in major news outlets is sometimes great and sometimes not, the importance of building a community around you, the importance of hiring a great operator to partner with a visionary partner, and the number one lesson he’s learned in scaling his business.
    26 min
  • Jonathan Smith, EOS and The Black Swan Group

    We talk to Jonathan Smith, EOS Implementer and Negotiations Trainer and Coach with the Black Swan Group. Jonathan tells us why the EOS system is so powerful, the importance of having an EOS implementer, and how to make EOS work for you for years after your initial implementation. He also tells us how he met and agreed to work with Chris Voss, the founder of the Black Swan Group and the best selling negotiating book, Never Split the Difference, and he teaches us some great negotiating tips from the book. I also share my riveting story about how I used the book to several hundreds of dollars in a car rental negotiation. Enjoy the show!

    46 min
  • Patrick McKenna, DMI Partners

    We talk to Pat McKenna, CEO of DMI Partners, a 100 person agency based in Philadelphia that focuses on affiliate and CRM marketing. Pat tells us why they tend to offer a single solution service offering to clients, why it’s important to maintain quality as you scale, the one sentence that describes his agency culture, what he means when he says you should avoid a zero sum agency, why differentiation matters, and how COVID forced him and a client to make an incredibly fast pivot.

    31 min
  • Sherrick Murdoff, Former VP of Partner Investments and M&A, Salesforce

    We talk to Sherrick Murdoff. Sherrick ran worldwide alliances and channels at Salesforce. Over more than a decade, he invested in over 80 different companies across 13 countries. Sherrick tells us why Salesforce was open to making minority investments in service companies, why he always wanted to make sure that everyone involved in a transaction felt it was a good deal for them, why so many of his investments did not have competitive bids from other investors, what he thinks distinguishes great private equity firms, and how he ended by investing in service companies alongside Sequoia Capital. Enjoy the show!

    43 min
  • Keith McCracken, CEO of McCracken Advisory Partners

    In this episode of Agentic Shift, we talk to Keith McCracken, founder of McCracken Advisory Partners, an international M&A advisory firm. Keith tells us about his early life in Liverpool, England (yes, he did cross paths with the Beatles on many occasions), his experience growing, selling, and then buying back an agency, as well as buying other agencies as part of a roll-up, why team members leave after an acquisition (and whether you should be worried), why selling a factory is easy, but selling an agency is hard, and why timing really is everything in agency M&A. 

    39 min

About Agentic Shift

From the publisher's feed

Conversations with agency leaders about how and why they built (and often sold) their agencies. Each episode is a 60 minute interview with a prominent agency founder or CEO, telling their founder…