Barry O'Kane of Endzone Software believes in helping clients handle their issues. He also believes that planning how you help them ahead of time is pertinent to the success and happiness of your team and your client.

Retainers can bring stability to a business, get them out of the firefighting mode of needing to win projects, and provide assets within a company or contract. 

For Barry, selling your clients retainers is all about proving your value consistently. If you're selling retainers, you should not just be providing value but demonstrating it regularly, and moving toward a structured support process that will make you and your client look good.

"If you can approach the conversation with the fundamental belief that the retainers are more valuable to the client, the conversation is very different".

In this interview, Barry talks about how to assess and improve how you currently support your clients, how to structure retainers, and ways to demonstrate value consistently so you keep clients coming back for more.

Let's say you sold a $10,000/month retainer for 6-12 month contract. If your goal is to simply get to the end of the contract, deliver the promised results, and send the client packing so you can move on to the next thing, you're thinking about your business the wrong way. You need a client retention strategy.

Obviously, your goal should be to keep your clients past their contract and have them renew year after year.

Andrew Breen of Outshine LOVES Google AdWords. While SEO is interesting to him, it's the immediacy, measurability, and amount of data AdWords offers that fascinates him. He definitely hasn't jumped on the bandwagon that AdWords is overpriced or on its way out.

To Andrew, AdWords is the gold standard for digital advertising effectiveness. "AdWords will not be a homerun of value, but it will be a solid single every time. What you're doing is capturing people when they're actively looking for the problem that you solve."

In this interview, Andrew talks about some common misconceptions around paid advertising, mistakes people are making, and how to get more from AdWords.

Millennials are constantly in the news these days. One day they're spending too much money on avocado toast, the next they're not spending enough on dryer sheets and "ruining" the laundry soap industry.

The 21st century can be a harsh world for millennials, but Daniel DiPiazza has figured out some key steps to starting and growing an online business you and others will care about.

His company, Rich20Something, provides tools and courses that teach millennials (and millennials at heart) how to thrive in a seemingly broken system where it's hard to get ahead financially and make an impact.

In this interview, Daniel talks about the important skills you can gain from freelancing, why everyone needs a creative outlet, and why you should build your own platform.

No one wants to fire a client. They pay us money, they have interesting projects, and sometimes they become our friends. But then there's the other kind of client; the one who is such a nightmare to work with that your business starts to lose money and morale.

I fired a client ONCE, and it was when I was a marketing/communications freelancer. While I've worked with lots of challenging people in my career, I quickly realized that this situation was different and there was no chance for a resolution.

Without getting into all the gory details, here's the gist of what happened:

• Communication barrier
• No acknowledgement of my expertise in an area my client had zero experience
• Unconstructive and harsh criticism from the client
• I couldn't understand why she was upset, and she wasn't able to articulate the issue in a way that I could do anything about.
• She had a very hostile attitude that suggested I had taken advantage of her.

Let me say that in my 17-year career in marketing, I have worked with a lot of smart, and incredibly talented people. But I've also had some doozy clients and nutjob colleagues. I sucked up a lot of bad behaviour over the years for various reasons:

1. That's what grown up professionals do.
2. I didn't have the authority to fire a client (or coworker) even if I wished for it on every fallen eyelash.
3. I needed the work.

But here I was, finally my own boss, and I could see that no amount of talking was going to solve the problem. I also knew that this client was likely a one-off. It wasn't going to turn into big,

Most people are aware of a few of the standard things they need to do market their business online, like having an email list and a blog. But Mike McGrail believes paid marketing is a necessity, even for a company that's primarily inbound, because it can amplify your content to engage with a wider audience, taking your business to the next level.

 Mike points out that previously, you could use Facebook and Twitter organically to build an engaged audience, but over time reach has been significantly reduced. Where organic reach of a Facebook business post was 55-60%, now it's at about 2.5%. If those numbers don't scream that paid marketing has become critical to reaching your target audience, I don't know what does.

In this interview, Mike talks more about why you need to experiment with paid social media, and what qualities and soft skills you need to look for when hiring great marketers on your team.

I'm sorry to be the one to break it to you.The folks at your agency are too nice to tell you the bad news themselves, so I'm here to take on that burden and lay it all on the table. It might be tough to hear, but in the long run, it's for your benefit.

So before you get all outraged and pick up the phone to fire their asses, take a few minutes to read this post and consider their side of client/agency relationship. I promise that in the end, it can only lead to a more productive, effective, and valuable partnership.

Now take a deep breath and read on.

Ross Simmonds' understanding of online business and the power of content came when he started his second business, a fantasy football blog, while he was in university. "I was a kid living in my parents' basement, and I was reaching thousands of people all over the world, positioning myself at the age of 18 or 19 as an authority in fantasy football, and people were buying it," says Ross.

That's when he realized the massive potential in content marketing and that it was something he needed to double-down on. Although he hated writing about Shakespeare and English for university, he loved writing about football, so he followed that passion. It then allowed him to develop the skill-set of creating great content that resonates with people.

In this interview, Ross talks about the secret to writing compelling content; why distribution, not content, is king; and tips for reaching more people to grow your business.

FACT: If you're a small business that's selling services on the low end of the market, it's going to be almost impossible to scale your business.

You're also likely to be pretty stressed out since you constantly need to scramble to get new clients, complete their projects at lightening speed to be profitable, and deal with the looming threat of being squeezed out by a competitor who offers an even lower price.

Most things naturally drop in price over time, and there's not much you can do to control that. Disruptive technology, for example, is making things like web design, legal services, marketing, and electronics cheaper by the day.

If your only value proposition is a claim to offer the lowest price, that's a crumbling cliff's edge to build your business on. Someone will always be able to do it cheaper (or say they can).

Dan Martell learned to code when he was 16 and in rehab. While cleaning, he found an old computer and a book on Java programming. This, and receiving the first encouraging words of his life from a prison guard, was the beginning of a whole new world for Dan.

When he got out, the internet was exploding, and he started his first company at 17. Some of them were failures, but the software agency that he started at 24, sold at a profit for millions when he was 28. Since then Dan has gone on to found more companies, become an angel investor, and help entrepreneurs.  "I want people to judge me for my ideas and the things I create," says Dan. " Anytime I've had capital, I've just re-invested it in other companies."

In this interview, Dan talks about his 'rags to riches' story, what motivates him in business (hint: it's not money), and his vision of a perfect agency model.