Smart Agency Masterclass with Jason Swenk: Podcast for Digital Marketing Agencies

Are you delegating effectively in order to grow your agency? Do you have a satisfying work-life balance? Or are you working yourself to death? A lot of agency owners hit the early milestones by hustling hard. Many believe they are the only ones capable of doing specific tasks the right way. But this superhero syndrome ultimately gets in the way of your growth and results in being burnt out. Today's guest saw rapid growth with his agency, hitting the $1 million mark in just one year. However, he shares the toll it took and what he would do differently.

Daniel Englebretson is the co-founder and CCO of Khronos, an account-based marketing agency helping B2B companies create demand generation from the ground up. His team assists clients as they validate, refine, and execute their go-to-market strategy by running targeted account-based programs that deliver a real pipeline. Daniel has spent most of his career in B2B marketing and is passionate about helping businesses solve problems.

In this episode, we'll discuss:

• Value-based pricing and charging what you're worth.
• Key roles to hire in order to boost agency growth.
• Staying motivated after working around the clock.

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Sponsors and Resources

E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service.

Value-Based Pricing and Charging What You're Worth

Daniel began his career in B2B marketing immediately after college when he was recruited to work on a demand generation project. Over the next few years, he honed his approach and skills while working on similar projects. He met his future co-founders as they collaborated on several projects. Together they developed their methodology for scaling up demand generation. Their goal was to revolutionize the sector by assisting businesses that had an old-school approach.

The agency's first retainer was for $3,000 and was signed three months after Daniel quit his job to focus on building the business. However, it wasn't until two months later that the agency signed what he calls their actual first retainer, in the $15,000 range. From that point on, it took them only a year to reach $1 million. They have grown the agency 2X every since then.

Daniel envisioned building and selling Account Based Marketing programs for the same price it would cost to hire an ABM director, around $15,000 per month.

Related: How the Right Foot in The Door Offer Helps Land Bigger Retainers

Key Roles to Boost the Agency's Growth

Since the agency aimed to be its clients' fractional ABM team, the most critical role to fill was operations to help document processes. From there, their most significant hires were for process execution and staffing customer services.

Daniel and his partners initially had reservations about hiring more leaders, but they recognized their blind spots and brought in an account manager to help define what customer success would look like for them and the roles they needed to fill. However, they later realized they had leaned too much on expensive leadership, which did not work out.

Staying Motivated After Working Around the Clock

While reaching $1 million in just one year was impressive, Daniel and his partners paid themselves the bare minimum that first year, allowing them to reinvest in the agency. Daniel handled all client-facing tasks and worked around the clock. He eventually realized the importance of work-life balance and separating his personal and professional identities. This led to reorganizing the company and having all client-facing roles roll under him, giving him the chance to focus on his role as the visionary.

Daniel recommends having a coach, partner, therapist, or adviser to bounce ideas off. Often agency owners struggle to find someone to advise them when they start their agency journeys on their own. Turning outside the agency to find a coach or adviser can help owners get through the low points.

Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset?

If you want to be around amazing agency owners that can see what you may not be able to see and help you grow your agency, go to Agency Mastery 360. Our agency growth program helps you take a 360-degree view of your agency and gain mastery of the 3 pillar systems (attract, convert, scale) so you can create predictability, wealth, and freedom.

Have you used LinkedIn to generate leads for your agency? Do you know how to access your ideal prospects on LinkedIn? A lot of people get LinkedIn messaging wrong their results show it. It can be a very valuable platform when you use it the right way and master the type of messaging that gets engagement. However, very few do it right. Today's guest has a lead generation agency that specializes in creating targeted messages that generate responses from your ideal prospects. He shares common mistakes agencies typically make on LinkedIn and tips for improving your LinkedIn outreach.

Nick Verity is the CEO of Cleverly, a LinkedIn marketing agency that uses data from thousands of outbound B2B campaigns to send proven, personalized messages to your dream clients on this platform. His team leverages high-performing data to engage your most qualified decision-makers, driving them directly into your sales funnel.

In this episode, we'll discuss:

• Common mistakes with LinkedIn messages
• How to get LinkedIn messaging right.
• Accessing your ideal prospects on LinkedIn.

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Sponsors and Resources

Dot & Co: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by Dot & Co, client management specialists helping digital marketing agencies keep their clients happy. With the help of their knowledgeable account managers agency owners can step away from the day-to-day and focus on driving results. Check out dotandcompany.co/smartagency and get 20% off your first month working with them.

Starting Out as a Lead Generation Agency

Nick got into the agency world figuring if he learned how to market he would always have a job. His business partner used to work in lead generation for a big tech company and had successfully used LinkedIn to create leads for himself. Of course, experience with lead generation came in handy when they decided to create an agency.

Their original offer was a ton of volume on LinkedIn with fully done-for-you copywriting and targeting. It was very successful and they were soon charging $800 per month to send 2,000 connection requests on LinkedIn. However, things have changed since LinkedIn has limited connection requests to 400 per month.

The Unusual Path that Led to Scaling the Agency

Looking back, Nick sees they failed to work on filling their sales pipeline faster. Basically, they stuck to the same 20 clients for about a year. They were doing so much for these clients that it was difficult to focus on bringing in more business. This meant their agency growth plateaued.

The eventual solution was dropping prices and making a switch to fully backend scalable operations coupled with a lot of automation. This was the solution they needed in order to scale. It was the key to pulling themselves out of the business. For Nick, making those changes and being delegating work is what made the difference between scaling and staying at the same level as other agencies.

Many agencies take the opposite route of having fewer clients and charging more, but this is the change Cleverly needed in order to scale.

The Most Common Mistake People Make on LinkedIn

Most people ignore the "salesy," persistent messages we normally get on LinkedIn. You can see them from a mile away. According to Nick, most people get on LinkedIn thinking they're just going to pitch and sell, which leads to the many irrelevant messages we all know. With automation, it becomes even worse as they start to spread the same irrelevant messaging even more. It fills inboxes with the same type of generic messages and drives people away from the platform.

Like cold calling and cold email, there are ways to make it work, there are just very few doing it right.

How Can You Get LinkedIn Messaging Right?

• Step 1: Targeting. People usually look for copy hacks to improve their LinkedIn success. However, Nick says it all starts with targeting. Half the reason people assume the message is spam is because they see "I'm an insurance agent or real estate broker" and think "I don't need this." Think about targeting first. Don't just target everyone. Instead, niche down and make sure to hit relevant people. List your clients and try to target similar individuals. This way, you're saying something credible and relevant which increases the chance of success. At his agency, they use Sales Navigator to build a hyper-niche list of around 1,000 prospects.
• Step 2: Mindset shift. You're not on LinkedIn to sell. Instead, your goal is to start conversations and build a network. When you change your mindset to starting conversations, your messages are shorter and you'll learn to ask good discovery questions. Instead of pitching, lead off by providing value for free and see where it goes.
• Step 3: The conversation. You can start the conversation by boosting their ego. Complement them on the work they're doing and be specific on where you think they're doing really well. Next, you make a low-friction offer that's not a sales pitch. For instance, invite them on your podcast or offer to send a video with valuable information. After that, it's all about the delivery. If it's a video, for example, make sure it's really well done and actually offers valuable, relevant information.

What Makes Engaging LinkedIn Posts?

Most LinkedIn posts get little to no engagement but Nick says there are a couple of types of posts that outperform others.

First, if you want to go viral, focus on HR and stories. Most people on LinkedIn are not big CEOs, they're employees. It may be corny, but people really resonate with stories about overcoming failure; like "started from the bottom and overcame all obstacles" or "I was fired and now I'm a top performer".

Nick also likes to post value-added content, like a post about his agency's strategy and then offering a complete guide for people who comment. These posts can include video and images as long as it's not just a repost and you're adding something exclusively for this platform.

It's worked so well for them that they managed to scale their agency to 1 million with just LinkedIn outreach and Google ads.

Tips for Accessing Your Audience on LinkedIn

If you're not getting the results you want on LinkedIn, Nick suggests using the search bar to look for ideal prospects. Send at least 15 connection requests per day. Customize each request by saying something personalized based on the prospect's profile. Usually, three to eight of your new connections will accept, which validates that your ideal audience is accessible.

It's also a good idea to stick to the channels you master as you grow your agency. His agency expanded to a total of 8 channels only now that they're over $4 million. They get leads off Twitter and do SEO but he recommends getting very good at maybe one or two as you start off.

Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset?

If you want to be around amazing agency owners that can see what you may not be able to see and help you grow your agency, go to Agency Mastery 360. Our agency growth program helps you take a 360-degree view of your agency and gain mastery of the 3 pillar systems (attract, convert, scale) so you can create predictability, wealth, and freedom.

Does your agency have a defined niche? Do you serve a specific industry or work in a specific vertical offering? We always hear the riches are in the niches, but it's all about balance. Growth comes from serving the right clients with the right offering. Boost client retention when your agency's positioning is clear on who you serve and the solution you provide. After all, you can't be everything to everyone -- you'll just end up a generalist, 'me too' agency. However, choosing a vertical and horizontal niche might be too limiting at first. Niching down too much and too quickly can leave your business vulnerable to the whims of the market. Today's guests learned this after seeing exponential growth and then panicking once a change in the algorithm threatened their business niche.

Adam Smith and Laura Hanlon are owners and Co-Directors of Pink Leopard, a growth acceleration agency that helps e-commerce brands grow and scale through the power of paid social, search, and email. The majority of their clients are female-owned e-commerce brands with a primarily female clientele. This wasn't always the case, however. In its early days, the agency was exclusively focused on Facebook ads. However, a shift in the market forced them to reconsider if they perhaps niched down too, much too soon.

In this interview, we'll discuss:

• Discovering a niche is too limiting.
• Growing from 1 hire to a team of 20.
• Boosting client retention with the right offering.
• Time tracking to increase profitability.

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Sponsors and Resources

E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service.

Starting an Agency and Selecting a Business Partner

Initially, Laura worked in network marketing and used social media to launch and grow brands, as she had done with her own. It was a very different time and organization was the only thing you needed to grow. However, she quickly identified that paid social ads were the key to helping brands get to the next level.

During that time, she also found a passion for e-commerce and started her own e-commerce store. In hindsight, it was too much on top of her agency work, but it helped her understand her clients' struggles. As her business grew, she was still a one-woman show getting more and more business thanks to referrals. This is when she thought about Adam.

They had known each other for years, he also wanted to start a business, and his experience in business development and employee engagement complemented her own experiences. He was an ideal match for a business partner.

Growing from the First Hire to a Team of 20

With Laura selling and Adam handling operations, the agency grew quickly. After just six months they hired an account manager to alleviate the handover from sales to delivery.

This meant Laura could focus on running accounts while the account manager handled the back-and-forth with clients. However, when the pandemic hit, as it happened to many, agency growth soared. They quickly went from a 2-person operation to a 20-person team.

Not every new hire was successful. In fact, they made the common mistake of hiring someone very junior when they didn't have the time to train him. Adam and Laura learned they needed to hire skilled experts, which proved to be a great move. Now, they have specialists leading and growing the teams while they focus on growing the agency.

Can an Agency Be Too Niched?

At first, Pink Leopard worked exclusively with Meta (Facebook) in the e-commerce space. They felt confident to be starting out with a clear idea of their niche and audience. They grew significantly during the Covid pandemic when a lot of brands moved to an e-commerce model or stepped up their e-comm presence. However, growth during the pandemic was very hard to maintain two years later, when things got back to normal. Additionally, the Apple/iOS changes removing data sharing were catastrophic for them as a Facebook agency.

They actually lost a few clients, who were cutting costs after growing too fast during the pandemic. A lot of this had to do with taking on the wrong clients, Laura admits. In 2020 and 2021 they were taking on many businesses without properly vetting them. They later discovered these clients weren't a culture fit.

In the end, they learned relying on a single platform like Facebook was just too risky. They pivoted to being all-in with e-commerce and diversified their services to include email marketing and Google ads.

How to Boost Client Retention with the Right Offering

Diversifying their service offering actually turned out to be a massive client retention piece. It has also helped with growth as they established trust with their clients.

Their new expanded offering helps attract partners who understand the value of a marketing mix including discovery, intent, and retention. Their services are much more robust, now. Which helped improve client retention because they're no longer reporting on just one channel's performance. Now that they're working on email, Facebook, and Google, their reports are true reflections of the results they're getting for clients.

How Time Tracking Helps Track Profitability

If they could go back, Adam and Laura would take a closer look at their pricing model a lot sooner. Most agencies are guilty of starting out with lower pricing to attract clients and grow. But it's important to implement time-tracking to really track where your team is spending time and which projects/clients are actually profitable. The next step to being profitable is saying no to the wrong clients.

It's a risk many agency owners are afraid to take however it's very liberating when you turn away clients that you know aren't the right fit.

Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset?

If you want to be around amazing agency owners that can see what you may not be able to see and help you grow your agency, go to Agency Mastery 360. Our agency growth program helps you take a 360-degree view of your agency and gain mastery of the 3 pillar systems (attract, convert, scale) so you can create predictability, wealth, and freedom.

Not sure why you're stuck trying to scale your agency? Growth vs Scaling? What's the difference? There are four main reasons some agencies never scale. Today's guest has accumulated nearly 15 years of experience in the agency business and shares how he stays focused in order to scale. He also shares lessons that helped him get through difficult and why is usually the agency owners standing in their own way of scaling.

Wayne Mullins is the founder of Ugly Mug Marketing, a boutique agency with 14 years of experience. The agency's design approach places a lot of emphasis on content and understanding the audience to convey an effective message. Their core value is that results should never be compromised for the sake of "good" design.

In this interview, we'll discuss:

• Why your agency needs a north star to stay focused.
• The difference between scaling vs. growth.
• How agency owners sabotage their growth by not adapting.

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Sponsors and Resources

Verblio: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by Verblio. Check out Verblio.com/smartagency and get 50% off your first month of content creation. Our team loves using Verblio because of the ease of their process and their large pool of crowd-sourced writers.

Why You Need a North Star

Don't let the name fool you; Ugly Mug represents the agency's philosophy of prioritizing results. It originates from a quote by David Ogilvy, where he said "I rather you show me an ad that's ugly and effective over one that is beautiful but isn't." This quote became Wayne's north star, keeping him from getting sidetracked by awards and accolades. Instead, he believes that agency owners should focus on solving clients' problems and getting results.

What's the Difference Between Scaling and Growth?

Scaling a business and growing it is often confused, with the latter becoming a buzzword. According to Wayne, scaling involves having more free time and working only in the areas you choose. However, growth leads to time constraints and doing things you hate. To scale, you need to have the right mindset, systems, and processes in place.

4 Reasons Why Some Agencies Are Not Scaling

1. The owner's mindset is the main reason why agencies fail to scale. In the beginning, Wayne's ego played a significant role, and he enjoyed being the hero who saved the day. However, he realized that he needed a clear vision of where he wanted the agency to go to communicate it to his team. That way, they could make better decisions, and he wouldn't become a hindrance to growth.
2. Many agencies fall into the scale hustle trap when they hit certain levels of revenue or employee numbers, believing that they only need to work harder to get to the next level. However, the key to scaling is having the right systems and processes in place, documenting them, and trusting your team to have autonomy.
3. To scale, you need to balance alignment and authority. Without autonomy, everything is controlled, and without alignment, there's chaos. Everyone must be aligned with the agency's vision, and team members must have autonomy to make decisions.
4. Ideally, you want to stay around the complexity line, which indicates that you're growing. The faster you scale, the more chaos you feel, but if you pull back, you're sabotaging future growth. Feeling overwhelmed means that there's too much on your plate, and you need to adapt your processes to grow.

Wayne's philosophy is that agencies should focus on delivering results and solving clients' problems rather than just winning awards. Scaling requires the right mindset, systems, and processes, as well as a team aligned with the agency's vision and autonomy to make decisions. Don't be afraid of complexity, adapt to it, and keep growing.

Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset?

If you want to be around amazing agency owners that can see what you may not be able to see and help you grow your agency, go to Agency Mastery 360. Our agency growth program helps you take a 360-degree view of your agency and gain mastery of the 3 pillar systems (attract, convert, scale) so you can create predictability, wealth, and freedom.

Considering adding software as a service to your offering? Do you have a SaaS idea in mind? Having proprietary agency software is a great way to meet the needs of your clients. However, building it is no easy task and often takes longer than expected. Today's guests created an email marketing system which led to building their agency back in the early 2000s. They share lessons learned and challenges overcome in the process of building their email marketing agency out of a SaaS model.

Robert Dodd and Joe Solano are the founders of XL Technologies, a digital agency specializing in helping US-based real estate brokers grow and scale their brokerages. They have over 20 years of experience and help their clients using their proven and tested agent acquisition framework.

They also created proprietary software for real estate brokerages, which they use to help get clients better results from their campaigns. Their product, and the one that actually got their partnership started, is eCampaignPro. This email marketing system helps build targeted agent-to-agent email marketing lists.

In this interview, we'll discuss:

• Discovering the right niche and selling a solution.
• The #1 common mistake sending cold emails.
• Recommendations on building your own SaaS.

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Sponsors and Resources

E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service.

Podcast Takeover!!

Get to know your Smart Agency Guest Host: Dr. Jeremy Weisz is the co-founder of Rise25, an agency that helps companies launch and run podcasts profitably. He followed Jason's podcast and eventually joined the mastermind and has been a guest on the podcast before. Today, he's helping Jason bring something new to the Smart Agency podcast audience by interviewing a special guest and getting a new perspective to the show.

Discovering the Right Niche and Selling a Solution

Robert and Joe have been involved in internet marketing since the dot-com bubble era. Robert moved to Florida to work in a startup, which didn't work out. He met Joe through a project, and they started XL Tech together. They developed an email marketing system, which was a challenge to sell to businesses. They decided to niche down and adapted the system as a solution for the real estate market, specifically brokers. It was a great success.

Evolving from SaaS to an Email Marketing Agency

They identified common mistakes while managing agent-to-agent marketing relations and decided to provide a more complete solution. The concept of their agency was born from the need to help clients better use their software. Their company quickly grew with the success of eCampaignPro. However, they ended up getting into hot water with Google after some of their customers were spamming clients. As a result, their email traffic got blocked, which caused a significant disruption in the business.

They decided to help real estate brokers strategically map out the right approach and leverage social media as another way to reach out to agents. Their agency used their understanding of their audience's pain points and motivations to create an agent acquisition framework. They take everything brokers may need to put together a fully functional and omnipresent marketing campaign to get their message out. They also handle all the pre-qualifications, appointment setting, and follow-up all the way to the onboarding process.

#1 Common Mistake in Email Marketing

Joe and Robert say that creating software to sell with agency services is an unbelievable undertaking and will almost certainly take longer than expected. One of the most common mistakes in people's approach to cold email is being too aggressive with the frequency and cadence. Therefore it's important to have the right balance between cadence and messaging to get the results you're looking for.

With the way algorithms work today, it's essential to be tactful and strategic with your approach. They work out email sequences in their agency, which doesn't try to say everything at once. Sometimes they just contain a simple introduction. Then they wait to see how engaged the audience was with that message before following up.

Although they grow brokerages from scratch to thousands of brokers, they've never taken equity. They acknowledge it's an interesting prospect they haven't explored and are proud of the results they can get for their clients.

Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset?

If you want to be around amazing agency owners that can see what you may not be able to see and help you grow your agency, go to Agency Mastery 360. Our agency growth program helps you take a 360-degree view of your agency and gain mastery of the 3 pillar systems (attract, convert, scale) so you can create predictability, wealth, and freedom.

Do you have passion for your agency and clients? Have you identified your agency's purpose? Do you know your why and does your team buy into your vision? One agency had a hard time with this and decided to begin a startup incubator to fill the void. The results have been amazing for the agency, the team, and their clients. She managed to create a very cool agency model that both creates opportunities for startups with a lot of potential and also provides investment opportunities for her staff, even in the early stages of their careers.

Laura Hutfless is the Co-Founder at FlyteVu, an entertainment marketing agency that helps brands connect to consumers via pop culture and purpose. Their work varies depending on the client, but it includes music events, influencers, endorsement deals, and more recently gaming. In short, they help clients try to keep up with pop culture and stay at the forefront.

In this interview, we'll discuss:

• Why agency projects need to have a purpose.
• The process for working with incubator clients.
• Advice for agency owners starting to invest.

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Sponsors and Resources

Verblio: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by Verblio. Check out Verblio.com/smartagency and get 50% off your first month of content creation. Our team loves using Verblio because of the ease of their process and their large pool of crowd-sourced writers.

Why Every Agency Project Should Have a Purpose

Laura started her own agency, but her niche was something she stumbled upon accidentally. Before starting the agency, she worked in the talent agency CAA brokering deals between talent and corporate brands. As brands began to spend more on entertainment and influencers, Laura was asked to work for them. She saw the need to help companies navigate the new influencer culture to stay relevant to younger consumers, which led her to start her own agency.

She wanted to take on as many clients as possible to help these companies make sense of this new landscape. However, she felt that she was only helping people who already had a lot of money just make even more money; and she began to lose her passion for the job. To combat this, she decided that every project at her agency would have an actual purpose. This means working on either a movement, a change in culture, or a gift bag.

Laura also applied these principles to her incubator clients, investing only in startups she truly believed in and incorporating causes that were close to her heart. Laura wanted 20% of the agency's revenue to go to charity. So, she created the FlyteVu fund, which clients, teams, and vendors can access, and which can reach up to $1 million dollars each year.

One of her agency's first clients was Bumble. Although they did not receive equity, it was a mutually beneficial partnership that allowed the agency to earn credibility and learn a lot about the process and what a brand like that needs. Laura wanted to set up a startup incubator for future opportunities and to help entrepreneurs with great ideas and no funds. Now the agency has enough staff and hours to dedicate to these kinds of projects without taking payment.

The Process of Working with Startup Incubator Clients

When choosing incubator clients, Laura looks for mission-driven brands that resonate with her and her team's values, ensuring that it is something they believe in. There is a dollar amount attached to the equity they will receive in the company. This determines the hours spent on that client, and they are capped on the number of hours. Laura also looks at the brand's growth plan, strategy, and where they are in their timeline to better understand what the agency's role is and how far they can get them.

Laura's agency offers services for incubator clients for a year. After a year, they can either go off on their own or retain FlyteVu as their agency and pay their fee. Laura also pays for the equity of companies that are not yet at a point where they can benefit from their services.

When it comes to having dedicated teams, Laura only sees the need to have a separate account team. She wants to offer her staff opportunities for investment and wealth-building, which she never had as a young executive. By setting up her own incubator, Laura is able to give back and provide opportunities for entrepreneurs while also benefiting her agency.

Advice for Agency Owners who Want to Start Investing

If you're interested in setting up an incubator, Laura recommends you start small. It has taken her agency some time to figure out a process that was right for them and she is thankful she gave herself that time. "You don't have to dive in a big way," she says. A lot of these startups need a phone call a month or some advice. These entrepreneurs don't have the connections you have and at the beginning that's a huge part of the agency's involvement.

Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset?

If you want to be around amazing agency owners that can see what you may not be able to see and help you grow your agency, go to Agency Mastery 360. Our agency growth program helps you take a 360-degree view of your agency and gain mastery of the 3 pillar systems (attract, convert, scale) so you can create predictability, wealth, and freedom.

Do you want more clients? Thinking about increasing your offering to attract more clients? Truth is, the opposite strategy is what helps a lot of agencies grow. Scale back to scale up! That's what this agency did when they took the scary approach of cutting back on their service offering and niching down. However, the results speak for themself. That is how one PR agency went from functioning as a full-service to niching down and focusing on just one area. Learn the motivation that led to making this transition and how he prepared for it.

Matt McAllister is the Managing Director at Candor Content, a content marketing agency that helps technology companies grow by driving organic traffic and generating inbound leads. Their content programs turn websites into organic traffic magnets by publishing content that attracts visitors, builds trust, and forges enduring relationships. With a team so passionate about writing and content marketing, it's hard to believe the agency was first focused on PR. Matt offers some insight into that transition process and their eventual success.

In this interview, we'll discuss:

• Simplify your agency service offering and say no to the wrong clients.
• Going all in on niching down.
• Is the emergence of AI affecting content marketing agencies?

Subscribe

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Sponsors and Resources

E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service.

Shifting Focus From PR to Content Marketing

Matt started his agency 12 years ago, initially focusing on the PR side of the industry. At that time, he believed that most companies allocated a budget for public relations and that he would find clients easily. He did not consider content marketing because it was not yet a big thing. However, he had a content-centric approach to doing PR, offering to publish articles, research reports, and take over clients' blogs.

Around 2015, HubSpot became popular and many companies realized the power of inbound marketing. They needed content to fuel their inbound engines, so Matt and his team focused more on creating content. However, in the early days of his agency, they fell into the trap of trying to be all things to all people. They gave clients a full-service offering where they would do anything needed, including branding, design, and positioning. This approach proved to be very stressful because they were a small team and had to rely on freelancers.

Simplifying the Agency Offering and Saying No to the Wrong Prospects

Eventually, they realized that it was time to strip down their services and focus on what they enjoyed doing the most. Niching down and saying no to the wrong customers is a natural part of growing an agency. But it's not as simple as it may sound. You have to consider possible risks and start implementing it with some clients first to assess the response. The hardest part will be drawing a line in the sand and start telling clients you will only work on a specific space. This involves offering referrals for all those wanting other services outside that expertise.

It's important to take the time to feel well-prepared for the shift. Too many agency owners pull the ripcord too early and go back to what they feel is safe before seeing results. Fortunately, they started to see results right away. Existing clients responded with more budgets for content creation, something they already knew his agency was good at. Additionally, new prospects trusted them in this area of expertise. They figured they must be really good at that if they were willing to focus on that one area.

Going All In On Niching Down to Attract More Clients

Realistically, you may go through a few rough weeks where you lose clients that don't fit your new niche. The important thing is to push through that point. Matt's agency lost about 10-15% of its overall revenue at first. "It was scary," he admits, "we're a small agency so this was a significant part of our revenue for sure." He was definitely tempted to take some of the PR work opportunities that they have following their shift to content. Thankfully, his partner reminded him they needed to go all in on their strategy for it to work. Big changes like this benefit from having people around you who will hold you accountable for your commitment.

If he could go back to the agency's first few years, Matt would have brought on help sooner. It's common for agency owners to decide to do everything themselves at first to cut costs. "I called it an agency," he recalls, "but it was me and a couple of freelancers." Looking back, he would have liked to have more trust in the project and given more work to other people.

Scaling Back Services to Scale Up the Agency

As far as the transition, he would have more faith that it would all work out in the end. It certainly would have saved him some sleepless nights. Moreover, he would have cut down the agency's services even more. It was a gradual transition, starting with the PR and messaging, and positioning offering. However, they kept doing email marketing and other services that they eventually dropped. Nowadays, it's clearer for him that the agency shines when it comes to SEO, lead generation content, and brand generation content.

If you want to scale up, you must be willing to scale down first. In order to figure out how to strip down your offering, ask yourself two questions:

1. What would I do if I only received my payment after having performed?
2. How can I be the best at what I do and be clear about that?

How is the Emergence of ChatGPT Affecting Content Agencies?

Many in Matt's team are writers and journalists who are very passionate about their craft. Understandably, a lot of writers are a bit nervous right now about the emergence of AI writing tools. There's a lot of talk about these tools replacing writers. Matt doesn't think this will be the case.

AI provides writers with the tools to get better ideas, get over writer's block, and have the potential to make them better editors. Like anyone in the content creation space, he's been following this technology closely and he's excited about it.

Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset?

If you want to be around amazing agency owners that can see what you may not be able to see and help you grow your agency, go to Agency Mastery 360. Our agency growth program helps you take a 360-degree view of your agency and gain mastery of the 3 pillar systems (attract, convert, scale) so you can create predictability, wealth, and freedom.

Do you have an irresistible offer that generates leads? What if you had a pipeline full of qualified leads? Webinars can help you get the attention of your ideal prospects. They are a great tool to attract clients and offer value. However, there's a possibility you end up over-educating your audience unless it's done right. Today's guest built a career in webinar coaching and designing high-ticket offers to generate sales. It took him years to identify how he was failing to attract the qualified leads he needed to maximize his sales. But now he shares his script for creating a power offer that will get you tons of sales-qualified leads.

Joel Erway is the founder of The Webinar Agency, which helps clients build high-converting sales presentations and webinars. They primarily work with thought leaders, coaches, and consultants, including Russell Brunson, Mike Dillard, and many more. He is also the author of High Ticket Courses and the host of two podcasts: Sold with Webinars and Experts Unleashed. Joel shares how he discovered his marketing was missing a potential pool of clients who had the right urgency and wanted to buy and how he used power offers and mini webinars to harness that potential to great success.

In this interview, we'll discuss:

• Why your agency needs to add mini webinars.
• Marketing-qualified leads vs Sales-qualified leads.
• Creating an irresistible power offer to generate more leads.

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Sponsors and Resources

Verblio: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by Verblio. Check out Verblio.com/smartagency and get 50% off your first month of content creation. Our team loves using Verblio because of the ease of their process and their large pool of crowd-sourced writers.

Podcast Takeover!!

Get to know your Smart Agency Guest Host: Dr. Jeremy Weisz is the co-founder of Rise25, an agency that helps companies launch and run podcasts profitably. He followed Jason's podcast and eventually joined the mastermind and has been a guest on the podcast before. Today, he's helping Jason bring something new to the Smart Agency podcast audience by interviewing a special guest and bringing a new perspective to the show.

Why Your Agency Needs to Add Mini Webinars

Joel, the webinar guy, had a bit of a revelation after struggling with getting paid traffic to work for his business. He realized that relying solely on giving out free value to eventually turn into sales wasn't working for him. He wanted to flip that model on its head and make some changes to his process.

After doing some research and attending various events, Joel finally stumbled upon a book called How to Create an Irresistible Offer. This book helped him understand what he was doing wrong and how he could fix it. He realized that his long-form webinars of one or two hours were only generating marketing-qualified leads, which weren't enough to convert into sales. He needed to focus on sales-qualified leads to see a significant impact on his business.

Differentiating Marketing Qualified Leads vs Sales Qualified Leads

To differentiate between marketing-qualified leads and sales-qualified leads, Joel explained this. The former is interested in the topic but not necessarily ready to buy. The latter is in the market, likes the process, and recognizes the problem they need to solve. The challenge for Joel was how to accelerate the process and move more marketing-qualified leads to sales-qualified leads.

He found that publishing offer-driven content was the key to getting a lower cost per acquisition. So, he decided to expand his offers to include mini webinars instead of only doing long-form ones. This change helped him generate more sales-qualified leads and ultimately increased his conversions. It was a game-changer for his business, and he became a thought leader in the webinar space.

Creating the Power Offer as a Way to Attract the Right Leads

According to Joel, the key to getting more clients is by making power offers instead of constantly marketing yourself.

A power offer is a short but compelling statement that offers a solution to a problem your audience is facing. It's all about getting your potential clients to think and engage with the idea you're presenting. If it's good enough, you might even get some hand raisers.

Once you have your power offer, the next step is to create a three-step funnel. That will guide your leads from making a promise to closing the sale. The funnel includes a power offer ad, a landing page, and a mini webinar.

• Power offer ad. This is your sales-qualified offer containing the promise you make on how you can help potential clients get results while avoiding certain hurdles.
• Landing page. Clicking on that power offer ad will lead them to a landing page with sales-qualified lead messaging. The messaging here will be very similar to the first step, something like "We're looking for clients who need help with this. If you're interested, apply here".
• Mini webinar. The mini webinar will contain more detailed information on how you're planning to fulfill the promise. Once they watch the mini webinar, they should be ready to fill out an application and book a call.

Who is the Power Offer for?

So who's the right candidate for a power offer? It's less about where they are in their business and more about their commitment to entrepreneurship. If they're fully committed and have a course they want to sell or an idea they want to pursue then they're the perfect fit for this offer.

Now, it's important to keep in mind that not every power offer will work. Sometimes, you need to be open to pivoting your offer until you find one that resonates with your audience. And most importantly, don't give up! Even if you have to try 60 different versions of your power offer, keep at it until you find the one that works.

Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset?

If you want to be around amazing agency owners that can see what you may not be able to see and help you grow your agency, go to Agency Mastery 360. Our agency growth program helps you take a 360-degree view of your agency and gain mastery of the 3 pillar systems (attract, convert, scale) so you can create predictability, wealth, and freedom.

Are you feeling threatened by AI? Are you worried that it could replace your agency's creative work? There are so many uses for artificial intelligence and it is here to stay. So it's time to embrace it and unlock the power of AI for your agency's growth. From creating meeting summaries to building websites, there are so many applications people aren't talking about yet. Today's guest has explored many of these tools at his agency and offers a few tips on the ones you should be testing to become more productive.

Carl Cleanthes is the founder of Epic Made, a digital art and animation studio that does most of its work in the entertainment advertisement space, including NFTs and PFP collections. In his agency, Carl has implemented the use of AI to generate images that can serve as a reference for the work they do. However, he has also discovered other very useful AI applications that any agency owner can implement to boost productivity.

In this interview, we'll discuss:

• How AI is helping creators and agency owners.
• The benefits and power of AI in creative work.
• Will AI replace your agency?

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Sponsors and Resources

E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service.

How AI is Revolutionizing Creative Work

The conversation around AI is a layered and complex one, and not without controversy when it comes to copyright. At its core, however, artificial intelligence is a tool to help make human beings more productive, more creative, and allow them to execute their ideas faster and on another level.

Many people became aware of AI tools mostly through the use of ChatGPT or some image-generating artificial intelligence software. In reality, AI has been around for a long time but what's really getting people excited now is the machine aspect of it.

The Benefits of AI in Creative Work

Pumping in a data set and creating content from that seemed like a distant possibility not very long ago. Now, AI's ability to do this is just getting better and better, with the possibility to generate tons of content in just seconds.

This record-breaking shift to AI we're seeing with ChatGPT is largely thanks to how intuitive it is. The ability to just drop an idea there and get very good and in some cases amazing quality text that needs very little editing is something that is helping get productivity to levels we could only dream of in the past.

Will AI Replace You or Your Agency?

Of course, not everyone has a positive interpretation of these developments. Some people fear AI will replace them. Instead, we should reframe it as adapting to the many ways in which AI can help us improve what we do. For writers, it's a great tool to get that first idea to start your text. In fact, people who are just using it to create a text and then copy and paste are missing out. The real great results will come from combining the ideas the AI can give you with your own writing.

Carl doesn't believe AI can fully replace human creativity. It will, however, hurt the bottom of the market. It won't make sense to pay someone to do something you can now do yourself with AI.

The Power of AI in Business Productivity

Most agency owners have heard of ChatGPT or Jasper. However, their widespread use has made some people think this is the first AI tool of their kind. This is not true at all; these types of tools have been available for years and have many uses.

For instance, Carl uses Fireflies and Otter AI, which are AI bots that join your meeting, record it, transcribe it, note all the questions, and automatically email that to everyone in the meeting. He also uses Midjourney for image generation. In this case, he uses it to generate ideas instead of manually searching for references on the internet. It's a good way to get a sample of what's out there on the internet with the added benefit of saving time.

For copywriting, he uses some of the more known ones and also recommends Neuroflash. These tools are not only great for generating ideas for posts but also a good way to spice up an email or get a start on tedious tasks like writing a letter of intent. There's still much to learn about the subject, so the important thing is to stay informed and constantly learn about this topic. You'll find AIs for building landing pages, thumbnails, creating websites, so many functions most people are not yet aware of and that can really help you boost productivity.

TikTok is a Good Place to Start Researching AI Applications

Many people are unaware of the vast range of AI tools available, from building landing pages to creating websites. TikTok is an excellent platform to start researching and learning about AI applications, with informative and easy-to-digest content.

Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset?

If you want to be around amazing agency owners that can see what you may not be able to see and help you grow your agency, go to Agency Mastery 360. Our agency growth program helps you take a 360-degree view of your agency and gain mastery of the 3 pillar systems (attract, convert, scale) so you can create predictability, wealth, and freedom.

Did you know that applying behavioral science to your agency's work will result in better outcomes for your clients? By utilizing research-backed methodologies, you'll gain a competitive advantage. With extensive research on how to decipher customer thought processes, behavioral science is an incredibly useful tool for influencing and predicting their behavior.

Our guest today, Shirin Oreizy, is the founder and CEO of Next Step, a marketing agency that specializes in using behavioral science and research methodology to help clients achieve their marketing goals. Their approach is different from traditional marketing, which often puts all customers in the same box. Instead, Next Step seeks to de-risk the process and provide evidence-backed results. Shirin discusses the basics of the behavioral science approach, why it is so useful for agencies, and how her agency's methods lead to the best possible outcomes for clients.

In this interview, we'll discuss:

• The role of behavioral science in digital design.
• 4-phases to use behavioral science to your agency's advantage.
• The importance of process transparency to gain clients' trust.

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Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM

Sponsors and Resources

E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service.

An Under-Utilized Tool that Became the Agency's Differentiator

Behavioral marketing agencies have changed the way companies approach business, by offering unique solutions and products designed to meet the specific needs of their clients. While many agencies may rely solely on website design, graphics, and typography, successful agencies understand the importance of behavioral science in creating unique products and driving conversions. Shirin's interview explores the four-phase methodology used by her agency to leverage behavioral science, as well as the benefits of process transparency in driving sales.

The Role of Behavioral Science in Digital Design

The gap between what we know we should do and what we end up doing is significant. Behavioral science takes into account the fact that people's emotions, environment, and social factors heavily influence their decisions. By studying these behaviors, agencies like Shirin's can identify gaps in existing marketing plans and develop tailored solutions that meet the unique needs of their clients.

Understanding Human Behavior to Design Unique Solutions and Products

Behavioral science is a social science that takes into account many external factors. It's important because people's emotions, environment, and social factors heavily influence their decisions. Behavioral scientists take into account things like people's laziness, biases, and heuristics, which are often overlooked in traditional marketing practices.

The 4-Phases to Use Behavioral Science to Your Agency's Advantage

Shirin's agency has developed a research methodology called the science of design, which uses behavioral science as the backbone to understanding a situation. It's a combination of qualitative and quantitative research to try to figure out why consumers prefer a product or ad. The 4 phases are as follows:

1. Behavioral Science Assessment: Their behavioral science researchers analyze how the client is currently marketing. They identify gaps and issues that can be addressed immediately.
2. Qualitative Research: This phase involves talking to about 10 people to verify the agency is moving in the right direction.
3. Quantitative Research: This phase involves testing the different hypotheses against each other. The goal is to figure out what works. The test groups have significant numbers so there is no question about the results.
4. Incorporating the principles: Designers and copywriters get involved to incorporate these principles into the work they're doing for the client.

Why Process Transparency Will Help You Sell More

Process transparency is one of the core principles of behavioral science. Research shows that human beings value effort, hence explaining the process behind a product or service ensures clients will value the result more. Clients with information about what happens in the background are willing to wait longer, increasing the likelihood of driving conversions.

Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset?

If you want to be around amazing agency owners that can see what you may not be able to see and help you grow your agency, go to Agency Mastery 360. Our agency growth program helps you take a 360-degree view of your agency and gain mastery of the 3 pillar systems (attract, convert, scale) so you can create predictability, wealth, and freedom.