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

Are you worried about your digital agency's competition? Don't be! Instead focus that energy on building your agency brand and improving your authority. Learn how to become a major influencer, so you can eliminate the competition and develop collaborative relationships with them instead.

In today's episode, we'll cover:

• Which type of agency owner are you?
• 4 benefits of building your agency's authority.
• 3 things you should be doing to increase your agency's authority.
• Why you need to stop competing and start collaborating.

Today I talked with Josh Elledge, consumer expert, speaker and Founder/CEO of his PR program Up My Influence. He understood the importance of the media and harnessed that to $6 million in revenue for his other startup venture, Savings Angel, while spending less than $500 in advertising. He talked with me about some tips and insight to upping your influencer game so your agency can build its brand and authority in the your niche.

Which Type of Agency Owner Are You?

• Artists... These are the agency owners who love to solve problems and create solutions.
• Leader/Manager... These are the agency owners who love the operations of business. They have an ability to lead people.
• True Entrepreneur... These are the agency owners who love venture capital and money. They love the ups and downs of owning a business.

To find out what type of agency owner you are, Josh recommends this simple litmus test inspired by Tony Robbins:

Ask yourself, if you had all the money you needed and you had to pick something to do with your agency/business, what would your gravitate toward?

Nearly 80-85% of people will gravitate toward Artist, but it is good to have that Leader/Manager and Entrepreneurial characteristic within your agency.

4 Benefits of Increasing Your Agency's Authority

1. Improves your agency's conversion rate.
2. Decreases the amount of time your clients are in the sales pipeline.
3. Attracts more people/clients to the top of the sales funnel.
4. Builds trust quicker with clients.

3 Things You Should Be Doing To Increase Your Agency's Authority

1. Be helpful on the internet to up your searchability. Blog, do podcasts, have a social media presence, and get involved. Clients will search your agency to gauge its relevance and status in the industry.
2. Get active on Twitter and LinkedIn. It is most important to build up your agency's position in the industry. Do it organically (don't buy followers). Having a limited social media footprint can affect your agency's image in the the eyes of prospective clients. Vanity metrics are important, so you need followers as social proof.
3. Build an impressive website. Make it look amazing - even though you're really busy with client work. It needs to be impactful in the first 3 seconds and indicates your agency is professional.

According to Josh, the most valuable currency for agency owners is authority. If you aren't sure where your agency stands, Google yourself and gauge it.

Stop Competing and Start Collaborating

In the competition game, you'll never win. Your agency can't be all things to all clients and getting OK with that is healthy.

Focus on you. When you're busy focusing on the competition, you're not focused on your agency's strength and growth. Concentrate on making your business, team and clients shine without giving a second thought to the competition.

You don't need to add additional agency services to grow. Ask yourself: What's the purpose of your services? Who is your agency trying to help?

Then, once you know what your agency is all about and have become the authority in that niche you are in a great position to collaborate with agencies also in that space.

Partner with other agencies who are strong in areas your agency doesn't cover, to make your services appear more valuable. Find collaborators who offer complimentary services and become strategic partners.

When you learn to collaborate, you stop the competition. As you work with agencies, ask if you can refer them. When you build up those contacts, you become very resourceful and clients love that!

Need Guidance and Support to Grow Your Agency 3X Faster?

Are you overwhelmed by all the information out there on various ways to grow your agency? Do you want direction on how you can grow your agency faster and easier?

Then you're in luck! I created an innovative mentorship called Agency University.

Agency University is a program which provides the 1-on-1 mentorship and ongoing support that is crucial to the success of your agency. Click here to see if it's the right fit for you.

Related: Using Influencer Marketing to Win New Agency Clients

Is your employee training process non-existent or too cumbersome? Do you want your team, contractors and clients to understand the fundamentals of what makes your agency unique? Then don't overlook the power of a solid training process! With these three easy steps you can start onboarding your digital agency's new hires and provide them with a consistent set of experiences and expectations on how you want to work with them.

In this episode, we'll cover:

• Helping your new hires with systemized onboarding.
• 3 easy steps to build your agency's training process.
• Measuring the success of your agency's training process.

Today I chatted with Tom Kulzer, CEO and founder of AWeber, the successful email marketing platform agency he started over 20 years ago. Tom has built his business to over 100 employees and has helped over 100,000 clients.He is a well-respect expert in building a strong business with core values that are ingrained in every employee. Today he shares three quick tips for building your agency's employee training process so you can grow.

Helping Your New Hires By Onboarding

Making that first hire, or tenth hire, or beyond, can be scary but it's totally doable!

Implementing a solid onboarding process is important to get your new hire(s) acclimated from day 1. This is a way to get everyone on the same page with the value your agency delivers to people.

And, since AWeber is an email platform guess what they use for onboarding new hires? That right - a sequence of welcome emails with bite-sized nuggets of information, placed in the right order and sent at the right time.

Tom also has all of his new hires participate in a two-week training program. The focus is mainly on customer service but it also allows new employees to understand the fundamentals of what makes AWeber unique. It's similar to the training methods of Zappos.com who's known and globally recognized for their company culture and core values.

3 Easy Steps to Build Your Agency's Training Process 1. Identify your agency's biggest problem.

You need to figure out where your agency has hang-ups or issues most regularly. Think of a checklist, like airplane pilots have their preflight check. What would need to be on your agency checklist, so everything runs smoothly?

2. Come up with the training around the identified problem.

When you figure out your agency's biggest trip-ups, start documenting a process on how to avoid tripping over them again. It can be as simple as a Word document, or whatever internal tool your agency uses. Your agency just needs to start somewhere. You can't change anything if you don't start somewhere. Then as you gain time and experience, layer on more expertise.

3. Create "bite size" content that is given slowly, over a period of time.

A new employee isn't going to read a one hundred page manual, and even if they do, how much will they really retain? You want to break down processes into easily digestible nuggets of information. Then feed them this information over a period of time, be it 2 weeks or 6 months, just NOT all at once. This "small and slow" method is more likely to be read, retained, and allow your agency employees to grow from it.

Also, you can use this type of onboarding for your agency's clients as well.

Is Your Training Process Successful?

Your agency will need to look at each job function separately. Different roles will have a different measurement for success.

Use internal metrics to develop a quality score. Then have your agency team leaders review calls, emails, conversions, quality assurance, etc. and actually assign a grade. As you track this information and see how the grades change over time. Wherever you see improvement needed, then you know where there may be holes in your training and you can adjust accordingly.

Assessment areas could include:

• Customer Service - Consider product knowledge and customer interactions
• Engineers - Escape defects found through quality assurance.
• Marketing - Conversions, success of split-test launches, etc.

Remember, measuring the success of your agency's training process is not a one-size fits all approach.

Need Guidance and Support to Grow Your Agency 3X Faster?

Are you overwhelmed by all the information out there on various ways to grow your agency? Do you want direction on how you can grow your agency faster and easier?

Then you're in luck! I created an innovative mentorship called Agency University.

Agency University is a program which provides the 1-on-1 mentorship and ongoing support that is crucial to the success of your agency. Click here to see if it's the right fit for you.

Do you lack the knowledge on how to grow and scale your digital agency? Overwhelmed by not knowing what role to hire first? Afraid to niche down, and afraid what might happen if you don't? You're not alone! Learn how to tackle these very important tasks in order to grow and scale your digital agency.

In this episode, we'll cover:

• Overcoming common challenges of starting an agency.
• Hiring based on your agency's needs.
• Why and how to choose your agency's niche.
• Benefits of an agency mastermind.

On today's show, I talked with Jeremiah Smith, President and CEO of Simple Tiger, a digital agency which focuses on SEO for SAAS clients. With over 12 years of SEO experience, Jeremiah has watched Simple Tiger go through many changes and has had to face the difficult decisions we all face with our agencies. He shares some of his big challenges and decisions with us and some guidance on how he knew, it was time to act. He is, admittedly, still working on some aspects, so don't beat yourself up if your agency has some tough calls to make. Let's just get your agency to a place, where you start making the right calls.

Overcoming Common Challenges Starting Your Own Agency

Jeremiah shared his two main challenges starting Simple Tiger and what you can do to overcome or avoid them...

1- Starting out as self-taught SEO consultant and then moving on to build an agency was difficult. It's tough going from a "lone wolf" freelancer to building a team. It was a transition that took time and has grown the agency because of smart hiring choices.

2- It can be hard to separating your personal life from your business. When you work for yourself you can spend your money on what you want. When you start a business, this isn't the case. It's important to be careful and keep business income and expenses separate, particularly in regards to taxes. (You can even check out this podcast with Jason Blumer CPAs.)

Hiring Based On Your Agency's Needs

Understanding what your agency's needs are, will then point you in the direction of who your agency needs to hire and when.

In most cases, you will hear consultants recommend hiring a sales team first. (Although I tell my clients to hire a Project Manager first!)

However, Jeremiah's main role is sales, and the sales role is his baby. He says SEO sales can get scammy and shady, so selling it in a truthful manner is the most important thing. He wants his agency to be seen with integrity and that starts with sales.

That's why Jeremiah's first hire was someone who could produce the work he was selling. Hiring the right people can be the difference between feeling like you're a prisoner to your agency, or enjoying running your agency.

Why and How to Choose Your Agency's Niche

There are many benefits of niching down. Jeremiah says he finally did it because:

1. Your agency's marketing gets easier.
2. You will attract more of other types of businesses.

The beauty is you can still say 'yes' and service clients outside your niche if you choose. But, your marketing is targeted at just one specific audience. Instead of casting a wide net, you're getting really specific.

Picking a horizontal niche should be based on your background and pretty easy. With Jeremiah, SEO was a no-brainer. Selecting a vertical niche can prove more difficult and can even be terrifying.

What got Jeremiah thinking was a client who couldn't identify their target market and instead said "we service everyone." It made him start looking inwardly at his own agency.

When you specialize in a particular niche, you become an authority in that segment of business. By becoming a member of my Agency University Jeremiah learned the value in declaring a niche.

He starting by asking himself these 3 questions:

1. Who are my agency's most profitable clients?
2. Which clients were an easy sell, they just get you?
3. Who do I love working with?

Benefits of an Agency Mastermind

Speaking of Agency University…. :) Jeremiah felt like he knew a lot about agencies and how they operate, so he was apprehensive to join Agency University. However, by participating in our mentorship program he realized he was making things harder and more complex than they needed to be. And, he realized he had a lack of focus.

He says he learned some real game changing strategies that helped his agency grow and scale. And hey, that's why I do this - so it's a win-win.

What's Agency University All About?

Are you overwhelmed by all the information out there on various ways to grow your agency? Do you want direction on how you can grow your agency faster and easier?

Then you're in luck! I created an innovative mentorship called Agency University.

Agency University is a program which provides the 1-on-1 mentorship and ongoing support that is crucial to the success of your agency. Click here to see if it's the right fit for you.

Want to build your agency's authority in your niche? How about a content marketing strategy that delivers high return with little effort? Then adopting this combo blogging/podcasting strategy could be the shift to get quality clicks, organic backlinks and make your agency's service offering more attractive to your ideal clients.

In this episode, we'll cover:

• 7 benefits of being a podcast guest.
• The blogging strategy your agency needs to implement.
• 7 easy steps to building a blog strategy calendar.
• A bonus lead gen strategy.

Today I talked with Phil Singleton, founder and CEO at Kansas City Web Design & SEO and co-author of SEO for Growth. With over a decade of experience, Phil has a passion for SEO and has learned the need to include it into a holistic marketing plan to help his clients move the needle. Phil has implemented a really interesting strategy for personal branding and authority campaigns for his clients and today he shares how your agency can do it too, in order to build authority and attract the right clients.

7 Benefits of Being a Podcast Guest

1. Get exposure and quality backlinks on someone else's website in a niche.
2. Be perceived as an expert in the niche because they have been contracted by someone else to speak on a particular topic.
3. Get exposed to someone else's trusted audience.
4. Podcast show notes are all about your agency.
5. Interviews build your agency's brand (or the owner's personal brand) and authority.
6. Receive organically earned backlinks that Google loves.
7. Do a 20-30 minute phone interview and the host does all the work.

The Blogging Strategy Your Agency Needs to Implement

If your agency doesn't have a steady stream of content marketing, then it is time to start making some adjustments. Guest blogging is getting spammy and harder to do, with all the competition out there. It's not bringing your agency the quality clicks you need.

That's where Phil's Personal Branding and Authority Campaigns Strategy comes into play.

Blogging is still a cornerstone of inbound marketing, it's benefits are:

• Growing out your agency's website organically.
• Targeting long tail keywords.
• Feed your social media (with proper setup).

But blogging isn't going to work if it's one-off guest posts that stand alone. That's why your agency needs to build a blogging strategy around a content calendar and set it up as steps. Ultimately, this should tie in with doing podcast interviews. With all moving parts working together your agency can truly reap all the benefits listed above.

7 Easy Steps to Building a Blog Strategy Calendar

1. Create your agency blogs in a batch of 10-15.
2. Create the blog posts so they can be stitched together into an ebook.
3. Utilize the ebook as a call-to-action on your agency's website.
4. Spin the ebook to Kindle on Amazon.
5. Having an Amazon presence gives the agency/owner the new title of "author."
6. Utilize the author page on Amazon to feed your RSS, which will get your agency's blog posted on the author page.
7. Use this author status to start a podcast guest campaign now that you're viewed as an authority in your niche market.

You don't want to use your ebook as a lead generation source. Instead, use it as a branding exercise and let it snowball from there.

Building a blog strategy calendar will help your agency avoid the dreaded "SEO fatigue." You know it…. It's that 3 to 6 month period where clients start to panic, because they aren't seeing results fast enough.

Providing clients with a set strategy that can reach twelve months out, helps set the tone for allowing enough time for results to come. Your agency is also is providing the bonus of a nice, shiny author page which feeds into client egos and makes them happy.

A Bonus Lead Gen Strategy

Do you have multiple clients in a niche market? You can use those existing clients to pull in more clients, by teaming them up.

Phil says, approach your current clients about authoring a book on their specific niche market. Maybe each client would write a chapter to cover their specialty and they could invite others in the industry (your potential clients) to participate with their specialty and write additional chapters.

Then utilize a platform like Amazon and Createspace to publish a physical book for you and your clients to promote. Then, throw a launch party where your agency can work on relationships and building a referral channel for future projects. It's a win for your existing clients, a win for your potential clients and a win for you!

Related:

https://jasonswenk.com/lead-generation/

https://jasonswenk.com/bs-best-practices/

Want to know the key to finding and retaining the best agency employees? Looking for ways to find and hire top talent? Your team is your agency's #1 most valuable asset. Turnover and training is difficult and expensive. So in this episode, you'll discover some simple tips to hiring, managing and keeping loyal employees who want to stay and grow with your business.

In this episode, we'll cover:

• Hiring top agency talent.
• 3 Steps to developing loyal employees.
• How to retain talent that wants to grow with your agency.

Today I talked with Scott Love, former Navy leadership trainer (thank you for your service) and current high-stakes headhunter. With over two decades experience recruiting professionals, Scott shares some simple tips you can take build and continue to retain your team. You can start implementing his tips immediately and start building a loyal team that will never want to leave.

Hiring Top Agency Talent

When going through the hiring process the main thing that you want to think of is hiring based outcomes vs. duties and responsibilities. Ask candidates questions on how they have accomplished outcomes in the past and how they will in the future. Once you find someone that exhibits outcomes you're looking for, remember that there is an emotional context to a potential employee's decision making process. As they decide to work with you, consider two things:

1. What does your agency have that is unique or distinct? We're not talking about desirable culture or team collaboration - every agency has those things. But what really makes you different and desirable?
2. How does this uniqueness improve their situation on an emotional/personal level?

To help get these two questions answered go into sales mode. (But not "our agency is so great, let me tell you all about us" sales mode!)

Try these 2 sales tricks:

1. Ask the candidate about their current situation and current company. Find out their complaints, challenges or problems.
2. Ask what an ideal situation looks like to alleviate their stated concerns? You are trying to find their intrinsic motivations and speak to those… make it about them!

BONUS: Here are the 3 core competencies to look for in an eligible candidate:

1. Influence: How do they effectively influence others?
2. Resilience: How do they bounce back from adversity?
3. Achievement: What makes them keep going?

3 Steps to Developing Loyal Employees

#1. Make them feel good by being true and sincere. Nothing puts up walls faster than negative comments and/or criticism.

#2. Build up their emotional equity. Do this by making them feel like they have a stake in the agency business. (Not a financial stake, but help them feel some ownership of their projects and clients.)

#3. Utilize insights and feedback by obtaining cross-departmental ideas. Allow your employees to not only feel like, but also actually BE part of the solution.

How to Retain Amazing Employees

Meet their needs!

Ask yourself how you can help them achieve fulfillment in what it is you are doing as an agency. How can you show them their work makes a difference in your agency's goal… the noble goal, that goal that goes beyond profit?

Find the emotional context of your agency's goal and then show them how they contribute.

Remember: As Agency CEO, you are in the business of leadership.

Be followable.

Your employees need to trust you, so don't let allow walls to go up.

These two simple exercises will set you on the path of building a loyal team:

1. Get clear on your core values.
2. Get clear on your personal mission.

Figure those out first, write them down, then strive to be that person every day.

Check out Scott's book: Why They Follow

Related: Where to Find the Right Digital Agency Talent & Creating a Vision and Culture to Attract Top Agency Talent

Need Guidance and Support to Grow Your Agency 3X Faster?

Are you overwhelmed by all the information out there on various ways to grow your agency? Do you want direction on how you can grow your agency faster and easier?

Then you're in luck! I created an innovative mentorship called Agency University.

Agency University is a program which provides the 1-on-1 mentorship and ongoing support that is crucial to the success of your agency. Click here to see if it's the right fit for you.

Are you frustrated working with freelancers? Does your agency experience high freelancer turnover that leaves you stuck, or sometimes screwed? The struggle is real! Learn the 5 big mistakes agencies make using freelancers and what you can do to avoid frustration.

In this episode, we'll cover:

• 5 big mistakes agencies make using freelancers.
• How to avoid pitfalls of working with freelancers.

Today I talked with Nathan Hirsch, CEO and founder of FreeeUp, the agency he formed after numerous frustrating accounts with the freelance/hiring process. FreeeUp connects businesses, of all sizes, with vetted freelancers. Today he shares the five mistakes he sees agencies make when using freelancers and is here to help us avoid those pitfalls.

5 Big Mistakes Agencies Working With Freelancers MISTAKE 1: Hiring one freelancer to do a multitude of tasks.

It can seem like a great idea to hire one talented person with a large skill set to manage a large portion of the agency work, but what happens when they leave? You are left scrambling.

INSTEAD: Diversify. This is important with your clients, finances and also with your freelancers. Split things up and diversify your delegation of tasks as much as possible. This will make replacement costs minimal when a turnover does happen.

MISTAKE 2: Sticking with one freelancer for all things.

It is easy to get comfortable with employees but freelancers do not hold loyalties. They are working for others so their availability and loyalty varies with their workload.

INSTEAD: Build up your agency's freelancer rolodex. It is beneficial to have two to three freelancers available to your agency. That way if a large project comes down the shoot, you can request time from whomever has the bandwidth. When you rely on just one freelancer, you could be left scrambling if he/she is booked when you need them.

MISTAKE 3: Treating a freelancer like an inessential outsider.

It can be easy in the bustle of agency life to hand over projects to freelancers, get them back and move on; treating the freelancer like a commodity.

INSTEAD: You should have a goal of bringing them on full-time. Freelancers are, usually, freelancing until they can get something more stable. So when that opportunity comes along, they're going to say yes to a permanent position. You're goal should be let your agency be the one they say yes to.

Turnover is expensive and painful. Anything you can do to reduce it is in your agency's best interest.

• Until you able to offer a freelancer permanent employment, keep them engaged.
• Treat your freelancers well and let them know how they're contributing.
• Keep freelancers involved and a member of your agency community so they want to stay with your agency.

MISTAKE 4: Being vague with timing and due dates.

A lot of times we unintentionally leave deadlines up to interpretation. Ten hours be one ten hour day, or ten one hours days. You can't know the freelancers current workload when receiving their estimates and sometimes it's unclear which leads to disaster.

INSTEAD: Manage expectations up front. Get these two numbers from your agency's freelancers when estimating a project for you:

1. Estimated hours. How many hours it will take to complete and at what hourly rate?
2. Due date and time. Make sure you're clear with the client's due date and build in your buffer. Make sure the date is clear and what time of day you should expect the work to be handed over.

MISTAKE 5: Assuming the freelancer knows what you want.

Just because they are a freelancer in the agency industry, does not mean they know what your agency or clients expect. Remember, most freelancers are working with multiple agencies, all with different processes and procedures.

INSTEAD: Set expectations right off the bat. Days and hours of availability, preferred method of communication,etc… all those things your agency expects to see in it's employees. Have these expectations written down and get the freelancer's sign off.

Related: Solving Sucky Staffing Issues

Need Guidance and Support to Grow Your Agency 3X Faster?

Are you overwhelmed by all the information out there on various ways to grow your agency? Do you want direction on how you can grow your agency faster and easier?

Then you're in luck! I created an innovative mentorship called Agency University.

Agency University is a program which provides the 1-on-1 mentorship and ongoing support that is crucial to the success of your agency. Click here to see if it's the right fit for you.

Does the thought of committing your agency to a niche market makes you nervous? Are you worried your agency will lose clients and miss out on revenue? Stop the madness of trying to be everything to everyone and start focusing on what it is your agency does best. You will reap major benefits of having a niche market, including increased clients and revenue.

In this episode, we'll cover:

• Finding your agency's niche market and niches within niches.
• 3 benefits of choosing a niche.
• Is your agency charging enough?

Today I spoke with Raman Sehgal, founder and managing director of the super niche agency, Ramarketing. With over a decade of experience in his agency's niche market, Ramarketing is still servicing their very first retainer client, eight years later. Raman provides great insight into the importance of niching down and the benefits it can bring to your agency.

Is It Time To Declare A Niche Market?

Has your agency had a painful project with an unrealistic client ultimately ending in dissatisfaction? Were you able to walk away with insights on how to move forward? If not, you need to learn from these experiences and start to understand:

• How to spec a project properly.
• How to manage client expectations.
• How to value what your agency does and communicate that to prospects.

Raman offered up a great idea of a "red flag system" that his agency uses when prospecting clients. It could be criteria such as demographic or size, it could be attitudinal or behavioral.

Whatever it is, figure out what will and not will not work with your agency and be prepared to say no. Don't force the fit just to make a buck. Most of the time it'll bite you in the ass. Go with you gut when something doesn't feel like a good fit.

This just reinforces that you cannot be everything to everyone successfully. Your agency can't know every sector. So find the sector you DO know and stick with it. Learn the ins and outs.

Money isn't the best indicator for taking on clients, even if the amount is large, the costs to properly manage the account will probably be large as well.

Remember: Once you get your niche market, you can always expand. And, choosing a niche only means targeting your agency's marketing to a specific audience. You are still free to take on work outside of the niche. Therefore, it's a win-win.

When Do You Know It's Time To Expand?

Finding clarity is key.

When your agency is focused, finding clients and hiring talent will all start to click because you will be doing these things with purpose and intention. Expanding can happen within your niche market - you will find niches within niches.

Raman uses an 80/20 model, dedicating 80% of agency resources to their niche market and 20% of resources are for fun projects outside the niche. This model allows for some flexibility and keeps things fresh with the ability to change things up once in a while.

3 Benefits of Finding Your Agency's Niche Market

1. Free up time for opportunities that closer align to your agency's expertise. Stop being afraid to niche down because you might push one or two clients away. Losing those clients will free up time to work on better ones.
2. Providing focus allows you to become an expert. If you totally get your clients business, they'll trust you more and when they trust you, it makes it very easy for them to choose to work with you.
3. Finding your niche market will help keep your competition at bay. If you become the authority in one segment of the market, then your competition of "generalists" will be left in the dust.

Are You Charging Enough?

Having a niche market raises your stock in what you can charge. Being competitive with your rates is important. If you are too cheap, this could cause the client to worry that there will be something wrong with your work. When you know what the market is expecting, you can adjust your agency rates accordingly. Pricing models will vary based on who you are talking to… and that's ok.

You probably aren't charging enough. This is the case with most of the agencies I work with, and it's because they don't fully understand the value they provide.

My challenge to all listeners is to consider increasing your rates by 25% right now!

Related: Start With One Niche At A Time, Being A Leader In Your Agency's Niche

Grow Your Agency 3X Faster!

Are you overwhelmed by all the information out there on various ways to grow your agency? Do you want direction on how you can grow your agency faster and easier?

Then you're in luck! I created an innovative mentorship called Agency University.

Agency University is a program which provides the 1-on-1 mentorship and ongoing support that is crucial to the success of your agency. Click here to see if it's the right fit for you.

Want to find a way to interact and engage with your prospects? If you're relying on an old-school "chat box" you could be missing out. Chatbots are the best way to generate more agency new business. They create interact conversational experiences with your prospects so you can engage with them when it matters most.

In this episode, we'll cover:

• What is a chatbot?
• Why use chatbots?
• 2 key features of bots.
• How to use chatbots to generate more agency new business.

Today I chatted with Peter Lisoskie, founder of Bot Nation the innovative chatbot agency he created in 2017. He's also the CEO of inViral, a business and product incubator. He has a background neurological research as well as development of hardware, software and firmware for companies like Hewlett-Packard and Nike. Peter's here to bring us great insights into the shift toward chatbots for the ultimate user-experience so you can capture more leads for your agency… No ifs, ands or "bots" about it! :)

What Is A Chatbot?

A chatbot is a software service or application that allows you to have an interactive conversational experience with your prospects or clients. A chatbot has the ability to take them on a conversational journey far beyond the typical automated chatbox, which usually ends up unread in the user's email inbox.

Why Use Chatbots?

Did you know more people are using instant, private messaging apps than are using big 4 social networking apps, including Facebook?

As agencies, we tend to focus on email marketing, websites, webinars and social media marketing. The problem with these is that they're passive and reactive. For an email campaign, your prospects have too many steps to take: check email, open the email, read the email, click-thru the email… (you see where this is going?)

As we know, email marketing has a 20% open rate and maybe a 1-2% click-thru rate, at best. And if you're using a pop-up chat box messaging to capture leads on your website, it's even lower. If that chat isn't answered before your prospect leaves the site, it goes to their email inbox. And we know what happens to email open and click-thru rates.

However, chatbots are instant and our society is addicted to instant results. Chatbot messaging interfaces with the users Facebook instant message and has upwards of a 95% open rate!

2 Key Benefits Of A Bot

1. It's user driven. The user choose their journey. Bots are set up with a series of questions and the "conversation" develops based on the users' responses. It's a "choose your own adventure" approach to marketing.
2. It's engaging. Your agency prospects like to be engaged and entertained. Using bots will captivate your audience and keep the conversation alive as they connect or identify with the bot.

Using A Chatbot to Generate New Business

To do it the right way, use a chatbot to get the conversation started with agency prospects in a fun and engaging way but have a live human take over at some point.

Let the bot ask the questions, then use those answers to get the prospects to the right place or as a primer for when a live person can respond.

Be honest and let the user know it's a bot. Many brands and agencies will pretend it's a live person, but that's just an insult to the user. Instead, let them know upfront that it's a bot. Heck, I've even named mine Don (as in Mad Men's Don Draper). Giving it a name and a personality helps the user identify with it a bit more.

Then, ask a series of questions to gain understanding of where your prospect is at in their buying journey. You can use this as a pre-qualification sequence and/or to get them in to the right place and able to access the right helpful content.

The key to using bots to keep the conversation alive and continue to nurture the relationships.

Peter's innovative technology has also added in an element of artificial intelligence that can really be mind blowing. You can check it out using the demos at the bottom of the page at: www.botnation.tech

Would you like to scale your agency? Is the thought of hiring a full-time employee overwhelming? Does your agency have a speciality that other agencies might need? Consider this tactic of collaboration and contractors as a means to grow your agency.

In this episode, we'll cover:

• Growing your agency without hiring.
• Maintaining quality, without overseeing everything.
• Managing contractors and inspiring the good ones to stay.

Today I talked with Mandy McEwen, Founder and CEO of Mod Girl Marketing, which not only manages their own client base in healthcare and technology, but also provides services to other agencies looking to stand out and scale. Not hiring her first full-time employee until over four years of being in business, Mandy found the beauty and benefit of collaboration. Today she shares with us tips on using collaboration and contractors as a growth tactic.

How to Grow Your Agency Without Hiring?

Collaborate, Collaborate, Collaborate

When you are in the beginning stages of growing your agency, it should be pretty easy to realize what you are good at and what you love doing. And with that, you're also able to realize what areas might not be your strong suit, or shouldn't be taking up so much of your time.

If you're doing it all, it's time to realize that there are other vendors and freelancers that could be doing some of it for you. This is how the work can start to be broken out, without having to invest in a full-time employee.

You can also consider working in partnership with other agencies who white label their services. I'm not typically a fan of straight up white labeling, but it can work if you leverage it into a partnership with mutual benefit.

As Mandy points out, "why compete with agencies, when (we) can collaborate? They can hire (us) and (we) can hire them."

How Do You Manage Contractor Quality?

Vetting, Vetting, Vetting

Don't hire a white label agency or contractor based solely on reviews or price. Finding good people is key and will save you money in the long run.

Check on their capacity before starting with them. Ensure they have the bandwidth to dedicate the needed time to the project they will be working on.

Mandy assigns trial projects, whether directly working for her or one she made up, to get a feel for the person and their work product.

It's kinda like going on a date with someone. You need to see if you and that person click before you would ever enter any type of partnership. My former guest, Melinda Byerly, talked about tactics of a contractor courtship.

How Do You Keep Great Contractors?

Culture, Culture, Culture

People will stick around if they are enjoying themselves.

Bring in people who not only have the skill set you are looking for but have the personality and vibe that is going to mesh well with the rest of your agency team. Create a desirable agency culture so there's nowhere else they'd rather work; and no one else they'd rather work with.

There is something to be said for working with people that you would also enjoy hanging out with.

Who Manages The Contractors?

Divide, Divide, Divide

Divide and conquer. This can depend on the size of your agency, client profile, and definitely, the project itself.

One of the best first hires you can make is a project manager. I know a lot of agency owners have a hard time justifying this type of hire because their hours aren't billable, but their skill set is invaluable. My advice is to hire a PM early in the game and adjust your fees accordingly. It's worth it in the long run!

If you are doing it all, you can't focus on the growth aspects of your agency. Trust and delegate so you can grow and scale.

Are you asking your client questions? Are you asking the right one? Do you listen in client meetings more than you talk? If you want to land more agency clients, it's time to start asking a lot of questions and identifying what your clients need, rather than just giving them what they think they want.

In this episode, we'll cover:

• Getting over the hump of hiring.
• Getting to the bottom of what the client really needs.
• What questions you should be asking every client.
• When is the right time to hire?

Today I talked with Pete Polgar, partner at Clikz Digital which started just a mere 6 months before this interview and is already at a team of five. Pete brings a background of consulting with agencies struggling with operational problems. He sheds some light on those early struggles at Clikz Digital and walks us through the steps he has taken to overcome them and grow his agency.

Getting Over the Hump of Hiring

There is a high turnover in this industry. You need to stop hiring based on an immediate need and start hiring based on what your company needs in order to achieve long term goals.

Ask a lot of questions

Vetting your candidates better will allow you to hire people that make you and/or your agency better. Don't aim to hire "mini-me's" and instead find the "yin" to your "yang."

Pete is a frequent listeners of our show and recalls this episode where I advised listeners to "always try to be the dumbest person in the room." And that's what he has done whens it comes to hiring for his agency. He tells us we can accelerate agency growth by surrounding ourselves with people smarter than us.

Getting to the Bottom of What the Client Really Needs

As an agency, your #1 job is to be the trusted advisor your clients need in order to achieve their goals. They rely on your experience and expertise to guide them to the solution to their problem.

The thing is, you have to be able to identify the right problems and start solving them. You can't do this if you aren't asking the right questions. Think: "What does the client actually need?" vs. "What do they want?"

Keep asking "why?" and keep digging until you get to the root of the problem. Once you find the problem and its impact on the business, that is when you can present what the client actually needs, not what you want to sell them.

Asking questions keeps the focus on the client, because, really, this is about them and not you.

Learn their business, listen to what they tell you and take lots of notes. This will allow you to visualize the information. Pete's uses his meeting notes to build a process flow that he can later share with the client.

Clients are looking for a trusted advisor. They already made the choice to work with you, they don't want to make more choices, so stop giving them so many. Be the expert. Know what their business needs and be able to tell them why. Then they will become your champion.

In the beginning it is all about learning - don't sell first, just learn.

What Questions You Should You Be Asking Every Client

Did I mention that you should be asking a LOT of questions?

The types of questions are going to vary based on the client and the problems you start to uncover. But some good baseline questions are:

• What do you want?
• Where are you now?
• What is your struggle?
• Where do you want to be?

Ultimately you need to just keep asking questions so you can drill down to the biggest problem.

[clickToTweet tweet="Remember, the client's biggest problem is not necessarily the first problem." quote="Remember, the client's biggest problem is not necessarily the first problem."]

If thinking on your feet to ask the right questions isn't your strong suit...then hire someone who is good at it. It's that important.

Pete likes to use a whiteboard and draw out a map as they are solving a client's problem. He says to focus on one problem at a time to solve and nurture it to build trust with your client.

Asking the right questions upfront also helped Pete start implementing a MAP (Marketing Action Plan) into his client engagements - which is something he learned from my podcast episodes on the 3 core elements of the agency sales process.

When Is the Right Time to Hire?

Learn from your employees. Find that one employee who is most resourceful, who is able to get things done quickly and do more with less. Then learn from them and incorporate that resourcefulness into your agency operations.

Listen to your employees when they feel overwhelmed or frustrated, but don't let them dictate resolutions… because their resolution is usually going to be to hire more people. With that, make sure you are hiring based on asking the right questions, figuring out what is needed and best for the company and using measurable indicators to justify the hire.