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

How Can I Handle Training New Employees and Set Up Success?

Do you want new employees to be successful from day one? Training new employees effectively and providing proper onboarding are the keys to success from their first day on your team!

4 Things You Can Do To Get New Employees Ready Before Their First Day

Day #1 on any job is overwhelming for everyone. It's information overload! But by tackling these four things prior to their first day, you can set up your new employees for success.

1. Share your company vision and goals with them right off the bat. With a clear understanding of where the path leads, your employees can help pave it.

2. Write down the 30, 60 and 90-day goals you have for them and ask them to do the same. This manages hopes and expectations for both parties.

3. Ask "What do you need from me in order to be successful?" and then provide the tools and information they've requested.

4. Create screencasts or videos of some routine tasks, procedures or processes. Not only can this be used for reference by this new employee but it they move up or on, you'll have it for future employees.

* Have all these items prepared and ready to go PRIOR to a new employee's first day on the job.*

We don't always hire the perfect employees but when expectations are clearly communicated and tools are in place there is a greater chance for success.

How can you help your new employees be successful? Whether you're hiring right now or not, what processes can you record and archive? Don't wait until you need it - start now!

Related: https://jasonswenk.com/training-process

More From Jason Swenk

We've discussed why training new employees is essential for success from day one of joining your team but did this cover what you need to improve your agency?

Do you need more advice? Don't worry, I have all you need to get through these obstacles.

No matter what you need advice on, I have more than likely covered it. From topics such as handling a recession to ways of using your social media community to expand your brand awareness. Or maybe you want to know the four phases of growth within your agency? I have all the information you need to help you through it.

Learn more about my life and my experience as well as lots of tips, tricks and insights by reading my blogs that cover a wide variety of topics.

If videos are more your thing, don't worry, i've got you covered! You can check out more from my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my YouTube channel. There you will find advice from me and other agency experts.

There are 3 types of scaling you can do to increase your reach of your Facebook marketing. Most people are scaling their ads the wrong way which will hurt their results. Discover the right way to scale your ads.

Tier 1 Scaling

* Duplicate the ad set and trying increasing the budget on the duplicate ad set. Don’t just increase the budget of the ad set that is working.

* I determine what I should budget per ad set by how big the audience is. Audience usually support about $10/day per 10,000 in the audience.

Tier 2 Scaling

* Upload your subscribers as custom audiences, then create look alike audiences (Test with winning ads)

* Upload your buyers as custom audiences, then create look alike audiences. (Test with winning ads.)

* Create look alike audiences from conversion pixels (Do not create until you have 1000 conversions)

* Install a retargeting pixel on all pages including your funnel, then create a look alike based on the retargeting pixel. (Do not create until you have 1000 conversions.)

* Repeat the process with different countries.

 Tier 3 Scaling

* Take your winning campaign that is a Website conversion goal, and create a Website click campaign to the look a like audiences

* Do the same thing to the other types of campaigns, and test.

Want to go deeper into Facebook marketing, as well as lead generation? You need to check out the 5 systems I use for generating over 25+ leads a day. http://generateleadseveryday.com

Today’s guest, Jake Hare, has tons to share about overcoming struggles in the first year of agency ownership. He got his start developing apps while serving as Lead Intelligence Analyst in the military. Today he is co-founder of Launchpeer, a digital agency serving startups and entrepreneurs in the South.

Why Start an Agency?

After spending 3 ½ years in 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Jake went on to do government contract work in software development. Once he realized he wasn’t passionate about his work, he started taking on side jobs developing apps. In late 2014 he and his two partners decided it was time to go all in, so they founded Launchpeer. As a husband, father and part-time grad school student this was a giant leap of faith! 

Struggles in Early Agency Days

For Jake and his partners the hardest part of maintaining the agency this first year has been generating leads outside of their personal contacts. After working with friends (who naturally expected special pricing) The 3 co-founders brainstormed ways to drum up new business outside their circle. They tried to white label their services for larger agencies which didn’t work out because other agencies weren’t receptive to the idea. (They had not read my take on white labeling!) They tried networking events, which did bring in some business but takes tons of time and yields little results. They also got some referral business but word of mouth is not a scalable way to grow business.

Finding Ways to Capture and Convert Leads

When they got to a point where they had no new jobs and no new leads, Jake did some online searching and discovered my Generate Leads Everyday program. They bought the program and made the decision to niche and focus on marketing to just one type of business — startups and entrepreneurs in the South.  Jake admits it was super scary but the guys were forced to either take action or look at shutting down.

How a 0.3% Opt-In Rate Grew to 32% in 6 Weeks

With a 0.3% opt-in rate, Launchpeer had nowhere to go but up. Jake and his partners got themselves out of the mindset that their website was a showpiece. They scrapped their entire site and changed the content to focus on the prospect and not themselves. They created landing pages focused on the lead and how Launchpeer can solve their problems. They created a Foot In the Door offer to drive traffic to their landing pages and marketed on Facebook.

Jake says there was a lot of testing and tweaking involved in getting everything just right. In fact he laughs about one of the biggest tweaks happened when he was investigating why their Facebook ad click through rate was lower than expected. He realized he had chosen to advertise to “southern based entrepreneurs who speak English-UK”. One silly slip-up and he was aiming his ads at Brits in the the U.S. South!

Understanding your traffic and how to convert more leads to opportunities

I get questions all the time about how to drive more traffic to an agency website. I’ve developed a great program for generating leads but first I think it’s important to really understand the three types of traffic and how to talk to them in order to convert them from being just traffic to being an opportunity.

Here are the 3 types of site traffic and what you need to know about each.

* Traffic You Own – this traffic has opted in and asked for you to market to them. You have contact information such as email address, phone number, and they belong to your list.

* Traffic You Control – this is traffic you are steering toward your website or landing page using AdWords, PPC, Facebook ads, etc. You are in control of how they found you and what they know about you.

* Traffic You Don’t Control – things like search engines and PR drive this type of traffic to your site but you don’t have any control of it.

Once you understand where your traffic is and isn’t coming from, you can categorize them as cold, warm and hot leads, then determine how to talk to them.

Cold Traffic

Cold traffic has little to no idea who you are or what you have to offer. The best way to educate them further is to identify a problem they have and direct them to a landing page for solving it. Using this question and payoff as your lead magnet is a great way to turn cold traffic into traffic you control. (My JasonSwenk.com example: “Are you constantly relying on word of mouth and referrals to generate leads?”)

Warm Traffic

Warm traffic has heard of you and is somewhat familiar with who you are and what you do. You can convert warm traffic to Traffic You Control by leading with a question about an outcome they desire. (My JasonSwenk.com example: “Do you want to grow your agency to a 7 or 8 figures?”)

Hot Traffic

Hot traffic knows who you, understand what you do and how you can help solve their problem or deliver something they desire.You can lead off with your sales proposition because they already know, like, and trust you.

Using this information you should now be able to gauge the temperature of your different types of traffic and where they’re coming from, then move forward with speaking to them in a way that increases conversions.

You can read more about how I generate leads, including the 5 systems I use (for free) by heading over to Generateleadseveryday.com. And, if you like this advice you can watch my live broadcasts on Periscope or subscribe to my YouTube channel where I post regular videos to help you learn to grow and scale your business.

Today's guest, Jake Hare, has tons to share about overcoming struggles in the first year of agency ownership. He got his start developing apps while serving as Lead Intelligence Analyst in the military. Today he is co-founder of Launchpeer, a digital agency serving startups and entrepreneurs in the South. Learn how he generated niche leads for his agency.

Why Start an Agency?

After spending 3 ½ years in 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Jake went on to do government contract work in software development. Once he realized he wasn't passionate about his work, he started taking on side jobs developing apps. In late 2014 he and his two partners decided it was time to go all in, so they founded Launchpeer. As a husband, father and part-time grad school student this was a giant leap of faith!

Struggles in Early Agency Days

For Jake and his partners the hardest part of maintaining the agency this first year has been generating leads outside of their personal contacts. After working with friends (who naturally expected special pricing) The 3 co-founders brainstormed ways to drum up new business outside their circle. They tried to white label their services for larger agencies which didn't work out because other agencies weren't receptive to the idea. (They had not read my take on white labeling!) They tried networking events, which did bring in some business but takes tons of time and yields little results. They also got some referral business but word of mouth is not a scalable way to grow business.

Finding Ways to Capture and Convert Niche Leads

When they got to a point where they had no new jobs and no new niche leads, Jake did some online searching and discovered my Generate Leads Everyday program. They bought the program and made the decision to niche and focus on marketing to just one type of business -- startups and entrepreneurs in the South. Jake admits it was super scary but the guys were forced to either take action or look at shutting down.

How a 0.3% Opt-In Rate Grew to 32% in 6 Weeks

With a 0.3% opt-in rate, Launchpeer had nowhere to go but up. Jake and his partners got themselves out of the mindset that their website was a showpiece. They scrapped their entire site and changed the content to focus on the prospect and not themselves. They created landing pages focused on the lead and how Launchpeer can solve their problems. They created a Foot In the Door offer to drive traffic to their landing pages and marketed on Facebook.

Jake says there was a lot of testing and tweaking involved in getting everything just right. In fact, he laughs about one of the biggest tweaks that happened when he was investigating why their Facebook ad click-through rate was lower than expected. He realized he had chosen to advertise to "southern-based entrepreneurs who speak English-UK". One silly slip-up and he was aiming his ads at Brits in the U.S. South! :)

Trial and error plays a big role in getting results, too. They did split testing on their Foot In the Door landing pages and discovered a simpler ad converts more than a wordier one... This analysis and experimenting is what resulted in Launchpeer's 0.3% opt-in rate to reach 10% and eventually to 32%+ over a 6-week period.

On interview date, Launchpeer was spending $20 per day and getting 6-10 leads per day. The exponential growth and potential opportunity far exceed their daily cost!

Best Advice from a New Agency Owner

"Don't be afraid to take action. I know it can be scary," says Jake. But, if what you're doing isn't working then the best thing you can do is something else. And as I always say, action leads to transactions. Being a business owner is tough and scary, no matter who you are… but doing nothing and closing your doors will be tougher and scarier.

Ready to Take Action?

Referrals are not scalable. So, if you are ready to take action that will lead to more leads every day, head over to GenerateLeadsEverday.com. This is the exact system I use, Jake uses and my clients use to grow and scale their businesses.

Want More Advice?

I hope you found this beneficial and it helps you generate niche leads for your agency.

If you have more questions about your agency from the good to the bad like how you can get through hard times in your agency, I can help. Through my many years of experience, I can share advice on topics including how to start an agency from scratch to reasons you should sell.

You can check out all my tips, tricks, and everything you need to know in my blogs. I have covered a wide variety of topics as well as answered your questions in more from my Ask Swenk series.

Are videos more your thing? You can check out my AskSwenk series and more of my videos on my YouTube channel for advice from myself and other agency experts.

How Do You Scale Facebook Ads Once You Have Some Success?

There are different ways to improve your Facebook marketing to increase your audience reach and brand awareness. Some agency owners aren't aware of the correct way to scale Facebook ads to reach these potential leads and are ultimately damaging their marketing efforts. I explain how you can scale Facebook ads for your agency once you have started to gain some success.

There are 3 types of scaling you can do to increase your reach of your Facebook marketing. Most people are scaling their ads the wrong way which will hurt their results. Discover the right way to scale your ads.

Tier 1 Scaling

1. Duplicate the ad set and trying increasing the budget on the duplicate ad set. Don't just increase the budget of the ad set that is working.
2. I determine what I should budget per ad set by how big the audience is. Audience usually support about $10/day per 10,000 in the audience.

Tier 2 Scaling

1. Upload your subscribers as custom audiences, then create look alike audiences (Test with winning ads)
2. Upload your buyers as custom audiences, then create look alike audiences. (Test with winning ads.)
3. Create look alike audiences from conversion pixels (Do not create until you have 1000 conversions)
4. Install a retargeting pixel on all pages including your funnel, then create a look alike based on the retargeting pixel. (Do not create until you have 1000 conversions.)
5. Repeat the process with different countries.

Tier 3 Scaling

1. Take your winning campaign that is a Website conversion goal, and create a Website click campaign to the look a like audiences
2. Do the same thing to the other types of campaigns, and test.

Want to go deeper into Facebook marketing, as well as lead generation? You need to check out the 5 systems I use for generating over 25+ leads a day. http://generateleadseveryday.com

Take Your Agency to the Next Level

I have shared with you how to scale your Facebook ads and reach potential leads you need to take it to the next level but this may not be the only struggles you need to focus on. Don't worry, I have all you need to get through these obstacles.

No matter what you need advice on, I have more than likely covered it. From topics such as handling a recession to ways of using your social media community to expand your brand awareness. Or maybe you want to know the four phases of growth within your agency and want extra help in easing through agency growing pains? I have all the information you need to help you through it.

You can learn more about my life and my experience as well as lots of tips, tricks and insights by reading my blogs that cover a wide variety of topics.

If videos are more your thing, don't worry, I've got you covered! You can check out more from my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my YouTube channel. There you will find advice from myself and other agency experts.

4 Things to Know to Successfully Increase Your Prices.

One of the many challenges about owning an agency is knowing how and when to increase your pricing. You’re afraid of losing business by outpricing yourself but you think you’re worth more… And you’re so right!

If you find yourself saying I’m too busy it is definitely time to raise your prices! Here’s how…

1. ASSESS the VALUE:

Understand the value you are providing to your clients and what opportunities your service creates for them. Ask yourself what results you deliver for your clients. Does your $10,000 website deliver them $100,000 in revenue? If so, that’s perfect. You should be delivering at least a 10x value. Assess the value of a project early on so you can estimate the right price for your proposal.

2. KNOW the BUDGET:

Get the client’s budget for the project to be sure it’s realistic with what you need to charge. Usually this is easier said than done. I used to start by asking the budget and when the client told me they didn’t have one, I’d have a little fun… “No budget? That’s great! We can spend a ton on testing…”

In this episode learn the 12 things you can do to make your live stream more interactive, which is the next big thing in social media marketing.

If you are struggling to convert your leads into client opportunities, you might not understand your traffic and this is where you lose them. I am going to show you how to avoid losing these essential client opportunities.

Understanding your traffic and how to convert more leads into opportunities

I get questions all the time about how to drive more traffic to an agency website. I've developed a great program for generating leads but first I think it's important to really understand the three types of traffic and how to talk to them in order to convert them from being just traffic to being an opportunity.

Here are the 3 types of site traffic and what you need to know about each.

1. Traffic You Own - this traffic has opted in and asked for you to market to them. You have contact information such as email address, and phone number, and they belong to your list.
2. Traffic You Control - this is the traffic you are steering toward your website or landing page using AdWords, PPC, Facebook ads, etc. You are in control of how they found you and what they know about you.
3. Traffic You Don't Control - things like search engines and PR drive this type of traffic to your site but you don't have any control of it.

Once you understand where your traffic is and isn't coming from, you can categorize them as cold, warm and hot leads, then determine how to talk to them.

Cold Traffic

Cold traffic has little to no idea who you are or what you have to offer. The best way to educate them further is to identify a problem they have and direct them to a landing page for solving it. Using this question and payoff as your lead magnet is a great way to turn cold traffic into traffic you control. (My JasonSwenk.com example: "Are you constantly relying on word of mouth and referrals to generate leads?")

Warm Traffic

Warm traffic has heard of you and is somewhat familiar with who you are and what you do. You can convert warm traffic to Traffic You Control by leading with a question about an outcome they desire. (My JasonSwenk.com example: "Do you want to grow your agency to 7 or 8 figures?")

Hot Traffic

Hot traffic knows who you are, understands what you do, and how you can help solve their problem or deliver something they desire. You can lead off with your sales proposition because they already know, like, and trust you.

Using this information you should now be able to gauge the temperature of your different types of traffic and where they're coming from, then move forward with speaking to them in a way that increases conversions.

You can read more about how I generate leads, including the 5 systems I use (for free) by heading over to Generateleadseveryday.com. And, if you like this advice you can watch my live broadcasts on Periscope or subscribe to my YouTube channel where I post regular videos to help you learn to grow and scale your business.

Discover the best Digital Agency Strategies today. Get Online Training to help you set up the right systems and strategies to help you grow faster.

What Does Your Agency Do With More Client Opportunities?

With more client opportunities, this means you could be bringing in bigger clients which will bring your agency to the next level in growth and authority. However, if you don't have all your other struggles smoothed out, it will be a disaster. So now is the chance to fix it.

By looking at the bigger picture of your agency, you can focus on areas you haven't explored yet as well as struggles you need to focus on to improve your business, and then check out how I have all you need to get through these obstacles.

I have a bank of advice to share with you from my own experiences. This can be how to increase conversions on your website, ways to implement Facebook in your marketing strategy, why building authority to improve your agency is important, and the best way to pitch to big brand clients.

If growth is your focus, I've discussed the different phases of growth within your agency and the three questions you need to ask yourself to sell your services to more customers.

You can learn more about my career and experiences as well as lots of tips, tricks, and insights by reading my blogs that cover a wide variety of topics.

Check out more from my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my YouTube channel. There you will find advice from me and other agency experts.