Swenk Today: The Digital Marketing Agency Show

You never know when, where or how, but just always be recruiting the best talent. Your team is the #1 asset to growing your business. Secondly, you have to always stay in your lane, with what you are good at.

There's no silver bullet to growing your business and to achieve your level of success, it takes hard work and consistency.

As I'm recording this there is someone coming out with a program or a training to tell you all you need is this, and you can be as successful as me.

Next time you see their ads, or their big claims, I want you to do a bit of research.

1. Go to their website and look at all their free content they put out there. If there is none, that should be a red flag.

2. Next go to their LinkedIn profile and look at their history. If they just came out of school or never did what they are teaching you… red flag.

3. Google their name and see what comes up. Are they one other people’s shows, speaking, etc….

If you only see their ad, lead magnet, that is a huge red flag that they are building their success off of using you as a ginny pig.

When I think of ad agencies, I think of people sitting around the room coming up with creative ideas to win new business and to win awards, and businesses are starting to wise up.

There’s an article that just came out by Mike Shields on Business Insiders and it is about the future of ad agencies has never been more in doubt.

In recent months, Booking.com has digital-media-buying experts. By the end of the year, all Booking.com’s digital-media buying will be done in-house.

A lot of businesses are going to cut out the middleman.

Brands like Pepsi are occasionally doing in-house creative or outsourcing it to smaller agencies. The big consulting firms like Accenture are entering the agency world.

I think trust a big issue with traditional agencies as well. There was a study done last year by the Association of National Advertisers which found that ad agencies where not being open on their spending and ROI to their clients.

Before you freak out and think I am saying that your digital agency is in trouble, hear me out.

I believe this is the trend and a trend that can help you focus on what matters and how to stay relevant.

See the ad agency specially media buying and old TV commercials are changing quickly. The ad agency that has been the top agency of record for a long time has not innovative quickly and resisted change.

What I am trying to point out is that a lot of the big ad agencies that a lot of us tried to emulate and grow into, is not a model we should. These example give the word agency a bad name, and I can not tell you how many people don’t want to be called an agency for this very reason.

So my challenge to you. How are you innovating? What are you resisting in change? Are you showing your clients an ROI?

I sold my agency too early.

If someone offered your 5 million cash right now or they said in 10 years you could possibly walk away with 100-200 million. What offer would you take?

Looking back I possibly made the wrong decision. But then again, I might not be doing what I’m doing right now, so it could have been the right decision.

Here’s what I might have done differently. I should have bought my partner in the business out. We started to not get along anymore since the agency out grew him and we couldn’t find a way for him to contribute to the growth.

I was unhappy toward the end. I am not going to lie, but I had an amazing team.

I should have not been investing all the money into our race team, and investing that money back into the business. Possibly acquisitions and growth strategies.

I bet if I kept with it the agency could have been over 100 million and been one of the best agencies in the world. That is how good our team was.

Tiffany asked…
“How do you maneuver through the bursting point? I'm having a hard time letting go of project management, processes, and strategy. Feeling like we are revenue capped, because I can't take on anymore.”

Four of the most common reasons for this is….

#1 You hired the wrong people.
#2 You have not created a vision for the business and communicated that often to your team.
#3 You don't have the right systems and processes in your business.
#4 You are not charging enough.

REFERRALS, REFERRALS, REFERRALS, REFERRALS, REFERRALS, FREAKING REFERALS.

We all love referrals, but here’s the deal… They are not SCALEABLE. But its nice when you get them.

Do you want to know a way to get more referrals?

WHAT you say? Jason is talking about generating more referrals. I know it’s crazy, but it's the icing on the cake.

#1 The best way to get more referrals is to make it easy for people to understand what you do and why you are different.

#2 To deliver amazing service and results where they tell others. But they also need to understand what you did for them and the results so communication is key.

#3 Ask for the referral. Once they are happy, tell them that you loved working with them and would love to work with more people just like them. Ask them who you would be a good fit for who they know.

Todd asked…

"Do you have experience with paying out referral fees? If you do, could you please answer the following questions:

- What is the standard referral fee?
- Does it vary from region to region (we are in the midwest)?
- Is there a difference in rates for projects vs ongoing work, and if so is the referral fee paid for a year's worth of work or the life of the contract?"

Would love to know what your referral commission is, and how are generating referrals so comment below. Also please share and subscribe if you are not already.

Remember, Just don't watch, take action and pick one takeaway you learned today and you will grow your agency. Thanks for tuning in and Have a Swenk Day.

“I have had a few people asking to acquire my company in the last year.

What should an agency owner should be doing to maximize the value of their business

What things were considered the biggest value items when you were acquired, so I can continue to grow my business smartly and make sure I maximize my company’s value should I decide to sell? “

Thanks BIG JASON FAN - Rob Gerwing

You keep saying you don't have enough time to grow your business. You spend all the time on client work, but nothing on the big impact items you should be focusing on in order to grow / scale your digital marketing agency.

Jill asked: "My husband and I are both digital agency veterans with 20 years of experience. We're interested in joining forces for our own agency. We have great clients/great client work that we've done, but nothing that we "own." The "Work" portion of an agency website is so important…. How can we position ourselves as experts without having anything to show?"

Eddie asked.... "We do extremely well at converting prospects into customers, we just need more prospects. What have you seen as the most effective form of prospecting?"