The Agency Growth Podcast

This week, Jake and Cody talk about the different digital agency roles at an agency and how each of them can break off into their own freelancing gig.

Not all roles are created equally. Some can transition smoothly into freelance work like SEO, PPC, and Social Media Management. But what about other roles like graphic design, content writing, or account management? How can these roles at existing agencies break off and start their own thing?

Jake discusses his role as an account manager and what he had to do to form Evergrow Marketing. Together, we discuss the upsides and downsides to working in these different roles as an agency as well as the struggles you might encounter with each skill set when attempting to freelance your skills.

This episode is ultimately a precursor to the one that will follow, where we receive a listener's question on how to take his graphic design skills and his current role and turn it into a productized service that clients will want to pay for every month on retainer.

As always, if you enjoyed this episode or any others, leave us a review on Spotify or Apple podcasts. It helps us get found and moves our podcast up in the search algorithm.

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Our recommended agency tools:

everbrospodcast.com/recommended-tools/

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As always, if you enjoyed this episode or this podcast in general and want to leave us a review or rating, head over to Apple and let us know what you like! It helps us get found and motivates us to keep producing this free content.

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Want to connect with us? Reach out to us on the everbrospodcast.com website, subscribe to us on YouTube, or connect with us on socials:

YouTube: @agencyu

Twitter/X: @theagency_u

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/agencyu

Facebook: facebook.com/theagencyu

Instagram: @theagencyu

Reddit: r/agency & u/JakeHundley

TikTok: @agency.u

There is clearly a different mindset between successful and unsuccessful agency owners. The main difference is you don't typically hear a lot coming from successful owners. The unsuccessful ones tend to share "Mindset" status updates and project to the world everything they're doing in what seems like a call for attention.

If this is you, that's okay. Jake was like this when he first started his agency journey. It wasn't until the cruel world of owning your own marketing agency beat him into submission.

Today, Jake and Cody are here to suggest who you should be surrounding yourself with when pursuing growth for your own agency as well as who you should probably consider cutting out of your life (or at least your immediate circle).

Also, it's worth mentioning, that you should make sure that you're not the toxic one before assuming other people are toxic for your growth. We've found that most people who subscribe to the "if they're not with me, they're against me" mindset are the most toxic and unsuccessful bunch of people.

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Our recommended agency tools:

everbrospodcast.com/recommended-tools/

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As always, if you enjoyed this episode or this podcast in general and want to leave us a review or rating, head over to Apple and let us know what you like! It helps us get found and motivates us to keep producing this free content.

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Want to connect with us? Reach out to us on the everbrospodcast.com website, subscribe to us on YouTube, or connect with us on socials:

YouTube: @agencyu

Twitter/X: @theagency_u

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/agencyu

Facebook: facebook.com/theagencyu

Instagram: @theagencyu

Reddit: r/agency & u/JakeHundley

TikTok: @agency.u

We've said it before, but getting published in magazines and other industry publications has been one of the biggest game changers for our agency in terms of leads we've received, sales we've closed, and authority we've built. It's been the single most important thing that has set our brand apart from other agencies in the space.

It's a topic we've considered doing for a while. Getting articles published in niche magazines and publications is one of Jake's unique talents. Whether it's an SEO publication, a lawn and landscape magazine for Evergrow, or even a restaurant industry magazine for a specific client, finding the right people to send the pitch to and crafting the right message comes naturally to him.

In this episode, Jake recaps the difference between guest posting and contributing to an actual publication while breaking down his exact steps for reaching the right person at a publication and getting them to publish your article.

The shortlist of the steps covered here are:

• Figure out which publications you want to be in
• Pitch easier publications first and build a reputation
• Search for a contribution page
• Research their guidelines
• Find the editing team and their contacts
• Reach out to the right editor
• Pitch (or supply) the article
• Leave out the sales and promotional content
• Give exclusivity
• Follow up, follow up, follow up

Want a list of publications Jake has been featured in? Check out his author page.

Have a specific question about today's topic? Maybe you need some advice on how to get into a certain publication. Send an email to us on our contact page by filling out the form.

For all news marketing and SEO, check out Jake and Cody's favorite email newsletter

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Our recommended agency tools:

everbrospodcast.com/recommended-tools/

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⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

As always, if you enjoyed this episode or this podcast in general and want to leave us a review or rating, head over to Apple and let us know what you like! It helps us get found and motivates us to keep producing this free content.

----------------------------------

Want to connect with us? Reach out to us on the everbrospodcast.com website, subscribe to us on YouTube, or connect with us on socials:

YouTube: @agencyu

Twitter/X: @theagency_u

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/agencyu

Facebook: facebook.com/theagencyu

Instagram: @theagencyu

Reddit: r/agency & u/JakeHundley

TikTok: @agency.u

Reporting to you from Cartagena, Colombia! 

In this episode, we host our first-ever recording in person while on our trip to Colombia! With that in mind, we did want to let you know the audio quality isn't great. However, there is a wealth of knowledge and insight into exactly how big or small we are and how we're able to accomplish the things we do at our size.

We'll go over exactly what our 2022 revenue and profit numbers were as well as our growth rate year-over-year. If you're good at math, you can figure out what we did in 2021 as well.

This episode isn't to brag about how much money we made -- it's to be transparent with our listeners in showing that we're not as big as you might think yet are able to still live comfortably, have a healthy amount of money in the bank, take above average US salaries, and still have the business pay for not only us but our fiancées trip to Colombia for 7 days.

So if you're just starting your journey or have even been at it for a little bit, just know that the above is a lot more attainable and practical than you might realize.

Have a question or just want to reach out? Hit us up at everbrospodcast.com/contact-us

Want to know how we stay up to date on the latest marketing trends and topics? Check out the newsletter we read every morning: 

https://www.stackedmarketer.com/friend-recommended/?utm_source=sparkloop&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=sm_daily&rh_ref=9731be28

Productizing and packaging services isn't a business model for everyone. For us, it is. It's been very fruitful and scalable and clients seem to love it. But just because you package a service together doesn't mean it will sell or even be successful.

We found a few of our productized services failing to meet expectations or just outright sucking. We've since learned from those mistakes and even refuse to offer requested services until we've thoroughly tested them and are able to put them into a scalable, packaged service.

The trick is finding a service offering that is not only appealing, but scalable, profitable, and consistently delivers objective value in terms of your clients' target KPIs.

Here is the link to the marketing newsletter we both recommend: https://cm.wtaff.co/t/j-l-zkyijul-iuuhgdutl-jy/

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Our recommended agency tools:

everbrospodcast.com/recommended-tools/

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⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

As always, if you enjoyed this episode or this podcast in general and want to leave us a review or rating, head over to Apple and let us know what you like! It helps us get found and motivates us to keep producing this free content.

----------------------------------

Want to connect with us? Reach out to us on the everbrospodcast.com website, subscribe to us on YouTube, or connect with us on socials:

YouTube: @agencyu

Twitter/X: @theagency_u

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/agencyu

Facebook: facebook.com/theagencyu

Instagram: @theagencyu

Reddit: r/agency & u/JakeHundley

TikTok: @agency.u

In our... somewhat Christmas episode, we got in the spirit of giving in which this week we give you some of the biggest game changes for our agencies that really impacted our growth, the value we offer to our clients, and our overall well-being.

If you want to get to the meat of the episode, skip to 8:30.

There are countless things we've implemented in our agency that have helped us grow, but in this episode, we talk about 8 things that changed the game for us. 

Those things include:

• Partnering
• Getting featured in industry publications
• Getting on industry podcasts
• Leaving the day job
• Being strict about who we partner with
• Templating websites
• Hiring the right people (and positions)
• Documenting processes

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Our recommended agency tools:

everbrospodcast.com/recommended-tools/

----------------------------------

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

As always, if you enjoyed this episode or this podcast in general and want to leave us a review or rating, head over to Apple and let us know what you like! It helps us get found and motivates us to keep producing this free content.

----------------------------------

Want to connect with us? Reach out to us on the everbrospodcast.com website, subscribe to us on YouTube, or connect with us on socials:

YouTube: @agencyu

Twitter/X: @theagency_u

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/agencyu

Facebook: facebook.com/theagencyu

Instagram: @theagencyu

Reddit: r/agency & u/JakeHundley

TikTok: @agency.u

Everyone always says how important it is for you to document your processes, but rarely do they talk about how they do it or what the most efficient way to do it is.

In this episode, we talk about how we found massive growth and process improvement after our processes were not only documented but defined as well as how we went about doing it in a way that really didn't take too much time from us.

Learn more about our rules of documentation that all of our employees must follow whenever they document a process as well as an extremely quick way to have an employee document a process they've never done before.

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Our recommended agency tools:

everbrospodcast.com/recommended-tools/

----------------------------------

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

As always, if you enjoyed this episode or this podcast in general and want to leave us a review or rating, head over to Apple and let us know what you like! It helps us get found and motivates us to keep producing this free content.

----------------------------------

Want to connect with us? Reach out to us on the everbrospodcast.com website, subscribe to us on YouTube, or connect with us on socials:

YouTube: @agencyu

Twitter/X: @theagency_u

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/agencyu

Facebook: facebook.com/theagencyu

Instagram: @theagencyu

Reddit: r/agency & u/JakeHundley

TikTok: @agency.u

This is a question we struggled with for the first couple of years of our business. Initially, we thought we wanted our first hire to be someone that would be good at performing the services we weren't adept at ourselves. We figured this would help grow the business as we could sell those services and then offload the work to them.

However, we soon realized that the best thing to do would be to hire someone that gave us our time back. But we f***ed that up too.

In this episode, we reflect on who the right person to hire is for your very first employee (or maybe your first contractor or outsourced work).

Picking the first role you fill is the most important thing you can do while growing your business to the point where you can exit the day-to-day and work on the business rather than in the business.

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Our recommended agency tools:

everbrospodcast.com/recommended-tools/

----------------------------------

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

As always, if you enjoyed this episode or this podcast in general and want to leave us a review or rating, head over to Apple and let us know what you like! It helps us get found and motivates us to keep producing this free content.

----------------------------------

Want to connect with us? Reach out to us on the everbrospodcast.com website, subscribe to us on YouTube, or connect with us on socials:

YouTube: @agencyu

Twitter/X: @theagency_u

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/agencyu

Facebook: facebook.com/theagencyu

Instagram: @theagencyu

Reddit: r/agency & u/JakeHundley

TikTok: @agency.u

You either started or are starting your agency as a subject matter expert, that is, you are a self-proclaimed expert in whatever thing you're selling. But over time, the harsh reality is that as you grow, you will start to lose your subject matter expertise.

As you document your processes and hire new people to replace the in-field work you're doing, you start to focus on things that aren't so fun about running a business like:

• Operations
• HR
• Research and Development (R&D)
• Managing people
• etc

The thing you were the expert in is being passed on to people who work for you who are now doing that thing every day -- and you're not.

If you want to grow outside of the day-to-day work, you have to come to terms with the idea that you will at some point no longer be the expert in the field, but rather, an expert at growing an agency.

Unless of course... the thing you sell is your actual hobby.

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Our recommended agency tools:

everbrospodcast.com/recommended-tools/

----------------------------------

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

As always, if you enjoyed this episode or this podcast in general and want to leave us a review or rating, head over to Apple and let us know what you like! It helps us get found and motivates us to keep producing this free content.

----------------------------------

Want to connect with us? Reach out to us on the everbrospodcast.com website, subscribe to us on YouTube, or connect with us on socials:

YouTube: @agencyu

Twitter/X: @theagency_u

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/agencyu

Facebook: facebook.com/theagencyu

Instagram: @theagencyu

Reddit: r/agency & u/JakeHundley

TikTok: @agency.u

In this episode, we discuss the main problem with most digital marketers and agency owners -- which is they don't really seem to want to learn anything new and they're stuck in their ways.

This leads to antiquated practices still being utilized and a lack of testing things to see if they actually work.

Most digital marketers in the industry read a case study performed by someone else and accept it as fact not taking into account the credibility of that case study, the sample size, the date it was performed, or even the industry it related to.

Overall, Jake thinks most digital marketers are lazy. A true digital marketer takes everything they see and hear with a grain of salt. The typical digital marketer butts heads with peers -- they speak as if they know everything, but they need to listen as if they know nothing.

----------------------------------

Our recommended agency tools:

everbrospodcast.com/recommended-tools/

----------------------------------

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

As always, if you enjoyed this episode or this podcast in general and want to leave us a review or rating, head over to Apple and let us know what you like! It helps us get found and motivates us to keep producing this free content.

----------------------------------

Want to connect with us? Reach out to us on the everbrospodcast.com website, subscribe to us on YouTube, or connect with us on socials:

YouTube: @agencyu

Twitter/X: @theagency_u

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/agencyu

Facebook: facebook.com/theagencyu

Instagram: @theagencyu

Reddit: r/agency & u/JakeHundley

TikTok: @agency.u