Smart Agency Masterclass With Jason Swenk: Podcast For Digital Marketing Agencies

Do you need a sexy web design for your agency website in order to land 6-figure deals? In this episode of Ask Swenk, we hear about what big clients really want from their agency. We also cover the question of can you build your digital agency around your personal brand? Want the answer? Yes, you can! Here's how. How a Sexy Web Design Can Land New Deals {1:13} Jarrett asked: “My team comes from a design heavy background. We typically build beautiful websites and admire companies like Huge & Firstborn. We came from rsq.com and our website is mightyadvertising.com. But I've noticed a lot of digital shops like Solar Velocity who have less sexy websites are able to sell six-figure deals. Is there an advantage/disadvantage to building a sexy digital website versus on not-so-sexy website? Are those prospects not concerned with that level of design?” The biggest issue that can occur with a sexy website design can create the wrong positioning on your website and lead you and your agency into the weeds. You need to

Are you using value-based pricing within your digital agency? Did you know that through value-based pricing, it can support you in increasing the profit of your agency? In this episode, we’ll cover: Why value-based pricing will keep you from losing profit. How to setup a value-based pricing model. How to understand your client’s perception of value. This week on the Smart Agency Master Class, we’ll hear from Dan Mall founder of SuperFriendly, a design collaborative. Dan has spent his entire 18-year career in design and in that time he’s grown to understand a ton about pricing. He’s going to share how to develop value-based pricing so you can stop losing profit. Why a Value-Based Pricing Model? You are providing a service based on your unique skill set, knowledge and experience. Value-based pricing takes all those elements into consideration and quantifies. Value-based pricing is the intersection between: what it’s worth to the client and the amount of compensation you’re willing to take. And if that isn’t e

Do you have trouble making big agency decisions for your business? Do you hesitate to commit because you're afraid to fail? This episode is all about getting out of your own way so you can find the courage to take action that impacts your agency. Many of my clients tell me they have a hard time making decisions. Whether it's a decision that requires a big commitment or taking action on something that can dramatically impact their business. Some people have trouble pulling the trigger. As a result they stand in their own way of reaching success. Make Agency Decisions Like Seth Godin or Gary Vaynerchuck I get a lot of my inspiration from guys like Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk. I was listening to Seth's podcast recently and he talked about making your big life decisions the way you make decisions in the game Monopoly. In the game, you have to decide quickly if you're going to buy property or not. Sometimes you land on Boardwalk and lose a bunch of money. Sometimes you make all the right decisions and WIN. Stil

Stuck finding ways to generate new business for your agency? Then the real question to ask yourself is have you ever considered adding video marketing to your online marketing strategy. If not, this is the episode for you. In this episode, we’ll cover: The benefits of rich media in your agency marketing. Top 3 mistakes to avoid in video marketing. How to repurpose your video content and give it legs. In this episode of The Smart Agency Master Class, Brian Town, schools us on video marketing. After a 17-year career as a high school TV and video production teacher, Brian switched gears and founded Michigan Creative. Over the past 5 years the agency has grown to a team of 10 which serves clients in web development, video branding and social media. Brian shares some great tips on starting or improving your video content to it becomes a major lead generator. Why video marketing? The real question is, why not video? It’s never been easier or cheaper to produce and edit video. Video content lives forever on multi

How to Create the Best Growth Strategy for Your Business It can be tough to feel you are doing everything you can to bring your agency to the next level but for not to see that growth you were hoping for. Should you be trying something different with the growth strategy for your business? Did you ever consider taking a closer look at the growth strategy that Donald Trump used to gain his popularity? In this video we identify Donald Trump's #1 growth strategy that has gained him a record number of supporters and cover how it applies to your digital agency. It's US Election Day 2016.  Maybe you're an American citizen with the privilege to vote? Or, maybe you're one of my global followers with the good fortune of observing this election from afar? Either way, you'll want to watch this brief video. I am neither a Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump supporter. However, observing their growth strategies got me thinking. This one single tactic can be a real game changer in your business. Are you ready to "Make Your Agen

Do you want to learn how you can use Facebook Ads to create lead generation for not only you but for your clients too? Then you need to keep reading. In this episode, we’ll cover: Why you should be using Facebook ads and how to get started. 5 Do’s and Don’ts of Facebook marketing for your agency. How to know if your Facebook ads are working and key metrics to monitor. Whether you’ve never tried Facebook marketing or you’re just looking to improve at it, you’ve got to hear from my guest Art Malkov. Art is the co-founder of NeedGrowth.com, a digital agency specializing in using Facebook to supercharge lead generation for themselves and their clients. Art shares some great tips on starting and maintaining Facebook marketing as well as some major mistakes to avoid. Does Facebook really work? Heck yeah, it does. Agency owners often tell me their audience is not on Facebook. Art says he hears it from clients, too. There are 1.5 billion users on Facebook. (That’s 3X more users than Twitter and Instagram combined.)

Everything You Wanted to Know But Were Afraid To Ask Do you have questions about me and my agency experience that you've been wondering but were afraid to ask everything? In this episode of Ask Swenk, I take your questions that many you have asked about my journey as an agency owner. Here's everything you've been wanting to know about why I sold my agency, what I'd do differently, what I regret and why I do what I'm doing now. I've been getting some great questions about my past experience as an agency owner and thought it would be a great #AskSwenk episode to show you I'm totally transparent when it comes to my successes, failures, lessons learned and regrets. Check it out: {0:30} If you were so successful, why did you sell your agency? {2:00} If you could do it all again, what would you do differently as an agency owner? {4:52} What do you regret about the acquisition process? {7:37 } Why do you do what you're doing now? What More Do You Want to Know? I hope you found this instalment of Ask Swenk beneficial

Multi-Million Dollar Agency Building: How One Agency Owner Built Three Every digital agency owner dreams of building a multi-million dollar agency and what better way to learn how than from an owner that didn't just make one, but built three multi-million dollar agencys. In this episode, we’ll cover: 3 lessons on scaling your business into a multi-million dollar agency. How to have growth-minded hiring practices. Attracting, hiring and keeping top talent. Lance Hollander is my guest this week on The Smart Agency Master Class. He’s the owner of his third multi-million dollar agency, Delphic Digital. Yep, you read that right. He's been owner to three successful, 7-figure agencies. He profitably sold the first two agencies, but can’t stay away from the business and earned partnership in another. Lance swears this is the third and last… but we’ll believe it when we see it :) Today he's here to share the lessons he’s learned climbing to the top 3 times and his secrets to scaling each multi-million dollar agency.

Why I Charge for Agency Programs Ever wonder why I charge for my programs? Asked and answered right here! Also, how to quit being dragged into client work so you can grow your agency. Plus what do to when a client refuses to sign a contract and questions why you even have one. {0:52} Simon asked: Everyone says a business owner should work on the business and not in the business. However, we’re a very small team of 5 people. The biggest challenge we have is hiring talented senior people who can run and grow the clients' businesses. Simply put we don’t have the money to pay the huge wages they command. And our clients don’t and won’t pay that much to have someone manage their account. So I get dragged back into client work and can't work on my own business. How can I prevent this from continuing? {4:07} Simon asked: Just out of curiosity, if you sold your agency for 8-figures I'd assume you’re set up for life and can live off the savings. If that’s the case why aren't you giving away your Playbook for free and

When looking to improve the lead generation strategy of your digital agency, you might find it difficult in identifying the ways you can do this. One of the ways you can improve your lead generation strategy is by contributing to podcast content by being a guest. In this episode, we’ll cover: 3 Benefits of being a podcast guest. How to get find shows and rock an interview like a pro. How to turn other podcast listeners into your clients. My guest today is Tom Schwab founder of Interview Valet, an inbound marketing agency. Tom’s background is in engineering - he even ran a nuclear power plant in the Navy - which means he’s brilliant at building process and systems that generate maximum output for minimum input. Tom shares the genius of being a podcast guest as a lead generation strategy, as well as the secret to getting more bang for ($0) bucks. Why Being a Podcast Guest Is Important for Lead Generation Strategy? Fresh content is still a thing, but blogging just isn’t. People want to consume information in d

Are you losing out on improving your agency profitability why having the wrong internal processes for your business? In this episode, we’ll cover: How to fix the #1 problem every agency experiences. 3 ways to standardize your internal processes and increase profits. 2 strategies to upsell to existing clients. This week’s guest is the expert on creating systems and processes. (Which means I’m a big fan because you already know how I feel about systems and processes.) Anthony Chatfield has an extensive background in the agency space and is the founder of Lead Connect, an agency specializing in inbound marketing. He also consults with agencies that are great with lead generation and closing deals, but struggle with delivery. Anthony shares strategies for making your agency operate more efficiently with some key process documentation. The Gap In Agency Internal Processes The biggest problem Anthony sees in agencies is the breakdown in communication between sales and fulfillment. So many times a salesperson prom

So many agency owners become consumed by their top line revenue and what they need to do to make it better. Incase you didn't know, top line revenue isn't everything and yours means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. In this episode, we’ll cover: Why top line revenue isn’t everything. 2 ways to tackle profitability. How to get past the excuses and be a content machine. I’m super psyched to have Joe Apfelbaum as my guest on the podcast today. Joe’s the owner of Ajax Union, a 7 year old, $4 million dollar agency. In addition to being a successful agency owner, Joe is also a mega content producer. He tells us all about what he’s done in order to get to the multi-million level, what he stopped doing to stay there and how in the world he has the time to create so much content. Top line revenue isn’t everything When they started seven years ago, Ajax Union was operating as a full service agency. They would do anything/everything for anyone/everyone. They experience significant growth while revenue

Every agency owner has the goal of growing their agency to a level that they can target the bigger potential clients. This is because with bigger clients comes creating proposals for bigger budgets. This week is we are going to talk all about budgets...  more importantly, we are going to talk about client budgets. In this episode of Ask Swenk, I take a closer look into what you should do when clients lower their budget during a project, the strategies for getting an increase in budget and how to land bigger clients with bigger budgets. Bigger Budgets {3:17} MJ asked: What do you do when a client won't give you the budget promised? {6:21} Carl asked: What are the best strategies and tactics for a digital marketing agency to increase the budget of key clients? {9:29} Andrew asked: As a small video agency, what is your best advice for acquiring new clients, moving up the food chain and commanding bigger budget projects? Special Offer Did you realize this is the 50th episode of #AskSwenk? To celebrate this milest

Want to learn how to increase agency revenue four times over? Or are you having trouble finding your agency's nice and the best sales process for you? Don't worry, this week's Smart Agency Master Class has you covered. In this episode, we’ll cover: 2 strategies that helped increase agency revenue & client list in one year. How to select your ideal niche to succeed. How to create a sales process that keeps your pipeline full.   This week’s podcast guest is my client, Zach Williams who is the definition of crushing it. At his agency Venveo, the client roster has quadrupled year over year, the pipeline is full, sales cycle is shorter and conversion rate is higher. Learn all the strategies Zach and his team are using for such huge success and increase agency revenue. Zach got his start creating websites at the age of 16 and continued to do it as a freelancer through college. It’s all he’s known, so starting an agency seemed like the natural next step. They grew organically for several years with referrals b

Should You White Label the Services That Your Agency Provides? In this episode of Ask Swenk, we talk about all things to do with white labeling agency services. This is from whether you should white label in order to work with big brands, to charging for it and who's responsible for liability insurance on white labeled services. {1:20} Phil asked: "I currently white label my services for another company and they are dealing with some pretty big clients.... What are your thoughts on white labeling?" {5:34} Phil also asked: "I know the agency I'm white labeling for is adding a large chunk of money on top of what I am charging. For example, I charge them 5k for a website and they are charging the client 25k. I would otherwise be happy with the prices I charge them if I didn't know they were charging so much on top of it. Should I up my rates to them and risk them going elsewhere? Or do I carry on with them taking the lion's share of the profit?" {7:38} Meg asked:  "In instances of white labelled services, which

What is a Healthy Profit Margin for a Digital Agency? What is a healthy profit margin goal for your agency? If this is something you have asked yourself more than once or struggle with, this episode is for you. In this episode, we’ll cover: What your digital agency profit margin should be. How to improve agency profit margins. 7 tips for healthy agency financials. Building cash reserves and improving cash flow. Financials can get confusing. We all can agree there are so many different statements and ways of reporting - it’s all very overwhelming. That’s why his agency looks at the big picture and watches for trends, rather than focusing on the details. Tip #1: Understand Healthy Profit Margins Most CPA's says a 10% profit margin is good, and 15% is outstanding, but I believe and have seen margins well over the 32% range. If you aren't quite there yet, make this your top priority. A solid profit margin is a key to financial health. There are a variety of ways to calculate profit. Gross Revenue - Expenses - O

Figuring out the right level of transparency to have with employees about agency finances. How much should they know in order to motivate them and how much is too much? Transparency of Agency Finances With Your Team Jack asked: {1:35}  "I like the idea of bonuses based on profitability. How much info should I share with my team? Do they need to know everyone else's salary/wages so they can monitor project budgets, costs, profits, etc.?" The short answer is you shouldn't share everyone's salaries as they don't need to know this information. A great way to create a process for bonuses leading by my personal experience would be to create a budget with the project managers as a buffer and provide bonus opportunities for completing the project under the budgeted time. {3:47}  "How much financial info should I share, and how much is too much?" This is a great question and completely depends on where these employees are in the business. Everyone wants to contribute and feel like they are making a difference within a

In this episode, we’ll cover the 7 deadly sins that agency owners commit in their own marketing, and how to quit sinning and start winning new business. This week on the The Smart Agency Master Class I talk with my friend Diane Young, co-founder of The Drum which is Europe’s leading marketing news platform, and recently has made it’s way to the US. Diane has spent over a decade observing and interviewing agencies. And in that time she’s been able to pinpoint 7 things that agencies do to themselves to negatively impact their own growth. Diane shares the 7 Deadly Sins for Agency Marketing. Find out if you’re committing them and what you can do to stop before it’s too late! [clickToTweet tweet="These are the 7 Deadly Sins #Agencies Are Committing. Are You Guilty of Any?" quote="These are the 7 Deadly Sins Agencies Are Committing. Are You Guilty of Any?"] 7 Deadly Sins of Agency Marketing So what are the 7 deadly sins of agency marketing you need to avoid to elevate your marketing strategy? Let's break them down.

Discover the pros and cons of a merger with an agency that has complimentary services. Determine if you are competitively priced in your market, and is it possible to scale a creative agency? {1:35} Rikki asked: "We are a digital marketing agency considering merging with a design and development agency. We think this will be a good move because the services are very complimentary. What are the pros and cons?" {6:03} Imani asked: "How do you know if you are competitively priced? I thought about getting proposals from my competitors for the type businesses that I would like to work with... should I?" {9:29} Peter asked: "How do you scale a creative agency ? Can it even be scaled? Some say agencies, in general, cannot be scaled." Hey, Smart Agency Master Class fans! Save time & win more work Replace your proposals, quotes and presentations with interactive + mobile-friendly webpages that plug into your systems and are as easy to build and reuse as they are beautiful. Sign up now for free and get 50% off for

Building the Best Sales Team to Grow Your Agency Want to know what you need to do to build the best sales team to grow your agency and bring in new clients? Looking for a new cold call strategy? I've got all you need to know. In this episode, we’ll cover: Understanding and overcoming common sales team problems. A NO FAIL cold call strategy for agencies. Building the best sales team: finding, hiring, managing, and paying them. #1 tip for crushing your sales goals. My guest on today’s show is Wes Schaeffer, The Sales Whisperer. Wes spent a decade in the Air Force and another in commissioned sales before starting his business as a sales coach and trainer. He shares some great tips for cold calling, as well as strategies for hiring and managing great sales people. His advice is totally practical and will help you develop a killer sales outbound strategy. Common Sales Team Problems Wes says most salespeople don’t fully understand the value of the resources and expertise they bring to the table. This causes 2 maj