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

There are different levels of digital agency services that can support your business in staying competitive with others in the industry. The real question is do you know what they are? In this episode we’ll cover: How you can prevent your agency from being viewed as a commodity. How you can charge more for your digital agency services & why clients will pay for it. What you need to do to increase the lifetime value of a client. Do consultancies have an advantage over digital agencies? [smart_track_player url="http://traffic.libsyn.com/jasonswenk/Do_you_want_to_know_the_5_different_categories_of_agency_services_.mp3"] With over 30 years experience in the agency world - many of them owning and running his own agencies - my guest Jamie Turner brings us some serious black box knowledge. Spoiler alert: remember that phrase, it’ll be important later:)  Jamie has worked for agency giants in New York and Atlanta and today is the Founder and CEO of 60SecondMarketer.com and 60 Second Communications. He’s an autho

In this episode we'll discuss: Why you should fire yourself, and when 2 challenges most agencies face early on & how to overcome them 1 super smart tip about knowing your clients' clients   Take it from a guy who has started and grown multiple multi-million dollar businesses, you must “give your job away at least once per year.” That’s exactly what my guest, J Cornelius, has been doing for much of his 20 years in digital space. From his startup software company to his startup agency, J shares with us philosophies and strategies that will help you scale and grow your business. A serial entrepreneur, J started his first business in 1996 when he founded and grew an international web design software company. When his entrepreneurial spirit got the 13 year itch, he began web-design consulting on the side. He eventually founded Nine Labs, a user experience and brand strategy agency, in 2012. Within those first couple years, he was partnering often with Brad Weaver at Suckerpunch Studios. The two realized th

Leverage Media Opportunities to Achieve Agency Business Growth Looking to use new media opportunities to build momentum for your digital agency and gain new agency business growth? In this episode we cover: How to create a media pitch that scores an interview Ways to prepare for the interview, and how to knock it out of the park When and how to promote your media opportunity to promote agency business growth   A feature in the media can be a killer lead generator! My guest, Dana Barrett has got a ton of tips for us on getting media attention - and she should know! Dana hosts a daily business talk show on Atlanta 1190AM radio and is a panelist on Tech Edge, a local TV show. She typically interviews 1-2 companies across different sectors every single day! In this episode of The Smart Agency Master Class she talks with me about how a small business can get media attention, what to do once you score an interview and how to keep the momentum going when it’s over.   Make a Pitch Reach out with a simple and direct

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

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 natur

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 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 au

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. 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. 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 o

How to Become the Best Presenter   Today I was thinking about how to sell ideas effectively. A person can have the best idea in the world, but if that person cannot convince enough people, it doesn't matter. But what if they could be the best presenter of their ideas? One of the best presenters was Steve Jobs. What made him the best was he started with the BIG PICTURE rather than the details. When the iPhone came out, he started with the following: "Apple reinvents the phone." He could have started with: "We have developed the first smartphone by Apple that is easy to use, an iPod and a phone. The big pictures get us drawn in and interested to here more. People crave meaning before details. In every presentation Steve did, he was able to inform, educate and entertain us. He knew the problems he wanted to solve and the benefits of the solutions he provided. Most importantly he connected with his customers by explaining to them why they should care. One of the other great things he did was bring numbers to life

4 Steps to Capturing Leads... Snagging Them Hook, Line and Sinker If your biggest issue right now within your agency is capturing leads, especially from big clients, then you are probably going about it the wrong way. There’s a big difference between generating leads and capturing leads… and it’s a lot like fishing. Think about the term “fishing” for a moment. Do you actually want to “go fishing” or do you really want to “go catching”? To be successful, it’s the latter. You can go fishing by dropping a pole in a random location with random bait and you might get lucky, but usually you just spend tons of time and come up empty. BUT, if you have some strategy in place: the right location, the right bait and the right tools you will have greater chances for success. [ctt title="4 steps to CAPTURING more leads and why it's like catching fish" tweet="4 steps to CAPTURING more leads and why it's like catching fish: http://ctt.ec/p8U4Y+ via @jswenk #leads" coverup="p8U4Y"] 1. Know WHO you’re fishing for: Be very spe

Are you finding it overwhelming in your agency working out what are priority tasks and what are tasks you can give to your team? Feeling overworked is a very easy rut to fall into as an agency owner and here's how you can get out of it. How to Focus on Growing Your Agency Instead of Just Running It    It’s common for every entrepreneur to feel bogged down by tasks and buried by a growing to do list. We are always so busy being reactive instead of proactive and there’s never a chance to get ahead. It’s like that client that is never happy and constantly calling or emailing… the squeaky wheel gets the oil, right? But that doesn’t add any horsepower to your business. You need to work on the modifications to the engine before you oil the squeaky wheel. Don’t focus on the little things that have no impact on the growth of the business and concentrate more on the high impact items. It’s Too Hard to See the Forest for the Trees That’s OK! I’ve created a worksheet that you can use when you are feeling overwhelmed. St

How can you create more video for your agency content? In this brief episode, Jason shares his tips and tricks for live streaming and video marketing. 

A lot of entrepreneurs like to create an e-book but they don't multi-purpose this content as well as they could. Check out this short #AskSwenk episode for some tips and tricks on creating micro content, across many different platforms to get more life from it.

Are you using CRM software the best way to track leads for your business? If you are facing some challenges, I can help. What are the best ways of using CRM Software to track leads and project cashflow? Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is HUGE in any industry where you’ve got multiple leads at various stages in the sales process. CRM software is a must in keeping organized and optimizing every opportunity. The best way to use CRM is to create levels and use the levels to get a handle on cash projections. [ctt title="Here are 3 steps you can take to manage your relationships and get a snapshot of revenue. " tweet="Here are 3 steps you can take to manage your relationships and get a snapshot of revenue. http://ctt.ec/j_kgW+ via @jswenk #agencycrm" coverup="j_kgW"] Step 1: Create Levels My agency had four levels in our CRM system for prospects who requested to be contacted. Level 1 - This level is people we needed to chat with and qualify. Remember to use my NBAT technique to qualify leads quickly. If you

Are you starting to look into the opportunities available if you were to sell your agency? Are you unsure of how you can value your agency correctly and make it appealing to buyers? It can be super exciting when someone is interested in acquiring your agency… right up until the time that it gets super overwhelming. Here are the steps you need to take to make sure that when you sell your agency, it goes as smoothly as possible while also benefiting you and your employees the most. How to Sell Your Agency #1  Know what your agency is worth and the amount you need to have to walk away. Do you want to know the Agency Valuation Formula? These deals are done in a two-tier structure: cash amount and earn out. Come up with your cash amount figure, present it to the buyer and make sure you’re happy with the amount. Most earn outs are structured in a way that make them unachievable, so don’t get your heart set on earning it. #2  Resist the urge to celebrate. Celebrations and telling people too soon could seriously bite

Agency Partner: How to Grow a Successful Agency with One Have you ever considered running your business with an agency partner? It’s not easy being agency stakeholders and close friends but in this episode, these two ladies have it all figured out. Renee Warren and Heather Carson, co-founders of Onboardly, a demand marketing agency servicing clients in PR, content marketing, and social media talk with me about their secrets... Secrets to successful partnerships, secrets to their agency growth, and the one secret every new startup owner needs to know.   What’s the Secret to a Great Partnership? I usually tell people, “You either know the bad partner or you are the bad partner.” Not true for Renee and Heather. They get along like besties and they tell me it’s because they have rules for keeping business and friendship separate. They are careful to keep the lines drawn and clear about when they’re wearing their “friend hat” or their “founder hat”. They say this distinction has really made a lot of hard conversat

4 Quick Tips To Save You Time and Energy Prospecting Clients If you’ve ever spent time spinning your wheels on a pitch only to find out you weren’t talking to the decision maker, they don’t have the budget, or they have unrealistic time frame then here are four things you need to do right away. Think of N.B.A.T. before engaging in any new project conversation... N - Need: Ask what the specific needs are and what specific end results they’re expecting. Ask how this project fits in with the overall company vision. If they need to pull in another person to answer that question, hold onto that nugget of information. B - Budget: Ask for the the budget. More often than not, you won’t get an actual number so act like a reverse auctioneer… Start with a ridiculously high number saying, “Is your budget $500,000, or $400,000, maybe $300,000…?” They either give you a more realistic range or the name of someone who knows. Hold onto that nugget of information, too! A - Authority: Were they able to answer the questions abou

How to Be So Successful You Can Accelerate Business and Turn Clients Away Ever wonder what it would feel like to accelerate business to such a level you can turn down work? That’s exactly what my client, Matthew Arndt, CEO of Turbo Medical Marketing is able to do with his business. In this episode of The Smart Agency Master Class, Matt shares exactly what he has done to get to his agency to that point.   3 Ways to Accelerate Business Right Now... 1. Be Super Specific:  It Will Draw In the Right Clients Turbo Medical Marketing is a digital agency specializing in medical aesthetics (ie. cash pay medicine such a: plastic surgery, dermatology, ophthalmology, medical spas and their related industry partners who work with the same practitioners). Wow. Super specific, right? Matt says he’s seen huge benefit from really laser focusing on a very specific market. Because the medical field is so huge, he had to pinpoint a particular audience to gear all his marketing efforts. He understands the challenges and issues the

How to Grow Your Agency with a Target Audience of One Sounds a bit crazy but today’s guest, Chris Brogan, says not only should you find your niche but why you should really drill down and create a target audience of a particular person to exert your marketing efforts. Chris is CEO of Owner Media Group as well as a long-time blogger, professional speaker, author and consultant on using media and engagement to build a better marketplace. He’s worked with brands like Coke, Google, Comcast, and Pepsi but he’s also been consulting with smaller businesses as well.   Why Focus on an “Audience of One” Target Audience When There are So Many People to Reach? “We live in a world where even a toilet knows you’ve left and automatically flushes but a person in the same room as you can be so absorbed in their phone they hardly notice you,” says Chris. Be the toilet. Help people feel seen and heard. To do this, identify a very specific target audience (don’t worry about reaching everyone and don’t worry about scaring people