Agency Life

Over 1/3 of agencies frequently struggle with overservicing clients. You’ve likely felt the pain yourself. When projects are going well out of scope and things are taking longer than your team planned, it can have a major impact on your agency’s profitability. Alyson Caffrey, Founder & COO of Operations Agency, has identified the 5 biggest scoping mistakes across dozens of agencies that are often leading to this overservicing problem–and ultimately underperforming profit margins. In today’s conversation, you’ll learn: Resources Mentioned in This Episode: Connect with Alyson on LinkedIn Connect with Operations Agency on Instagram An Agency’s Guide to Measuring And Improving Billable Utilization (Ebook) How to Avoid Unprofitable Client Work (Webinar) 3 Steps to Simplify Your Capacity Planning (Webinar) How To Drive Client Results 70% Faster w/ Kate Vasylenko The Client (a film by Umault) Want to watch the video version of the podcast on YouTube? Check it out here: Agency Life Podcast on YouTube Want to get more content to support your agency life? Subscribe to the Agency Life newsletter, check out past episodes & find more content at teamwork.com/agencylife. This podcast is brought to you by Teamwork.com.

Clients who are “happy” may still leave you. But clients who are seeing results–and seeing them fast? Now, that increases the value you deliver and decreases the chances that new clients will churn. So, how did this digital marketing agency drive client results 70% faster, increase customer satisfaction scores and start getting glowing feedback from more clients? It was all about strategy. More specifically, they did away with the old divide between their strategy and client services teams and introduced a new client-facing role solely responsible for consistently updating the client’s strategy and delivering client results. By creating this new role that now works alongside their project managers, they’ve been able to decrease the feedback loop between performance data and the strategy the agency is executing for their clients. In today’s conversation with Kate Vasylenko, CEO of 42DM, you’ll hear: Resources Mentioned in This Episode: An Agency’s Guide to Measuring And Improving Billable Utilization (Ebook) Connect with Kate on LinkedIn The State of Agency Operations Report Hiring Secrets from an 8-Figure Agency CEO Want to watch the video version of the podcast on YouTube? Check it out here: Agency Life Podcast on YouTube Want to get more content to support your agency life? Subscribe to the Agency Life newsletter, check out past episodes & find more content at teamwork.com/agencylife. This podcast is brought to you by Teamwork.com.

Isn’t it refreshing when someone further down the path is willing to share the successes AND failures they’ve seen along the way? That’s exactly the type of conversation you’ll get from today’s episode with Eric Siu, CEO of Single Grain, Founder of Leveling Up and Co-Host of the top-ranked Marketing School Podcast. Eric’s journey has taken him from having “no idea how to run a business” at 27 to now having scaled his agency into 8-figures, all while building a media brand, authoring a book and becoming a recognizable name in SEO and modern marketing more broadly. Despite his successes, Eric does hold back from sharing his missteps along the way and (most importantly) the lessons you can take from them. For instance, you’ll hear: In addition to sharing his hard learned hiring secrets, Eric shares: Resources Mentioned in This Episode: An Agency’s Guide to Measuring And Improving Billable Utilization (Ebook) Connect with Eric on LinkedIn The Agency Owner’s Association with Eric Siu & Neil Patel Working Backwards by Colin Bryar & Bill Carr Free Tool to Run Your L10 Meetings in EOS: Instant Agency Tools.com The State of Agency Operations Report Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss Want to watch the video version of the podcast on YouTube? Check it out here: Agency Life Podcast on YouTube Want to get more content to support your agency life? Subscribe to the Agency Life newsletter, check out past episodes & find more content at teamwork.com/agencylife. This podcast is brought to you by Teamwork.com.

Today he runs an agency doing $25MM in ARR with around 150 employees. But–as the story usually goes–this success didn’t come overnight & started with much more humble beginnings. From not getting paid by one of his first clients to gaining traction with small monthly retainers on Fiverr to now running a successful performance marketing agency for SaaS companies, Garrett Mehrguth, CEO of Directive, has learned a forecasting model that’s allowed him to scale his agency well beyond those humble beginnings. In today’s conversation, he shares: Resources Mentioned in This Episode: An Agency’s Guide to Measuring And Improving Billable Utilization (Ebook) Connect with Garrett on LinkedIn Sign Up for Garrett’s Agency Academy Course The 3 Benefits of Productizing Your Services w/ Sam Shepler 3 Steps to Owning Your Niche in 90 Days w/ Nick Bennett 5 Steps to Win More Clients with Benchmark Data w/ Chris Nault Want to watch the video version of the podcast on YouTube? Check it out here: Agency Life Podcast on YouTube Want to get more content to support your agency life? Subscribe to the Agency Life newsletter, check out past episodes & find more content at teamwork.com/agencylife. This podcast is brought to you by Teamwork.com.

It can be terrifying to allow your clients to “see how the sausage is made,” and this is one of the main concerns related to handling client communications within your project management or professional service automation software. While there are benefits to streamlining your client communications and inviting them into the system that runs your agency–benefits like visibility, client perception & efficiency–each of those benefits comes with some pretty intimidating risks. What if internal communication accidentally goes to a client? What if we give clients “too much visibility? In today’s conversation with Susan Fennema, CEO at Beyond the Chaos (an operations consulting firm that helps service-based businesses bring order to the chaos), she answers those questions and also shares: Resources Mentioned in This Episode: Connect with Susan on LinkedIn An Agency’s Guide to Measuring And Improving Billable Utilization (Ebook) 3 Steps to Avoid Furious Clients w/ Jackie Hermes How This Agency Reduced Churn by 50% (with AI's Help) w/ Erik Huberman How to Talk to Your Clients about Money (Blog) Want to watch the video version of the podcast on YouTube? Check it out here: Agency Life Podcast on YouTube Want to get more content to support your agency life? Subscribe to the Agency Life newsletter, check out past episodes & find more content at teamwork.com/agencylife. This podcast is brought to you by Teamwork.com.

Wanna know how a 200-person agency reduced churn by 50% from one year to the next? Even though Hawke Media is one of the most successful marketing agencies in the United States and they’ve scaled to hundreds of millions in annual revenue, their journey hasn’t been without bumps in the road. At the beginning of 2022, they saw client churn on the rise and their CEO, Erik Huberman, knew he had to adjust their strategy to address a new challenge. In today’s conversation, you’ll hear from Erik: Want to get more content to support your agency life? Subscribe to the Agency Life newsletter, check out past episodes & find more content at teamwork.com/agencylife. This podcast is brought to you by Teamwork.com.

What’s one mistake you’ve made as an agency leader you’ll never forget? Several guests on this show have shared the same exact answer: “I wish I’d invested in my own financial literacy sooner!” But, what financial metrics should you focus on the most? Even if you answer that question—how do you (and your team) impact those financial metrics that matter most for your agency? To answer these questions, in today’s episode, you’ll hear from Ryan Watson from Upsourced Accounting, where he & the team help agencies just like yours avoid financial pitfalls & achieve financial health. Ryan’s a former agency COO & CFO himself, so he comes with financial know-how but also real agency life experience. In today’s episode you’ll learn: The 5 Financial Metrics Hierarchy of Financial Needs Project Profitability Analysis Want to watch this episode on YouTube to see the visuals? Check it out here: Agency Life Podcast on YouTube Resources Mentioned in This Episode: Ryan on LinkedIn YouTube Channel The State of Agency Operations Report Teamwork.com Profitability Reporting The 4 P’s of Time-Tracking Your Team Won’t Hate Want to get more content to support your agency life? Subscribe to the Agency Life newsletter, check out past episodes & find more content at teamwork.com/agencylife. This podcast is brought to you by Teamwork.com.

Want to win more clients (and keep them longer) in 2024? Of course you do! Offering a free benchmark consultation as part of your sales process might just be the key to doing both this year. In this episode with Chris Nault, Founder and CEO of Growth, he breaks down the process and results from his agency's 5-week experiment of adding a benchmark consultation into their sales and renewal processes. In this episode, you’ll hear from Chris: Resources Mentioned in This Episode: Chris on LinkedIn 5 Reasons Your Firm Should Offer a Free Benchmark Consultation The State of Agency Operations Report Databox (Free) Benchmark Groups How 200+ Agencies Invest in Their Own MarketingWant to get more content to support your agency life? Subscribe to the Agency Life newsletter, check out past episodes & find more content at teamwork.com/agencylife. This podcast is brought to you by Teamwork.com.

38% of agencies struggle with frequently overservicing clients. Of the 500+ agencies surveyed for the 2023 State of Agency Operations Report, 44% also said that client demands have become tougher to meet. Are you finding clients more demanding? Is overservicing happening more frequently in your agency? If so, 2024 can be different on both fronts. Ken Yarmosh, Business Coach, Fractional COO and Founder of The Remote Solopreneur, recently joined the Agency Life webinar series and laid out a clear path forward so that agency leaders like you can help your team to stop overservicing clients (for good). In today's episode you'll learn: Resources mentioned in today’s conversation: on LinkedIn How to Stop Overservicing Clients for GoodWant to get more content to support your agency life? Subscribe to the Agency Life newsletter, check out past episodes & find more content at teamwork.com/agencylife. This podcast is brought to you by Teamwork.com.

With your business, clients and the world changing so fast around you, it can be tough to know what your growth goals should be--or how to even approach setting them in the first place. Thankfully, Drew McLellan, CEO of the Agency Management Institute (and agency vet himself), joins the podcast today to break down the numbers in a simple formula you can use to set attainable goals in any market. In today's episode you'll learn: Resources mentioned in today’s conversation: on LinkedIn Growing Your Agency Too Fast or Not Fast EnoughWant to get more content to support your agency life? Subscribe to the Agency Life newsletter, check out past episodes & find more content at teamwork.com/agencylife. This podcast is brought to you by Teamwork.com.

Whether you're looking at 2024 with aggressive growth goals or simply trying to maintain your existing trajectory, one thing's for sure: It's about more than top-line revenue. No matter what your agency's size, maximizing your profitability is a key part of thriving (or even just surviving in 2024). That's why I'm excited to share my conversation with Megan Bowen, Chief Operating Officer at Refine Labs. Megan was the very first guest speaker on our Agency Life webinar series and this conversation was too relevant to this time of year not to share. In today's episode you'll learn: Resources mentioned in today’s conversation: on LinkedIn Mastering Agency Profitability: People, Process, and PricingWant to get more content to support your agency life? Subscribe to the Agency Life newsletter, check out past episodes & find more content at teamwork.com/agencylife. This podcast is brought to you by Teamwork.com.

Are you sick of content about AI that just talks about how big of a game-changer it is without giving you practical tips on what to do with this technology? We were too. That's why we hosted Chris Mathieu, Chief Services Officer at New Breed, an Elite HubSpot Solutions Partner onto our Agency Life webinar series to discuss: 5 specific ways they're testing & leveraging AI within their agency, and how to avoid the most. common pitfalls with AI adoption right now. We also broke down data from our recent State of Agency Operations Report that illuminated the divide in the agency community over AI. Plus, Chris answered live questions from the community about the various AI use-cases we discussed. Resources mentioned in today’s conversation: The State of HubSpot Report The State of Agency Operations Report (2023) Lead to Loyalty: How to Optimize Your Client Lifecycle with HubSpot & Teamwork.com on LinkedIn AI for Agencies: Growth Tool or Threat? Want to get more content to support your agency life? Subscribe to the Agency Life newsletter, check out past episodes & find more content at teamwork.com/agencylife. This podcast is brought to you by Teamwork.com.

What got you here won’t get you there. You’ve probably heard that phrase before. And it probably couldn’t feel more applicable than it does right now as we round out 2023. So, the question is: Are you going to keep doing more of the same? Or do something different in 2024? If you’re in that latter camp, then you’re going to get some encouragement (and hopefully some useful ideas to implement) from today’s guests, Pete Caputa and Karl Sakas. You probably already know, but in case you don’t: Pete is the CEO of Databox, a business analytics platform that helps agencies provide transparent performance management to their clients. Karl is an author, speaker, consultant and the founder of Sakas & Company, a consulting firm helping agency owners work less and earn more. Their two organizations recently teamed up to survey over 200 agencies about their own marketing efforts. The survey continues to collect new responses even up to the time of this recording, and the insights have been published (ungated, I might add) in their new report, How High Performing Agencies Market Themselves. As we unpack this new report with Pete & Karl, you’ll hear: Resources mentioned in today’s conversation: How High Performing Agencies Market Themselves The State of Agency Operations Report (2023) Lead to Loyalty: How to Optimize Your Client Lifecycle with HubSpot & Teamwork.com on LinkedIn on LinkedIn Work Less, Earn More Databox Benchmark Groups Tamara Omerovic Want to get more content to support your agency life? Subscribe to the Agency Life newsletter, check out past episodes & find more content at teamwork.com/agencylife. This podcast is brought to you by Teamwork.com.

What are you concerned about as you plan ahead for 2024? How will next year be different than this year? These were among a few of the topics we discussed this week in a rare in-person recording with Peter Coppinger, Co-Founder and CEO of Teamwork.com, during his recent trip to Denver. You see, before Teamwork.com was the growing SaaS company we are today, serving agencies with a platform to run client work, Peter and his Co-Founder, Daniel Mackey, were doing client work–building a web design agency that eventually led them to start building the platform we provide to thousands of customers today. In this conversation, you'll hear: Resources mentioned in today’s conversation: The Ultimate Guide to Scaling Your Agency The State of Agency Operations Report (2023) on LinkedIn The 12 biggest mistakes our web agency made — and how we fixed them Want to get more content to support your agency life? Subscribe to the Agency Life newsletter, check out past episodes & find more content at teamwork.com/agencylife. This podcast is brought to you by Teamwork.com.

You probably heard recently on this show, from the dozens of agency owners & leaders we spoke to at INBOUND this year, that the number one place they'd invest extra budget dollars (if they magically had them tomorrow) was in marketing their own agency. This begs 2 questions: 1) Why is this such a common answer? 2) What can you as an agency owner start doing to address this common need? (because an extra $10,000/mo isn't likely showing up in your mailbox tomorrow) In this week's episode, Danielle Fauteaux, with Momentum Marketing, share some tactical advice on how to answer that second question. Danielle has run her own firm, and now specifically helps other agencies implement The Momentum Framework to build a repeatable revenue generation system. In this conversation, Danielle shares: Resources mentioned in today’s conversation: The State of Agency Operations Report (2023) on LinkedIn 2023 Ad Agency New Business Report How To Stop Overservicing Clients For Good (Agency Life Webinar) Want to get more content to support your agency life? Subscribe to the Agency Life newsletter, check out past episodes & find more content at teamwork.com/agencylife. This podcast is brought to you by Teamwork.com.

Are you an agency owner who could never imagine handing over your agency's sales process to someone besides yourself? Or have you tried to hand over your agency's new business development to a salesperson you hired only to have it crash and burn? If so, advice from Lee McKnight Jr, VP of Sales at RSW/US, an outsourced business development firm built specifically for agencies may be able to help. In today’s conversation, he shares: 2023 Ad Agency New Business Report Resources mentioned in today’s conversation: The State of Agency Operations Report (2023) Lee on LinkedIn 2023 Ad Agency New Business Report AI for Agencies: Growth Tool or Threat? (Agency Life Webinar) 3 Steps to Owning Your Niche in 90 Days How To Build A Kick-Ass Advertising Agency Want to get more content to support your agency life? Subscribe to the Agency Life newsletter, check out past episodes & find more content at teamwork.com/agencylife. This podcast is brought to you by Teamwork.com.

Many peers & consultants have said she's crazy for committing to this pricing model as a software development agency, but Amanda Moriuchi, CEO of AppIt Ventures, says the only crazy thing is to think any structure for your agency will be challenge free. Amanda & her team have made a name for themselves in Colorado & beyond, not only for doing great app development work for their clients, but also by committing to a pricing & delivery model of Fixed Bid project pricing when most other agencies of their type are consistently sticking with a Time & Materials approach. As we unpack the learnings from their journey at AppIt, she shares: Resources mentioned in today's conversation: The State of Agency Operations Report (2023) Amanda on LinkedIn $100M Offers: How To Make Offers So Good People Feel Stupid Saying No $100M Leads: How to Get Strangers To Want To Buy Your Stuff Want to get more content to support your agency life? Subscribe to the Agency Life newsletter, check out past episodes & find more content at teamwork.com/agencylife. This podcast is brought to you by Teamwork.com.

Many agency owners don't begin with the end in mind. Did you? If you answer questions like "How much do we need to make?" with "I don't know...more!" or "When will I be able to retire?" with "Not now!"... ...you're not alone. Seasoned agency owner, Karl Heasman, Founder of Greycott Consultancy has had his own successful exits and now helps other agency owners prepare for acquisition--by beginning with the end in mind. In this episode, he shares: Karl also shares practical advice for managing conversations internally when you've decided to pursue a relationship with a "growth partner." Resources mentioned in today's conversation: The State of Agency Operations Report (2023) Karl on LinkedIn 3 Keys to Building and Agency Thats Lasts The Merger that Accelerated their Agency’s Growth Traction Want to get more content to support your agency life? Subscribe to the Agency Life newsletter, check out past episodes & find more content at teamwork.com/agencylife. This podcast is brought to you by Teamwork.com.

Many agencies--just like yours--are echoing this common refrain: Either it’s feast or famine right now. In today's episode, Joe Sullivan shares how his agency, Gorilla 76, is experiencing a "feast" season where demand is exceeding supply. They’re having to tell clients they can’t start working with them for several months–even if they’re ready to sign and start today. It’s a good problem to have, but one that they’ve still got to solve. An aim for what Joe refers to as “managed growth.” For context, Joe and his co-founder, Jon, lead their team of 29 full time employees in a marketing agency focused on the industrial and manufacturing sector. In this conversation Joe shares: Resources mentioned in today's conversation: The State of Agency Operations Report (2023) 3 Keys to Capacity Management w/ Amber Kemmis Officevibe The Level 10 Meeting Format InstantAgencyTools.com Secret Tradecraft of Elite AdvisorsDavid C. Baker Want to get more content to support your agency life? Subscribe to the Agency Life newsletter, check out past episodes & find more content at teamwork.com/agencylife. This podcast is brought to you by Teamwork.com.

Should you productize your services? Does a productized service business completely differ from the standard agency model? Can both models co-exist within the same business? These are all questions we answer in today's conversation with Sam Shepler, CEO of Testimonial Hero. He transitioned from leading a full-service video production agency to founding a productized service business in 2018. In this episode, Sam shares the 3 specific benefits of productizing your services--and the potential pitfalls to look out for. Sam's team has some good successes to learn from, hitting Number 342 on the Inc. 500 list in 2022 and having successfully scaled beyond $3MM in annual revenue. As he shares the lessons from their journey, we touch on: Resources mentioned in today's conversation: The State of Agency Operations Report (2023) 7 things I’ve learned running a $3MM Productized Agency Growing Your Agency Too Fast or Too Slow w/ Drew McLellan Want to get more content to support your agency life? Subscribe to the Agency Life newsletter, check out past episodes & find more content at teamwork.com/agencylife. This podcast is brought to you by Teamwork.com.