Finding right-fit clients is one of the never-ending juggling acts of agency ownership. We need to keep the pipeline full, but we don’t want to rely only on referrals or say yes to clients who don’t fit our niche or values.

The solution lies in how you build and maintain relationships. Not just any type of relationship — relationships that are aligned with the mission, vision, and values of the agency.

On this week’s episode, Matthew Kimberley shares his expertise in finding right-fit clients through tactics like the Red Velvet Rope Policy, which makes it clear who you are (and aren’t) for. His strategies make it simple to get clear on your right-fit client criteria so you can focus on working only with those who excite you.

As any good agency owner knows, we’re in the relationship business. So Matthew also shares how to nurture relationships with clients and prospects once you dial in on who you want to serve.

This episode serves as a good reminder that even though building and nurturing relationships with right-fit clients might seem like a simple concept, we can always take the opportunity to reevaluate who we want to work with and how to go after them.

A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev, or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here.

• The core tenets of attracting right-fit clients
• Determining who your ideal right-fit client is
• The Red Velvet Rope criteria
• Setting boundaries that make it clear who you are and who you want to work with
• Diversifying your offers to different tiers of clients
• Maintaining and nurturing client and prospect relationships
• Prioritizing who to keep in touch with
• Identifying your outreach network of 90

Every agency should be able to run at 20% profitability on a consistent basis. But as agency owners, sometimes we get in our own way and become the bottleneck to our agency growth.

For this week’s solocast, I’m breaking down the five biggest things agency owners do to stifle their agency’s growth. Whether it’s not being able to get out of the day-to-day operations, or not trusting what your numbers are telling you, these are all things most agency owners encounter at least once while growing and scaling the business.

The good news — you’re not alone. These five issues are very common. The bad news — they can be a tough pill to swallow and difficult to course correct once you realize what’s happening.

This episode will give you a detailed guide to recognizing these common patterns and behaviors for agency owners and what to do to get your agency back on the path to growth and profitability.

A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev, or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here.

• Why doing everything your way won’t work forever
• The impact of this on agency growth and profitability
• The importance of documenting SOPs and systems and processes and updating them regularly
• How to start documenting SOPs if you don’t do this already
• Why serving clients instead of the agency will leave you stuck
• The 3 S’s of growing an agency
• Why you need to listen to what your numbers (AGI) are telling you
• Prioritizing performance-based growth over selling on personality or individual reputation

For many agency owners, sales is a necessary evil. For others, it’s your natural gift, and you look forward to doing it. Either way, you can always benefit from making it easier and better for you.

One of the biggest benefits we cover in today’s episode is shortening the sales cycle. Many agencies struggled with elongated sales cycles last year, but that doesn’t need to become par for the course. Stephen Steers joined me on the podcast to teach us how storytelling in sales is one of the most effective ways to make sales faster and easier.

He shares a ton of nuggets of info from understanding why people buy, why agency owners need to stay in contact with prospects (and how), and how to use storytelling to catch the attention of prospects and keep them interested.

The bottom line is sales doesn’t have to feel icky. By embracing storytelling, you can build trust, forge deeper connections, and get prospects excited to work with you.

A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev, or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here.

• Why founders and agency owners should aim to fire themselves from sales
• The Magnificent 7 reasons why people buy
• Maintaining relationships with prospects throughout the sales cycle
• What is storytelling in sales?
• Unlocking urgency for prospects
• 4 questions to ask yourself before telling a story to a prospect
• Why storytelling is so effective and what we get wrong about it
• Preparing for 3 types of objections from prospects
• The AREA Framework

We’ve spoken before about how podcasting is a great tool for building an audience that sees you as a thought leader. That’s still true, but simply having a podcast is not enough.

To truly be successful in podcasting, you must know how to engage that audience and be worthy of their time. As our guest Tom Weber says, “You don’t have a right to have an audience.”

An audience must be earned.

Tom shared some insights about the importance of knowing who you’re really speaking to. It’s not just about demographics; it’s about understanding your audience’s needs, fears, and desires. We also explored how to build a captivating narrative that engages listeners and how to ask the tough questions that get you honest feedback.

If you want your podcast to engage your audience and make it past the first seven episodes, it’s worth investing the time and effort to make it truly exceptional. Your audience will thank you for it — and more importantly, they’ll keep coming back for more.

A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev, or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here.

• What podcasters get wrong about marketing their shows
• Respecting the audience’s time commitment that they’re making to you
• The #1 way to promote a podcast
• Why creating a compelling narrative is extremely important in podcasting
• Making your show something people want to listen to
• Getting on your audience’s level
• Don’t put out any content you’re not proud of
• Getting effective input and feedback from your audience
• Starting a conversation with your listeners
• Knowing what your audience wants to hear and learning from them

As agency owners, we’re always looking for ways to improve our business development strategies and stand out in a crowded marketplace. This week, I’m flipping the script and sharing an episode where I was a guest on Susan Quinn’s podcast, Better Experiences by Design.

Susan asks some great questions to help get to the bottom of the two main biz dev strategies modern agencies can count on today — niching and thought leadership.

Doing these two things can transform your agency’s growth trajectory. We cover several key components, including how to leverage thought leadership effectively, why niching down is crucial for agency success, and how to overcome the fear of narrowing your focus.

We also explore common mistakes C-Suite executives make in marketing their own firms, the importance of consistency in business development efforts, and how to identify and attract “right-fit” clients for your agency.

Success in agency biz dev today is about being consistently interesting and relevant to your ideal clients over time. By focusing on your expertise, generously sharing your knowledge, and staying top-of-mind, you’ll be the natural choice when prospects are ready to buy.

A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev, or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here.

• How thought leadership is a critical part of biz dev
• What clients should think about when hiring an agency
• The riches are in the niches — narrowing your focus
• Knowing when you’ve narrowed your niche enough
• Why referrals aren’t the best way to grow your agency
• What does a right-fit client look like?
• Taking advantage of AI as an industry disruptor
• Bettering your best with constant learning

Systems and processes are a tough nut to crack for agency owners, and it’s even more challenging once you get clients involved. Many of us are accidental agency owners who thrive in the chaos and disarray of agency life but know that operating this way will reduce profitability.

This week, we’re sitting down with Xenia Muntean to share her journey of becoming an accidental agency owner and what it taught her about agency systems and processes as she began to build her own workflow software.

We dug into some meaty topics that I know are on your minds: How do we balance creativity with structure? Is it possible to have systems and processes without stifling innovation? We explored how bringing clients into the process earlier — especially for social media work — can lead to faster approvals and better profitability.

Systems and processes can be the bane of most agency owners’ existence. But with the right mindset and tools to get the job done, it can open the door to increased profitability and happier clients.

A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev, or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here.

• Xenia’s journey from accidental agency owner to software entrepreneur
• The importance of balancing creativity with systems and processes in agencies
• How larger agencies involve clients earlier in the content creation process
• The value of getting client buy-in at the concept stage, especially for video content
• Why operating reactively creatives operational debt
• How to customize workflow while still having systems and processes
• AI’s potential to improve operational efficiency in agencies, beyond just content creation
• The challenge and opportunity of embracing AI in agencies
• How to be more systems and processes minded in how we operate

As agency owners, one of the things we fundamentally get wrong in sales is how heavily trust plays a role in the process. We’re selling intangible services and solutions to people with a high price tag, and we expect prospects to trust that we’ll deliver on our promises.

It’s a risky proposition, especially for the ones putting their trust (and wallets) in our hands.

This week, I’m sharing how agency owners can earn and leverage their trust with client referrals to increase sales. When you sit back and watch the sales come in simply because someone knows, likes, and trusts you enough to recommend you to others, it’s a beautiful thing.

I’ll share the four things we need in any sales process: the etiquette of social proof and earning client referrals, and how to ethically become part of a community without becoming a billboard for your agency.

When you earn people’s trust by being genuinely helpful, knowledgeable, and a pleasure to do business with, you won’t have to lift a finger to make a sale.

For 30+ years, Drew McLellan has been in the advertising industry. He started his career at Y&R, worked in boutique-sized agencies, and then started his own (which he still owns and runs) agency in 1995. Additionally, Drew owns and leads the Agency Management Institute, which advises hundreds of small to mid-sized agencies on how to grow their agency and its profitability through agency owner peer groups, consulting, coaching, workshops and more.

A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev, or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here.

• Putting ourselves in the shoes of the buyers
• The role of psychological discomfort and decision fatigue in the buying process
• 4 things we need in any sales process to be successful
• The pros and cons of waiting on referrals
• The etiquette behind social proof and referrals
• What does it mean to belong?
• What it takes to earn someone’s trust enough to earn a referral from them

Agency owners have it tough these days, but we have more control over how hard it is for us than we think. This week, we’re going to talk in-depth about how we can change the course and direction of our business by changing our habits and mindsets.

To help us, we’re talking to Jason Yarusi about creating positive momentum around breaking bad habits, choosing to offload tasks that aren’t propelling us forward, and cutting out unnecessary chaos in our lives.

You might think there’s nothing you can personally change, or maybe you have too many variables that are completely out of your control. You could have a lot of fires popping up during the day that you have to address.

But the good news is we have a lot more say in what happens in our day-to-day than we think. And by taking a few moments to ground yourself in the reality of your situation, you’ll realize that a lot of those big fires aren’t fires at all — or someone else’s fires to put out.

A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev, or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here.

• The near-death experience that changed Jason’s course in life
• Being self-aware in how you’re showing up each day
• Starting the day off with a solid routine that sets you up for success
• Regrounding yourself when things start going off course
• How to recognize you’re not focused on the right parts of your business
• Finding your way out of the day-to-day grind to reach your long-term goals
• Creating positive momentum around changing habits that aren’t serving you
• Where people get stuck in these habit shifts the most
• Writing down 3 things you can do write now to build positive momentum