Podcasts about sharpspring

Why you should listenLearn how to spot inefficiencies in your current sales funnel and address them effectively.Gain insights from Jason Kramer's extensive experience in B2B lead nurturing and sales process optimization.Discover practical tips for using technology to improve your sales team's performance and close more deals.Many tech consultants struggle with marketing and lead generation due to gaps in their sales processes. In this episode, I talk to Jason Kramer, founder of Cultivize, about the importance of building an effective sales process. Jason shares his expertise in B2B lead nurturing and sales funnel optimization, offering actionable strategies to improve sales team performance and close more deals. Tune in to learn how to bridge the gap between marketing and sales, enhance lead nurturing, and leverage technology to drive business growth.About Jason KramerJason started his career in marketing as a graphic designer in NYC in 1999, working with agencies and brands like Virgin Airways and Johnnie Walker. His first company, a boutique agency, was founded in 2002, and he helped hundreds of small businesses get on the map with his branding and web development expertise. 2018 Cultivize was established to help B2B organizations leverage lead nurturing strategies and technology to convert leads into paying customers. Jason's direct and agency consulting clients call him the Yoda of CRM strategy, especially when harnessing the power of SharpSpring.Resources and LinksCultivize.comJason's LinkedIn profileEmpower your sales and marketing teams to close more deals with a lead-nurturing strategy. Get the Playbook here.Previous episode: 543 - Why Process Mapping is Key to Salesforce Implementations with Jessie MeadCheck out more episodes of The Paul Higgins ShowPaul Higgins Mentoring Youtube channelTech Consultant's RoadmapJoin our newsletterJoin the Tech CollectiveSuggested resourcesFind out more about Paul and how he can help you

Send us a Text Message.Unlock the mystery behind your marketing efforts and discover how every dollar spent can be traced back to tangible results. Get ready to transform your business's approach to lead generation with CRM guru Jason Kramer of Cultivize, who joins us to reveal the secrets to plugging lead leakages and mastering marketing attribution. With Jason's expertise, we dissect the critical mistakes companies make when marketing spend goes unmeasured and the power of CRM systems in capturing every nuance of the customer journey. From the significance of utilizing both first touch and last touch attribution models to ingenious tricks like deploying unique QR codes, we arm you with strategies to ensure no lead goes unnoticed, and every marketing effort is accounted for.We discuss the frequently overlooked gap between marketing lead generation and sales, and how businesses often fail to track the journey of a lead into a sale effectively. Through client stories, Jason illustrates common challenges in marketing attribution and offers solutions like geo-targeted advertising and the strategic use of first-touch and last-touch attribution models. He emphasizes the importance of selecting the right CRM tools, like HubSpot and SharpSpring, and aligning team efforts for credible and effective marketing strategies that demonstrate clear ROI.Check out Jason's company CultivizeVisit the Remarkable Marketing Podcast website to see all our episodes.Visit the Remarkable Marketing Podcast on YouTube01:00 Inspiring Marketing Success Stories03:03 The Importance of Marketing Attribution04:50 Exploring Attribution Models and Strategies08:02 Leveraging CRM for Effective Marketing14:31 Final Thoughts and Advice on Marketing Investment

Chip House has had a long career in SaaS with companies such as ExactTarget, Salesforce, and SharpSpring. Now as the CMO at Insightly, we caught up with Chip at the Ascent Conference in San Francisco and got him to share his experiences with all things B2B marketing, including:Product-market fitThe role of customer success in marketingLeveraging AI, and Solving the attribution problem. Other resources to check out:Interview with Vinay Bhagat, Founder and CEO of TrustRadius who publish a yearly report about how B2B buyer behavior is changing.The Lead Gen Mistake I Guarantee You're Making – how to create content that better identifies intent from today's b2b buyer.And, if you want an outside look at your content with actionable advice, take advantage of our Content Audit. Valued at $20K in free consulting.

Are you struggling to connect the dots between agency services and the results you drive for clients? Do you produce leads for clients without being sure if they're following up? What about your own marketing efforts? Do you have a process in place for outreach and follow-up? Throwing money at marketing initiatives without correctly measuring their performance can leave agencies with unanswered questions and uncertainty. An effective CRM is the answer; which is why today's guest has specialized in helping agencies enhance their sales process with the right tools. In this interview, he talks about some common mistakes agencies make with follow-up and processes and how they can improve. Jason Kramer is the founder of Cultivize, a marketing technology company that helps B2B businesses and digital agencies streamline their sales and marketing process and retain more clients. He's one of the world's few certified strategists and implementers for the SharpSpring platform. In this episode, we'll discuss: What to look for in a good CRM platform. Why agencies should insist clients use a CRM. How to improve your agency sales follow-up process.   Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service. Podcast Takeover!! Get to know your Smart Agency Guest Host: Dr. Jeremy Weisz is the co-founder of Rise25, an agency that helps companies launch and run podcasts profitably. He followed Jason's podcast and eventually joined the mastermind and has been a guest on the podcast before. Today, he's helping Jason bring something new to the Smart Agency podcast audience by interviewing a special guest and getting a new perspective to the show.   Changing Your Niche to Adapt to the Market Back in 2001, Jason Kramer was working at an agency in New York with big clients like Virgin Atlantic Airways. After 9/11, the agency went from 60+ people to 14 people very quickly. At the time, he was already doing some freelance work on the side so his choices seemed clear. He could either go work for another big agency or he could start his own business. That decision led to starting his first agency, focused on web development services. After a while, it became harder to sustain his business with the emergence of new tools that made website design more accessible. He eventually sold that agency. In his new agency, Jason and his team help B2B businesses and agencies streamline their sales and marketing process and are top Sharpspring integrators. Technology alone doesn't solve problems, so Jason's secret sauce is leveraging his experience in order to identify pain points in his clients' processes. Next, they pair clients up with the right technology to meet their goals. The challenge is having the right team to adopt the technology. It's a lot of moving parts and Jason's key to success is his team's hands-on approach. They're involved from the very beginning and have a deep understanding of how to customize technology to reach clients' goals. What to Look for in a Good CRM Platform When they first start working with Cutlivize, many clients don't have CRM technology in place.  So the first step is to analyze whether or not a SharpSpring is a good fit. Their criteria for a good CRM include intuitive adoption for new users, affordability, and fully inclusive of add-on capabilities. Most of their clientele doesn't have a CRM and is starting from scratch with SharpSpring. About 30% of their clients transition from another CRM platform to SharpSpring with their help. However, that 30% usually needs some convincing to consider the idea of migrating to a new system. When clients are using another platform, they've usually stuck to that technology simply because they've been using it for a long time. Some clients are using dated systems and worry they won't be able to export their data. Another big concern is training the client team on a new CRM. In those cases, Jason asks to see how the company uses this technology on a daily basis. The majority of clients discover they're not actually using the technology as much as they thought. Whatever the concerns, the most important element to ensure a successful migration will be that the sales team is a part of that conversation.   Why Agencies Should Insist Clients Use a CRM The Cultivate team has worked with over 30 agencies helping their clients get more out of a CRM for their clients. Jason says those agencies are leaving money on the table because any agency is only half the equation. They're normally getting leads into the organization. However, it's up to the client to actually talk to those clients, close the deal, and report the results of those leads. You can effectively track your results for clients if they aren't tracking things on their end as well. According to Jason, agencies that don't offer a CRM platform service struggle because the clients don't follow through on those leads. This ultimately affects the results clients see and they will continue to shift agencies. In reality, the problem is the client doesn't have a system in place to track everything. For these cases, Jason's team offer to help with strategic planning and integrating the CRM so they can have transparency to show what's actually working. Additionally, based on their model, it can work as an additional passive revenue stream for the agency. The agency offers value to the client and gets an additional revenue stream for something their team doesn't even have to touch. How to Create an Effective Agency Sales Follow-Up Process Typically, when Jason's team comes in to assess a company they find there's some sort of follow-up process. However, it tends to be inconsistent. Most have no rhyme or reason for their outreach efforts. On the other hand, there are some who are too aggressive with their outreach. They make multiple attempts every week, making phone calls and sending emails, which quickly turns people off. Generally speaking, follow-up should be done in a way that is ethical but also friendly and not overbearing. Additionally, these interactions should be tracked. If you sent 50 quotes, how many of those are likely to close? Which ones do you still need to follow up with? At the end of the day, you want to sell, not be stuck with mundane emails forever. That's why a follow-up process is so important. Prepare templates to ensure you're sending emails that provide value and a reason for reaching out. This empowers the sales team and makes their outreach more effective. What Can You Do to Improve? Understand their goals. The best way to help your client make a decision is to understand them and their business. It can take a few months to get a client going and excited to work with you. If that client usually has a very busy summer season, for instance, explain that your process can take up to three months to get ramped up. Therefore, it's important to get started three months or more before that busy summer season. Providing value and education. Instead of sending back-to-back messages asking when they're going to make a decision, you can explain a little bit about your process, how it's done, and why you'll need a certain amount of time to do it. Educating the client and providing information is helpful without being pushy. Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset? If you want to be around amazing agency owners that can see what you may not be able to see and help you grow your agency, go to Agency Mastery 360.  Our agency growth program enables you to take a 360-degree view of your agency and gain mastery of the 3 pillar systems (attract, convert, scale) so you can create predictability, wealth, and freedom.

Jason Kramer is the Founder and CEO of Cultivize, an agency that helps B2B organizations leverage lead-nurturing strategies and technologies to convert leads into paying customers. He helps sales teams boost accountability, lock in client loyalty, and create more customer purchases while systematizing the sales and marketing process. With over 20 years of marketing experience, Jason is a SharpSpring Certified Consultant. Before Cultivize, he was the Founder of JLK Creative, where he worked with service-based companies on branding, web development, print, and email marketing.   In this episode… Customer relationship management (CRM) platforms are viable solutions for overwhelmed businesses struggling to organize their contacts and data. But what is the leading software, and how can you migrate from antiquated technology? When it comes to assessing a new platform, Jason Kramer finds that most companies don't leverage the full potential of their current software, leading to lost data that can't be extracted easily. The transition process requires strategic communication and collaboration to make informed decisions about the updated technology. SharpSpring is an all-inclusive and cost-effective CRM platform that streamlines the adoption process. As a SharpSpring partner, Cultivize helps organizations disseminate their data and customizes the software for business goals. In this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz welcomes Jason Kramer, Founder and CEO of Cultivize, to talk about how his company helps agencies transition to SharpSpring. Jason explains the challenges and key considerations for migrating to SharpSpring, how Cultivize white labels the platform for agencies, and best practices for quote follow-ups.

Eric Stockton is the Vice President of Demand Generation at SharpSpring from Constant Contact. He is an executive with proven leadership in running sales teams and creating marketing alignment within organizations, Eric specializes in creating revenue and driving pipeline for B2B, SAAS, and eCommerce. At Constant Contact, Eric focuses daily on the areas of Growth, DemandGen, Publishing and Content to help streamline processes, improve output and motivate the team to excel. Here are a few of the topics we'll discuss on this episode of Long Story Short: How to modernize a legacy B2B marketing motion The value of amplifying content to prospects in the channels they're already using How to create new marketing motions that align with how prospects want to buy Why you should set effective expectations with leadership — and how to do it How to ensure marketing is seen as a revenue engine The power of a test and learn approach  Resources:Don't Make Me Think by Steve KrugConnect with Eric: LinkedInConnect with Jeff:LinkedInConnect with Sirkin Research:WebsiteTwitterInstagramLinkedIn

Lead nurturing can be anything from creating a podcast to writing blog articles. In the case of our guest today, there's more of a constraint on lead nurturing using software, which results in sales.  This week, episode 151 of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast is about lead nurturing that actually works! Watch our new recorded video training: Relationship-Driven New Business At-ScaleIn this episode of The Digital Agency Growth Podcast, Dan Englander and Jason Kramer share the importance of finding a process for effectively nurturing prospective buyers into customers. They also discuss some actionable steps you can take right now to connect the dots between marketing and sales. Jason Kramer, founder of Cultivize started his marketing career as a designer working with agencies in NYC in the early 2000s. He started his first company in 2002 and helped hundreds of small businesses get on the map with his branding and web development expertise. In 2018, he formed his 2nd company, Cultivize to help established B2B organizations leverage lead nurturing strategy and technology to convert leads into paying customers. His direct clients and agency consulting clients, call him the Yoda of CRM strategy, especially when it comes to harnessing the power of the integrated CRM, Marketing Automation, and Sales Platform, called SharpSpring. Jason lives in the Hudson Valley, NY has been married for 15 years, and has 2 children with a passion for music, theater, kickboxing, and anything Disney.In this episode, Dan and Jason discuss the following:Connecting the dots between marketing and sales.The process of planning and strategizing the use of automation on the sales and marketing sides of the business.What SharpSpring is and the pros and cons of the tool.Ways for you to improve your lead nurture, so you don't miss out on the sale. How lead nurturing takes the lead generating a step further in getting results for your clients as marketing agencies. The importance of human interaction when nurturing your leads.Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to follow, rate and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!CONNECT WITH JASON KRAMER:LinkedInCultivizePlaybookEmail Analysis (Limited Free Offer)Email Analysis - $150 Offer CONNECT WITH DAN ENGLANDER:LinkedInSales Schema

Awesome Inc team fan-favorite, Steve Huey (Angel Investor, Mentor, and Serial Entrepreneur) leads the Saturday night session at the 2022 Awesome Inc Startup Summer Retreat. For the past two decades Steve has been a leader in integrating cutting-edge technologies into already existing markets that desperately need them. Most recently he founded TYP64, a venture studio meets buyout fund, that helps legacy companies implement digital transformation solutions to reinvigorate their business. Prior to starting TYP64, Steve was the founder and CEO of Capture Higher Ed, an industry-leading technology firm that provides predictive modeling and marketing automation software to university recruitment offices. Featured in Forbes' Built to Sell and 2018 Kentucky Mentor of the Year, Steve is also a part of the prestigious Endeavour Entrepreneur network honoring high-impact entrepreneurs across the world. Steve has had several successfully exits, most recently as the Chair of publicly-traded sales software firm, Sharpspring. He also chairs several boards for start-ups in Louisville, and has mentored 100+ CEO's across the country. He helped lead the acquisition of both The Learning House Inc. and RentalHouses.com since landing in Louisville, and prior to that, Steve helped lead $4B in M&A for CMGI during the height of .com era and held director positions at software firms Earthlink and Alluria. In the few hours when he's not mentoring, speaking or investing, you can probably find Steve geeking out to tech-books or manning his Playstation. Links Mentioned in Today's Episode: • Steve Huey on Linkedin • Capture Higher Ed on Linkedin • Endeavour website • Kentucky Entrepreneur Hall of Fame Investor and Mentor Award recipient list Leave Some Feedback: • Email podcast@awesomeinc.org with what you want to hear about next. • Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with Us: • Subscribe to our podcast • awesomeinc.org • Instagram -- @awesomeinclex • Twitter -- @awesomeinclex • YouTube --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/awesomeinc/message

In this episode of The Revenue Marketing Show, we're sharing an interview between former SharpSpring CMO, Chip House, and the CEO of SparkToro, Rand Fishkin. This interview originally aired as part of our Agency Growth webinar series, and it includes a deep-dive Q&A session with Rand answering questions from the audience about effective content development, influencer marketing, the current state of SEO, digital marketing best practices for agencies, and more. He also discusses his recent book, Lost and Founder. Check it out!About Rand Fishkin, CEO of SparkToroRand Fishkin is the co-founder and CEO of SparkToro. He's dedicated his professional life to helping people do better marketing through his blogging, videos, speaking, and his book, Lost and Founder. Plus, if you feed him great pasta or great whiskey, he'll give you the cheat code to rank #1 on Google.Connect with Rand: https://www.linkedin.com/in/randfishkin/ For more information & to connect with us:Visit our website: www.sharpspring.com Have a question? Reach us at https://sharpspring.com/contact-us/Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/sharpspringWatch video versions of our podcast on YouTube or in the “Resources” section at https://www.sharpspring.com.Subscribe for more: https://www.youtube.com/c/Sharpspring 

Eric recently got the chance to appear on Sales Pipeline Radio hosted by Matt Heinz, and we're excited to now be able to rebroadcast the episode and share it with you here! In this episode, Matt and Eric discuss “Future-Proof Demand Strategies That Work”, as well as why driving demand gen needs to be approached as a holistic exercise, the recent acquisition of SharpSpring by Constant Contact, and more. Enjoy!About Matt Heinz, President of Heinz Marketing:At Heinz Marketing, Matt focuses on strategic customer acquisition, retention strategy and execution, with a particular focus on start-ups and fast-growth businesses seeking to accelerate top-line growth. On his show Sales Pipeline Radio, he features some of the brightest minds in B2B sales and marketing, sharing their secrets to driving greater volume, velocity and conversion of sales pipelines in any industry. Connect with Matt: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattheinz/ About Eric Stockton, VP of Demand Gen at SharpSpring:An exec with proven leadership in running sales teams and creating marketing alignment within organizations, Eric specializes in creating revenue and driving pipeline for B2B, SAAS, and eCommerce. He has an innate ability to identify prime growth areas for a business, develop strategy, and then dive in to help drive revenue quickly. At SharpSpring, Eric focuses daily on the areas of Growth, DemandGen, Publishing and Content to help streamline processes, improve output and motivate the team to excel.Connect with Eric: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericstockton   For more information & to connect with us:Visit our website: www.sharpspring.comHave a question? Reach us at https://sharpspring.com/contact-us/Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/sharpspringWatch video versions of our podcast on YouTube or in the “Resources” section at https://www.sharpspring.com.Subscribe for more: https://www.youtube.com/c/Sharpspring

In this episode, Eric speaks with Benton Crane, the CEO of Harmon Brothers, the creative agency responsible for some of the most viral ads in internet history. Their iconic campaigns for  trending companies like Squatty Potty, Purple Mattresses, and Poo-Pourri have helped drive more than $450 million in sales and over 1.5 billion views! Eric chats with Benton about how he managed the agency's growth from its infancy to now, where they can say they're among the world's most sought after ad agencies.About Benton Crane, CEO of Harmon Brothers As CEO, Benton wears many hats, but all his roles share the goal of taking care of clients. Harmon Brothers has amazing clients who have provided them with the chance to make some of the most successful YouTube ad campaigns of all time. The agency helps brands go from obscurity to being a household name – where every brand wants to be.Connect with Benton: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bentoncrane/ About Eric Stockton, VP of Demand Gen at SharpSpring:An exec with proven leadership in running sales teams and creating marketing alignment within organizations, Eric specializes in creating revenue and driving pipeline for B2B, SAAS, and eCommerce. He has an innate ability to identify prime growth areas for a business, develop strategy, and then dive in to help drive revenue quickly. At SharpSpring, Eric focuses daily on the areas of Growth, DemandGen, Publishing and Content to help streamline processes, improve output and motivate the team to excel.Connect with Eric: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericstockton     For more information & to connect with us:Visit our website: www.sharpspring.comHave a question? Reach us at https://sharpspring.com/contact-us/Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/sharpspringWatch video versions of our podcast on YouTube or in the “Resources” section at https://www.sharpspring.com.Subscribe for more: https://www.youtube.com/c/Sharpspring 

Mark Walker is an entrepreneur, marketing consultant, and startup coach, and he founded his company GTM Works with the goal of addressing the many go-to-market pains felt by startups and scaleups that are struggling to get off the ground, from poor conception to execution.In this episode of The Revenue Marketing Show, Eric asks Mark about his journey into the SaaS and tech space, how he's helped companies move from outbound-only marketing to creating effective inbound strategies from the ground up, and the tips he has for organizations who are trying to get their Sales and Marketing teams on the same page. Check it out!About Mark Walker, Founder of GTM Works:In addition to running GTM Works, Mark is also Fractional CRO, coach and consultant for a number of rapidly scaling early stage ventures, as well as SIA Coach on Go-to-Market. Mark is also a frequent public speaker on all things related to commercial strategy, go-to-market and revenue growth.Connect with Mark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jfdimark/About Eric Stockton, VP of Demand Gen at SharpSpring:An exec with proven leadership in running sales teams and creating marketing alignment within organizations, Eric specializes in creating revenue and driving pipeline for B2B, SAAS, and eCommerce. He has an innate ability to identify prime growth areas for a business, develop strategy, and then dive in to help drive revenue quickly. At SharpSpring, Eric focuses daily on the areas of Growth, DemandGen, Publishing and Content to help streamline processes, improve output and motivate the team to excel.Connect with Eric: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericstockton    For more information & to connect with us:Visit our website: www.sharpspring.comHave a question? Reach us at https://sharpspring.com/contact-us/Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/sharpspringWatch video versions of our podcast on YouTube or in the “Resources” section at https://www.sharpspring.com.Subscribe for more: https://www.youtube.com/c/Sharpspring

In this episode of the Revenue Marketing Show, Nick Mangold from our Product Marketing team speaks with Christian Otero, SharpSpring's Head of Product Management. The two provide a glimpse into our product vision, Product's day to day workings, and how they've evolved since SharpSpring's early days. Christian has spent years working with our partners and he discusses how he brings what he's learned about their business needs, goals, and obstacles to the table for the Product Team. It's a great glimpse into what makes our Product team tick – enjoy the episode!About Christian Otero, Manager of Product Management at SharpSpringPassion, empathy, and creativity drive Christian to help develop a successful environment for his team members. He's only truly satisfied when leading or working with a team to complete a complex goal. Connect with Christian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-otero-526444108/About Nick Mangold, SharpSpring Senior Product MarketerNick is an experienced marketer with a demonstrated history of working in the software advertising industry. Having previously served as a SharpSpring Senior Onboarding Specialist, he developed a wealth of first-hand knowledge on the implementation, strategy, and tactics key to growing your business with marketing automation.Connect with Nick: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholas-mangold/ For more information & to connect with us:Visit our website: www.sharpspring.comHave a question? Reach us at https://sharpspring.com/contact-us/Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/sharpspringWatch video versions of our podcast on YouTube or in the “Resources” section at https://www.sharpspring.com.Subscribe for more: https://www.youtube.com/c/Sharpspring

Tim Parkin is a consultant and advisor to marketing executives around the world. He believes in what he calls “marketing inside out” – the idea that great marketing starts with the team you build. In this episode of the Revenue Marketing Show, Eric spoke with Tim about the challenges he sees companies facing when trying to run a high performance marketing team and how he helps marketing leaders remove friction at their organizations. They also discuss Tim's theory that with the right team you can ensure every dollar you invest in your marketing delivers the biggest impact and the highest return. It's a great interview, so don't miss it!About Eric Stockton, VP of Demand Gen at SharpSpring:With expertise in the areas of internet marketing, eCommerce, lead gen, publishing, and online media, Eric has directly led $3MM+ ad budgets and $70M+ top-line sales organizations.Connect with Eric: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericstockton     About Tim Parkin of Parkin Consulting:Tim is an advisor, consultant, and coach to marketing executives globally. By applying more than 20 years of experience merging behavioral psychology and technology seamlessly, he's unlocked rapid and dramatic growth for international brands and award-winning agencies alike. Tim's mission is to help transform marketing teams move from insignificant growth to a high-performance team with reliable processes that consistently deliver record-breaking results.Connect with Tim: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marketing-consultant-tim-parkin/For more information & to connect with us:Visit our website: www.sharpspring.comHave a question? Reach us at https://sharpspring.com/contact-us/Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/sharpspringWatch video versions of our podcast on YouTube or in the “Resources” section at https://www.sharpspring.com.Subscribe for more: https://www.youtube.com/c/Sharpspring

When Eric Stockton took over as head of marketing for SharpSpring by Constant Contact following the company's acquisition, he immediately set about shifting the focus from outbound to inbound marketing with the goal of building a pipeline of high intent hand raisers. The result was a doubling of the company's demo attend rate, from 20 to 40 percent, and a 23X improvement in the number of leads that turned into closed won deals. While making that shift sounds simple, in practice it requires top to bottom organizational buy in. In this episode, Eric breaks down exactly what changed, how he built a solid foundation for it via internal communications, what the company's new demand generation motion looks like, and the new KPIs he's using to track success. Get the details on all of this, and more, in this week's episode.

In this episode, Constant Contact VP of Sales, Greg Bond, speaks with Paul Bresenden and Brooks Nelson of 454 Creative. They all attended the recent B2B Marketing Expo, and the three took some time to sit down together and chat about how agencies in 2022 are using tech effectively to help improve their human interactions in marketing. Paul and Brooks also explain the approach they take at 454 Creative when coaching clients on marketing automation systems, lead scoring, various attribution models, and more. Enjoy the episode!About Eric Stockton, VP of Demand Gen at SharpSpring:With expertise in the areas of internet marketing, eCommerce, lead gen, publishing, and online media, Eric has directly led $3MM+ ad budgets and $70M+ top-line sales organizations.Connect with Eric: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericstockton     About Paul Bresenden, Founder, President, and CEO of 454 CreativePaul is  a marketing expert in LEAN Marketing, marketing and sales alignment, lead generation strategy, and digital marketing. He focuses on B2B professional service firms and considered purchase product companies and currently heads up 454 Creative.Connect with Paul: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pbresenden/ About Brooks Nelson, Director of Business Consulting at 454 CreativeBrooks has an extensive background in marketing and tech, and he's constantly seeking out ways to improve himself, his company, and his clients' experiences. Above all, Brooks craves efficiency and loves finding creative solutions to difficult problems.Connect with Brooks: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rbrooksnelson/ For more information & to connect with us:Visit our website: www.sharpspring.comHave a question? Reach us at https://sharpspring.com/contact-us/Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/sharpspringWatch video versions of our podcast on YouTube or in the “Resources” section at https://www.sharpspring.com.Subscribe for more: https://www.youtube.com/c/Sharpspring

Marketing automation is all about building systems that help you save time in the long run! In today's quick tips episode, Laura Kukemelk shares some examples of workflows that you could automate, as well as some automation softwares that help you free up time for strategic activities. To manage your leads and customers, you could opt for softwares such as Keap, ClickFunnels, Hubspot, ActiveCampaign, SharpSpring and many others. To connect different apps, check out Zapier. For effective project management, you could use Trello, Toggl Plan, Monday.com, Slack or other similar tools. Connect with Laura Kukemelk on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurakukemelk   Find out more: https://powerful-marketers.com/podcast/ 

We're changing things up a bit this time on The Revenue Marketing Show! In this episode,  you'll get to check out a recent talk given by SharpSpring from Constant Contact's very own VP of Sales, Greg Bond, at the ChatFunnel's annual Demand Gen Summit. In this presentation, Greg speaks about ways to accelerate your sales funnel and why marketing and sales team alignment is so critical as part of any demand gen strategy. Thanks to ChatFunnels for having us at the Summit, and we hope you all enjoy the episode.About Greg Bond, Constant Contact VP of Sales:Businesses thrive when they create value for their customers. Greg helps businesses better understand their customers so they can maximize their value proposition. To accomplish this, he analyzes customer behavior and KPIs and creates strategies for optimization. He then builds more efficient systems that mobilize teams to deliver value. Value creation drives revenue!Connect with Greg: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregbond007/For more information & to connect with us:Visit our website: www.sharpspring.comHave a question? Reach us at https://sharpspring.com/contact-us/Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/sharpspringWatch video versions of our podcast on YouTube or in the “Resources” section at https://www.sharpspring.com.Subscribe for more: https://www.youtube.com/c/Sharpspring

In this episode, Eric speaks with Todd Lebo and Jenna Balegno, the CEO and COO, respectively, of marketing research firm Ascend2. SharpSpring recently partnered with the firm to conduct a survey of marketing professionals on the topic of Sales and Marketing Team Alignment. During the episode Eric, Todd, and Jenna explain why this particular subject was so important and interesting to them to learn more about, and they discuss some of the key findings of the survey report. It's a great episode, enjoy!About Eric Stockton, VP of Demand Gen at SharpSpring:With expertise in the areas of internet marketing, eCommerce, lead gen, publishing, and online media, Eric has directly led $3MM+ ad budgets and $70M+ top-line sales organizations.Connect with Eric: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericstockton     About Ascend2 Ascend2 is a team of research and marketing professionals providing original research for marketing technology companies and agencies. Their proprietary process allows them to conduct primary research, create content and generate demand that addresses the specific business development needs of marketing solution firms in as little as two weeks at a guaranteed cost per lead. If marketing professionals are your ideal prospects, they help you find more of them.Connect with Ascend2: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ascend2/For more information & to connect with us:Visit our website: www.sharpspring.comHave a question? Reach us at https://sharpspring.com/contact-us/Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/sharpspringWatch video versions of our podcast on YouTube or in the “Resources” section at https://www.sharpspring.com.Subscribe for more: https://www.youtube.com/c/Sharpspring

In this episode, Eric spoke with Nicole Siegal Fuselier, who is VP of Corporate and Revenue Marketing at Dremio. Nicole is known for thought leadership on topics like defining revenue marketing and promoting alignment, she often writes about tech, and much of her work is framed around what it means to be at the forefront of the emerging revenue marketing space.During their discussion, Eric and Nicole discussed the importance of having a holistic view of the sales funnel, and why sales and marketing alignment is more vital than ever. They also nerded out together discussing demand gen and discussed why she considers herself not just a marketer, but a revenue marketer. Check it out!About Eric Stockton, VP of Demand Gen at SharpSpring:With expertise in the areas of internet marketing, eCommerce, lead gen, publishing, and online media, Eric has directly led $3MM+ ad budgets and $70M+ top-line sales organizations.Connect with Eric: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericstockton     About Nicole Siegal Fuselier, VP of Corporate and Revenue Marketing at DremioNicole is a results-driven senior technology marketing professional with a reputation for developing, managing and implementing global marketing strategies, streamlining operations and executing marketing programs that directly influence revenue. At Dremio, she's a creative leader who approaches market challenges and opportunities using analytics and innovation.Connect with Nicole: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nsiegalfuselier/For more information & to connect with us:Visit our website: www.sharpspring.comHave a question? Reach us at https://sharpspring.com/contact-us/Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/sharpspringWatch video versions of our podcast on YouTube or in the “Resources” section at https://www.sharpspring.com.Subscribe for more: https://www.youtube.com/c/Sharpspring

In this episode, Eric has an in-depth conversation focused around B2B marketing strategy, content, and storyelling with Ardath Albee, CEO of consulting firm Marketing Interactions, Inc. Ardath is a published author, frequent public speaker, and workshop instructor in the B2B marketing space.Ardath's passion is teaching companies how they can use marketing automation and advanced content marketing approaches effectively to transform the marketing and selling of their complex solutions by keeping the customer front and center. We hope you enjoy the episode!About Eric Stockton, VP of Demand Gen at SharpSpring:With expertise in the areas of internet marketing, eCommerce, lead gen, publishing, and online media, Eric has directly led $3MM+ ad budgets and $70M+ top-line sales organizations.Connect with Eric: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericstockton     About Ardath Albee, CEO and B2B Marketing Strategist at consulting firm Marketing Interactions, Inc.Adrath has spent 30+ years in business management and marketing operations. She uses this extensive background and expertise to help clients create personas and persona-driven digital content marketing strategies with compelling content platforms that contribute to downstream revenue. Connect with Ardath: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ardathalbee/For more information & to connect with us:Visit our website: www.sharpspring.comHave a question? Reach us at https://sharpspring.com/contact-us/Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/sharpspringWatch video versions of our podcast on YouTube or in the “Resources” section at https://www.sharpspring.com.Subscribe for more: https://www.youtube.com/c/Sharpspring

In this episode, Eric speaks with Bolaji Oyejide, VP of Marketing at TestBox, a free self-serve platform that helps users test and compare multiple customer support software solutions and find the best one for their specific team. Bolaji has held many demand gen roles throughout his career, including serving as Director of Demand Gen at both MetaData and at Bevy. During this fun, fast-paced chat, Eric and Bolaji talk about how branding is often defined as “anything that can't be measured” - and why Bolaj thinks that's a false narrative. He also discusses founding Oh Happy Day Marketing, and how his passion for comic books ultimately led to his own career today. Don't miss it! About Eric Stockton, VP of Demand Gen at SharpSpring:With expertise in the areas of internet marketing, eCommerce, lead gen, publishing, and online media, Eric has directly led $3MM+ ad budgets and $70M+ top-line sales organizations.Connect with Eric: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericstockton     About Bolaji Oyejide, VP of Marketing at TestBox Bolaji's 20-year career has allowed him to hone Classical Branding at Procter & Gamble, Software Branding at IBM, SaaS Marketing at Red Hat, Data-Driven Demand Gen at Metadata, and Human Storytelling at Brave Young Heroes. Now at TestBox, he helps companies take the pain out of the search for the right software, providing instant access to live products they can play with side-by-side. No more slides, sales pitches, demos, or unfulfilled promises.Connect with Bolaji: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bolaji/ For more information & to connect with us:Visit our website: www.sharpspring.comHave a question? Reach us at https://sharpspring.com/contact-us/Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/sharpspringWatch video versions of our podcast on YouTube or in the “Resources” section at https://www.sharpspring.com.Subscribe for more: https://www.youtube.com/c/Sharpspring

In the latest episode of The Revenue Marketing Show, Eric talks with James Bridgman, Head of Global Marketing at Pollinate International. James started a marketing agency in London and acted as CEO for 18+ years. More recently, he pivoted into the corporate world and is now the Head of Global Marketing at Pollinate, a company focused on reinventing merchant acquiring for banks around the world. James has a huge range of marketing expertise, and he had a lot to say about the importance of specialized marketing and how marketers can work to add value to their companies in areas where no one else can. In their chat, he and Eric discuss ways marketers can win over their sales teams, C-suites, and, ultimately, their target audiences with hyper-specialized, non-generic tactics and content. Enjoy the episode!About Eric Stockton, VP of Demand Gen at SharpSpring:With expertise in the areas of internet marketing, eCommerce, lead gen, publishing, and online media, Eric has directly led $3MM+ ad budgets and $70M+ top-line sales organizations.Connect with Eric: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericstockton     About James Bridgman, Head of Global Marketing at Pollinate InternationalPollinate exists to help banks compete against FinTech, and they particularly keep small businesses in mind. As the Head of Global Marketing, James heads up Pollinate's global marketing functions, from brand positioning to lead generation, partnership building, and more.Connect with James: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesbridgman/For more information & to connect with us:Visit our website: www.sharpspring.comHave a question? Reach us at https://sharpspring.com/contact-us/Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/sharpspringWatch video versions of our podcast on YouTube or in the “Resources” section at https://www.sharpspring.com.Subscribe for more: https://www.youtube.com/c/Sharpspring

In this new episode of the Revenue Marketing Show, Eric spoke with Andrei Zinkevich, the co-founder of FullFunnel and the host of the Full-Funnel B2B Marketing Podcast. Eric and Andrei had a blast discussing all things full funnel marketing, and they also touch on topics from account based marketing, to how Marketing contributes to the pipeline, why so many of the best marketers used to be salespeople, and much more. Enjoy the episode!About Eric Stockton, VP of Demand Gen at SharpSpring:With expertise in the areas of internet marketing, eCommerce, lead gen, publishing, and online media, Eric has directly led $3MM+ ad budgets and $70M+ top-line sales organizations.Connect with Eric: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericstockton/   About Andrei Zinkevich, Andrei is the co-founder of Fullfunnel.io, which helps B2B Tech and Service-based companies generate demand and land mid-market and enterprise sales-qualified opportunities with full-funnel account-based marketing.Connect with Andrei: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azinkevich/For more information & to connect with us:Visit our website: www.sharpspring.comHave a question? Reach us at https://sharpspring.com/contact-us/Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/sharpspringWatch video versions of our podcast on YouTube or in the “Resources” section at https://www.sharpspring.com.Subscribe for more: https://www.youtube.com/c/Sharpspring 

In this episode of The Revenue Marketing Show, Eric talks with Kamil Rextin. Kamil is the General Manager at 42/Agency out of Toronto, where they specialize in demand gen, marketing automation, and helping B2B SaaS companies scale. Kamil worked for years in B2B SaaS, demand gen, and marketing ops prior to starting his consulting firm four years ago. These days at 42/Agency, he focuses on helping organizations streamline revenue and scale. In this interview, he and Eric discuss why knowing what you're measuring against matters so much for B2Bs, and why so many marketers are making decisions based on the wrong data (and how to avoid doing exactly that). Check it out!About Eric Stockton, VP of Demand Gen at SharpSpring:With expertise in the areas of internet marketing, eCommerce, lead gen, publishing, and online media, Eric has directly led $3MM+ ad budgets and $70M+ top-line sales organizations.Connect with Eric: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericstockton     About Kamil Rextin, General Manager at 42/AgencyKamil is experienced in Operations, Demand Generation & Growth. He now runs a consulting practice, 42/Agency, which specializes in helping high-growth B2B Saas Companies with ABM, Demand Generation & Marketing Operations. Their clients see an average 4X return in pipeline!Connect with Kamil: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kamilrextin/For more information & to connect with us:Visit our website: www.sharpspring.comHave a question? Reach us at https://sharpspring.com/contact-us/Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/sharpspringWatch video versions of our podcast on YouTube or in the “Resources” section at https://www.sharpspring.com.Subscribe for more: https://www.youtube.com/c/Sharpspring

In this episode, Eric talks with Nyssa Cromwell, who started her career in computer programming, then pivoted to running her own digital agency, and today serves as VP of Marketing at G2V Optics Inc., a solar simulation tech company. Eric and Nyssa discuss her approach when it comes to capturing data-driven metrics from campaigns and aligning them all the way up to the revenue using automation. They also chat about her preferred KPIs, what content she's been consuming lately, why she loves being a “LinkedIn lurker”, and how marketers can work to gain a bigger seat at the table and participate in strategic discussions with executive teams. Don't miss it!About Eric Stockton, VP of Demand Gen at SharpSpring:With expertise in the areas of internet marketing, eCommerce, lead gen, publishing, and online media, Eric has directly led $3MM+ ad budgets and $70M+ top-line sales organizations.Connect with Eric: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericstockton/   About Nyssa Cromwell, VP of Marketing at G2V Optics Inc.Nyssa is an entrepreneur and master of digital marketing and automation. Starting her career at Accenture with a specialization in Java application architecture and development, she moved into building up her marketing acumen by running a digital marketing agency, building a startup, and working on ecommerce teams for national brands.Connect with Nyssa: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nyssacromwell/ For more information & to connect with us:Visit our website: www.sharpspring.comHave a question? Reach us at https://sharpspring.com/contact-us/Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/sharpspringWatch video versions of our podcast on YouTube or in the “Resources” section at https://www.sharpspring.com.Subscribe for more: https://www.youtube.com/c/Sharpspring 

In this episode of the Revenue Marketing Show, Eric chats with Doug Dibert, founder of Magnfi and host of the podcast Video Marketing Ninja, Doug launched Magnfi while he was running a video marketing agency and noticed a need for a service that allowed digital marketing agencies to white label a platform and re-brand it as their own in-house scalable video service offering. During their talk, Doug chatted with Eric about his passion for video marketing, his tips for creating better video content without a lot of time, money, or fancy equipment, and how agencies and SMBs can easily add video marketing as an offering to their services lineup.About Eric Stockton, VP of Demand Gen at SharpSpring:With expertise in the areas of internet marketing, eCommerce, lead gen, publishing, and online media, Eric has directly led $3MM+ ad budgets and $70M+ top-line sales organizations.Connect with Eric: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericstockton/   About Doug Dibert, Founder of MagnfiAt Magnfi, Doug and his team help make it easy to add video to your marketing mix. Magnfi helps Businesses & Digital Marketing Agencies create engaging video marketing content for their clients through their own in-house = scalable video marketing service offerings.Connect with Doug: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dougdibertjr-white-label-video-marketing-software/ For more information & to connect with us:Visit our website: www.sharpspring.comHave a question? Reach us at https://sharpspring.com/contact-us/Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/sharpspringWatch video versions of our podcast on YouTube or in the “Resources” section at https://www.sharpspring.com.Subscribe for more: https://www.youtube.com/c/Sharpspring 

Chuck Bankoff is the Owner and President at Kreative Webworks, an agency specializing in generating sales for businesses and enrollments for schools. Over the years Chuck and his team have made a shift from describing themselves as a Website Development Company, to a Digital Marketing Agency, and these days they consider themselves an Inbound Marketing agency. In this episode, Eric and Chuck discuss the journey Kreative Webworks made as an agency,, his tactics for getting clients to think about marketing as an investment rather than an expense, why marketers should be dedicated to keeping clients happy way past the initial sale, and lots more. Enjoy the episode!About Eric Stockton, VP of Demand Gen at SharpSpring:With expertise in the areas of internet marketing, eCommerce, lead gen, publishing, and online media, Eric has directly led $3MM+ ad budgets and $70M+ top-line sales organizations.Connect with Eric: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericstockton     About Chuck Bankoff, Owner and President at Kreative WebworksAt Kreative Webworks, Chuck directs a team of creative and technical professionals in developing creative and strategically designed websites, search engine traffic, and the social “footprint” to better manage their client's online brand. Connect with Chuck: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chuckbankoff/ For more information & to connect with us:Visit our website: www.sharpspring.comHave a question? Reach us at https://sharpspring.com/contact-us/Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/sharpspringWatch video versions of our podcast on YouTube or in the “Resources” section at https://www.sharpspring.com.Subscribe for more: https://www.youtube.com/c/Sharpspring

In this episode, Eric sat down with David Wachs, CEO of Handwrytten, to discuss how the company is bringing back the lost art of letter writing through scalable, robot-based solutions that “handwrites” notes and allows users to send them from CRM systems, apps, or through custom integration. The two discussed attribution methods, customer acquisition strategies, why a personal touch goes so far in today's swamped marketplace, and innovative ways to cut through the digital noise. Don't miss it!About Eric Stockton, VP of Demand Gen at SharpSpring:With expertise in the areas of internet marketing, eCommerce, lead gen, publishing, and online media, Eric has directly led $3MM+ ad budgets and $70M+ top-line sales organizations.Connect with Eric: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericstockton     About David Wachs, CEO of Handwrytten:A serial entrepreneur, David is currently CEO of Handwrytten, working with key partners and vendors to support delivery of handwritten notes, cards and associated gift cards and designing new handwryting machines. David also writes for Inc. Magazine with his column “Stepping Away from the Day to Day.” David is also a frequent speaker on messaging technology and has presented for the Direct Marketing Association, South By Southwest, the Advertising Research Foundation, and more.Connect with David: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidwachs/ For more information & to connect with us:Visit our website: www.sharpspring.comHave a question? Reach us at https://sharpspring.com/contact-us/Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/sharpspringWatch video versions of our podcast on YouTube or in the “Resources” section at https://www.sharpspring.com.Subscribe for more: https://www.youtube.com/c/Sharpspring 

In this episode of The Revenue Marketing Show, SharpSpring VP of Customer Success, Greg Bond had a chance to talk with Jason Widup, VP of Marketing at Metadata.io. Metadata ​​is a demand gen platform created to help B2B marketers scale their paid campaigns to optimize revenue through advanced targeting and multivariate experimentation. With an extensive background in marketing ops, an ongoing interest in innovation and the latest tech, and his belief in immersing himself in his company's data, Jason was a fascinating guest. He and Greg had a great chat about everything from sales and marketing team alignment, gated vs. ungated content, helping B2B marketers drive revenue and more. Check it out.About Greg BondBusinesses thrive when they create value for their customers. Greg helps businesses better understand their customers so they can maximize their value proposition. To accomplish this, he analyzes customer behavior and KPIs and creates strategies for optimization. He then builds more efficient systems that mobilize teams to deliver value. Value creation drives revenue!Connect with Greg: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregbond007/ About Jason Widup Jason is an experienced and talented Marketing Operations and Technology leader with a focus on developing high-performing teams through empowerment, challenging experiences, and trust. He's known for his MarTech knowledge, intelligent solutions, unrelenting support, and high accountability. Jason has a broad range of experience managing the people, processes, and technologies that enable great, modern marketing.Connect with Jason: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonwidup/ For more information & to connect with us:Visit our website: www.sharpspring.comHave a question? Reach us at https://sharpspring.com/contact-us/Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/sharpspringWatch video versions of our podcast on YouTube or in the “Resources” section at https://www.sharpspring.com.Subscribe for more: https://www.youtube.com/c/Sharpspring

In this episode, Eric sat down with Michael Roberts, Head of Demand Gen at CloudApp. Michael is a pro at identifying worthwhile content and driving open rates, and Eric chatted with him about how he helped focus the content strategy at CloudApp to better niche down and build a more sustainable pipeline. Michael is also a champion for small teams, and he explains why he thinks they're better at working fast and getting stuff done. He also shares his expertise on marketing attribution models, including the one he built himself as a template for other small teams to use (all you need is your CRM and Google Sheets!). Check it out.About Eric Stockton, VP of Demand Gen at SharpSpring:With expertise in the areas of internet marketing, eCommerce, lead gen, publishing, and online media, Eric has directly led $3MM+ ad budgets and $70M+ top-line sales organizations.Connect with Eric: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericstockton    About Michael Roberts, Head of Demand Generation at CloudApp:At CloudApp, Michael rebuilt their entire email experience, doubling conversion rates along the way. He also helped identify worthwhile content that has driven open rates of their newsletter consistently above 45%. Michael has always worked on small teams, so he's had to do it all at some point, but lately his focus is on email, automation, pipeline nurturing, and operations. Connect with Michael: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertsitalia/ For more information & to connect with us:Visit our website: www.sharpspring.comHave a question? Reach us at https://sharpspring.com/contact-us/Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/sharpspringWatch video versions of our podcast on YouTube or in the “Resources” section at https://www.sharpspring.com.Subscribe for more: https://www.youtube.com/c/Sharpspring 

Lewis Rothkopf is President at Martin, a demand side platform (DSP) they built from the ground-up to delight brands and agencies looking to maximize their use of first-party data and drive greater marketing impact by measuring and driving incremental lift. Lewis is all about helping marketers measure effectiveness, and on this episode of the Marketing Revenue Show, he and Eric sat down to discuss attribution models, performance marketing, and how the concept of “metrics that matter” has evolved over time. Don't miss it!About Eric Stockton, VP of Demand Gen at SharpSpring:With expertise in the areas of internet marketing, eCommerce, lead gen, publishing, and online media, Eric has directly led $3MM+ ad budgets and $70M+ top-line sales organizations.Connect with Eric: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericstockton    About Lewis Rothkopf, President at Martin DSP:Having led global businesses and revenue lines at the world's foremost marketing, ad tech and media companies, Lewis joined Martin as President with 20+ years in digital media.Prior to joining Martin, Lewis was responsible for managing a leading demand side platform's global inventory supply chain, as well as that company's mobile, video and advanced TV, streaming audio, digital out of home (DOOH), social and emerging channels businesses. Connect with Lewis: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lewis/For more information & to connect with us:Visit our website: www.sharpspring.comHave a question? Reach us at https://sharpspring.com/contact-us/Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/sharpspringWatch video versions of our podcast on YouTube or in the “Resources” section at https://www.sharpspring.com.Subscribe for more: Subscribe for more: https://www.youtube.com/c/Sharpspring

As agency partners, we have access to an insane amount of backend data and insights into our clients' business. Now what? How can we use all of that data to build momentum in our clients' revenue pipelines and translate those insights for them so that they can make the case when they're at the table with the decision-makers on their team? On this episode of Build a Better Agency, we're joined by CRM and sales expert Eric Stockton, VP of Demand Generation at SharpSpring. Eric gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the industry-wide shift in focus from outbound marketing to inbound lead generation. We talk about what this means for agencies and how we can help our clients adjust to a “quality over quantity” mindset — without freaking them out. Eric is a past keynote speaker at a series of marketing-related trade shows, including MarketingSherpa events, eCommerce Retail Executive Summit, Email Summit, B2B Demand Generation Summit, ContentBiz, MarketingExperiements virtual events, and Affiliate Summit. 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 You Will Learn in This Episode: Why the industry is shifting its focus from outbound to inbound leads — and what that means for agencies How to help our clients make that shift without freaking out Why focusing on quality over quantity does NOT mean you'll be getting fewer leads What Eric means when he tells his clients to focus on their “North Star” metrics Whether or not the “quality game” is truly sustainable Ways we as agency partners can help clients divorce themselves from metrics they don't — or shouldn't — care about

In the latest episode, Eric sits down with Scott Hoffman, founder of It's All Good Media out of Port St. Lucie, Florida. Scott explains why he credits automation for ‘saving' his agency years ago (and why it remains one of the biggest reasons for their success to this day). In this fun chat, the two discuss the challenges and rewards of agency life, their similar client service philosophies, and much more.About Eric Stockton, VP of Demand Gen at SharpSpring:With expertise in the areas of internet marketing, eCommerce, lead gen, publishing, and online media, Eric has directly led $3MM+ ad budgets and $70M+ top-line sales organizations.Connect with Eric: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericstockton    About Scott Hoffman Founder of It's All Good Media:Scott and the team at IAGM combine market knowledge with the human touch. They take what people do and get them to do it better with their clients. They work backward from how their clients close business and get more of that done with killer tools to help make it all possible.Connect with Scott: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iagm-scott-hoffman/For more information & to connect with us:Visit our website: www.sharpspring.comHave a question? Reach us at https://sharpspring.com/contact-us/Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/sharpspringWatch video versions of our podcast on YouTube or in the “Resources” section at https://www.sharpspring.com.Subscribe for more: https://www.youtube.com/c/Sharpspring

Warwick Kells knows a lot about data-driven marketing tech services and how to maximize existing business and customer data for his clients. He's the Founder & Co-Director of Dovetail Group and Eric had the opportunity to have him on the latest episode of the Revenue Marketing Show.In this session, the two discuss the evolution of data-driven marketing and where it stands today, as well as the pros and cons of gating vs not gating content, how martech in itself isn't a strategy, and how using disparate tools can hold companies back from revenue growth. A ton of great topics, so check it out!About Eric Stockton, VP of Demand Gen at SharpSpring:With expertise in the areas of internet marketing, eCommerce, lead gen, publishing, and online media, Eric has directly led $3MM+ ad budgets and $70M+ top-line sales organizations. Connect with Eric: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericstockton    About Warwick Kells, Founder & Co-Director of Dovetail Group:At Dovetail Group, Warwick and his team help organisations compete better through the practical adoption of data-driven revenue growth technology. He thrives on aligning business needs with the appropriate services and solutions and in building team-orientated collaboration with clients. Connect with Warwick: https://www.linkedin.com/in/warwick-kells/For more information & to connect with us:Visit our website: www.sharpspring.comHave a question? Reach us at https://sharpspring.com/contact-us/Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/sharpspringWatch video versions of our podcast on YouTube or in the “Resources” section at https://www.sharpspring.com.Subscribe for more: https://www.youtube.com/c/Sharpspring

In this new episode, Eric chats with Jason Kramer, Founder and CEO of Cultivize. Jason worked in marketing for 25 years before founding his agency, which he launched after seeing many wholesalers, distributors, online retailers, service providers, and manufacturers lose potential revenue due to problematic holes in their funnel. The goal of Cultivize is to solve this all-too-common problem by educating and coaching people to better learn the process and master the technology.“A lot of businesses don't have a succinct process and technology platform in place to nurture and educate their prospects through their buying journey. It's a known fact that it's far more cost-effective to nurture your current pipeline than to spend money on capturing new leads. Over the last 10 years, marketing automation and CRM platforms have risen to prominence by enabling sales teams to become significantly more efficient and effective when this technology becomes part of their daily toolbox.” – Jason KramerJason, who has used SharpSpring for 11 years and is a Platinum Certified SharpSpring Consultant, talks with Eric about everything from customer retention tips, to the issues with attribution, to why podcasts are growing in popularity today, and much more. Check it out!About Eric Stockton, VP of Demand Gen at SharpSpring:An internet marketing, eCommerce, lead gen, publishing, and online media expert, Eric has directly led $3MM+ ad budgets and $70M+ top-line sales organizations.Connect with Eric: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericstockton    About Jason Kramer, Founder and CEO of Cultivize:At Cultivize, Jason specializes in helping B2B & D2C companies retain customers, grow repeat business and improve email engagement while systemizing sales and marketing processes. Connect with Jason: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonleighkramer/For more information & To connect with us:Visit our website: www.sharpspring.comHave a question? Reach us at https://sharpspring.com/contact-us/Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/sharpspringWatch video versions of our podcast on YouTube or in the “Resources” section at https://www.sharpspring.com.

In this episode, SharpSpring partner and digital marketing agency owner Marnie Ochs-Raleigh took some time out of her busy schedule to chat with Eric. Like most agency owners, Marnie spends her days balancing client deliverables alongside the business of building her digital agency, Evolve Systems. In this chat, Marnie touches on the rebrand her company recently underwent, as well as how she finds time to create content, how they put the SharpSpring platform to use each day, and how she and her team identify the right clients for their agency.“Our ideal client is based on a variety of different things. It's not just money. Because you can have all the biggest budget and not work with people that you enjoy working with. Or you could have really great people that you like to work with, and they can't afford to do everything that needs to be done, where they're going to see a significant impact. So, you know, there's a lot of give and take that happens with that. It really does come down to – what are the goals of the organization?” – Marnie Ochs-RaleighAbout Eric Stockton, VP of Demand Gen at SharpSpring:Eric is an established innovator in the areas of internet marketing, eCommerce, lead generation, publishing, and online media who has directly led $3MM+ ad budgets and $70M+ top-line sales organizations.Connect with Eric: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericstockton    About Marnie Ochs-Raleigh, CEO of Evolve Systems:Evolve Systems is a full-service digital, creative, and technology agency driven by the passion to evolve our client's business. Our suite of digital services, including website development, and marketing, are developed using data-informed and business-specific strategies to provide a return on time.Connect with Marnie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marnieochsraleigh/ 

How do you scale your agency faster while delivering better results to your clients In this episode of Revenue Marketing Show, Jason Swenk, Host of Smart Agency Master Class Podcast, interviews Constant Contact's Head of Revenue, Greg Bond, about overcoming challenges in aligning marketing and sales, choosing the best martech stack, and getting more recognition for the value you deliver to your clients.Greg and Jason share valuable insights on how to scale your agency faster while getting better results for your clients, highlighting the importance of tool/data consolidation and the benefits of using SharpSpring from Constant Contact.You'll also learn Greg's top tips for communicating ROI to clients so you can achieve better client retention and charge more for your products and/or services!“The #1 way that agencies get business is through word of mouth and word of mouth is about delivering results.”  - Greg Bond“As your business scales… you better damn well start putting the people in place for this. You should have someone, like the Director of Happiness, making sure you're delivering the results. That's what we have, so I don't have to.”  - Jason SwenkResources Mentioned:Listen to Smart Agency Master Class: https://www.jasonswenk.com/smart-agency-master-class About Greg Bond, Head of Revenue at Constant Contact:Greg's purpose in life is to add value to other people's lives. Businesses thrive when they create value for their customers. Greg helps businesses better understand their customers so they can maximize their value proposition. To accomplish this, he analyzes customer behavior and KPIs, creates strategies for optimization, then builds more efficient systems that mobilize teams to deliver value. Connect with Greg: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregbond007 About Jason Swenk, Host of Smart Agency Master Class Podcast:Jason Swenk is the agency advisor & coach that guides marketing agencies through a proven framework for growing their agency faster. Jason currently hosts the Smart Agency Master Class Podcast, the #1 Digital Marketing Agency Owner podcast for sharing the strategies and stories from real agency owners of what is working today in the agency world, and how they got to where they are now.Connect with Jason: https://www.linkedin.com/company/jason-swenk-llc Visit his website: https://www.jasonswenk.com

Want to build an amazing agency culture and brand? After running his own agency, Historic, for eight years and leading teams of creatives, Ted Vaughn took on the task of co-writing the book on all aspects of building your agency's brand and how leadership shapes its culture. Ted is on the show talking about how you can use culture to help further grow your agency. He covers the six parts of marquee culture established in his book, Culture Built My Brand, the biggest gap he's noticed in company culture, and how to align your principles and values to attract the right people. 3 Golden Nuggets Shaping culture to grow your agency. If you're an agency owner looking to create a brand and culture that can help grow your business, remember your leadership, the decisions that you make, the ways in which you operate all become more critical than technical expertise or unique ability. Your role as a leader determines how the culture works or if it becomes toxic. Ted explains one of the biggest gaps he's seen in company culture is leaders who fail to understand the reality of their power and do not build bridges over to the people they lead so that they can actually be given feedback on how to reshape their HR systems or their values. The six layers of marquee culture. In their book, Ted and his partner identify six layers of marquee culture. Your marquee culture is at your forefront. It is the thing that galvanizes and draws attention to your agency, attracts great people, and keeps great people. Each of these layers translates into behavior-shaping principles for the people who are a part of our organizations. These 6 are: principles, architecture, rituals, lore, vocabulary, and artifacts. The single most important layer is the first one. Ted and his team have found many times the values or ideas that hold an organization together are too vague or abstract. He talks about the way to transform them into behavior-shaping principles for the people who are a part of your team How the 6 layers interact. A lot of agencies might already have some of these layers in places but not in a way that actually transforms them into core values. This is because they haven't actually integrated them into their decision-making. For example, in the case of architecture, Ted believes HR systems and structures should not simply be healthy or unhealthy. They really need to be built in a way that furthers aspects of your brand value. For rituals, it needs to be organic experiences that energize your people, not just staff meetings. Remember these layers are permeable, they're not just independent ideas that operate independently from the others. Your principles should inform your vocabulary and rituals and so on. Sponsors and Resources Sharpspring: Today's episode is sponsored by Sharpspring, an all-in-one revenue growth platform that provides all of the marketing automation, CRM, & sales features you need to support your entire customer lifecycle. Partner with an affordable marketing automation provider that you can trust. Head over to sharpspring.com/smartagency to enjoy an exclusive offer for podcast listeners. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Shaping Agency Culture With the Six Layers that Build an Effective Brand {These transcripts have been auto-generated. While largely accurate, they may contain some errors.} Jason: [00:00:00] What's up, agency owners? Jason Swenk here and I have another amazing episode for you where we're going to talk about culture and how you can get the right people. Who do you need to bring in? How do you evaluate them? All that kind of good stuff, so you can grow your agency faster. And so let's go ahead and get into the episode. Hey, Ted. Welcome to the show. Gotcha with the water. Ted: [00:00:28] You did. That was so fast. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Huge fan, uh, really have been inspired by your work and your network. And, uh, just a real honor to be on the show. Jason: [00:00:40] Awesome. Tell us a little bit about who you are and what your agency actually does. Ted: [00:00:45] So I've spent most of my life leading in non-profit circles, leading teams of creatives. Um, started an agency with my business partner, Mark Miller about eight years ago, called Historic. We thought it would be just a cool idea to serve some of our niche clients. Bootstrapped it, and, uh, you know, eight years later, we're, uh, we're doing over a million dollars in business and have a staff and a brick and mortar. And we've learned a lot in the journey, both about who we are and about what makes us tick. And I think that's why we wrote a book and it's why I'm talking to you today. Jason: [00:01:19] Great. Let's talk about building a culture within your organization. You know, I look at it as everyone's building a culture… Matters of, are you building the culture that you actually want? Ted: [00:01:30] Yeah, I mean we... believe senior leaders are shaping culture as the most significant contribution to their organization. I mean, if you are leading an agency, the how of your leadership matters more than the unique skill that you bring to the table. Unless, it's a boutique lifestyle brand and literally you are an employee of one, but if you want to scale, if you want to grow, the single greatest question you have to wrestle with is the how of my leadership more than the what of my technical skill or talent. Jason: [00:02:05] So give us a little bit more about what's the difference between those. Ted: [00:02:09] Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of times, you know, even for Mark and me, we each have really unique skill and technical ability that offers value that our agency still really needs. But as we've taken on staff and as we've grown and as we've had to empower our staff, the company culture that we shape and that we lead becomes our brand in ways our skill and talent alone could never fully embrace. Our brand, the touchpoints of our brand, our growth, and this will certainly be true if we go beyond, you know, our current, you know, one point, whatever million-dollar mark to 5 million… exponentially becomes the case. Then you go even further and it gets even more important. Your leadership, the decisions that you make, the ways in which you operate become more critical than your technical expertise or unique ability as a designer or as a strategist or as a PR person. Jason: [00:03:06] Now I've had people on to talk about culture from Zappos, who so many people modeled, you know, Tony Shay and all those guys did. So what are ways where agencies listening right now… How can you start shaping the culture in order to scale your agency faster? Ted: [00:03:26] Well, we've the book that we wrote, “Culture Built My Brand”. It was really written on the back of our learning. We have sweat a lot of blood made a ton of mistakes. And I think the idea for us in the book is, is a marquee culture and a marquee culture is like that marquee sign. It's that well-lit banner. That is the forefront. It is the thing that galvanizes and draws attention, attracts great people, keeps great people. So in the book, we talk about a marquee culture, having six layers or six dimensions. And the single most important is the first, which we call principles. What we find often in our, in our own agency it was true and the clients that we serve it's true. And I would assume for many of you listening it's true. We have these values or these ideas that hold us together that become our riverbanks or our guiding ideas. But they're so vague or abstract or unclear they don't actually translate into behavior shaping principles for the people who are a part of our organizations. And I would say probably one of the first places to start the first layer in our book on culture and brand is principles. Taking your values or recreating your values so that they're actionable, applicable culture-shaping principles that really give those who are a part of your team, clear behavioral guidelines, so that they know how to be on-brand, how to operate, how to make decisions in ways that will really further your brand in unique ways and not just have abstract ideas. Jason: [00:05:01] So one of our principles in our culture is really being resourceful. So give us an example of… all right, that's kind of the, the layer here. How do we take it further. Ted: [00:05:14] Yeah. I mean, we often will work with brands that have some version of innovation as their value, right? Maybe it's stated that way, or it's stated with a really sticky phrase. But then when you look at how people behave or you begin to ask questions around decision-making, or you look at how money is spent, you quickly realize that the organization's not structured in a way that actually takes the value of innovation seriously. It's because they haven't actually taken that value and then integrated it and baked it into decision-making in all sorts of different ways, which really is the second layer of our book and culture, which was architecture. We don't believe that HR systems and structures should simply be healthy or unhealthy. They really need to be built in a way that furthers aspects of your brand value. So if you articulate innovation, that should absolutely show up and shape how HR functions and how decision-making and power and governance take place in your organization. Jason: [00:06:16] So like with, you know, our organization being resourceful. Like how would you bake that in even more and kind of take it up a notch? Ted: [00:06:25] Well, I'm assuming that when you say resourceful, you're talking about resourcing others, right? Being a part of something larger than yourself? Jason: [00:06:32] No, I'm talking about being resourceful is like figuring out like, all right. You know, we normally do it this way, but we could do it another way. Or, oh man, I don't feel like we have enough resources, you know, just figuring out a better way to do things more efficiently. Ted: [00:06:51] Yeah. I mean, again, I think what's interesting is even, you know, I, from the outside of hearing that word immediately took it in a different direction. So I think one of the questions that I would have would be when you say resourceful, what are the specific behaviors or ways in which that value translates to how your people lead, behave, are asked to budget how they solve problems. You know, I think there'd be fantastic ways for you to approach problem-solving in more bootstrapped, organic lean ways where you create heroes or you reward people who approach problem-solving through resourcefully challenged opportunities versus just throwing money at problems or thinking everybody needs to have support staff or, um, but I mean, there could be so many different ways that that value shapes the brass tax of your agency. I think it'd be a fun conversation to figure out how you're doing it today. Jason: [00:07:45] Gotcha. And so what are the other layers now that we have the principal. And then I think the second was architecture, if I…? Ted: [00:07:50] Architecture. Yeah. So principles being the idea that you want your values to be actionable and really shape all sorts of practical aspects of your people's behavior. Architecture being the structures that support your people. We talk a lot about Frank Lloyd Wright and the architecture that he did intentionally around the environment he was in. Third layer would be rituals. We talk about the experiences that energize your people and the best rituals and organizations are those that are organic. Not just top-down staff retreats or all staff meetings, but those rituals, like we talk a lot about the pumpkin carving contest in the jet propulsion lab and NASA. The next layer would be lore, the sticky stories that shape us. There are some really fantastic ways you can shape story, do storytelling in ways that further your brand value that help provide differentiation to your brand. Next layer is vocabulary, having phrases, words, ideas. We talk a lot about Netflix and some of the great language that they have from “Sunshining” to, um, different terms that they use to shape their culture. And then the last layer would be artifacts, which are everything from clothes to your physical space, to brands that we've worked with that set up unique opportunities for people that have private space in a shared workspace. One brand that has a football field mini version of a football field in their environment because they have a value of leaving it all on the field, all sorts of ways that you can physically shape your brand value in your space. Jason: [00:09:34] Is your agency struggling to deliver real revenue growth results to your clients? You know, agency marketers can consolidate data and align marketing and sales teams goals to achieve real results for your agency and clients using revenue growth platforms. Sharp spring is an all-in-one platform built for agencies like yours to optimize digital marketing strategies with simple, powerful automation. Manage your entire funnel all in Sharpspring. Now for a limited time, my smart agency listeners will receive your first month free and half off onboarding with SharpSpring. Just visit sharpspring.com/smartagency to schedule your demo and grab this offer. That's sharpspring.com/smartagency. Very cool. So give us some more examples of each of the layers, just so people can start going oh, okay, cool. This is what we can actually do. Like once we form the principles, how can we build a better architecture and so on? Ted: [00:10:41] For sure. So these layers are somewhat, uh, permeable, right? They're not just independent ideas that operate independently from the others, right? Your, your principles should absolutely shape vocabulary. As a matter of fact, a lot of times in brands, we see those, those values, those principles show up in their vocabulary because they get phrased in ways that become really sticky and interesting and helpful. Uh, architecture is absolutely informed by your principles. The way that you conduct HR hiring, onboarding. Rituals, uh, those again, in the book, we talk a lot about rituals being organic. When you have people that love your brand, they will often create their own experiences of the brand. One practical example for us at our agency, we do staff camp, we do Christmas gatherings. We constantly ask our staff how they want to participate and engage and be a part of those experiences. And in the process we've gotten all sorts of rituals in our agency that have been organic from our people, but mark and I would have never dreamed of. From cool patches and stickers and badges that have been developed in previous years that continue on to this day to other activities and games and things that operate within our agency. And another great example is we had a member of our staff want to do a music club, right? That's a great example of a ritual. We were like a music club! Awesome. Why not? That's becomes such a significant part of our agency that any new staff person is given a Sonos speaker so that no matter where they are in the US they can be a part of music club, be on Spotify, be a part of this experience. It's a way that we want to honor that because it's become such an important ritual within our organization. And we have no formal authority over music club. It's just an organic thing that our people develop that's become a key part of their… I think they would say a key part of their positive, satisfactory experience of working with us. Jason: [00:12:45] So are rituals more kind of like experiences and then like architecture is more like systems and…? Ted: [00:12:51] A hundred percent. Yeah. I mean, you think about architecture, right? Like no architect designs a home and simply says, well, it's safe, it's stable, the plumbing works. You're good. That's not an architect, right? An architect is very, very interested in the design and shape of that structure, matching its external and internal audience and environment needs. It's not just safe or not safe. There are so many other dimensions to architecture. We think HR, the systems that support your people. should be the same way. You know, a lot of agencies, when we were a young agency and even today we cannot comp like 52 or 72 and sunny, not 52, 72andSunny, or, you know, name the agency, right? That has fantastic compensation plans. But there are so many different ways that you can do comp. One for us, one of our architecture branded ideas at, at historic is travel pizza. What is travel pizza? Anytime somebody on our staff has to be gone overnight, we provide a $50 stipend for meals for their family. It can be Ubereats. It can be pizza, it can be whatever you want it to be. Travel pizzas become an unbelievable way that our people feel valued and their families feel valued because they get a cool night out whether it's out or it's brought in on us because their person that they care about is gone. Lots of other ways to do compensation, to structure, to architect compensation that deliver unique value through your agency. That go way beyond annual salary. Jason: [00:14:32] Yeah, I like that. Remind me, what's after ritual and let's talk about examples. Ted: [00:14:38] There's a lot. It can be complex. So the, the layers of culture, somewhat in a linear order would be principles, architecture, rituals, and then lore. Lore being those sticky stories, right? Every brand that we've a part of I've been on staff that has had those stories that echo through the hallways and often they're incredibly toxic. Jason: [00:15:01] So would that be like, like what a story…? This happened at our agency where we were sent these lounge chairs that were double-sided and they sent it like 10 of them from China in these boxes with all these packing popcorn. But when we opened the boxes up, we had so much packing popcorn. It literally went down a hallway. And so we were like, let's keep it. We'd literally kept it until we sold the office. There was a whole hallway of packing popcorn that you could run and jump and do flips in and lose articles of clothing. So is that like a lore? Ted: [00:15:39] Well, that sounds like an amazing ritual, but I would say the minute, the minute you cleaned up that popcorn, I believe that was probably an incredible story. A lore that is a positive example of how your agency describes its culture through story. And if I'm you, you know, Jason, I want that story to continue echoing through the halls. I want new staff to be told that story when they're onboard, because that says something about who we are, what we value, how we behave, that goes way beyond any HR manual or onboarding. That is a great example of lore. A great example of toxic lore would be when I got hired as a C-suite leader in a non-profit and the second day in I was told by one of my colleagues, you know, you're just a plane flight away from losing your job. And I was like, huh, tell me more. He's like, well, the person that you're replacing was hired when the CEO sat next to them on a plane and before the plane landed, they were hired on staff and a negotiated salary. So just remember if he sits next to somebody who does your job better than you, well… Now that story had existed for years in the hallways of this organization. I, dumb enough thought I'm going to ask the CEO about that. So I brought it to the CEO and said, hey, I heard this crazy story. Is that true? He's like, well, it's kind of true. Not really true. Who told you that story? I was like, well, this is where I heard it in multiple places, but, um… He's like, you heard it in multiple places? Like a lot of people told me the same story. Point being, that negative story, toxic story shaping this leader's culture had been told for years and he had never heard it. The idea here is the more senior you are in the brand that you lead, the more self diluted you probably are as well. The more people are saying things about you or about the brand that you don't know about just by nature of your power and position. It's incredible how often senior leaders and brands we serve are clueless about stuff multiple people on the ground talk about and say on the routine. Jason: [00:17:55] Oh, yeah, yeah. And one of the things just going back to that story that I'm thinking about now, is the only time we cleaned up that popcorn was to put all of that in my VP of operations sunroof in his car. And we filled up his whole car. So when he came out to his car and just literally went… Ted: [00:18:16] I mean, to me, that's the epilogue, that's the, like the story, the story lives on there's layers to the story, right? I mean, you know, I would say like, Jason, that's a great example of how a story could very well create a sticky idea, vocabulary, which is the next layer, and that sticky phrase becomes a principle that now… This is how these layers work together. Sometimes principles create stories that create rituals. Sometimes the way in which we have the principle or value shapes our architecture, which creates it, these layers work together. But the point is there's a reason why Southwest and Netflix and Zappos, and many of the brands we know and love and talk about in this book are as successful as they are. It's not a happenstance coincidence they hit the market at the right time. They were aligned intentionally from the inside out, right? We have a philosophy of brand that your brand is your culture, your story, your product, your experience, and your identity. Don't start with identity. Start with culture. Defining that from the inside out is always far more sustainable and effective and long lasting, and has far less drama than starting with identity. Jason: [00:19:36] I love that. Well, this has all been amazing, Ted, is there anything I didn't ask you that you think would benefit the audience? Ted: [00:19:42] Well, you can't talk about company culture and brand and agency life without addressing power. I think maybe one of the tangential elements to this conversation today has been the dynamic of power. And I think anybody listening who's a leader or being led, understands that power is a thing. I would say that one of the biggest gaps that we experience in company culture are leaders, is leaders who fail to understand the reality of their power and build bridges over that power to the people they lead so that they can actually get the truth. They can actually be told that toxic lore, they can actually be given feedback on how to reshape their HR systems or their values. It's amazing how, again, self diluted senior leaders are because of the power gap and their failure to build a bridge over that power. I would just challenge all of your listeners, if you have power of any form, be aware of it and build a bridge over it for the purpose of shaping a healthy company culture. Jason: [00:20:49] I love it. What's the name of the book and where can they get that? Ted: [00:20:53] Yeah, the book is Culture Built my Brand. Originally we wanted to call it Culture Ate my Brand, but the publisher thought that was a little too, little too negative. So they scratched it out and we have built, you can get it at any bookseller near you from Amazon to Barnes and Noble to… They just started shipping. We had some shipping-related challenges as I'm sure everybody's experienced. Um, but, uh, you could also visit culturebuiltmybrand.com to get access to a whole suite of tools that I actually think as agency owners… You may or may not ever want to take culture seriously as a part of your service group as a brand, but I guarantee you, if you apply some of the thoughts and ideas we have either to your agency or to how you serve clients, it'll make you a better agency. So take advantage of these tools, CultureBuiltMyBrand.com and then our agency is just Historic Agency. Jason: [00:21:47] Awesome. Well, Ted, thanks so much for coming on the show. And if you guys enjoyed this episode, make sure you guys subscribe, make sure you like it, comment and share it with a friend. And, uh, if you guys want to be around other amazing agency owners, sharing what's working and being able to see the things that you might not be able to see. I'd love to invite all of you to go to digitalagencyelite.com. This is our exclusive mastermind, just for experience agency owners that are trying to just grow faster, have a lot of fun and just build an amazing culture. So thanks so much. And until next time, have a Swenk day.

Would you like to successfully bootstrap your way into a thriving agency? Rich Kahn has been fascinated by the internet since its very beginning in the 90's. He started a newsletter to talk about new internet developments and grew his audience to a point where he got offers to advertise products. He realized with a relatively small investment in hardware and his home internet connection he could make profits of thousands of dollars. From that point, he made sure every little success in his business could lead to further success by testing his ideas small and not going over budget. In his conversation with Jason, they talked about his formula for bootstrapping a business into success, why a bootstrapper should always be willing to learn everything they can about a business, and the importance of differentiating between profit and profit margin. 3 Golden Nuggets Bootstrap from success to success. The internet has been a passion for Rich from day one and led him to start his first business, a newsletter. He quickly grew his following and started advertising on it. He did this with a very small investment, some hardware and the internet connection he already had. So he turned a couple hundred dollars into thousands in earnings. “That's how I've always done it,” he explains. “You just kind of take one success and roll it into the next.” When he gets a new idea, he tests the waters small to see if there's approvability. Then he runs a bigger test and, if that works, he just keeps growing that and scaling that as fast as you can with budget you have. Learn as much as you can. If you're planning to bootstrap a company, you should try to minimize costs wherever you can. Of course, at some point it may be better to look for investors, but at the very beginning, when you're first figuring out your business model, margins, and everything else, you have to be a sponge and be willing to learn. For his first company, Rich took a week off from work to learn everything he could about HTML and web design and started making websites for his clients. “You gotta be working 70, 80, 90 hours a week to learn everything and do everything that needs to get done because you can't afford to bring in a high-end CFO to help you manage funds,” he insists. Profit vs. profit margins. Something he always makes sure his team and clients understand is the difference between profit and profit margin. A lot of times people get hung up with trying to make 70 or 80% margin on a campaign that at margin level there will be not enough room to scale it. In the end, you may have a killer margin but are making $2 on a campaign. It's important to try to maintain a balance between the profit and the profit margin. Although it's hard to talk in general terms when there are so many business models and variables, Rich recommends proving something that works and find the scaling point and always keep in mind that you pay the bills with the profit, not with the profit margin. Sponsors and Resources Sharpspring: Today's episode is sponsored by Sharpspring, an all-in-one revenue growth platform that provides all of the marketing automation, CRM, & sales features you need to support your entire customer lifecycle. Partner with an affordable marketing automation provider that you can trust. Head over to sharpspring.com/smartagency to enjoy an exclusive offer for podcast listeners. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Be Willing To Learn Something New and Bootstrap Your Way Into a Thriving Agency {These transcripts have been auto-generated. While largely accurate, they may contain some errors.} Jason: [00:00:00] What's up, everybody? Jason Swenk here. And I have an amazing guest where we're going to talk about bootstrapping your agency and how to grow it. I'm excited to get into it. So let's jump into the show. Hey, Rich. Welcome to the show. Rich: [00:00:18] Hey, thanks for having me. Jason: [00:00:20] Yeah, man, excited to have you on. How have you been able to bootstrap a lot of these companies? So let's talk about some of the companies that you've done and how you bootstrapped them and grew them over the years. Rich: [00:00:32] I guess bootstrapping is done regardless of the business. So we've done everything from email newsletter, right? And email marketing, basically back in the nineties, early nineties, like 93. I ran an ISP out of my house with 300 phone lines coming in. I've ran click networks, I've ran contests search engines, and now an ad fraud solution. And the bootstrapping technique for me has always been the same. Take what little resources you have, and most of my companies have had just a couple thousand bucks to get started, and really do as much of the work as you possibly can yourself. Even if it comes to web design, learn it yourself, or you hire some people that can do it very inexpensively because you've got to protect that what little budget you have. And get the company started, right? As I've started to see a little bit of success in small pockets of each of the different companies and each company's a little different. But when you start making a little bit of profit from something that I zero in on that, to make sure it's actually profitable and it's not just a fluke and slowly start to scale that up. As I was able to scale up stuff like that, go back to 93, my email newsletter. I was writing a newsletter because… it actually, it wasn't for profit. It was just fun. I was thrilled with the internet. It was launched in 91 for public consumption, I think it was September 1st of 91. 93 I got started and I started writing articles on all the new things that were happening and what was making it… Because I knew this was going to change the world. I just, I was hooked day one. And so I started with just writing a letter because I thought like a newsletter that I thought it was interesting. And I thought people would be interested in it. Back then with a couple of months I had over 20,000 subscribers, which back then was a lot, considering the makeup of the network and everything, there was more… Jason: [00:02:14] Were they all AOL email addresses? Rich: [00:02:17] Yes. Yes. What ended up happening was I was a big chatter in the AOL chat rooms and I would jump to the chat room, just say, hey, I've got a newsletter talking about the changing internet. If anybody's interested, sign up here. And that's all I did. And I ended up getting 20,000 subscribers that way all up. Back then they didn't call it opt in, but it was all opt in. I just started writing because it was something that I found interesting. And I'm not a writer by any stretch of the imagination, but it was something that I wanted to do. And probably once I broke about 10,000 subscribers, somebody said, hey, can I advertise in your, in your newsletter? I thought, sure, why not? And so I tested it on one article. I wrote in, I had one person advertise in it and obviously it was all profit, cause it was, there was no cost to my part. I was just my internet connection. And that was pretty much my total overhead for the month. And it made money. I'm like, wow, this is pretty cool. And as I'm analyzing saying, wow, this might be a business model, because the Ms model didn't really exist back then. Also, after the first article opposed I got three or four more people said, hey, can I advertise in your newsletter? So, again, I started the company buying some software to help me manage the list. I had my AOL connection, my normal internet connection, some hardware upgrades that I needed to do. So that was my initial cost. Put a couple hundred bucks into it, nothing crazy. And before you knew what I was making a couple thousand a week, just from people wanting to advertise in the newsletter. That started the growth from there. And then what was interesting, again, bootstrapping the whole way. Somebody again said, hey, you know, the worldwide web is out now. Maybe you can start a mall. I'd be happy to sign up and have a store in your mall. Cause that was kind of the thing back then. So I put a newsletter, I put a newsletter out, said, hey, we're going to put together a web mall. I'm going to basically build your website, give you three pages, do all the design work, host it for X number of dollars. If you're interested, you know, send me money. It was, it was that poor of a campaign and I got something like in the first week I got like eight or 10 grand. So it took a week off from work, because of course it was still working full-time, and read 2000 pages of HTML and then graphic design and put together the whole mall, wrote all the 50 or 60 websites, whatever it was. When it was all said and done, I finished it up in a week and the mall was launched and we were up and running. And that, that's how I bootstrapped into that. And all of a sudden we started growing a web development business. Then the next thing was people like, hey, I see that you guys do web development services. Do you offer a way to connect to the internet? I'm like, all right, I'm sure I could figure this out. So I, I ordered a couple hundred phone lines into my house from Verizon, got a T1 routed to my house. There was a big story behind that, but. You, just kind of take one success and roll it into the next. And that's how I've always done my stuff. So if I came up with the idea and not all the, not all my ideas were successful. But you came up with an idea, you test the waters small. And if there's approvability, then run a bigger test and that, that if continues to prove itself, just keep growing that and scaling that as fast as you can with budget you have naturally, you know. You don't want to start taking loans and bringing on partners. I have not had any luck, you know, going after funding and stuff like that. That's, I've always had to bootstrap and you just continue to parlay your success into the next success, until the next success. Until next thing you know, we end up selling that company. So, again, I'll start bootstrapping. You know, one of my more successful companies, we started with five grand and just took a while to parlay each little success into the next and trying to find out what campaigns worked until the next thing you know, you're doing really well. You know, you're winning 500 awards, you know, winning Ernst & Young awards. I mean, you start winning all this other stuff and people recognizing what you're doing. And it all started with $5,000 investment. So you can definitely bootstrap your way to big money, but you gotta be very careful with how you do it. It's always just testing the wins and like, I'll remember the first one, I'll give you an example. I ran a campaign that I was testing and I made 10 cents and I was flipping out. I was like, this is great. My wife's like you made 10 cents, big deal. I'm like, but you don't understand. I only spent two and a half cents to make that 10 cents. Now, if I could multiply that by a factor of a hundred thousand or a million, we could make some money, but this looks like a scalable... And like, she couldn't understand like initially why I was jumping up and down about seven and a half cents profit. But when it's 75% profit and you start doing the math and you start, and then you start proving that it is a scalable solution, things get a lot more exciting. But again, testing something as simple as, as a 10 cent campaign. You know, with a seven and a half cent win. To me, I get excited about as a bootstrapper Jason: [00:07:11] Is your agency struggling to deliver real revenue growth results to your clients? You know, agency marketers can consolidate data and align marketing and sales teams goals to achieve real results for your agency and clients using revenue growth platforms. SharpSpring is an all-in-one platform built for agencies like yours to optimize digital marketing strategies with simple, powerful automation. Manage your entire funnel all in Sharpspring. Now, for a limited time, my smart agency listeners will receive your first month free and half off onboarding with SharpSpring. Just visit sharpspring.com/smartagency to schedule your demo and grab this offer. That's sharpspring.com/smartagency. That leads me to kind of think about, because… Yeah, I mean, in the early days, I'd be like, well, yeah, who cares about the couple of cents. But how are you able to kind of multiply that by a million? Rich: [00:08:15] That's the trick. Whenever I talk to clients from an agency voice, I always, I explained to them, there's two things. There's your profit margin. And then there's profit, right? You pay your bills with profit, not with margin. So a lot of times people are so hung up with trying to kill the margin and make, you know, 60, 70, 80% margin on a campaign that at that campaign, at that margin level, there's just not enough room to scale it. So maybe you're making two bucks on that campaign for the month. You can't do any with two bucks, even though you have a killer margin. So what I was trying to talk to my agency guys about, and the buyers is there's a good balance between your margin and your profit. You pay bills with profits. So I would rather have give up margin so I can scale it versus focusing on killing the margin and not being able to scale it. So depending on the campaign, depending on the business model, there's a lot you have to contend with. And again, each there, you know, it's hard to talk in generalities because there's just so many different business model types, but you got to prove something that works and find, find the scaling point. Like, don't worry so much about the margin. Worry more about how much cash you're going to put in your pocket that month. Because that's how you pay your bills and that's how you make money. Jason: [00:09:29] I always tell everybody it's like… When you're scaling, you don't have to worry about that as much. Like, there'll be like, oh, if we dip below this certain percentage, then you know, hey, we're in the red, but you're doing this for the longterm. And you know you're investing in the number one resource, you, that you can rather than putting it in the stock market or putting it somewhere else. So I'm like, hey man, go do it. So this has all been amazing, Rich. Is there anything I didn't ask you that you think would benefit the audience listening in? Rich: [00:10:04] Uh, you know, I've seen lots of companies do very well with bootstrapping. I've seen lots of companies do very well with investors getting, you know, raising capital. And I always point to like if you have a really good, unique idea, that's hard to enter into the marketplace because you've got some unique IT, IP or something like that. Sometimes going after funding is the right way to go. Like look at the big companies that we all know how many of them bootstrapped? Very few, right? They always got to a certain inflection point where they said, okay, now it's time to bring it. And there's a certain point where it makes sense to bring on outside money so that you can really scale something fast. If Facebook didn't bring on investors, we may not have heard about it. They may not have been as big as it is. They blew up once they brought on their investors who had, you know, different relationships, different ideas, different experience in managing a company at that level. So for a bootstrapper, you know, in the very beginning, when you're first figuring out your business model, first, figuring out your margins and everything else, you gotta be a sponge and you gotta be willing. It's not like, hey, I own a business. I can sit back and work the hours I want. That doesn't work with bootstrapping. You got to bust your ass. You gotta be working 70, 80, 90 hours a week to learn everything and do everything that needs to get done because you can't afford to bring in a high-end CFO to help you manage funds. Can't afford to do that. You have to do that yourself. Maybe you have that skill, maybe you don't, but you have to sit back and learn as much of the areas that you don't know about. Maybe you don't know about content marketing, maybe don't know about SEO. You need to learn it, because you can't afford to pay someone else to… The only thing you do have is time and you don't have a lot of money to invest as a bootstrapper. Well, most bootstrappers don't have a lot of money to invest, so you really have to focus on learning everything you don't know. And the more you learn, the more you realize you don't know anything. So you've got to really spend the time a good chunk of your time, learning every aspect of your business in order to how to grow it. Podcasts like this are awesome because... When I was growing up in the business, there were no podcasts, there were no… People that you can turn to, you couldn't connect with people who knew the space very well easily. Unless you knew their phone number, you weren't getting in touch with them. So today's, you know, entrepreneurs that are coming up in this space that are bootstrapping have access to all this great content, you know, tidbits like this, you know, 10, 12-minute podcasts they can absorb and pick up some information from experts who've done it for years. That is invaluable information. And you really gotta get plugged into the right places to learn as much as you can about the areas that you don't know. So you can grow your business without having to go hire somebody to do it. Jason: [00:12:28] Love it. What's a website, or how can people get in touch with you if they want to chat with you? Rich: [00:12:33] I'm on LinkedIn. I got a huge following and I post almost on a daily basis on LinkedIn, just Rich Kahn. Or you can find me all the contactinformation@anura.io, which is the current company that I'm growing. Jason: [00:12:45] Awesome. Well, everyone go check that out and, Rich, thanks so much for coming on the show. If you guys enjoyed this episode and you want to fast-track your agency a little bit more, and you want to know some of the systems, some of the framework that's working for agencies that's worked for me and what I would actually use again, I want you guys to go to jasonswenk.com/playbook and request an invite and check out all the systems that we have. That's jasonswenk.com/playbook. And until next time have a Swenk day.

Scott Harkey had a rocky start in the agency business, having to keep other jobs while he tried to get his agency, OH Partners, off the ground. It took time, but he built his reputation and now runs a stable of agencies, as he says. Scott talks about how the first years of agency growth are always difficult and why new agency owners should give themselves a long runway to get their business off the ground. He also reflects on the mistakes he made and why he should have focused on strategic growth and talks with optimism about the future of the agency business, where he sees tons of opportunities for independent agencies that are starting out as well as opportunities to rebuild trust with clients, which is at an all-time low. 3 Golden Nuggets Getting your agency off the ground. For Scott, the biggest challenge to getting over the million-dollar mark was gaining the experience he needed to project the confidence that would actually lead him to land jobs. “You almost have to earn confidence in this business,” he explains, “because people are smart and they smell your bullshit.” He advises people who want to make as an entrepreneur to give themselves a long runway until that plane finally gets off the ground. It's very difficult, as he acknowledges, it will take time and you will need to become an expert on your client's business before you can confidently say that you know exactly how to do a great job for them. Stop wasting time on bad pitches. After working hard to getting his agency off the ground and past the million-dollar mark, what would Scott do differently? For starters, he wishes he had been more strategic about growth. He is sure he wasted too much money on bad pitches and that he should have considered that the agency didn't have the capabilities for that yet. “I should have only pitched what we had business pitching or key relationships that I had,” he says looking back. Another regret was holding on to unprofitable accounts. We're all guilty of this, low-dollar pain in the ass clients that you didn't let go quick enough. “If I had done both of those things. I would probably be at 50 million in fees right now,” he adds. Hope for the future. With client dissatisfaction rates in the industry at 80%, Scott believes this is something we should all take seriously and try to work on. The good thing is, this industry tends to thrive during difficult times. There's real opportunity to see eye to eye now that clients increasingly have more in common with agencies and can learn from each other. So there's reason to be optimistic, he says, at a time when bad practitioners are getting weeded out of the industry and people who are doing things the right way have a ton of opportunity. “Especially for independent agency owners,” he insists. It is a good time for small agencies that want to do the work and build their reputation. Stop Wasting Time on Bad Pitches & Earn the Confidence to Get Your Agency Off The Ground Jason: [00:00:00] What's up, agency owners? Jason Swenk here, and I have an amazing guest who's grown a really big agency well over the eight-figure mark. And we're going to talk about his path to starting the agency, to growing it, to scaling it. So let's go ahead and get into the show. Hey, Scott. Welcome to the show. Scott: [00:00:24] What up? Thanks for having me. Jason: [00:00:25] Yeah, man. Excited to have you on. So tell us who you are and what do you guys do? Scott: [00:00:30] My name's Scott Harkey, I run a stable of agencies. You know, anything from a film company to a research company, to a digital social agency. And been doing it about 13 years. We have 170 ish employees corporately based in Phoenix but also have an office in Las Vegas. So, uh, I do a lot of clients within entertainment, casinos, hotels. And then, you know, other stuff, CPG, healthcare. Faking it till we make it, uh, until they keep hiring us. Jason: [00:01:02] We all do that. Scott: [00:01:03] …continue to hire us for 13 years and then sometimes we get fired too, but that's okay. Jason: [00:01:08] That's awesome. How did you start the agency? Scott: [00:01:12] Funny story. So I started the agency with my second cousin once removed. He was in the agency business. I was selling radio. His dad, my uncle was in the agency, great uncle, was in the agency business for twenty-five years. And, uh, I wanted to be in the agency business and literally like, no one would hire me because they thought I was a radio sales guy or a billboard sales guy. So he and I talked and he just lost his biggest client and his partner left. And he had one other small client that I think produced like $8,000 in revenue, it was the Arabian Horse Show. And, uh, he filed the paperwork next day and we started an agency in his kitchen table and worked out of his little condo in Scottsdale with the two cats. So I had a lot of motivation to get more clients so we could have an office and I wasn't in the condo with cats. Jason: [00:02:04] There's nothing wrong with cats. I mean… Scott: [00:02:07] Yeah, I love cats. It was fine, but like you have like a meeting and you have to, like, this was before like meeting for coffee was like, cool. We had to like fake it to like the, okay, you want to meet for coffee? Because they couldn't come to our office. It was embarrassing. Jason: [00:02:19] Oh yeah, the cats would jump on them? Scott: [00:02:23] Yeah, it was like what? You're in a kitchen table. This is like a, you're like in an apartment, bro. Like, what's going on? Jason: [00:02:28] I remember my first address for Solar Velocity. It was 9 25 Canterbury Street, suite 250, because I was in apartment 250. Scott: [00:02:40] Exactly. Yeah. So we, we got an office after that. Like, you know, there was like bail bondsman and like some weird clientele. I was just happy to have an office. Like I didn't, I did not care. So, uh, it's funny to see like what we've come now. Like we're all have high-end tastes now in office and stuff. Like we've scrapped this out. Jason: [00:02:59] Exactly. Let's talk about the different couple stages that you've probably gone through. So how long did it take you guys to get over the million mark? And what was the biggest challenge for getting over the million mark? Scott: [00:03:10] Yeah. That's the hardest part, honestly. I think it took us… I mean, I, I remember like leaving radio and I was like pretty confident. Like I was like, oh, I've got three or four clients I know are going to come with me. And none of them did. And I can remember, like my first client was like a personal injury attorney that I like had to like beg to hire us. And he would spend a lot of money in the market and he was, he was insane. But it probably took us three years to get over the million mark in fees. It was so hard, dude. That's why I always tell people, like, when they're starting out, like give yourself a runway. Give yourself a long runway because it's not smart… And I think to make it an entrepreneurship, I think it's just the people that like have the longest amount of time to get this big plane up off the ground. And then once you get off the ground, that's where people… You know, I think it's overstated, but like hockey stick growth and it can like go. But like getting that sucker off the ground is it's horrible. Like you need other jobs. Home hosts, you know, like I was still selling billboards like part-time. I had like some rental houses, like I was hustling. Anything I could get to like scrounge money just to like make sure that we had enough longevity to like, get this thing going. Jason: [00:04:23] What were some of the different things that allowed the plane to take off? Scott: [00:04:27] I think there's something inside of us that like, you almost have to earn confidence in this business. Because people are freaking smart and they smell your bullshit. And like, if you don't believe your own bullshit, like no one else is going to believe it. So I think for me, it's about doing the work and failing enough times to where you know, like you're up, gonna bat. You're in a pitch or like, you know, a business so well, like, you know you're going to make somebody money. Like until you are sitting across from a client and you are so confident that you can drive a business outcome, then I don't think you're going to get any business. And for me, that stupid personal injury attorney, like I knew everything about his business. I had studied everything. I knew how I was going to buy the media. I knew how the spots were going to be different. I knew everything I got and he knew it because I was, I literally told him that like, if we didn't improve his business, I would give all my fees back to him. I was like, I had to beg this guy. And then the same thing happened when we won the Arizona Lottery account. It was a, it was a $55 million account in Phoenix in Arizona. And, uh, I studied the lottery business for two years before the pitch was up. Like I had lottery consultants. I literally have a master's degree in lottery business. So when the pitch was up, I had talked to like every former marketing director. I talked to everyone, I looked at every form of pitch. And I think like in pitches, there's just a, there's a vibe of confidence that you've done the homework and that's when you're going to get business. And when you get business obviously that's when you start becoming profitable. You can't cut your way into profitability in the agency business. It's about getting business and then keeping it. But initially, it's about gaining business. And I think you have to have like a real sense of confidence when you're going into a pitch like that. Jason: [00:06:17] Yeah. I mean, we were talking kind of the pre-show it's kinda like, we think we do the best work. And I was like, we should all think that because if you know, you don't do the best. That's the problem. Like so many people come to me, they're like, Jason, how do you scale an agency? How do you grow? How'd you get to where you're, you're at? I was like, we knew how to do something really well. And then we positioned that to the audience that we could do it really well for. And then that's how we were able to get the plane taking off and off the ground. But then it's kind of like, all right, now you've got the turbulence, right? The smack and the plane back down, or it's hitting the tarmac. So what was the hardest part of scaling the agency for you to date? Scott: [00:07:03] I think just in general, dealing with failures and. And I think in our business, the worst thing is perfectionism. And that's hard to say, right? Because in one hand, we're like, we need to do the best work. But on the other hand, I think perfectionism is a real disease in this business. And you can't be in this business if you have that, because nothing's going to be perfect and there's going to be tons of stuff broken. And so I would say every year there's like a new failure learning that I have, um, that we've seen. And it's always different. And so I think the hardest part of scaling an agency is not being prepared for like the new failure you're going to face that year. But having some maybe general skills or maybe some personal development that will just allow like perseverance through the failures that come. Like this year for me, it's been, you know, agency turnover and the great resignation. Last year, it was a major partner, minority partner fight. You know, the year before that it was a ton of client loss year before that it was like mid-level managers that I was trying to empower and get less hands off on certain things and working more on the business, not in the business. So it's like every year there's like something you want to… In the early stages, it was like just trying to literally get business, anything. In some years it was… I think I lost in one year, like 60 pitches. Like why was I pitching 60 pieces of business? I don't know, but I lost 60 pieces of business. And I think like each year the learning from those failures, catapults, like to the next form of growth. And I think like, we all want like just a steady Eddy kind of growth, but this business is so volatile it typically is like this, but like the trend line is like this. And I always notice like my worst prior ends up being my best year, the next year, right? Like it's preparing me for the next step that I think we need to get to. So I think that's the hardest thing is that you're like in an octagon and you don't know what punches are going to be thrown, but you know, you've got to like figure shit out and, and, and kinda like get counselors, get mentors, get coaches, listen to the industry. And like figure out your move and your counter punch when those come through. I think that's the hardest part. Jason: [00:09:22] Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, it's like Mike Tyson says, you know, you never know how you're going to take a punch until you get hit. Scott: [00:09:28] Yeah, for sure. Jason: [00:09:28] And, you know, we get hit all the time. It's just… Scott: [00:09:32] All the time. Well, people are smart in this business. Like theirs. I, I'm not sure there's a business where there's more smart people that I've ever worked with. Well, there's been clients' side or other industries or lawyers or doctors. I talked to really smart agency people and they blow me away. They're freaking smart. And I think, um, and they're planners, like, like a lot of us are, or will be, we want to have a plan. That's the business we're in, we plan for clients. And so just to your point, when you're in the fire front, you get punched, the plan's out the window and you're scrapping. And I think, I think that can really rattle people. And I think just the tenacious kind of scrappy, kind of street fighter mentality people end up pushing through that and the perfectionism like, hey, I have my perfect plan and now I need a new plan. And like the freak out people, like, you're not gonna, you know, this business isn't for you and you're not going to make it. Jason: [00:10:25] Is your agency struggling to deliver real revenue growth results to your clients? You know, agency marketers can consolidate data and align marketing and sales teams goals to achieve real results for your agency and clients asing revenue growth platforms. SharpSpring is an all-in-one platform built for agencies like yours to optimize digital marketing strategies with simple, powerful automation. Manage your entire funnel all in Sharpspring. Now for a limited time, my smart agency listeners will receive your first month free and half off onboarding with SharpSpring. Just visit sharpspring.com/smartagency to schedule your demo and grab this offer. That's sharpspring.com/smartagency. Yeah, you know, I never… I'd always have a north star, but I would never have a plan, right? Like I'm the type of person that when I'm building something, I always have extra parts because I'm more efficient. That's how I like to look at it. And I look at the agency business for me, even the community that we've built over the past seven years, it's always excelled when chaos has happened everywhere else. And the same thing, like what I was telling you on the pre-show. I'm like, I really don't have anything planned to ask you. It's more, just a conversation. I'm really better at that. If I have to plan it out, I'm kind of like, oh, what's the next question I'm answering? And I can't be in the mode now. Now that's just me, but I think kind of the moral of the stories is you have to figure out what's the truth or what's the north star of where you think you want to go. And then you start bringing on the right people to help you with that and realizing, and I think you probably will say this too… You're not going to be able to do everything, like your agency has grown to the multiple eight figures of where it's at now is probably because you brought the right people in and you probably said, who do I need to bring in rather than how? Am I stretching or is that right? Scott: [00:12:32] Yeah, I think, you know, I think for me, like, certainly we've done like every two years, we'll do a branding workshop for ourselves and we'll reevaluate mission, vision values, and, um, what we're trying to do. And certainly that's been successful. But I think when I'm at my best, I know when our agency's at our best, it's, we're open to a reset every day, every month, every year. And I think people think when you, when there's a reset, like you're starting over. And I think like a reset, like I remember we were playing like, you know, Nintendo I'm, I'm older, but like, you know, I used to play Nintendo. Jason: [00:13:08] I was Atari. Scott: [00:13:10] Yeah, ok. So you're older than me. Nintendo there's a little reset button and you would get to a point in a game and you're just like, screw this. And you like hit the reset button. You just start over. You don't start over, you know, where the little points in the game are that like trip you up and so you can get through. And I think for even my life personally, my business life, like when I'm okay with like a reset and knowing I'm not fully starting over because I have, I have a wealth of knowledge. We have a wealth of knowledge and agency and processes and clients, and, and we're just, we're just resetting, it's more like a digital campaign and like an optimization kind of, kind of piece to it. So I understand the north star and I agree, I think there should be a north star. But I, I also think kind of being willing to just reset things like everybody, hey, let's freaking reset real quick. Like, you know, what are we doing here? And not be so, you know, not like die on the sword on some plan or some north star that you think is like, perfect. Like if we would've done what mirroring the industry would have said, we, we should have done, we would have no casinos and hotels clients. Like on our Vegas office, we'd like be doing CPG, you know? And now have like 60% of our businesses that, so I think just being open-minded to where the world and energy and your capabilities and your purpose, like is going to take you. Jason: [00:14:31] Very cool. Now that we've talked about kind of getting the plane off the ground, let's talk about there's a lot of people listening, going alright, I'm in the multimillion-dollar mark, but I want to get over the eight-figure mark. For some odd reason. They want to do that because they think there's sunshine and rainbows over there. But if you had to go back to yourself, when you were around the 3 million mark, what's a single thing that you would do in order to get to the eight-figure mark? Scott: [00:14:59] It's a great question. I think I could, uh… I'm a wild card, I think I could have been a little bit more strategic on growth. I think I've wasted a ton of money on bad pitches. I think I've convinced myself so many times that we can get a piece of business, which we couldn't. We had not, we didn't have the capabilities. We didn't have the experience. Didn't have the relationship. And I think I could have got to eight figures... So that's like, okay. So like you're talking, like I get confused on the, I know that's kind of your terminology, but like I'm at like 5 million in fees and I'm trying to get to 10, right? How would I got there knowing what I know now? Jason: [00:15:36] Yep. Scott: [00:15:36] Yeah. I wasted money pitching. I should have only pitched what we had business pitching or key relationships that I had. And every time I can convince myself that we can get any pitch. Jason: [00:15:47] Where you doing RFPs? Scott: [00:15:49] Oh, yeah. Oh, hell yeah, I've done it all. Jason: [00:15:53] You know what RFP stands for right? Scott: [00:15:55] What? Jason: [00:15:56] Requests for fucking punishment. Scott: [00:16:00] Actually this digital agency we bought, Nomadic. They like, they laugh at me. They have so many brands within Fortune 1000 companies that came and talk about. Cause they're like, they're like, here's the here's, it's 500 grand. You want us to do this, this and this or not? We don't report hours. We don't do RFPs, kind of blew my mind. Jason: [00:16:17] That's how we were. Scott: [00:16:19] It's smart. It's how it should be. Like people, you know, you need to build confidence with CMOs and people, you know, they… Just doing blank RFPs, rarely works. And even when you get them, you know, they're bad clients. Although I have had good success too. I mean, it's gotta be the right ones. Like I pitched Monster and it costs me probably a million dollars. And then, you know, like everybody it's like, oh, you finished second. And I was just, I was devastated. Jason: [00:16:44] A million dollars on a pitch. Wow. How much of a engagement would that have won you? Scott: [00:16:51] Oh, man, it would have won me probably… three or maybe three to 5 million in fees. I mean, I this business is like, uh, you know, we have a lot of casinos, you know, resorts is our client, Virgin's our client. Jason: [00:17:04] Put it all on black. You did it, you did it on that one. Scott: [00:17:09] Exactly, bet on red. You know, but I do think… So I say that, but I do think you have to have some bets. You know, you have to have, if I wouldn't have made some, some crazy bets, like we wouldn't be where we're at. So it's hard to, but there's, you know, there's definitely some really crazy bets that I think if I would've taken back, especially early in our cycle. We weren't ready with the processes. We didn't have the talent capabilities. I think we could have got to that five to 10 million faster. And then the second piece to that is I think I've held on to unprofitable accounts. That 80/20 rule always exists, right? You know, I've probably had three to five unprofitable, low-dollar pain in the ass clients that I didn't let go quick enough. Jason: [00:17:51] Walk me through the mental on… Because I find that I'm guilty of it. We're all guilty of it. What was the turning point? What was the switch that you were like, dude, I'm losing too much money on this client. Get rid of them. Scott: [00:18:03] I just think more data and awareness for internal operations, right? Like we had better systems to identify it more and you're not making biased decisions. You're making more data-driven decisions. So we have an analytics group that really, we nail this shit really well now. So it's not like, oh, this is a $500,000 client. No, this is a $72 an hour client, you know, and we only make money at $92. So you're, you know, $200,000 client, you make $250 an hour on they're actually great. So just having better awareness for that. And I think, I think agencies should go through this process monthly and really have their finger on the pulse. And most likely everyone has the 80/20 rule. I, every year I've done it, I've had it. And I think I was losing out on organic opportunities with my big clients that I'm holding on to shitty low dollar, low dollar amount clients and low dollar per hour clients. Um, that also were a pain in the ass and it was just killing us. And I was burning people out… If I'd figured that out earlier, probably even more so than pitching bad business. I could've got to eight figures faster. But if I would have both those things dammit. Man. I, I probably would be at like 50 million in fees right now. Now that I think about it. Jason: [00:19:15] Well, we had mastermind members all the time… they're always looking to scale faster. And one of them, we do this exercise quite often and we identified for one of the mastermind members there was a number of different clients that he needed a literally double the rights in order to make it profitable. And so literally we came up with a game plan and we just said, hey, just chat with them, double the rates. If you lose half of them. Okay. And that's what we were fully expecting. He retained all of them and literally by just talking to them, he increased his MMR by 60K. Scott: [00:19:51] What's MMR? I'm not used to that terminology. Jason: [00:19:54] Monthly recurring revenue. Scott: [00:19:55] Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Jason: [00:19:57] So just doing nothing. So that turned out to be what, 700,000 extra a year. And if you just do that, like, I'm glad you walked us through all of that, because at the end of the day, it's about pricing. Scott: [00:20:10] And we suck at pricing. We suck. I've learned a lot around. And just what you said. I agree with, like you just go to the clients and be like, dude, here's the… I'm getting crushed. Like I'm out. Or we got to change and either they go away or you get, you get the rate. Jason: [00:20:25] Awesome. Well, Scott, this has all been amazing. Is there anything I didn't ask you that you think would benefit the audience? Scott: [00:20:30] I, I do think that the industry is changing a lot right now. And like you said, I, I think that's when… That's our time to shine, honestly. I think this year, this has been my best year ever, you know, with all the chaos. But I do think that our client dissatisfaction rate in this industry is still at an all time high. I think it's in the 80 percentile. Basically our clients say we suck as a, as an industry at serving their needs. I think we've got to solve that better. I think there is a real opportunity. And I, I think for the first time ever, we're seeing CMOs and VPs in marketing… We're seeing our clients and us have more in common than ever. They all have agencies and we run agencies. So I think we can learn a lot from each other. And I think the new model is really trying to find gaps that they have, we certainly have. And being respected in the industry, I think it means a lot more. And it's really interesting, I think time for the business. And I think the people that really run good agencies are doing things the right way have a ton of opportunity. Cause I, I think a lot of the, the bad practitioners are getting weeded out of the business. It's getting too hard for them to survive. So I would, I guess I would just leave the audience with like a sense of real optimism and encouragement. And especially for independents, especially for independents, especially people grinding it out. The publics are, are so fucked right now. Good friends of mine run, run a lot of great agencies and some of our amazing agencies. And they're not going away. Let's not kid ourselves. But I think for the first time in our business, there's never been a better time to be an independent agency and to offer real solutions in a humble, cool vibe way to brand marketers. And the playing field is probably more level than it's been in a long time. So that's, that's a lot of fun. That's what gets me really excited. Jason: [00:22:22] Yeah. I interviewed someone and they're doing a lot of research and agencies fell… For trust levels, agencies fell between politicians and car used car salesmans. So let that all sink in guys. It's, it's about building trust and reputation that, you know, it takes years to build, but seconds to knock down. Think about that. So what's agency website people go and check you guys out? Scott: [00:22:50] Yeah. So our, our main agency is ohpartners.com. A couple of our big sister agencies would be nomadic.com and a matteroffilms.com. And so you can see some of the additional agencies we have, but the main one is the ohpartners.com. Jason: [00:23:06] Awesome. Well, Scott, thanks so much for coming on the show. And if you guys enjoyed this episode and you want to be around amazing agency owners that are constantly chatting about the industry, sharing what's working. Sharing what's not working. Be able to see the things that you're not able to see. I want all of you to go to digitalagencyelite.com now. This is our exclusive mastermind that is only for amazing agency owners. So go to digitalagencyelite.com and until next time, have a Swenk day.

Do your clients have trust issues with your agency? How can you go about creating an honest rapport to build trust? Working at a larger agency Bob Bailey started to notice a trust problem. Clients are losing trust in their agencies. This trend has actually increased over time, with clients moving to in-house services. This is the opportunity he and his partners saw when they created their agency Truth Collective. They wondered "wouldn't it be great if a marketing agency could thrive by just telling the truth?" Then they set out to have honest conversations about strategy, creativity, and relationships. In his conversation with Jason, Bob spoke about all-time low trust levels in agencies, how he tries to build trust with potential clients from the first meeting, how he has built leadership teams in his agency, and why agency owners must themselves from being the fixer to empower their teams. 3 Golden Nuggets Honest rapport with clients. Trust in agencies has hit all-time lows, according to Bob. That's not a place any of us would want to be. So how to gain back client trust in agencies? Especially in a time when more and more clients are moving to in-house many services. Bob believes the key to building trust starts with the initial conversation. He makes it a point to treat it as a conversation, not a pitch, and makes it about them. “I feel like squaring the meeting centrally right on their business and what they need is the place to be,” he assured. Also, he's seen the positive effect of knowing who you are as a business and how you can help their business, instead of trying to do everything, which comes across as just wanting more money. Building leadership. As we always say, you can get to the million-dollar mark almost by accident. But to be a multi-million-dollar agency you'll need to start building a structure, starting with your leadership team. Bob didn't always get that right, in some cases because the people weren't quite right. But also because they weren't quite ready as new owners to really understand what that meant. They really had to look themselves in the mirror when the company hit a cap at $3.8 million and start to get serious about leadership. They needed more structure, so they selected a group and shared everything about the business with them. “If these guys are going to lead, they need all the information to become leaders too,” he acknowledges. Try to not be a fixer. How can you help your leadership team grow? Prepare them to solve issues and trust them. Bob and his partners started organizing weekly meetings with their leadership team to discuss new business leads and prospects, financial forecasts, what they call remarkable creative briefs and opportunities, they also talk about employees or client issues and possible solutions. This way, they started to prepare the leadership team and shared the information and metrics they may need to do their jobs. Ultimately, it is always about trusting that they are capable to face any issues that may come up. Agency owners normally get to where they are because they are very good at solving problems, but at some point it should be your team's responsibility to do so. Sponsors and Resources Sharpspring: Today's episode is sponsored by Sharpspring, an all-in-one revenue growth platform that provides all of the marketing automation, CRM, & sales features you need to support your entire customer lifecycle. Partner with an affordable marketing automation provider that you can trust. Head over to sharpspring.com/smartagency to enjoy an exclusive offer for podcast listeners. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Creating an Honest Rapport With Your Clients to Address Low Trust Levels in Agencies Jason: [00:00:00] What's up, agency owners? Jason Swenk here. I have another great episode and we're not going to talk about frou-frou shit. We're going to talk about rebuilding trust in our industry, and we're going to go over some really cool things. And I didn't know, he was telling me in the pre-show Bob was telling me that agency trust is ranked between Congress and I think something else. He'll tell us, I can't remember, but like it's pathetic. So we're going to talk about what you can do in order to build trust. And if you have that trust, you can make more money, scale faster. and have the life that you want, where you have the freedom. So let's go ahead and get into the show. Hey, Bob. Welcome to show. Bob: [00:00:49] Hey, Jason. What's up, man? Thanks for having me. Jason: [00:00:51] I almost forgot which buttons to hit. We were talking about frou-frou stuff before. I'm so messed up. Bob: [00:00:58] I'm just going for the ride. Jason: [00:00:59] Yeah. Tell us who you are and what you do. Bob: [00:01:02] Jason, my name is Bob Bailey. I am one of the three founding partners of a creative company called Truth Collective. And my role here is the CEO, which I have sort of reframed from chief executive officer to the chief everyone officer. And I don't know if that's frou frou stuff to you or not. But for me, it sort of keeps me focused on, you know, my most important thing and that's my team. So thanks for having me. Jason: [00:01:27] Yeah. As long as you're having fun and you guys are doing impact, I don't care what you call it. So how'd, you guys get started in this crazy industry that we're in? Bob: [00:01:38] It's a good question. I've been listening to some of your shows and you know, a lot of folks, they tend to see a, a problem or a gap out there and they feel like they can fill that. And it was, it was similar with us. We were working together at a, at a larger agency. And at the time, like there was just getting hard. Like it was, it was getting really, really hard. And we started seeing these patterns where consumers were trusting brands less. Agencies… clients were trusting their agencies less. And even like inside the agencies, people trusting each other less. And so we said, man, like… Wouldn't it be just really easy and wouldn't it be awesome if a marketing agency could thrive by just telling the truth? Like, what if you were just honest about everything? What if you weren't like out there inflating case studies, inflating agency credentials presentations? What if you could just go out there and like be yourself and tell people the information that's going to really help them? And it was a really like novel, like silly idea at the moment. But we really got behind it and, um, we've built, we built a business on that. And so it's been really fun. Jason: [00:02:47] Well, how do you separate yourself? Because there's lots of agencies out there that are full of shit and they're not truthful. But they say they are. So how do you guys do that? Like, tell me about the stat that you were talking about in the pre-show. And I kind of teased in the intro, like the agency industry is between Congress and what for…? Bob: [00:03:12] Yeah. It's, Gallup does this annual survey on like trusted industries and they go through all of them and there is like pretty far down the list used car salespeople, advertising industry, Congress. So we're sandwiched between those two, those two industries. And like, I don't, if like, for me, like that's not a place that I want to live and after eight years or so, it, hasn't not only as it hasn't gotten better. I think it's actually probably getting a little bit worse. I mean, especially when you look at how clients are responding to it and in housing, everything. And it's really, it's a pretty interesting situation. And so I think we have some stuff to fix. Jason: [00:03:55] Well, you know, when, when we chat and we interview agencies to join our mastermind, we ask lots of questions around their delivery and the results that they give to their clients. And you'll be so surprised about how many that they don't know it. And they started by accident. They took a Facebook course on ads, and then they started like, they were really good marketers, but they could never deliver their own service efficiently. And like, it just blows me out of the water that, and people always ask me, what's the one thing you have to do to scale your agency? I'm like, well, you have to do something really well for your clients. Bob: [00:04:34] Yeah, for sure. I think that the work that we tend to do tends to focus on something we actually changed during COVID. But we got really focused in, on the stuff that we love to do and the stuff that we're truly like sort of brilliant at: creative strategy, insights, and big idea platforms. And we really tend to focus on like high-impact tactics, like the stuff that's going to really like move the brand forward. Sort of gradually moving away from a lot of the activation kind of things. But, um, for us, it's really important that, you know, we're setting up. How are we going to know if this works? How are we going to be happy? Like, yeah, there's the qualitative stuff. But a lot of times there's not business metrics in place. There's not foundational stuff in place on the client-side. And so we do all that we can to build those baselines so that we know for if we're helping them improve their business brand and in the behaviors of the customers. It's all we care about. Jason: [00:05:32] What are some keys in order to build trust with your clients? Bob: [00:05:37] I think it starts from the initial conversation. And I think that that conversation has to be different than anything that they felt from other agencies. I don't have a PowerPoint that I use to introduce me or my agency to clients. I have a conversation. I feel like if you show up with your deck, then the meeting is about me and not them. And so I feel like squaring the meeting centrally right on their business and what they need is the place to be. And you'd be surprised how different that actually is. So I think it starts there and, you know, it sort of quickly goes into the things that we do and the things that we will not do. And so, you know, I think that's also been a disarming thing where clients will, they'll say, you know, well, I know, you know, as the owner, like you want to do all my stuff. Uh, because you know, you're money motivated and I'm like, well, actually, no, like I don't want to do a thousand banner ads. I don't want to do all, I don't want to do your emails. I don't want to do those things. Like I want to help your internal team be successful with that stuff. I think there's just like those sort… of known who we are and being okay with just like being okay with having a conversation about that. But I think it really just sets a tone for this is the kind of partnership that we're after, and this is how we're going to help you be most successful and help the other agencies in your network be more successful too. Jason: [00:07:03] Yeah. You know, I always use the analogy of the creepy guy in the conference. Like, do you have the creepy guy in the conference come up to you and they just start throwing up on you about how cool their company is and how amazing he is. All that. You're like, you're the creepy dude. Get away from me. The other guy comes up to you and starts asking you questions. And by asking questions, the whole attention is on them. People are going to like that conversation because it's about them. And that's what we always liked when we would come and have initial calls with our prospects. We were the same way. And I, and I always hate when agencies are like, well, we don't have our portfolio or our deck ready. What is that…? I'm like, you don't need that shit. The companies that want that, that means you're going to be doing an RFP, which really stands for request for fucking punishment. You shouldn't be doing that. So I love that approach. Let's kind of switch focus a little bit and talk about because you have over 30 people, um, you know, multimillion dollar agency. A lot of people can hit the million mark by accident. But when you start getting in the multiple millions, you have to get a lot of things right. I mean, you still haven't figured out everything. I don't have everything figured out. No one does. If they do, you should shoot them with a water gun and be like, you're lying. But how are you building better leaders? Because I feel that in order to get to the level that you're at, you have to build a really amazing team, which it starts with the leadership. Bob: [00:08:43] Totally. You're right, man. Like we, gosh… We've been in business for eight years now and you know, I always think about us like a version. You know, the current version of Truth Collective, and you know, we've been through, we've been through a few and we've tried some things and we didn't get it exactly right. Whether it was, you know, you talked about the leaders and the leadership team. I think in some cases like the people weren't quite right. But then also we weren't quite ready as sort of new owners to really understand what that even meant. We were very much in a mindset of like we're modeling the behaviors we expect and why don't you just understand that stuff? And that's not fair to anybody. And it also, you know, to your point, like you'll hit a cap and the cap… Our cap was like right around like three and a half to 3.8 million where… We can do that. Like kind of with any team, with any set of clients, like that's, that was what we were. And we, you know, we did that and we said, geez, you know, it's us. Like we looked in the mirror and said, okay, like we got to get out of the way here. And we got to get really serious about the leaders on the team, but how we going to do it? And it was about the people, but we also just needed some real structure and we were growing and growing rapidly, but we weren't growing in like an organized way. We started as an account guy, a strategist and a creative guy. And as we grew, like, we just hired more people like us. But what we weren't doing is growing from the standpoint of like the functions of the business. Like I wasn't, we weren't thinking about, okay, how are we going to staff new business growth? How are we going to staff client service? How are we going to staff creative? How are we going to staff the administrative stuff? And, you know, people just looked at all three of us all the time for decisions. And we were just, we just became the bottleneck that was holding it back. Jason: [00:10:50] Is your agency struggling to deliver real revenue growth results to your clients. You know, agency marketers can consolidate data and align marketing and sales teams goals to achieve real results for your agency and clients asing revenue growth platforms. SharpSpring is an all-in-one platform built for agencies like yours to optimize digital marketing strategies with simple, powerful automation. Manage your entire funnel all in Sharpspring. Now for a limited time, my smart agency listeners will receive your first month free and half off onboarding with SharpSpring. Just visit sharpspring.com/smart agency to schedule your demo and grab this offer. That's sharpspring.com/smart agency. Yeah, you were the toll booth. I always like to kind of say. Bob: [00:11:43] Yes, you've talked about that before. Jason: [00:11:44] Yeah, and you kept mentioning a keyword: how? You're like, how do we do this? How do we do this? When did you start realizing who? And giving them the power in order to make the decision? Bob: [00:11:58] Yeah. It was actually in the fall of 2019. So we, we decided we needed to try the leadership team again. We selected people, you know, not by title. But by, like, if you run a function in the agency, you're on the team, like that's how we made the decision. So it was very clear and specific. We got that group together, we got super transparent. We shared everything about the business. All the numbers. So no more like close to the vest ownership. If these guys are going to lead, like they need to know stuff and they need all the information so that they can also learn how to become leaders too. So we started sharing that we met weekly every Monday, same agenda for 90 minutes and we just, we got into a cadence. And thankfully we did because, you know, we all know like what happened in March, you know? So we had made about six months, five months worth of momentum together as a team when, uh, when COVID hit and sort of through everything… Um, hit the brakes on everything. And so we had to respond to that. Jason: [00:13:05] You said you meet once a week on Mondays for 90 minutes and the same structure. And what was that structure of that meeting? Bob: [00:13:12] The structure was, it was actually, are you familiar with a organization called EOS? Jason: [00:13:18] Yep. There's lots of mastermind members and I've had Gino on, on the show a number of times. Bob: [00:13:24] Yeah. We adopted that, that framework in the beginning, just because we needed a consistent framework. And that seemed to be, it seemed to make a lot of sense. It was pretty straightforward and simple. And so it's you come in and you talk about like, what are the key? You know, you have a scorecard and so our scorecard is new business leads and prospects. It's how are we doing on our financial forecast today? You know, month and quarter, how are we doing? Um, we measure our, we call like remarkable creative briefs and opportunities, like of all the work in the shop how many of those have the potential to be really remarkable? And then we, um, there's some, some accounting metrics that we measure. And so we sort of quickly hit those. We talk about any employees, uh, or client issues that are going on. And then we devote about an hour of it to like issue, discussion and resolution. And so some weeks there's a handful of stuff that you have to move through some weeks. There's one thing. But the whole point is to use that brainpower in a really concentrated focused way to, to keep us moving in the right direction. Jason: [00:14:32] I love it. I love how, you know, and thanks for going over some of the KPIs or I guess what they call rocks or, or, um, I don't know what they call it. But I get the gist of it because there's a lot of people that don't really know what to measure and they just go into a meeting. Hey, how's it going? And, uh, really kind of it. I's like none of them, what's the agenda that you have for the week and let's, let's rock and roll. So… Bob: [00:14:59] We went from having no sort of across-the-board KPIs to implementing way too many. Jason: [00:15:07] Yeah, yeah. Bob: [00:15:10] To getting it down to like now there's like five, that really matter. You know what I mean? Like, and if you get enough insight from those five to, to hit like 90% of the business. So we're, we're learning as we go, like, it gets you really hands-on. But now we've especially with COVID like, I think when she had the right team and the right sort of flow… I think letting go is actually been like a key and helping us grow and scale. You were talking about that a few minutes ago. Jason: [00:15:38] Yeah. It's very challenging. We had our digital agency experience at my house in Colorado, a couple, uh, two weeks ago. And a lot of the agencies here, multimillion, they have a hard time letting go on stuff. I'm like, you just got to trust your team! Like, it's kinda like your baby, like let the baby fall and then they'll learn to walk. If you're going to be the crutch and you're always going to catch them, well, expect to catch them for the rest of your life. Bob: [00:16:09] It's true. You know, a lot of people, and I think a lot of agency owners, you know, you start an agency because you were really good in another agency or like maybe you were the fixer. And you know how to fix it and you know how to move on, but that only gets you so far, right? You can't be the fixer, like you have to, to your point, like you got to like help him walk. You got to coach them, not do. You got to direct, not fix. And so that's, that's been a real, it seems really subtle and it seems really obvious, but it's not so easy. Um, but it's been a real game-changer, like you said. Jason: [00:16:43] Yeah. And when it happens too you get depressed, cause then they're doing the decisions and doing all the stuff without you, they don't need you anymore. And then you're like, what do I do? And you're like, well now you're the CEO, dummy. This is your new role. And this is what you're doing. Bob: [00:16:57] Yeah, figure out what's next. Jason: [00:17:00] Yeah, exactly. So I went through that and I always make fun of my mastermind members when they go through that. I'm like, hey, dummy, this is what you wanted now. Let's, let's do it this way. Life will be better. Bob: [00:17:15] It is, you know, I love it when people bring stuff that I would've never done or couldn't have done. My whole goal is I want Truth to be something that I couldn't make. I want it to outgrow me personally. And I, like, I think that's when you're really into some exciting, like durable stuff as a business. So it's fun when that happens. It is intimidating though, sometimes. Jason: [00:17:39] Oh yeah. Well, Bob, this has all been amazing. Is there anything I didn't ask you that you think would benefit the audience? Bob: [00:17:45] I think agency owners like... You put out a LinkedIn post the other day about you made a game out of it, but like, there was like… Jason: [00:17:53] Yeah. Never have I ever? Bob: [00:17:56] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like, I've done all that. Every one of them I've done… Jason: [00:18:00] Multiple times. Bob: [00:18:02] Right. Habitually, right? I think like a key to happiness as an agency owner and the growth is like just, you know the answer. You know the answer is not to chase that stupid thing. You know the answer, you know what I mean? But the industry wants you to do that. Like there's so much crazy industry inertia out there. I think follow your gut. You know, I just, I think have the courage to follow your gut because you're going to be way happier. You're going to make room for the stuff that you really want to be doing instead of falling into those old traps. And you're going to wind up differentiating your agency as results. So your post got me really thinking about that. And I think that's helpful for it's been helpful for me. Jason: [00:18:48] Goog. Well, that's what it was designed for. What's the agency website URL people can go and check out the agency? Bob: [00:18:55] Sure it's truthcollective.com. All one word is until the truth. It's not like some weird UFO tracking organization. It's not some church, you know, we, we'd get all kinds of crazy stuff, but truthcollective.com and we're all over social. Jason: [00:19:13] Awesome. Well, thanks so much, Bob, for coming on the show, we really enjoyed it. If you guys liked that episode, make sure you like subscribe, tell a friend, tell a fellow agency owner that you'll help them out because look, we all know we're struggling a lot of the times they will help out. And if you want to be around amazing agency owners on a consistent basis and really what they're doing in order for you to scale faster. And you know, sometimes it's a shrink session. Sometimes it's a fun session. Sometimes it's like, oh my God, this is the best strategy I've ever heard. I'd like for all of you to go to digitalagencyelite.com and check out the mastermind. See if it's right for you. If you feel it is, apply. We'll have a conversation and we'll go from there. And, uh, so go to digitalagencyelite.com. And until next time have a Swenk day.

What metrics should you track to create a successful lead generation strategy? Kara Brown had been working on a string of supply chain corporate jobs where she oversaw IPOs and eventually decided to create her own business and focus on lead generation. She believes filling the top of the funnel now will be the first to capture market share in the recovery. With LeadCoverage, she focuses on B2B revenue operations and acquisition strategies for scaling companies. In her conversation with Jason, they spoke about what she has seen working for lead generation, what every company should be measuring to keep a profitable business, and how you can save time on prospects that won't become customers. 3 Golden Nuggets Measure what's happening in your funnel. Many agencies don't have a really good lead generation source and are leaning on word of mouth to get new clients. You really have to find that source to keep growing. Where do most businesses fail? Kara says most companies she works with fail at truly measuring what's happening inside their funnel. At the top of her lead generation strategies are “share good news, track who's interested, and then follow up.” Another successful strategy is getting as niche as possible. “When your niche is small, you can be hyper-targeted in your approach,” she says. This will save you a lot of time with clients that don't meet your criteria. Measuring volume, velocity, and value. Kara is not running a creative agency, but she is all about making her business as profitable and valuable as possible. When it comes to how valuable her consultancy or her agency is, she thinks in terms of measuring volume, value, and velocity. Velocity is how fast are they getting in your funnel? Volume is how many deals can you handle any one time and how many deals are going to fill your pipelines? This is all about close ratios and trying not to spend too much time on deals that won't close. And value is all about what is this potential customer truly going to be worth to you? For this, try to be really honest and don't overvalue customers. Lead with pricing to save time. When you are speaking with potential customers, do you lead with the budget? Doing so could really help your closing ratio and save you a lot of time on deals that aren't going to close. Kara prefers to be really straightforward with her approach and start the conversation by stating what her company does for customers and say “this is our minimum monthly rate” to find out whether it is on that potential customer's budget or not. If they're not, then she offers to use the rest of the call to give free advice. She assures this is helpful and saves her a lot of time. Sponsors and Resources Sharpspring: Today's episode is sponsored by Sharpspring, an all-in-one revenue growth platform that provides all of the marketing automation, CRM, & sales features you need to support your entire customer lifecycle. Partner with an affordable marketing automation provider that you can trust. Head over to sharpspring.com/smartagency to enjoy an exclusive offer for podcast listeners. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Measure Your Way to a Successful Lead Strategy and Stop Wasting Time on the Wrong Prospects {These transcripts have been auto-generated. While largely accurate, they may contain some errors.} Jason: [00:00:00] What's up, agency owners? Jason Swenk here, and have another amazing digital agency podcast guest for you. We're going to talk about lead generation for your digital agency. It's going to be a fun show, so let's go ahead and get into it. Hey, Kara. Welcome to the show. Kara: [00:00:22] Hey! Thanks for having me. Jason: [00:00:23] Yeah, I'm excited to have you on. So tell us who you are and what do you do? Kara: [00:00:27] Yeah, I'm Kara Brown. I'm the CEO and founder of LeadCoverage and we do B2B lead gen for supply chain, heavy industrial, and tech. Jason: [00:00:35] Awesome. And so how'd you get started in creating an agency? Kara: [00:00:40] Yeah, that's a funny story. So I was the 12th employee at a company called Echo Global Logistics. Very sexy, all the trucks. Uh, actually a super sexy, the guy that started Echo Global Logistics also started Groupon. So I got to send the first Groupon email. It's a true story. It came from my inbox. Got to watch them grow like crazy and then ended up being on the team that took the company I was working for went public. So I did an IPO at about 25. Uh, I was asked to move to Nashville to do another IPO for a private equity company, for another supply chain management company. Sort of a stream of, of supply chain, corporate jobs. And then ended up back in Chicago, popped out two kids, moved to Atlanta, moved here for a sort of a garbage brokerage jobs. So it was sort of similar to supply chain but in a different space. Instead of going public, that company raised $95 million in equity. When I exited that, the question was like, what to do next? And someone told me the statistic that less than 2% of female founders will ever break a million dollars in revenue. And I said, well, that doesn't sound that hard. So I did it with an all female team. It took us about 10 months and now we're on the path to ten million. Jason: [00:01:54] Awesome. So is Groupon still around? I haven't heard anything from them. Kara: [00:01:58] Yes. They're still around. They're a publicly-traded company. Please buy some Groupon things. Jason: [00:02:05] So you must have some stock. Kara: [00:02:08] Yeah, I think… They still exists. They're still out of 600 West Chicago and sort of a Chicago tech darling from the early two thousands. Jason: [00:02:15] Very cool. Uh, funny story, my wife got me a Groupon in a helicopter, like 10 years ago for my birthday. And I'm like, I'm not doing it. I'm scared to death of helicopters. That's right. Let's talk about lead generation. You know, I find a lot of digital agencies, they take on the wrong clients and they take on the wrong clients because they haven't been building their pipeline. They haven't been building their pipeline because they don't have a really good lead generation source in order to really kind of tap on because they're based on word of mouth. So what have you seen working for lead-generation? Kara: [00:02:55] Sure. So we have nine lead gen strategies, but I'll start sort of at the top. So at the top is share good news, track who's interested, follow up. Most companies that we interact with, either customers or people that would just help out as friends. Are doing one or two of those and almost none of them, almost none of them, of the companies we talked to are tracking any of it, right? Like really, truly measuring what's happening inside their funnel. And so one of the things that we've found successful for Lead Coverage is getting as niche as possible. So our niche is supply chain management companies over a hundred million in revenue or venture-backed. And basically, if you don't hit one or two of those criteria, we may take you on as a client, but we may not. We may say no, thank you. And that's been very successful for us. So in terms of lead gen, when your niche is small, you can be hyper-targeted in your approach. If you're wide and not very deep, it's really easy to end up talking to a lot of folks that aren't super valuable. The other thing that we like to measure, which we can definitely talk about later, we do a lot of measurement in our company, is we measure volume, velocity and value. And I think most important for agencies is value, right? So a very smart man part of the Groupon kickoff team in the very beginning of the early days said to me, hey, Kara, it is… it costs to you, just as much money to run a $250,000 account as it does a $2,500 account. So get upstream and get as big as you can. Get your, get your retainers as big as you can, as fast as you can. Because that's where the real money-making happens. Jason: [00:04:48] You mean you don't want to race to the bottom? I see a lot of people when they initially talk with us, we really kind of determined that pricing is one of their big issues. And they're like, well, my competitor is actually cheaper. We're actually more. I'm like, what does that matter? Do you want to win that race? I was like, I don't. Kara: [00:05:10] We just decided to raise our minimums. I went to a trade show last week for our very specific niche industry, right? So every single person at that show could be a customer for us, which I think is super important. We went to the show and the number that I told everyone, nobody said it was too expensive. And I came back to the office after two days in the trade show floor. And I said, we need to increase our minimum because no one told me it was too much. And when no one's telling you, you're too expensive, you're not charging enough. Jason: [00:05:40] Yeah. Yeah, totally. Yep. Totally agree. Get in a little bit more about kind of the velocity and the volume and the, the value. Let's talk a little bit more about that. Kara: [00:05:49] Yeah. We love measurement. So we are not a creative agency. We don't have a creative director. We don't do creative. We don't do color theory. We're probably very different than most of the folks that listen to your podcast. But I still listen to the two Bobs and I'm all about agency work. And I'm like all about sort of consulting and how do I make this business as profitable and valuable as possible? So when I think about how valuable my consultancy or my agency is, I think about volume, value, and velocity. So how fast are my customers finding me? And then how fast can I get them to close the deal? Velocity story is a funny one. I have a client that we have been or potential client we've been talking to for over two years. And I think I may tell him it is time to stop talking to each other. Like it's nice. But, um, I've sort of sent him enough info. I've done enough. We've had enough phone calls. I've talked to enough of his people. It's been two years. If you're not going to buy, you're not going to buy, right? So that's velocity. But we also had a few weeks ago, our first one call-close. So we were introduced to someone, they came through a LinkedIn post that I wrote, which I should definitely mention how we do LinkedIn because it's really interesting. And one call the guy was like, great. Let's do it. And our minimums, Jason, are $15,000 a month. And the guy was like, I don't want your minimum. I want to be a big fish in your pond. We were like, all right, let's do it. So those are really exciting. So velocity is how fast are they getting in your funnel? Volume is how many deals can you handle any one time and how many deals are going to fill your, fill your actual pipelines? This is all about close ratios, right? So you can have a whole bunch of conversations, but if they're only closing 5 to 10% of them, you're spending a lot of time on deals that aren't going to close. So I have a thing that I do… fair it may not be nice, but it helps me save a lot of time. I will look at who I'm talking to before I get on the phone. And if they're not in our box, I will open the call with something to this effect: It's so nice to meet you, Jason. I want to talk a little bit about what we do and who we do it for. I'm going to tell you how much. If we're not in your budget, we'll use the next 25 minutes. I'm going to give you 25 minutes of free advice. My minimum is $20,000 a month and my core market is supply chain technology and heavy industrial. Does that feel like something that you can afford? And if they're like, oh my budget's like $2,000 a month or something crazy, then I'll say, hey, no problem. Let's use the next 25 minutes and I'll give you all the free advice I can. That's really helpful. They also don't call me again. So I don't have to like go down the rigor mortise of like giving them a proposal for $20K a month. And they're like, uh, we're not on the same page. So that stops that and then value, right? What is this potential customer going to be worth to me? Like really, truly going to be worth to me. And I don't do the work you do. So I don't work with agency owners. But I would imagine that there are a lot of folks out there who overvalue potential customers, right? I think this product is going to come in at 80 grand and it comes in at 20. I think that this customer is going to stick around for two years and they stay for three months, right? So being really, truly honest with yourself on values really important. And the best way to check out value is just to have someone, probably not you, if you're the CEO. Go back and look at your, at your previous customers, right? Like take a deep dive and really be honest with yourself on how much is each customer actually truly worth to you? Jason: [00:09:21] Is your agency struggling to deliver real revenue growth results to your clients? You know, agency marketers can consolidate data and align marketing and sales teams goals to achieve real results for your agency and clients using revenue growth platforms. Sharpspring is an all-in-one platform built for agencies like yours to optimize digital marketing strategies with simple, powerful automation. Manage your entire funnel all in Sharpspring. Now for a limited time, my smart agency listeners will receive your first month free and half off onboarding with Sharpspring. Just visit sharpspring.com/smartagency to schedule your demo and grab this offer. That's sharpspring.com/smartagency. Yeah, I love it. And I love that you get right to the budget in the very beginning. There's so many people, you know, when I'm speaking to a crowd, one of the two questions I'll ask is all right, how many people get the budget every single time or almost every time? And then, you know, how many people ask for it? And by the it's about 50% of the room than ask. And then 50% of that, it's only a quarter of the percent of agencies are actually getting the budget. And that's before they put all that work in it. I would always go to them and say, I just need a range of what you're trying to stick around. Because here's the deal, especially on pricing, and I learned this the hard way when I talked to a small company, I never heard of called Berkshire Hathaway. And I pitched them like a $20,000 website. They were expecting 30,000. So like if I started out, like I would always try to lead with what's their expectation and then match them there. But I would also even have a floor. Uh, so pricing is very important. Kara: [00:11:12] So I actually disagree. I lead with our pricing. Because if they're willing to pay you $30,000 for a website, there's probably $120,000 somewhere in their budget, right? And I think as a woman, this isn't necessarily agency owner, but as a woman, knowing other women in business, we tend to undervalue ourselves. And what I've found is, as my retainers have gone from 5 to 7 to 12 to 15 to $20,000 minimums, no one's saying no, right? Like very few people say to me, I can't afford you, right? Unless they're like just out of the box, but if they're in the box and they understand the value and I've done a good job of delivering what we do and showing them what we do and how we do it and what the value is we bring. As long as I lead with my minimum… Actually, it's not even the minimum. I learned something at an EO event, the entrepreneur organization that the human brain anchors on the first number that you tell someone. So when someone says to me, Kara, how do we work with you? I say, well, our average retainer comes in between 30 and $40,000 a month, but our minimum is 20. So instead of them saying, oh, I can get this person for five grand a month because I say something like our minimum is five grand. They're already like, oh, well she's like, she's really expensive. Like, can I afford her home? Like, oh, like maybe I should find another $30,000 a month somewhere to pay this person. So I think it's really important that you set your own standards and there's always money in corporations. I have worked for enormous corporations in my corporate career. There's always money. Always. Jason: [00:12:58] Yeah. Yeah. I call it the reverse engineer effect when you're going over the range, because so many people, when they go, I just need to know a range. A thousand, fove thousand? I would literally start at a billion and then a million and then a hundred thousand and 20,000. So they echo that first number going, holy cow, no one else said that. What makes you so unique? And you can really separate yourself. And switching focus a little bit. You hinted a little bit to the LinkedIn post. Tell us how you do that. Kara: [00:13:28] Yeah, so we can attribute $480,000 to two LinkedIn posts. And that's just in 2020, not in 2021. So super proud of this whole process. I post super regularly on LinkedIn. Sometimes I post about being a woman in business. Sometimes it's about marketing. Sometimes it's just like, I don't know thoughts of the week that I've decided that I want to share. I have a ghost writer. She's on my team. Should we speak for about an hour a week. Now, because we've been working together for a while, she can get almost four LinkedIn posts out of that one hour. I also write for Forbes and Entrepreneur and other magazines. So she does those for me at the same time. And she writes the post themselves. They're my words, but she physically crafts them. They go to my team, my team adds the emojis and make sure that they're, if people are tagged and then they go into a file for me to approve. I approve. And then they get scheduled. So we have posts that are going out. We're recording this in September. We've got posts going up through the end of November and I'll be gone the entire month of October. So I'll still be posting even though I'll be in Europe, which is really nice. And so we can see attribution of almost $500,000 to LinkedIn. And this is LinkedIn thought leadership. And it cost me probably 2000 bucks a month to do this. So it's my most ROI driven piece of, of lead gen that we do for myself. And it's been a terrific way for us to meet people. You can't always track every single lead back to LinkedIn, but it was a, it was a funny story. I was at this trade show I just mentioned in our niche industry. And I ran into some guy that I had known from a million years ago. And he said Kara, I read every LinkedIn post and I was like, awesome. And he said… Jason: [00:15:11] Stalker. Kara: [00:15:12] Stalker, right? Well, that's the whole point, like, please stalk me. And he said, may I please introduce you to my CMO? I think that I'd really like to make sure that you two meet each other and now they're going to be a client. So you never know who's reading it. They may not be liking, sharing and engaging, but put it be putting yourself out there is super important. Jason: [00:15:31] Yeah. I love it. And these are just regular posts. Do you have a call to action on there or is it just helpful? Kara: [00:15:36] Yeah. So we're trying to, the LinkedIn algorithm changes pretty regularly. We do this for clients as well. So we have a human being on our team who is regularly trying to sort of like bust the LinkedIn algorithm. Not in an ugly way, just in a, how do we use it to our advantage? So one of the stats she told me that I was really surprised is that less than 2% of people that are on LinkedIn are actively posting. So just by actively engaging in LinkedIn, they're already in the top 2% of folks that are sort of voyeurs only, right? And so, as long as you just put anything out there, you're going to be sort of doing better than other folks. If you get into like exactly what, you know, doing posts, doing polls calls to action links, links back to landing pages. Links to, to form fills and video. We can, it's a whole another podcast we can do just to talk about how to like optimize LinkedIn. In my professional opinion, that this is specifically for my market, which is supply chain, heavy, industrial and tech. I don't need to put video out there. I don't need to be super complicated about it because no one's buying from LinkedIn, right? LinkedIn just keeps me front and center for the folks in my world and in my universe. That when I see them at the trade show or when I send them an email or when they see something from me that's interesting and they have a need. They're like, oh man, there's this woman who posts all the time on LinkedIn. She's really interesting. I'm going to reach out, right? So it's just about staying in the conversation. Jason: [00:17:03] Yeah. It's about consistency. You know, you mentioned you were chatting with someone for two years. Holy cow, like if I was chatting with them, but when I look at my, our stats, most people don't buy from us for about a year and a half to two years. They're digesting that content, which isn't a sweat off my back and if they never buy it and they just get helpful content, I'm perfectly fine with that as well. But, but yeah, just to go through the proposal process for two years, that is a yeah. Shit or get off the pot dude. Kara: [00:17:34] And yeah, this particular human is such a nice guy and he's so kind, and I know he does want to work with us and he is very specifically strapped by, you know, investors and sort of what these investors want to do. I get it. And it doesn't bother me to like, have a relationship with this person. He is also well connected. He's a good human, but we are going to have to at some point, be like, hey, I can't do one more deliverable for you, right? Like I can't, I can't put together another email or send you another proposal. Like they're all the same. Like, it hasn't changed. Like the same proposal you got two years ago was going to be the same one I'm going to send you now because what we do, hasn't really changed. Jason: [00:18:13] Awesome. Well, this has all been great, Kara. Is there anything I didn't ask you that you think would benefit the audience listening in? Kara: [00:18:19] You know, I think one of the things that's really important to us, Jason, is the combination of failed the market. That sales and marketing, including PR and AR analyst relations, which I know a lot of folks in digital marketing don't really touch analysts at all. Cause it's kind of boring, but really important to your senior leaders, right? So if you're going up market, and this is not small business, this is enterprise. So we're very fortunate in the, in our niche. We have sort of along the spectrum, small business, all the way up through sort of big corporate enterprise, even publicly traded companies. And so we get to touch everything from analyst relations to public relations, all the way through, but long story short, the deeper we get in the niche, the higher our prices can go and the more we get integrated with both PR AR and sales. And the stickier you get, the more you can deliver math back to your client that goes to their boss, that goes to the board. The longer you'll stay in the organization, the more valuable you are and the more sticky, just the stickier that you get in inside those orbes. And so that's my sort of best piece of advice is if you can deliver math back to your clients, specifically math that goes to the board or to some sort of senior executive, you will be very, very sticky. So find something that's meaningful to your customer that you can deliver on a regular basis. That means something to their boss. Jason: [00:19:46] Awesome. Love it. What's the agency website people can go and check you guys out? Kara: [00:19:50] Yeah. We're lead coverage.com and we'd love to hear from anyone who wants to talk more about lead gen or anything about supply chain. Jason: [00:19:58] Awesome. Well, thanks so much, Kara, for coming on the show. Make sure you guys go check out the website, connect with Kara. And if you guys want to be around the most amazing agency owners in the world, where they're sharing  what's working currently to be able to see the things you may not be able to see as well as have fun scaling your business. I'd like to invite all of you. Go to check out digitalagencyelite.com. This is our exclusive mastermind just for digital agency owners. So go to digitalagencyelite.com and until next time have a Swenk day.

Do you know how relationship equity could help you grow your business and establish yourself as a category of one? Michael Stamatinos has always thought of himself as a connector. His love for building bridges and connections led him to the business development, marketing, and sales world. He founded Omorfi, an agency that empowers individuals to take a leadership role in their community and he focused on his passion for the healthcare sector, the role of leadership in communities, and helping people make connections. In this episode, he sat down with Jason to talk about how relationship equity became the core of all his interactions with the people in his life, how agency owners could use this concept to improve their relationships with clients and peers, and how being passionate about your business can really help you establish yourself as a category of one. 3 Golden Nuggets Relationship equity. Michael considers himself to be a connector. He loves creating connections between people and really believes in the concept of relationship equity. To him, relationships are like a bank account, you have to make sure to make a deposit and you have enough money before making a withdrawal or a purchase. “There are folks that are very quick to make massive withdrawals and they haven't substantiated,” he explains. People will sometimes try to get something from a person without first establishing a true connection with them and building trust. How can you do that? By taking that relationship and multiplying it by time and by value. That is what truly builds relationship equity. How can agency owners use it? Relationship equity is all about connections and being bridge builders. Agency owners can really benefit from this approach when they focus on really understanding who it is that you're trying to serve and know what it is that's going on in their environment and in their world. Understand it so well that they think, this person really gets me and my business. But this is something that you can also take to your relationship with peers. “It's amazing what doors can be opened when you try to approach the world from a place of abundance,” Michael assures. Be in a category of one. Having that connection and understanding of your client's business and needs will happen especially when you find a niche you're really passionate about. When there's a connection that allows you the opportunity to start building and cultivating that relationship and building that bridge, this is the start of establishing yourself as a category of one in your industry. This way, you can empathize with and what they're going through and ask how can I help? Who can I connect you to? Sponsors and Resources Sharpspring: Today's episode is sponsored by Sharpspring, an all-in-one revenue growth platform that provides all of the marketing automation, CRM, & sales features you need to support your entire customer lifecycle. Partner with an affordable marketing automation provider that you can trust. Head over to sharpspring.com/smartagency to enjoy an exclusive offer for podcast listeners. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Investing in Relationship Equity and Establishing Yourself as a Category of One Jason: [00:00:00] What's up, agency owners? Excited to have another amazing episode. We're going to talk about relationship equity, and you're going to want to really hear what we're going to talk about and I got an amazing guest. So let's go ahead and get into the show. Hey, Michael. Welcome to the show. Michael: [00:00:22] Hey, it's good to be here. Jason: [00:00:23] Yeah. So tell us who you are and what do you do? Michael: [00:00:27] Uh, so Michael Stamatinos. Managing partner of Omorfi and we work with clients that are focused on growth. We work on strategic growth initiatives with some execution services. So it really boils down to one word: access, access to the right people, access to the right strategic partners, and in some cases, access to the right growth capital. So we really view ourselves as bridge builders and connectors at heart. I am a connector and that's really what we're focused on. So come from a pretty humble background. Parents are both immigrants, so grew up working in restaurants, being Greek, and just love working with people to the point where I wanted to be a clinical psychologist. And after my training, I realized that I didn't want to be in living receptacle to people's stuff. I still wanted to help people. So gravitate it into the world of business development, marketing, and sales, and been there ever since. Jason: [00:01:18] So I'm dying to ask you and you. And you probably get asked this a lot just based on how you did the intro about your family being Greek and in the restaurant business. Is your family like the Big Fat Greek Wedding? Michael: [00:01:29] 100% Yes. Jason: [00:01:33] How many cousins do you have? Michael: [00:01:35] We have several cousins named Nick and Peter and Costa, and it's very family-oriented. And my dad is quite a character, you know. When he talks to people, he's very animated, loves to tell stories. My mom's a little bit more of sort of the, just a homemaker, very peaceful, very calm. So sort of the ying and yang there. But my dad was a really hard worker and just grinded for a long time and stayed consistent. I think if there's anything that I've taken from him, it's that. Staying consistent and having discipline. Jason: [00:02:07] Awesome. Well, let's talk about relationship equity. How do you view this? Michael: [00:02:13] So I have an interesting story of how that kind of came about. So as I mentioned earlier, yeah, I'm a connector. I've always been a connector my whole entire life. I get a lot of joy out of putting people together, regardless of whether something's in it for me or not. And I was in a meeting one day with a client… And I don't know if you've ever had, if this has ever happened to you, but I got a stream of thoughts that were so clear that I had to excuse myself from the meeting. And I call it, I got a memo from that office, if you know what I'm saying. And that hadn't happened to me up until that point in my life. So I left that meeting. I always carry a little notebook with me. So I jotted down three sort of overlapping circles with a circle in the middle that intersects all the other circles. And I called it relationship equity, and really relationships are very similar to a bank account. When you initially start a bank account, you deposit some money. Well, if you want to go out and purchase something after you've started your bank account, you would draw some money. The reality is that if you continue to withdraw and you want to make a big purchase and you don't have enough money in there deposited, it's going to say insufficient funds. And that's really how I'm seeing the world now is that there are folks that are very quick to make massive withdrawals and they haven't substantiated. They'll do withdrawals by putting in deposits into that account. And sort of the three circles within relationship equity, that makeup relationship equity rather is trust. How do you build trust with people? Well, you have to have some level of authenticity and I'm not here trying to be someone that I'm not. I'm a real person, normal person. And there has to be some sort of a connection. In our case, it was through, you know, one of your members, Pete, Pete Cunningham. And that's how we really kind of transferred that relationship equity. And so there's that trust that. And then how do you build that relationship? Well, you take that trust and you multiply it over time. And it doesn't necessarily have to be long stretches of time. It could be short, such as it's on there's some folks that have gotten really close to in short amount of time. And then how do you build equity within that relationship? Well, you take that relationship and you multiply it by value. And the way that I define value for me is helping someone for the sake of helping them not having a hidden agenda. And when you do all those things, you build relationship equity. So when people ask me, what game am I in? I'm in the game of building relationship equity all the time. Whether it be with my wife, with my kids, with my friends and family and with clients and prospects. That's what I'm doing. And that's look, that's what got me here today. I didn't reach out to you and ask you to be on your show. It was through a series of activities of trying to add value and trying to be helpful and building relationship equity, which inevitably was transferred to this particular moment here. So this is something that I'm going to be doing until I'm not here anymore, regardless. Jason: [00:05:10] Yeah. I love the term and I've always told people, you know, especially cause they're like, hey, let me, uh, you got the audience I want. I'll give you this amount of money. I'm like, no, it just doesn't work that way. I'm like, you got to make deposits before you're withdrawing. I mean, a great example… It's always been, since I've been a kid, my grandfather worked on the long island railroad and I've always wanted to ride in front of the steam engine. And I met this one guy, Greg, that a mutual friend introduced us because he usually takes off a lot of time. We go play. And so we started kind of a couple of weeks ago, epic Fridays. So we just go out, climb mountains, do some really cool stuff. And I was telling him, you know, we were talking about like bucket list items and stuff like that. And I was like, man, you know, I've always wanted a ride in a steam engine. He's like, I know the owner of the Durango Silverton Railroad. Let me call them up for you. He surprised me. And so in the next couple of days, I'm going to get to ride, hit the whistle and everything. So just, just from relationships, like I didn't ask for that. So… Michael: [00:06:17] It's amazing. It's amazing what doors can be opened when you try to approach the world from a place of abundance and not to sound all woo or anything. But when you really try to add value and try to really help people for the sake of helping people, not only are you advancing society at large, but I dunno, it just, there's more opportunities that have come across my desk that I could ever take advantage of. It's just trying to be, be that way. So I think I'm going to keep doing that. Jason: [00:06:41] Yeah. I mean, there's so many examples. I, you know, I think of, you know, in our mastermind, you know, some members like Dunkin or Ian or Jeremy. They provide so much value to the membership, but they get so much business back and that's not their whole intent. Like they don't go in it saying like you were saying, well, what can I get from this? It's like, I'm going to give, but then whenever they need anything, like people are like, I'll give you the shirt off my back. What do you need? And they're just people that recognize that you really start scaling… You know, I was very minded, many years of my career, like, oh, you're in this business, I'm going to take you down. And then I'm like, no, no, no, you can build relationships and work with people. And even if you never get anything back from it, you feel good by doing it. Michael: [00:07:30] Yeah. The currency that I play with is relationship equity. And I get, as I mentioned earlier, like I view myself as a bridge builder. And what better way to live life than to continue to build bridges, show people how to build bridges. In other instances, you're doing the bridge building for them. But then you're also building tools to show people how to build bridges. I mean, I didn't go to a fancy school. I don't have any of these fancy degree. I didn't go in and I didn't do any of that stuff. And somehow I pinch myself sometimes when I find myself in some of these meetings with people, quite frankly, that sometimes I'm like, wow, how did I get here? Oh my gosh. And I did. And it has a lot to do with knowing how to get access to just scale. And it's all about building relationship equity. Jason: [00:08:18] Yeah. So the agency owners listening in, is there any steps or there's no trickery here, but if they're thinking, well, man, I would like to build more relationships and I'm thinking back, you know, a couple of years ago for me, I was crappy at building relationships. Like it's very hard to get in with me. Once you're in, you're in, you know, I was always closed minded and that kind of stuff. So how can agency owners benefit from this? Michael: [00:08:47] The way that agency owners can benefit from it is as follows is, understand who it is that you're trying to serve and know what it is that's going on in their environment and in their world and know it's so well to the point where they're like, wow, this person really understands me. That's how you connect with people. You having been a former agency owner and knowing the growing pains, the ins and outs you'd been there before. And when you're trying to serve a specific niche or market and you understand problems that are very… And I'm not talking about just surface level deep, I'm talking about going four or 5, 6, 7 levels down. That's when there's a connection that allows you the opportunity to start building and cultivating that relationship and building that bridge. So it starts there. And then the other thing that you really are trying to do is you really are going to have to position yourself as being, you know, that category of one. That truly understands that market. I mean, you have quite a niche and I'm assuming it wasn't, it was, it didn't happen by chance. This was done by design. And it had a lot to do with how you position yourself and how you understood the pain points that agency owners were going through. Jason: [00:10:00] Is your agency struggling to deliver real revenue growth results to your clients? You know, agency marketers can consolidate data and align marketing and sales teams goals to achieve real results for your agency and clients using revenue growth platforms. Sharpspring is an all-in-one platform built for agencies like yours to optimize digital marketing strategies with simple, powerful automation. Manage your entire funnel all in Sharpspring. Now, for a limited time my smart agency listeners will receive your first month free and half off onboarding with SharpSpring. Just visit sharpspring.com/smartagency to schedule your demo and grab this offer. That's sharpspring.com/smartagency. Yeah, I always tell everybody I'm like, you have to know your audience you're going after and understand what they're feeling. Not their problem, but yes, you have to understand their problem, but how does that problem actually make them feel? And then empathize with them. You know, there's many people that do what I do that has no empathy and they just, they just kind of go shouting down from their fake mountain going, hey, I can help you, you know, look at what all the shit I've done. Versus like, I've been what you're going through. I totally get it. How can I help? Who can I connect you to? You know, one of the things I always tell people after I, I meet with them, like, is there any back connect you with? Because I do believe, like you were saying, you're a connector, you know, I've seen that, like the people that go, hey, you need to meet this person. And then whenever they're like, man, that relationship was amazing. Thanks so much, Jason. You know, and then just keep building on that. So I totally agree with all this. It's so easy. It's not like rocket science. I think you have to be aware in order to do it and kind of almost, you're almost kind of changing yourself a little bit because I think early on, I think we're all takers versus givers and when you give yeah, you get more. Michael: [00:12:10] And there's a great book called The Go-Giver and it's, I'm looking at something that I've described to as a kid, that there's something that when you shift from everyone defines success differently, by the way. For me, it's about being able to have the time and money to do what it is that I want to do and do it with the people that I want to do with and having great relationships with those people. I mean, at the end of the day, I'm not a slave to money. Don't get me wrong. It's, it's an important aspect of things that it's not the end all be all. And when you really place your identity outside of that, you start to make this shift from being successful to then being significant. So the shift from being successful to significant is it's a long journey and it takes a lot of work. And I can't say that it was a smooth ride for me, and it's not, I'm not done. I'm not done by any stretch, just so have a lot of growing to do. And the best is yet to come. Jason: [00:13:03] Yeah. And I think when you make that shift to significance, I remember when I sold the first agency, I was depressed and it was because I didn't have that significance. And then when I was able to create the community that we've created and really connect all these amazing agency owners together. You know, then I was like, oh man, I feel like I'm on top of the world. Versus before I felt like I was on the top of the world by myself. And that sucked a lot of people look at it from the outside and they're like, oh, that's awesome. I'm like, no, man. Like I enjoyed the journey. I enjoyed the climb. And now I feel like when you're connecting all these other people, you can be on their journey as well. And that's really pretty cool. Michael: [00:13:46] It's like, you know, like, a Sherpa. Jason: [00:13:49] Yeah, exactly. But I just, I can't climb as much. I can't climb as fast as, as those guys. That's amazing. Whenever you watch any of those Sherpas on Everest, I'm like, how are they doing this? And why would they want to do it? Michael: [00:14:06] It's crazy to see that happen. But I think it's metaphoric too. The hardest clients usually have the best views does. But sometimes those climbs might not necessarily be successful. I mean, I have to tell you that, you know, part of my growth story , and I'd be remiss if I didn't say this, came through a failed startup. I had placed everything into this, everything, you know, some people spend money to go do their MBA. I dropped every single thing that I had saved into this thing. And it didn't go well. And my identity was wrapped up into that. So having visions of grandeur, you know, making it and had, I knew just kind of looking back now because you know, you get kind of depressed when you lose everything. It's, it's not a fun place. You learn a lot about yourself. Jason: [00:14:56] But it makes you appreciate everything so much more as you're moving forward, because I was hiking the mountain yesterday and I was going through this thick brush and it just kept getting thicker and thicker. I couldn't get through it. So I had to backtrack. I had to go back down. And then find another route up. And that's, that's everything. We do everything in business, in life, everything it's never a straight path. It's always the zigzags and knowing when to turn back, I mean, I could have probably made it through, but I would have been bloodied and banged up. I was like, kinda like walking. So, awesome. Well, this has all been amazing. Michael, is there anything I didn't ask you that you think would benefit the audience? Michael: [00:15:42] I think just to, just around knowing and taking that niche that you feel like you can be the best in the world. I mean, I didn't say this, but you know, we have a really big presence in the digital health space. And it's sort of done by design in that aspect. And we've really positioned ourselves and placed ourselves to being in a category of one and pick something that you believe that you can be in a category of one and name it, name it, and tame it and proclaim it is the reality is that there's a lot of digital agencies that are out there and it's hard to differentiate. So do your damn best to be able to do that and pick your claim and work it and work it and work it and work it and stay consistent over time. Consistency over time wins. I'm telling you that there's, you know, people may think that we're pretty successful at what we do, but I got a lot of scars on my back to showcase that it's been a long journey and we stayed consistent throughout the whole entire time. Jason: [00:16:49] I love it. Yeah. You know, and you have to be passionate and whatever you pick don't choose it based on money. Like we were talking in the pre-show, why you chose healthcare and why you started working with other industries, like in plastic that you were like, oh, that's healthcare as well. Cause you're passionate about it. And the more passionate about it, the more you're going to do, and it's going to resonate with your audience that you're going after. Versus just kind of getting a stupid course out there that says here's the most profitable niches for agencies and pick one. Michael: [00:17:20] Um, I care about two things that I'm very passionate about, you know, relationship equity kind of really factors into this notion of access. And the way that I view access is around customers, partners, etcetera, but on a broader scale access around access to care, access to things like food. I mean, there's 50 plus million Americans now that don't know where their next meal is going to come from. That's an access  Golproblem, access to, you know, so access is something I care very, very deeply about when I see people that can't get access or maybe someone that wants to try to get into a job and necessarily can't get in and, um, you know, that's an access problem. And then the second thing that I believe that things hinge on is leadership. And there are leaders right now that are coming into some very influential roles that they're not necessarily tech savvy, they're tech dependent. They grew up with an iPhone. They grew up with a smartphone. And they view innovation as, as a differentiator, the view innovation as a way to generate more revenue. And when you're working with a digital agency and aspect of what they do is innovation. And the way I define innovation is providing value to many. Then you can do that incrementally over time. So those things kind of combined, you know, really hinge on whether or not people are going to be accepting of adoption of some of these innovations that come through. And that's exciting to me because you interact with people that you just problems that they're solving can inevitably make a pretty big radical shift and be part of that journey is an absolute privilege. Jason: [00:19:00] Yeah, exactly. Awesome. What's the website people go and check you out if they want to reach out to you? Michael: [00:19:06] Well, I'm on LinkedIn, so people can check me out on LinkedIn, Michael Stamatinos, and they can go to our website, michaelstamo.com and they can hear from us there. Jason: [00:19:15] Awesome. Okay, everyone, go check that out. Michael, thanks so much for coming on the show. And if you guys want to build relations that equity and be around them, amazing agency owners all over the world that are sharing what's working. Having a lot of fun, passing a ton of business back and forth. I really never talked about that, but just really elevating each other along the way over the years. I'd love for all of you to go check out digitalagencyelite.com. This is our exclusive mastermind for agency owners that want to grow and scale faster and just be transparent and have a lot of fun. So go to digitalagencyelite.com and until next time have a Swenk day.

Are you looking to start your transition to the role of agency CEO? David Anderson started living the entrepreneurial dream more than twenty years ago when he started Off Madison Ave, a full-service marketing agency he founded with his partner after getting fired from his agency job. After two decades as a business owner, David has experienced success and failure. Having learned from many successes and the hard knocks of business and life. In his conversation with Jason, he talks about the many challenges and mistakes that helped him learn, why taking a step back from day-to-day operations is a marathon, not a sprint, the importance of building your leadership team and letting them make their own mistakes, and what he has learned after many agency acquisitions. 3 Golden Nuggets Taking a step back is a process. After many years in the business and finally being able to take a step back to being his agency's CEO, David admits that he made many mistakes along the way. The first time, he recalls, he hired someone from the outside and did not have a solid onboarding process for that person. That fell apart quickly and they even ended up losing clients. Later, he had a leadership team implement EOS, which he highly recommends, but he chose not to be the innovator and integrator. It fell apart and he had to step in to fix the situation. Finally, he brought somebody up through the ranks, worked on a transition plan, clearly defined authority, and is holding that person accountable. “It's a process,” he says, “and you will have your failures in it.” Allow leaders to learn from mistakes. David has figured out a leadership team system that works for his agency. There were mistakes along the way, however. One of them was tying the head of the team's financial bonus to their financial income. He later changed that and now their bonuses are tied to the overall performance of the agency, not of an individual. Also, what business owners need to do is let go as they bring on those senior people. You don't hire senior people and micromanage. They don't want to be told what to do. With that, you also have to accept that there will be failures and things that don't work. If you want to grow your team, you need to let them make mistakes. On mergers and acquisitions. With 24 years in the business, our guest has seen his fair share of acquisitions. So, what does he look for in a potential purchase? In their case, as a full-service agency, they look for businesses that can complement their services. So they've purchased agencies that allow them to gain a deeper focus on some aspect of the business. On the financial side, they are definitely looking at the EBITDA. He's also made some mistakes on this front, and his advice is that, when it comes to people who will help you evaluate a potential acquisitions organization, they need to understand the industry. The person selling won't mind if you're uneducated, but you will surely overpay. Sponsors and Resources Sharpspring: Today's episode is sponsored by Sharpspring, an all-in-one revenue growth platform that provides all of the marketing automation, CRM, & sales features you need to support your entire customer lifecycle. Partner with an affordable marketing automation provider that you can trust. Head over to sharpspring.com/smartagency to enjoy an exclusive offer for podcast listeners. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Building Your Leadership Team & Letting Go of Day-to-Day Operations is a Marathon, Not a Sprint Jason: [00:00:00] What's up, agency owners? Jason Swenk here with another amazing episode and amazing guest. We're going to talk to an eight-figure agency owner who's going to talk about how he really kind of transitioned out of really doing everything and transitioned more to a leadership role where he doesn't have to make all the decisions, which I think a lot of us like. We're also going to talk about M&A, growth, getting bigger, so sit back and let's get into the episode. Hey, David. Welcome to the show. David: [00:00:35] Hey, Jason. Thank you for having me. Looking forward to it. Jason: [00:00:38] Yeah. Excited to have you on. So tell us who you are and what do you do? David: [00:00:42] All right. So Dave Anderson, I live here in sunny Arizona, where it's still a hundred plus degrees here, today when we're recording this anyway. I am in Arizona. I have been an agency owner for about 23, 24 years now and worked at another agency for a good three years before that. The name of the agency is Off Madison Ave. We are a full service, kind of going back to the old terms, full-service agency that does everything from creative media, public relations, social media, digital. All of the kind of stuff that we've had. We're about 35 full-time people but our business model is really evolved to where we're with a plethora of great talent out there now of how we're using a real combination of full-time people and people with specific skill sets to do our diverse client work every day. Jason: [00:01:41] And so tell me kind of how did you guys get started or why did you start? David: [00:01:45] Ah, that's a great question. So I have one business partner. Roger Hernie, a great friend of mine. So we were both working… Jason: [00:01:52] Still, still business partner? David: [00:01:53] Still business partners, 23, 24 years in October years later, still business partners. And I can, I can give some insights if you like, why I think that has worked overtime. But we were both working at the same agency. And to be honest with you, I got fired one day. First time I'd ever been fired in my life from a job. Um, my wife and I were one month pregnant with our first child on the way. I still remember going and telling her and picking her up at work. And she said, how'd the day go? And I said, well, they got fired today. That'll stress out your wife in any situation. Jason: [00:02:26] Was it Friday? David: [00:02:27] Uh, it was Monday. I started the week off the right way for her. So… Jason: [00:02:33] I've always been fired on Fridays. David: [00:02:35] Yeah, no, this was a Monday. And it's a story that needs to be told over alcohol. The agency kind of turned into, um, the culture was bad and the CEO asked me one day why it was bad. And I told him my honest opinion and I didn't last long after that. So I come from the PR side of things. Background in politics, PR. My business partner worked for McCann Erickson, he is the creative guy. And we just working together, saw the value… Again, I'm an old guy way back then were PR and creative, but didn't really work well together, they were more siloed. And we really wanted to bring that together to bring a total marketing picture. So yeah, 23 years later, we've done three small acquisitions over the years to help us grow. And like every one of you, we've had our best of days on our absolutely worst of days. Um, I'm a lot grayer now, but you know, we've survived. Jason: [00:03:32] Very cool. And, um, tell me what's been the process…? How long did it take you? Or if you kind of remember some of the key elements or key things that happen to get to a point where you don't have to be in the day-to-day operations anymore. David: [00:03:50] Yeah. It's a great question. And I'm going to be honest with you. I severely messed it up two times before I got it right. And it's a thing that I work with kind of both other business owners now, and agency owners. The process of working on the business every day, not in the business. And then ultimately be able to move where I am now today, where I don't really have any day-to-day role in the company. I'm still involved from a financial side. If we do an acquisition, like we did last November, I'm very involved. Um, but I work directly with our GM. So the first time I messed it up, I hired a person from the outside who supposedly had a lot of agency experience, bigger agency actually. And after going through the process, what I did horribly wrong was I didn't have a solid onboarding process for the new person that was coming on. Honestly, I kind of said, this person's hired, he starts on Monday. And by Monday afternoon I was like, good luck! You know? And within six months, we've lost clients. Most hurtful was I lost, I think, three of our top-five leadership team members because of that person's leadership style, how they were doing. Just a bad, bad time. So I had to come back in and fix that. The second time, I had a leadership team and we implemented EOS to be honest with you, which I'm a big fan of. But I chose not to be the visionary or the integrator and I left it to our executive team and the partners that were involved in the business. And that went really bad too, because when you kind of pick the integrator to lead, the other people didn't agree. There was no solid decision-making. There was not clear definition on when to bring it to the owners or me as the owner of decisions. And, again, it completely fell apart and I stepped back into fix it again. Now this time, I think I have finally gotten it right where we brought somebody up through the ranks, worked on a transition plan, clearly defined authority. I am holding that person accountable. The biggest thing where I failed was lack of accountability as I kind of turned the day-to-day operations over to others. Now there's a level of accountability. I still am very involved at times on the EOS part of it on our rocks and making sure where we are. And we are more than a year into it now and the person who runs the bay, they, her name is Sasha has done a fantastic job. The agency is growing. Our clients are happy. Our culture has improved. So what I would say is it's a process. It's a marathon, not a sprint, and you will have your failures in it. Jason: [00:06:47] Is your agency struggling to deliver real revenue growth results to your clients? You know, agency marketers can consolidate data and align marketing and sales teams goals to achieve real results for your agency and clients using revenue growth platforms. SharpSpring is an all-in-one platform built for agencies like yours to optimize digital marketing strategies with simple, powerful automation. Manage your entire funnel all in SharpSpring. Now for a limited time, my smart agency listeners will receive your first month free and half off onboarding with SharpSpring. Just visit sharpspring.com/smartagency to schedule your demo and grab this offer. That's sharpspring.com/smartagency. Now I've seen it all kinds of different ways where… There's two ways I've seen it work out well. One is to bring in… One of the first guests actually brought in someone as a consultant to work with the team and to really kind of get to know them. And then eventually they hired that person as the CEO and it was kind of like, oh, well, you're part of us. You've been working with us for six months. That kind of stuff. I've seen that work. And it's a good test. And then I've also seen kind of going through the ranks. But a lot of times what people struggle with is if you don't have people through the ranks, what do you do? And that's why I wanted to kind of give you option number one, that I've seen work. I've also seen it not work where they brought in someone temporarily, and then it doesn't work, but that's fine. They're not the CEO yet. You're testing out the waters and then you can kind of go… Let's talk about a lot of times when agency owners get over the couple of million mark, right? Like you can get to the million mark by accident, I feel. And then you can kind of get to the 2 million mark by accident and a lot of luck. But then to really kind of take it up from there, you have to build out a really good leadership team. So let's talk about how did you build out your leadership team? Like not particular names, but what were their roles? What did you learn from that? Like, what did you… what didn't work? David: [00:09:05] Yeah, so great question. And again, I feel we're in a good spot now, but lots of mistakes along the way. So how we do it, we call them group heads in our organization and we put people at the lead of like our account service team, our creative team, our PR team, and our media team and creative team. So we put a person at the head of all of them, and then I made them the leadership team that they were the ones to work collectively. Um, you know, we're not big enough to, and never have been. And I, quite frankly, I don't think I agree with having people that are just managers and not… So they're working directors is what we call them. They were directors that head of their group, group heads. But they were the ones who were responsible for making sure we weren't siloed and the workflow and functioning like that. And that has worked very well with us. But as agency owners know, actually any CEO leadership knows… The challenge there is managing the personalities, the issues, the finances. You know, one of the biggest mistakes I made was tying my group head's compensation to the financial bonus to their financial income. And then it was a question of how much money do I get? Because I get to put more in my pocket on that. And so what I did was their, and still is, their compensation of bonuses and stuff like that is based on the overall performance of the agency, not of an individual. Otherwise, you'll always have people looking out for their own personal wellbeing that they go through. So it's really that… Now also as a business owner, agency owner, what you need to do, two things is one is you need to let go as you bring on those senior people. You don't hire senior people and micromanage. They don't want to come in and be told what to do, but you as an owner have to relinquish that. And with that, you have to accept, there's going to be failure. There's going to be things that don't work. These are how people learn. And we as owners, when the first time something goes wrong, we jump back in to save the day and tell everybody else what they did wrong. And believe me, I, you know, if you can see me, I've lots of gray hair. This is how I got to that point. But I think, and I've seen, you know, in entrepreneurs, business people as general, we hate to fail we're as competitive. But I believe if you really want to grow your team and you have to let them fail, just like our kids, you know, you have to learn lessons the hard way. So I hope that's helpful. Jason: [00:11:39] Yep. What was your first leadership role that you hired and second and third? David: [00:11:44] I still remember that when it was Roger and I. Well, the first full leadership role that I hired was in our media group because it was the area that we were most knowledgeable in. Roger being a creative guy, me being a PR person. So we brought that media expertise and was one of the very first things. Jason: [00:12:06] Gotcha. And why the media role if you guys had expertise in it? David: [00:12:11] Well, we really didn't. We were faking it. We were using a lot of outsiders to do the work for us. And when we got to a certain point in billings of media, we realized that we needed that expertise of not only just for placing and all of that, but the analytics behind it. And that's where we really needed the expertise. That's why we started there. Jason: [00:12:35] Gotcha. I always like to see when, uh, when people are like, well, so many people hire based on things that they don't know. And I'm like, I think the best thing is, is like hiring on the things, you know. Cause then you can actually, you know, are they full of shit or not, you know? Going there. Kind of switching focus a little bit… This focuses on growth, mergers and acquisitions and buying agencies. You know, with our agency Republics, that's how we've been able to grow, we've done 10 acquisitions so far in the past year and a half, and just had tremendous growth. So, and you've said you've done some MNA as well. So what do you look for? What's worked what hasn't worked when you bought agencies? David: [00:13:21] Yeah, that's a great question. Our philosophy right now is to find things that complement the services. We aren't necessarily looking for another full-service agency. That's going to come in with creative teams, PR teams, all of that. Like the acquisition we did, um, in November of last year was a PR agency based out of San Francisco. And we wanted to really bolster our PR capabilities. It was also a step in over 20 something years and probably something I would do different, maybe do different is… We've always been more of a generalist agency. We've had some core areas of focus and we really want to move to a much deeper focus in two areas specifically. And this was a great way to bring in a book of clients that fit into that area where we want to be more specific. So I would say is, you know, an M&A there's two types: financial, which you're just adding revenue dollars, and they're strategic. And we're looking more strategic with the one we just did. The one before that allowed us to get deeper into technology. How do we use technology more in our marketing? As a result of that, we've also started another startup, um, a SAS-based product in the marketing space that we've also done that. And if I go way back to the early two-thousands, we were a very traditional agency and we didn't have the digital capabilities that the whole marketing world was going to. And we made an acquisition to get us really deep into that space also. So they've almost all been very strategic for us. Jason: [00:15:05] Awesome. And when you're looking at buying an agency or when you bought these agencies, is it a roll up? Is it cash? How are you evaluating them? David: [00:15:18] Yeah. You know, we do the typical valuations stuff that we have. And I'm sure you've seen more than once or twice that people in their minds have a much greater valuation for their agency than what the numbers… I can tell by your face you've seen that a couple of times. And I've had, you know, while we've done four acquisitions, I've probably had 20 where we got to a serious conversation that we do. So we really look at the numbers. I'm actually a finance major coming out of school. But then you also have to take the intangibles into it. So it's always, usually a combination of some upfront money earn out that, you know, goes with it from there. Jason: [00:16:01] How do you evaluate how much they're worth? Is it on EBITDA? Is it on top line? What are some of the factors that you put in there? David: [00:16:08] More EBITDA. More is EBITDA. And then, you know, you play the whole add back game of what to, you know, really kind of goes to… From my country club membership, to my Ferrari, to my vacation home in there to get to where, it's a game. I mean, you know, as well as I do, it's a game. What I would tell… and I'm sure you've had similar experiences use people who can help evaluate a potential acquisitions organization who understands our industry. One of the big mistakes I made on the first acquisition that we did is I used my regular attorney who knew nothing about the marketing industry. I overpaid without a doubt because of that, the, you know, you know what you're doing. Because it does, it does become a game with add backs and you know… How owners are willing to structure their compensation. Jason: [00:17:04] Well, if you're selling you don't mind, if the person buying you is uneducated. Make sure you tell us that lawyer so all the sellers can use that versus David: [00:17:14] Yeah, I totally agree with you. The other thing, I had this happen once as we went through a whole valuation. We were moving forward and then it came back and I had this owner. It was a PR agency said… I think the valuation of their company came back and like 1.5 million, something like that. You know, pretty small agency. And the agency said, well, just our contacts are worth a million dollars alone. Who we know in the media is worth just a million dollars alone. So I would never sell for less than $4 million. And I was like, well, I guess we won't be moving forward. Jason: [00:17:47] Yeah. I always like to tell that person I'm like, well, you can wish in one hand and crap in the other, it gets filled up first. David: [00:17:53] I love that. I'm going to steal that if that's okay. Cause that's very well said. Jason: [00:17:58] Yeah, Well, I stole that from cousin Eddie on Vegas Vacation. David: [00:18:04] Love it. Absolutely love it. Jason: [00:18:06] Well, this has all been great, David, is there anything I didn't ask you that you think would benefit the audience? David: [00:18:11] No. Well, a couple things. One is, you know, as agency owners and entrepreneurs, make sure you have a great network around you of advisers is what I would say. Find like-minded… I'm a member of EO Entrepreneurs Organization. It's, you know, provides the CEO forum. Vistage. I was part of Vistage. Get people around you who know more than you, have more experiences that you, that you can experience share. Because that's how we learn and grow. And that's what we do best. I would also say, do whatever you have to do to work on the business every day, not in the business. And I fully understand when you're a smaller agency crossing that first million-dollar mark, $2 million mark, and you're finally making good money. And then the thought of hiring a six-digit leader, a six-figure income. Oh my gosh, that's going to set me back again. That's how you grow, you know, and it's just what you need to do um… If you want a growth the company. If you want a lifestyle company then, you know, that's perfect. And neither one is right or wrong. It's just, you have to marry it up with what you want to do. And the whole process I went through of getting out of the day-to-day, it's absolutely a marathon. It's not a sprint. I would say you need at least 18 months to plan properly for that. That's just my experience to do it in the right way. Jason: [00:19:36] Awesome. And, uh, what's uh, the agency website people go and check you guys out? David: [00:19:40] Uh, Off Madison Ave. A V E, not avenue. So offmadisonave.com. Jason: [00:19:46] Awesome. Well, thanks so much, David, for coming on the show. It was awesome. And I totally agree with you on surrounding yourself with amazing people that are further ahead, so they can actually help you and see the things… And kind of setting me up for that, that was perfect. I want to invite all of you to go to digitalagencyelite.com. This is our exclusive mastermind just for experienced agency owners. So I understand that there's other groups out there that have all kinds of different industries. But if you want to be surrounded by amazing agency owners on a consistent basis, I want all of you to go to digitalagencyelite.com. And until next time have a Swenk day.

Do you know which levers you can pull in order to scale your agency faster? Greg Bond believes his purpose in life is to add value to other people's lives. He is the head of revenue at SharpSpring, a company that aims to help businesses better understand their customers so they can maximize their value proposition. Greg oversees the sales function and works really close with the marketing team. He understands what it is agencies, and end-users, are really trying to do with that platform. Greg discussed the levers agencies need to pull to scale faster, some of the challenges agencies face, and what works for showing ROI and continuing to grow. 3 Golden Nuggets Levers you can pull to scale faster. One of the biggest challenges for agency owners is when they need to hire new employees and must raise their prices to be able to afford that. Will their clients pay that? Well, that depends. Do they know how much value they are delivering to their clients? Sharpspring focuses on ROI and being able to report specifically on this piece of revenue. With the consolidation of tools and bringing data into one place, you'll have a centralized data repository that drives your automation engine and behavioral tracking, making your message more relevant. This is what gets you extra conversion rates and will help you grow your revenue. Why are agencies bad at their own marketing? You probably recognize this. The cobbler's shoes. Agencies spend a lot of time and effort working with their customers and they don't do a great job of marketing for themselves. Agencies spend all their time trying to blow their clients away to get more clients through word of mouth. That's great, of course. It's the first requisite to start scaling. However, you can't raise your prices when you're built on referrals. About this, Jason asks, what if you hire a hunter? That way, con can stop self-sabotaging, you'll continue to scale, and you can finally raise your prices. What works for showing ROI. For Greg, it's all about showing value at the end of the funnel. Agencies bought into the lead marketing approach, he says. But with new customers these days there are multiple interactions before they actually make a purchasing decision. So the idea is being able to track all the different interactions across the entire funnel. Having all that data in one place and being able to map it to a singular campaign and then show when this deal actually does close enables agencies to tell what contributed to a sale and report on it in a way with confidence. YOUTUBE AUDIO LINK Levers You Can Pull To Scale Your Agency Faster and Why Agencies Are Bad at Their Own Marketing Jason: [00:00:00] What's up, agency owners? Jason Swenk and I have another amazing episode with my friends at SharpSpring. We're going to talk about what are the levers you need to pull in order to give your clients better results to scale your agency even faster. We all want to know this, so let's go ahead and get into the episode. Hey, Greg. Welcome to the show. Greg: [00:00:25] Hey! Thanks, Jason. Happy to be here, man. Jason: [00:00:28] Yeah. Excited to have you on. So tell us who you are and what do you do? Greg: [00:00:32] Yeah, so my name is Greg Bond and I'm the head of revenue over at SharpSpring, which very recently we were acquired by Constant Contact. So, um, a lot of really cool integration stuff going on there between those two companies. And yeah, I just kind of oversee our entire kind of sales function and work really close with our marketing team. I actually, I've been with the company a while and I came from VP of customer success. So very close to our customer base and really understanding what it is that our agencies and even our end users are really trying to do at the platform and kind of what their pain points are and what they're struggling with. And I've been able to bring a lot of that into the revenue focus of the company. So… Jason: [00:01:13] Awesome. Let's get into it. Let's talk about some of the levers that agencies can pull in order to kind of scale their agency faster and get better results for their clients. Greg: [00:01:25] Yeah. And I, I think, you know, when we talk about this, especially in the context of SharpSpring, I think what a lot of it focuses in on for us is tool consolidation. I think is one of the main things. Over the years, the technology revolution of the past 10 years, you know, the past decade. Um, has brought a lot of different point solutions to market that are fantastic tools. But the problem with them is that you end up with siloed databases and all this information that, that sits in each individual tool. And you almost have to have a whole team of operational wizards to connect these things and pull all that data together. You've got all this different reporting that's ended up end up in silos. And you can't really work to unify that customer experience and report on where exactly what attribution is the attribution that you should be pointing towards for your clients that you're working with to say, hey, this is where that sale came from. And at Sharpspring what we really focus our customers in on is ROI and being able to report specifically on this piece of revenue, where did it come from? We talk a lot about being a full-funnel marketer, and I think that's really the space where we want to play and where we think agencies can leverage to improve their own results. Jason: [00:02:45] So ROI has always been very important. And I think a lot of… You know, when I talk to agencies, one of their biggest challenges that they have is well, I can't afford to hire someone right now. I'm like, well, why don't you charge more? They're like, well, I don't know if they'd pay that. Um, and then my next question to them is, well, how much value do you deliver your clients? And a lot of them go, I don't know. And which is really freaking scary. So depending on your industry, sometimes it's hard to show an ROI. How have you found... Or what are some of the things that have worked for agencies for showing ROI in order for them to, you know, have the client stay with them longer, as well as to charge more? Greg: [00:03:29] It really is about showing that value at the bottom of the funnel. I think agencies in the past and marketers, just digital marketers period, they… They bought into this inbound marketing approach where you have the lead magnet. Somebody fills out a form and that form gives you somebody's email address in a really nice tidy bow of, hey, this is where this person came from. But the new customers, these days, there's multiple interactions before they actually make a purchasing decision. And so you have all of this noise in the system. So being able to track all the different interactions across the entire funnel, sometimes people move into the middle of the funnel and then back up to the top and then back down. And, you know, they may not necessarily be ready yet when they talk to your sales team. And to be able to kind of… Keep all of that data in one place and be able to map it to a singular campaign and then show when this deal actually does close. That's the place where I can now track all of those interactions back and say, whether I want to look at first touch or last touch or any different number of touches and attribution. I can tell you what contributed to that, that sale and be able to report on it in a way with confidence, right? Like being able to go to your client with confidence and say I am 100% sure that our marketing efforts drove this sale. As well as your sales team, right? Like, I don't want to take the sales team out of it. The sales team has a role to play as well. But marketing runs alongside the sales team and helps enable them to be able to close those deals. And you need a singular system that can track all of those interactions without some sort of XL ninjitsu happening there in the middle of it. Yeah. Jason: [00:05:14] You know, Dean Jackson always talks about out of a hundred percent of the pie. Like he always draws like this square and then he basically draws a line down the square and says 50% will never buy from you. And that out of the other 50%, they'll eventually buy from you, but maybe like 10% are ready to buy now. Then the other 40% is over time, right? And so it's really important to really kind of think about it in that way, because a lot of people just go after the 10% and they forget about the 40%. Like, when I look at our data and the different things… There's a lot of times people don't engage with us or, well, jump into the mastermind or buy a, our framework for like two or three years. Which I'm like, that's awesome. Like we held their attention that long, but you know, some people. Yeah. Greg: [00:06:07] And I talk a lot about it with our teams. I talk a lot about the buyer's journey. And there are plenty of people who fall into the bottom of your funnel, who are ready to buy right now. It's the first time you ever talked to them, right? But that's where they are in their buyer's journey. And they just happened to find you at that time. I think so many people look for that, you know, zero moment of truth, that, that place where, you know, that's all marketing is like targeting that person. But there are so many other people, like you said, there's a, the vast majority of the people who will buy from you in the future are not at that point yet. And how do you nurture them to get there? And how do you drop them in at the top of your funnel? Where at the top of your funnel, it's damn near impossible to keep them accurately it attributed to the right campaign over a long period of time. But you still have to fill that top of the funnel and help nurture them down. But with a unified database and behavioral tracking and a tool like SharpSpring, you now have that ability to get all those different touch points in and have them all in the system so that when two years from now three years from now, they actually do convert into a sale, you know exactly how to attribute that marketing spend. Jason: [00:07:19] You've been working with agencies for a long time. Why are agencies so bad at their own marketing? Greg: [00:07:25] That's a great question. I mean, I think one of it is, it's, you know, the cobbler shoes. They've spent a lot more time and effort working with their customers and in collaboration with their, their clients. So they don't do a great job of marketing for themselves. And I, and I think the other one is the number one way that agencies get businesses through word of mouth. Word of mouth is about delivering results, right? If you deliver results above and beyond the expectations of your clients, that's where you get that word of mouth from. And so they spend all their time and I believe rightly so, they should spend all their time trying to blow their clients away and just deliver those results. Again, being able to point back to the ROI and say, hey, this marketing spend this effort that we drove, drove these results. And if you do that over and over again, you'll get word of mouth. And so it'd be great if you could also fill the top of your funnel with a bunch more content, but if it comes at, at the risk of losing the results for your clients, then I don't think it's worth either. Jason: [00:08:28] Yeah, I see that, you know, I, I just had, um, as we're recording this. A week ago, we had 28 of the best agencies over at the house for a three-day experience. And we all talked about like, where were the biggest challenges? Some of them were, you know, we're not doing our own marketing. And they thought, well, in order to scale my agency, the lever I need to pull is the sales. And I need to find a hunter. I, I started asking more questions as well, why? I was like, well, what about the business coming to you? And they said exactly what you're saying, most of their businesses generated by word of mouth. I said, well, congratulations, you're doing a great job. That's prerequisite one for scaling an agency. Right? Like, because there's a lot of people that take a stupid Facebook course and go, I'm a Facebook ads agency. They can't deliver shit. And then it screws it up for all the legit people out there. But what I told them, I said, what if you actually hired a hunter in order to scale? They're like, what about the leads? I'm like, well, that's the other thing, you pull the marketing lever, you can start generating and building your pipeline. Because what I found was there's a lot of owners that the better they do in marketing, the more meetings they have. Soon they get overwhelmed and then they start self-sabotaging themselves. And a lot of you listening right now, you're doing this shit right now. I can promise you. You're self-sabotaging yourself, but if you hired a hunter, then they can start closing that business. They're not going to sabotage you. They want to do well. And then you can scale. Then you can raise your damn prices because when you're built on referrals, you can't raise your prices because they're like, oh, I paid 10,000 a month. You can't charge a hundred thousand to a guy that just referred you 10,000. It's just a different playing field. Greg: [00:10:16] And I think agencies, it's such a unique business because it is a professional service. And, in professional services businesses, it's the expertise that people are buying, right? And the agency owner and the principal is that main source of vision and creativity. So you have to have them involved in the sale. And you also want them involved in every client engagement. That's what the clients purchased, right? So it becomes a scalability issue for your agency, right? Like there's only a certain amount that you can scale yourself. And so you have to hire people who have that ability to cast a vision and be that sort of thought leader as well alongside of you. And you need to be able to share the spotlight a little bit with them. Or at least have, like you said, that hunter that goes out and brings people in front of you and does it in a way that doesn't require a ton of your time so that you can spend the time delighting your customers with incredible results. Jason: [00:11:09] Yeah, exactly. And, and I look at it to have going, you know, as your business scales and you scale the agency, you better damn well start putting the people in place for this, right? Like you should have someone like the director of happiness, making sure you're delivering the results, right? That's what we have. So I don't have to. Like, my attention to detail is probably like everybody else's, that's why I was telling you, like our shows use like 10 to 15 minutes. Like we're all like attention to detail, like bird, where's the bird? So… Well, this has all been amazing, Greg. Is there anything I didn't ask you that you think our audience needs to know about? Greg: [00:11:47] I don't think so. I mean, I think we kinda covered all the, all the main topics that I think are worth really focusing on. But I think one thing that I want to make sure is clear here is when we talk about tool consolidation… And I think everyone hears cost savings, right? They hear that, oh, I can make my life a little simpler, have fewer log-ins and things like that. And that's not really what we're saying. What we're saying is the consolidation of tools and bringing all that data into one place and being able… For that CRM, that centralized data repository to be the thing that drives your automation engine and all that behavioral tracking, being able to make your message more relevant. The right person, the right message. The right person, the right time. That is what gets you those extra conversion rates. That is what helps you grow your revenue. And it's not just, oh, you get to save some money. Yeah. Okay. That's cool. Yeah. That's another benefit. But the real benefit here is... It's actually the right way to build a customer experience that people will go nuts for. Jason: [00:12:52] Awesome. I love it. Now, Greg, you guys have a special offer for our audience for a short time. So tell us about. Greg: [00:12:59] We do. We want to offer anyone that that's a listener of your podcast series a half off their onboarding and their first month free. So big offer here for, for you guys, um, especially for, for this podcast and your audience, Jason. Jason: [00:13:13] Sweet. Thank you very much. Where can they get this? Cause now they're, you know, if you want to get… right? Like, we need to tell them. So where's the call to action, so you can give me attribution for it? Greg: [00:13:24] So head over to sharpspring.com/smartagency, and you can schedule a demo right there and that will help us secure that offer for you. Jason: [00:13:35] Awesome. And you'll be able to schedule with one of their cool strategists that can walk you through everything and set you up. So I highly recommend SharpSpring, go check it out and get your half month or the full month and a half off the onboarding. That's a tongue twister. Greg: [00:13:52] It is a tongue twister. You know, it's about a $1,600 value right there. Jason: [00:13:55] Ooh, go get it, guys. Go get it while it's hot. But, uh, thanks so much for coming on the show and uh, until next time have a Swenk day.

No episódio de hoje, eu, Mariana Lima, anfitriã do podcast Moda na Mochila, converso com o meu professor da universidade e especialista em Marketing, Paulo Saban, para encerrar o especial do mês dos professores. O professor Paulo tem mais de 25 anos de experiência na área de Marketing, e mais de 6 anos como professor. Ele já trabalhou com grandes empresas como a Malwee, Duas Rodas, Condor, Grupo Breithaupt, já teve a sua própria empresa de consultoria e hoje, além de lecionar, também é representante de vendas na SharpSpring. Ele sempre me incentivou muito a me dedicar à pesquisa acadêmica e à ser professora. Eu ainda não comecei essa jornada, mas se algum dia eu decidir dar aulas, o professor Paulo vai ser uma das minhas grandes inspirações. _________________________________________

Skit raised $23M in Series B funding from WestBridge Capital and others to expand in markets like the US and enhance its voice technology. The company provides a suite of speech and language solutions that enable enterprises to automate their call center operations.Constant Contact completed the acquisition of SharpSpring, initially announced in June this year and met yesterday with the shareholders' approval. It provides a SaaS solution for marketing automation to help SMBs.Google Cloud and C3 AI enter partnership to help organizations spanning industries such as financial, healthcare, manufacturing, supply chain and telecommunications, solve real-world challenges.Crownpeak, a digital experience platform, has formed a strategic agreement with Webscale, a multi-cloud SaaS solution. Webscale will become Crownpeak's preferred cloud delivery engine for its global brands due to the partnership.Corelight, an open network detection and response (NDR) platform, has raised $75M in a Series D round from Energy Impact Partners (EIP). With the latest round of funding, Corelight will be able to expand its global market presence and develop new data and cloud services.Humane Inc., a platform that produces and sells consumer hardware, software, and services, has received a $100M investment from Tiger Global Management. Humane will be able to scale its operations while pursuing the next step in human-computer interaction.Stravito, a knowledge management platform, has raised €12.4 million (about $14.6 million) from Endeit Capital in a Series B round. Stravito will use the new funds to speed up product development and grow globally, emphasizing the US market.

Throughout this podcast, we've heard people mention the SharpSpring platform several times. And now, we have the opportunity to understand how business professionals can use this software system effectively. In today's episode of the MORE podcast, Ricardo is joined by virtual agency founder Denise Cagan to discuss the platform SharpSpring. Denise has been a business owner for over 20 years. She started her first business (a cleaning company) while working simultaneously as a lab supervisor for Coca-Cola but ultimately left Coca-Cola to pursue her business full-time. Not one for downtime, Denise immediately started DCA Virtual Business Support after selling her cleaning company in 2011, which she continues to run today. How can SharpSpring help your business? SharpSpring is an all-in-one platform that functions as a CRM, a social media tool, drip campaign creation, or anything else your business might need. Comparable to Hubspot, SharpSpring condenses all your business efforts into one platform, making it more organized and easier to maneuver while providing analytics to further fuel growth and development. Denise's recommendation, however, is that you have a solid strategy in place before you use it. Because the platform is around $600/month (depending on your tier), it is well worth the investment, but only if you completely take advantage of what it has to offer. The platform is designed for businesses once they are beyond the startup phase and need a system to scale and grow. How is it different from competitors like Hubspot? The main difference is that Hubspot requires the buyer's website to be through Hubspot to take advantage of everything available on the platform. With SharpSpring, you aren't locked into one specific website location. Hubspot is just as robust and has a freebie version (which Sharp doesn't have). However, the free version should just be used to get your feet wet and doesn't offer everything you'll need. Denise's tips for using SharpSpring effectively: Take advantage of its ability to create landing pages and lead generation. Many overlook the fact that the platform can be used for onboarding new team members and clients. It can create a nurture workflow, where you develop the relationship with people who sign up for your white papers or regular campaign emails. Because it is all-in-one, Denise didn't need to use integrations. But SharpSpring can connect with social media platforms, Zapier, Salesforce, and many other tools if appropriate for your business. To check out what SharpSpring can do for your business, check out their website. Denise's final takeaway? If you aren't ready for an all-in-one platform like SharpSpring, try to integrate the platforms you currently use to make them work together effectively. To contact Denise, visit her company website to send a message or check out her podcast, Nurture Small Businesses. Denise's Book and podcast recommendations: Book of Secrets by Deepak Chopra The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz Start with Why by Simon Sinek Who by Geoff Smart Buzzsprout's How to Start a Podcast  MORE by Ricardo Berrris

SharpSpring is a cloud-based marketing technology company. The company offers marketing automation, web tracking, lead scoring, and automated workflow. Listen in as Ian, Brett, and Ryan dive into what the company does and where they could grow from here. Enjoy the show! Subscribe to 7 Investing with the code "CCM": https://7investing.com/subscribe/ Follow Ian and check out his work on Twitter: https://twitter.com/IanGrayLive Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/chitchatmoney Subscribe to our Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG5Ni-SI-jyrEsoNUhqftNQ Email us: chitchatmoneypodcast@gmail.com Timestamps Company Background | (2:29) Industry | (6:40) Management & Ownership | (7:58) Valuation | (11:27) Earnings | (12:42) Balance Sheet | (14:44) Our Analysis | (17:43) Disclosure: Chit Chat Money hosts and guests are not financial advisors, and nothing they say on this show is formal advice or a recommendation. Brett Schafer and Ryan Henderson are general partners and portfolio managers at Arch Capital. Arch Capital and its partners may hold securities discussed on this show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Rick Carlson founded SharpSpring in 2012, he didn’t think of himself as a CEO. “My co-founder and I were doing whatever it took to survive,” Carlson says, and they were responsible for everything from software development to buying office supplies. In the early days of the automated marketing software company, “there were so many failures it was hard to name them all,” according to Carlson. “There was an immense amount of wasted effort in figuring out what customers wanted. Over the years we think we’ve gotten smarter about how we make those decisions.” The company went public in 2014, after being acquired by SMTP, and is currently listed on the NASDAQ. TRANSCRIPT: Intro (00:01): Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade, a podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work, and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Starting and running your own company: it’s not for everyone, but for those who have done it, it can be exhilarating, exhausting, and easily the hardest thing they’ve ever done. So we decided to go out and talk to some of those people and find out what they’ve learned, what they’d repeat, and what they’ll never do again. We’ll hear stories from their first year, then from the period when they realized they’re going to survive, and how they intend to position their companies for the future. We’ll find out what a CEO’s normal day’s like, how they build and manage their teams, what it’s done to their personal lives. And finally, when is the time to move on? Join us for CEO 101, a limited series of deep looks at people who are their own boss for better or for worse. This episode’s guest is Rick Carlson, CEO of SharpSpring, a comprehensive sales and marketing automation platform. Richard Miles (01:25): Rick, welcome to the show. Glad to have you on to get your experiences as CEO of SharpSpring. We’re going to start by talking about the very beginning. So if you could take us back literally to your first year, really your first few days as CEO, and let’s get a snapshot for people who’ve never done this before, what that is like. And obviously, you put in work before you probably became a CEO into the company, the idea, but let’s start with the first 30 days. You’ve got your company, it started, maybe it’s just you, maybe you have a handful of employees. What was that experience like? Rick Carlson (01:56): First off, thanks so much for having me, appreciate the opportunity and I’m glad to be here. So when I heard you pose the question, your first day as CEO, actually what immediately came to mind is during that first year or even two years, or maybe three years, I certainly did not think of myself as a CEO. CEO is what I am now managing a very large team with managers and a couple of hundred people. When I think about that first year, I think about struggling with a fledgling team where I am just another team member, and that’s exactly what it was like. I was a founder of a business, much more than a CEO, what somebody thinks of as a CEO today, and that means everything that you think it means. My co-founder and I, Travis, who was really the technical side (he remains our CTO today), we’re doing anything and everything that it took to survive, from raising money to making the coffee, to go buying the office supplies fortuitously. Just a week ago, Travis celebrated his ninth year with us and dug up one of his first emails to me about buying office supplies as he moved over from his previous company to start things. So very literally in that first year, it’s about being a team member and forming a team and doing whatever it takes to survive. Richard Miles (03:17): So at this stage, you can afford to tell great anecdotes about the early days, including maybe some early failures or things that didn’t work out, right? Do you have any stories–again, go back, limit yourself to maybe the first month or first few weeks–of something that you look back and smile now, but at the time you considered it a disaster or failure, or just a really bad day? Rick Carlson (03:37): Depending on which lens you think about SharpSpring, my business, in some senses, it feels like we had a straight line to success. Like we did not have to pivot our business model. Once we got to market, we started selling and I think it’s even more common that a business pivots once or twice before it really finds its footing. Through that lens, SharpSpring was pretty straightforward, but being more on track to the question that you asked, there are so many failures that it’s too hard to name one in every sort of micro way. There are more failures than you can count. It’s a winding road. So I have put our development teams and the early days through so many useless development features projects that never took off and meant anything to any one of our customers. And over the years, we think we’ve gotten a little bit smarter about how we make those decisions, but an immense amount of wasted effort on this sort of winding road to figure out what customers want and how our business is supposed to work. Again, though, if you backed up, it would look like a straight line for us. So I hope that paradox makes sense to your listeners. Richard Miles (04:51): So all the management books, or most of them, focus on one of the most important things you do as a founder, CEO, is who you hire. So again, going back to this first few weeks, did you have sort of a template in mind already of like, this is the person that my co-founder and I want to work at this company? Did you have, literally, a list of qualifications, or did you just sort of figure it out as you went along? What constituted a good employee for SharpSpring and a bad employee for SharpSpring? Rick Carlson (05:18): Yeah, great question. Like everything in a startup, my vision of what I wanted was almost immediately thrown out the window, and we were left with reality. But the specific story there is that I left a great job in internet security to start SharpSpring and intended to found it with somebody different than the person I ended up founding it with. So I quit the job. I moved back to Gainesville, I’m in it, up to my neck, and I get a call from the original co-founder who said, “Guess what? I can’t do this. My wife is having twins and I just can’t take the risk with you. I’m so sorry, Rick.” So yeah, I had exactly the right guy in mind and before we could even really get started, the best laid plans as they were, right? I think that there’s a lesson there though, which is press forward, and I found a lot of luck involved in this. So pressing forward is not always enough to be very clear, but it is required. And so I press forward and was lucky enough to find Travis Whitten, who founded the company with me ultimately. And we found a third person in the early days. And between the three of us, we had a super complimentary skillset. Travis backend architecture, fantastic developer, could really build anything we imagined. I sort of brought the business model and product vision to the company. And then we had another gentleman, Joe Kelly, who came from Grooveshark. Some of your listeners probably are very familiar with Grooveshark. Between the three of us, we were able to build a product and get to market. And so it was a super powerful team. And I’ve read a lot about this, a lot of companies are founded with three. That’s, sort of a magic number. It feels rare that two people can cover all the ground to make things work out of the gates, and four starts to become a crowd if you will, and in essence, three doesn’t appear to be a crowd when it comes to starting a business. Richard Miles (07:16): Good answer. Okay, final question on the early days: I’m sure you’re at the stage in your career, having succeeded as you are, that you’re probably asked for advice a lot by people wanting to do something similar. What sort of advice do you give to people who say, “Okay, I’m ready to jump out the window. I’m quitting my good job, and I’m going to go out on my own, start my company.” Or what wisdom would you have given yourself now, looking back, talking about everything from the completely mundane to the inspirational. So like, “hey, make sure you buy a fire extinguisher” or “believe in yourself,” whatever. What are a key piece of advice you would give to somebody, let’s say tomorrow, that was about to start their own company? Rick Carlson (07:52): Yeah, so, I think that answer depends on the experience of the person who’s wanting to start the business. So yes, you’re right. I do get people, different experience levels, asking, “Hey, I’m thinking about doing this.” In my mind, there’s a magic window, and that window is bigger for some people than others. That the magic window I’m talking about is where you have enough experience. You have enough knowledge of the market that you’re trying to get into, or problem that you’re trying to solve for your customers, that’s a whole other conversation. Incidentally, being able to solve a customer’s problem is not enough to start a business. But, anyway, you’ve got enough experience, and yet at the same time, you haven’t gotten bogged down with life, family, children, mortgages, all the things that mean you’ve got to find security and so forth. And so there’s a window there that it feels like gives you the best chance to succeed with the experience, and yet allows you to take the risks that you need to take. And sometimes, people wait too long and they realize it’s just impractical to start a business. I mentioned my original co-founder all of a sudden having twins. It’s a perfect example of that. And then I see people who are maybe starting a business a little bit too early, before they’ve gotten into the market that they’re trying to attack and participate in. It’s not to say that they can’t succeed. People succeed all the time, but we’re talking about giving yourself the best chance and having that experience to put to bare, I think is a really important thing. So that’s the framework I like to think about these things. Also, you should have a fire extinguisher. Richard Miles (09:26): No, it was good advice, right? So Rick, I’m literally going to go off script here. I’m going to ask you a question we hadn’t thought about, but something you said triggered it when you decided, okay, I’m going to do this. I’m going to go try to start my own company. What was the most common reaction from friends and family? Did they go, “All right, Rick, go get them!” Or were they like, “Whoa, uh, what are you doing?” What sort of reactions did you get from those who knew you best? Rick Carlson (09:50): For most people, it wasn’t a surprise at all. For me, and anybody who is listening to this that knows me, knows this to be true, very difficult for me to work underneath somebody else. It was almost a requirement that I go and start my own thing, because working for 40 years for somebody else, with my personality, probably not going to work. Richard Miles (10:10): So this sounds like it was part of a plea deal, right? Rick Carlson (10:14): [Laughter] Well put, well put, exactly right. I think it was just a foregone conclusion. But even before I figured that out, when I was a teen, I knew that I had no idea what business–I mean, it could have been a restaurant at the time, but I just knew I wanted to start my own business. And so, I don’t think it surprised anybody. I still think people, parents and so forth, it’s not to say they weren’t worried. They weren’t surprised, but not to say they weren’t worried at the same time. Richard Miles (10:43): I’m sure you did no complaining whatsoever, so they probably didn’t even know if you’d had a bad day, right? Rick Carlson (10:48): Yeah, that’s right. Well, just in terms of generational changes, my father was somebody who worked for an electric company for his entire career. And what you sought at the time was security and a pension. And so even before I started a business, what’s commonplace today, switching jobs every couple years and trying different things was just foreign to them. And so, yeah, there was a complete lack of understanding. And it’s only just in the last few years where people go, “okay, you knew what you were doing,” so. Richard Miles (11:20): Let’s talk a little bit about the middle years, and I know that’s a relative term, depending on what company we’re talking about, but let’s start as a discussion point. Let’s say a year or two. So you’ve been doing this for a year, and presumably at that point you had more than three employees, your personal priorities in terms of how you spent your day as the founder slash CEO were probably starting to change. Maybe the original team was starting to change. You’re beyond the, “okay, we may fail tomorrow stage,” but you haven’t quite hit the big time yet either. Was it a surprise in terms of the new challenges or did it just seem like this is day 366, it’s not really any different than day five? Rick Carlson (11:54): There are absolutely stages to the thing, where everything felt different. For me, again, I was the guy that the first year and a half, two years, pretty fantastic for me. I raised some money. I knew how to do that–again, I had some experience–and so I was able to raise some money, and a lot of the burden was on Travis and the dev team to actually build the product. And I remember distinctly, it took us a couple of years, even though we were building an MVP product and trying to get to market quickly, because our product category in many ways had already been defined by the market, took us a while to build our version of it and the layering on the new things. And I remember distinctly, after two years of hard work from my teammates, not to say that I wasn’t working hard during that time doing my thing, but the burden shifted over to me. I promised these guys we can sell, I promised these guys we could market, and all of a sudden we had to go and do that. And I remember the first month we went to market, we sold exactly nothing, and that was because we had unrealistic expectations of the sales cycle. And thankfully in the second month we started to do some things, but I definitely remember a stressful period during that time. Then I remember a third phase, in what I would call those middle or teenage years, where all of a sudden we had enough customers and gosh, it became even harder. So first it was like raising money, which is actually sort of the easy part, then it’s your initial sales, and then you’ve got this customer base. Now you’ve got to keep selling, you probably have to keep raising money, and now you’ve got to support customers. So it just layers on these incremental obligations and complexities and difficulties as time goes on, which doesn’t paint a very beautiful picture. But I think running a business can be pretty messy. It’s not to say it’s also not fun and rewarding and that you learn things, but that’s how I remember the years, two and three and those earlier years. Richard Miles (13:55): It’s almost more of a challenge to grow and succeed, right, than to decline and fail because decline and fail, your world keeps getting smaller, but the growing and succeeding you’re now, like you said, adding layers of complexity that somebody’s got to manage, and somebody’s got to think about it. Rick Carlson (14:10): That’s a fantastic way to put it. I think that’s exactly right. Mentally, clearly the opposite is true when you’re not succeeding. And sometimes even when you are and when you’re marginally successful, it can take a real mental toll on you. It’s really tough to work that hard and not succeed, which is the case with a lot of businesses. And if you’re in that situation, you have to remember that that’s okay, and that’s part of the thing and that most businesses don’t succeed. But I think that’s exactly right on the operational side of things; you get to the next level, and there’s a whole new set of complexity that you’ve got to figure out how to manage. And I could keep going into stage four and five. I think I described three of them so far, but I’ll stop there. Richard Miles (14:48): That’s a perfect segue into the next topic. Now, we’re bringing you up to the present day. So if this were a movie, the flashback would be over, the characters back in the present day. So I can only imagine that your duties may be significantly different than they were when you first started. Maybe you’re further detached from the actual production of the product, so to speak and even sales. So what are you spending most of your time on now in the company? And then, describe some of those additional challenges that you have to take on at this level. I imagine dealing with the media, dealing with public opinion, dealing with a lot more employees is a bit more of a challenge. So what is that like today? Rick Carlson (15:27): I think I left off where we’re all of a sudden, we were selling and then we had all these customers to manage and so forth. Along the way you hire a bunch of people, and there’s a phase when we first started our conversation today, I said, I didn’t feel like a CEO. I felt like a member of a team, a founder, a part of a team. Somewhere along the line, you become a CEO, and there’s a difference, and what was striking to me was when people started to treat me–when we had enough employees–where people started to treat me as a CEO, and I struggled with it, actually. There were things that I could say to a teammate in even an abrasive way, because that person knew that we were on the same team and they knew what I meant, and they knew we were all going in the same direction. And it was no big deal because, you know, we’re just onto the next thing, and we’re all pressured. But as a CEO, saying exactly the same thing to somebody who doesn’t know you as well, who thinks of you as a, not a teammate or a founder, but as a CEO, even the smallest things you say could really ruin someone’s day. So there’s this transition that takes place. I can’t pinpoint it, but it’s part of the detachment that you mentioned. You’re right. Like I used to know everybody on the team, and I used to be able to spot talent personally and see somebody who’s making a mark. And now, you are separated by a layer or sometimes even two layers of management, and you’re not intimately involved in really any process. You try to dabble in everything, but you’re not as deep in any process. And I think you know this, but we’re actually public, and so there’s a strange story to how we became public, but we’re a public company. So a lot of my time now is dealing with analysts and banks in New York and everywhere, and key investors, and new potential investors, and our public company board. And that carves out a big chunk of time that would, in the early days, be a hundred percent focused on the business. So it’s a pyramid with your customers sort of at the bottom of the pyramid, and the bigger the organization gets, the taller the pyramid, the further you are away from those customers and what’s happening sort of at the ground level, if you will. I think I just described a multilevel marketing company. I hope, I hope I didn’t do that. Richard Miles (17:47): That’s what, that’s how I will describe in the show notes, exactly [laughter]. I think the transition comes when everyone starts laughing at all your jokes and you win all your golf games, then you know, you’re really the CEO, right? Rick Carlson (17:57): That is required from day one, Richard, that was day one where we just, everybody knew that about me. You got to laugh at the jokes. It’s the uncomfortable laugh. Richard Miles (18:06): And they laugh when you know the joke wasn’t funny. But it’s interesting what you say, just the limited experience I’ve had with running the Cade Museum and starting it, is in a way, you have to keep reinventing yourself, right? Because you keep having to redefine, how do I add value? And it’s not the same way as you did in week one or year one, when, as you said, you may be down there with the floor level programmers and workers and you no longer really add value to the company doing that anymore. You’ve got to do, like you said, talk to the Wall Street analysts and talk to the media and that’s how you add value. But in a sense, it’s a shifting target, right? As a company gets bigger and bigger, and as you said, you have other layers of management, even those things, eventually, maybe somebody else will do, right? Rick Carlson (18:46): Yeah, you are a hundred percent spot on, that you have to reinvent yourself. You can cause more harm than good actually by, by not doing that, not evolving, which isn’t to say as I sit here and proudly declare that I’ve figured that out. It’s not to say. I know it to be true, and yet it’s a work in progress for me, constantly trying to evolve and figure out how I can be the least disruptive and add the most value, right? I would actually go further since we’re on the topic, that is true of every person in the company and every process, every process in the company. So one of the things that I’ve talked about with the nucleus of people that have worked together 5, 6, 7 years now, and we have constantly built up processes, they’ve worked and then somehow 12 or 18 months later, because of the size of the company, because of other changes in the company, they no longer work. So there’s a process of tearing down the processes that worked yesterday and rebuilding them. The obvious examples, when you’re 20 employees and you need to communicate something, you yell it out because you’re all in the same room, right? There’s that sort of thing. When all of a sudden you’ve got departments, it’s a totally different communication style. When you’ve got enough departments of enough size where the interaction between departments and coordinating two, three departments, almost like they’re people. Each department has a personality, it has their own needs and goals and ambitions, and trying to coordinate that, it requires different processes. And so going back to the original question you posed, it’s absolutely, as a CEO, tearing down my idea of the value that I create and rebuilding it, but it’s also true of, I think every process in the business, by my estimation. Richard Miles (20:44): I like the way you put it. It almost gives you a sneaking sympathy for large bureaucracies, right? Because you can understand how bureaucratic processes get put in place to coordinate ever larger and larger companies or government agencies and so on. But then of course, you’ve got to be careful because that also tends to sort of throttle creativity and make people risk averse and all those things. So it’s a real challenge, right? How to get bigger, stay coordinated yet without killing the dream with all your employees, so to speak. Rick Carlson (21:09): Yeah, that’s exactly right. I could talk about that one point for a while, frankly. I remember with a certain amount of hubris and this is true today, by the way we, this is part of our corporate culture. We’re extremely proud of how nimble we are versus our competition. But I remember almost laughing about it and thinking about these much larger companies and how slow and cumbersome they were. In reality, we’ve taken a couple steps closer to those companies out of necessity. And guess what? Turns out when you’ve got 10,000 businesses using your software, you darn sure better have better QA than you had in the early days, right? And so there are definitely things that necessitate slowing down and communication and so many things. So it’s just one of the many things that, that changes over time with a business Richard Miles (21:57): Yeah, and when you’re publicly traded, best not to talk to the press after three martinis, right? Rick Carlson (22:01): Ah, a lesson, I’m still trying to learn [laughter]. No, that’s not true. Richard Miles (22:04): So let’s talk about, a little bit philosophical here, and I understand since you’re publicly traded, you can’t give me any secrets, and we don’t want any of our listeners to be indicted for insider trading here. But tell us a little bit about the model and strategy that maybe you had from day one or maybe you developed it. What was your strategic true north? Did you know, from the very beginning, okay, this model, this strategy we think is going to position us so that we beat our competitors. And if so, has that model and strategy changed or you just had to maybe tweak it? Is it still essentially, the model and business strategy that you have, is essentially the same as when you began with modifications? Rick Carlson (22:41): So, what I would say is the mission has been consistent, and the strategy has shifted once. And now we’re at an interesting stage forth with our business where the strategy isn’t shifting, but we’re layering on other concepts. So let me bring some of that to life. For our business, we’ve always had a mission of bringing what we call today, a revenue growth platform. Our product is traditionally known as marketing automation, but has grown well beyond that set of functionality now to basically being anything in, an SMB needs to manage their sales and marketing processes, s,o CRM and social media management and marketing automation and email. So that was always our mission to bring an affordable, easy to use solution to SMBs, of which there are millions of them. And as we spent all that time building our first version of the product, when we started the business, we saw it as greenfields because everything was up at the enterprise. Large businesses were using this and maybe medium-sized businesses, but SMBs were not. And over those years that we were feverously building, we saw other competition enter that space, and they were better brands with at the time better products and more well-funded, and by the way, really sophisticated marketers. So one of the strategic decisions we made and it’s less important to think about the decision itself and more about the impetus for the decision we had to figure out a way not to compete. And so often you hear people talk about figuring out ways to compete. Well, the thing to do is to figure out how not to compete. If you can find a place not to compete, it’s a much easier path to go down. And so early on, we decided to work with digital marketing agencies because we found that they were the path to get to these SMB businesses. And when we looked around, nobody was focused on them, and so that has been something we’ve done since we launched the business six years ago. Now we’ve got a brand that is becoming nationally known, that people are aware of. And we can potentially, in addition to working with agencies, approach businesses directly and so forth as we move forward. But I think for the listeners, for us, it was staying true to our mission of going after SMBs while figuring out that space in which we could avoid competition for as long as possible. That’s what I think we did successfully. Richard Miles (25:14): I read or heard, or maybe I just made it up, this idea of embrace your weaknesses in so far as the earlier, you understand what you’re not good at–and I’m not saying that your company wasn’t good at theirs–but it allows you to focus on their strengths and reach out and find somebody else to help you do this stuff that maybe you’re not as good at or interested in or whatnot. And I’ve always thought that’s pretty good advice, that the people or the companies that decide they’re going to be everything a to Z soup to nuts. Usually they’re just a can’t be, right. There are going to be certain aspects that they do better than others. And sometimes it just makes sense to think, like you said, choose not to compete in a certain area. Rick Carlson (25:47): Yeah, no, I think that’s right. Look, at least metaphorically, companies are a lot like people, and they’re going to have their strengths and weaknesses in their products and their people. I’m never going to be a weightlifter. Richard Miles (25:58): That was my next question, Rick. Rick Carlson (26:01): Yeah [laughter]. Anyway, there are things I’m not going to do. And there are things that our business is not going to do and being realistic about those things and working with what you have, applying your skills efficiently, is the key to everything. Richard Miles (26:14): So Rick, one final question, and I know you may have to plead the fifth amendment on this one, but coming back to you as a CEO, Rick Carlson, do you have an internal endpoint where you think, or, you know, you’ve accomplished pretty much everything you set out to do with this company and you know, it’s time to move on or have you not even thought about that? Rick Carlson (26:31): Well, the question is a multi-part question. First off, when you’re starting a business, like I was, which is hard to believe, but nine years ago now, we’ve been in the market roughly seven, but nine years ago, we chose to start the business. I’ve far surpassed what I set out to do back then. We thought we’d build something with a few million dollars of revenue and sell. It was the idea, and that would be the end of it. Maybe we go to another startup, that sort of thing. So by that measure, I have far surpassed it, but what I would say is still a lot of fun, still a lot of challenges. We’re lucky to be in a market that there’s no ticking time bomb in terms of we’re missing a wave or something where the market’s going to disappear. And it’s constantly, there’s new things that are coming out of the product to make it even more valuable to customers. And there’s new lessons to learn with how to manage an ever growing business. And so our folks know I’m prone to say, I’m always going to keep it interesting. Being in SharpSpring is always interesting. Sometimes it’s fun. Sometimes it’s not fun. Sometimes it’s challenging, but always interesting. And that I think has got me amped up for the next couple of years, for sure. Richard Miles (27:39): Isn’t that what Don Corleone said in the Godfather too, right? The mafia is always interesting, right? Rick Carlson (27:44): I actually don’t remember that quote. I think it keeps sucking me back in, right, or something like that. That’s exactly right, Richard Miles (27:51): Rick, that was great. I really appreciate having you on the show. You’re doing tremendous work, keep doing it. It’s inspirational on all sorts of different levels and wish you the best. Rick Carlson (27:59): Thanks so much for having me. Outro (28:00): Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida. Richard Miles is the podcast host and Ellie Thom coordinates inventor interviews. Podcasts are recorded at Heartwood, soundstage and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak. The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinist Jacob Lawson.

When Rick Carlson founded SharpSpring in 2012, he didn't think of himself as a CEO.  “My co-founder and I were doing whatever it took to survive,” Carlson says, and they were responsible for everything from software development to buying office supplies. In the early days of the automated marketing software company, “there were so many failures it was hard to name them all,” according to Carlson.  “There was an immense amount of wasted effort in figuring out what customers wanted. Over the years we think we've gotten smarter about how we make those decisions.”  The company went public in 2014, after being acquired by SMTP, and is currently listed on the NASDAQ.  

Open Source Marketing Automation and Email Marketing Platform Available to Everyone As a small business owner, open-source marketing automation and an email marketing platform are key to growing your business. With these tools, it saves your most valuable resources: time and money. In this episode, host Ricardo Berris discusses the value of market automation. Ricardo recommends mautic.org but there is also HubSpot,  Microsoft Dynamics, and Sharpspring. What you use will be based on the needs of your business. What are some of the things you can automate? -Email and SMS campaigns -Lead magnets -Landing pages -Ability to download content from the landing page or website An example of automation would be sending an email. This campaign will run for a specified amount of time and automation features can trigger what happens next based on whether or not the email is opened. By doing this, you don't have to constantly be in front of your computer. You just set it up and let it run.  A critical piece for contact management to work properly is making sure you capture and organize information that includes names, phone numbers, and email addresses. Once this is done, organize the names in segments so you can manage them properly. Who can use automated marketing? This is available to anyone, not just those with a technical background. These tools are typically user-friendly and provide instructions to help you set up your campaign and emails, link those out, and allow them to run. SMS and social media can be automated as well. If you get stuck, there are plenty of tutorials on YouTube. Another key component is making sure you're connected to an email deliverability system that allows for smooth delivery of your emails. Ricardo uses SendGrid. For an SMS campaign, there is Twilio. These can then get tied into a system like Mautic. The key is to be curious about what's available to you to grow your business and give it a try. Many of these services are free and will allow you to explore before you upgrade. Look for the best fits for your processes and budget. If you need assistance with workflow, installation, or server setup, you can reach out to Ricardo's company, The MI Group.   MUSIC CREDIT: Beat Your Competition – Vibe Tracks (No Copyright Music) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bll5zsOGNKA&feature=youtu.be

In this episode,  Ricardo Berris talks to Alice Foeller, the CEO of  SiteInSight , about the one tool to help master project management. The question is, how does a small business with fewer employees help manage client needs without customers falling through the cracks? They look for automated support.  When someone takes an action like opening your email, putting an item in a shopping cart through your website, or answering a phone call, an automated service can begin a domino effect that lets the company know that engagement has been made. Different actions from the customer will lead to particular feedback from the company and these are responses that you want to automate as they lead the customer to potentially purchasing your product or service. Much of the activity leading up to that moment, such as customization, scheduling, and workflow planning is done behind the scenes, however, so when the campaign is ready to launch, all the dominos are lined up and ready to go. When this is done well, it gives the customer a personalized experience that makes them feel cared about and lets them know you value their business.  What is so special about SharpSpring as a revenue growth platform? -It helps to track all the moving pieces for you so details aren't accidentally overlooked.  -You're able to strategically time communication so the customer hears from you regularly.  -They utilize their own abilities to reach out to potential partners. -They're transparent about how they move people through their sales funnel so you can see the potential of supporting your own clients in the same way.  -They easily talk to other tools so integration is much easier so you're able to still own your own product and intellectual property. -SharpSpring does not try to undercut or sell to clients who are working with their partners. -The SharpSpring team offers great training and works with integrity.  -Brings together tracking CRMs with marketing and creating content. -Has unlimited seats.   Who is the ideal SharpSpring customer? -Retail:  Retail is an automated industry so if you're a small retail business who is not using something like this, you may be using more staff time than you need, you may not be keeping up, or you're losing opportunities.  -Nonprofits: Many people overlook nonprofits but they're also working with a budget and marketing as well.  They also typically have multiple audiences such as board members, private donors, volunteers, corporate sponsors, etc. SharpSpring is an affordable system that can help with donor management. -Service  Businesses:  Examples of these companies include everything from attorneys to tree trimmers. Automatically sending an email to previous customers puts these companies in a position for repeat business.  How is SharpSpring different from other tools? -The company is committed to being able to integrate with other web-based companies.  -Can interact with email so you're able to put a timeframe in place for future interactions.  -Very customizable with the option of multiple fields. -Easy to sync up data.  -Great customer service, especially if you're not sure how synchronization works.  -You can continue to build your workflow so it works better and better.  MUSIC CREDIT: Beat Your Competition – Vibe Tracks (No Copyright Music) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bll5zsOGNKA&feature=youtu.be

Here are three things I know every agency owner wants. 1) A shortcut to landing new clients. 2) A way to prove ROI for their clients’ marketing budgets. 3) A way to automate tasks around data that allow them to guide their clients in the right direction faster and more accurately. The good news is – we can get all of that from marketing automation. If we use it wisely and well. Agencies are constantly working to find ways to help their clients attract right-fit prospects, stay relevant to them during their buyer’s journey, and shorten the entire sales cycle. We have many tools at our disposal to accomplish those goals and a sophisticated marketing automation system is certainly one of them. Many agencies have barely scratched the surface of what marketing automation can do for their own agency and for their clients. When we don’t delve into the power of marketing automation, we’re relying on email marketing circa 2000. But in this era of clients demanding ROI stats for their marketing spend, we are missing out on what can be a very compelling tool that can drive revenue for both our clients and our agency! In fact, my guest, Rick Carlson suggests that marketing automation is an outdated moniker for the tool. He believes we should call them revenue growth systems. Rick is the founder and CEO of SharpSpring and has seen how a marketing automation system can transform the way you connect and communicate with your leads and clients. In this episode of Build a Better Agency, Rick explains how using your marketing automation system to its full extent can enable agency owners to multiply their efforts, expand their communication, and build deep meaningful relationships as they build their agency. 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 You Will Learn in This Episode: A marketing automation system can help agencies shorten the sales cycle and strengthen their client relationships. Learn how to use them in your agency with insights from Rick Carlson about: How to think about the tools in a marketing automation system through a different lens Stand apart by having true one-to-one conversations at scale Best practices for using marketing automation to generate leads How agencies can create effective landing pages that align with their marketing goals How agencies can communicate with their audience without burning them out Different ways agencies can use marketing automation to bridge the gap between their marketing and sales teams How agencies are leaving money on the table by not using their marketing automation system to its full potential “Agencies have been called upon to help their clients fortify relationships with their existing customers, and they have been called upon to shorten the sales cycle. I think marketing automation tools play a role in both of those things.” @sharpspringCLICK TO TWEET“As marketers, the opportunities to spend money on leads are endless. But a disproportionate amount of time is spent on lead generation instead of nurturing the leads we’ve landed.” @sharpspringCLICK TO TWEET“The key to nurturing leads with a marketing automation system is truly knowing your customers’ business so you can apply the tools properly.” @sharpspringCLICK TO TWEET“A marketing automation system is about having a one-on-one conversation with your prospects at scale based on each individual’s interests.” @sharpspringCLICK TO TWEET“Marketing automation is an antiquated term. These tools are revenue growth platforms, and so many of them are geared towards the sales process as well.” @sharpspringCLICK TO TWEET Ways to contact Rick Carlson: Demo: https://sharpspring.com/ami/ Agency Acceleration Series: https://sharpspring.com/agency-acceleration-series/ Website: https://sharpspring.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickcarlson/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sharpspring/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SharpSpringInc/ Twitter: @sharpspring Tools & Resources: Sell with Authority (buy Drew’s book) Podcast Giveaway Facebook Group for the Build a Better Agency Podcast Agency Edge Research Series

How has your strategy for company growth been working? How did you pivot plans for company growth during a pandemic? Today’s guest is Rick Carlson, CEO at Sharpspring, Inc. Sharpspring, Inc. is a rapidly-growing, highly-rated global provider of affordable marketing automation delivered via a cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform. Rick and I discuss avoiding stagnation through efficient company growth. Don’t miss the gems in this conversation for your own 2021 plans.

In this podcast episode, we interview Chip House, Chief Marketing Officer at SharpSpring, a cloud-based automation platform for marketing agencies and small to mid-sized businesses.Having initially started his career in email marketing, Chip shares his view on marketing automation and why it is a revenue growth platform; as well as details on how SharpSpring's agency model helps clients achieve results, and why SharpSpring's vision to cross CRM, sales and marketing automation to provide a comprehensive suite of tools to small businesses will continue to be a major success in the next 5-10 years.  

Have you ever felt embarrassed by the size of your agency? Do you think success is wrongfully tied to the size of your team? Have you been worried about how the current economy is affecting your business and your clients? Change is a painful part of growing, but it's one of the best teachers when you're looking to build a great agency, not just a big agency. In this episode, we'll cover: How to move forward during an economic crisis. Why your ego could be holding your agency back. Why fast growth isn't the best solution. I talked to Mark DiMassimo, Chief Creative at DiMassimo Goldstein, an agency he founded in New York in 1996. In the early years of the agency, Mark hit the ground running. By 1997, DiMassimo Goldstein was the fasted growing agency around. Within a couple of years, the agency had offices in San Francisco, and New York, and Mark was featured on the cover of a magazine. And then the dot com bust hit, forcing him to take his staff down from a peak of 114 to 30. Mark shares the way he learned that a big agency team doesn't always correlate to the agency's level of success. How to Move Forward During Economic Crisis "One of the most important things I learned is what a pleasure and an honor it is to do this business. What a pleasure and an honor it is to be able to think, dream, learn from great business leaders, daydream, write, have visions, have a chance to get visions produced to work," Mark said. Even though the industry pain points of deadlines, uncertainty, competition, he still feels a little sheepish calling it work. Mark has had the unfortunate experience of letting dozens of good employees go and yet he says those difficult times are all the more reason to do what needs to be done to help the business survive them. You loved the agency when you started it and when you started to grow it. The challenge is continuing to love it and carrying over that sense of pride you have even during the dark times. Why Your Ego Could Be Holding Your Agency Back Have you noticed that agencies are judged by the size of their team? But judging success level by size isn't accurate. After the dot com bust, Mark found himself in therapy and learning to meditate. He learned to leverage his skills to take advantage of any skill he could use to help ally the vision he had of his agency with where he was. One of the lessons he learned during this phase of his life and his agency was his ego only really matters to him. "People don't really care. They care about you as a person, but they don't care if you grew and sold your agency. They don't care if you didn't."  Letting go of your ego and the need to feed your ego by growing your agency whether you need to or not helps you gain freedom. And that freedom allows you to make your agency into what you want it to be. Letting go of your ego is also important during your agency's tough times. Having the ability to reach out to others for advice, without worrying about what they might think another tool for achieving your vision. Why Fast Growth Isn't the Best Solution Change is what makes us necessary, Mark says. Dealing with the way change impacts clients is probably one of the reasons you started an agency. Mark says it is equally important to be upfront with your clients when you're dealing with changes within your agency. Because your clients are in the world of business, they understand the need to be lean and focused. While creating a solution to whatever problem your agency is struggling with, communication and transparency go a long way in building goodwill with your clients. The best solutions generally have one main ingredient: time. Mark learned the hard lesson that fast growth is not good growth. No business can really be successful running on high speed forever. If you're growing too fast, you likely haven't come up with contingencies if the industry inevitably changes. And if you're currently in the midst of a changing industry and only now trying to chart a path to the future, you will not have it perfectly figured out right away. But you can certainly have fun while you figure it out. Struggling to maintain consistent project work and revenue streams? Check out SharpSpring. They’ve built a low-cost, comprehensive marketing, and sales platform. SharpSpring helps agencies increase their margins and build consistent monthly recurring revenue. For a limited time, you can get a live demo of SharpSpring and see what it’s like to use a platform built specifically for agencies. Also, be sure you check out SharpSpring's FREE Agency Acceleration Series featuring presentations by some of today's best marketers -- including the one and only Seth Godin.

Are you losing clients and talent to other agencies? Are you wondering what the secret recipe is to keeping happy clients and a happy team? Are you looking for that one thing to make both clients and talent want to stay? The loyalty you are seeking from your clients and team members is directly related to the value you place on them. In this episode, we'll cover: How to build client trust How to build employee trust and morale 3 questions every agency owner needs to answer I talked with Tom Johnson -- Partner, COO, and CFO of Southport Marketing, an experiential marketing agency based in California but with clients across the country. Tom and his two partners began the agency just as the 2008 financial crisis was coming down the pike. Since then, the partners have put a lot of sweat equity into the success of their venture. Tom is sharing the strategies he has used to maintain many of his original clients and team members all these years. How to Build Client Trust When asked what attracts clients such as Chevy dealers, Alaska Airlines, USC, and the Los Angeles Rams, Tom says his answer might seem a little cliche. "People come to us because of our customer service. Because we care about our clients and we want them to succeed. We hire people with a lot of passion for our clients and we have earned the right to say we provide very good customer service. We go the extra mile. We pick up the phone." Tom believes customer service is often regarded these days as "old school." The big agencies often lose the personal touch they offered when they were new agencies. Everyone seems to place more importance on other facets of success beyond simply doing the best you can for your client. "The client is the one who is paying your bills," Tom says. "Agencies often forget that." How to Build Employee Trust and Morale You want agency team members who are passionate about your clients, and who -- ideally -- look forward to coming to work each day. Tom said his team members tend to stay for years because they know they are valued. Some of the ways Southport Marketing communicates significance to the team: A diversified training model allowing the opportunity to grow in the agency as well as the industry. An investment in training and development programs. A decent pay rate that is competitive in the industry. Other perks, such as annual retreats, Costco cards, and holiday parties. An open-door policy for employees to provide feedback and share their innovative ideas. 3 Questions Every Agency Owner Needs to Answer While valuing your clients and your talent seems simple, a lot of thought must be given to ensuring that you communicate that value to them through your actions and developing new ways to do that. Here are some questions to ask yourself: Are you proactive when dealing with clients or are you reactive? Tom suggests being a bit of both. Being proactive means hiring people who are able to put out high quality work on a short deadline. Quick turnaround is sometimes part of the agency business. Hiring people with that ability means you are better able to meet those short deadlines because you have anticipated them. Would you want a job at your agency? Look at the perks you offer your employees. If you were being offered a job for your agency, would those perks be enough to keep you from looking elsewhere? Would they make you feel valued as a new hire? Would you want to hire your agency to work for you? Just as you need to put yourself in your employees' shoes, also put yourself in the shoes of your client. What do you bring to the table that no other agency offers? Is your agency a fun, cool, and interactive place? Are you able to inspire client's trust by meeting their needs? Struggling to maintain consistent project work and revenue streams? Check out SharpSpring. They’ve built a low-cost, comprehensive marketing, and sales platform that helps agencies increase their margins and build consistent monthly recurring revenue. For a limited time, you can get a live demo of SharpSpring and see what it’s like to use a platform built specifically for agencies. Also, be sure you check out SharpSpring's FREE Agency Acceleration Series featuring presentations by some of today's best marketers -- including the one and only Seth Godin.

Are you looking for a way to keep your clients around longer? Are you ready to focus more on client retention? Do you struggle for clients to see the value of your work? Client retention is one of the most important parts of finding success, but it's often one of the things agencies struggle with the most. In today's episode, we'll cover: 2 ways to drive up client retention. Why it's important to benchmark client progress. Does your team understand agency pricing and value? Today I sat down for an informative chat with John Horn, CEO of Stub Group Advertising, a digital advertising agency out of Fort Worth, Texas. John was one of the agency's first hires, and as such has really seen what works and what doesn't when it comes to growing a pay-per-click agency. He's here to talk about why it's so critical for your clients to understand exactly what they are getting. 2 Ways to Drive Up Client Retention It's no secret — in the agency realm, there is a lot of client turnover. And while you may be able to bring in new clients to replace some of the ones you've lost, if you constantly have a revolving door of clients, you're going to experience excess costs and a lot of instability. One of the best ways to grow an agency is to not just bring on new clients but to keep the ones you already have. How? Start out with realistic expectations: Every client will come in with a list of what they want for their company. It's your job to help them understand what is attainable and what just isn't. Sit down with your client and discuss what they want and compare it to market realities. When you do this from the start, your client is less likely to be disappointed. Help your client measure success: What should your client see when a campaign is working? Will there be more traffic? Higher revenue? Less spend? Understand how the client will measure the success and be able to report on what you are delivering. Why It's Important to Benchmark Client Progress Clients are fickle. And there will always be other agencies trying to lure your clients away. So how do you make sure your clients are happy with the services you provide? Benchmarks. Clients will always forget what you did for them yesterday. That's why it's important to regularly sit down and say, "This is where you were then and this is where you are now." This helps your client understand the value of your services and will help them justify a continued relationship. This is also a good time to look at what's working and what's not. Look at the data. Are things getting better or worse? Benchmarks can help you and your client decide when it may be time to mix things up. Does Your Team Understand Agency Pricing and Value? Stub Group Advertising has gone through a lot of different pricing models to figure out what works. But one thing that remains the same is the need to understand value and worth. If you don't understand why you're pricing your services at a certain point, your clients won't either. If you are an expert in the field, don't be afraid to charge those premium prices. Sure, you'll attract new clients with lower pricing, but generally, it won't be the type of clients that will help you build your agency. Use pricing as a qualifier for the type of client you want to bring in. Keeping clients happy isn't rocket science, but it does take work. The more your clients understand what they are actually getting and the value of your services, the more likely they are to stick around. Struggling to maintain consistent project work and revenue streams? Check out SharpSpring. They’ve built a low-cost, comprehensive marketing, and sales platform that helps agencies increase their margins and build consistent monthly recurring revenue. For a limited time, you can get a live demo of SharpSpring and see what it’s like to use a platform built specifically for agencies. Also, be sure you check out SharpSpring's FREE Agency Acceleration Series featuring presentations by some of today's best marketers -- including the one and only Seth Godin.

Are you looking for a way to grow your agency through strategic partnerships? Do you struggle to understand what type of partnership might be right for you? There are so many ways you can build and grow your agency — the trick is creating a partnership that aligns with your prospective clients' needs. In today's episode, we'll cover: Technology agencies use to grow revenue. 2 ways to be a successful strategic partner. Understanding where your agency's value truly lies. Can a digital agency be good at SaaS? Today I sat down with Rick Carlson, President of SharpSpring. As a marketing automation software company, SharpSpring works with hundreds of agencies, building strategic partnerships that build on the strengths of all parties involved. He's here to talk about how agencies can grow revenue by finding and being a good strategic partner. New Technology Agencies Use to Grow Revenue As a marketing automation expert, Rick has seen the evolution of the various platforms out there. He says there has been a major shift in the way marketing automation has developed over the years. Instead of just traditional email marketing and landing pages, it now integrates with the full sales cycle. He refers to SharpSpring as not just marketing automation but rather a "revenue growth platform." Rick says there has been a lag between the innovation of marketing automation platforms and agencies' adoption of the full scope of the platform. No longer just limited to email automation, SharpSpring includes intelligent forms, CRM, social post scheduling, and even a chatbot tool. When agencies harness the full potential of a tool like SharpSpring it becomes a true "black box" and can exponentially escalate the agency's value to their client. As Rick says, agencies are only limited by their imagination -- the capabilities are there and ready to deploy. 2 Ways to Be a Successful Strategic Partner I always tell my clients there are three sales channels you need to focus on in order to grow: inbound, outbound, and strategic partnerships. Strategic partnerships is the one that is often neglected or misunderstood. It is not just a referral partner (those are great too, but not reliable for growth). To align with the right strategic partner, figure out which technologies make are natural companions with your core service. Then, leverage that partnership to help your agency grow. Once you find the right partners, there are two main ways Rick sees agencies become successful with those  relationships: The cookie-cutter approach: Agencies who utilize the cookie-cutter approach typically spend a lot of time perfecting one strategy. However, they are then able to replicate the same model over and over again. This method is highly efficient and highly profitable, focusing on volume over contracts. Personalization: With this approach, the agency looks at the unique needs of the client. This approach requires more strategy and often more time commitment. However, the trade-off is typically a bigger retainer and longer engagement. Understanding Where Your Agency's Value Truly Lies One of the problems with strategic partnerships is agencies find it easy to pass on their partners' work as their own. The main issue with this is it can cause the client to overlook the value your agency actually provides, which is strategy. Look at it this way, when you get your taxes done, the accountant doesn't expect you to believe they developed QuickBooks. When you go to a tax professional, you expect them to review your finances, find tax breaks, and file your taxes. The same holds true for digital agency clients and the tools you use to be great at the results you provide. Remember, most of the time technology is nothing more than a tool if it is not placed in capable hands. Make it clear where your agency's value truly lies. Can a Digital Agency Be Good at SaaS? Have you developed a technology you think would help others? Maybe you want to create another profit stream. There's nothing wrong with branching out, but once you start marketing a new SaaS tool, you become a software developer and not just an agency. Sure, you can do both, but if you choose this route, you need to separate the two. Trying to do both will become a distraction and one of your ventures will suffer. If you're going to create tech, you need a clear separation — different teams, different presidents, etc. Strategic partnerships are meant to benefit all parties involved. They should not be a one-way street. Focus on what you can provide and what your agency really needs. When you find the right match, you'll find more time to devote to other areas to help your agency grow. Struggling to maintain consistent project work and revenue streams? Check out SharpSpring. They’ve built a low-cost, comprehensive marketing, and sales platform that helps agencies increase their margins and build consistent monthly recurring revenue. For a limited time, you can get a live demo of SharpSpring and see what it’s like to use a platform built specifically for agencies. Also, be sure you check out SharpSpring's FREE Agency Acceleration Series featuring presentations by some of today's best marketers -- including the one and only Seth Godin.

Marketing automation refers to software platforms and services that are created for marketing professionals to communicate on multiple channels online more effectively and automate repetitive tasks. Things such as setting up email workflows, integrating your CRM with your email marketing system, automating social media online. This is something that the wine business has been slow to adopt, but those that have, have shown some real return on it. Today Mike talks with Morgan Bell, who is one of the principals at SharpSpring, which is one of the leaders in the marketing automation space. While this was recorded late last year, it's evergreen, so it's appropriate today as it was back then. And with the advent of Covid and the need for more direct to consumer sales, those that adopt a marketing automation platform will be in much better shape. On with the show. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/htbpodcast/support

SharpSpring, Inc. - Q2 2020 Earnings Call - Aug 13 2020

Meet Richie Burke Richie Burke is founder and CEO of GGMM (GoGeddit Marketing and Media) a marketing agency that helps brands including Trek Bicycle, Colliers International, Thrivent Financial, Komatsu, Marquette University and many more grow through services including podcast production and marketing, brand strategy and digital marketing. He is the co-founder of PodFest MKE and regularly speaks on digital marketing, storytelling and podcasting. He is also the host of The GoGedders Podcast, a local Milwaukee podcast, which is syndicated by OnMilwaukee over 100 episodes, and it generates 10,000 downloads per month. How long have you been podcasting and why you decided to get started? We started our show in 2016. The GoGetters, it's a Milwaukee Community big show we do a very wide range of topics. I had the idea for it and kind of started it back in 2012 as a YouTube show. And then I pivoted my business in 2013. I was a fan of some podcasts and I saw an opportunity in the local market. Again, not very many people at all, were doing it here. I saw a lot of national podcasts on marketing and success and stuff like that, but nothing really being done on a local level to highlight interesting local stories or business leaders via audio and Facebook video. So we started that in 2016. Very naively, we did a lot wrong. I think there's something to being different and unique and the storytelling was still pretty good. And it did pretty well locally, surprisingly. And we saw what it did, from a business standpoint for an agency and thought, hey, everyone's listening to audio, no brands are producing audio. Why don't we start podcasting for other companies and start offering this as a service and launch that service in the spring of 2018, and thought it was going to blow up right away, and it didn't. We got our first client five or six months later, but now we get to produce a number of shows for some of the brands that you mentioned in the intro and we significantly upped our production game at that time for ourselves and got serious about the medium. Let's talk about the Milwaukee focus a little bit. Why did you decide your content should be focused in the Milwaukee market? I think when you're marketing or starting any product, it's good to really start narrow and then grow from there just because there's so much noise out in the marketplace, and I would advise that to anyone starting a show today. And in 2016 there were very few if any shows highlighting Milwaukeeans and for Milwaukee as far as podcasts and not a lot of people were producing Facebook videos telling these stories. There’s obviously, more now, but I saw the whitespace in the market, I thought it would be cool to do, I thought it would be fun to do as well. And selfishly, I thought it would be a good way to network and grow my business and I don't have people on the show to sell them on my services, but that typically just happens naturally. So you talked about some of the hurdles. When you started your podcast, if you would do it all over again, what would you do differently? I mean, there's a lot of things that I would have done differently off the bat like much better equipment. I mean, we had good guests, we did a pretty good job of marketing it that's why it kind of still took off. Although I look back at the old episode covers and I think the branding was terrible on it. There's little details like that. I also think going into something with kind of blunt naiveness can be a benefit because you don't exactly know what you're getting into and how hard it's going to be and I'm sure you've experienced that with your show and just starting a business from scratch. Going in kind of blind and really learning as you go and adapting fast, and it can be a benefit. I think a lot of people spend too much time planning or trying to get something perfect and then putting it out there, when in reality, you launch something and you never really know how the markets are going to respond. I think it's much better to put something out there, almost build it as you go a little bit, see how the market reacts and then adapt based off of that. Can you share with our listeners, one of your favorite networking experiences that you've had? Networking for me changed a lot over the years. I think when you're young and you're starting a business like I was, you're trying to get in front of anyone or as many people as possible. I started my company going door to door. I was walking into small businesses trying to get them to run promotions on my deal site and get in front of them. And I was going to a lot of networking events and I think at that point, when you're new to the marketplace, it's good to just get out there and I think there's value in showing up. You never know what's going to happen a lot of times. I've gone to events kind of begrudgingly because I didn't know anyone that was there where I didn't really feel like showing up those after a long day or it was an early breakfast, but I just showed up and introduced myself. And those have ended up being some of the best connections and have led to business. So I think it's important to be somewhat strategic about where you show up. But you never know, the more you put yourself out there, no matter what it is, the better chance you have of it leading to something. How do you stay in front of our best nurture your network in your community? There's a number of ways. Our current clients are a big part of our network. So we're in touch with them a lot, whether that's me or people on my team. You know, we've built out our email list. We send out, what I consider, value added emails. We've changed our email marketing strategy quite a bit just over the last few months here. And then on LinkedIn, I've been posting a lot more content on there. We have our CRM, I know we both use SharpSpring for that where we keep track of our sales pipeline and make sure I'm staying in front of them or inviting them to our webinar or events that we have. And I think the more interesting things that you have going on as a person or a company, that you can add value to people, the better off that you're going to be, whether it's holding a webinar that's going to add value or any event or being involved in a cause and you can reach out to people with stuff they're actually interested in. Digital networking or traditional networking – which do you find more value in? I think there's definitely a value in the online game. Being active on LinkedIn posting content, actually reaching out and connecting with people but nothing is going to be face to face contact. Face to face isn't scalable, obviously online is scalable, I can get in front of a lot more people on LinkedIn and today we sent off an email that went to thousands of people that took a few hours to create and I got a good response. Nothing is going to beat face to face so I think it's showing up to those events or if you don't like showing up to events, reaching out to people you have something in common with or you may want to get in front of on LinkedIn and inviting them to coffee. Maybe you're less intimidated and just better in a one on one situation. I think everyone's different. If you could go back to your 20-year-old self, what would you tell yourself to do more of less of or differently with regards to your professional career? I think not worrying so much about what other people think of you is important. I think I spent a lot of time especially after starting my business trying to prove something which served as a very big form of motivation, probably not the healthiest form of motivation and I have a very people pleasing personality on the other side, which can be good in certain ways. But I've also procrastinated or avoided a lot of confrontation or tough situations, conversations that happen in business for any business owner. I think just getting that stuff out of the way sooner rather than later. If your gut tells you something's not right, go deal with it right away. Don't sweat the small stuff because small shit happens all the time. I think being a little more patient as I can be kind of impatient, I tend to have a big vision for things and things typically take a lot more time, energy and money to get them to where you want them to be. Do you have any final word or advice to offer our listeners with regards to growing and supporting your network? I think little things can go a long way. Again, some of my best connections have been from showing up to any event that I wasn't in the mood to go to. I think there's power in showing up. I would focus on what, high value, low effort, ways I can help my network out. And just simple stuff to separate yourself out if someone does something nice for you send them a thank you card. No one does that. Just those little things can make a big difference. And just looking to connect the dots for people can be very helpful and play to your strengths too. How to connect with Richie Website: https://ggmm.io/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richieburke/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ggmmagency/ Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/GGMMagency/ Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/ggmmagency

About the guest:     If you want to know where agri-marketing is going, ask Sara. She's already seen it, studied it and figured out how it's digital. As president, Sara inspires clients, partners and staff to continuously learn, grow and innovate. Her strategic vision keeps Paulsen on the leading edge of ag marketing thought, digital and creative leadership. Sara is also the host of Spark: Careers in Agribusiness, a podcast where leaders in ag share advice for a successful career. Prior to taking over the agency reins, Sara was vice president of digital services. She joined Paulsen as a graphic designer in 1991. Sara is a graduate of the University of South Dakota and was raised on a row-crop and livestock farm in southeastern South Dakota. Because she doesn't have enough on her plate, she and her husband also own and operate a rural bed-and-breakfast.   In the episode:     4:18 - Sara describes how you need a passion for what you do and an appetite for learning to succeed in your career. 5:19 - Sara tells about studying search engines and how they work. 5:52 - Nancy and Sara chat about the two-day workshop Nancy did at Disney with Agency Management Institute which Sara attended and how she learned to incorporate PR into her advertising programs. 10:25 - Sara shares how she looks at engagement rates to measure success. 13:30 - After having a client that was worried about losing control of their brand on social media, Sara explains why thanking people for their comments and acknowledging their participation is important. 15:16 - Sara describes the techniques Paulsen has used to build their audience over the past ten years. 17:28 - Nancy and Sara talk about the benefits of having a niche. 24:23 - With recent privacy changes, Sara talks about the importance of building your own assets in terms of data. 30:11 - Based on the power of relationship building, Sara describes how to be intentional, helpful and memorable online. 34:54 – Sara shares a book that has helped her career.   Quote “It really doesn't matter where you reside. We all have access to great information and its really more about your attitude, willingness to work and again that appetite for learning and applying what you have learned. Sharing what you know.” – Sara Steever, president of Paulsen Marketing   Links:           Paulsen Marketing - https://www.paulsen.ag/ Marketing Over Coffee: https://www.marketingovercoffee.com/ Sharpspring: https://sharpspring.com/ TILT by Niraj Dawar: https://www.amazon.com/Tilt-Shifting-Strategy-Products-Customers/dp/1422187179 Spark: Careers in Agribusiness - https://www.paulsen.ag/thinking/spark/   Listen to Drew McLellan's PR Maven® Podcast episode Listen to Stephen Woessner's PR Maven® Podcast episode   Activate the PR Maven® Flash Briefing on your Alexa Device.   Join the PR Maven® Facebook group page.     Looking to connect:            Email: sara.steever@paulsen.ag LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarasteever/ Twitter: @ssteever

It is often said that niching down and making your offer specific to a particular need and section of the market is the key to success. Rick Carlson, our guest today believes that this idea is still under-appreciated. Rick is the CEO of SharpSpring, an all-in-one marketing automation platform that has experienced great success in its young life. We hear from Rick about his career in the marketing sphere, what he has chosen to give his attention to and the events leading up to the founding of SharpSpring. We chat about the company's base in Florida and why Rick decided to keep the company in his home state instead of one of the other startup hubs in the US. From there, Rick takes us through how SharpSpring approaches customer acquisition and their own marketing before we talk about finding the right type of customers and how he does this. The conversation ends off with the customary questions, with Rick opting to share his favorite business podcast instead of a book! For all this and a whole lot more from someone who is making great waves in the marketing world, and doing things slightly differently, join us on Leveling Up today! TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:21] Before we jump into today’s interview, please rate, review, and subscribe to the Leveling Up Podcast! [00:42] Rick's background in sales, marketing and products, and his experiences in the field. [02:18] The strange story of how SharpSpring became a publicly-traded company.  [04:14] Rick's life in Florida; why he chose to base his company in his hometown. [06:22] SharpSpring's current client base and how they shape up next to their peers. [07:30] SharpSpring's target market and the interesting tactics they use for capturing. [09:01] Rick's tips for getting out there, finding market-fit and working with agencies.  [10:29] The effort that goes into connecting with the right companies and partners. [12:44] Focussing on a specific niche — the reasons for SharpSpring's success.  [14:37] Rick's favorite business podcast, article and tool! [15:55] Why Rick chooses to focus on his own work over following other companies and founders.  Resources From The Interview: Rick Carlson SharpSpring  AVG   Marketo  Act-On Eloqua  Pardot HubSpot Datanyze   Must listen podcast: Manager Tools   Leave Some Feedback:   What should I talk about next? Who should I interview? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review here Subscribe to Leveling Up on iTunes Get the non-iTunes RSS Feed   Connect with Eric Siu:    Growth Everywhere Single Grain Eric Siu on Twitter    

I love entrepreneurs. Guys and gals that see a gap and take a chance. I especially like them when they're marketers and work in sales. Rick's one of those guys. That's what lead him to found SharpSpring, a marketing automation platform focused on agencies. Join us as we talk to Rick about his company's success and what the most successful agencies are doing with marketing automation. Be sure to subscribe! Do it here ► https://bit.ly/theclimbyoutube ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Show Notes: Rick's company ► www.sharpspring.com ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Join Digital Mastermind: Website ► https://www.digitalmastermind.com ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Connect w/Digital Mastermind Group Facebook ► https://www.facebook.com/digmastermindgroup Instagram ► https://www.instagram.com/digitalmastermindgroup/ LinkedIn ► https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-mastermind-group/ Twitter ► https://twitter.com/dig_mastermind ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Connect with Jon Tsourakis: Facebook ► https://www.facebook.com/jon.tsourakis/ Instagram ► https://www.instagram.com/jontsourakis/ LinkedIn ► https://www.linkedin.com/in/jontsourakis/ Twitter ► https://twitter.com/jontsourakis ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

Inbound marketing é uma das abordagens de marketing digital mais populares hoje no Brasil. Acontece que muitas empresas se perdem porque têm pressa na obtenção de resultados. Apresentação: Cassio Politi. Convidado: Eduardo Correia. Link para a SharpSpring: https://br.sharpspring.com/. Música de encerramento: 'O Circo' (Nara Leão). Para participar do grupo do Comunique-se no Telegram e acessar o podcast em múltiplas plataformas, o link é este: https://www.podcast-se.com.br/. Canal Papo Influente no YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/papoinfluente.

Inbound marketing é uma das abordagens de marketing digital mais populares hoje no Brasil. Acontece que muitas empresas se perdem porque têm pressa na obtenção de resultados. Apresentação: Cassio Politi. Convidado: Eduardo Correia. Link para a SharpSpring: https://br.sharpspring.com/. Música de encerramento: 'O Circo' (Nara Leão). Para participar do grupo do Comunique-se no Telegram e acessar o podcast em múltiplas plataformas, o link é este: https://www.podcast-se.com.br/. Canal Papo Influente no YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/papoinfluente.

Listen to this episode with Nicholas Mangold, Product Marketing Specialist at SharpSpring, and learn the deep secrets of Marketing Automation. Get advice on the most important factors to consider when starting out with an MA system and how this tool can help to attract new customers.

Empresas exageram quando prometem resultados rápidos e acima do que realmente o inbound marketing pode proporcionar. Afinal, o que realmente esperar dessa técnica de marketing? Apresentação: Cassio Politi. Convidado: Eduardo Correia. Link para a SharpSpring: https://br.sharpspring.com/. Dica de leitura: Marketing Rebellion (https://www.amazon.com.br/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=marketing+rebellion&index=aps&tag=hydrbrgk-20&ref=pd_sl_3vxgtpwlp1_e&adgrpid=88089654904&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=393008926967&hvpos=1t1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=11340316092536173606&hvqmt=e&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1001773&hvtargid=kwd-376183935079&hydadcr=5629_10696902&gclid=CjwKCAiA35rxBRAWEiwADqB374zjEMSabDwNL6gkqR8CNFtDuzy6xaHteSR2OyhPXPAUQmTyQFv8xhoCwlYQAvD_BwE). Link para o artigo do Mark Schaeffer (em inglês) sobre Content Shock: https://businessesgrow.com/2014/01/06/content-shock/. Música de encerramento: 'Exagerado' (Ney Matogrosso). Para participar do grupo do Comunique-se no Telegram, o link é este: https://t.me/joinchat/PetVEhbLu3g0ubg7FSEYeg.

Empresas exageram quando prometem resultados rápidos e acima do que realmente o inbound marketing pode proporcionar. Afinal, o que realmente esperar dessa técnica de marketing? Apresentação: Cassio Politi. Convidado: Eduardo Correia. Link para a SharpSpring: https://br.sharpspring.com/. Dica de leitura: Marketing Rebellion (https://www.amazon.com.br/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=marketing+rebellion&index=aps&tag=hydrbrgk-20&ref=pd_sl_3vxgtpwlp1_e&adgrpid=88089654904&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=393008926967&hvpos=1t1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=11340316092536173606&hvqmt=e&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1001773&hvtargid=kwd-376183935079&hydadcr=5629_10696902&gclid=CjwKCAiA35rxBRAWEiwADqB374zjEMSabDwNL6gkqR8CNFtDuzy6xaHteSR2OyhPXPAUQmTyQFv8xhoCwlYQAvD_BwE). Link para o artigo do Mark Schaeffer (em inglês) sobre Content Shock: https://businessesgrow.com/2014/01/06/content-shock/. Música de encerramento: 'Exagerado' (Ney Matogrosso). Para participar do grupo do Comunique-se no Telegram, o link é este: https://t.me/joinchat/PetVEhbLu3g0ubg7FSEYeg.

What's the best - and quickest - way for a B2B business to gain marketing traction and turn contacts into customers? This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, boomtime CEO Bill Bice talks about his approach to word of mouth marketing. A serial entrepreneur, board advisor and one-time venture capitalist, Bill has seen what works across a wide range of companies, and now his company boomtime is helping B2B businesses grow by leveraging content and LinkedIn to generate buzz. Check out this episode to get the details of Bill's process and learn how you can use it to improve your own inbound marketing results. Highlights from my conversation with Bill include: Bill says that the three main objectives of word of mouth marketing are to build our audience, follow up on all of the prospects that you're generating, and stay top of mind with that audience. The easiest way to generate new business is through referrals, and the key to getting referrals is to give your audience something to talk about. Bill says most companies make the mistake of talking all about themselves on social media, when in reality they should be focused on educating their audiences. The two most common mistakes that companies make when it comes to marketing are to not make it a top priority and not be consistent with it. Three keys to successful marketing are building a response mobile website, having a robust email marketing program, and making a lot of connections on LinkedIn. In a crowded content landscape, one of the best ways to stand out and attract qualified leads is to build an audience and then invest in educating them through your content. Boomtime helps companies use this same process by outsourcing content creation for them to 300+ subject matter experts. They also help manage their clients' LinkedIn strategies. Bill says that with a well optimized profile, he'll get between a 35 and 50% acceptance rate on connection requests, sending 40 to 50 connection requests a day, and 6 to 8% of those people will start a conversation either from the connection request or he will often send a followup message with whatever the best performing piece of content is. Resources from this episode: Visit the boomtime website Connect with (or follow) Bill on LinkedIn Check out Bill's B2B Marketing podcast Listen to the podcast to learn how word of mouth marketing can help you increase the ROI of your marketing strategy. Transcript Kathleen Booth (Host): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I'm your host Kathleen Booth and this week my guest is Bill Bice, who is the CEO of Boomtime. Welcome to the podcast, Bill. Bill Bice (Guest): Kathleen it's great to be with you. Thanks. Bill and Kathleen recording this episode. Kathleen: Yeah, thanks for joining me. I love your story because you scratched your own itch and solved a problem that you were having and I always find that those are some of the most interesting conversations. So I'm really excited to dig into it. Can we start by having you tell my audience a little bit about your story, who you are, what you're doing now with Boomtime, and what led you down that path? Meet Bill Bice Bill: So I feel like I was born an entrepreneur. I started my first company when I was 18, a software company, and of course I had no idea what I was doing, but over enough time, got a great team, and built a great company, and out of that we had enough success in selling that company that I got to be part of an early stage VC fund. And so I have founded and invested and been on the board of a whole host of companies. I actually sat down and counted them up so I could say it's 27 companies, and there is a not shocking correlation in those companies, which are the ones where we've had the most success are where we really focused on going to market and nailed that. And so you do all this really hard work to create an amazing product or service, and yet how good you are at marketing is going to determine what kind of reward you get for doing that. And I just got really frustrated in trying to get great marketing for my own companies, and so I decided to tackle that problem. Kathleen: I love it. And I think probably most of the people who listen to this podcast would agree that great marketing is important for growing your company. So that's awesome. So can you talk a little bit about specifically what Boomtime does? Bill: Yeah, so we've really focused in on B2B, we have a history in doing some work in B2C, but most of my experience has been in B2B. And the thing that I really like about B2B is that we've been able to take sort of the core framework or playbook and apply it to really any sort of highly complex, valuable transaction. So it doesn't really work for things that are volume-based. But if you're selling something high value, then the approach, I mean, I'm really a programmer at heart, so to me it was all about the data. And one of the things that I have found really challenging about marketing is unlike every other discipline in our businesses, here we have one that just refuses to accept scale and efficiency. It's just a core problem with marketing. And we do it everywhere else in our business, and it really has to happen in marketing also. And so I just tackled that from the standpoint of following the data in a very iterative process and learning what works. We don't really have to, although experimentation is key, we don't have to you, you've got bigger competitors who have spent millions of dollars figuring out how to do exactly what you need to do. You've just got to figure out what's the smaller version of that for my business that's going to work for me. And so that's what we've been doing in the B2B world. It's very much a B2B content marketing inbound approach that is what's really compatible with most of the sort of small, that two to $20 million a year business that really does a great job of taking care of their customers, but would like to grow. Or maybe has been growing in that sort of plateaued and didn't really quite understand what was making that work before, and what was making it work was word of mouth. And so we now live in this great era where we can actually really amplify the effect of word of mouth because we're all connected digitally. And so that's the thing that we have focused on. Word of mouth marketing Kathleen: So let's take it to another level of detail. I love that you said that the challenge that you're trying to solve is making companies go-to-market strategies repeatable, scalable, more efficient and really focusing that around the power of word of mouth. What does that look like in practice? If somebody is using boomtime for example, and this isn't necessarily a commercial for the product, but obviously you were trying to solve a problem that you saw through the product. So I'm curious to know, in detail, what does that really look like? Bill: Well, so the three things we want to accomplish is we want to build our audience, we want to follow up on all of, we would be much better at capturing and following up on all of the prospects that we're generating. And then we want to stay top of mind with that audience. And if you do those things really well and you do it with this focus on, let's take the thing that's already working, word of mouth, and let's just leverage digital tools to accomplish the same thing. So we think of it as social currency, like we're going to create a lot more referrals. So let's assume that referrals are really valuable to your business. And the vast majority of business owners I sit down with and I say, well, one of my favorite questions is, where'd your last couple of new clients come from? And the answer, 99% of the time is, "Oh, it was a referral from so-and-so." Because that's what really works. And if you focus on giving your audience social currency, giving them a reason to talk about you, there's a really wonderful thing happens, which is you get more referrals. And the way you do that is just flip your content, flip your marketing on its head. So most marketing for most companies, 100% of what they do should be 10%, because it's all about them. It's the number one mistake in marketing is talking about yourself. Nobody cares. I mean, honestly, your clients just don't care about the new person you hired, the new client that you won. That should be 10% of your marketing. If you put 90% of your effort into sharing your expertise, then suddenly your marketing becomes this really valuable way to communicate with your audience and you give them reasons to talk about you. Word of mouth marketing in practice Kathleen: So can you give me an example of a campaign, for example, that either you've done or that one of your customers has done using the system that you have in place, just so that we can maybe have a mental model through which to understand how it all works? Bill: Yeah, I'm going to use ourselves as the example, because we had the classic problem that a lot of, we don't really consider ourselves a traditional agency, but you see agencies do this all the time, which is you're really good at marketing and yet you don't apply it to yourself. Kathleen: Our first child. Bill: Yes. The thing that's really helped us grow is when we, we actually changed our internal processes to be able to treat ourselves as a client and give one of our marketing strategists credit for us as if we were paying ourselves as a client. Because only by doing that did we actually put the priority in our own marketing. We're literally having the same problem that every business has, which is marketing's always the fourth or fifth thing that you think about, and everybody gets stuck in this same cycle of you focus on marketing when things are kind of slow and then they pick back up. And yet the second biggest mistake in marketing is inconsistency. And it's just clear in the data that being consistent in your marketing is the number one thing you can do to make it pay off. Whatever you're going to do, do it consistently. Pick a longterm strategy you can really commit to and be serious about it. And so when we started doing the same thing for ourselves, which is literally just laying out everything we've learned and following the data, I mean, it's amazing what happens when you bring several hundred like clients together, put them on one platform, be able to aggregate that data and see what's happening. It's so difficult, even if you can have the best marketing director in the world, you only have the data in your one company to work with. Being able to multiply that across several hundred companies, it's incredible what you learn. So we've just taken that and started sharing what we've learned. I'm very passionate about small businesses. It's where innovation comes from, it's what drives our economy. I would love for every small business owner to be doing exactly these things. And our version of this is to share our expertise and what we've learned and layout exactly what you want to do in your marketing. It's the best way to promote what we do, just to share. I mean you can literally take this and go do it yourself. You will be better off if you do that. And that's my number one goal with every one of our clients is we want their prospects to be better off because sat down and got exposed to that company. Whether they ever choose to use their product or service or not, because that's what's going to create word of mouth. Kathleen: So you guys used it for yourselves and what did that look like? Talk me through your campaign that you did. Bill: So it's very content oriented. So in B2B, one of the things that I love about it, it's actually pretty simple. Because if you do three things well your marketing is going to work. If you build a responsive mobile website that really pays attention to the customer journey, if you do really good email marketing and you build an audience on LinkedIn, and if in particular, if you stitch those together and understand the customer journey across those three channels, you will really understand what's working, what's creating engagement and you will be able to get new prospects and pull them down the funnel. And so when we started doing that for ourselves and putting out regular content that was just sharing what we know how to do, it created a different perspective in our audience about who we are and what we do. And it started bringing to us prospects that are much better educated, that were ready for much deeper conversations when we got started. It's one of the core problems in marketing today, which is our prospects have access to so much information, and there's so much that they can learn. You've really got to decide do you want to be an order taker or do you want to be part of that educational process? And the only way you can really create new sales opportunities is to start at the very top of the funnel and be part of that educational process. So that was the change that happened for us when we really started talking about here's what works, here's what we've learned, and just laying that out and doing that consistency thing. When we started doing that really, just week in and week out, every single week. It takes a while. That's the problem with it. I don't believe there are any miracles or short term fixes in marketing, but if you commit to it and then the results start to come in over time and it really changes the trajectory of your company. How content fuels word of mouth Kathleen: Now, how does the content that you're creating feed into word of mouth? Bill: Well, that content is that social currency. It's giving people really concrete things that they can do. So let's take LinkedIn, for example. Like no matter how much effort you're putting into LinkedIn, you should be putting more. If you just look at the engagement data and the growth over the last two years, it's incredible what's happening on LinkedIn, and they really made the switch to getting people to really put time in depth into LinkedIn. And I look at LinkedIn as the ideal networking event, right? I get to meet exactly who I want. I don't have to eat high calorie food at the same time, and you need to approach it like a networking event, which is you're really there to build your network and be helpful, to that note. And if you take that approach and you say, "Okay, I've got an audience now that I'm going to build on LinkedIn, I'm going to run an aggressive connection campaign to get connected to every great prospect for me that's in the market." And then you say, "Okay, now I'm going to share the thing that I know, that I'm an expert at because I've got perspective across..." You might be the CEO or CIO, whoever your decision maker is in your prospective company, you're running your one company. But I work with hundreds or thousands of companies like you, which means I can bring perspective to you that's really valuable to you. And if you're willing to share that, to give away whatever you consider the most valuable thing that you have, give that away as your marketing. That will dramatically change how prospects see you and it will create sales opportunities that didn't exist before. And so executing it on that on LinkedIn is the primary way that we grow. This is very meta, because that's how we grow and the way we do it is to describe exactly how you should do it. Kathleen: Got it. So it's an education play through LinkedIn, then? Bill: If you're in B2B, it's really the best way to grow your company. You'd have to be in a really strange niche for the prospects you want to not be sitting out there on LinkedIn today. Now there are quite a few other software platforms that help B2B and other types of companies with content marketing, with inbound marketing, companies like HubSpot, you've got SharpSpring, there's a ton of them out there. How does the solution that you've built fit within that ecosystem? Well, sort of the short answer is HubSpot with help. So we're not selling a piece of software. What we're doing is selling the end result, the service. So the big surprise with HubSpot, and HubSpot's a great platform, there are a ton of really good marketing automation systems out there, and if you're going to do this internally, you absolutely should implement one of them. The problem, the surprise, after you start paying for that subscription is then the two people you have to hire to get any value out of HubSpot. And a lot of companies, what they really want is just the end result of that as opposed to having to go through all of that process. And one of the things I've seen over and over again, so if you're going to do that internally, one of my strongest recommendations is everybody tries to create the content internally and unless you really put tremendous focus and resources behind that, it almost never works. You really need to go. So the way we've done it is we've built a network of 300 subject matter experts. We don't do any writing internally. There's always somebody out there who already knows your audience really well. Go find that person who you don't have to teach them your market, they've been writing for it, they have been working with the industry pubs or the events in that area, and you can, half hour brainstorming session, you can come up with six months of editorial. What you need is a great stream of regular content that doesn't require you sit in front of a blank screen and have to come up with it yourself. So you can implement all of this yourself, you just, you need to put in the marketing automation system. You need to find the resources that know how to do that. And then you've got to follow the data to really understand what's creating engagement and keep testing every piece of it so you get better with every turn of the cycle. Kathleen: So if somebody is using Boomtime, do they also need to have these other platforms or is Boomtime really a replacement for these things? Bill: So if we're doing that as a service for somebody that you don't really need a marketing automation system. It's great if you have a CRM. One of our biggest challenges is that nobody really uses their CRM the way that they should. And so our approach is to integrate with the CRM and put the end results in the CRM system. One of the challenges with that building your audience part is that your sales team always has many more opportunities that they're working on than what ends up in the CRM. CRMs are really designed for sales managers. And if you put somebody in the CRM, you're going to get questioned about it. So what most sales people do is they only put people who are fairly deep into the funnel into the CRM, which means we're not building our audience and we're not following up with all of the prospects that we have. So one of the tricks that we do is go mine the email boxes of everybody who's customer facing in your company and feed that into your CRM so we're getting that central database. Because particularly if you're in B2B, your sales people are talking to those early prospects via email. So there is a record of it and we can go capture it and we can make their job easier by filling that information in for them. And it's amazing what happens if you just follow up on all those prospects that are already in your firm. It's great low hanging fruit, you just got to go get it. Kathleen: So do you typically work with smaller companies? Because it sounds like really this is a solution for companies that don't have a large marketing team, for example, that really need the external help and that don't have a super sophisticated tech stack already in place. It sounds like it's a good way for a company that recognizes that they need to be able to make their marketing more scalable to really get started with that. Is that accurate? Bill: Yes. So you sort of have two groups. It's the kind of $2 to $5 million year company where we're really doing it for them. And then once you get to the point where you have a marketing director, often we're just working under their direction doing this one piece that I recommend you get automated and process around it no matter how big you are, which is just this regular flow of really great content. The ideas come from in the company, come from the executive team, but we get the content creation outsourced because it's so expensive to do it internally. And if you do this well, that of course is the hard part. Doing it well is difficult. But if you do, then having this regular flow of great content come in, no matter how big your company is, just feed your whole marketing operation in a really wonderful way. So unless you're to the point where you can have a full time staff of writers doing that for you, and even then I would argue it's going to be really cost effective to supplement that with outside resources. So we'll often work with a larger company where that's the piece that we do, because we've gotten really good at it, and there's just, there's a ton of value for you getting that piece essentially automated. From the marketing director standpoint, you just have this great flow of content that shows up and gets distributed and you get data behind it. So I recommend making that happen no matter how big you are. Kathleen: So it's very interesting, because there's a lot of debate around this topic of should you insource or outsource content creation and you are definitely falling on the outsource side. It's interesting, I am building a team right now at my company and I've chosen to totally insource it. So I've hired a writer. For me- Bill: You know what you're doing. Kathleen: Well, let's just say for me it's also that we're in a very technically complex industry and I feel like I need somebody who can, it's a big learning curve and I want somebody who's full time in it, really learning it. Have you found success in addressing that through outsource content? Bill: Yeah, but you have to avoid the copywriter problem, which is the somebody who was working, really good writer, but was working on a car dealership last week and he's going to figure out your very niche enterprise SaaS solution this week. And so the way to do that, we do a lot of work in professional services, law firms. So if you're going to work in a law firm where the partner, the practice head for that area of law is very particular about that content. The only way you can do that is to go find a JD who's practiced in that area before. But the law firms never going to create it internally because they could be billing $600 an hour instead of writing the blog article you want them to create, but you can go find somebody who's been in that practice area, didn't enjoy the practice of law, understands the area really well. Get the ideas from the practice head in that 30 minute brainstorming session, give them five bullet points about the things that they need to cover. They can go do the research, and then all we have to do is get the voice right, which frankly is really difficult. We've ended up dividing that into two levels. The expertise to get the content and then an editor who's really good at capturing the voice. Kathleen: Yeah. I will say that when I've seen outsource content creation work, the only way I've seen it work is when you have a writer who's interviewing your subject matter expert. Anytime I see companies say, Oh, here's a topic, go run with it, I just see crappy, crappy results. because honestly whenever you're outsourcing and you're just giving somebody a topic, I feel like with that person is doing is they're Googling that topic. And so by definition you're not going to have anything new to add in your content, because it's coming from aggregations of other sources. Whereas if you interview a subject matter expert, you can get something original. But that does take a very strong writer and a very strong editor to really be able to do that well and in a way that is unique. Bill: Absolutely. And if you just wanted a content farm, I mean 90% of the efforts should be on creating great content. And so by definition, you're not going to get there if you're cutting the corners there. If we don't have great content, all the tactics that we talk about aren't going to matter one bit. We have to start with really capturing the unique expertise that you have and finding interesting ways to communicate that. Kathleen: So if somebody is listening and they're thinking, I want to improve my marketing results, I'm a B2B company, what are some really concrete things you think that they could do right now to get started? Getting started with word of mouth marketing Bill: Well, what everybody always wants is more leads, and the easiest solution is to go spend money on ads to generate those leads. And yet one of the reasons it's so difficult for that smaller company to ever get an ROI on that is that without the marketing foundation in place, that's never going to pay off. So don't take the easy route. You got to focus on those core pieces first and build that funnel and actually be capturing and following up on all your prospects. And then the easiest way to expand your audience is to focus on LinkedIn. If you take the same approach and you're very helpful and you're sharing expertise, then you can run a LinkedIn connection campaign where you're adding 1,120 new connections a month, every single month, growing this audience of exactly the right prospects that you're now sharing really valuable insight with and that will do a wonderful thing for you. It will create sales opportunities you didn't have before. It'll be the right sales opportunities with people who are much further down the process and are really ready to have a serious conversation with you. So what we see in the data is with a well optimized profile, we'll get between a 35 and 45%, sometimes in the low 50% acceptance rate on on the connection requests, sending 40 to 50 connection requests a day, and six to 8% of those people will start a conversation either from the connection request or we will often send a followup message with whatever our best performing inside driven piece of content is. None of this can be salesy at all, we all get those kinds of connection requests. Kathleen: I was going to say, are you doing an InMail? What are you doing there? Bill: It's not InMail. It's really building the network of people you should be connected to, because you have expertise that's directly relevant to them. And it's sharing that, it's not selling them. I mean, I see that all the time of we get something back from a client who just wants to dive right into the sales pitch. And that would be the same thing as walking into a cocktail party, meeting somebody for the first time, and then starting to give them a sales pitch. Until they ask for it, that doesn't work. You've got to build the relationship first. But if you take that approach, this is the easiest, most concrete thing you can do in B2B to get more sales opportunities. But ironically, the way you do that is stop selling. What kinds of results can you expect? Kathleen: So what kinds of results have your clients gotten from doing this? Bill: So that those are kind of aggregate numbers across the hundreds of of connection campaigns that we're running in just sort of any kind of high value B2B, a lot of professional services, a lot of high end products. And so the thing that we really look at is how many new opportunities are we creating and so, oh, a really good campaign, so my connection campaign, I'm running at about a 54% acceptance rate on connections, which is great. One of the things you often have to do is optimize your profile specifically for that audience that you're going to go after. If you're going after multiple niches, do one at a time, because you'll get a much higher connection. And then we're getting our primary source of new clients is off of the connection campaigns that we run for myself and our chief revenue officer. So this works much better for the executive team in your company, particularly for smaller companies. It's really not about your company profile at all. That's just not where we're going to get the activity. And even in a larger company, the more you can get the executive team and people higher up in the company to participate, the better the results that you're going to get. People want to connect with other people on LinkedIn and it just, it works so much better. And so that six to eight percent of new conversations, when you think about that coming from a thousand new connections a month, this is really the new form and you can run this yourself. You can take an hour a day and do a golden hour of prospecting around LinkedIn connections and you will get much more value out of that than making cold calls for that same time period. But if you're a salesperson who's responsible for doing that for your company, you will get better results if you can get the VP of sales or CEO to do that and let you run it for them. Kathleen: So you have about a 54% connection acceptance rate. And you mentioned that those turned into clients. What is your conversion rate from the people who accept your connection to your leads and then to your customers and how are you measuring that? How are you, how are you tracking? Bill: So there's a plus and minus to LinkedIn, which is the data's really easy to follow, but for personal profiles, the only way you can get it is logging in and looking at it, and it disappears after three months, which is kind of annoying, but it's really easy to see what's working to create engagement. And the LinkedIn algorithm is really simple. Likes and comments are essentially equal value and then you can just chart it and see how many likes and comments you get versus the percentage of your network that gets exposed to that feed. It's just a direct relationship. So I call it going everyday viral. Like our goal isn't to come up with the one piece of content that just explodes. It's to have regular content that does well over and over again in this really specific audience is exactly the people that you want to talk to. And that gives you two bites at the apple. When you make the initial connection request and sometimes you just happen to be reaching out to somebody right when they need your expertise and so you get lucky. But now, because they belong to your network, if you follow that up with a regular flow of insightful content, then you get to talk to them forever so you get a second forever bite at the apple, and both of those are really effective. You get sales opportunities that come right out of the gate and then it just comes with that regular followup. As long as you're good at getting exposure to this audience that you've created. And so many people do work on LinkedIn where they only focus on the first part, building the network, and they don't really focus on the regular updates to that network that really leveraged having created it. And if you do both, you'll get a much better pay off from that effort. Kathleen: How quickly should somebody expect to see results from something like this? Bill: You're going to get early positive indications. So you'll get some wins that show you you're in the right direction. We typically see it within the first 30 to 60 days. But the real payoff comes when you've been doing this for six months, 12 months, 18 months. We really put a focus internally ourselves on LinkedIn starting two years ago and we're seeing a much more significant pay off today than we did in the first six months. Because you really get a reputation for providing valuable information. then one of the great things you can do, somewhere about 5,000 connections, you should switch your LinkedIn button from being connect to follow, because you'll get enough organic traffic now that people will just start following you because of the content that you're sharing. And they won't even show up as asking for connection requests. They're just following you, you're not following them. And that's really when you sort of hit the point of getting a real payback on what you're doing. Kathleen: And you do that in your LinkedIn settings? Bill: I do. Yeah. And you need a big enough following where it makes sense that people would come and start just following you because because of what you're doing and you need to be doing those content updates very regularly. But I get about, right now, about 40% of the additions to my network come from people just following me as opposed to the connection requests that we're sending out. Kathleen: Got it. Very cool. Well that's an interesting tip I haven't heard somebody mention before, so there's a new one for you. Switch your button from connect to follow. Kathleen's two questions Kathleen: Before we get too close to out of time, quick questions for you that I always ask all my guests. The first one is, we've talked a lot about inbound marketing here and content marketing. I'm curious, who do you think, company or individual, is there somebody that you think is doing particularly well right now? Bill: What I want to do is, is turn that into a suggestion for, because there's somebody in your market that is doing that really well. And what I always find very valuable, anytime I'm starting to work with in a new area, is I want to go find whoever is the, I'm not looking for the biggest player, I'm looking for sort of the mid size company that is big enough to have weight behind what they're doing, they're really good at it and they're showing innovation. So I want to flip that around just a little bit and say there's somebody doing, I mean, I've always been able to find one in every single market we've gone into. So even in legal, this enormously conservative market, there's always, we start working with an intellectual property law firm. We found a firm that is doing an excellent job of content marketing in that area and I find it so much faster to learn from somebody who's already doing a really good job of that then to figure it all out ourselves. And somebody is doing that in your market, so spend the time to go do that. And every single market we work in, we have found somebody who's really great at it, who's already doing it, that we've learned a ton from. Kathleen: Anyone in particular who stands out, anyone who somebody wants to go online and see someone who's really best in class that they should look at? Bill: So the IP example, Fish and Richardson does a really good example of, that's one of these really niche-y examples. That's a deep technical area that's tough to do well. And so seeing somebody do it well, it's really the best answer to the question you asked before, which is how do you pull that off? Kathleen: Okay, great. And digital marketing obviously changes so quickly. How do you personally stay up to date on everything that's going on in that world? Bill: So I've become a huge fan of podcasts, now. I'm finally following in your footsteps and doing a podcast. So I've learned from your podcasts, there's about 20 different marketing related podcasts that I listened to. I really like, particularly in the sort of email marketing and LinkedIn side, I like Growth Hackers, because there's always somebody who's already run a test that's doing the thing that you're thinking about doing. So I'm just a big, so unlike when I was 18 and I thought I knew it all and it took me a really long time to figure anything out, I think it makes so much more sense to take advantage of this unique attribute we have of being able to find somebody who already is doing what we're doing, put ourselves in their place and learn from them. Like our ability to get where we want to go so much faster, because of that is amazing. So let's learn from everybody who's already done it before and Growth Hackers is just full of people who are doing exactly that. And I love, a lot of it's very data-driven, which obviously I'm big on, and just great way to learn. How to connect with Bill Kathleen: Bill, if somebody wants to reach out and learn from you or has a question and wants to get in touch, what's the best way for them to do that? Bill: So I'm a CEO of boomtime.com. I love talking about marketing. Happy to have you reach out if you want to. If you want to see the thing that I'm talking about, I'm easy to find on LinkedIn. Go look up my profile. You'll see exactly what we are talking about and of course we're at boomtime.com. You know what to do next... Kathleen: Great. All right, well if you are listening and you learn something new or liked what you heard, please stop what you're doing, take a minute, and go to Apple podcasts and leave a five star review for the podcast. It makes a huge difference. That's how people find us and I would greatly appreciate it. And if you know somebody else who's doing kick ass inbound marketing work, tweet me @workmommywork, because I would love to make them my next interview. Thank you so much, Bill. Bill: It's been a lot of fun. Thanks. Kathleen: Thanks.

Quem vai usar ferramenta de automação de marketing pode contratar Hubspot, Marketo, SharpSpring, MailChimp, RD Station ou outra. Mas pode contratar também a Mautic, que é o WordPress da automação. Apresentação: Cassio Politi. Convidado: Rodrigo Demetrio. Para ler o post sobre o oceano de ferramentas disponíveis no mercado, acesse: https://chiefmartec.com/2019/04/marketing-technology-landscape-supergraphic-2019/. Para conhecer a Powertic, empresa do Rodrigo Demétrio, que dá suporte para Mautic, acesse: https://powertic.com/pt-br/. Para participar do grupo do Comunique-se no Telegram e acessar o podcast em múltiplas plataforma, o link é este: https://www.podcast-se.com.br/.

Quem vai usar ferramenta de automação de marketing pode contratar Hubspot, Marketo, SharpSpring, MailChimp, RD Station ou outra. Mas pode contratar também a Mautic, que é o WordPress da automação. Apresentação: Cassio Politi. Convidado: Rodrigo Demetrio. Para ler o post sobre o oceano de ferramentas disponíveis no mercado, acesse: https://chiefmartec.com/2019/04/marketing-technology-landscape-supergraphic-2019/. Para conhecer a Powertic, empresa do Rodrigo Demétrio, que dá suporte para Mautic, acesse: https://powertic.com/pt-br/. Para participar do grupo do Comunique-se no Telegram e acessar o podcast em múltiplas plataforma, o link é este: https://www.podcast-se.com.br/.

Denne gang, har vi inviteret medejer og direktør af CTGlobal, Peter Odgaard i podcast-studiet. CTGlobal har gennem det sidste år arbejdet med kampagner i marketing automation-systemet SharpSpring, og derfor tager vi en snak med Peter om hans erfaringer, hvad de helt konkret får ud af systemet, og hvorfor CTGlobal nu går i gang med deres tredje kampagne i SharpSpring.

Are you interested in using a CRM, Client Relationship Manager, in your mental health practice but not sure what it really does? We discuss what a CRM is, who could benefit from it and why would you want to consider it.   learn how you can use a CRM to improve communication between your staff and with patients pull data reports to get a clear picture of your business and help make important business decisions improve processes, and help your team be more efficient and consistent with their time. I go through some of the ways a CRM has transformed how my business has navigated some of our most common processes.  There are some options out there for HIPAA compliant options, currently, my practice uses ActiveCampaign. There are others available on the market as well as numerous non-HIPAA compliant options like SharpSpring. Choosing one is going to depend on your use and needs.     Sponsor: Tech Centered Practice FB group can be found at https://www.facebook.com/groups/techcenteredpractice/ Please email me at podcast@techcenteredpractice.com if you have any questions or comments about building or scaling your mental health private practice or if you have any questions or comments about tech solutions in your practice! I would love to hear from you!

In these 31 minutes, we’ll share with you everything you need to know about marketing automation. To help unpack this topic, we brought in Walter Winn, National Account Manager at SharpSpring. Walter hopped on our 1 to 10 podcast and gave us all the details we need to know about marketing automation. In this episode we discuss: What is marketing automation? What are marketing automation platforms? Which marketing automation platform should I use? Best tips for implementing a new marketing automation platform

Brad and Chris talk about the state of marketing and sales in today's market.  Marketing automation is becoming more and more important in driving revenue for companies both small and large.  Chris discusses his companies approach to marketing automation and their partnership with SharpSpring and Nimble.com.  Listen in and get the lowdown on how marketing automation can impact your company. 

O convidado do The Sales Follow Up de hoje é: - Eduardo Correa | Country Partner Manager na SharpSpring Ele vai falar sobre como levou a sua experiência em marketing para a área de vendas, o desafio de abrir uma filial da SharpSpring no Brasil, o que ele mudou no processo de vendas americano para o brasileiro, os desafios e o processo de adaptação ao mercado. Além disso, ele vai falar sobre a importância de alinhar os times de marketing e vendas e definir um SLA efetivo.

Mr. Carlson is the founder and CEO of SharpSpring, Inc. (NASDAQ: SHSP), a next generation marketing automation platform. In his 20-year career, Carlson has held numerous sales, marketing, and product roles for Internet companies, and is considered an expert at sale and marketing.

Fizemos uma comparação entre as ferramentas de automação de marketing populares no Brasil — com preços inclusive. Estão na lista: Eloqua, Hubspot, Infusionsoft, Leadlovers, Leadsius, Marketo, Mautic, RD Station e SharpSpring.

Fizemos uma comparação entre as ferramentas de automação de marketing populares no Brasil — com preços inclusive. Estão na lista: Eloqua, Hubspot, Infusionsoft, Leadlovers, Leadsius, Marketo, Mautic, RD Station e SharpSpring.

Neste Podcast-se, falamos de um assunto pertinente, cujo tema é: "Por que não deveríamos usar fórmulas em comunicação". Eduardo Correia, da SharpSpring, é o entrevistado do programa, destinado a todos os profissionais da área.

Neste Podcast-se, falamos de um assunto pertinente, cujo tema é: "Por que não deveríamos usar fórmulas em comunicação". Eduardo Correia, da SharpSpring, é o entrevistado do programa, destinado a todos os profissionais da área.

Mautic é uma ferramnta de código aberto, tipo WordPress. Isso significa que você pode baixar, instalar e usar à vontade.Não chega a ser uma opção de custo zero. Mas é bem mais batatas que as ferramentas Premium como Hubspot, Marketo, SharpSpring, Act-On e outras. É mais barata que as versões mais simplezinhas do mercado também, como a americana MailChimp ou a brasileira RD Station.Com o Mautic, você vai ter basicamente dois custos. O primeiro é hospedagem. Mas um bom servidor não vai custar mais do que 5 dólares. Eu recomendo a Digital Ocean.O outro é o disparo de emails em massa. Para empresas que possuam mailing relativamente pequeno, uma boa opção é o Sparkpost. Ele disponibiliza até 100 mil disparos de emails por mês gratuitamente, independentemente do tamanho da base. Há alternativas com limites gratuitos inferiores, como Amazon SES e MailChimp.Se mandarmos menos de 100 mil emails por mês, o custo anual usando Mautic não chega a R$ 300 por ano. Numa ferramenta paga, o mesmo volume não daí por menos de 9 mil por ano.Se tivermos por exemplo 100 mil cadastros na nossa base, no Mautic vamos gastar em um ano o equivalente a um mês em ferramentas pagas. Do ponto de vista técnico, o Mautic tem as seguintes vantagens:* Fornece relatórios e dados como ninguém.* É bem simples de usar.E tem desvantagens também:* Por ser código aberto, nos precisamos de ajuda de alguém de TI.* Falta uma funcionalidade ridiculamente básica: agendamento de email.O meu takeaway de hoje é o seguinte:Mautic vale a pena para quem quer gastar pouco e tem alguém de TI para auxiliar. Se bem que o sujeito fuçador consrigue se virar.http://takeaways.com.br/029

Mautic é uma ferramnta de código aberto, tipo WordPress. Isso significa que você pode baixar, instalar e usar à vontade.Não chega a ser uma opção de custo zero. Mas é bem mais batatas que as ferramentas Premium como Hubspot, Marketo, SharpSpring, Act-On e outras. É mais barata que as versões mais simplezinhas do mercado também, como a americana MailChimp ou a brasileira RD Station.Com o Mautic, você vai ter basicamente dois custos. O primeiro é hospedagem. Mas um bom servidor não vai custar mais do que 5 dólares. Eu recomendo a Digital Ocean.O outro é o disparo de emails em massa. Para empresas que possuam mailing relativamente pequeno, uma boa opção é o Sparkpost. Ele disponibiliza até 100 mil disparos de emails por mês gratuitamente, independentemente do tamanho da base. Há alternativas com limites gratuitos inferiores, como Amazon SES e MailChimp.Se mandarmos menos de 100 mil emails por mês, o custo anual usando Mautic não chega a R$ 300 por ano. Numa ferramenta paga, o mesmo volume não daí por menos de 9 mil por ano.Se tivermos por exemplo 100 mil cadastros na nossa base, no Mautic vamos gastar em um ano o equivalente a um mês em ferramentas pagas. Do ponto de vista técnico, o Mautic tem as seguintes vantagens:* Fornece relatórios e dados como ninguém.* É bem simples de usar.E tem desvantagens também:* Por ser código aberto, nos precisamos de ajuda de alguém de TI.* Falta uma funcionalidade ridiculamente básica: agendamento de email.O meu takeaway de hoje é o seguinte:Mautic vale a pena para quem quer gastar pouco e tem alguém de TI para auxiliar. Se bem que o sujeito fuçador consrigue se virar.http://takeaways.com.br/029

Rick Carlson of SharpSpring joins Candyce to discuss how his company addressed a focused target market and took an unconventional approach to their channel strategy. Episode 007.

http://www.thesaleswhisperer.com/blog/sharpspring-crm http://ReferWes.com http://BestCRMForMe.com  SharpSpring has taken the marketing automation world by storm Publicly traded on the NASDAQ with the symbol SHSP 150 employees Less than three years old #2 firm in 2.5 years 1,100 digital agencies offering the SharpSpring solution 5,000+ customers already served Built entirely on their own platform so it's focused and rooted on what a small business really needs Practical lead nurturing Integrated CRM with marketing automation Visitor ID (anoynmous web visitor identification) Dynamic email to adjust to the persona of the visitor Dynamic landing pages Drag and drop No developers needed Blogging tool with RSS Integrates with Saleforce and most every other CRM via API Works with Wordpress and other CMS platforms Dynamic forms Dynamic emails Dynamic lis building based on behavior Reverse IP lookup Lead scoring Behavior-based lead tracking IMAP synchronization Phone calls Deal stages Sales and marketing can finally get in sync About 1/3rd the cost of HubSpot No annual contracts Nice GUI and reporting Not just B2B. Integrates with most shopping carts Has a nice mobile app for their CRM Can send text messages to staff as part of a workflow to alert salespeople that a lead is hot

Annette Iafrate, VP of Alliances and Partners for Vidyard, joins me, Jen Spencer to discuss channel alignment, building trust, defining rules of engagement and more on this episode of The Allbound Podcast.   Jen: Oh, it's so great to have you on. And for those of you listening who haven't experienced Vidyard yet, Vidyard is a video platform and they provide video hosting, enablement and some pretty awesome analytics. I know you joined the Vidyard team only about six months ago, but you've been negotiating partnerships at Constant Contact, you were helping drive partner revenue at SharpSpring. I mean, you've been connected to this concept of the partner channel for the last six years. And I really wanted to dive into a lot of that channel experience but before we do that, tell us a little bit about Vidyard, about Vidyard's value proposition so we get a sense of why you joined this team.   Annette: Sure, great. Appreciate it. I think the short answer is Vidyard helps companies drive more revenue through the strategic use of video. So, what does that mean? At the moment, the video economy is driving new expectations. Expectations around immediacy, transparency, authenticity, both in the workplace and the marketplace. So, video is now expected content and the statistics are actually staggering. Facebook gets 8 billion views per day for video, 8 billion. Isn't that amazing? But I think what's even more impressive is in B2B technology, 72% of B2B purchasers today are viewing video somewhere in their customer journey, and 50% of them are looking at at least 30 minutes of video. So, for those companies and leaders that want to keep up with the market, if they're not already doing video, they really need to embrace this new communication paradigm, and quickly. And for specific reasons, because it works. What we're seeing is, by having a video appear in your search results, you get 41% higher click-through rates. I think even more impressive is, if you have a video on your landing page or your website and your driving people there, you get an 80% increase in conversion and all of this with a 20% lower cost for leads. So, it's an opportunity that people should be leveraging right now, whether it's from the C-suite, through management, down to the front lines. Video is a very powerful tool, whether it's for communicating with customers, building brand awareness, encouraging employee advocacy or just in general, engaging with the market. And what Vidyard does is we help companies harness this power of video and use it to drive business growth, which is why I'm so excited about joining the team.   Jen: Wonderful. It sounds like you're pretty passionate about the use of video and I love it. I mean, when you're passionate about what you do and about what your organization does, it doesn't feel like work and it's exciting.   Annette: Absolutely, and it's just so powerful. You can see the impact on everyone's business, your own business, the channel business, as well as the end user business, so it's fun having that impact.   Jen: So, when you're looking at, really, the big picture of goals that Vidyard has, just looking at the next year, maybe even the next five years, what role will Vidyard's Alliances and Partner program actually play in helping achieve those goals? Because, Vidyard's a really rapidly growing organization. You guys are taking the the martech world by storm here. Where's channel going to come in this picture?   Annette: Right. Significant. Because the market's growing so quickly and because the company is growing quickly, you really need to prepare to start to leverage channels in order to scale the business. The market is growing, the market's massive. And at some point, you can only scale the direct model so quickly. The other reason is, in some cases, channels are really the best way to get to specific markets. So, there's a significant opportunity and I give the company a lot of credit in investing in channels early. Some companies I think wait a bit too long, because it does take some investment and some time to really ramp up a channel, as you've seen. You know, the recruitment, the alignment, the ramping. And so, in addition to that, the channels themselves just help accelerate the growth of the company. They extend the reach, give us access to more customers and prospects, whether it's through strategic alliances and their base, or market coverage, whether it's coverage of additional use cases, market segments and even geos. So there's a significant opportunity in the explosion of the market itself, and we've started primarily in the marketing and sales segments in use cases, but video goes across. It goes across industries, across market segments, their use cases including things like internal communications and support. So, trying to build a business that can attack all of those at once without leveraging channels is difficult. And as I mentioned, in some markets, particularly geo markets, the preferred mechanism for purchasing is actually through partners. If you're looking at iXAPACK or even LATAM and, to some extent, EMEA, customers prefer working with a trusted advisor that tends to be a partner. So, there's a significant role for the channels to play and, again, there's a variety of roles to be leveraged.

SHOW NOTES Award-winning marketer, agency executive, critically-acclaimed author and columnist, Andrew has helped launch more than four dozen technology companies and hundreds of products and services over the past 25 years. Tech companies of all sizes rely on Andrew to help shape their narratives, re-position their brand and steal share from better-known competitors. A crisp thinker who weaves compelling and impactful stories, Andrew is highly respected for his passion, intellect, foresight and humor. As the CMO of SharpSpring, Andrew, leads the marketing and business development teams of this fast-growing marketing automation company. His responsibilities include crafting and executing the strategy to grow the company's agency market share (currently #2 to HubSpot), including branding, design, content marketing, lead generation, digital marketing, event marketing, external relations, affiliate marketing, and partner enablement initiatives. Andrew is the co-author of Richard Nixon: A Psychobiography (Columbia University Press, 1997). He was the ghost author of Driving Business Performance Through Strategic Sourcing, (Vanity Press, 2005), and has authored several hundred articles and thought leadership pieces for various clients and executives. In addition, he has been a contributing editor to various marketing, brand and communications publications, and blogs, including Marketing Talent, Business to Business Magazine, Catalyst Magazine and Small Business Matters. A lively speaker, Andrew has presented at dozens of industry events, including some of the largest trade shows in the technology industry. He is a magna cum laude graduate in Politics from Princeton University and the recipient of the Annenberg Fellowship at Eton College in England where he taught American Politics and Economics. TO LEARN MORE ABOUT SHARP SPRING, CLICK HERE. TO FIND ANDREW ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

Semyon Dukach is currently the Program Director at Techstars Boston and is an angel investor with roughly over 100 investments. He is also the chairman of SharpSpring, which he took over in 2002 and then took public in 2011. He lead one of the MIT blackjack teams in the early nineties, has started a few companies, and in 2012 Semyon created “The Troublemaker Award”.   In this episode, Semyon talks about:   His time leading one of the MIT blackjack teams in the nineties   Why he loves investing in startups and what he looks for   Why he took a company public in 2011, despite not needing to raise money   Advice he would give to someone applying to Techstars   Why he created “The Troublemaker Award”   Links from today’s episode:   Semyon Dukach   SharpSpring   AccuRev   Techstars Boston   Troublemaker Award   If you liked this episode:   Follow the podcast on Twitter   Subscribe on iTunes or your podcast app and write a review   Get in touch with feedback, ideas, or to say hi: nic {AT} startupbostonpodcast [DOT] com   Music by: Broke For Free

It’s fair to say that the marketing goal of most businesses is to attract, nurture and convert their leads all the way down through the sales funnel. But what’s the most efficient way to do that? When you send the right messages to the right people you peak their interest, and marketing automation allows organizations to more effectively streamline their marketing efforts on multiple channels  - such as email, websites, social media - and to automate repetitive tasks. If your goal is to increase your organization’s operational efficiency and grow revenue faster, then look no further than marketing automation. With over 17 years of experience in business development and strategic sales, Charles Chadwick uses his expertise at SharpSpring to develop effective and streamlined marketing solutions that drive business growth and bring immediate value to organizations.   www.agentsofchangecon.com/169

Finally understand what private school inbound marketing is all about and how to start an inbound effort to improve enrollment and communications. In this episode, we talk to Bart Caylor, President and Owner of Caylor Solutions, an Indianapolis-based marketing agency working with colleges, universities, K-12, and education organizations to improve communication, enrollment and development efforts. With a background in design and development with corporate, education, and non-profit clients, Bart now focuses his expertise on marketing for education. Bart is a member of CASE and is often asked to speak at universities and conferences on topics related to web design, emerging media, and interactive marketing. This podcast will help anyone understand what inbound marketing is, how to start an inbound effort at your private school, or how to enhance existing inbound efforts to accomplish your marketing and communications goals. What you’ll learn… How does inbound marketing differ from traditional marketing efforts. The best kinds of content to create when designing an inbound program. How the kind of content you create for inbound marketing can support your brand. How to create an inbound marketing campaign to nurture prospective families of your school. How the available software tools such as Hubspot and Sharpspring can help you create the most effective campaign workflows to increase the effectiveness of your inbound marketing. How to know if your inbound marketing efforts are successful. How to use analytics in assessing your inbound marketing efforts. What’s the first thing to do when embarking on an inbound marketing program. For show notes and more brilliant ideas and brain food for school MarCom, go to http://www.inspiredsm.com/podcasts/. While there, sign up for our newsletter to make your job easier.