How can you leverage thought leadership to gain new followers, win new clients, keep them longer and increase referrals for your agency? Susan Baier, Founder of Audience Audit, where they help agencies create thought leadership content based on quantitative research that builds trust with potential clients, has seen thought leadership done well (with great results) and has seen it done poorly (with wasted time and money).

Should you productize your services? Does a productized service business completely differ from the standard agency model? Can both models co-exist within the same business? These are all questions we answer in today's conversation with Sam Shepler, CEO of Testimonial Hero. He transitioned from leading a full-service video production agency to founding a productized service business in 2018. In this episode, Sam shares the 3 specific benefits of productizing your services--and the potential pitfalls to look out for.

If your agency’s become a trusted advisor to your clients, then you’re probably getting asked for recommendations & advice all the time. I can border on a feeling of frustration if you’ve faced this enough: Can you help with this? Do you know anyone you’d recommend for that? If your clients are asking about other areas where you *can’t* help, you hate to not be able to help. But… What if you could add more value to your clients AND tap into partnerships that could generate net-new clients for your agency?

Where would you spend an extra $10,000 a month if you suddenly had that extra cash to invest in your agency? No strings attached--available today--where would you use that sudden infusion of capital? That's the 1st of our Fast Five questions you've likely heard us ask before on every episode of this show. Last week we had the chance to ask this same question to more than 20 agency owners and their team members while several members of the Teamwork.com team descended on Boston for INBOUND 23.

Do you feel the pressure of having to rely almost solely on word of mouth and referrals to continue growing your agency? If so, you're not alone. Even if you have all the systems and capabilities to grow your agency, you may not be effectively marketing your firm...and it's often for a common reason: You've become an "interchangeable agency.".

Over 1/3 of agencies frequently struggle with overservicing clients. You’ve likely felt the pain yourself. When projects are going well out of scope and things are taking longer than your team planned, it can have a major impact on your agency’s profitability. Alyson Caffrey, Founder & COO of Operations Agency, has identified the 5 biggest scoping mistakes across dozens of agencies that are often leading to this overservicing problem–and ultimately underperforming profit margins.

Just because you're a good baker, doesn't mean you can run a successful bakery. It's the same for agency life. You may be great at content marketing, branding, website development or building custom software, but none of that means you'll be great at all the things required to run an agency that delivers those services. It also doesn't mean you'll enjoy all the necessary elements of running an agency either.

Do you have less in your agency's pipeline now than you did at this point last year? If so, you're probably not alone. But, what's even better? There's something you can do about it--something that doesn't require anything spammy or even overly salesy. You can leverage what Dev Basu calls The Dead Lead Reviver.

How can you get your team to track their time, let alone do it accurately? That's a question that we've heard so many times from agency leaders, and it's one that many struggle to answer effectively. Deb Andrews, Owner of Marketri, a successful marketing agency with nearly 20 years in business, says it all comes down to 4 P's that help you explain the WHY of time-tracking to your team.

41% profit margins. Sounds good. Right? That's exactly what one marketing agency has been able to drive with a results-oriented workplace & corresponding compensation model. Courtney Tarrant, Owner & COO of The Ad Girls shares in today's episode that when they went away from this model for a short period, profit margins shrank closer to typical industry norms.