The Innovative Agency Sharon Toerek

Intro
What could you do to position your agency for higher profitability and greater overall success? Rather than following the age-old trend of attempting to shave pennies off of costs to achieve higher profitability, Alyson Caffrey recommends focusing on optimizing backend operations like fulfillment and delivery instead. In this episode, she expounds on what agencies can do to increase efficacy by improving systems that function behind the scenes.
What you will learn in this episode:
How to identify the symptoms of a struggling agency.
Why you should move away from billable rates to value-based pricing.
How to start charging prospects for discovery, rather than doing it for free.
What agency owners can do to secure the backend of their business.
Why you should establish one “king” metric during the sales process.
The benefits of productizing your intellectual property to increase profitability.


Bio
Alyson Caffrey is the founder of Operations Agency and co-creator of the Operations Simplified™ Framework. She's commonly referred to as ‘The Wolf' among her clients because she just gets stuff done. Alyson is best known for helping streamline the back-end ops for a multitude of brands, but mostly digital and creative agencies.
As a fractional COO for many high-growth businesses, Alyson fell in love with the results that clear ops bring to a service business. She and the team at Operations Agency are determined to help businesses thrive profitably, serve more clients and create high-performing teams. Alyson is a mom to two sons and enjoys spending her time at home with her growing family.
Resources:
Website: https://operationsagency.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alyson-caffrey-26723990/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/operationsagency

Intro
Agencies and clients have done a lot of online training in the past two years. During this time of agencies operating from behind their screens, Joel Erway has been helping agencies deploy webinars for their clients, regularly boosting their revenue to six figures and beyond. In this episode, Joel speaks about his expertise in the space, and why he thinks webinars are so effective in the age of online businesses.
What you will learn in this episode:
How to determine when a webinar is the right fit for your clients.
There are two types of webinars: those for marketing-qualified leads, and those for sales-qualified leads. Learn when to deploy one versus the other.
What questions an agency needs to be asking its clients to figure out which type of webinar is right for them.
How interviews and “infocasts” can be an effective form of webinar, to help your audience stay engaged.
Where webinars are headed over the next 1-2 years, and how you should expect them to evolve.


Bio
Joel is a master at helping Experts break 7-Figures without being expert marketers. People call Joel Erway “The Webinar Guy” but that’s a tiny slice of his expertise.
Joel’s a master at crafting high-converting offers and helping Experts scale their business with High Ticket Courses.
He authored the book, "High Ticket Courses" to help show Experts how to create leveraged offers to scale their business with programs valued at $2,000 or more. Between his own personal sales and his clients, he's helped generate $100+ million over the past few years.
He’s also a long-time podcaster and the host of Sold With Webinars and Experts Unleashed.
Resources:
Website: https://www.joelerway.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelerway/

Intro
This episode is all about email marketing. Our guests, Alex Melone and Andrei Marin of CodeCrew, believe that utilizing email for customer acquisition and retention is an often underlooked opportunity for agencies to grow. They outline the tactics and techniques through which they’ve seen immense success for their clients.
What you will learn in this episode:
How to have a conversation with your client about implementing a plan for email marketing
How to use email for customer acquisition – and more importantly, retention
The importance of developing a testing framework to generate customer data
How to analyze your data to determine how many emails you should be sending – “The sweet spot”
How the pandemic has influenced the way email marketing performs
Where email marketing as a tool for agencies is headed over the next 12-18 months


Bio
Alex Melone & Andrei Marin are 2 of the 3 co-founders at CodeCrew. With over 2 decades of combined experience in email marketing amongst the founding team and a team of 40 email experts, they've seen it all, done it all, and improved countless programs' email marketing ROI.
Resources:
Website: https://codecrew.us/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/codecrewinc/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/codecrew.us/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CodeCrewUS

Intro
As an agency owner, you certainly collect data — but are you leveraging that data to fully empower your agency? Even if your agency has doubled in size recently, if you are not making money, something is missing. In this episode of The Innovative Agency, Marcel Pettipas explains how agency owners can start using their data to gain more insights into their business and get ahead of the curve.
What you will learn in this episode:
How to empower your agency using key data points
The best ways to leverage financial reporting data in an agency
How to share financial data with team members in an effective way
The difference between “revenue” and “agency gross income (AGI)” and why it’s important
How time tracking can be leveraged to collect more information about your business
How to bill customers based on perceived risk and value


Bio
Marcel Pettipas is the CEO & Co-Founder of Parakeeto, a company dedicated to helping agencies measure and improve their profitability by streamlining their operations and reporting systems, a problem he discovered while running his own agency back in his early 20’s.
He’s also the fractional COO at Gold Front, an award-winning creative agency in San Francisco working with brands like Uber, Slack, Keap, and more. As well as the head strategic coach at SaaS Academy by Dan Martell, the #1 coaching program for B2B SaaS businesses in the world.
In his work as a speaker, podcast host, and consultant, specializing in Agency Profitability Optimization, he's helped hundreds of agencies around the world improve profitability and cash flow in their business.
Resources:
Website: www.parakeeto.com
www.parakeeto.com/toolkit
www.marcelpetitpas.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcel-petitpas-20059588/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/agencyprofitability
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Parakeeto

Intro
Today’s episode is more about clients than it is about agency owners. Our guest, Daniel Fernandez, shares his understanding of what clients value and how agency owners can keep them around for longer. His strategy hinges on retaining clients by systematizing a roadmap to their success. In doing so, you give them the opportunity to be active in the process of strengthening your agency-client relationship.
What you will learn in this episode:
How to create a definite pathway that ensures success for your clients.
The value of systematizing your processes, rather than relying on instinct.
How to make clients more enthusiastic to continue working with you.
What you can do to get clients to raise their concerns sooner, rather than later.
How to decrease complaints and increase client retention.
The benefits of increasing the number of times you speak face-to-face with clients.


Bio
Daniel is the founder and CEO of AMZclever.com, a full-service agency that manages and grows brands on Amazon and Walmart since 2015. He has worked with several 7, 8, 9-figure brands; public companies; and product startups on launching and expanding in the Amazon and Walmart platforms, as well as taking many of them internationally. Daniel spent some years living in China; he has spoken at several industry-leading conferences in US, Canada, China, Netherlands, Hong Kong; and is a frequent contributor to different publications in the Amazon and e-commerce space. Currently resides in Florida, where he leads his global team and enjoys the sunny weather.
Resources:
Website: https://www.amzclever.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielfernandezamazon/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AMZcleverAgency
Twitter: https://twitter.com/danielamzclever
Instagram: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amzclever/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYbzTlGWW_XUa1y90THJCPQ

Sometimes, people look at others in their space as competition. But the most successful leaders of business often recognize that collaboration and networking with others can push their business forward faster than if they were to try to tackle everything independently.
In today’s episode of The Innovative Agency podcast, my guest is Rob Kischuk, a builder of more than just software products. His adept skills and leadership qualities have allowed him to build companies, teams, partnerships, and relationships. He started Bellwood Labs because he saw the disconnection between a business’s problems, its objectives, and the software product. He has been recognized in Atlanta’s “Top 40 Under 40” and has helped startups with successful exits. He’s also comfortable with the podcasting world too, as host of a podcast about agency owners and leaders.
What you will learn in this episode:
How a developer and agency leader thinks about building a product and establishing a niche of specialty and competency
Learning the benefits of being willing to network, connect, and talk with other agencies to refer work to one another.
Tips for working in an agile and scrum mindset to build something and anticipate challenges in the process
Product development lifecycle challenges and how they interact with agency ownership


Bio
Rob Kischuk is a builder of more than just software products - he’s a builder of companies and teams, as well as partnerships and relationships. Ever since he learned how to code, Rob’s fascination with transforming ideas into action has enabled him to create great software products that empower people to do the work that matters most to them.
Throughout Rob’s career, he’s always strived to be an invested partner - not an order taker. He started Bellwood Labs because he saw the disconnection between a business’ problems, its objectives, and the software product. From helping startups like Proficient Systems and Air2Web achieve successful exits, to driving digital transformation for enterprise-level companies like Chick-fil-A, Delta Airlines, PGi, and more, Rob’s caring and collaborative approach has been at the center of it all.
In addition to serving on the board of the Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association (AIMA), Rob has been recognized time and time again as a key figure in Atlanta’s vibrant business community. Rob has been named to Atlanta’s Top “40 under 40,” and he has also been a finalist in TIE Atlanta’s “Top Up-and-Coming Entrepreneur.”
Outside of work, you can find Rob slipping into sporting events, exploring Atlanta’s foodie scene, or volunteering at Cumberland Community Church. Rob holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, as well as an MBA from Georgia State University.
Resources:
Website: https://www.bellwood.io/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bellwood-labs/?viewAsMember=true


Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BellwoodLabs