Marketing Agency School Podcast

Tune in to the latest episode of Breaking Through as we sit down with the incredible minds behind Oh Hello Design Co. 🔥 Get ready for a deep dive into the art of overcoming burnout, mastering the art of setting boundaries in business, and discovering true contentment in your work. 💪✨Join us for an inspiring conversation that will empower you to break through the barriers holding you back in your career or freelancing life. Whether you're an entrepreneur, freelancer, or simply seeking a healthier work-life balance, this episode is a must-listen!Ready to transform your approach to work and well-being? Click the link in our bio to listen now! 🎧✨ 

Join us for an eye-opening discussion as we delve into the captivating world of revenue strategies for agencies and freelance businesses. 🎙️💼🔍 Struggling with Revenue Consistency? If you find yourself riding the roller coaster of feast and famine in your business, this episode is a must-listen. We're breaking down the allure of chasing those exhilarating one-off projects versus the steady stream of recurring income.💰 More Than Money Matters: It's tempting to celebrate the thrill of landing a high-paying, one-time gig, but is that the sustainable path? We explore why not all money is created equal and how long-term, loyal clients can outweigh the fleeting glamour of big projects.⚡ Unlock the Power of Upselling: Discover the untapped potential within your client relationships. When a client signs up for a one-off service, seize the moment to shine by showcasing your additional offerings and building a lasting connection.📈 A New Perspective on Profitability: Challenge yourself to examine your client roster through a fresh lens. You'll be surprised to find that those consistent, smaller-scale clients might be the true heroes of your revenue story, surpassing the occasional big spender.💼 Balancing Act: While we're not advising against one-off projects, we advocate for a diversified revenue approach. Learn from our experience—nearly a third of our revenue stems from one-off projects, but the lion's share flows from reliable, recurring services that keep cash flowing steadily month after month.📦 The Power of Packages: Ready to unlock the secret to recurring revenue? It's all about crafting value-packed service packages. Tune in to uncover how this approach not only nurtures enduring client partnerships but also evens out your income landscape, liberating you from the perpetual hunt for the next major project.Don't miss out on this insightful episode that could revolutionize your revenue strategy. Tune in now and learn how to pave the way for financial stability and sustainable growth. 🌱💡Subscribe now to our podcast for more enlightening discussions like this!

We were honored to have Tiffany and Lauren of Online Restaurant Academy join us on today's pod! We chatted all things business ownership, how to make pivots based on changing circumstances, and navigating a male-dominated industry as a female business owner. Tune in to hear their stories and gain valuable insights from seasoned business owners who are crushing it and helping others do the same!

When you’re just starting out, none of us know what to talk about during monthly client meetings! Today, let’s go through the basic building blocks of what we cover in our client marketing meetings.The moment you start scaling an agency and adding people, you need to start building systems like this so everyone is executing tasks the same and you’re building brand consistency. Employees will come and go, so it’s important to make sure your client experience remains the same regardless of who a client is working with at any given time.Before we jump into the list of what to cover, let’s first mention the importance of making sure you capture and document historical knowledge (aka TAKE NOTES before, during, and after your meeting!). This is critical - if someone new is stepping in to manage a client a year later, they need to have that background info and know what’s been done, suggested, and discussed before so they don’t end up talking in circles. Here’s what we cover in our monthly client meetings:Highs/lows of the previous quarter or month: make sure to acknowledge the things that aren’t going well in order to build trust with clients and come with a plan of how to move forward.Take a holistic look: bring up all areas of marketing, even if you’re not the ones performing those areas - you want everything to be aligned for your clients whether or not it’s you who is executing it!Our services: these are the things within our control, so we dive in deep on how things are going and how we can continuously improve.Ask, “How else can we help you?” This question could potentially expand services depending on your capabilities and the client’s needs, but even if they can’t afford more or you’re not the right fit, this is a chance to coach clients on how to get things done to support their business.Lastly, we also want to address the elephant in the room: having a fear of client meetings. It’s a real thing! Here’s how to get over that fear: simply focus on the client, not on yourself - think about who the client is, how they need support, and how you can help them. Putting thought behind what a client needs and having the data to support how it can serve them will most of the time also lead to more projects for you and an increase in trust from the client. Win-win! A great way to support this is by asking about the client’s personal life. When you form a relational bond, you can understand the client 10x better by knowing what’s happening in their life, leading to you providing them with better services and resulting in a lasting relationship. Listen in for more tips and start crushing your client meetings!

It’s time to get really vulnerable, y’all! Since the start of 2023, I had been making decisions out of ego rather than out of alignment - things felt right at the time, but if I had sat back and given myself space to think through things I might have done things differently. However, I now see that I needed to make those mistakes, learn from them, and use them as lessons to guide the brand new path I’m on now. When I was in the thick of my scarcity mindset, it was a domino effect of difficulty which I then had to face the consequences for in how I spent my time as well as how I felt in my work. I got in a dark spiral when we lost a good chunk of our clients and revenue, so I decided to insert myself more into the business and take on clients myself. In hindsight, that was a huge mistake! I was a leader operating out of scarcity, but really what I needed to do was empower my team to run with the business, not tighten the reins I had on it. After several months of struggle, business therapy, and yes, a tarot card reading, I finally made a BIG pivot that is allowing me to find peace and alignment - I stepped out of the day-to-day of my business. Rather than taking on work myself, I stepped into the CEO role of my business and started investing my time into growing a nonprofit I’ve cared about for a long time and empowering my team to run the business I’ve built because I’ve built it to operate mostly without me! In summary, let me leave you with this: do the things that feel right even if they feel scary, too. Listen in to hear about my journey and tell me if you’ve been on a similar path! 

AI…the two letters you’ve probably heard way too many times recently! We know it’s all the rage right now, but listen closely; it’s for good reason! As a marketing agency, we have been diving head-first into the world of AI and how we can use it to help not only ourselves but our clients as well. Today, let’s chat about some of the basics:-Identifying & shifting your mindset around AI-Basic marketing copy & how AI can help-How you can use AI for admin & business supportMindset:When you hear the term “AI,” do you want to just plug your ears and pretend it doesn’t exist? We get it! AI can feel inaccessible for a lot of industries, but we’re here to tell you it’s not. We often hear peoples’ hesitations around things like plagiarism, inaccessibility, or feeling overwhelmed by it all, which are all valid concerns that can be squashed once you fully understand how these technologies work. Our top tip to get started: identify what feels hard in your business & what you hate to do and find an AI platform to help you with those things! Look for platforms that are specific for your niche or the tasks you’re hoping to accomplish, there are AI platforms designed specifically for almost every industry and need so you’ll surely find something to take advantage of. We also recommend using multiple platforms; different platforms have different abilities and benefits, so it’s useful to play around and see how you can mix and match the content you’re creating.Marketing:So, how can you use AI to help with your marketing? The sky is the limit! One great place to free up time is by using AI for landing pages or website updates - whenever your business shifts (which it does constantly, right?), AI can be a tool to make those updates so much simpler and more efficient for you. Launches are another incredibly time-consuming task that can be sped up significantly by using AI. When you launch a new product, service, or program, there is a LOT of copy that needs to be created (think: email marketing, social media captions, ad copy, website updates), and AI can easily pull all the pieces together.If you’re an agency owner who is fearful of what AI may mean for your business, don’t be afraid; we as marketers can do things faster and increase our productivity by harnessing the power of AI, so no, it’s not putting marketers out of work! Plus, it’s saving our clients time and money as well. Win-win!Business:Now, let’s take a look at how AI can help you on the business front! AI can do a lot of tasks that you might typically hire a VA for, saving you major time and payroll costs. Here are a few examples of what we’ve used it for: job descriptions & titles, outlines, refining drafts, email responses, task management, business forecasting, and so much more!Tips:We’ll be honest with you, getting the most out of AI takes some practice! You have to teach the software how to serve you best and iterate; it likely won’t be perfect on the first try, so keep adding nuances and specifications to get what you’re wanting out of it. (Hot tip: once you’ve gotten the software to create what you were looking for, ask it “How should I prompt you in the future to write XYZ like this?” so you can save yourself even more time next time!)One last note before we leave you: you can’t just set it and forget it - AI still takes some oversight, editing, and finessing in order for it to turn out right, so make sure you’re still putting in the work on your end, too!Platforms we recommend:ChatGPTPerplexity Grammarly 

Time freedom is not found, it’s gained! That means yes, you have to put in WORK to acquire it - and that’s what we’re talking about today. The very first step towards time freedom is fully understanding your finances - you need to be clear on how much your business is making and how much your expenses are, otherwise you can’t make a plan for all the mini milestones that allow you to build your business. Understanding when you can afford to hire a contractor & how much margin you need to make that happen helps you to plan for your growth and map out your trajectory to get there. Your first hire should be someone who has complementary skills to yours, meaning they can pick up the slack where you might tend to struggle! Come up with a list of things you’re not good at or don’t enjoy doing (pro tip: luteal phase is a great time to do this!!), list out how much time those things typically take you, and do a financial forecast to come up with how much extra revenue you need to hire that extra person. Once you have that first person, your next hire should be a mini you - that’s what allows you to step back even further and take time off when you need or want to. Train them behind the scenes to do things similar to how you would do them so you can seamlessly hand off tasks and it’ll feel like you didn’t skip a beat. You have to forecast and plan for your dreams - otherwise, they’ll live and die on a Pinterest board. Tune into the full episode for details on how to plan and execute the life you’ve been desiring as a business owner so you can stop trading so much of your time for money! 

Mom, wife, friend, boss, business owner…all the titles and roles can make your head spin! Our family just had 2 months of back-to-back kid sicknesses (yes, 2 whole months!!) that forced me into taking a step back in my business…but the only way I was able to do that is by following a few exercises to simplify my business that I lean into when it gets overwhelming.First things first, focus on the people in your life that need you - those sick babies need your love and attention and you deserve a little TLC yourself! Step into that role and outsource anything else you can in your business that it’s not critical YOU do yourself (side note: this is why SOPs are so important!). If you’re a solopreneur or don’t have the ability to outsource, simplification looks like only focusing on the tasks that directly bring you money. It’s OK to hit pause on the things that don’t currently bring you a ton of revenue - you can always push play once life slows down a bit. But for the time being, you need to keep making money while opening up some space in your life, so focusing on your money-makers is where it’s at. This is why it’s so important to make it a priority to start building up a support team so you have the flexibility to step back when you need to - if it’s just you, it can be a lot trickier to take a step back!The main takeaway that I want you to leave with is that times of necessary “mom duty” require you to streamline, focus on the revenue, and put your attention on you and your babies.If you want to build a team that supports this kind of lifestyle, reach out! I offer a few different coaching opportunities to help you build your team and business processes so you can have a business that doesn’t require YOU to be in it day in and day out. https://theminacollective.com/coaching/