Agency Unfiltered
127 episodes - English - Latest episode: 7 months ago - ★★★★★ - 18 ratings[NEW EPISODES EVERY WEDNESDAY] Agency Unfiltered is a weekly podcast that features interviews with agency owners around agency operations and agency growth. Nobody knows how to scale agencies better than those that are doing it, and they're happy to share an unfiltered look into what has worked—and what hasn't. Hosted by Kevin Dunn.
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Episodes
An Elite Tier Origin Story (and the Impact of Business Coaching)
August 17, 2022 13:39 - 40 minutesToday, we have on Luke Trewin, Managing Director at Modern Visual. This podcast loves a good origin story, and what’s great about Modern Visual’s beginnings, is that Luke’s very first official office job was taking on the website projects that were the catalyst for Modern Visual. And now? His team is an Elite-tiered, accredited HubSpot solutions partner. Luke walks us through when and how he decided to leave his factory job to start Modern Visual. Was it always the plan? And how did he know i...
How Avidly Structured their C-Suite to Enable Growth Globally
August 10, 2022 13:32 - 50 minutesIngunn Bjøru, Chief Customer Experience Officer of Avidly, explains how Avidly has restructured their C-suite and has added and redesigned roles and responsibilities—including a Chief Revenue Officer, a Chief Technology Officer, and a Chief Customer Experience Officer. We learn about the teams these folks both build and manage, the focus areas and points of strategy that fall under their purview, and the impact they drive for the Avidly team, their prospects, and their customers. Ingunn and I...
Booking 20 Meetings a Day with C-Suite Contacts via Cold Outreach
August 03, 2022 13:49 - 36 minutesShawn Peterson, CEO of Quantum Business Solutions, walks us through the sales machine he’s built that has led to scalable, repeatable, and predictable results for his business and his clients. On their best day, Quantum booked 20 meetings with c-suite contacts via cold outreach—with his team’s best months including over 100 meetings booked. To understand how, we start the tech stack he uses (including softwares like Kennected, ConnectAndSell, and ZoomInfo). Shawn walks us through each, includ...
Improved Focus and Flexibility with Agile Retainers
July 27, 2022 13:18 - 40 minutesJessica Scanlon, CEO of Hot Dog Marketing, joins the podcast to share her team's journey in transitioning from standard retainers to an agile retainer strategy. As Jessica explains, by leveraging the agile methodology, the planning cycles and production sprints of her team’s retainers now allow for more flexibility, responsiveness, and better client results. We start with a breakdown of agile retainers (what they are and why they matter) and the impetus was in making this transition. We then ...
Rebranding and Pivoting from Full-Service Agency to Migration & Integration Specialists
July 20, 2022 13:32 - 43 minutesIn today’s episode, Ranya Barakat, CEO of CRM Toolbox, joins the show to talk about the major transitions, pivots, and inflection points her team has navigated over the last few years—as CRM Toolbox, a firm offering migration, integration, and complex onboarding services, used to be IDS, a LATAM full-service agency. Ranya starts with the why: what sparked the change in name and branding, the pivot in services, and re-classification to a North American partner. We then dig into her team’s serv...
Designing a Sales Team for Scale
July 13, 2022 13:22 - 41 minutesEric Baum, Founder and CEO of Bluleadz, joins the podcast to share the makeup of his team’s sales org, including the roles, responsibilities, comp plans, and performance benchmarks for his SDRs and AEs. We talk about each team's focus areas, the handoff criteria and qualification thresholds for prospects, the places in which he builds for scale, and how he thinks about the sales team’s role in fielding inbound leads vs. more outbound prospecting. We even get into the role of his customer succ...
Best Practices for Hiring HubSpot Talent in 2022
June 29, 2022 12:13 - 44 minutesJason Azocar, Founder and CEO of HubSearch, joins the show to share his interpretation of the HubSpot talent shortage. We look at the opportunity in front of partners through three lenses: putting your best foot forward before hiring, best practices for facilitating a candidate through the hiring process, and the importance of sustainable onboarding plans and talent retention strategies. Pre-hiring, we talk about where and how to source, the going market rates for HubSpot talent, and how to p...
Actionable Insights from the Fastest Ever to the Elite Tier
June 22, 2022 13:58 - 47 minutesThis week, Matt Bolian and Brendan Tolleson, cofounders of RevPartners, rejoin the show. When we last checked in with the RevPartners team, they were the fastest HubSpot solutions partner ever to reach the Diamond tier. Now, about a year later, they return to the podcast as the fastest ever to reach the Elite tier. They offer actionable insights, frameworks, and the specific steps they took to reach the Elite tier of HubSpot’s partner program in under 16 months. First, we discuss scaling oper...
Creating an Agency Culture of Learning
June 15, 2022 12:54 - 35 minutesJohn Heritage, President of Evenbound, joins to highlight, and then digs deeper into, the learning and development focus of his agency's culture. We start with its origin built on both his personal and professional experiences before moving to how he positions these learning initiatives around both HubSpot, and its growing, changing, expanding platform, as well as his team’s productivity—in other words, how does his team balance KPIs like utilization rate and billable hours with dedicating ti...
Supporting the Culture Change Sparked by CRM Implementation
June 08, 2022 13:52 - 31 minutesSteve Whittington, President of Roadmap, joins the show to talk about the oftentimes *unspoken* aspect of systems implementation—the ripple effect and impact a new CRM can have on an organization's culture. Steve talks about how he views and defines the culture change that comes with a new CRM platform, the differences at the individual-level and company-level, and whether it's a change in mindset, behaviors, accountability, responsibility—or all of the above. He then shares how his team impl...
HubSpot vs. Competing CRMs & Dispelling the Notion HubSpot "Isn't Powerful"
June 01, 2022 12:25 - 37 minutesToday, we have Michelle O'Keeffe, CEO of Engaging.io, on to discuss how she and her team dispel the notion that HubSpot's CRM platform isn't customizable, extensible, or powerful enough for enterprise-level businesses. She first calls out that while that notion is swiftly waning, she still highlights the fundamental differences between platforms when comparing HubSpot to other CRM platform options in the market—and how HubSpot's single codebase and crafted platform vs. cobbled-together compet...
Finding Senior Leadership in 2022's Talent Ecosystem
May 25, 2022 18:28 - 37 minutesAmber Kemmis, Chief Operating Officer at Revenue River, joins us to talk about senior leadership—specifically, why they're important and others should be thinking about and planning their own tier of senior leaders. Amber starts by sharing where senior leaders fall in her org chart and their primary roles and functions. She then shares her interpretation of the talent market and why its so hard to discover senior-level talent in 2022. We wrap with her tips, tactics, and recommendations for fi...
Verticalization with Franchise Development and Franchisee Marketing
May 18, 2022 19:39 - 37 minutesSteve Galligan and Joseph Mohay, CEO and CRO of Integrated Digital Strategies (IDS), join the show to discuss IDS's target niche—franchises. We star with IDS's history and their pursuit of franchises, and whether the business was built with this niche in mind or if it was a discovery over time. We then pivot to the engagements themselves, including what these services offerings entail, the typical buyer's journey for franchise prospects and clients, and the biggest or most unique consideratio...
Agency Globalization and Borderless Operations
May 11, 2022 16:10 - 38 minutesThis episode, we have Doug Wendt, founder and president of Wendt Partners on the show. Doug discusses the growth and globalization of his distributed team and the methods he used for growth—including full-time employees, contractors, freelancers, and services providers. We talk about how partners should think about marketplaces for securing freelance and contract help and his thoughts and the pros + cons of staffing firms. We also discuss the advantages (and disadvantages) of professional emp...
Rolling Out Team-Wide Salary Transparency
March 30, 2022 15:23 - 34 minutesConrad Saam, the President and Founder of Mockingbird Marketing, joins the show to talk about his commitment to transparency and clarity on salary—specifically, what that looks like and how it's reported and communicated to employees and candidates. He digs into the history, the process, how he established baselines, and why it's been so valuable for the firm. We wrap by discussing how compensation transparency has changed over time as his team grows both in size and in depth of knowledge—and...
Demystifying Solutions Architecture
March 23, 2022 14:45 - 38 minutesConnor Jeffers, Founder and CEO of Aptitude 8 who joins the show to talk about solutions architecture. We start with his definition of solutions architecture and how it compares to other technical roles like systems administrators, RevOps professionals, developers, and sales engineers. We talk about solutions architect development and how to raise the bar for technical expertise and systems design—and whether these folks are primarily homegrown or sought externally. Lastly, we wrap with A8 La...
Customer Experience Consultancy and Optimizing the Customer Journey
March 16, 2022 13:35 - 35 minutesDaryn Smith, Chief Sales and Innovation Office (and co-founder) of Huble, joins the show to talk about his team's customer experience consultancy service offering. Specifically, what it entails, where and how customer journey mapping factors in, and his team's involvement with defining (and/or introducing) process on top of software implementation. We then talk about the sales conversations, unique value propositions—and how marketers offer a valuable, important perspective on CX content and ...
How to Offer and Deliver Customer Service Engagements
March 09, 2022 17:02 - 31 minutesRomi Dexter, Director & Co-Founder of Hype & Dexter, joins the show to talk about customer service engagements with clients. Specifically, what customer service services entails and how involved her team is with defining (or introducing) process on top of software configuration. We talk sales and value propositions—and how conversations, points of contacts, and points of entry may change. We then wrap with how her team reports on success and the KPIs, the value adds, and the process improveme...
Video Podcasts and the Multimedia Pillar Strategy
March 02, 2022 14:00 - 30 minutesAndrew Hong, Co-Founder of Tobe Agency, joins the show to share his team’s video podcasting strategy and service offering for clients. We discuss the role video podcasts can play in a larger pillar content strategy, where and how you can build and repurpose podcast content, some tool recommendations for production and distribution, and the unique and emerging use-cases for podcasting that he’s most excited about.
Building Relationships with HubSpot Direct Reps
February 23, 2022 15:08 - 34 minutesDoug Davidoff, the founder and CEO of Imagine Business Development, returns to the show to discuss how he navigates HubSpot's sales organization and builds relationships with HubSpot sales reps as a means of business development. He shares his recommendations and suggestions for others to do the same: how to build these relationships from the ground up, what folks need to set up organizationally to enable these relationships, and how partners may need to rethink their role in these types of c...
Key Inflection Points Over a Decade+ of Growth
February 16, 2022 14:33 - 39 minutesRikki Lear, Managing Director of Digital22, joins us to talk about the key inflection points his team navigated in their 10+ years of growth. We start with the decision of going all-in on HubSpot. How and when did he make that decision and what ripple effect did it have across his existing client base? We then discuss process and project management, automation, and other guardrails to enable faster scaling. Lastly, we talk about the recent acquisition by Avidly—specifically, how those talks b...
Diagnosing Problems in Client Discovery
February 09, 2022 14:10 - 42 minutesDave Meyer, President, and Trygve Olsen, Director of Buzz Development at BizzyWeb come on the show to talk about the discovery stage of their sales process—specifically, how they diagnose problems for prospects, how they build trust with prospects, and how they balance data and facts with the emotional, soft-skill based relationships they build.
Process Consulting vs. Product Implementation
February 02, 2022 14:33 - 26 minutesDaniel Fonseca, founding partner of Netfluence, joins the show to talk about process consulting. We start by first defining process consulting and outlining the value it brings to clients and to his company. We then discuss if and how process consulting matches up with product implementation—does it come before, after, or simultaneously? We then wrap by diving deep into Netfluence's process for process consultancy—and the particular framework, model, or processes he follows—to help our listen...
Employment Experience and Optimizing for Work-Life Integration
January 26, 2022 13:37 - 39 minutesNicole Pereira, CEO of Remotish, joins the show to talk about her team's emphasis on employment experience—and as she points out, employment experience is something small agencies and smaller organizations can derive the MOST value from... it’s not something necessarily reserved for large teams. We talk about the systems and processes that make it happen. Things like career crafting and role progression, entrepreneurial projects and cross-training, work-life integration and intentionally asyn...
Back to School with CSUCI's Student-Run Agency
January 19, 2022 15:00 - 31 minutesAgency Unfiltered this week comes with a twist—as we sit down with Ekin Pehlivan, Associate Professor of Marketing at the Martin V. Smith School of Business and Economics at California State University Channel Islands and Leslie Cortes, a student at Cal State Channel Islands. Ekin shares the history of Cal State’s student-led agency—how it started, and why. We dig into the agency's go-to-market, the types of businesses they serve, the services they offer, team structure, process development, ...
Clean Data and Creating a CRM Implementation Practice
October 13, 2021 16:19 - 33 minutesWe talk to Dave Scilabro, Chief Growth Officer at harvestROI. Dave digs deep into CRM implementation. He walks us through his team's choice to focus more on CRM implementation as a service. We talk through his team’s definition and approach to systems implementation or migrating between systems, data and its role in successful implementation, how he ensures clean data when rolling out a new system, and the role data plays in enabling departmental handoffs.
Prospecting and Selling into the C-Suite
October 06, 2021 14:11 - 31 minutesIn this week’s edition of Agency Unfiltered, we talk to Lara Triozzi, CEO of MarketLauncher. We discuss her focus on prospecting and lead development efforts specifically targeting C-level executives. We talk about the approach other firms need to take for their clients when targeting the C-suite, where and how it intersects with ABM, and how to best identify when C-suite is the right point of contact you need to sell to. We then discuss FANS, or formal account, new success—and the revenue at...
Understanding RevOps from the Fastest Solutions Partner to Diamond
September 29, 2021 19:35 - 41 minutesBrendan Tolleson and Matt Bolian, co-founders and CEO and CRO of RevPartners grew to the Diamond tier of HubSpot’s Solutions Partner Program faster than any other partner before them. We talk about what RevOps means to their team and the problems they solve by offering RevOps support.
Building Senior Leadership into Your Org Chart
June 30, 2021 12:19 - 29 minutesJonathan Franchell, CEO and Founder of Ironpaper, talks us through his team’s approach to building up their roster of senior leadership positions. He shares his process for assessing the need for various Director-level candidates, how he balances internal and external candidates, and when he knew it was time to add folks that don’t correlate to billable hours.
“Renewing Your Vows” with HubSpot
June 16, 2021 13:09 - 30 minutesBrian Shilling, VP of Sales and Client Strategy at TSL Marketing, shares his team’s commitment to “renewing their vows” with HubSpot and the partner program. What does this mean for TSL and their team? How does this change the way they source and manage talent? Brian shares the approach, the early results, and his recommendations for new partners.
Building the Property Management Operating System (PMOS)
June 02, 2021 13:09 - 22 minutesHeather Park, Managing Partner at Rent Bridge, joins the show to talk about the PMOS, or Property Management Operating System, the unified property management automation solution built entirely on HubSpot. Heather discusses the experiences that lead to the property management niche, the nuts and bolts of the PMOS, and the balance between templates and custom setup.
Consolidating Your Focus Areas and Service Offerings
May 19, 2021 11:31 - 29 minutesNoah Berk, Co-Founder of OBO, joins the show to talk about how his agency was able to consolidate the focus areas and services they offered their clients. Noah talks about the value in pulling back from “full-service”, how he identified what to focus on, and the implications this had on people, process, growth and the client experience.
People Development in the Remote World
May 05, 2021 12:14 - 25 minutesAlex Moore and Ryan Burkett, senior partners at Stratagon, sit down to talk about people development—more specifically, people development in the newly remote-first world. They share the tools and processes they use for supporting growth, aligning collaborators, and building teams that embrace diverse communication styles and preferences.
Scaling Content Marketing in 2021 and Beyond
April 21, 2021 13:35 - 23 minutesAngela Pointon, President of 11 out of 11, comes on to talk about content marketing and how to scale it out as a service offering. We talk about onboarding subcontractors to systems, processes, and a standard of quality, how to enable a client’s thought leadership in content, and finding the right clients for a content marketing engagement.
Going All-in with Specialization
April 07, 2021 13:24 - 26 minutesSpencer Powell, CEO of Builder Funnel, and his team have gone all in on specialization—all the way up his agency’s name. He walks us through the decision to align so tightly to an industry, the benefits he sees across his agency’s flywheel, handling prospects with competing businesses, and the impact specialization has on team development.
Agency Acquisitions and Team Integration
March 24, 2021 13:17 - 27 minutesPeter Lang, CEO of Uhuru Network, shares his team’s acquisition strategy. We talk about the process for sourcing potential acquisitions, indicators to look for from potential sellers, how he validates “fit”, and when he decides to walk away. And for those acquisitions that do close, we talk about team integration and the people, process, and tools that make them go as seamless as possible.
Evolving as a Leader Through Agency Maturation
March 10, 2021 14:14 - 40 minutesMike Skeehan, the Managing Partner of Salted Stone, shares his experiences in evolving as a leader alongside the maturation of his agency and what it meant to grow, pivot, and reassign his responsibilities in moments of transition. We discuss important inflection points, the patterns he saw, and how he compares reactivity to proactiveness.
Leveraging Podcasting as Inbound Marketing
February 24, 2021 14:34 - 36 minutesJon Sasala, President of Morey Creative, shares his team’s first hand experience in developing branded podcasts. Jon discusses where and how podcasting fits into the larger marketing and sales processes, how it builds trust—and the surprising industry he likes to hire from.
Mastering Client Web Projects
July 01, 2020 13:35 - 20 minutesTrish Lessard, CEO of Mediajunction, joins us to talk client websites and how to manage complex CMS builds, migrations, and implementations—while keeping these projects under budget, within scope, and delivered on time.
Ensuring Data Integrity for True Business Intelligence
June 17, 2020 13:04 - 24 minutesBlake Kendrick, Director of Operations for FullFunnel, talks about his team’s approach to reporting: specifically, auditing fields and schema on the backend to pull through as impactful, actionable data.
Digital Transformations Through Technology
June 03, 2020 12:45 - 22 minutesBrendon Dennewill, CEO of Denamico, has made a key distinction in their flywheel model: they put customer experience in the center. Learn how to leverage data, systems, processes, and technology to help your clients succeed with a true digital transformation of their customer experience.
Aligning Pricing with Client Expectations
May 20, 2020 14:17 - 26 minutesDoug Davidoff, Founder and CEO of Imagine Business Development, joins us to talk about how he evolved his pricing strategy to eliminate the gap between prospect expectations and resource allocation. Learn about his three tiers of programs: services, solutions, and outcomes.
ESOP: Employee Stock Ownership Plans
May 06, 2020 16:51 - 23 minutesGreg Linnemanstons, President of Weidert Group, joins us to talk ESOP: and how the trust he set up for his team benefits the agency, the employees, and his clients. We discuss why he rolled out an ESOP, financials and factors to consider for your agency, and the benefits you may see.
Fueling Growth with Internal Data Scorecards
April 08, 2020 13:30 - 17 minutesEtienne Turner, co-CEO of digitalJ2, has created a set of scorecards and dashboards to help his team stay on target with their top KPIs across operations, marketing, sales, HR, and client performance. In this episode, we talk about how he sets the agency’s goals, where granularity fits in, and how others can set and track their targets.
Navigating Your Critical Scale Points
March 25, 2020 14:02 - 29 minutesBob and Verity Dearsley, the Chief Executive and Managing Director of B2B Marketing Lab, join us to talk about scale points: the times where you must invest, revamp, or pivot to properly scale your growing agency. Learn how to focus on the customer, invest in marketing, build an HR arm, and more.
Offering Education as a Service
March 11, 2020 13:41 - 21 minutesJani Aaltonen, Founder of Sales Communications, hosts a rolling calendar of small group workshops that have added a ton of force to his agency’s flywheel. Jani joins us to talk about the structure of his classroom training offering, the value in trust, the impact on revenue, and how others can get started.
Why We Began Productizing Agency Services
February 26, 2020 13:15 - 21 minutesJohn and Lucy, Directors of ESM Inbound, have built out a unique structure to their pricing, billing, and contracts: their services are productized and available a la carte and without any retainer commitments. Learn more about their motivations, successes, and lessons learned in making the pivot to productizing their services.
Tech Stack Discovery and Platform Consultancy
February 12, 2020 13:12 - 22 minutesGabriel Marguglio, CEO of Nextiny Marketing, joins us to discuss how he was able to maximize the opportunity around technology consultation. Learn how to embrace software, platform capabilities and become a platform consultancy agency.
The Artificial Intelligence Agency
January 29, 2020 12:44 - 15 minutesJessica Miller, VP and Managing Director of PR20/20, comes on the show to talk about artificial intelligence: how agencies can define what it is, how to talk about it with clients, how to identify real applications of it, and how it impacts service delivery.
Recovering After Losing 50% of Revenue in 30 Days
January 15, 2020 12:34 - 24 minutesTyler Pigott, Principal of Lone Fir Creative, joins us to talk about a major agency recovery he lost 50% of the agency’s revenue in a 30 day period. We talk about sticking to a sales process, consolidating tool investments, building the right team, in other lessons learned in saving the agency.