Working Without Pants - Creative Entrepreneurship
171 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 2 years ago - ★★★★★ - 54 ratingsWorking Without Pants is the podcast for agency owners and consultants who are wanting to win more clients and better clients for their business.
Each week, Jake Jorgovan brings you interviews with industry leaders and experts on how to win more clients for your agency or consulting practice.
Past guests have included Brennan Dunn, Brent Weaver, Kai Davis, Philip Morgan, Brian Casel, Blair Enns, and many more.
Learn more at https://jake-jorgovan.com/podcast
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Episodes
114: Consulting success with Michael Zipursky
October 09, 2018 13:42 - 37 minutes - 26.1 MBOn this week's podcast I speak with Michael Zipursky, CEO, author of The Elite Consulting Mind and coach to elite consultants. Michael is in the business of helping consultants to scale and grow, to attract more clients, to increase fees and win more proposals. But mainly, his intent is to create what he has coined as 'meaningful success', which refers to not only generating more revenue but also aims to create the right business structures that allow consultants to have more freedom and fle...
113: Launching a best selling book with Tom Morkes
October 02, 2018 12:29 - 46 minutes - 31.9 MBAre you familiar with The Seven Day Startup by Dan Norris? Stop Thinking Like a Freelancer by Liam Vitch? The Sober Entrepreneur by Russ Perry? All of these past guests of the podcast launched their books with Tom Morkes' help, through his business Insurgent Publishing. Insurgent Publishing is in the business of running online event based marketing campaigns for brands and businesses. Whether it's a book launch, a course launch, a summit, a challenge or a product/service being sold over a ...
112: Linkedin Secrets with John Nemo
September 26, 2018 14:28 - 46 minutes - 26.8 MBWhen I was building Lead Cookie, my LinkedIn Lead Generation business, I did a lot of research on thought leaders in this arena and many of the tactics i learned came through John Nemo's courses. I brought John on the podcast so he can share actionable tips and advice on how to get more out of LinkedIn and better manage your profile. John started off in the lead generation game after her took a leap of faith and left his 'soul sucking day job'. With only 1 client and 1 month's worth of wag...
111: The User is Drunk with Richard Littauer
September 18, 2018 11:17 - 28 minutes - 19.4 MBRichard Littauer is the creator of The User is Drunk website. Richard's story is an interesting one involving a unique marketing tactic he used to grow his business. Tune in to hear about this form of viral marketing that had tremendous success and generated tons of opportunities. Essentially, Richard gets drunk and reviews the user experience (UX) of websites. This was one of Richard's many think-outside-of-the-box ideas and just happened to be the one that took off. In this episode we he...
110: Generate Leads on Linkedin with Wayne Breitbarth
September 12, 2018 22:37 - 37 minutes - 21.6 MBWayne has been in this game since the early days of LinkedIn. His interest started off as a hobby but when he realized people were really attentive when engaging in public speaking on the topic, he teamed up with his wife to write a book about it. The Power Formula for LinkedIn is now on its 4th Edition and has sold over 100,000 copies. When Wayne first meets with clients (organizations, individuals, colleges and universities, and especially sales teams) all he has to do is show them how t...
109: Getting leads for your agency using Adwords with Joe Kashurba
September 05, 2018 10:57 - 30 minutes - 17.5 MBIn this podcast I sit down with Joe Kashurba of Kashurba Web Design. Joe shares valuable insights of how to build a virtual agency and gain clients through Google Adwords. Building a virtual team is no easy feat. In this episode you'll hear great advice on how to hand projects off strategically, piece by piece. We discuss how important it is to narrow down slowly and keep project managers focused on one part of the puzzle at a time. Would you believe Joe gained the majority of his work a...
108: Selling your Expertise with David C. Baker
August 30, 2018 12:54 - 35 minutes - 20.8 MBIn this episode, I interview David C. Baker, an author, speaker and advisor helping entrepreneurial experts make better business decisions. His new book, The Business of Expertise is available now. If you are looking to build yourself up as a thought leader, David is the guy to go to. His words of wisdom revolve around one thing: helping people make better business decisions. He tackles the big questions like: how to position your firm, how to find new business with lead generation, how to...
107: Why you should talk prospects out of working with you with Jonathan Stark
June 05, 2018 11:33 - 47 minutes - 27.3 MBIn this episode, we interview Jonathan Stark who is a business coach for independent software consultants. In this interview, we dive into Jonathan's background and how he found his super defined niche which enabled him to charge premium rates for his services. We also dive into this concept on why you should talk prospects out of working with you. It's a contrarian concept at first but by the end of this interview, I am confident you will agree.
106: Winning Enterprise Clients with Jonathan Dison
May 29, 2018 10:54 - 37 minutes - 21.5 MBToday I am honored to have Jonathan Dison of Benchwatch and Lightrock Consulting. In Jonathan's previous consulting experience he has clients as Chevron, Tyson, Microsoft and quite a few other large clients. In this interview, we dive in with Jonathan on how he got his consulting firm built up and advice he has for other consultants to get into those large enterprise clients. This interview is jam-packed with 2-3 big ideas that will show you how to get in with enterprise clients.
105: Recurring revenue with Brent Weaver
May 22, 2018 18:45 - 43 minutes - 25.1 MBIn this episode, we talk all about how to generate recurring revenue for your agency with Brent Weaver of uGurus. Brent has some incredible and actionable insights that any agency or consulting firm can begin using immediately to start generating more recurring revenue for your business.
104: Tactics and Strategy with Ahmad Munawar
May 15, 2018 21:43 - 36 minutes - 21.3 MBIn this episode of working without pants we talk Tactics and Strategy with Ahmad Munawar of Boutique Growth. Ahmad used to work at Ernst & Young before leaving to go out on his own to run business development for a smaller boutique consulting firm. Today his business focuses helping consulting firms ramp up their marketing and acquire new clients.
103: Becoming a better manager with Karl Sakas
May 03, 2018 19:24 - 27 minutes - 16.2 MBIn this episode, we interview Karl Sakas all about how you can become a better manager and leader at your agency.
102: Building a $500k MRR productized service with Russ Perry
April 26, 2018 11:36 - 43 minutes - 25.2 MBThis is the second time we have had Russ on the show although in between he grew Design Pickle from $100k MRR to $500k+ MRR. Needless to say, Russ is crushing it. In this episode we talk more about how Russ has grown as an individual in order to get his company to this level. We talk about Russ's new book The Sober Entrepreneur which I highly recommend. And we riff on many of the other lessons Russ has learned through building up his Design Pickle empire.
101: How to use LinkedIn Ads with AJ Wilcox
April 19, 2018 17:59 - 26 minutes - 15.4 MBIn this episode I am honored to bring you AJ Wilcox of B2Linked.com. AJ shares all of his secrets and best practices when it comes to LinkedIn ads and how he has built up one of the top LinkedIn advertising agencies in the world in a relatively short period of time.
100: Tax Reduction Strategies for Agencies and Consultants
March 22, 2018 17:59 - 24 minutes - 14.2 MBAs crazy as it sounds, I am a geek when it comes to taxes. I leverage every possible thing I can when it comes to deductions and have event spent two years of my life abroad to reduce my taxes. That is why I am excited to bring you this interview with Craig Cody where we talk about all of the opportunities that small business owners have for tax deductions. This episode is full of tax specific advice for U.S. residents so hopefully you find it useful.
099: Creating the Amazon logo with David Turner of Turner Duckworth
March 20, 2018 16:19 - 47 minutes - 27.3 MBIn this episode of the Working Without Pants podcast I am honored to bring you this amazing interview with David Turner of Turner Duckworth. You may have seen the work that David's firm has created before... They are only responsible for Coca Cola's iconic branding and the Amazon logo... Yes, that's right. They did the freaking Amazon logo. This interview is incredible as we dive into David's journey, how he has built up such an incredible company and company culture. I hope you en...
098: Closing outbound leads with Liston Witherill
March 08, 2018 14:35 - 37 minutes - 21.7 MBOne of the biggest challenges with running a done-for-you B2B lead generation service is seeing a lot of leads NOT turn into sales calls and never have the chance to become closed deals. It doesn’t matter how many leads we send a business if they can’t create new business from those leads. This article is based on the interview posted below which is a conversation between Liston Witherill and myself all about closing outbound leads. More leads can even be bad for your business if you d...
How to generate leads on Linkedin - Part 3
October 05, 2017 20:54 - 18 minutes - 10.7 MBThis episode is the third and final part of our LinkedIn lead generation series. We’re going to dive deeper into what you do when you start generating those leads and people actually start conversing with you. The inspiration for this series was my new company, LeadCookie.com, where we manage and handle the entire LinkedIn lead generation process. If you’re a well-niched business, reach out and see how we can help. For full show notes go to jake-jorgovan.com/podcast/097 ... This episo...
How to generate leads on Linkedin - Part 2
October 05, 2017 20:53 - 14 minutes - 8.59 MBThis is part 2 in our 3-part series on LinkedIn lead generation. In this episode, we’re going to dive in on how to use outbound connection requests to generate leads and conversations on LinkedIn. With my new service, Lead Cookie, we generate leads for our customers on LinkedIn. We’ve had some people who literally told us they need us to stop, because we were generating more leads than they could handle. If you don’t have time to optimize your LinkedIn profile and use all its capabilit...
How to generate leads on Linkedin - Part 1
October 05, 2017 20:52 - 19 minutes - 11.6 MBWelcome to the first of a 3-part solo series on Linkedin prospecting. As you know, one of the main areas I focus on is helping agencies and consultants get new clients. While I used LinkedIn a lot for research, I didn’t really know much about using it for lead generation. I decided to change that, and after implementing tactics and strategies to do this, I had 40 strong leads and closed at least $30,000 in business in just a few months. In this episode, I’m going to talk about profile ...
Doing good in the world is good for business with Justin Ahrens
August 25, 2017 19:46 - 49 minutes - 28.6 MBI am super excited to have Justin Ahrens of Rule 29 on the show today. On the side of his firm, Justin launched an initiative called Wheels 4 Water, where he’s raised over $200,000 for a non-profit focused on providing clean drinking water in Africa. What’s cool about our conversation today is that Justin shares why it’s easier to set up a non-profit by not actually setting one up. We also talk about why Justin started this initiative and how it’s opened up big doors for his primary agen...
Building a package design agency with Richard Shear
August 04, 2017 21:05 - 42 minutes - 24.5 MBI have an awesome interview for you today with Richard Shear from Invōk Brands. Richard’s company is pretty incredible. They are a package design agency that has been around for many, many years in different names and iterations. Invōk Brands has an impressive resume of clients, starting off with Johnson & Johnson. I sat down with Richard at the HOW Design Live Conference and we discussed his story of kicking off his agency with Johnson & Johnson and how he’s been able to maintain his bu...
Narrowing your focus with Jeremy Loyd
July 18, 2017 18:00 - 29 minutes - 17.1 MBOn this week’s episode of the Working Without Pants Podcast, I sit down with the Jeremy Loyd, Creative Director at Sparkbox. Sparkbox is an Ohio based web design and development agency with about 30 team members on board. In this interview, I got to talk to Jeremy about how Sparkbox got started out, the unique approach they took to niching down, and the ways they get new clients. I had a great time talking with Jeremy, and I hope you get a ton of value out of this episode. For full ...
Using content as a form of outreach with Ryan Robinson
July 11, 2017 21:23 - 29 minutes - 17 MBI got the pleasure of catching up with Ryan Robinson at the HOW Design Live conference. Ryan runs a content marketing consultancy and has some big clients like LinkedIn and Zendesk. In addition to that, Ryan is a contributor at Inc., Forbes, and Entrepreneur Magazine. Not only does he have a ton of experience in writing great content, Ryan really stands apart because of his ability to get that content in front of as many people as possible. In this episode, Ryan talks about how he l...
Better clients with bigger budgets with Ilise Benun
June 27, 2017 17:46 - 24 minutes - 14.3 MBIlise has been on the show before, and I had the opportunity to catch up with her at the HOW Design Live conference to see what she is up to these days. Ilise runs Marketing Mentor, a company focused on helping creative clients get better clients with bigger budgets. In this episode with Ilise, we dive into her story, how she got started, some of the biggest mistakes she’s seen creatives make, and some of the best growth tactics she’s seen as well. Ilise shares a ton of great insights ...
Building a boutique 2-person consultancy with Bright Umbrella
June 20, 2017 20:22 - 32 minutes - 22.8 MBI recently attended the HOW Design Live Conference and had the opportunity to meet up with Lea and Emily from Bright Umbrella. Bright Umbrella is a 2-person design and development agency that focuses on the education sector. In our interview, I got to talk to Lea and Emily about how they started out, what they have learned, and some of the things they are doing to grow their business today. For full show notes go to jake-jorgovan.com/podcast/089 ... This episode is sponsored by Outbo...
Win clients with speaking engagements with Gene Hammett
June 13, 2017 17:23 - 50 minutes - 28.9 MBMy guest on this week’s podcast, Gene Hammett, is an expert at growing business through speaking. He is also host of the Leaders in the Trenches podcast, which is focused on building authority through speaking engagements. I had a great time talking with Gene. He has tons of knowledge and ideas to help you avoid the typical marketing “funnel frenzy” as he calls it. I learned a lot from this episode, and I hope you get a lot out of it as well. For full show notes go to jake-jorgovan.co...
Growing your business through podcasting with Craig Hewitt
June 06, 2017 15:40 - 33 minutes - 19.2 MBOver the past few years, I’ve found that about 60% of new business I get comes from my podcast in one way or another. This inspired me to write a blog post on growing your agency through podcast networking. In addition, it also inspired me to reach out to Craig Hewitt of Podcast Motor to talk on the show about the service he offers and about how to be a successful podcaster. Podcast Motor currently runs 30 different podcasts, so Craig has a ton of insight on creating an amazing podcast...
Cold calling to win clients with Olivier Lambert of TactikMedia
May 16, 2017 16:45 - 34 minutes - 19.8 MBOn the show this week, I had the pleasure of talking with Olivier Lambert of TactikMedia. Olivier is one of a rare breed who actually enjoys cold calling. In this interview with him, he talks about how he approaches cold calling and how beneficial it has been for winning new clients for TactikMedia. I had a great time talking to Olivier. He is an awesome guy with a great story. I hope you get a ton of value out of this interview and find ways to utilize cold calling in your agency. For...
Business development for agencies with Drew McLellan
May 09, 2017 17:29 - 46 minutes - 26.7 MBOn the podcast this week, I had Drew McLellan of the Agency Management Institute. If you are an agency, and you haven’t heard of the Agency Management Institute, you should definitely check them out. They come alongside small to mid-sized agencies to help them run their businesses better. Drew has been an agency owner for over 20 years now, and has a lot of experience with what makes agencies work well. In this episode, we talk about getting new clients and keeping current clients happy....
New inbound clients in 30 days with Michael Gass
May 02, 2017 15:30 - 49 minutes - 28.4 MBOn this episode of the Working Without Pants Podcast, I had the pleasure of talking with Michael Gass. Michael runs the Fuel Lines Business Development blog, which is one of the top 100 marketing blogs according to Ad Age. In this episode, Michael goes in depth on a lot of the tactics he uses when helping companies with their inbound marketing strategies. A ton of companies have a hard time seeing the results of inbound, or the results take forever. Michael shows us some ways that inbo...
Mistakes to avoid when building your agency with Matt Inglot
April 25, 2017 03:57 - 50 minutes - 28.7 MBOn this episode of the Working Without Podcast, I had the great pleasure of talking with Matt Inglot. Matt is the founder of Tilted Pixel, and he also runs the Freelance Transformation podcast. I loved sitting down to talk with Matt about his story of how he ended up where he is today. It is a story much like my own, and it is great to hear about all he has learned from the mistakes made along the journey. There is a lot you can take away from this week’s episode on things to do and no...
Strategic partnerships with Michael Sacca of Crew
April 17, 2017 16:24 - 38 minutes - 22.2 MBOn this episode of Working Without Pants, I had the pleasure of interviewing the former President of Crew, Michael Sacca. When Michael came to Crew, he was the head of partnerships, and we get to talk a lot about how he worked on creating valuable partnerships in that role. We also get an in-depth look at some of his outbound campaigns and how he crafted these to best reach his audience. This was a fun interview with a ton of insight, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. For full ...
Badass branding and packaging services with Pia Silva
March 07, 2017 20:45 - 45 minutes - 25.7 MBPia Silva and her partner are the owners of Worstofall Design, an agency that builds badass brands without the bullshit. Pia's model is extremely unique. Instead of being a traditional branding agency, her and her partner work in a unique way. They do 1-2 day intensive branding sessions with their clients called "BrandUps" where they build the client’s entire brand and strategy right there in person. They charge $10k per Brandup and regularly schedule 3 of these per month. That means in ...
Using podcasting as sales outreach with Jonathan Green
March 02, 2017 23:27 - 38 minutes - 22.1 MBI’m a huge proponent of using podcasts to grow your business, but I know a lot of people find the idea of creating and maintaining a podcast to be daunting. This week, I got to talk to Jonathan Green from Sweet Fish Media, and their whole company is built around the idea of using podcasts as a means to interview your potential clients and win them over as clients for your business. They produce niche podcasts for B2B companies and take all of the pain and hassle out of managing your own. ...
Winning new clients through reciprocity with John Ruhlin
February 08, 2017 09:00 - 41 minutes - 23.7 MBOn this episode of the Working Without Pants Podcast, I talk to John Ruhlin about how he wins new clients and nurtures existing clients through gift giving. John talks about how gift giving is something that is often overlooked by companies, but if it is done right, it can have a huge effect on your business relationships and bottom line. For full show notes go to jake-jorgovan.com/podcast/078 ... This episode is sponsored by Outbound Creative Outbound Creative helps agencies and con...
Building a rock solid culture with Arnie Malham
January 31, 2017 14:00 - 47 minutes - 27.1 MBOn this episode of the Working Without Pants Podcast, I talk to Arnie Malham about the success he has had in building multiple companies with rock solid cultures. One of the things that I love about Arnie is that he is a big reader, and he attributes much of his success to what he calls R&D, ripping off and duplicating from the authors that he follows. And with a team of around 30 members and annual revenue around $10 million, I’d say he’s doing a great job of R&D. For full show note...
076: Ryan Meo on winning new clients with hot sauce
January 17, 2017 13:30 - 44 minutes - 25.8 MBIn this episode of Working Without Pants, we talk to Ryan Meo of scalesquad.com about winning new clients, outsourcing and how being focused on operations has brought them the success they have today. For full show notes go to jake-jorgovan.com/podcast/075 ... This episode is sponsored by Outbound Creative Outbound Creative helps agencies and consultancies win their dream clients through eye-catching outreach campaigns. Learn more at OutboundCreative.com. WinYourDreamClients.com
075: Tom Schwab on productizing podcast outreach
December 06, 2016 10:52 - 42 minutes - 24.1 MBTom Schwab is the force behind InterviewValet.com, a productized service focused on getting people on podcasts to let the world know what it is they do. I've done tons of podcasts but had never thought deeply about the outreach strategy and sales process to the extent that Tom does. In this episode, we discuss how to turn podcasts into leads for your business. For full show notes go to jake-jorgovan.com/podcast/075 ... This episode is sponsored by Outbound Creative Outbou...
074: Tim Conley on scaling a consulting practice
November 27, 2016 15:33 - 59 minutes - 34 MBTim Conley is a business coach, was the host of the Foolish Adventure podcast, and is a high-level consultant, helping B2B entrepreneurs, agencies and consultants (from $0.5 - 5M) scale their businesses. In the first half of this episode, we discuss the businesses Tim works with, which range from $500K - 5M, and what it takes for them to grow and level up. In the second part, we discuss Tim's business model, which is quite similar to my own business, Outbound Creative, doing high-level...
073: How to double your agency’s revenue with strategic partnerships
November 08, 2016 02:56 - 30 minutes - 17.4 MBJake has done extensive research into how agency owners win clients. After all, his business Outbound Creative is focused on winning clients for agencies and consultancies. One strategy comes up over and over again: strategic partnerships. Many agencies get 20-70% of their revenue from strategic partnerships. In this episode Jake details: 3 types of strategic partnership (including anecdotes of each type) Elements of a strong partnership 5 steps to creating your own partnership The inf...
072: Russ Perry on starting and scaling a productized design service
September 29, 2016 18:00 - 40 minutes - 23.2 MBRuss Perry is the founder of Design Pickle, a productized graphic design service. Design Pickle can free up your marketing team to work on bigger initiatives, while they take care of things like business cards, brochures, posters, etc. It’s amazingly simple: just sign up and get matched with a dedicated designer for unlimited designs at a flat rate of $370/mo. You’ll really get some value out of this episode if you want to productize a service. We dive into how Russ started Design Pickl...
071: Jason Swenk on starting, scaling and selling a digital agency
September 21, 2016 16:44 - 49 minutes - 28.7 MBAfter growing Solar Velocity from nothing to an 8-figure agency, selling it and getting bored on the beach, Jason Swenk began helping other agency owners. He now teaches the lessons he’s learned along the way at JasonSwenk.com. Jason shares his incredible insights in this episode, oozing with his spunky personality. Highlights of this episode: [4:10] It all started with a NSync parody site, then he started making $500 websites, quit his job at Arthur Andersen before they destroy...
070: David Reske on building a digital marketing agency
September 14, 2016 13:35 - 30 minutes - 17.7 MBDavid Reske is the founder and CEO of digital marketing agency Nowspeed. He’s built a phenomenal business over the last 10-15 years. David is incredibly clearheaded and sophisticated about Nowspeed. But the journey has not been without challenges. In this episode, we discuss his business, what's works, and what hasn't. Highlights of this episode: [3:15] The kind of people you hire creates the kind of atmosphere and culture your company will have. [3:50] Nowspeed has evolved over t...
068: Dan Englander on account management
August 30, 2016 14:19 - 32 minutes - 22.5 MBDan Englander is the founder of SalesSchema.com, and the author of Mastering Account Management and The B2B Sales Blueprint. Dan is an expert on growing sales, and specifically, getting the most value out of existing clients, which is often ignored in sales. We dive into his experiences in ramping up sales at one of the first video explainer companies and winning massive Fortune 500 accounts (like Verizon, Showtime, Bank of America, Venmo), before he started his own consultancy. Highli...
067: Ben Lee on productizing the discovery process
August 19, 2016 15:39 - 46 minutes - 27 MBBen Lee is the founder and CEO of Neon Roots, an award-winning agile development agency. Interestingly, the majority Neon Roots’ revenue does not come from actual developing, but rather from their discovery program, called Rootstrap, which guides entrepreneurs from the vaguest idea of an app, to a development-ready prototype. Ben dives into how Rootstrap took on a life of it’s own, why discovery is so important, his untraditional sales team and other insights into how he’s built his busi...
066: Brian Casel on Building and Scaling a Productized Service
July 08, 2016 12:54 - 41 minutes - 23.9 MBSince I last brought Brian Casel onto the podcast over a year ago, he has sold his first productized business and launched his second. Brian is truly leading the way in terms of productized services and in this interview he gives a great context as to how agency owners can begin to transition from personalized consulting to a productized service. Currently I am mid-way through productizing my own services at Outbound Creative, so in this interview I delve deep into some of the biggest chal...
065: Dobbin Buck on Building an Industry Leading Agency
May 02, 2016 13:00 - 50 minutes - 17.6 MBDobbin Buck is one of the partners of the agency GetUWired. Year after year, Dobbin's firm wins awards from Infusionsoft such as partner of the year as well as Top Sales and Revenue generation for Infusionsoft. GetUWired is an industry leader in Infusionsoft consulting. But that's not all, GetUWired's office just happens to be a cabin in the woods! They may wear pants and have an office, but you have to admit that is one hell of a cool approach to an office. In addition, GetUWired ha...
064: Stu Heinecke on how to get a meeting with anyone
April 26, 2016 06:53 - 56 minutes - 16.5 MBFor anyone who has been following my business over the past year, they will know about my launch of Outbound Creative which is a company that helps agency and consulting companies win their dream clients with eye-catching outreach campaigns. For a long time, I thought I was the only one doing crazy things like this... Then one of my friends send me Stu's book How to get a meeting with anyone. As soon as I started reading my first thoughts were "YES!!!" Stu has literally wri...
063: Damian Thompson on Sales for Software Development Companies
April 21, 2016 12:33 - 46 minutes - 19.1 MBIn this episode, Damian Thompson of Salesability shares his insights into the pitfalls that most software development companies hit in their sales process and how to overcome them.