Agency Forward

Hey everyone, today I'm joined by Albert Banks.Albert runs Apertus, an advisory firm that helps agency and professional services owners get their operations and finances ready for a sale, whether or not they ever actually sell. He built and sold two agencies himself, first Myjive in a partner-driven exit, then Union in a fully deliberate process he ran years in advance.I wanted him on because most agency owners never seriously prepare to sell, even though it's probably the biggest asset they'll ever own. Albert is blunt about what that takes: chasing profitability over vanity revenue, building a business that runs without you, and knowing exactly how a buyer will value your agency before you ever sit across from one.In this episode, we discuss:Why only about 1% of agencies ever reach a real exitThe real reason owners get stuck and can't get out of their own businessHow agencies are actually valued, and the biggest surprise owners get about their own payWhy more agencies are doing "bolt-on" acquisitions instead of waiting for a full exitAnd more...You can learn more about Albert Banks on LinkedIn, or check out Apertus if you want help running your agency like you're built to sell it.-----------Lead Gen is the hardest part of running an agency.For most, it's unpredictable, it's slow, and it's usually expensive.Gia flips that.It's the all-in-one growth platform that turns your existing relationships and client work into a steady pipeline.Gia automates lead gen follow-up and content, and it's all from the work you're already doing.You can check it out and get some free bonuses at getgia.ai/dynamicagency-----------No one was asking for another community. But I've made one anyway.So what's different?The Dynamic Agency Community is designed around access rather than content.Access to peers who've done it before.Access to experts who've designed solutions.Access to resources that have been battle-tested.And right now, the price for founding members is only $97/year.Join today so your agency has immediate access to everything you need to grow.You can join at dynamicagencyos.com/community.-----------Subscribe to the Agency Forward blog on Substack.We have weekly blog content with practical advice to help you advance your agency.-----------And if you're ready for 1-on-1 help to create some mind-blowing offers for your agency, visit DynamicAgencyOS.com to schedule a free consultation. Running an agency is tough, but you don't need to go it alone.

Three ideas today, no guest.School is back and the dog needs walking, so between drop-off, pick-up, and laps around the back porch I have time to talk through concepts I've been chewing on. This is the first of those.Green pen, red pen, blue pen. A strategy-making order I pulled from intelligence preparation of the battlefield in the Army, and it only works in that order. Green is the terrain: the market conditions everyone has to deal with, you and your competition alike. Red is the competition itself, their most likely course of action and their most deadly one. Blue is your plan, which you don't get to write until the other two are on the map.The 10/80/10 rule. Spend 10% of a task's hours prepping the person who's going to do it, hand off the 80%, keep the last 10% for your edits. Every correction you make in that final 10% gets documented and goes into the next brief, so the prep shrinks over time. Run the same split on AI instead of one-shotting a prompt and you'll stop wasting an hour arguing with an output you never gave context to.Platforms, channels, and rooms. LinkedIn is a platform. Organic posting, ads, DMs, commenting, your profile: those are channels. The room is the contained space where everyone in it is already your ICP. Most agencies pick a platform, post into their old contact list, and wonder why the algorithm buries them.In this episode, I cover:Why writing your plan before reading the market wastes bothHow to delegate a 10-hour task and only spend two hours on it, and why the same split fixes your AI outputWhy your LinkedIn contact list is the reason your posts don't reach anyoneAnd more...If you have a challenge you want a framework for, send me a message and I'll work it into a future episode.Also, check out our snapshot so you can see how the market sees you at DynamicAgencyOS.com/Snapshot-----------Lead Gen is the hardest part of running an agency.For most, it's unpredictable, it's slow, and it's usually expensive.Gia flips that.It's the all-in-one growth platform that turns your existing relationships and client work into a steady pipeline.Gia automates lead gen follow-up and content, and it's all from the work you're already doing.You can check it out and get some free bonuses at getgia.ai/dynamicagency-----------No one was asking for another community. But I've made one anyway.So what's different?The Dynamic Agency Community is designed around access rather than content.Access to peers who've done it before.Access to experts who've designed solutions.Access to resources that have been battle-tested.And right now, the price for founding members is only $97/year.Join today so your agency has immediate access to everything you need to grow.You can join at dynamicagencyos.com/community.-----------Subscribe to the Agency Forward blog on Substack.We have weekly blog content with practical advice to help you advance your agency.-----------And if you're ready for 1-on-1 help to create some mind-blowing offers for your agency, visit DynamicAgencyOS.com to schedule a free consultation. Running an agency is tough, but you don't need to go it alone.

Hey everyone, today I'm joined by Chris Bolton.Chris runs Diviner, an SEO and marketing consultancy. Before that he spent about twenty years building Murmur Creative with his brother, and leaving it was hard enough that the two of them ended up in therapy over it.Since going out on his own he has done the thing most agency owners only talk about. He canceled nearly every software subscription he was paying for and spent a year building his own replacements. That became Diviner One, the CRM and review platform his clients now run on, and Crystl, a tool for managing AI agents that about a thousand people have downloaded.I wanted him on because build-versus-buy has changed. One person can now replace a stack that used to cost an agency thousands a month. Chris did it, and he is straight about both halves: the credibility it added to his consulting, and the year he spent building software that was never tested against anything besides his own imagination.In this episode, we discuss:Where the money goes when an agency stops renting its softwareWhy AI only burns you in the areas where you are not already the expertWhat it costs to leave an agency you built with your brotherAnd more...You can learn more about Chris Bolton on LinkedIn. Also, check out Chris' Grow Your Agency community. And if you want marketing help, check out Diviner. -----------Lead Gen is the hardest part of running an agency.For most, it's unpredictable, it's slow, and it's usually expensive.Gia flips that.It's the all-in-one growth platform that turns your existing relationships and client work into a steady pipeline.Gia automates lead gen follow-up and content, and it's all from the work you're already doing.You can check it out and get some free bonuses at getgia.ai/dynamicagency-----------No one was asking for another community. But I've made one anyway.So what's different?The Dynamic Agency Community is designed around access rather than content.Access to peers who've done it before.Access to experts who've designed solutions.Access to resources that have been battle-tested.And right now, the price for founding members is only $97/year.Join today so your agency has immediate access to everything you need to grow.You can join at dynamicagencyos.com/community.-----------Subscribe to the Agency Forward blog on Substack.We have weekly blog content with practical advice to help you advance your agency.-----------And if you're ready for 1-on-1 help to create some mind-blowing offers for your agency, visit DynamicAgencyOS.com to schedule a free consultation. Running an agency is tough, but you don't need to go it alone.

Hey everyone, today I'm joined by Dave Plunkett.Dave is the founder of Collaboration Junkie, where he helps agencies turn referrals and partnerships into a deliberate system instead of something that just happens to them.He calls himself a referral evangelist, and he built DANCE, a five-part framework covering discovery, assembly, nurturing, connection and engagement. The partnerships half of that framework is now a book, currently with his editor and launching in January.I wanted him on the show because most agencies grow to a certain size on founder-led referrals and then treat that channel as something to graduate out of. Dave's argument is that it's the cheapest, most compounding channel they will ever have, and the work is building a culture that keeps it producing after the founder stops being the one asking.In this episode, we discuss:Why more partners is the wrong fix for weak partner referralsWhy your partner pitch needs its own value proposition, separate from your client oneSituational niching: teaching referrers the trigger words a buyer actually usesAnd more...You can learn more about Dave on LinkedIn. And don't forget to check out Collaboration Junkie.-----------Lead Gen is the hardest part of running an agency.For most, it's unpredictable, it's slow, and it's usually expensive.Gia flips that.It's the all-in-one growth platform that turns your existing relationships and client work into a steady pipeline.Gia automates lead gen follow-up and content, and it's all from the work you're already doing.You can check it out and get some free bonuses at getgia.ai/dynamicagency-----------No one was asking for another community. But I've made one anyway.So what's different?The Dynamic Agency Community is designed around access rather than content.Access to peers who've done it before.Access to experts who've designed solutions.Access to resources that have been battle-tested.And right now, the price for founding members is only $97/year.Join today so your agency has immediate access to everything you need to grow.You can join at dynamicagencyos.com/community.-----------Subscribe to the Agency Forward blog on Substack.We have weekly blog content with practical advice to help you advance your agency.-----------And if you're ready for 1-on-1 help to create some mind-blowing offers for your agency, visit DynamicAgencyOS.com to schedule a free consultation. Running an agency is tough, but you don't need to go it alone.

Hey everyone, today I'm joined by Bryan McAnulty.Bryan is the founder of LatchLoop, where he and his team run AI agents at serious scale, something like 3 billion tokens a month, to get more done without burning out the humans running them.I wanted him on the show because most agency owners are still treating AI agents like a chatbot: you sit there, you watch it work, you prompt it again. Bryan's take is that the mental model is wrong, and once you start running agents like a real-time strategy game instead, everything about how much leverage you get out of AI changes.In this episode, we discuss:The three types of agent workflows: background loops, massive-scope tasks, and tight feedback-loop workHow agents went from handling 20-30 minute tasks a year ago to running for hours or days nowHow to avoid the AI burnout he saw hit developers earlier this yearAnd more...You can learn more about Bryan on LinkedIn. And don't forget to check out LatchLoop.-----------Lead Gen is the hardest part of running an agency.For most, it's unpredictable, it's slow, and it's usually expensive.Gia flips that.It's the all-in-one growth platform that turns your existing relationships and client work into a steady pipeline.Gia automates lead gen follow-up and content, and it's all from the work you're already doing.You can check it out and get some free bonuses at getgia.ai/dynamicagency-----------No one was asking for another community. But I've made one anyway.So what's different?The Dynamic Agency Community is designed around access rather than content.Access to peers who've done it before.Access to experts who've designed solutions.Access to resources that have been battle-tested.And right now, the price for founding members is only $97/year.Join today so your agency has immediate access to everything you need to grow.You can join at DynamicAgency.Community.-----------Subscribe to the Agency Forward blog on Substack.We have weekly blog content with practical advice to help you advance your agency.-----------And if you're ready for 1-on-1 help to create some mind-blowing offers for your agency, visit DynamicAgencyOS.com to schedule a free consultation. Running an agency is tough, but you don't need to go it alone.