Dan Martell - How to Work With an Agency

00:00:00.000 What's up everybody, Dan Martell here,

00:00:01.340 CEO of Entrepreneur, Investor, and Creator of SaaScademy.

00:00:03.760 And in this episode, I'm gonna share with you

00:00:05.660 how to manage an agency without wasting your money.

00:00:09.060 So maybe you have a contractor,

00:00:10.500 you've been working with somebody helping with marketing,

00:00:12.600 you just don't feel like it's getting you

00:00:14.980 the kind of results that you need.

00:00:16.580 I'm gonna share with you in this video

00:00:18.080 how to rectify that and bring things to a level

00:00:21.240 where they're producing on a week over week basis.

00:00:23.600 And be sure to stay at the end,

00:00:24.600 we're gonna share with you how to get

00:00:25.740 my Agency Planner Worksheet,

00:00:28.140 which is gonna get you crystal clear

00:00:29.740 on the expectations, the accountability,

00:00:32.360 and then how to schedule those activities into your week.

00:00:35.880 Let's get started.

00:00:49.120 So as you can probably tell, I'm in the new studio.

00:00:52.920 It's really cool.

00:00:54.840 It was definitely my wife's input and honestly, labor. 1.00

00:00:58.600 where she's the creative in the family,

00:01:00.440 and what's fun, most people will not know this

00:01:02.780 because I'm only gonna share this once,

00:01:03.920 so if you're watching this,

00:01:04.740 you're gonna be on the inside scoop.

00:01:06.980 That backdrop, not only, this is real,

00:01:08.720 this isn't like, I don't know, one of those fake backdrops.

00:01:12.760 It has incorporated into it my logo,

00:01:14.980 but even more interesting is my wife's logo.

00:01:17.500 So she's got a new project she's launching

00:01:19.400 called We Wild Women, and it's in there as well.

00:01:22.960 That being said, let's get back to the video.

00:01:26.060 A while ago, I was on a coaching call with one of my clients

00:01:30.740 and they were frustrated with their marketing.

00:01:32.780 When I dug in, I found out they were working with an agency

00:01:35.900 and the issue was is they didn't feel like the agency

00:01:38.300 was producing to the level that they needed

00:01:40.340 to hit their revenue targets.

00:01:42.280 And as I asked more questions,

00:01:44.240 I found out a few things that were concerning.

00:01:46.280 One, the reporting from the agency was essentially an email

00:01:50.160 every two weeks letting them know

00:01:51.440 how their ads had been running.

00:01:52.820 So that's interesting, I'll tell you why in a sec.

00:01:54.980 And then the second thing was that the thing

00:01:58.060 they were measuring in regards to leads

00:01:59.880 was not actually driving revenue.

00:02:01.900 So an email address is not an opportunity.

00:02:05.540 And so what I did is I kind of walked them backwards

00:02:08.120 cause I work with several agencies in my businesses.

00:02:11.360 I have several businesses

00:02:12.360 and I have a very structured approach

00:02:14.960 to ensuring that they produce

00:02:17.660 because at the end of the day,

00:02:18.520 it's very expensive to have somebody else.

00:02:20.460 It's concerning, it's scary.

00:02:22.100 If what, if they don't deliver,

00:02:23.280 I really need this as critical path for revenue.

00:02:26.140 And once I showed them that one of my clients, Noah said,

00:02:28.880 hey, we should call this the agency amplifier

00:02:32.400 because he had never heard it before.

00:02:33.700 So I'm gonna share with you the agency amplifier,

00:02:36.400 the five key principles to make sure that you get the most

00:02:39.600 from your contractors or agencies.

00:02:41.820 Number one, give them the goods. 0.80

00:02:43.840 So if you're working with an agency,

00:02:45.720 the first thing I would encourage you to do

00:02:47.640 is before you even engage them is document everything

00:02:51.120 that you've got inside your business

00:02:53.360 that they might need so that they can be more productive.

00:02:56.620 So this means if you're doing, for example, Facebook ads,

00:02:59.560 you want to grab your avatar information,

00:03:02.600 your branding guidelines, any past ads

00:03:05.400 that you've ran in the past that have worked,

00:03:07.880 any copy landing pages, funnels, et cetera.

00:03:10.660 You wanna grab all the goods, all the resources,

00:03:13.040 everything that you can present to your contractor agency

00:03:17.740 so that they can essentially get a body of work

00:03:20.240 to dive into the specific elements

00:03:23.640 that they're gonna need to design or develop

00:03:25.620 to be successful with you.

00:03:26.880 So number one is to just categorize that

00:03:28.700 and give them the goods.

00:03:29.720 Number two, baseline metrics.

00:03:31.860 So one of the things that I teach,

00:03:33.800 it's called the high performance triangle.

00:03:35.500 You know, there's three core areas.

00:03:37.020 Number one is outcomes, two is accountability,

00:03:39.620 and three is measure.

00:03:41.220 I'm really speaking to the measure side right now

00:03:43.340 because if you don't baseline where you're at,

00:03:47.600 so again, Facebook ads,

00:03:48.720 If you don't have some level of understanding

00:03:51.800 of what you're paying for a lead right now

00:03:53.640 or paying for a trial or paying for a demo,

00:03:57.020 then how can we ask somebody else

00:03:59.400 to make something better, right?

00:04:00.860 I don't wanna say, hey, you tell me what's good.

00:04:03.560 I wanna say, here's what we're currently doing.

00:04:06.220 We're gonna work together and co-create a better process

00:04:09.340 that's gonna get better results.

00:04:11.180 So usually the first thing is we need to baseline

00:04:13.160 the metrics to figure where we're at

00:04:14.680 so that we can then work with them to set some new targets.

00:04:17.240 Usually every two weeks I wanna get 10 to 15,

00:04:20.000 maybe 20% better so that we're iterating

00:04:22.460 and iterating and iterating to get to a better baseline.

00:04:26.540 So we always wanna have our control,

00:04:27.840 which is what we're doing today.

00:04:29.160 Then we wanna split tests against that control.

00:04:31.500 And if we're making progress,

00:04:32.780 then we change the control to the new winning funnels, 0.68

00:04:36.080 designs, this is all marketing context,

00:04:37.600 but the same thing works for outbound sales

00:04:39.920 or for hiring somebody to do a PR for you.

00:04:42.660 We always want to figure out what is the key metric

00:04:45.500 that we're gonna measure

00:04:46.640 to ensure that we're making progress with our agency.

00:04:48.960 Number three, meeting rhythms.

00:04:50.520 So fun fact, rhythm is spelled with an H-R-H.

00:04:53.740 I always screw it up every time I type it.

00:04:55.380 I don't know why, it just never comes to me.

00:04:57.580 Side tangent over,

00:04:59.640 if you are not having a weekly meeting with your agency

00:05:03.420 to review what they've done in the past,

00:05:05.280 what they plan on doing,

00:05:06.920 and some key discussions in regards to things

00:05:08.900 you're learning in your organization,

00:05:10.420 then you're missing an incredible opportunity

00:05:13.160 to iterate better and more effectively.

00:05:15.400 I mean, at the end of the day,

00:05:17.140 if every week you're probably learning more

00:05:19.140 about your customers, their challenges,

00:05:21.080 the language they're using,

00:05:22.840 and if we don't extract that

00:05:24.580 and have a weekly sync with our agency,

00:05:27.240 it can be 15 minutes, ideally 30,

00:05:29.520 where they're presenting to us the results of their efforts,

00:05:32.640 we're talking about our goals for the next week

00:05:35.020 and we're getting clear and setting accountability around that.

00:05:37.380 And then having the opportunity to share that with them,

00:05:40.920 the internal learnings so that they can get better and faster,

00:05:44.400 I think that's just really crazy.

00:05:46.660 And a lot of agencies may not want that.

00:05:48.400 I'm gonna highly encourage that you put that

00:05:50.640 as part of the deal from the beginning.

00:05:52.780 You may be the only client that they have that requests this,

00:05:55.580 but it will change the game

00:05:56.880 from having an agency relationship that's mediocre

00:05:59.420 to one that is world class.

00:06:01.980 Number four, resource the project.

00:06:03.920 So just because you hire an agency to do the work,

00:06:07.600 I think it's not fair to them,

00:06:10.400 and you're definitely gonna be on the losing end of this,

00:06:12.720 if you expect them to do all the heavy lifting

00:06:15.340 and not give them any resources from your internal team.

00:06:17.900 Here's what I mean.

00:06:19.120 Again, using the Facebook as an example.

00:06:21.180 If I'm gonna ask an agency to run Facebook ads

00:06:24.220 and I have a designer on staff,

00:06:25.880 I need to make sure that the designer

00:06:27.500 is introduced to that agency and they're made aware

00:06:30.220 that they can leverage my designer

00:06:31.820 to produce designs that are on brand

00:06:34.760 and iterate faster, right?

00:06:37.120 So there's a lot of times where it doesn't matter

00:06:39.480 if we're working on copy projects, PR, sales,

00:06:42.480 outbound sales, et cetera,

00:06:44.120 that your internal team can help agencies move faster.

00:06:47.680 And it's in your best interest to make sure

00:06:49.660 that those parties are on the call,

00:06:51.520 the introductions are made and that you're clear

00:06:54.280 about routing certain questions to those people

00:06:56.220 so that they can support the agency to be better.

00:06:58.500 Now, this does not take away from the fact

00:07:00.420 that they're supposed to be doing some of this work.

00:07:02.400 So if they're on the hook to produce the imagery, great.

00:07:05.400 But just make sure that there's some kind of connection

00:07:07.720 with your designer, your brand guidelines

00:07:09.640 so that they don't produce stuff that might embarrass you

00:07:12.280 or that'll just miss the mark

00:07:13.640 because it's not attracting the right customer.

00:07:15.500 So resourcing the project with the agency

00:07:18.700 from your internal staff is also a critical step

00:07:21.240 that's usually missed with a lot of people

00:07:23.360 outsourcing their work.

00:07:25.020 Number five, DRI is one of my favorite acronyms.

00:07:28.860 It stands for direct responsible individual.

00:07:31.720 I got this from, I don't know where I read this,

00:07:34.260 but Steve Jobs was famous for this,

00:07:36.360 that in everything they do from, you know,

00:07:38.780 the iPhone launch to every product innovation

00:07:42.020 to marketing campaigns,

00:07:44.660 every key outcome or project had a DRI.

00:07:47.700 Somebody was one person accountable

00:07:50.060 for achieving that outcome.

00:07:52.120 And I just think it's so critical

00:07:53.720 that when we sit down with our agency

00:07:56.120 and we talk about, you know,

00:07:58.300 specific outcomes and iterations,

00:07:59.900 if you're meeting every week

00:08:01.080 and you're trying to iterate around a marketing funnel

00:08:03.500 or PR message or outreach,

00:08:06.160 that everybody is crystal clear

00:08:08.440 who is DRI. Both DRI on the agency side in regards to them driving that outcome forward,

00:08:14.300 but more importantly, even internally. So most agency relationships don't have an internal

00:08:20.060 champion to connect with. Ideally, it's not you. If you're the founder, you should delegate it to

00:08:25.440 somebody on your team. If you have an exec leadership team, you know, around customer

00:08:28.480 success and marketing and sales and, you know, ops and admin, have somebody, whoever that agency is

00:08:33.940 most, you know, alike are doing the work for to be DRI for that agency. So that way you can hold

00:08:41.340 that person internal to your team accountable for the agency's output. So to me, there is no

00:08:49.220 projects, no outcomes that don't have a DRI, because that is where, when I talked again to

00:08:53.920 the high performance triangle, accountability is key. Understanding who is going to be accountable

00:08:58.800 for sending what, for supporting it, for scheduling the meetings, for holding them

00:09:03.040 accountable to those metrics, that's how we're going to have forward movement in our agency

00:09:08.480 relationship. So quick recap, five key strategies to manage your agency or contractors without

00:09:15.140 wasting money or time. Number one, give them the goods, all your resources. Number two, baseline

00:09:20.880 the metrics so we know where we're at today and where we're going. Three, meeting rhythms, at

00:09:24.800 least weekly. Four, resource project with internal resources if you have them. And five, DRI, ensure

00:09:31.960 somebody on your team is accountable

00:09:33.400 for that agency relationship.

00:09:36.080 As I mentioned at the beginning of this episode,

00:09:37.880 I wanna share with you an exclusive resource

00:09:39.440 called the Agency Planner Worksheet.

00:09:41.520 You can click the link below to grab your copy.

00:09:43.780 In it, I walk you through the audit of your current agencies,

00:09:47.760 the key metrics that you,

00:09:49.740 and I have a bunch of different categories

00:09:51.200 depending on the agencies that you want to consider

00:09:53.540 holding those people accountable to,

00:09:56.220 the internal resources that you have

00:09:58.980 that you can give to them

00:10:00.060 so that they can be even more performant.

00:10:02.100 And also once we have that,

00:10:03.820 we want to then lock in those meetings

00:10:06.460 in a calendar throughout the week.

00:10:08.880 And I've got a little calendar interface

00:10:10.340 where you can map once you audit your agencies

00:10:12.560 into the week and give accountability

00:10:15.080 for whoever on your team is gonna hold them accountable.

00:10:17.200 So you can click the link below

00:10:18.460 to grab your copy of that planner.

00:10:20.820 And as per usual, if you know somebody

00:10:22.660 that could be served by this video,

00:10:24.000 feel free to share it with them directly,

00:10:25.320 smash that like button, subscribe to this channel.

00:10:28.500 And I want to make sure that I challenge you

00:10:30.520 to live a bigger life and a bigger business,

00:10:32.440 and I'll see you next Monday.

00:10:33.880 Do you want to move your coupler?

00:10:35.940 Is it already in the shot?

00:10:37.200 Yeah, I think it's fun to be in the shot.

00:10:39.140 It's got my logo on it.

00:10:40.260 Cool.

Dan Martell - May 11, 2020

How to Work With an Agency

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript