The Businessology Show

Mike Lieberman shares with us how companies need to adjust their marketing strategy today, even compared to the strategies of just a few years ago. He also explains the relationship between sales and marketing and what it REALLY means to the customer. Mike shares the meaning behind his title (Chief Revenue Scientist), the model his agency uses to serve clients, how they manage retainers in a way t...

In this episode, Jason Blumer is honored to speak with Joe Erwin of Erwin Creates and Endeavor. Joe shares the story of how he co-founded Erwin Penland and lessons learned throughout his career. Joe shares a few items from his list of what to do and what not to do as you grow your agency, including one item that actually made BOTH lists. From Joe's list of dos and don'ts, he explains why it is gre...

Hear Kade Wilcox tell the story, and lessons learned, of how he grew Primitive Social from a 2 person team to a 30+ person, multi-million dollar company in 6 years. Kade shares his thoughts on the value of a strong team, how he found and chose a partner, the impact hiring quickly has had on the company and culture, the challenge of finding people with the right skill level, and how to add new laye...

Design Extensions is an 18 year old company that has grown each year. Hear Jay Owen describe how that growth happened, and how he knew to implement intentional changes so that growth could continue. Jason and Jay also discuss what is great but also difficult about growing a company. They focus on topics like culture, hiring, business structure, their favorites books and tools, and leadership. Also...

Jason Blumer and Keith Shields discuss a number of topics including: how Designli is able to build custom apps with fixed pricing why customer education is so important from the beginning of the relationship Designli's modular approach the two types of clients Designli serves why Keith believes the freelance model breaks down quickly why hiring the right people is so important in a service based c...

Marc Avila and Lysa Miller share their knowledge in the areas of: -staying on the same page as partners -why they chose to significantly prune their client base and the effect that had on their bottom line -responding to growth and growing in a sustainable way -why they focused on building a stronger leadership team over sales when they hit a growth ceiling -why they decided to stay involved with...

Mickey Mellen shares how he and his partner, Ali Green, started their agency and how they work as partners. He also shares the role of risk in their decisions, why they have chosen to keep their team at its current size, and how they hire. Also hear Mickey's passion for the design community and why he began hosting meetups in the Atlanta area to build community with those who are normally competit...

Dan Rundle is the CEO of Worthwhile, a 20+ year old software development agency. In this episode, Jason Blumer and Dan cover a number of topics including: -Why Worthwhile eliminated several types of service to focus on software development three years ago -The challenges of developing software (scoping projects, meeting objectives, etc.) -How Worthwhile spends their time at the beginning of a proj...

Adam shares his story of freelancer to leader of a team at Image Conscious Studios. Topics included in this episode: -How Adam's relationship with design has changed -How Adam, as the owner, works with the Project Manager at ICS -Why finding the right cultural fit in new team members matters at ICS -How the creative team at ICS works with clients

Ashleigh Ferran, TJ Cichecki, and Abe Garcia share key learning around becoming partners and the challenges of building authentic brands. They address several topics including: - how they decided to become partners - the work they did to start their partnership out right, including discussing how it would end - why merging companies isn't an automatic fast track to bigger or faster sales - the boo...

GuavaBox began like many agencies, with strong roots in web design. It didn't take long for Gray MacKenzie and his partner to realize they wanted to go all in with the inbound philosophy and begin partnering with Hubspot, which led to more leads and closing more deals. In this episode hear how GuavaBox developed their own internal process/project management software called DoInbound, which is now...

Hear Thom Vest of Studio Seven Consulting share his ideas on a number of topics including: -how his company uses experiences to mobilize influencers for brands -why deciding on a golden purpose at the beginning of a project is critical -who makes up a dream team at Studio Seven Consulting -the role of analytics in building a successful campaign -why he still stays hands on with each client his com...

Agency Labs is like a swiss army knife for agencies, providing just the right tool at the right time. By finding a major pain point in the design and agency world (and solving it), they found that they can serve agencies of any size with their technology and development needs, helping them to get off the production roller coaster. In this episode, hear Jonathan Soares describe why they don't do re...

Raven and Finch helps companies build brands with music and sound, sometimes working directly with clients and sometimes consulting with other branding agencies. Some of the topics discussed in this episode: -Profile and profit projects -The role of digital and technology in musical composition -Helping companies clarify what they hope to achieve with music -Understanding the importance of a compe...

Rob and Gavin share their journey as leaders individually and as CEOs of Artifact Group. Having recently celebrated thriller company’s tenth anniversary, we discuss how growing to a 60 team member company has required adjustments to their strategies. We also discuss: -What kind of work is so important that even clients can’t interrupt it -How they have transitioned from doing design work (client w...

Coming from the digital web side of an agency, Luke Summerfield learned that there are a lot of problems in how agencies deliver web deliverables to their clients. After some extensive research, Luke discovered that delivering websites is often unprofitable for an agency. He began to explore how this service could be delivered more profitably, and successfully, and came up with the minimum viable...

We glean huge amounts of information from Mlicki's 15 years of experience in his agency (that has been around for 44 years!). We dive into how Rattleback made decisions around their positioning, and how trying to nail your positioning is always a moving target. We discuss why he chose to focus on a professional services niche, which led to many other questions: - what services are you providing to...

We asked Maria Rapetskaya some great questions about serving narrowly: - why would you narrowly define your services? - is their fear in saying no to a broader range of services? - does narrowly defined services mean you are paid like an expert? - how did you start out working with such large clients? Maria was also brave enough to share her history of building companies, her failures, and the sol...

We discuss 2 key problems a lot of agency owners face: (1.) they don't understand their financial metrics ('Agency Math'), and (2.) the agency owner is too entrenched in the day to day operations of the agency. AMI helps agencies solve these problems. Here are some key ways to build a better agency: - agency owners must move into their client's sales funnel, and begin helping their clients not onl...

In this episode, we discuss Kevin Hoffman's view on the Freelancer vs. the Agency. Which one should you be? Both? Neither? The Experienced Freelancer (aka independent design consultants) can do what agencies do because their network is so deep, and their overhead is so low. Those working in a design business on their own can build amazing teams, and still work with Fortune 100 clients. Maybe you c...

In this episode, we discuss: - whether you should specialize in target markets, or strategic services - what integrated marketing actually is - creating services by trial and error - delivering a full brand experience for a client - how to chose what services you offer, and what to say no to - performing up front persona discovery to develop a brand - discussions on project vs. recurring revenue

In this episode, we cover agency growth questions like: - What is an agency? - What hinders an agency from growing? - Should agencies consider merging or selling? - Should agencies sell out to Facebook, Google, and IBM?

We talk about how to move out of freelancing, watching project and financial trends so you'll know when to hire, the value of migrating to a CRM to monitor your sales funnels, and moving revenue from project-based to retainer-based. The last half of the podcast was about a pricing ideal Tim discovered called Golden Mean Pricing. This pricing is the perfect point between two extremes, and you can g...

In the last half of the podcast, Jason and Brad talk through what it means to truly build culture through intense change in an agency. Brad talks through the creative way they have developed their core values to balance each other, and the three key components any good list of core values has. Other topics discussed are: - delegating as you grow your business, - managing change and maintaining cul...

Hear how Grain & Mortar prices their projects, and how that relates to their project management processes. Here Kristin's view on tracking time, how they actually scope projects while they price it, and how the technical partners are also involved in the up front pricing.