Build a Better Agency Podcast

Craig Barnes consults with owners of small to midsize advertising agencies to improve their people, processes and profitably. It's the sum of a lot of experiences across 30+ years of owning and operating an advertising agency. He learned early on that operating an agency was both rewarding and challenging and benefitted from seeking the counsel of others to help guide a path to growing his three-l...

Dave Currie is the CEO of List Partners Inc., the home of: Winmo, Localead, and Catapult. He is a leading entrepreneur in sales intelligence and lead generation for the advertising, media and tech industry. Having joined List Partners Inc., in 2005 when he was 26, he has led the company and its brands on a rapid growth path, one recognized by their customers and the industry at large as one of the...

Drew McLellan is the Top Dog at Agency Management Institute. For the past 21 years, he has also owned and operated his own agency. Drew's unique vantage point as being both an active agency owner and working with 250+ small- to mid-size agencies throughout the year, give him a unique perspective on running an agency today. AMI works with agency owners by: Leading agency owner peer groups Offering...

Tim Sanders is a veteran sales, marketing, and HR leader with expertise in sales collaboration, relationship management, leadership, and customer experience design. For almost 20 years, Tim Sanders has closed deals and led B2B sales teams to victory using his Dealstorming methodology. He was an early member of Mark Cuban's broadcast.com and then later, CSO at Yahoo during their best days. Today he...

For several years Jake owned a video production agency. His business partner was the brilliant technician and he was the guy who got the agency the work. Jake landed multiple Fortune 500 clients and A-List touring artists by running a dream client campaign. After leaving the video agency, Jake went out and worked as a digital marketing and web consultant for several years and eventually realized t...

John Hall is co-founder and CEO of Influence & Co., a content marketing agency that helps companies and individuals extract and leverage their expertise to create, publish, and distribute content to their key audiences. In five years, John has grown Influence & Co. into one of the largest providers of high-quality expert content to more than 1,000 of the world's top publications. Under John's lead...

Christopher Lochhead is co-author of Harper Collins' instant classic "Play Bigger" and host of the Legends and Losers podcast. Christopher is a retired three-time, Silicon Valley, public company CMO, entrepreneur and category designer. Fast Company Magazine calls him a "Human Exclamation Point and The Economist calls him "off-putting to some. He can recite much of The Big Lebowski but can't rememb...

Drew McLellan is the Top Dog at Agency Management Institute. For the past 21 years, he has also owned and operated his own agency. Drew's unique vantage point as being both an active agency owner and working with 250+ small- to mid-size agencies throughout the year, give him a unique perspective on running an agency today. AMI works with agency owners by: Leading agency owner peer groups Offering...

Aaron Agius is one of the world's leading digital marketers according to Forbes. He is CEO of Louder Online, one of the world's leading digital agencies with a global reach. Louder Online is an inbound marketing agency, working globally with clients such as Salesforce, IBM, Coca-Cola, Intel and scores of leading brands, showing them how to technically optimize their sites, perform influencer outre...

Marcus Blankenship is a management consultant, trainer and executive coach for software managers and leaders. He helps companies hire the right people, create the right culture, and set up the right process which achieves their goals. Managing a team isn't something learned in college. In fact, his clients often tell him "I never prepared for this role, I always focused on doing the work." If you'...

John Jantsch is a marketing consultant, speaker, and author of "Duct Tape Marketing," "Duct Tape Selling," "The Commitment Engine," and "The Referral Engine." He is also the founder of the Duct Tape Marketing Consultant Network. His latest book, "SEO for Growth - The Ultimate Guide for Marketers, Web Designers, and Entrepreneurs," is changing the way the world thinks about SEO.   What you'll learn...

Dan Englander is the founder of Sales Schema, where he helps marketing agencies grow by way of done-for-you lead generation and consulting. He's the author of Mastering Account Management. Previously, as the first hire at the animation studio IdeaRocket, he brought the company from zero to seven figures, encompassing dozens of Fortune 500 clients.   What you'll learn about in this episode: How Dan...

Drew McLellan is the Top Dog at Agency Management Institute. For the past 21 years, he has also owned and operated his own agency. Drew's unique vantage point as being both an active agency owner and working with 250+ small- to mid-size agencies throughout the year, give him a unique perspective on running an agency today. AMI works with agency owners by: Leading agency owner peer groups Offering...

Jason Keath is a refreshing voice on creative culture and digital trends. He is a keynote speaker, writer, and entrepreneur. Jason is the founder and CEO of Social Fresh Conference, the leading social media and digital marketing conference for major brands and agencies. More than 150 of the Fortune 500 have attended Jason's training sessions, workshops, and presentations. Rooted firmly in the crea...

Judy Robinett has led both public and private companies as CEO and served in management positions at Fortune 500 companies. She is on the advisory boards of Illuminate VC, Pereg VC, and Springboard Enterprises. Judy previously served as a managing director of Golden Seeds Angel Network and as a member of the faculty of Goldman Sachs' 10,000 Small Business Program. Judy's book, "How to Be a Power C...

Susan Baier began her career as a brand manager for companies like Dial and Conoco-Philips. She also worked agency side and within client companies in their research departments, honing her skills as a research professional. Recognizing that primary research was often too expensive for small to mid-sized agencies, she launched Audience Audit, where she conducts quantitative attitudinal audience se...

Ryan Ayres shows his clients what they can't see, says what no-one else will say, and helps them accomplish what they don't experience on their own. Through deep, bold, and customized coaching and consulting, he finds what they really want and helps them use their God given talents! His mission is to serve his clients so powerfully that they have life changing insights that change the trajectory o...

Drew McLellan is the Top Dog at Agency Management Institute. For the past 21 years, he has also owned and operated his own agency. Drew's unique vantage point as being both an active agency owner and working with 250+ small- to mid-size agencies throughout the year, give him a unique perspective on running an agency today. AMI works with agency owners by: Leading agency owner peer groups Offering...

Mark Duval is the founder of The Duval Partnership, helping agencies win new business through a variety of strategic services including prospecting and lead generation, sales training, and agency auditing and diagnostics. Mark formerly headed business development efforts for Univision & CBS. He brings over 25 years of client direct sales experience to his work. The Duval Partnership's average clie...

Recently named one of the Top 30 Under 30 by Marketing magazine, Bram Warshafsky is a Founder and Partner at 5Crowd: a Toronto start-up that provides on-demand marketing production to a growing list of clients like Labatt, J&J, Hershey, Twitter, Telus, and more. We operate a curated network of freelance professionals in over 150 cities through our own digital platform to help enterprise marketing...

Jason Blumer is the Chief Innovative Officer of his firm, Blumer & Associates, CPAs. The firm was one of the first to move from a traditional office to a virtual environment, where they serve digital, marketing, and design agencies. He focuses heavily on business coaching and consulting, while his team meets the technical and compliance needs of the customer. Jason also founded the Thriveal CPA Ne...

Brent Weaver became obsessed with creating websites when he was 15 years old. He realized he could create and share information with anyone in the world with the click of a button. His first business was a web design agency turned marketing firm. That business was named in the top-five fastest growing businesses in Denver, Colorado two years running leading to a successful exit/sale to another Den...

Drew McLellan is the Top Dog at Agency Management Institute. For the past 21 years, he has also owned and operated his own agency. Drew's unique vantage point as being both an active agency owner and working with 250+ small- to mid-size agencies throughout the year, give him a unique perspective on running an agency today. AMI works with agency owners by: Leading agency owner peer groups Offering...

Andy Crestodina is a co-founder and the Strategic Director of Orbit Media, an award-winning 38-person web design company in Chicago. Over the past 15 years, Andy has provided web strategy and advice to more than a thousand businesses. As a top-rated speaker at national conferences and as a writer for many of the biggest blogs, Andy has dedicated himself to the teaching of marketing. Andy has writt...

A leader of such national accounts as Home Shopping Network, The Disney Channel, CitiFinancial, and Papa John's Pizza as the founder and sole principal of $110 million Atlanta-based Fricks/Firestone agency, John Fricks is focused on the same kind of growth at AntonWest. In the seven year transition from Fricks/Firestone in Atlanta to AntonWest in Jacksonville, he consulted with CEOs of major corpo...