No BS Mastery Podcast

Should you invest your time and money on social media to get leads for your branding agency? That is the million dollar question that we are gonna be dissecting today. Last month, we talked about clients and how to build great relationships, full of communication with them so that you can get amazing results for your projects. But in order to have clients to build those great relationships with, y...

How can you turn all clients into raving fan clients who love working with you and cannot stop telling all their friends about you? That has been our topic this month. In the last two episodes, I talked about two important ingredients, trust and communication. Today, I want to talk about the third and final main ingredient, which is delight. Of course, we want to meet and exceed the expectations o...

Last week I talked about the importance of building trust with your clients in order to have a great client relationship. If you're in a relationship or you've ever been in a long-term relationship, you know that communication is key to having great relationships with people. Now, that might be true with a spouse, but it's true with anybody in your life, and it's definitely true with clients. So t...

Think back to the last client you truly loved working with. What did you love about it? For me, I love to work with clients who trust me implicitly. They get a ton of value out of working with me. We vibe, we jive, and we make something truly amazing together. They are the people that I’m excited to get emails from, and who I enjoy communicating with in our meetings or phone calls. Imagine if you...

This podcast is called No BS Agencies, but what exactly do I mean by BS? Where does it come from? Why does it happen? How much of it is acceptable in our businesses? And most importantly, how do we get rid of it? I think a lot of people use the term BS in their marketing because it makes them sound like they’re no-nonsense. They cut to the point. They’re not going to BS you or waste your time. But...

Do you ever feel, as you grow your business, that you are white-knuckling it? You feel like you’re driving a jalopy, the door's falling off, you're putting duct tape on it, and you're just hoping it gets you to your destination. In many senses, I’ve been white-knuckling it right along with you over the last two years as I built the No BS Agency Mastery program. Yes, I started with more authority,...

As Steve and I head into our 12th year in business, I’ve been thinking about all the incredible highs I’ve experienced in this business. AND the terrifying lows that have come along with it too. Today, I want to share five of the biggest lessons I’ve learned over the last 12 years that I know will help me make the next 12 years not only more successful but also full of more ease. Hopefully, you’ll...

Happy 2023 and welcome back. Do you wanna be successful in 2023? I bet you do.  January is the time when many of us set our goals for the year. People set big ambitious goals and then a lot of times those things fall by the wayside come February. And we do that in all aspects of our lives. Case in point: If you’re a regular gym-goer, you’ll notice the place is full in January, but by February, mos...

When you work for yourself, it’s hard to turn it off, right? It’s hard not to think about the client who just emailed you, or the project that’s on hold, or the check you’re waiting to clear. But working and thinking about work 24/7 is not the key to financial and business success. As we head into the holidays, and for our last episode of 2022, I want to talk about the idea of turning off, especia...

How should you price and package your services when your services are often custom and bespoke and specific to the client you're working with? Should you even package them when every project is different? We just had a very lively conversation about packaging and pricing inside the No BS Agencies Mastery program, and most of my students left saying that they were so excited to package their servic...

As the year comes to an end, one of the things I'm thinking about is taxes. It’s not a sexy topic I know. But I do love thinking about it because my taxes are a representation of how much money I made. There's nothing wrong with looking to minimize your tax due. But I actually feel good about paying high taxes because it means that I was profitable. So today, I want to share how I think about taxe...

There is one month left in 2022. The holidays are upon us and many of us are starting to take inventory of what’s happened over the course of the year. And sometimes we don’t like what we see. Maybe you started out strong in January as you set out ambitious goals. It’s easy to get excited in January about what you can do in the months to come. But the end of the year can be more of a let down. If...

How do you get your business? Do you get most of your business (or all of it) from word of mouth and referrals? 95% of small branding agencies I talk to say word of mouth and referrals. They tell me that they have a steady flow of referrals and they have a great close rate on those referrals. “I've really never had to market. I've been very lucky," they say. And it feels good that people are sendi...

If you’re hearing rumors that there is a recession coming, or that we might even be in a recession right now, and you’re thinking this maybe isn’t the right time to invest in your business, this one’s for you. I want to tell you a story of what happened in our businesses the last time the proverbial sh*t hit the fan: March 2020. Today I’m sharing how members of my 2020 group coaching program respo...

Anytime you’re selling services, especially to small businesses, it’s important that you connect the work that you do to the outcomes and the benefits that the client is going to get. When we’re selling branding, marketing, or design services, we usually want to connect our work to some sort of return on investment.  What can they expect to get in return? Usually they’re investing in branding and...

Building an authority machine that is going to send you high quality leads every single day takes a big upfront investment. And one of the most time-consuming things is creating the foundational content that communicates all of your biggest ideas and your most important insights into your industry. That’s what’s going to make you an authority. But creating enough content so that it will build your...

If you want to build your authority, but you have zero posts and no online presence, where do you even start? Last week, I talked about the difference between networking and outreach and building your authority as two different marketing mechanisms for getting clients and building your business. I talked about when you should be doing outreach and when you should build authority, and how there’s a...

Being seen as an authority can make sales so much easier.  So of course it seems like something you should invest your time in as soon as possible. It can be really hard to attract and close clients when you have no authority in the world, when people don’t know who you are, and they don’t know, like, and trust you. But building authority takes time. So when is the right time to spend your time an...

How do you build a business that is not constantly struggling to find clients? That’s the million dollar question. And I believe I have the answer. All month long, I’m going to share different ways that you can build your authority machine, so that you never have to look for clients again. I talk about building an authority machine a lot because it is the third phase of the three-pronged approach...

I'm usually on this podcast talking about how to find great clients, turn people into great clients,and manage people to become great clients. But today, I want to talk about how to be a great client. I’ve hired lots of companies over the years for a variety of tasks. And I have been an amazing client and I have been a terrible client. Usually how good of a client I am has a lot to do with how goo...

I know you’ve heard this advice before: “You should raise your prices because charging premium prices is the best way to run a business.” And premium pricing does give you more profitability, flexibility, and freedom in your business and in your life. But where are you supposed to start? What happens when you do raise your rates? How are you supposed to muster up the confidence to charge five or t...

You might not think of customer experience as marketing, but it is. If you’re a small agency, you might not be thinking about building long-term customer loyalty. Clients come and they go. But if they had a killer experience with you? They’re probably telling their friends. And if they had a terrible experience with you, they’re definitely telling their friends. Today I’m sitting down with Dan Gin...

How do you get a client to spend more money with you, give you more work, and basically give you a raise? When I googled this question, everything that came up was advice for how to negotiate a raise from your boss in the corporate world. And while there were some decent pieces of advice in the articles I found, it doesn’t translate that well to people like us, who run our own businesses and are l...

I see loads of ads online for growing a million dollar business or building passive income products and all sorts of investments opportunities that will make you rich! And yet, when I talk to most of my people–small agency owners–you know what most of them say they want? Financial security. Sure, making $30,000 a month or more sounds great, but that kind of money is really icing on the cake. What...

I’m taking the month of August off to be with my family, and I hope you’re taking some time to do something amazing and relaxing too. For the whole month, I’ll be sharing clips from some of my favorite episodes that you’ll enjoy revisiting as well. Today, I’m replaying a section from my interview with Dorie Clark where we talked about playing the long game and being really intentional about how yo...