From Chaos to Clarity: Reaching Your Agency Goals for the New Year with Stacey Green | Ep #754

From Chaos to Clarity: Reaching Your Agency Goals for the New Year with Stacey Green | Ep #754 Speaker 2: Welcome to the Smart Agency Masterclass, a decade of interviewing the smartest agency owners all over the world to show you how to start, scale, and possibly sell your agency one day. I have a question for you. Are you tired of being stuck in the daily grind but you're scared to let go and really drive real growth because you don't know how? Now, it's time to break out of that rut and I want you to level up. I want you to join me and a select group of like-minded incredible agency owners for Elevate. Now, this just isn't another networking event. It's your chance to really transform into the leader and the agency CEO you've always wanted to be. Elevate is a place where you're going to make meaningful connections with other top-tier agency leaders who are openly sharing their game-changing strategies to really help gain clarity and boost your confidence while fostering relationships that will last beyond the event. Head over to elevatemyagency.com and grab your spot so you can level up. Go to elevatemyagency.com now. Hey, Stacey. Welcome to the show, finally. Speaker 1: Yeah, it only took me 10 years to get here, but here I am. Speaker 2: I know. We've been doing the show for 11 years. Stacey's been on the team for 10 years, and I've been begging her to come on the show for a long time, and then she surprised me. She was like, Hey, my 10-year anniversary is coming up. I'm going to gift you with my presence. Speaker 1: Well, I am a giver. Speaker 2: You're a giver. Speaker 1: Surprise, after 10 years of you asking me to come on the show, I'm on the show. Speaker 2: Yeah. So for people that have not been to our events or in our masterminds, tell us who you are and what you do. Speaker 1: Sure. So I'm Stacey Green. I am the Director of Happiness here with the Jason Swenk team and the Agency Mastery. Director of Happiness is a title we made up together 10 years ago, and it's kind of an umbrella title that covers client success, behind the scenes, event planning, a little bit of keeping me on the tracks, keeping, yeah, Director of Chaos, Jason on track. And a myriad of other things over the years. I feel like my position has evolved quite a bit. And also, I love what we do. So I'm not going anywhere. Speaker 2: Yeah, that's awesome. Well, it's been amazing. We were introduced by someone that used to work for me many years ago. And I'm surprised you stuck around with me since I do a lot of chaos. And for everyone, Stacey's the brains behind making sure all the episodes go live and where everything is. So if you guys have been listening to the show for a long time, give her a big thanks for that. One of the things I wanted to talk about today was really, you know, you've been pretty much on all the mastermind calls. You've chatted with all the agencies from the agency experiences to when we onboard everybody and all that. What have you seen not change? Because everyone always talks about change in the agency world. What have you seen not change over the past decade? Speaker 1: I mean, from internal standpoint here, I would say The people, the community that we've built, we started small. We actually, you started with doing just one-on-ones and small groups that I really wasn't involved with. And we grew into a mastermind, now two different masterminds. And the people are always awesome. And I think that's attributed to the fact that we're good at picking people, like people that fit, that are like us, people we would want to hang out with anyways. The people have been consistent in our group. In the agency space, gosh, I feel like it's always changing. There's always something new. I just started to learn some of the things like crypto and stuff like that. I started to understand it and it's gone. And AI developments are taking its place and I get into something and then it changes. So I guess the consistent thing in the agency space is that everything always changes. Speaker 2: Yeah, the thing about the people, you know, it's taken us a couple years to figure out who are The right people that we can help and we want to help, right? And I think that's a big issue with a lot of agencies that may have hit a plateau that's listening, right? It's kind of like I've been taking on the wrong clients for a long time that are very demanding, that are always beating me up over price, hitting me up over the holidays to do this, wins this, win this, they don't understand the value. But when you really get to a point where You go, I know my perfect client. I know my perfect member. You know, they have to have similar values that we have because when you joined, we were building a community and there was no application. There was no interview. It was literally like, give us this amount of money and you're in. And then we would just chat. And then when we started going, dude, like this one person's kind of always talking about All the stuff he has, and he's kind of douchey. That's not the people we want. We want the person that's humble and shares and that kind of stuff. And I think if everyone listens and really thinks about that, you can really change the agency. Now in the beginning, when you're doing it, it's going to suck because you don't have so many. And you're not going to be making as much money, but you have to go and doing this for the long run. Speaker 1: It's hard to turn away when it's hard to turn away business when you know it's a bad fit. But like we always say, you got to trust your gut and put those gut decisions ahead of the money. Yeah, we've definitely had our share of bad fits or we figure out after a couple of months, maybe this was a wrong fit. But our sweet spot seems to be people that have our common goals, morals, ethics, lifestyle. As you said, the braggy, it doesn't fit. We're more about humble transparency. Speaker 2: And recently, you know, toward the end of the year, I know this is going live in the beginning of the year to kick it off. I think, I don't know, that's what Stacey told me, right? Speaker 1: New Year's Day is the goal. Speaker 2: All right. New Year's Day. Unknown Speaker: Happy New Year. Speaker 2: One of my favorite movies is Trading Places with Eddie Murphy. And I love when he comes on the train and he's kind of in disguise and he's like, Happy New Year. Last year, we were really kind of going to the members talking about their agency domino. What's that one thing you need to get right in your agency in order to make everything else right? And then, you know, we started discussing this internally as well of like, what's our domino that needs to get in place? And you've seen people come and go on our team and kind of the struggles on, you know, marketing and different people that we've hired and that kind of stuff. I don't know really where I was going with that because I don't know, like, if we wanted to share any stories about the frustration because, like, we got to be careful with this. Speaker 1: Well, I don't know exactly where we're going with that, but I don't know where I was going either. After 10 years with you, I feel like I'm a little bit speak Jason. And I think one of the things that you were laughing about that I said to you last week was, you know, looking back, we have brought on And let go of four or five. people in the last year. And the only silver lining that I could come up with, again, like Director of Happiness, Rainbows and Sunshine, I'm thinking the best thing that came out of that is we now have a process for outboarding people. We really didn't have a reason to have that before. There's me at almost 10 years, Darby's at almost four years. We've got Jody, he's been with us a year, so he's one of the winners. But we've had to create a process for letting people go. And we've gotten it down. Speaker 2: Hi there, agency owners. Let me ask you, are you ready to scale your agency without increasing your overhead costs? If yes, then you need to know about E2M Solutions. Now, E2M is the number one most reliable white-label partner for agencies. They specialize in web design, WordPress development, e-commerce, SEO, and content writing. They basically do all the heavy lifting, which frees you up to focus on growing your agency. Now, here's the best part. E2M is just not another vendor. With over 10 years of experience, their team of over 300 experts has a track record of delivering for more than 300 agencies. They're your strategic partner. They deliver on time every time so you can focus on what you do best. Now, E2M's mission is simple, to help 500 agencies increase their revenue and profit margins with white label services that actually work. And to help you get started, they're offering a special deal, 10% off for the first three months. But act fast because it's only a limited time offer. So head over to e2msolutions.com slash Smart Agency to check out their transparent and their flexible pricing. Trust me, if you're ready to grow without burning out, e2m is the partner you've been looking for. That's e2msolutions.com slash Smart Agency. Go check them out and tell them Jason Swenk sent you. Well, I also think where I was going was you have to really figure out just like who your perfect clients are. Who does your perfect team members need to be? And bringing this up is, look, a lot of you listen to the podcast because you think we've figured everything out. We don't. There's lots of things that we don't know. Now, is it things we know about scaling an agency and running an agency and that kind of stuff? Heck yeah. We know a lot of that because I've messed up everything and we've figured that out. But I always want to let people know too, and this is one of the things that we look for in our mastermind members is being vulnerable and just being honest and transparent and be like, I have no clue what I'm doing here. And like hiring a marketing person, I always had people to do that, right, in the past at the agency. And so we always did that really well. And I didn't have to worry about that. Now that's kind of been the past challenge for the past two years is finding the right marketing person. And then we finally came up to a situation where we're like, how do we just hire an agency? Which then that was pretty tough because we didn't want to crap where we eat, right? We have all these amazing communities, but we don't want to mess it up with... Speaker 1: And we're a little too close with it. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: Which makes us extra picky, right? Speaker 2: Yes. Speaker 1: I have an agency background. You owned an agency. And so we almost know too much. Speaker 2: I'm so picky. I mean, you just blame it on me. I mean, literally. Speaker 1: Yeah. Like going back to how we met, how we got connected, I was in an agency role And miserable. And so when it comes to picking an agency, I mean, not that we've put out an RFP or anything because we don't believe in those, but... Speaker 2: Jason Swenk We should do that just to mess with people. Speaker 1: Stacey Green I know exactly what kind of agency I don't want to work with because I came from that. I won't go there. It's too traumatic. Speaker 2: Jason Swenk I know. The PSD or is that PSD? No. Why do I always PSD? That's a Photoshop file. You know, when you're an old designer, you see, but I also, you know, in the new year, as you guys are listening to this podcast and this episode, I want you to think about who do you need to bring on? Right. I always talk about, you know, this is a new year and you're going to put in new goals, but I really do want you to hit them. And there's a couple of things I want you to figure out. Where do you want to go? Who do you need to bring on? And that could be your domino, right? This marketing person, this marketing agency is really a domino for us. And then the last who is who do you need to become in order to, for this year, in order for you to get your agency to where you need to be. A lot of you may feel that you've outgrown the agency. And I've gone through many phases on that. And many businesses, I've gone, the business is far past me. But then you have to start thinking going, no, no, no, no, I got this. And how am I constantly improving myself? You know, how am I getting better? How am I stepping up in order to pull the agency along? A lot of times I find when I'm chatting with agency owners, I'm like, you can't push the agency ahead of where you're at. It just doesn't work. And that's why a lot of people come to us to sell because they feel that it's outgrown them. So what are your thoughts on that, Stacey? Speaker 1: I mean, I agree with you that our domino is definitely the marketing piece. But one thing that also sticks in my mind about that is something that you said, and you probably read it somewhere else too, but what got us to where we are today is not necessarily what's going to get us to the next stage or phase. And I think what our goal needs to be for 2025 is what's going to get us to the next place, what's going to get us through the next 10. Speaker 2: And I'm Stacey Green. And I'm Jason Swenk. Yes, Scott, my VP of operations. He was only with me at nine years because we hired him in year three. Speaker 1: Well, and the same is true for me. I've never had the same job for 10 years. I had agency experience, client experience, took a break off to have some kids and raise them for a few years and then back at the agency. And like I said, I'm unhappy, but not sure what I wanted to do about it. This worked out perfectly because I have the agency knowledge and I feel fulfilled by helping other agencies get where they want to go. Speaker 2: So, yeah, and you've helped out so many members, you know, like one specifically is Audra. Yeah, we were talking with her to kind of give you some context, you know, like on the podcast, I always tell you like, hey, you need to Kind of transform from an owner to a CEO. And one of the things you need to let go is operations. You need to let go of marketing, which we're talking about, and let go of sales. And Audra let go of sales, like we told her, but she was depressed. And what did you tell her, Stacey? Speaker 1: Well, she came to a couple mastermind meetings like she was just going through the motions and she was unmotivated and uninspired and not sure why. And I didn't call her out in front of everybody in the meeting, but I called her one-on-one right after one of the meetings and I said, Audra, You hired a salesperson two months ago. Of course, you're deflated and you feel like you don't have purpose. You took away... She enjoyed sales. She loved going after the accounts. She loved landing the accounts. She loved handing them off to the team then and moving on to the next prospect. And she took away her piece of the passion. Now, I know from a lot of other members and agency owners we've talked to, they don't enjoy sales. And yet they're stuck doing it because they know the business the best. And no one's as passionate about sales as them, even though they don't enjoy it. So those are the ones when you say, give up sales, it's because if it's something you don't enjoy, but with Audra, she loved it. And she followed the playbook of like give up sales and that wasn't for her. But you're right. It was like eye opening to her. She was like light bulb moment. Oh my gosh, you're right. Now, she didn't get rid of the salesperson. She just decided to get more involved in sales, come in and add color, help out as needed kind of thing. And that helped get her out of that funk she was in. Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why I really am a big component of Having a team and a true mastermind rather than because I didn't see that. You hired a salesperson, you're not doing any sales anymore. I'm like, cool. You followed the playbook. You did what I told you to do. I didn't see that. And that's why, you know, a lot of times people outgrow coaches really quick. And that's why we don't do one-on-one coaching anymore. It's just because as a team, as a mastermind, it's so much more powerful. So if you guys are listening to this and you've been working with a coach or maybe you outgrew a coach or you're outgrowing a coach, reach out to us and see if our community can help you out with that to really kind of take you to the next level. Just like as Stacey said, what got you to where you're at now is not going to get you to the next place. Then you got to constantly try new things and what's the best This is January now and you should be trying new things out regardless if it's us or someone else. So Stacey, is there anything I didn't ask you? My last question is always, if there's something I didn't ask you, what is it? And then we'll end with that. Speaker 1: Stacey Green You know, I should know that that is the last question and yet I gave that no thought leading up to this interview. I'll probably think of 10 things as soon as we end the recording. Thank you for 10 years of helping build this business together. It's been a wild ride. You are a handful, but. So I guess that's my last nugget for those that don't know, Jason's a handful. Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, and thanks so much for giving me, you know, 10 years and hopefully another 10 years of doing this and everyone like Stacey was so nervous and like, just like she said, I bet she like played this interview in her head all last night, getting prepared for this. Like I just know her on this and just like, did I come up with the questions? And then when she's done the episode, she'd be like, I should have mentioned this, this, this, and this. Speaker 1: I practice in my head how I was going to introduce myself because typical of me, I was like, I don't feel like I'm important enough to be on the podcast, which is why I've put you off for 10 years. But, you know, it seemed like a nice gift to give you. Speaker 2: Yes, I know. Your time. But well, you did amazing. And I think everyone can rest assured that let you know you did an amazing job. And I bet we have a ton of people going, bring back Stacey. We don't want to listen to Jason. That's really kind of what happens that if you guys are ever able to come to any of our events, Everyone's always so complimentary to Darby and Stacey and Jody and the team. They just leave me in the dark, but they're the brilliant people. I'm just the dancing chicken on the stove. Stacey, thanks so much for coming on the show. If you guys enjoyed the episode, make sure you like, subscribe, hit us up. And until next time, have a Swenk day.