Funnel Vision - For Performance-Driven Agencies & Marketers (Mikael Dia - Performance Marketing Expert )

Tim Kilroy (CEO of Retriever and eComAllies & Agency Coach, Consultant & Advisor at TimKilroy.com) joins Mikael to talk about how agency owners can build a better business model that actually fits their goals and personality.

Tim has launched 3 agencies. One crashed, while the other two ended up being sold. His current consulting/coaching tagline is “more revenue = more profit = more happy”, which at first glance might seem like a service that increases your agency's profit, thus increasing your happiness level, while in reality something completely different. His approach boils down to optimizing revenue and profits so that agency owners can enjoy life, instead of being constantly miserable due to the amount of work and stress that agency ownership often comes with.

There is no right or wrong way to run an agency. Tim advises that you let go of the processes that you’re simply not consistent at, and stop trying to model your agency based on other people’s ideas. One of his clients had lost up to 400k in 2 years by trying to run his agency based on guidelines provided by outsiders. This is where a lot of agency owners end up with the wrong coaches, as they buy into a business model adjustment that simply doesn’t fit their personality and actively works against their strengths.

Tune into the full episode to learn more on how to run your agency in a way that fits you!

HIGHLIGHTS:
0:00 Intro
1:30 revenue = profit = happy?
6:09 Choosing the right coach
7:40 Journey into coaching
11:14 Building your agency the right way
14:39 Increasing your pricing is a must
16:35 The ultimate growth tactic
19:39 Leadership is a must
22:42 What first time CEO’s get wrong

Connect with Tim - https://www.linkedin.com/in/timkilroy/
Connect with Mikael - www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Kara Redman (Founder and CEO of Backroom) has helped founders launch startups, build brands and secure venture capital for the last 10 years. From finding their first investors to making global expansions, Kara has helped startups reach their dreams - without ever niching down.

Kara’s journey is one that very many agency owners can relate to. She didn’t go the academic route or inherit a company. Instead, she took on the entrepreneurial path as a young, single mother. She worked at an agency prior to starting her own, which is where she realized that marketing was an avenue she seriously wanted to pursue.

Backroom has always been about positive change. Kara didn’t abide by the standards of old, stuffy, controlling and toxic corporate culture. Instead, she built out a successful business that puts their people first, which wasn’t nearly as trendy back in 2014. Her people-first approach isn’t a gated secret - part of her business now is to help others achieve the same organizational structure while remaining operationally excellent.

Founder-led growth is a concept that Kara truly embraced last year. She started out with around 3000 followers, never really looking at herself as a social media content creator. Once she began posting though, the feedback was overwhelming. Over the last year and a half, she’s grown to over 50,000 followers and has gone viral multiple times while generating revenue along the way.

Tune into the full episode to learn more of Kara Redman’s journey leading Backroom!

HIGHLIGHTS:
0:00 Intro
2:20 Going against the grain
4:14 The vision for Backroom
7:03 Becoming people-first
9:14 Building the right culture
10:51 3k -> 50k LinkedIn Followers in 1.5 years
15:21 Incremental growth is painful 
17:58 Founder-led is a growth hack

Connect with Mikael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/
Connect with Kara - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kararedman/

Today’s episode welcomes Jason Wojo, Founder & CEO of Wojo Media - a 255+ clientele operating marketing agency that handles companies' social media pages, does content creation and manages Facebook/Google ads. He’s also a self-made multi-millionaire who’s managed to grow his Instagram page to 1M+ followers and he’s the author of the best-selling book “Ads That Sell”. As of June 2024, his portfolio includes $123M in paid ads revenue.

Jason built his agency while simultaneously attending business school. He got off the ground by taking a high velocity approach to prospecting into small accounts across a variety of industries. This taught him how to sell, but most importantly how to communicate in a business environment. He closed his 13 first clients at $200 per client, which doesn’t seem like a lot - but keep in mind he was a college kid at the time, which means he was still outearning his peers while also building a business.

Even though nowadays everyones talking about not going to college and starting an agency, Jason was a true pioneer of this movement during his time in business school. Through actively serving clients and being active on social media, he quickly learned about the impact of a winning funnel strategy. This elevated him to his first $4000/month deal which completely changed his life.

The pivotal change that helped Jason move upmarket and ultimately get to $18 million in revenue was learning to let go and trust your team. At first he spread himself way too thin working 16 hours a day. Like many agency owners, Jason had built new service lines in addition to ads. His coaching service was what 4x’d his revenue, but it kept him way too busy to focus on the growth of the business. In the midst of complete burnout, he started to scale with a team for the first time.

Tune into the full episode to learn more on how to generate revenue like Jason Wojo!

HIGHLIGHTS:
04:07 How Jason Wojo started his agency
09:41 Jason’s first big client
11:15 What gets you to $18 million in revenue?
13:21 Building your first agency team
16:26 Jason’s biggest growth tip
17:45 Structuring an irresistible offer 
18:43 Overcomplication is the enemy 
21:36 Jason’s first hire

Connect with Jason - https://www.instagram.com/thejasonwojo/?hl=en
Connect with Mikael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Full Episode Here - https://youtu.be/b3ea3C6x9_A

Robert Glazer (5x Entrepreneur, #1 WSJ & USA Today Best Selling Author, Top 0.1% Podcast Host) is an expert in all things affiliate marketing. His affiliate journey started with the realization that cost-effective lead sources are the lifeblood of business, and at the time content partnerships were a brand new niche that could provide exactly that.

To date, Robert has written 7 books, earning prestigious titles such as the number 1 spot on The Wall Street Journal and USA Today. His first book, “Performance Partnerships: The Checkered Past, Changing Present and Exciting Future of Affiliate Marketing“, came from a ton of industry conversations regarding the subject.

Tune into the full episode to learn how to approach affiliate marketing in 2025!

HIGHLIGHTS:

0:00 Intro
2:44 Roberts first tango with Affiliate Marketing 
6:32 Creator success requires passion
9:32 The journey of writing 7 books
11:58 The different types of affiliate labels 
16:42 How to build a solid partner program
19:16 Affiliate marketing isn’t easy

Connect with Mikael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Connect with Robert - https://www.linkedin.com/in/glazer/

Gray MacKenzie (Founder of ZenPilot) saves agencies from constantly hopping between project management tools such as Asana, Monday, ClickUp, Notion, Teamwork, Wrike, Basecamp, Trello etc. They’ve led over 3000 teams to tighten their operations through ClickUp.

Before becoming a full-time operations consultancy, Gray ran a separate business that offered a project management platform. When they were sunsetting, they took their existing clients and helped them transition to ClickUp, which is how they landed their initial wins. Their next step to grow to 3000+ clients was content creation around the different use cases that ClickUp offers. 

Achieving operational excellence comes down to 3 pieces - tools, processes and habits. The toughest part of it all is habits, because unless your team knows they’re being held accountable for their side of the process, everything will quickly fall apart. Gray recommends daily spot checks, as well as scheduled, routine meetings to look at the data and figure out your weakest links.

Tune into the full episode to learn how to master ClickUp for your agency!

HIGHLIGHTS:
0:00 Intro
4:30 Growing to 3000 clients
5:32 From SaaS to Service 
8:34 How to achieve operational success
12:01 Some founders HATE project management
16:38 Owners shouldn’t work on delivering 
20:42 Content-led Growth 

Connect with Gray - https://www.linkedin.com/in/graymackenzie/

Connect with Mikael - www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

This is a snippet from the Kyle Vamvouris episode of Funnel Vision. For the full scoop, check out the last episode!

Meet Kyle Vamvouris, CEO of Vouris. They help B2B SaaS and service companies build their SDR and AE teams. Vouris uses a data-first approach to structure teams, optimize performance, and to ultimately develop a repeatable sales process. Kyle has worked with over 70 B2B companies, generated $100m+ in sales, helped raise over $280m in venture capital and written 3 sales books.

Patrick Ward (VP of Marketing, Formula.Monks at Media.Monks) joins Mikael to help marketers figure out what it takes to become a truly legendary marketer. He’s constructed world-class campaigns with such global multi-billion dollar clients & partners as Google, Nike, Walmart, Sony, Allianz, Fiji Airways, Oracle, and The U.S. Space Force.

What many software providers seem to forget is that they’re fundamentally competing with the status quo, not their category rivals. Even at huge conglomerates, the status quo might be an excel sheet or a few Google Docs. As a marketer, if you allow yourself to live in an advanced tech and automation echo chamber, there’s a good chance your message will never resonate and you’ll have a hard time truly weaving in the customer's mindset - which should be your top priority. 

Tune into the full episode to learn how to master the Marketing Mindset!

HIGHLIGHTS:

0:00 Intro
1:10 Patrick’s world-class portfolio
2:09 The fundamentals stay the same
3:58 Builders vs Sellers 
6:28 Understand the customers mindset 
9:10 What is the Marketing Mindset?
11:59 The 5 Mindset Shifts
20:16 How to apply this framework?

Connect with Mikael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Connect with Patrick - https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickjamesward/

Today’s episode welcomes Graeme Barlow, CEO of Iversoft - a software development company that provides expert mobile app and web development services for organizations looking to elevate their business and adapt to the digital world.

Graeme’s background is nothing short of spectacular. He’s a serial entrepreneur with 25+ years of experience who has built, scaled and sold multiple companies. He started out with a digital currency company in the early 2000’s, then moved on to a game development studio, spent 3+ years in venture capital investing in SaaS, then went on to co-found his own SaaS company, and now he’s joined Iversoft and helped them hit their growth spurt going from humble beginnings to a team of 50+.

Agencies are notoriously difficult to scale past a certain point - which is typically below the 8 figure mark. When Graeme joined Iversoft, he immediately requested a seat at the table. Before he joined, the agency had done a lot of relatively small revenue projects, with no single customer bringing in more than $100k. Here’s the kicker - they had worked with big brands on small deals. Brands like Audi and Michael Bublé had entrusted their app development process to Iversoft, but there weren’t any real enterprise-level deals to show for it. Graeme leveraged these projects to do some serious brand building for the first time in the company's history, and through that process they got the right opportunities to go upmarket. 

One of the biggest pivots that helped them double their headcount was going from project billing to retainers. To take this step, Graeme first audited their historic projects and realized that half of their project based work weren’t bringing in any profit, while the other half were wildly profitable due to an incorrect scope. Looking at the data they realized that their profitable projects were already being approached as retainers - they just didn’t have the right model set from the get go.

Tune into the full episode to learn more on how to scale an agency to 8 figures!

HIGHLIGHTS:
00:54 Graeme’s background
03:26 How to build an 8-figure agency brand
06:45 What’s really stopping your growth
10:02 Going from project billing to retainer
16:56 Iversoft scaling challenges 
22:09 Investing vs burning money 

Connect with Graeme - https://www.linkedin.com/in/graemebarlow/
Connect with Mikael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Anthony Gindin (Founder & CEO of Agency Different™) helps agency principals with strategic planning, business model design, brand positioning, service productization, client acquisition, and enhancing profitability through growth.

Anthony started his first agency at the age of 17 and sold it within 5 years. Then at 24, he sold his second agency that had scaled up to 45+ employees. In total, he’s founded 6 companies, sold 4 and taken 2 public on the Canadian Stock Exchange.

The key to success for an agency lies in differentiation. Every agency is unique, but they often look the same from outside  because they follow the market instead of focusing on building a unique brand with a high perceived value. Anthony suggests you improve your perceived value through market specificity, a deep understanding of the results you bring and unique methods for delivering those results.

Tune into the full episode to learn more on how to increase your agency's win rate!

HIGHLIGHTS:
0:00 Intro
0:53 Founding 6 companies
3:35 The Agency Secret
5:56 Differentiation is key
7:55 Increasing your perceived value
10:41 The move to client side 
14:27 The move back to agency life

Connect with Mikael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Connect with Anthony - https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonygindin/

Tune into the full episode here - https://youtu.be/DQfOaRXV0rw

Check out the full conversation here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbRQg0wjlS8

Jade Caillot (Founder of ELLEVATE) runs a specialized agency in accelerating the growth of women-founded and women-led businesses. As of December 2024, she’s also a Forbes featured Marketing Expert.

In simpler terms - they take businesses that aren’t sure how to scale to their goals and make their dreams a reality. They focus on helping companies make a difference in their market, build an engaged audience and get an ROI that accelerates quickly. They start off with auditing the leader as a person, and then move to the executive team. This helps ELLEVATE build a strategy that is bespoke, authentic and 100% aligned with the goals of their client.

Jade’s approach to running an agency that offers bespoke services is to always start off with the important details. Do they have the time, money and dedication to do this? From there, they move on to research, strategy and building out operations.

Tune into the full episode to learn how to operate a bespoke marketing agency!

HIGHLIGHTS:
0:00 Intro
3:05 Jade’s Marketing background
5:25 The ELLEVATE way of running an agency
6:34 The current service offer

9:53 How to offer fully custom services
13:21 The balance between working in vs on your agency
18:34 Relatable messaging sells 

Connect with Mikael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Connect with Jade - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jade-caillot/

Phil Rivers (Founder of Growthpointe, 2 previous exits) has generated $200+M in email revenue for his eCommerce clients. The King of Klaviyo has acquired 500+ clients during his agency career.

Phil started creating email lists in 2005. After he graduated college, he joined a software company and started a marketing side hustle. At first, he was a generalist doing email marketing, web services and other small tasks. Realising that selling a jack of all trades service isn’t very profitable, he found a comfortable niche in email marketing. 

Nowadays Phil is mostly focused on his nearshore business. He noticed that agencies spend way too much time hiring, and over the years Phil got really good at sourcing high quality candidates - so this transition came very naturally. 

Tune into the full episode to learn how Phil scaled to 9 figures in client revenue!

HIGHLIGHTS:
0:00 Intro
2:01 The journey to $200M+ in Sales
7:51 How Phil built his own revenue engine
11:48 The 9 figure email revenue secret
16:43 The move to nearshore 
18:07 How to increase your conversions 

Connect with Mikael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Connect with Phil - https://www.linkedin.com/in/thephilrivers/ 

This episode is a snippet from a podcast with Alex Glenn (CEO of Partnerhub®). 

For the full conversation, check out the previous episode of the Funnel Vision Show!

This is a snippet from the Kyle Vamvouris episode of Funnel Vision. For the full scoop, check out the last episode!

Meet Shawna Tregunna, CEO and Chief Strategist of Acclivity - a B2B marketing agency specializing in Account-Based Marketing, Content Marketing, Earned Media and Virtual Marketing. Their focus market consists of manufacturers, IoT providers, and innovative technologies.

Liana Ling - the Lead Gen Queen and CEO of AdSkills -  is an expert of Meta Ads specializing in helping coaches and info product sellers drive down their Cost Per Lead (CPL).

Her path to AdSkills was one that many marketers unknowingly take. She was seeing great results with her approach, which led to her getting international recognition for sharing her insights in front of larger communities. Her peers saw her outperform standard methods, which increased her thought leadership in front of broader audiences and ultimately landed her the CEO role at AdSkills.

Marketers come from various backgrounds, but a lawyer turned marketer isn’t something you see every day. Liana’s transition from legal to lead gen started during her legal career, as she worked for a boutique firm that required everyone to wear many hats. This led her to the conclusion that she needed to be her own boss, as working for someone else was driving her crazy. Her true entrepreneurial beginning was when she bought a digital marketing franchise,  which ended up being the right move, as with a franchise you inherit their existing systems and structures - things that are highly time consuming to build from scratch.

Finding her niche in Meta Ads was quite the journey. She started out doing a lot of work with many platforms, until figuring out a winning advantage in Meta by truly understanding the inner workings of the platform. This became a hot topic soon, as getting ROI from social media is notoriously difficult when selling B2B - especially outside of the LinkedIn ethos. When entering a new market, Liana suggests that you find the top performers within that vertical and make it your mission to talk to them. Whether that means grabbing a coffee, meeting over Zoom or producing a podcast episode together, the network and knowledge you’ll gain will do wonders in making you the easy choice for your potential buyers.

Tune in to the full episode to hear more on how Liana Ling became the Lead Gen Queen!

HIGHLIGHTS:
0:00 Intro
1:12 From $30 to $5 CPL
4:34 How Liana became CEO
8:21 Lawyer to Lead Gen Queen
15:23 Up your pricing and find your gimmick
19:33 Should your business use Meta?
24:59 What works on Facebook in 2024

Connect with Liana - https://www.linkedin.com/in/lianaling/

Connect with Mikael - www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

This episode is a snippet from a podcast with Jason Swenk, who built and sold an 8-figure agency and then moved on to coaching agency owners on how to scale to 7-8+ Figures with life balance in mind. 

For the full conversation, check out the previous episode of the Funnel Vision Show!

Craig Rodney (Founder at The Agency Coach) helps agencies systemize their processes and scale. He started his first agency way back in 2002, grew the business, went through a merger and in 2013 sold his first business. After 2016, he started coaching other agency owners so they can follow his path.

The first big mistake that Craig had to pinpoint and solve in his agency was the fact that he was the go-to person for all of their clients. Even though this approach got them blue chip clients, he realized the same thing that most agency owners run into - you can’t scale yourself. 

Delegation is hard when you’re a small agency owner. Being overly attached to your work and thinking you’re the only person who can deliver real quality normal, but it’s also a one-way ticket to staying in survival mode forever. Craig advises that you get out of survival mode as soon as possible by learning how to hire the right people - ones that allow you to devalue money and increase the value of time.

Tune into the full episode to learn how to properly scale an agency!

HIGHLIGHTS:
0:00 Intro
2:43 How Craig learned how to let go
6:04 You need to be ready to delegate
9:02 Survival mode decisions don’t scale
13:00 Leverage your time correctly
16:49 Mindspace matters most 

Connect with Mikael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/
Connect with Craig - https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigrodney/

Welcome to Funnel Vision, Hosted by Mikael Dia, Founder & CEO of Funnelytics - a revolutionary marketing analytics software that allows marketers and business owners to map and track their sales and marketing campaigns visually.

We feature Marketing Agency Owners and Performance Marketers to highlight the tactics, tools and strategies they use to grow their own business and their clients.

Funnel Vision brings you 5 episodes every single week that aim to highlight the strategies used by successful agency owners and performance marketers in a 20 minute format.

Aside from their unique topic of the day, our guests answer the 2 following questions questions - 

1 - What is your best growth tactic as an agency? 

2 - What tools, AI or automation workflows are currently having the biggest impact on your business?

For more content, check out our YouTube page, newsletter or connect with Mikael Dia on LinkedIn!

Lindsey Carnett (CEO & Founder of Marketing Maven, Author of The Marketing Maven Method: Secrets of a Maven) joins Mikael to help agency owners differentiate between brand and performance marketing, and better understand how to approach PR.

Brand Marketing & PR often get neglected in favour of performance marketing due to it being more difficult to measure the ROI of brand initiatives. Instead of thinking about the direct ROI of every campaign, to properly measure brand you need to focus on metrics such as conversation rates and sales velocity, as the goal here isn’t simply generating leads - it’s increasing the overall trust in your company.

Crafting a good brand message requires understanding your business objectives, reverse-engineering a plan based on other success stories, and building a bespoke strategy based on this competitive analysis. Then, you need to swim with the grain enough to look like a real player in your space, while figuring out how you’ll approach your unique messaging to stick out. 

Tune into the full episode to learn how to better balance Brand and Performance Marketing!

HIGHLIGHTS:

0:00 Intro

3:12 Lindsey’s PR experience
4:21 Trust brings ROI
7:01 Lindsey’s creative journey
10:12 The Marketing Maven Method
12:45 What makes a good brand message?
16:55 Be the right level of unique
18:55 Quirky, Timely, Local, Hard News, Personality 
20:09 Quirky vs Personality
21:48 Summary

Connect with Mikael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Connect with Lindsey - https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindseycarnett/

Today’s episode welcomes Shawna Tregunna, CEO and Chief Strategist of Acclivity - a B2B marketing agency specializing in Account-Based Marketing, Content Marketing, Earned Media and Virtual Marketing. Their focus market consists of manufacturers, IoT providers, and innovative technologies.

Acclivity has been active for almost 4 years, but it’s not Shawnas first agency venture. Her first agency came to be due to the explosion of Twitter back in the day. She was an early adopter, making noise on the platform and experimenting with a variety of formats until she was approached by an investor that saw an early opportunity in social media and chose Shawna to pioneer the SMMA movement. She ran that agency for 7 years up until a client decided to buy the agency, giving Shawna her first exit.

Her current agency started during COVID, when the world went fully virtual and social media became an even bigger part of how brands get their message to potential clients. Shawna couldn’t idly stand by while businesses that have close to 0 social media expertise were now thrown into a new world, so she started Acclivity to put her years of experience to great use. They’ve now expanded their service offering to include account based marketing, which is one of the hottest marketing strategies in B2B.

The first ideal client profile that Shawna pursued was other agencies that were looking to add social to their marketing offering. This helped her grow tremendously, as her clients book of business would also become her book of business, allowing for a huge increase in their overall reach and industry knowledge. She also approached clients as partnerships, helping increase her nearbound circle and organically grow her referral network.

Going viral shouldn’t always be the goal, but that’s a tough sell as an SMMA. Shawna’s first challenges arose when clients would expect a huge dose of vanity metrics across the board with every engagement, which led to a lot of misalignment between her agency and clients. Nowadays, most B2B companies understand that virality isn’t the best metric to gauge the success of an SMMA engagement, but there’s still many that expect likes and comments to be the North Star, which simply doesn’t make sense when selling into technical folks that aren’t chronically online.

Tune into the full episode to learn more on how Shawna pioneered the SMMA movement and transitioned into ABM!

HIGHLIGHTS: 

01:16 First Agency to exit
03:31 The birth of Acclivity
06:04 How Shawna grew her agency
09:01 The challenges of growing an SMMA
12:31 Thriving in a data-driven world
16:40 Tips for selling your agency
18:31 Grow through ABM

Connect with Shawna - https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnaactually/

Connect with Mikael - www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Melanie Chandruang (Founder of WeConsult) is a financial nerd, an operations whiz, and an expert integrator all rolled into one charming, no-nonsense package. She makes agencies more profitable, sellable, and run like well oiled machines by optimizing their operations.

For the last 6 years, Melanie has been serving agencies with operations consulting or fractional ops work, helping them scale all the way to exits. Agency owners typically come to Melanie with very specific needs, revolving around their inability to consistently service clients due to the fact that the owner is too involved in the day to day delivery.

Melanie’s agency journey started when she founded a devshop, which is where she discovered that her true passion lies in operations. Soon enough she learned that her role was very complimentary to the creative work that was being done by her team members. It took a few years for her to fully understand exactly how valuable her skills are in the agency world, and after seeing multiple managers fail to truly advocate for their teams and add real value she created her own unique approach that really bridged the gaps she experienced first hand.

Tune into the full episode to learn more on how to handle operational problems!

HIGHLIGHTS:
0:00 Intro
1:07 Scale operations to exit
4:47 The real problem with agency operations
6:57 How Melanie found operations
9:57 Owners struggle most
12:02 What type of agencies Melanie works with
14:05 The Million Dollar Problem
17:57 Look beyond the numbers

Connect with Mikael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/
Connect with Melanie - https://www.linkedin.com/in/melaniechandruang/

Full Episode Here - https://youtu.be/eOZ9DQhM7LE

Karl Sakas (Agency Consultant & Executive Coach at Sakas & Company) helps agency owners work less and earn more, while rewarding their best team members. So far he’s worked with over 600 agencies across the globe.

It’s safe to say that working less and earning more is a very common goal. Karl adapted this messaging and even wrote a book - Work Less, Earn More - on this particular subject, as it has universal appeal beyond the agency space.

Not every agency owner wants an exit. Often we see agency owners wanting to scale to a place where the agency does its own work, instead of them working for the agency all the time. Karl believes that agency owners aren’t necessarily either building a lifestyle agency or an equity agency, and instead have shifting priorities that steer them towards one or the other. Both need help to work less and earn more, as an agency that’s fully dependent on the owner is a tough sell, and an agency that requires constant input doesn’t exactly warrant a great lifestyle.

Tune into the full episode to learn how to work less AND earn more!

HIGHLIGHTS:

0:00 Intro 

2:48 Ex boss becomes first client
5:17 Work Less, Earn More
7:07 Lifestyle agency or equity agency?
10:55 Make yourself optional
16:08 Proactive prep for an exit 
18:46 Clarity is key 
21:42 Split the 2 brands

Connect with Mikael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Connect with Karl - https://www.linkedin.com/in/karlsakas/

Galen Low (Co-Founder at The Digital Project Manager) helps agency owners completely transition out of project management work by leveling up their project managers and enabling them to be self-sufficient. Their training program has certified over 700 agency professionals to date, and helped alleviate 50-75% of project management costs for owners.

Their program's first goal is helping PM’s understand the full business picture of what they do and why it’s important. Second is getting rid of the notion that projects run smoothly all the time, and teaching them what to do when issues arise. 

SEO is a touchy subject right now. The rise of AI and the rapidly changing Google algorithm has left this field in a state of disarray. SEO did magic for the growth of The Digital Project Manager and even the recent changes haven't affected their traffic. Galen attributes this to the fact that their SEO strategy was never about SEO - but simply about creating high value content that people actually want to read.

Tune into the full episode to learn how to transition out of operations?

HIGHLIGHTS:
0:00 Intro
2:35 Early course mistakes
8:51 Practitioner to teacher 
12:17 Common operational problems
15:28 How to level up your PM’s
20:51 Winning SEO approach in 2024

Connect with Galen - https://www.linkedin.com/in/galen-low-digital-transformation-advisor/

Connect with Mikael - www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Jonathan Cogan (Founder of Sephrina Strategy) is an agency leader, marketing strategist, brand consultant, coach, teacher and facilitator with a 20-year track record helping to launch and grow businesses, brands and campaigns in Canada, the U.S. and globally. 

Jon is a big proponent of effectiveness leading to efficiency. Big networks and corporations love to make efficiency their North Star, but in doing so they strip their people of the ability to do truly exceptional work - the type that doesn’t fit into a fully pre-planned, timegated schedule. And the best part is, the work that gets done when you prioritize effectiveness ends up being more efficient, as it doesn’t require as many re-do’s and revisions.

The Effective Agency Playbook starts with understanding exactly what you’re trying to achieve and for who. Then you need to find your focus on how you’re going to execute. The way to make it work is by honing in on every single step in the process and having clear definitions and outlines. And it should not feel overly complex or confusing. 

Tune into the episode to learn how to build a more effective agency!

HIGHLIGHTS:
0:00 Intro
4:12 Your agency needs to be special
6:06 Effectiveness leads to efficiency 
8:51 Effectiveness is all about the people
10:53 The fundamentals never change
12:36 The value of outside perspectives
14:04 Everyone is in strategy 
15:44 The Effective Agency Playbook

Connect with Mikael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Connect with Jonathan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jon-e-cogan/

Christian Banach (Principal and Chief Growth Officer at Christian Banach) helps agencies, B2B companies, small to large, across marketing disciplines, land 6- and 7-figure opportunities predictably through consulting, training, and outsourced lead generation services.

More than 20 years ago, Christian started his career by throwing small social events that grew into parties featuring superstars like Lady Gaga, T-Pain and Pitbull. As those grew, he started working with brands that were looking to sponsor events as part of their overall marketing strategy. 

During the pandemic Christian started his current venture. He saw a lot of agencies struggling to keep the lights on, so starting his own consulting firm was the next logical move. Now they help over a dozen clients break into enterprise accounts and close 6-7 figure contracts.

What makes breaking into enterprise accounts so incredibly difficult is that everyone is trying to get their attention through the same means. Christian recommends that you really do some original research about their audience and book that first meeting by showing that you already know what improvements would drive real outcomes for their business.

Tune into the full episode to learn how to close enterprise contracts!

HIGHLIGHTS:
0:00 Intro
0:53 Generating millions for clients
2:06 How Christian grew his first business
5:04 Original research matters!
9:35 The Christian Banach Playbook
14:25 Embrace Warm Outbound Sales

Connect with Christian - https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianbanach/

Connect with Mikael - www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Check out Christian’s Newsletter - https://christianbanach.com/

Jhana Li (Founder of Spyglass Ops) is a wizard of operations who helps scale businesses through efficient and autonomous processes, enabling founders to take a step back from being involved in every single part of the day-to-day..

Jhana got into operations while doing vanlife through North & South America. Her boyfriend at the time was running a digital marketing agency, and during that time she got a good glimpse of how archaic and disorganized agencies can be. A bit later on a team member left the agency and Jhana took over operations as they searched for a replacement. In the end no replacement was needed as Jhana ended up their next COO.

Many parts of the business succeed because they are built through a founder's lens. Operations are NOT included in that list. Following the pattern for success requires a visionary who drives the business forward through growth stages and someone who can steer the day-to-day, fix leaky buckets and make sure things get done in time.

Spyglass Ops wasn’t a planned decision. Jhana was between roles when she took on her first consulting client. This scaled pretty quick, with her ending up in a position where she could no longer take on more clients as a solopreneur. 

Tune into the full episode to learn more on how operations can change your business!

HIGHLIGHTS:
0:00 Intro
2:43 How Jhana got into operations
5:17 Why most founders struggle with operations
9:01 From COO to Entrepreneur
11:10 How to improve your operations
15:45 The real value of operations
20:06 Traits of a great operator
23:13 The ultimate growth hack

Connect with Jhana - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jhana-li/
Connect with Mikael - www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Today’s episode welcomes Chris DuBois, Founder of Dynamic Agency OS and Leading For Effect. 

At Leading for Effect, they reignite your organization's purpose through leadership coaching and business consulting that delivers extraordinary results.

At Dynamic Agency OS, they help agencies build world-class teams so they can improve operational efficiency, leading to higher revenue and profit.

Before becoming a founder, Chris spent 5 years at Lean Labs, a growth agency for B2B SaaS. In 3 years time he climbed up the ranks and became CEO. He initially joined in an operations position, helping the company become more profitable. They grew from 10 - 25 team members during his tenure. It wasn’t all smooth from the beginning - one of the biggest lessons learned when scaling Lean Labs was how to recruit and retain the right people.

The biggest problem that agency owners and CEOs face is the inability to let go. The more involved you are in every process, the less valuable your agency will be, as without a trusted team in place that can run the day to day you’ll be very limited with the amount of quality work you can produce and the level of clients you can take on and retain.

With the recent development in AI tech and the overabundance of tactical practitioners, the best way to make yourself irreplaceable as an agency is to build a strategic offer. You need to identify what niche you can become the best in the world at and find the missing pieces that can get you there. Then, you restructure from strictly providing deliverables to providing outcomes.

Tune into the full episode to learn how to become an irreplaceable agency! 

HIGHLIGHTS:
03:30 Lean Labs growth challenges
05:32 How to transition from ops to CEO
08:32 Successful transition into CEO
10:35 Growing as an agency owner
14:01 Becoming an irreplaceable marketing agency
18:31 Prove your value through strategy
22:01 How to niche down as an agency
29:22 Chris’ best growth tactic 

Connect with Chris - https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherrdubois
Connect with Mikael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Chris Roche (CEO of Catalyst Consulting) joins Mikael to discuss the bottom of the funnel (BOFU) for B2B tech. Chris is an ex-CRO who founded his agency 3 years ago, which has now grown to over 7 figures in ARR.

One hugely impressive stat about Catalyst Consulting is that Chris has been able to scale the agency to 7 figures with only around $10k spent in paid advertising. Chris attributes their organic growth to their ability to deliver tangible ROI to their clients, and due to their current fixed capacity it would be redundant to invest further in marketing their service. 

When Chris evaluates clients, they typically look for a minimum of $25k ACV for a sales-led organization, or a 6-12 month CAC payback period for a PLG company. These aren’t the only metrics that matter though - most early stage startups think that they know their true numbers, when in reality they haven’t accounted for sales commissions, trial-to-purchase conversion rates, or other data that is missing from their calculations and CRM.

Tune into the full episode to learn how focusing on BOFU drives real ROI!

HIGHLIGHTS:

0:00 Intro
2:09 Chris’s entrepreneurial journey
4:29 Scaling to 7 figures organically 
6:03 The analytical edge 
7:54 PLG vs Sales-Led
9:47 You don’t need a crazy tech stack
10:31 Fix your CRM data ASAP
14:37 Are paid ads the right move for your business?
15:45 The revenue metrics that matter
18:04 LinkedIn Success = Strong ICP

Connect with Mikael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Connect with Chris - https://www.linkedin.com/in/thechrisroche/

Frank S. Pierce (3x CMO with enterprise sales expertise in Financial Services, Retail and Tech) joined the show to discuss how agencies can get out of the SMB space and secure upmarket clients. 

While Frank started out in Marketing and has held 3 CMO roles, his latest career accolades are mostly in the realm of enterprise sales. As a marketer, he sat in on many client calls - which ultimately helped him understand the market better and got him interested in moving on to sales. Over the years, Frank has noticed that the salespeople who succeed no matter the circumstances are the ones who take their preparation very seriously.

Tune into the full episode to learn how to sell into F500 companies!

HIGHLIGHTS:

0:00 Intro
1:13 Three time CMO journey
2:53 How Frank went into enterprise sales
4:35 Preparation is everything in sales 
7:55 How to effectively multithread 
10:12 Identifying the right stakeholders
12:31 Be nice to the assistants! 
13:49 The Enterprise Sales framework
17:01 Figure out what really matters 

Connect with Mikael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Connect with Frank - https://www.linkedin.com/in/frankspierce/

Today’s episode welcomes John Jantsch, Founder and CEO of Duct Tape Marketing - a consultancy that helps Small & Local Business Owners, Professional Services providers and Consultants streamline their marketing approach, increase revenue and scale strategically by providing a proven, practical and simple system called Duct Tape Marketing.

Big businesses have the resources to craft bespoke and intricate strategies, while SMB’s often need to rely on tactics and do a ton of guesswork. John knew that this needed to change, so he built a repeatable strategic framework that would help small businesses approach their marketing efforts strategically. This change has led his clients to dramatic growth and allowed them to transition out of the founder-led go-to-market stage.

Strategy is a difficult concept to sell. Instead of relying on output metrics and deliverables, a strategic engagement requires experimentation, adaptability and effort from both sides of the table. John suggests taking a consultative approach, where you outline how their pain is impacted by deeper problems than just tactical misalignment or the lack of a new tool.

If you’re looking to earn the trust of big businesses, simply sending out email campaigns without a strong brand strategy won’t cut it. In order to succeed, you have to be able to build trust autonomously - either through strategic partnerships or events/content collaboration where you can display your expertise without turning it into a sales pitch.

Tune into the full episode to learn more on why strategic marketing always prevails!

HIGHLIGHTS:
02:24 How to approach working with SMB’s
04:12 You should lead with strategy
06:07 Why fractional marketing?
08:50 How to become a strategy-driven agency
10:05 Why small businesses matter
11:50 Teaching strategy to small businesses
15:04 Close big deals when you’re small
18:11 Standing out in a crowded market

Connect with John - www.linkedin.com/in/ducttapemarketing/
Connect with Mikael - www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Alex Glenn (CEO of Partnerhub®) has worn many hats during his career. Started out as an agency owner, moved into SaaS, pivoted to consulting, and then he started a partnerships community where a member of the group expressed their operational pains that ultimately led to the inception of Partnerhub®. Now they’ve scaled to 3000+ companies with no signs of stopping any time soon.

The value of partnerships is similar to what a client referral brings - you’re starting sales conversations with people who trust you by proxy. It’s what 80% of users value Partnerhub® for, as the standard handshake partnership is typically not very fruitful due to a misalignment of goals and a lack of an action plan. Alex’s company solves this by vetting their clients, matching the right companies and activating partnerships instead of letting them dwindle.

The movement of adding Partnerships to your go-to-market strategy was largely pioneered by the tech industry. In fact, the term “Channel Partner” was coined by hardware providers to help them expand into foreign markets. SaaS adopted this approach, but with the intention of partnering with other software vendors to help solve large problems by building out infrastructures together. Agencies often build their services on top of these infrastructures, which means reselling and extra enablement become worthwhile activities. 

The purpose of Partnerhub® isn’t just to connect resellers - their goal is to create true partnerships through strategic matchmaking and ongoing guidance that helps their clients turn relationships into outcomes. One of their clients has over 3000 partners in their network (300 active) which is impossible to manage without a sophisticated system in place, and becomes a true pain in case a partner manager leaves their role. 

Tune into the full episode to learn more on how to build fruitful partnerships!

HIGHLIGHTS: 
01:13 What led Alex to found Partnerhub®
03:27 Do you really need a partner platform?
06:16 Different types of partnerships 
12:30 The Partnerhub® Journey
17:12 Partner Directory & Partner CRM
19:21 How to build fruitful partnerships 

Connect with Alex - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-glenn/
Connect with Mikael - www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Rob Da Costa (Business Owner, Agency Coach & Mentor), helps agency owners grow their agencies in a sustainable and profitable way. Having started, grew and sold his own agency, he has an in-depth understanding of the challenges agency owners face. 

Back in 1992, Rob was a marketer for early tech companies. They kept trying to hire agencies but always ran into issues finding ones that could really move the needle. At the age of 24, Rob quit his job and started his first agency - CIT PR - which he grew to 25 staff members with revenues of £1.5m. That led him to a successful exit in 2003, after which he leveraged his experience to start a coaching business in 2007.

Most small agency owners get stuck being the delivery person instead of actually leading and growing the agency. To realistically start growing, agency owners need to change their focus towards structure, delegation and productization. After the 10+ employee mark, a leadership team also becomes a necessity to sustainably expand, as otherwise you’re split between internal and client strategy which causes one or the other to be neglected.

Tune into the full episode to learn how to turn your agency into a self-sufficient, profitable and sustainable business!

HIGHLIGHTS:

0:00 Intro

2:47 How Rob sold his agency and became a coach
6:17 Why people choose to hire Rob
10:45 How to build a self-sufficient agency 
14:21 You need a leadership team
16:12 What if you can’t afford to hire?
19:51 Rob's best growth hack

Connect with Mikael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Connect with Rob - https://www.linkedin.com/in/robdacosta/

Jeff Meade (President of MEADE) is an expert in agency positioning. He managed to grow his agency beyond $20 million in revenue prior to moving into agency coaching.

An agency wasn’t the initial vision. At first, Jeff and his co-founders were trying to operate as a consultancy. They quickly learned that a team of 20-somethings simply don’t have the domain expertise to sell consulting services to a Gen Y audience, so they pivoted to an agency model instead.

After growing their agency to 8 figures, they wanted to go international. While they had good conversations with potential partners, they fumbled the offers due to inexperience. They took it as a learning experience and Jeff moved on to coach agencies on how to nail their positioning.

The real battle when trying to settle on your position in the market is really understanding who are the folks you can help and why should they believe in your ability to perform. When people come to Jeff, typically they have a loose position and aren’t at a stage where going all-in on lead generation makes sense. To identify your focus point, you need to stop looking at your previous clients as your north star and really figure out the right profile outside of your existing rolodex.

Tune into the full episode to learn how to differentiate your agency!

HIGHLIGHTS:
0:00 Intro
3:58 Getting to $20+ Million
7:31 The impact of packaging the right offer
10:47 How Jeff moved into coaching
13:03 How to think about positioning
21:24 Grow via thought leadership

Connect with Jeff - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffmeade/ 

Connect with Mikael - www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Andy Crestodina (Co-Founder and CMO at Orbit Media) is an expert at SEO, Analytics, AI, Content Strategy and Website Optimization. He’s gathered a huge following consisting of 100k+ LinkedIn followers and newsletter subscribers. He’s been publishing since 2007, and nowadays speaks on 100+ stages per year. These efforts have enabled his team to generate $8 Million in yearly revenue with no outbound motion and 0 ad spend.

To say that content marketing has evolved over the last 20 years would be an understatement. One tactic that has always worked and still works today is to publish on other, established platforms when you’re new and need to generate initial traction.

Video is all the rage right now, but unless you’re selling something super transactional with widespread appeal, you need a solid strategy to make it into a real revenue generator. As an agency, you should utilize the tactic of BOFU content to help build trust with those who have been burned by other service providers.

Tune into the full episode to learn more insights from a true content marketing master!

HIGHLIGHTS:
0:00 Intro
4:02 The evolution of content marketing
7:03 Is video worth the investment?
10:10 Invest in owned media 
13:15 AI for content - hype or the real deal?
20:07 How good can AI really get?
22:44 Grow through variated content 

Connect with Andy - https://www.linkedin.com/in/andycrestodina/
Connect with Mikael - www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Marcel Petitpas (Co-Founder and CEO of Parakeeto), has helped 100+ agencies measure & improve their profitability through consulting and technology. Some of their clients have been able to decrease their overtime AND grow 90%+ YOY. He also hosts The Agency Profit Podcast - the only podcast that tackles the topic of agency profitability.

Agencies often have a hard time managing their cash. Between ever-decreasing margins due to oversaturation, clients expecting additional free deliverables and employee productivity not always matching the job description, owners struggle when trying to figure out a way to exit survival mode. Marcel points to clean, comprehensive data being step 1 of figuring out your true financial situation. Over the years he’s seen a lot of agencies fail even though they’ve really tried to improve their current state - and the number 1 issue has always been bad data.

Parakeeto built two different products that failed before adding a professional services wing and really exploding. A lot of what makes great SaaS tools - proper implementation, continuous feedback-driven roadmaps and a true focus on outcomes - is easier to build through a service.

Tune into the full episode to learn how to increase your agency's profit!

HIGHLIGHTS:
0:00 Intro
3:11 Marcel’s entrepreneurial journey
5:21 What does Parakeeto do?
7:15 Building a product for yourself 
9:12 2 Failed SaaS products and the problem with data
13:41 Embrace professional services to grow your SaaS
17:40 How to 5x your agencies profitability
22:32 Grow your business by borrowing an audience 

Access the Agency Profitability Toolkit here: https://parakeeto.com/toolkit/?utm_source=Podcast&utm_medium=GuestAppearance&utm_campaign=Mikael+Dia

Access the Parakeeto Foundations Course here:  https://parakeeto.lpages.co/the-foundations-course/?utm_source=Podcast&utm_medium=GuestAppearance&utm_campaign=Mikael+Dia

Connect with Mikael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/
Connect with Marcel - https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcelpetitpas/

Jake Hundley (CEO of Evergrow Marketing, Host of The Agency Growth Podcast) operates in the landscaping & lawn care industry. To date, 100% of their business has come inbound - which is a dream state for most agency owners. 

Jake and his co-founder Cody both worked at agencies prior to founding their own, and they recommend doing the same to anyone looking to become an owner. When they set up their flow, Jake and Cody picked tools that were easily scalable and repeatable, as productization was their number one priority from the start. 

Even though local lead gen is their speciality, they still reject clients outside of the landscaping and lawn care industries, as their internal processes aren’t fully fleshed out for other industries and they see no value in trying to expand their offer due to how many operational difficulties custom offers bring.

Tune into the full episode to learn how to better productize your service!

HIGHLIGHTS:
0:00 Intro
4:24 Revenue retention for seasonal businesses
5:42 You need to prioritize scalability
8:14 Different industries require different budgets
10:13 How Jake closes new business
12:41 Time is the only finite resource
15:36 The profit-first system
18:12 Jake’s growth plans

Connect with Mikael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/
Connect with Jake - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jake-hundley/

Phil Ranta (COO at Fixated) is a pioneer of the digital media revolution, working as a pre-YouTube professional web video producer in 2005, video content app creator before the smartphone revolution in 2007, an early exec in the MCN boom with two successful exits, and as the Head Gaming Creators at Facebook and Mobcrush, driving the live streaming and the creator-driven media paradigm shift. Phil joins the Funnel Vision Show to talk on founder-led brands and how to build one that generates revenue.

Becoming a content creator is the most popular career choice among Gen-Z,  and in such a competitive market you can no longer just “wing it” and expect exceptional results. Phil refers to it as the ultimate get rich slow scheme, as you need to combine technical creator skills, creative innovations and a consistent publishing schedule to even have a chance at making a career out of it. 

Tune into the full episode to learn how to thrive in the creator economy! 

HIGHLIGHTS:

0:00 Intro
2:56 How does the creator economy work?
5:14 How the creator economy has evolved
7:32 The modern creator playbook
10:02 What got Phil into the creator world
12:42 What does Fixated do?
15:03 What platforms are crushing it in 2025?
18:25 Success is not a guarantee
20:35 Building a LinkedIn following

Connect with Mikael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Connect with Phil - https://www.linkedin.com/in/philranta/

Jason Swenk built and sold an 8-figure agency and moved on to coaching agency owners on how to scale to 7-8+ Figures with life balance in mind. 10 Years ago he started the Smart Agency Masterclass podcast, which is now ranked at the top 1% of marketing podcasts, helping his business reach and help over 20,000 agency owners. 3 years ago his newest venture started buying agencies and now they’ve grown to over $30 million in revenue.

As an agency grows, so does your ability to close more lucrative deals. When Jason started, he was selling websites for $500 with no real science behind the pricing. Over the years he went upmarket and secured website deals as large as $1,000,000 for a website for LegalZoom - a single contract value that many agencies don’t even dream of.

There’s a good reason why most people don’t actually want to run an agency - the insane amount of stress. In the early days, your job as an agency owner is to do literally everything, which makes running your agency into an insufferable job that you hate 80% of the time. When Jason was going through that phase, he was very very close to quitting. He took a job interview with NASCAR, during which they asked him a simple question - what is it that you truly enjoy doing? This led him to rethink the way he approached his agency's structure and build out a model that works for him, unlocking a business model that could scale to 8 figures.

Scaling past the 7 figure mark requires a huge shift in your organizational structure. Jason  looked at two things - who do I need to hire and who do I need to become. Transitioning from the Founder role to the CEO role is a journey that ultimately unlocks scale, but it also is incredibly difficult to let go from controlling every task and deliverable. It’s even normal to feel a bit depressed when you realize that your team is steering the boat by themselves, and your input is no longer needed on every single decision. Once the adjustment period passes though, your life turns around and you’ll finally feel like an agency owner, not an overworked agency employee.

Tune into the full episode to learn the Jason Swenk journey!

HIGHLIGHTS: 

01:21 Jason’s journey from exit to coaching
02:48 Selling a million dollar webpage
06:31 Stop hating your own agency
09:48 How to scale past 7 figures
16:50 Making that first big hire
21:34 The 8 systems to agency growth

Connect with Jason - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonswenk/

Connect with Mikael - www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/
Check out Jason's resources & coaching - https://www.agencymastery360.com/

Bianca Blake (Co-Founder of Klickrr) is an expert in leveraging text-messaging as a marketing channel. 

Texting is a heavily underrated marketing channel. Before founding Klickrr, Bianca ran marketing for various corporations. After getting fed up with the corporate life, she found a few contractor opportunities that ultimately grew into a consultancy she ran for 5+ years.

Bianca’s text messaging playbook consists of a high quality list segmented based on relevance, that you consistently engage with by sending messages that are below 160 characters without any special characters. From there, you need to analyze the data and optimize accordingly.

Tune into the full episode to learn how to turn text messaging into a competitive marketing advantage!

HIGHLIGHTS:

0:00 Intro
4:16 Bianca’s journey into entrepreneurship
8:07 The Do’s and Dont’s of text message marketing 
12:39 The Text Message Marketing playbook
18:07 Where does text messaging fit into your strategy?

Connect with Mikael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Connect with Bianca - https://www.linkedin.com/in/biancablake/

Joshua Tiernan (Founder of No Code Founders, Tiny Empires and Chief Growth Officer Network) is a no-code development expert who’s built and sold 4 companies. He joins Mikael Dia to discuss..

A no-code business is hard to define. Most of these businesses fall under the SaaS category, and are typically built using platforms such as Webflow and Bubble which don’t require the level of technical expertise needed to build software from scratch. It can also be used to describe communities, newsletters and blogs that aren’t attached as part of an individual businesses marketing strategy, but instead exist as independent beings.

Before discovering no-code, Joshua had tried to launch a few businesses, all of which didn’t succeed. With time he learned how to hack together different software tools to craft new solutions, which is a type of no-code development. Bubble was a real gamechanger, allowing him to build his first business that was acquired only 6 months later.

Joshua’s community has been active for 5 years and has gathered over 20,000 members. He hasn’t been intentional about marketing, but that being said he’s been consistent on organic social media channels. His first few thousand members found out about the community through Joshua interviewing other community members. He then started partnering with no-code platforms that helped spread awareness and started building out user generated content, which spread the word even quicker and got them to the 20,000 mark. 

Tune into the full episode to learn what it takes to build a 20,000 member no-code community!

HIGHLIGHTS:
0:00 Intro
1:56 What is no-code business?
4:03 Who should consider no-code?
5:41 Joshua’s first exit
6:59 How Agencies work with Joshua
9:18 Growing the no-code community
12:19 How to keep your community engaged 
13:45 The biggest selling point of communities 

Connect with Joshua - https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuatiernan/

Connect with Mikael - www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Today’s episode welcomes Kyle Vamvouris, CEO of Vouris. They help B2B SaaS and service companies build their SDR and AE teams. Vouris uses a data-first approach to structure teams, optimize performance, and to ultimately develop a repeatable sales process. Kyle has worked with over 70 B2B companies, generated $100m+ in sales, helped raise over $280m in venture capital and written 3 sales books.

Improving your sales through tactical means can only get you so far. When consulting startups, Kyle has noticed that many sales organizations fail to become data-driven and end up building unnecessary bottlenecks by focusing on the wrong growth paths. 

After a career of selling everything from transactional products to B2B software, Kyle went out on his own and started Vouris. At the time he had 2 small kids and he was the sole financial provider for his family. Even when he secured his first 2 clients, he still couldn’t afford to pay himself a salary. As he kept investing back into the business, a year later he was quickly hit with the opposite problem - spending 39 hours/week on client calls alone. 

Once you’re past the stage where you can sustainably service all your clients alone, the logical next step is to start hiring. Kyle initially wanted his new team to take over client deliverables, but it quickly backfired. When you’re hiring someone to deliver on your behalf, you can’t expect them to take over what you’re doing without proper guidelines, systems and operational procedures. 

In a service based business, you should focus on hiring those who can fill in the gaps between the business functions that you’re best at. Kyle’s agency journey improved significantly after he finally filled the operational part of his business and got to focus on sales and marketing. 

Tune into the full episode to learn how to build an agency from 0!

HIGHLIGHTS: 
01:58 Should sellers be data-driven? 
03:42 Kyle’s sales journey 
06:39 Building a sales agency
08:33 The challenges of building a team
09:44 How to make the right hires
11:34 The value of experience 
17:24 Talk to your customers!

Connect with Kyle - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kylevamvouris/

Connect with Mikael - www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Ken Fitzpatrick led the Digital Marketing Institute (DMI) - the largest global digital marketing training and certification body with 75k+ certifications and 330k+ members - for over 11 years until he moved on to a new role at BPP 2 months ago. He’s also led companies to 3 successful exits.

The focus of DMI was always  to create a standard that raises the bar for digital marketing skills - and over the years they achieved that goal. The business was initially hard to scale as an in-person model, but once they transitioned to a fully online service they finally unlocked scale. After that they hired established executives who helped move them even further until they hit their biggest growth spurt by partnering with the American Marketing Association.

AI is really causing shockwaves throughout the education industry. Ken isn’t quite ready to take a stance on its potential impact, but for now he sees it as a positive that can reduce a lot of the gruntwork that goes into a marketer's daily workflow. Marketers should embrace AI as a tool, not as a single source of truth for all of their insights and knowledge.

Tune into the full episode to hear Ken’s journey running DMI!

HIGHLIGHTS:
0:00 Intro
2:15 Why people turn to DMI
3:51 Ken’s journey with the DMI
6:01 11 Years of challenges
9:24 The role of AI in marketing education
14:41 Universities vs Certificates 
16:27 Ken’s CEO Playbook

Connect with Mikael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/
Connect with Ken - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenfitzpatrickdmi/

Paul Boag (Founding Partner of Boagworks) is a CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) expert whose goal is to help companies better understand the new generation of connected consumers. Over the last 30 years he’s worked with hundreds of clients, including huge names such as Puma and Shell.

Many of today's marketers had a social media account by the time they were in middle school. Paul started working in marketing back when the internet was a completely new concept. During those super early days he got obsessed with user experience and the concept of optimizing the way we serve our potential buyers. 

What really attracted Paul to UX was the opportunity to decrease friction for users and ultimately lead to more sales. While the rest of the market was trying to be deceptive and entice FOMO, Paul was always focused on serving the user - which is a great way to stand out.

CRO and UX are essentially the same thing. Paul likes to challenge the traditional thinking of prioritizing the businesses goals over the users experience, as a great user experience will ultimately drive outcomes either way - and with a smiling buyer on the other end of the transaction.

Tune into the full episode to learn how to master UX & CRO!

HIGHLIGHTS:

0:00 Intro

2:53 Marketing before the internet
5:03 The beginnings of UX
7:55 Truly serving the user
11:01 CRO vs UX
20:29 Decrease their cognitive load 

Connect with Mikael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Connect with Paul - https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulboag/

This is a snippet from our podcast episode with Jhana Li. For the full conversation, tune in to the last episode of Funnel Vision!

Stephanie Kelly (Chief Product Officer at Styles) started her career in marketing and communications before transitioning to executive coaching. After 15 years in marketing, including working with boutique agencies and in crisis communications, she experienced a health challenge that led to a profound career shift. She became passionate about helping people understand their behavioral tendencies and how to leverage them effectively.

In this episode, Mikael and Stephanie discuss the Styles assessment, a psychometric tool that analyzes how people behave under pressure. Unlike personality tests, Styles focuses on biological responses and behavioral tendencies. The assessment identifies four main styles: Control (visionaries focused 3-5 years ahead), Influence (relationship-focused people concerned with the present), Power (builders focused on the next 90 days), and Authority (data-driven analysts who look to the past to make sense of the future).

Stephanie explains how understanding these styles can dramatically improve marketing effectiveness by helping professionals tailor their communication, pitches, and content to match their audience's natural tendencies. She also shares practical ways to identify someone's style through observation and how to leverage this knowledge to build stronger teams and more effective marketing strategies.

Tune into the full episode to learn how to better understand yourself as a marketer! 

HIGHLIGHTS:
0:00 Intro

1:10 How Stephanie went into coaching

3:31 From Marketing to Product 

5:01 What makes Styles different

11:20 How to use assessments to become a better marketer

15:07 Have better conversations by assessing the other side
19:32 How different styles behave online 

This is a snippet from our podcast episode with Tim Kilroy. For the full conversation, tune into the last episode of The Funnel Vision Show!

Marquis Murray (Founder & CEO of Cirface) specializes in elevating the operational efficiency of Marketing & eCommerce teams by streamlining their processes and maximizing technology utilization. He’s also an Asana partner and helps clients get the most out of their platform.

With his background in corporate operations, Marquis quickly realized that marketing agencies aren’t typically super efficient when it comes to systems. One of his freelance clients brought him in-house, where he learned that he can fully deliver for their clients. Naturally this led to Marquis starting his own agency. He knew that scrupulous documentation was his best chance at gaining a competitive advantage, so he started getting serious about organization and delegation.

When Marquis starts working with a new client, he uses a specific playbook to turn teams from silos into true operators. He calls it the 4 D Framework - Discovery, Design, Deployment and Documentation. This requires a lot of communication, experimentation and teamwork to figure out what makes sense and what needs to stop. Once the workflows look good and everybody agrees, then they document everything and provide ongoing support to make sure things are working.

Tune into the full episode to learn how to improve your agency's operations!

HIGHLIGHTS:

0:00 Intro
3:55 From freelancer to agency owner
8:41 Eliminate burnout = eliminate friction
11:53 the 4 D Framework
15:49 Deployment is key 
20:39 Start a YouTube channel

Connect with Mikael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Connect with Marquis - https://www.linkedin.com/in/marquisamurray/

Troy Dean (Founder of Agency Mavericks) helps agency owners expand, get more time, and sometimes even leave their businesses successfully. The work they do generates between $50 - $100 Million per year for their clients. He’s also one of the founding members of Funnelytics.

Agency owners are often the most busy and stressed out entrepreneurs you’ll find, although it doesn’t have to be that way. Troy has identified that a lack of structure, processes and confidence is what leads to agency owners feeling stuck and unhappy, and all of that can be built out to help owners reclaim their time and energy.

Troy realized that agencies have a huge structural problem back when he was growing his own. When he started delegating work to his VA, he noticed that without proper documentation it was almost impossible to have them work autonomously. He started by creating videos, which would then be turned into workflow documents - and it worked great. Troy then started sharing these workflows with the Wordpress community, which is how he started gaining traction with his next ideal client profile. 

Tune into the full episode to learn more on how to master documentation and reclaim your time!

HIGHLIGHTS:

0:00 Intro

2:35 $50 - $100 Million/Year
5:00 How Agency Mavericks began 
7:22 Scale with confidence  
10:44 The real reason most agencies fail
14:08 Preventing distractions is key
16:42 You don’t need more leads
20:28 The paid discovery method
24:27 How much should you charge?

Connect with Mikael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Connect with Troy - https://www.linkedin.com/in/troydean/

This is a snippet from the last episode of the Funnel Vision Show with Kara Redman (Founder and CEO of Backroom), who has helped founders launch startups, build brands and secure venture capital for the last 10 years.

For the full episode check out the previous episode!

Robin Waite (Founder of CourseApp and Fearless Business) helps agency owners stop leaving money on the table, fix their pricing and start growing their businesses to it’s true potential.

When Robin was running his web design agency he noticed that there was a ton of friction in their overall process, with deals taking up to 3 months to finalize and ultimately closing without profit. Frustrated with the status quo, he came up with a 1 day branding workshop flow that quickly became a huge success. This made him realize that speed of delivery was the ultimate profit hack and got him 40 new, profitable clients.

The answer to your agency's profit problems is almost always productization. Productizing your service isn’t a new concept, but it’s one that many agencies struggle to implement. Robin has identified that the main issue is that agency owners often base their rates according to their own internal value system, which typically isn’t a reflection of your clients value system. When implementing productization, you absolutely need to have a clear understanding of the timeline in which you can deliver - and that number should be as low as possible. 

Tune into the full episode to learn how to stop leaving money on the table!

HIGHLIGHTS:

0:00 Intro
4:09 Speed of delivery matters 
9:25 12x deal size opportunity 
16:17 The key to pricing right
19:32 “it depends” does it really?
23:31 Grow through partnerships 

Connect with Mikael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Connect with Robin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinmwaite/

Full Episode Here - https://youtu.be/85hOIwCkTN4

Jordan Daniel Bell (Founder/CEO of Agency Bell) has managed $100+ Million in ad spend and currently helps companies get more customers with AI-powered advertising. 

Jordan has been running agencies for 10+ years. During this time he came to the conclusion that the ads space desperately needs to make better targeting decisions and a way to gather and dissect that data. They found that the data sets were very scattered and it was truly difficult to make the right data-driven decisions. They started focusing on attribution data, which led them to build their own automations.

His favorite piece of tech was always Zapier, and he dedicated a significant amount of time  mastering the platform and all the benefits it brings. The biggest value add from the get go was seamlessly getting information into CRM. This proved to be no easy task, as the statuses can vary heavily and CRM hygiene is difficult to maintain. 

Tune into the full episode to learn how to automate your advertising flow!

HIGHLIGHTS:

0:00 Intro
4:20 Make better targeting decisions
8:21 The right ad tech stack
12:29 Data-driven ad campaigns
21:35 Spend more time talking to customers 

Connect with Mikael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Connect with Jordan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanbell/

Brian Ahmadi (CEO of Maximum Profits Agency) started his agency journey after many years in the US Navy. He helped his first batch of clients - bars -  manage their social media accounts for $500/month and free drinks for his crew. They quickly spread through word of mouth and started getting clients left and right. Deployments halted their progress for a year, but once they resumed, they got a house together and success followed.

At Maximum Profits Agency, every team member is cross-functional. Brian believes in a structure where every employee is equipped with the skillset to fill any role. He also advises employees to choose their own preferred field and become masters at that individual craft while asking other team members for support in case they have specific skill gaps.

Tune into the episode to learn how US Navy Veterans run their agency!

HIGHLIGHTS:

0:00 Intro
3:04 From US Navy to running an agency
6:03 The value of in-person sales
9:04 Turning employees into founders
11:21 Focusing on everyone's strengths 
16:22 Find people that you can trust
20:01 Just get to work!

Connect with Mikael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Connect with Brian - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-a-6a6393b7/

Audra Carpenter (Founder of ATEC Dynamics and zindo+co) is an expert in utilizing AI in marketing. She’s worked with companies across the whole spectrum - from early stage startups all the way to the Fortune 500, providing services such as website building, AI implementation and overall strategy.

When it comes to AI implementation, Audra started with figuring out which parts of her daily workflow could be augmented to either reduce the time spent or automate completely. Now she’s combining multiple tools to create content at scale. What used to take 2 days now takes 10 minutes to draft, but Audra still recommends that you make your own edits and adjust the content so you won’t jeopardize your brand with low quality content.

Tune into the full episode to learn new ways how to use AI in marketing!

HIGHLIGHTS:
0:00 Intro
3:01 What’s the state of AI in marketing today?
6:41 The current state of AI in marketing
8:10 Creating AI content at scale
9:36 How to make AI sound on brand
11:49 Audra’s new content creation product
13:06 How the Marketing role is changing
17:41 Don’t get replaced by AI

Connect with Mikael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Connect with Audra - https://www.linkedin.com/in/audracarpenter/

Shaun Clark (Co-Founder of HighLevel [GoHighLevel]) has helped countless agencies grow their revenue through white-label software and service solutions.

Agencies can get hesitant when thinking of implementing new technology for their clients, as with the software evolving they can take over the clients needs fully and make the agency redundant. Shaun heard the market when they encountered this issue, which is why he became heavily invested in white-labeling. 

The platform that Shaun and his team built really took off as more agencies saw the value behind a mediator between them and software platforms. Their go-to-market motion was kind of an afterthought at first, as they realized that hiring the level of creativity it takes to stand out through an internal marketing effort would be extremely difficult. Word-of-mouth and affiliates have ultimately carried their marketing effort to this day.

Tune into the full episode to learn the journey of GoHighLevel!

HIGHLIGHTS:

0:00 Intro

4:23 SaaS stealing agency clients? 
6:30 How HighLevel took off
9:00 Word-of-mouth and affiliate mastery 
11:16 The new CRM world
14:39 GoHighLevel exits
17:10 Grow through one-to-many

Connect with Mikael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

Connect with Shaun - https://www.gohighlevel.com/main-page

Mate Prgin (Founder & CEO of Enzuzo) is a data privacy expert, joining Mikael to help marketers transition out of the world of readily available, private customer data. Now that regulations no longer allow you to track everything that your ideal client profile does on the web, the industry specialists need to rapidly adjust or risk becoming completely ineffective almost overnight.

With the loss of third-party cookies, you should start prioritizing first-party data strategies, have better privacy measures, and ensure compliance. Europe is getting hit first - with Google Consent Mode driving a loss between 30% - 90% of their funnel visibility. Enzuzo is enabling agencies with a new source of revenue, derived from complying with the new rules.

Investing in compliance is a scary thought. No matter how well you do it, you’ll lose a bit of visibility at first. Mate suggests that you really think about the placement and content of your opt-in banner and optimize to drive people to hit “yes”. If they choose to click “no”, that data is still important to help you adjust further. The behavioural model doesn’t serve smaller websites well, as in order for it to kick in, you need at least 100k visitors per month.

Tune into the full episode to learn how to thrive in this new world of marketing data!

HIGHLIGHTS: 

01:10 There’s a problem with data…
02:12 Mate’s story
03:50 How Google is killing your visibility
08:48 Optimize your banner
10:36 What happens when they click “no”
13:31 The future of marketing data 
16:25 Are data scrapers doomed?

Connect with Mate - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mate-prgin-680498/

Connect with Mikael - www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

David Meerman Scott (Entrepreneur, Advisor, Keynote Speaker and WSJ Best-selling Author) began his entrepreneurial journey in 2002 - at the cusp of the internet revolution. Now he’s written 12 books that have sold millions of copies, done marketing and business presentations on all 7 continents, advised countless clients and been on HubSpot’s advisory board since 2007.

The tipping point that caused David to move into advising happened back when he was the VP of marketing at Newsedge - a small information company. They went on to be acquired by Thomson Reuters who weren’t too keen on David’s perspective that online marketing was the future, so they let him go. Within a few months he was making more money than ever before - which ultimately solidified David’s decision as the right one for him.

David saw a huge opportunity when Google went real time. Nobody was talking about it, and he leveraged it to again gain an unfair advantage. Now that AI is starting to take a significant chunk of the search platform marketshare, David recommends that you familiarize yourself with Perplexity.ai as it very well could be the future.

Tune into the full episode to learn real insights from a marketing expert with 30+ years of experience!

HIGHLIGHTS:
0:00 Intro
3:29 David’s career journey
7:01 Pioneering the digital marketing movement
8:26 Getting fired and becoming an advisor
12:01 When Google went real time
15:43 The real value of AI in marketing
19:53 You need to tie back your content to your product 

Connect with Mikael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/
Connect with David - https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmeermanscott/

This episode is a snippet from a podcast with Liana Ling - the Lead Gen Queen and CEO of AdSkills -  an expert of Meta Ads specializing in helping coaches and info product sellers drive down their Cost Per Lead (CPL).

For the full conversation, check out the previous episode of the Funnel Vision Show!