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Everybody has a Jesse Gilmore agency transformation coach and founder of Niche and Control, author of the Agency Owners Guide to Freedom and the creator of leverage for growth. I’m the host of the leverage for growth podcast, and I know that in order for you to scale your agency successfully, there are multiple shifts that need to happen within your mindset, skill set, and leadership style.
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I am on a mission to interview marketing and PR agency owners on their journey to six, seven and eight figures and leverage the lessons from their journey to save you time, energy, and money to get your agency to the next level. If you find value in these episodes, watch the case study video to learn more about leverage for growth and how we successfully scale agencies at niche and control e-commerce assets that is niche in control.
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Decomp case study.
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US.
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Thank you for having me, Jesse. Looking forward to the combo.
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Sure. Our agency is a little bit over 60 years old. We were founded in Baltimore, Maryland, back in 1964. My father acquired the firm back in the late 80s, and, ran, the team for about 35 years. Came on about, 12 years ago to, take things over and, hopefully grow this thing into something a little bit bigger historically.
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We’ve, you know, delivered traditional, advertising and marketing services. So, you know, your television, radio, print stuff. Commercial production, you know, design and layout services. However, that’s kind of morphed in recent years. And, you know, we’re really at this point focused on growing this team into something more than what it has been traditionally. Our service offerings have changed and evolved over the years.
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I go to market strategy. How we acquire business, retain business, and then, you know, ultimately, you know, serve our, our greater community is something that, you know, really been focused on here and, you know, my last ten years on board. So, it’s kind of who we’ve been up to this point.
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Yeah.
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Yeah. Just a few. Just a few. I will say, you know, I was very, very fortunate to have the opportunity, you know, from my father to come on board after what he had kind of built and the foundation he had worked so hard to establish, you know, over the course of the the 35 years he was at the helm.
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Obviously, you know, having that opportunity was one thing, but also just the, you know, the confidence in him. And, you know, really the rest of the team to be able to do something special with this after 60 plus years. Fun fact, we are one of Baltimore’s oldest and, original advertising agencies. Which is pretty cool.
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Pretty cool. So maybe something to be proud of.
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Yeah, roughly about two and a half or so. I’m coming up on 13. Yeah. Yeah. I was I worked for, I was on the media side and media sales for a large media, publication company and distributor, across the world. And, enjoyed that corporate experience, kind of, and what that was all about.
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But I got bit by the entrepreneur about when I was 13 years old and, pretty quickly into the, the corporate world kind of kind of realized that, you know, one day, you know, been working for myself and, and being a servant leader to others was really what I wanted to be. And what I wanted to do.
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So.
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So
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father didn’t have an exit strategy. My father was an owner operator. You know, he he grinded from sunup to sundown to not just support our family, but the families that, you know, we’re tied to the agency, through, you know, his staff and, I think that, you know, as I came on board, I kind of had my head down, did what I knew best, which was mostly sales and developing new business for the firm.
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And then once he kind of brought me into operations a little bit and kind of showed me how things worked. That’s really where I really started to kind of, become excited and, and motivated to like and kind of felt challenged to sort of like, all right, he’s got something cool here. What can I build on top of this?
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Like, I’m always kind of forward thinking, immediately saw there to be opportunity for a firm, you know, with this type of history and the type of people that we have our, our team and our personnel, was just proud to be a part of it. So, in short, to answer your question, when I came on board, I think the idea was that, hey, maybe this could be an exit strategy for my father, and he’d have something to do with the shop, when he was ready to retire.
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But it really didn’t hit me and sink in that. Wow. This is a really cool opportunity that I was salivating for. So probably, you know, 3 or 4 years and since then, since then, you know, my father has retired. Acquired the agency a few years ago. So that, you know, we’ve we’ve made it through a fairly, I would say challenging transition, both good and the bad.
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Very fortunate that, you know, I have the family that I do and that, you know, they, like I said before, trusted me, but also gave me the leash to, to do my thing, spread my wings and, and sail forward. You know, my father always said, like, I don’t have the answers to everything. And I certainly didn’t as I was as I was doing my thing and trying to grow this place.
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You’re not either, but, you know, surround yourself with good people and and, you know, be a good leader to them and, you know, it’ll it’ll pay back. So.
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Well, yeah. I think that it’s one thing to feel or it’s one thing to say we’re going to change or we’re going to do some things differently around here. Maybe change the way that we approach certain projects or certain relationships with clients or vendors for that, for that matter. I think it’s another thing to to feel that change and actually see it in transition is it’s kind of, I guess, a fancy word for change, really.
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Nobody likes it and it’s always difficult and, you know, yes. Humans changes. It’s tough. It’s difficult. But, you know, I felt that I kind of had a little bit of a problem saying yes to everything and, and trying to and kind of having this sense of like, all right, I’ll figure it out. Like, yep, put it on my desk.
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I’ll get to it, I’ll get to it, I’ll get to it. And I think that worked for a little while. Until, you know, we started bringing in more clients and, and more work. And I finally kind of had a little bit of a realization that I needed, you know, the best thing for me was to learn when to say no, right?
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And learn when to delegate and learn when to assign responsibility and and I think at that point, as we were going through some of that transition, once I realized that I was able to kind of almost, go on a neutral for a little bit, figure out which direction was my next best step, if I was going to begin to delegate more and assign more to the current team, in addition to new people that we needed to hire and bring on board, that that was going to be my true value to the to to the company.
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And and on top of that, you know, being able to go and go out and sell again and represent the firm on the front end, and be the face of things to develop more business and more relationships in the market. I wouldn’t be able to do that if I was kind of touching everything along the way.
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So kind of like I said, with my father, owner operator built a great business, and it was it is awesome to to have that opportunity to build from the transition helped me realize if I truly wanted to achieve what I want, I needed to begin to delegate and, be more of, I would say high level leader.
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And you know, what the firm had experienced in, in previous years.
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If I was to look back on things and. And, I guess determine, like what? What I know now, what I. What do I wish I knew back then? Maybe from the get go, it’s kind of tied to what I was saying to you before, as, like, you know, saying everything yes to everything can really dilute, your impact.
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And, you know, when you’re trying to grow something, whether it’s from the ground up or build on top of something like what we’re trying to do here. Especially for all of us who naturally like to take ownership of things, it’s easy to overextend ourselves. It’s easy to, like I said before, just say, yes, I can do that because I’ve done it before or because, you know, it’s been, it’s been something that somebody else on the team has done before.
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But really over time and, and it’s tough to use the word trust, you know, right out of the gate with something. But, you know, over time, I have learned to trust others, trust more. The team members set clear boundaries and, you know, really turn around and look at myself and focus my, you know, energy where it actually matters most.
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I don’t think really scaling this business is about just doing more right, saying yes to opportunities and just doing more and more work. I think scaling is about doing doing the right things. And, you know, with the right people here at the company. So I think, you know, learning what I have learned, if somebody would have said to me, hey, approach your day to day with this type of mindset like I just described from, from the get go, that would have been very nice to not have to go through that, that, you know, individual learning curve myself.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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one thing that I wish I had, I’d have kind of maybe known from day one or at least learned earlier than I did, was to just not overthink stuff so much.
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I tend to really put a lot of time into trying to be perfect and trying to make sure that, you know, I’m making the right decision, whether it be on a proposal to a client or, a hiring decision or, you know, a resource, you know, conversation with a staff member of that sort. Like I always I’ve all I’ve always overthought.
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And I kind of wish somebody shook me early along and be like, hey, you’re gonna. No matter what you try, no matter. Perfect. You’re going to. You’re going to fail. You know? It’s it’s natural. And we hear that a lot and everything that we read and stuff. But I think that that would have been cool to just kind of be been shook in the beginning and be like, hey, don’t overthink things too much.
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You know, trust you, trust your gut, trust your experience. Go with it. Sail forward and, you know that now that I really grasp onto that, I’m probably making decisions too quickly. But I’m certainly not, you know, holding myself back, like, I feel like I was for some of those early years.
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the law of diminishing returns where the amount of the amount of effort it takes to get to 60, 70 or 80%, you get to that certain point where you can get feedback or have somebody else come in or, you know, and then there’s a lot of diminishing returns trying to get from the 80 to 100% by yourself.
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Ultimately just takes way longer than it actually is needed. And, how I guess in a pivot, a conversation, because we talked a lot about the delegation piece, let’s just say we we delegate the work to somebody else. And one of the biggest things that I have realized, working with you and talking with you is, that you’re not in kind of like a management role.
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You’re more in, like, a visionary kind of leadership type of role, which is also another kind of switch. When you look at the vision, how do you like what are some of the things that you’ve learned through the communication of your vision to the team? Because you have to be able to communicate things differently than what was happening in the past.
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Just off the cuff, I know this wasn’t on any question, but like, you know, what are some of the things that come up for you for like, the communication
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Yeah. So you’re. You’re totally on that. And I think everybody would agree. Communication is key. And it’s something that whether, you know, someone’s been here for ten, 12, 15 years or, you know, they’re starting next week, it’s something I’m always very clear about discussing with them that, you know,
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if there’s ever a question, if there’s ever something up like, we have to communicate, we’re only as good as a team if we can communicate and,
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connect on things when needed.
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From my experience, I found that, saying things right, whether it be in person or at a meeting or in an email, certainly sets the tone. Right. It it it allows the team to understand what I’m thinking, and perhaps what I’m planning. And I think that based on personality, work style, you know, you know, mindset for future and growth and all of that depending on, you know, the team member, I think some people, you know, latch on to what you might say right away.
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Or read in an email that you send them. And I think that other people kind of, maybe don’t latch on and are waiting to actually see things in action. So I found that, you know, saying things and talking about things. Sure. That’s that’s great. But taking action really is what pushes things over the edge and really gets everybody to align with that, with that vision and there’s been things that I’ve implemented into the business over the last 2 to 3 years that I wasn’t doing prior when leading the team and previous ownership wasn’t, wasn’t doing.
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And I think that, in order to grow a team right now and a business around what we’re trying to do and, and really our goal for this year to become a destination employer for the best marketers in the area. I think that communicating that vision and effectively showing the team, what can be done is, is really been impactful for me.
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And again, like, as we grow, there’s a lot of that chicken or the egg, you know, the you bring on the next client before you make the next hire, do you hire first and and then go out and bring the revenue on and, you know, I don’t think there’s a straight answer to that. I think it’s a case by case, agency by agency or business by business, you know, situation.
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And it’s it’s it does it never stays the same. It’s always changing and evolving, which makes it fun, but equally, you know, fairly stressful. So I think that, at, at where I’m at with, you know, what we’re trying to do and how we communicate just a little bit more, you know, some more regularly scheduled meetings.
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We’re a small team. I’m not trying to turn this into some corporate, you know, you know, shop or anything of that nature. But, that’s kind of one extreme in how I see it. And then the other extreme is like, you know, low level communication, no clear vision or no clear, you know, insights to the team about the vision of the business or, you know, what I might have from the top down, but with my vision, we needed to kind of we need to be in the middle.
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And I think that we’ve done things. We’ve been here. I think we’ve done things in recent years that are bringing us more to the middle of that. You know, that space which I think will be really comfortable for, you know, a decent sized team, people looking for personal growth in their career upward, you know, opportunity within the same organization.
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So if we’re communicating and we’re showing in action not just through words but showing in action, we get buy in, and next thing you know, we’re getting people actually raising their hands and offering ideas and being more, you know, contributed to the, to the bigger picture.
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Thank you. I would agree with that. And I would say that I think when you look at. When you look at your colleagues and you look at your team members and the people that you’re leading, it’s hard sometimes to take yourself out of your own shoes and put yourself in their shoes, you know, person by person, by person, because everyone’s so different.
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I think one of the biggest realizations is that there, you know, there are people on your team that want more. There are people on your team that desire to contribute more. There are people on your team that maybe don’t want anymore, and maybe that’s okay. But doing what kind of you were just describing and what we’ve experienced in recent years, I think naturally provides them an opportunity to feel comfortable about maybe stepping up and saying, hey, I’ve got an idea.
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Whereas maybe without that communication and vision and that clarity around where the where the ship is going in the direction that, you know, this cruise is headed, they may be more reluctant to maybe raise their hand because they don’t know. So I think that, yeah, I think that that’s been a huge thing. And it almost has empowered our staff in, in different ways.
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You know, across the board, which is pretty, pretty cool, pretty exciting.
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Oh my gosh, I think the only I I’m excited about everything. I think the only thing I’m not so excited about is, all the HR nonsense I normally deal with. Just not something I’m a huge fan of. But regardless, you stay positive. Everything. And there’s so much cool stuff happening. I think the biggest thing I’m excited about right now is our people.
00;22;04;06 – 00;22;22;29
You know, we’ve brought some new resources on and in probably the last 2 or 3 years, those kind of our, our most recent rush of talent. And it’s, they’re awesome. Like they fit into the team so well. The culture is so fun and everyone feels like they can be themselves. And it’s just cool to walk in and hear people having fun and enjoying their time.
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When you know, I know they’re away from their family or their children or, you know, they’re devoting units of their of their life, you know, to this business. So, it’s really cool to experience that. I think that, you know, prior to that, I brought up pretty, important, like, key, key player here on board to run our digital and VP of digital.
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And, that was a monument has change for us in terms of, you know what how we were able to go to market, the services and solutions we could provide clients just our general way of thinking and being a partner and to resource for our clients. This has evolved so much since his, his, him joining the team.
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So I, I think the people part of of where we are right now is what I’m really looking forward to the most and growing that even though I see the HR side is kind of my biggest thorn. I think that that’s that can easily be resolved with, you know, finding a lead or finding someone to come in and help me keep that side of the house in order.
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I’m really also excited about just our opportunities with new business and the types of clients and brands that, you know, we can be working with now. If you had taken a look at our website, you know, just seven years ago, 6 or 7 years ago, and then looked at it today, we look like two totally different businesses.
00;23;43;26 – 00;24;06;02
You know, we’ve gone through a little bit of a brand refresh as we’ve evolved, you know, again, our services, our people, our capabilities. But, you know, just the, just the, you know, the roster of clients, the portfolio style of clients and the type of work that we’ve been contracted for just in the last 12 months has been so, rewarding to see.
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Hey, you know, we got the contract from this brand. Now we have this brand on the roster and that’s, you know, again, probably due to my background in, in business development and, and things and account management, I just love that that that’s, that’s super exciting. I think,
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the staff to recognize this while we’re doing work for them now like awesome.
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Let’s go. You know, I’ve always had ideas for that brand or I’ve always wanted to pursue, you know, a campaign for, you know, a client in that, in that vertical or that industry. So it’s, it’s bringing, I think, a pretty, positive sense of, of encouragement to the rest of the staff and more branding on some of these accounts in these brands, which has been great.
00;24;51;01 – 00;25;12;05
You know, I think that I think there’s a big opportunity in our space right now. And, you know, we call ourselves a full service omnichannel performance and growth marketing agency, right? Advertising is kind of a form of marketing, as we know. And there’s there’s kind of a lot of different, you know, spokes off of the marketing wheel.
00;25;12;07 – 00;25;45;11
Advertising is a it’s in our blood. It’s the core of what we do. But there’s so much tied to that now outside of just, you know, putting an ad together, testing a message on a channel with an audience. You know, once you really get that defined, you know, that’s kind of the performance side of things and making sure that clients understand, hey, we need to set expectations before we get into this campaign, before we start spending money and trying to drive, you know, results to towards your goals and objectives.
00;25;45;13 – 00;26;11;26
You know, ROI is important. You know, they need, you know, whatever the role is on this band or, you know, those types of metrics, all great and performance is awesome. Performance marketing, I think, is really grown in the last eight years, drastically. However, I think that, you know, we have all kind of gotten, I would say, lost in the performance marketing clouds.
00;26;11;28 – 00;26;47;07
As some of you may know, or may not, you know, performance marketing, it has its, law of diminishing returns, like you were saying earlier with that other topic, Jesse, if you get to a point where, you know, we’ve kind of maximized and saturated your total addressable market or your target audience, and I think some brands and some rather big ones, you know, in recent years have realized they put all their eggs in that performance marketing basket to try and, you know, squeeze as much revenue and juice out of that spend as they can.
00;26;47;07 – 00;27;13;17
But little have they realized, I think and I think that brands are starting to realize this more now. This is that transition I’m speaking about. Growth. Marketing is is what we really need to be focused on, and the brand side of it. Right? Growing the brand at the top of the funnel, creating a moat around our brand and around, you know, what we stand for is a is a really, really big thing.
00;27;13;20 – 00;27;35;06
Granted, we know that not every one of our clients has unlimited budget. And, you know, anyone can invest in all phases of the funnel to grow their business. But, you know, I always say, and I stated this before about our business and everybody listening. Same thing. You’re in business for two things. You know, acquiring new business and retaining the business that you have.
00;27;35;08 – 00;28;04;12
And, you know, when I look at our clients, it’s the same thing. I think, yes, there is growth and retention through performance marketing, but you certainly aren’t going to see that exponential growth in that continuous growth if you’re not investing in the brand, if you’re not investing in, you know, telling the story and why people need to trust you or, or, you know, how you might be different from your competitors.
00;28;04;15 – 00;28;31;19
I think that it’s it’s it’s all about depth over noise. And I think, you know, the brands that are winning right now, they’re not just pushing content out there and, you know, seeing what sticks. They’re creating trust, they’re creating community, and they’re creating a sense of shared values, whether it’s through an advertising message or a marketing message. People want connection.
00;28;31;19 – 00;28;53;08
They don’t just want promotion thrown at them. And so there’s a fine balance between that on the performance side, run the promotions, but I won’t get 120% off first order, blah blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever it might be. Yeah, that’s going to, you know, help you align your numbers and get you where you need to be. On the performance side, from a return on investment perspective.
00;28;53;10 – 00;29;11;17
But, you know, regardless of that, there’s people that are very, you know, tone deaf to the promotion. They don’t want they don’t want to see all that. You know, they want to understand who you are as a brand. Why do you stand for what you stand for? How are you different from the competition? So yeah, I would say that to wrap it up.
00;29;11;20 – 00;29;50;04
Yeah. You know, TAC and I, they’re accelerating what’s possible for everybody in the world right now. But the brands that stand out right now, they still feel human. They are authentic. They are consistent, and they are very clear on who they serve. And that’s something that I feel we have an opportunity to really, help our clients and future clients with, you know, as the landscape continues to evolve and change in the future.
00;29;50;06 – 00;30;08;14
Yeah, yeah, it’s again, I could probably continue to talk on that one for a little bit because there’s a lot to be excited about. We’re renovating. We’re renovating, renovate an office space. Like we’re doing a lot of cool stuff, a lot of stuff.
00;30;08;16 – 00;30;24;17
Maybe I’m not swinging a hammer, putting up drywall. Yeah.
00;30;24;19 – 00;30;49;10
So, the best way to get in touch with either be, you know, just direct through our website, which is dot s rb Sam, Robert baker, adv apple. David victor.com SRB adcom or you can look for me on LinkedIn. Chad bauer connect with me. You know, should be a DM if you’d like to chat. I am a I’m a people person.
00;30;49;10 – 00;31;16;09
I invest in my people here at the firm. And I’m I’m a big believer that we are what makes the world go round. I love to surround myself with, you know, teams of advisors and people that are smarter than me, you know, to help lift me up and and support, you know, what I’m trying to do. And, whenever I can give back or help somebody, you know, get through something or support them through something that they’re going through, I’m always willing and happy to do so.
00;31;16;09 – 00;31;38;18
So, even if it’s just for a hey, got a quick question about this, or have you experienced that? And shoot me and shoot me a DM on LinkedIn. And I’ll definitely, definitely get to you.
00;31;38;20 – 00;31;41;21
Absolutely. Jesse, thank you for having me. It was a pleasure.
00;31;41;21 – 00;31;58;11
Agency owners. If you want to transform your agency to sustain and grow without your direct involvement, where you can stop working in the business and start working on the business, where you can free up your time, delegate work more effectively, price and position your services to finally get paid for what you’re worth and have the team run the day to day.
00;31;58;11 – 00;32;16;21
Go to niche and control dot com slash case study. Now to learn more about leverage for growth and also to book a free strategy session with us, we’ll look at your systems determine exactly what you need to do in order for you to scale this year and to create a strategic plan so that you can live the life of entrepreneurship you’ve always dreamed about.
00;32;16;24 – 00;32;19;29
Go to niche and control dot com slash case study now.
(All transcripts are auto-generated and may not be 100% accurate)
