Funnel Vision - For Performance-Driven Agencies & Marketers – Details, episodes & analysis

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/

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/

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

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/

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

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/

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

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/

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/

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/