We talk to Jonathan Smith, EOS Implementer and Negotiations Trainer and Coach with the Black Swan Group. Jonathan tells us why the EOS system is so powerful, the importance of having an EOS implementer, and how to make EOS work for you for years after your initial implementation. He also tells us how he met and agreed to work with Chris Voss, the founder of the Black Swan Group and the best selling negotiating book, Never Split the Difference, and he teaches us some great negotiating tips...

We talk to Pat McKenna, CEO of DMI Partners, a 100 person agency based in Philadelphia that focuses on affiliate and CRM marketing. Pat tells us why they tend to offer a single solution service offering to clients, why it’s important to maintain quality as you scale, the one sentence that describes his agency culture, what he means when he says you should avoid a zero sum agency, why differentiation matters, and how COVID forced him and a client to make an incredibly fast pivot.

We talk to Sherrick Murdoff. Sherrick ran worldwide alliances and channels at Salesforce. Over more than a decade, he invested in over 80 different companies across 13 countries. Sherrick tells us why Salesforce was open to making minority investments in service companies, why he always wanted to make sure that everyone involved in a transaction felt it was a good deal for them, why so many of his investments did not have competitive bids from other investors, what he thinks distinguishes...

In this episode of Agentic Shift, we talk to Keith McCracken, founder of McCracken Advisory Partners, an international M&A advisory firm. Keith tells us about his early life in Liverpool, England (yes, he did cross paths with the Beatles on many occasions), his experience growing, selling, and then buying back an agency, as well as buying other agencies as part of a roll-up, why team members leave after an acquisition (and whether you should be worried), why selling a factory is easy, but...

In this episode of the Agentic Shift podcast, we talk to Jesse Pujii, co-founder of Ampush and Gateway X, and the first person to be on two episodes of this podcast. Jesse tells us about the long and twisted path he took to eventually selling Ampush to Tinuiti, including several different business pivots, taking minority investment from Red Ventures, firing himself as CEO, hiring and then firing an investment banker, and working through the most challenging negotiating points to get the final...

Patrick discusses his background and how Level Agency was founded in 2010. He talks about their initial focus on the education vertical and expanding to other verticals like B2B, financial services, home services, and e-commerce. Patrick emphasizes the importance of being experts in a specific vertical while also having the ability to learn from different accounts. He mentions that agencies have an advantage in learning about channels due to their exposure to various clients. The conversation...

We talk to Richart Ruddie. Richart founded The Reputation Management Company in 2011 and sold it to two private equity investors in 2021. Richart tells us how he sold his business with Quiet Light, how he ended up talking to more than 50 potential buyers, how listing his business for sale ended up becoming a marketing tool to get clients, why it's important to do due diligence on potential buyers, and what happened when a competitor quit the industry to become a pastor.

In this episode of Agentic Shift, we talk to Phil Palazzo, founder of PALAZZO, a leading investment bank. Phil tells us why growth is the number one metric buyers of agencies want to see. Why founders are surprised by the complexity of due diligence, why most agencies aren't actually ready to be sold, the three ways to think about selling, and what happened when a buyer fell asleep during a pitch.

We talk to Brian Bowman, founder of Consumer Acquisition. Brian tells us about the three shocks that instantly changed his business, why he valued his investment banker so much, how contract negotiation is like an ass whipping, how his deal led marriage counseling and how he ended up in the ER, and eventually emergency heart surgery days after he closed his sale. 

We talk to Sanjay Chadda, Managing Director of Canaccord Genuity. Sanjay tells us how to prepare for the marathon of selling your agency, why M&A is like a marriage, how a sale changes the way a founder runs his business, and how Sanjay's sale of his own business helped him become a better banker. Enjoy the show!

We talk to Sanj Parikh, head of client growth at Position Squared, a 200 person performance marketing agency based in Santa Clara, CA. Sanj tells us how he went from Lehman Brothers to Hollywood (including a role on Hannah Montana) and then to online marketing. He also shares the genesis of the name Position Squared (Google nerds will enjoy the story), how the mnemonic RAMP describes great client service, and whether you should be worried about algorithms taking your job someday.

Kevin Lord Barry is founder of Right Percent, a B2B performance agency. Kevin tells us why doing B2B social media is so challenging, what a visual headline is and why it is so important, how he has grown a team where everyone has a minimum of eight years of experience, and why he values a low touch, high trust culture. Enjoy the show.

Andreas Muller is co-founder of BlooFusion, a performance marketing agency based in the US and Germany. Andreas tells us how he started an agency to avoid moving to Houston Texas, how he won a Fortune 500 company shortly after starting his agency, why he gives away tons of information to potential clients via his Blooprint audits, and how cool and valuable it was to have a company wide retreat in Portugal this year!

Josh Krakauer is the Founder of Sculpt, a B2B social media agency. Josh tells us why he thinks focusing too much on one metric is a recipe for disaster, the five roles required for social media expertise, how he builds great culture in a fully remote environment, and why he believes in hustle and heart as two of his core metrics. An important note: Josh started his agency after graduating from the University of Iowa - Go Hawks!

We talk to Chris Goward, manager director of Wider Funnel, a conversion rate optimization and experimentation agency founded in Vancouver. Chris tells us how he got fired from an agency for being too scientific, what he considers the five levers of success in CRO, why test results are often countchrierintuitive, why he believes in the hedgehog principle, why he looks for mavericks with grit when he is hiring team members, and he explains Thursday awesomes and awfuls.

John McKusick is founder of NextLeft, a digital agency based in San Diego. John tells us about his days on the high school surfing team what is was like running a digital agency in 1999, why he is making his agency a B corp, how he created amazing content for a client to get them ranked #1 for the competitive term, baseball bats, and how he came up with the name NextLeft (hint, it is surfing related!)

Jean Ginzburg is Founder of Alpenglo Digital. Jean tells us why she encourages team members to invest five hours a week in learning, why and how she responds to all client requests in 24 hours of less, how she went from being an international relations major to running an agency, and why she was recruited by the CIA out of college (and for the record, we aren’t 100% sure that she isn’t actually in the CIA!)

Matt Quirie is Founder of ROIDNA, a B2B digital marketing agency. Matt tells us why every hire - even his EA - is given classes in ad tech, how client focus drove massive growth, what he means by “bring your whole self” as a core value, why he believes content is the future of marketing, and how he manages campaigns with very long lead to close times.

Martin Woolley is CEO of The What’s Possible Group, a London-based marketing group focused on growing dynamic emerging brands. Martin tells why he embraces making mistakes and the power of black box thinking, why he likes the Goffee and Jones culture model, why he’d say no to Coca Cola (and most other large companies) as a client, why he believes agencies are in the client happiness business, why he emphasizes passion, inquisitiveness, caring and knowledge with his team, and he even...

Soso Sazesh is the founder of Growth Pilots, a performance marketing agency he sold to Wpromote in 2019. Soso tells us why most agencies aren't equipped to work with startups, why it's hard to scale an agency with startup clients, how firing one of his largest clients created a great culture, what he means by people, partnership, and adaptability, why performance marketers are convinced branding doesn't work and vice versa, and what it was like to sell his 20-person agency to a 600-person...

Agatha Chang is co-founder of GRAIN Group, a 40-person data-driven performance agency. Agatha tells us what Type 2 fun means and why she looks for it in hiring, how a brainstorming session about vodka led to the founding of the agency, the importance of architecting data when delivering reports to clients, why she is the first interviewer for every new hire, why she's built a culture that emphasizes collaboration over bosses, and the true story of the indie rock song Agatha Chang by the Eels.

Prashant Puri is co-founder of AdLift, a 120-person performance agency. Prashant tells us how he signed PayPal as a client in his first year of business, why he interviews 75 people before he makes a hire, why focus is key to agency success, and why he emphasizes empathy and humility as core values.

Stephanie Harris is CEO of PartnerCentric, a 60 person affiliate marketing agency. Stephanie tells us the difference between being an agency COO and agency CEO, why her top core value is professional intimacy (and what exactly that means), how to measure speed to value for customers, why she sees negative feedback as a gift, and how to identify people who want to work remote for the wrong reasons.

Mike Nelson is co-founder of Four15 Digital, a performance marketing agency with offices in Long Beach and Walnut Creek, California. Mike tells us how he went from being a high school math teacher to an SEM expert, why he loves auditing potential clients’ accounts, why he values mindset diversity in this company, how COVID has made people more comfortable with agencies, and why he thinks client relationships would be better if clients that sometimes presented to agencies instead of vice versa.