Agency Bytes

Featuring: Audrey Kwan, Agency Together In episode 166, I sit down with Audrey Joy Kwan, a coach and consultant who helps boutique agency owners get valued, priced, and chosen as strategic partners, and the host of the Small But Mighty Agency podcast. We talk about why so many agencies feel fragile right now, with the economy, culture, and AI all shifting at once, and why execution alone has lost much of its value. Audrey shares how to tell when it's time to choose a niche, how to pick one that will still be growing three years from now, and why saying yes to outlier clients can quietly throw a wrench into your operations. We also dig into building real, in-person relationships and the collaboration-over-competition mindset behind her community, Agency Together. If you have ever felt treated like a vendor, this episode offers a practical path toward strategic partnership. You will walk away with a clearer way to look at your client portfolio, a reason to show up where your clients actually gather, and permission to focus on one sprint at a time. Key Bytes • When anyone can execute at the push of a button, judgment becomes the thing clients pay for. • Most agency owners already know they should niche; the gap is turning that knowledge into action. • Find the 20% of your portfolio you love serving, then ask whether that industry will still be growing in three years. • Saying no to the wrong client leaves room for the right ones to say yes. • A pattern spotted across three clients in one industry becomes a point of view the whole industry wants to hear. • Waiting for referrals isn't a strategy, it's hope. • Collaboration over competition turns other agencies into your warmest source of introductions. • Pick one sprint per quarter and finish it, because trying to balance everything means nothing gets done. Chapters 00:00 Welcome and intro to Audrey Joy Kwan 01:39 What makes agencies fragile versus resilient 03:13 Why positioning matters more as execution gets cheaper 05:06 How to know when it's time to niche 10:48 The real cost of saying yes to outlier clients 12:26 Signs your agency is being treated like a vendor 15:34 Building trust and earning a seat at the strategy table 19:56 Collaboration over competition and Agency Together 22:26 One move to make this quarter 24:52 Rapid fire with Audrey Audrey Joy Kwan is a coach and consultant who helps boutique agency owners stop being seen as executors and start being valued, priced, and chosen as strategic partners. With 15+ years of agency and consulting experience, including helping scale and exit a boutique agency, Audrey now partners with founders who want to step out of day-to-day delivery, strengthen their positioning, and build businesses that are profitable, respected, and built to last. She is also the host of the Small But Mighty Agency podcast and the founder of Agency Together, a community for agency owners who believe collaboration beats competition. Contact Audrey on their website, learn about their mixer events, or connect on LinkedIn.

Featuring: Melanie Balke. The Email Marketers In episode 165, I sit down with Melanie Balke, founder and CEO of The Email Marketers, an outsourced email marketing department that helps e-commerce brands build deeper customer relationships and grow revenue. We talk about how her business evolved from freelance work into a full agency built around pods of specialists, and how the scope of retention marketing has expanded well beyond email into SMS, subscriptions, loyalty, and referral programs. Melanie breaks down the real difference between underutilizing email and underoptimizing it, and why SMS engagement often beats email even though it comes with a lot less room for error. Agency owners will walk away with a sharper view of how to use AI for deeper customer research instead of just faster output, why a simple monthly newsletter can keep you top of mind with B2B prospects, and why protecting a slow morning might matter more than an early one. Key Bytes • Underutilized and underoptimized are not the same problem — one means you aren't sending email at all, the other means you're sending it without a strategy behind it. • SMS can hit open rates near 90%, but that trust is more fragile, so every text either earns the next one or costs you a subscriber. • Between 2023 and 2024, Melanie's team had to send double the emails to hit the same revenue for the same client with the same offer. • AI isn't replacing the creative work at The Email Marketers — it's replacing the research that used to be too time-consuming, like mining Reddit and testimonials for the exact language customers use. • A referral program you set up once and never touch again isn't a referral program, it's a checkbox. • Most B2B agencies are still underutilizing their own email list, when a simple monthly newsletter is often enough to stay top of mind. • Melanie doesn't take a call before 11am, and protecting that slow morning is part of how she runs the business, not a luxury she fits in around it. • If you're on the fence about texting your customers, the real question isn't whether you like getting texts — it's whether you like money. Chapters 00:00 Welcome and introducing Melanie Balke 01:16 From freelancing to building The Email Marketers 02:41 How the pod system runs strategy, copy, design, and delivery 04:19 Why retention now means more than just email 07:18 The real difference between underutilized and underoptimized email 09:10 Email versus SMS: engagement, risk, and where each one wins 15:12 How The Email Marketers uses AI for research and creative 19:58 Melanie's shift from freelancer to founder and her day to day 22:03 What B2B agencies get wrong about their own email marketing 27:01 Rapid fire: books, debunked advice, and protecting a slow morning This week, my guest is Melanie Balke, Founder & CEO of The Email Marketers, an outsourced email marketing department helping e-commerce brands build deeper customer relationships and grow revenue. Before launching her agency, she led email marketing for one of LA's fastest-growing agencies, was the first marketing hire at Apt2B, and consulted for brands like Mercedes-Benz and SMART. Melanie Balke is the Founder & CEO of The Email Marketers: Your outsourced email department helping e-commerce brands to build deep relationships with their customers and grow their revenue. Before she started The Email Marketers, she was the Head of Email Marketing for one of LA's fastest-growing agencies and the first marketing hire for Apt2B (acquired), as well as a marketing consultant for conglomerate brands such as Mercedes-Benz and SMART before that. Contact Melanie on their website or on LinkedIn.

Featuring: David J. Ebner, Content Workshop In episode 164, I sit down with David J. Ebner, president of Content Workshop, a story-first content marketing agency built for B2B tech brands, and author of Kingmakers. David and I trace his path from a creative writing MFA to running a content agency, and the moment he realized artistic storytelling and brand storytelling are really the same skill aimed at different outcomes. We get into why even the most technical, sophisticated buyers still respond to story, what agencies get wrong when they lean on AI without understanding what good content actually looks like, and why some of his clients have left for AI tools only to come back once they realized nothing was actually getting produced. For agency owners, this one's a reminder that content is still fundamentally about earning someone's attention and respecting their time. David makes the case for zagging when every competitor is zigging toward the same AI-flavored sameness, and for treating freelancers and internal team members with the same care you'd give your best client. Key Bytes • Storytelling isn't a tactic. It's how humans have always made emotional connections, long before it became a marketing buzzword. • In every great brand story, the hero is the customer, not the company. Most founders have a hard time getting out of their own way on that one. • B2B tech buyers are still human. They don't need buzzwords, they need concise, honest content that respects how much they already know. • Selling on fear, uncertainty, and doubt might close a deal, but it rarely keeps a client. The moment they find a solution that doesn't scare them, they're gone. • AI doesn't fix bad writing. It just makes bad writing faster, and now you have to already know what good looks like to catch it. • The agencies producing content that wastes people's time are stealing back the one asset nobody gets returned: attention. • When every competitor is zigging toward the same AI-flavored sameness, zagging with something genuinely different becomes the actual differentiator. • In the end, all we really have is how we make people feel, whether that's a client, a freelancer, or a teammate. Chapters 00:00 Why storytelling matters more than ever in agency marketing 00:58 David's storytelling roots growing up the youngest of five in Ohio 03:34 What Story Brand gets right about the hero's journey 04:58 Where B2B tech brands go wrong telling their story 08:28 The shift from creative writer to strategist and business owner 11:15 David's daily writing habit and why pen and paper still matters 13:46 The real cost of low quality content and AI slop 17:15 Why clients ask if they still need to pay an agency that uses AI 21:23 Zagging when every competitor leans on AI the same way 25:08 Rapid fire on coffee, book recommendations, and Slaughterhouse-Five David J Ebner is the President of Content Workshop, a story-first content marketing agency serving B2B tech brands, especially in cybersecurity, SaaS, and manufacturing. A former creative writer turned strategist, David leads a team of classically trained storytellers who’ve produced over 30,000 content assets for clients across North America. He’s the author of Kingmakers: A Content Marketing Story and a sought-after speaker on brand voice, narrative content strategy, and the evolving intersection of AI and storytelling. Contact David on the Content Workshop website, Chatter Agent, or LinkedIn.

Featuring: James Kwon, Figmints In episode 163, I sit down with James Kwon, founder and CEO of Figmints, a digital creative and marketing agency celebrating its fifteenth year in business. James and I get into the shift he's making from a pure services agency to a product-driven business, and why he believes agency owners need to build boats, not moats, as AI reshapes the industry. We talk through the acquisition that first pulled him into the M&A world, what he looks for in a deal today, and the story behind Slices, his own pay-for-performance compensation model that ties every dollar of revenue to the work that earned it. For agency owners, this one's a look at what it actually takes to build a business that doesn't depend entirely on you, through smarter pay structures, disciplined product bets, and acquisitions built on shared values rather than just the numbers. Key Bytes • As agency owners, we have to build boats, not moats. The AI tsunami is already here, so playing defense with old tactics isn't a strategy. • James turned a fifty-thousand-dollar hire into someone earning over one hundred forty thousand a year, just by tying pay directly to the revenue someone brings in and delivers. • Every dollar Figmints receives gets carved into slices: sales, account management, strategy, fulfillment, operations, and profit. That objectivity ends the "why does she make more than me" conversations. • Hourly pay incentivizes people to take longer. A model built on outcomes incentivizes people to get faster and better. • James's first acquisition wasn't a strategic masterplan. It was a friend in decline who trusted him enough to merge, and they're still friends today. • Love is inefficient. It was designed that way, and you can't use AI to love people efficiently. • One of Figmints' internal products recently sold for almost nine figures, and that exit is now fueling more acquisitions and more product bets. • The best dashboards don't just report what happened. They tell you the thing you didn't know to ask about yet. Chapters 00:00 Welcome and introducing James Kwon of Figmints 01:35 James's path from culinary arts and UX design to CVS.com 03:07 Building Figmints and celebrating fifteen years in business 03:33 Why James is shifting from services to products 04:29 Building boats, not moats, in the age of AI 05:45 The first acquisition and what actually made it work 08:50 Using AI to find the right acquisition targets today 14:03 Breaking down Slices, Figmints' pay-for-performance model 21:40 The downsides of Slices and how James manages them 33:48 The best business advice James wishes he'd gotten sooner James is on a mission to help people thrive through the catalyst of business. As Founder & CEO of Figmints Digital Creative Marketing, James leverages brand storytelling and digital strategies to transform companies from ideas to industry leaders. His eclectic background in Culinary Arts, Graphic Design, Entrepreneurship, Marketing, and Theology, brings unique insights to every interaction. He's a respected industry voice, having spoken and mentored at platforms like The HubSpot INBOUND Conference, MassChallenge, CIC, MIT, RISD, Venture Cafe, and VMS. Offstage, James relishes family time with his wife and three kids, church community, and golf buddies. His life is a testament to the magic at the intersection of creativity and technology, nurturing human innovation in the digital landscape. Learn more on figmints.com

Featuring: Megan Long, Second First In episode 162, I sit down with Megan Long, founder of Second First, a company built for the COOs, integrators, and right-hand leaders who sit next to agency owners and founders. Megan and I get into what the second-in-command role actually is, why title matters far less than the ability to run the day-to-day while partnering on vision, and why the "impressive resume" hire so often falls flat. We talk about delegation, why founders keep pulling work back onto their plate even after handing it off, and how two-way communication builds real trust. We also cover what it looks like for a founder to step back, whether that's a weekly report or full autonomy, and how the role evolves as a business scales toward an eventual exit. If you've ever hired a number two and quietly taken half their job back, this conversation will hit close to home. Megan makes the case that this is one of the most isolating jobs in a company, and that investing in it might be the highest-leverage move an agency owner can make. Key Bytes • The second-in-command role isn't about title, it's about who can run the day-to-day while still partnering on where the business is headed. • The best partnerships aren't built on opposites. They're built on a mostly overlapping Venn diagram, with just a sliver of complementary difference on each side. • Hiring a "sexy resume" into your number two seat is one of the fastest ways to create friction. That role needs someone who can build the playbook, not someone who needs one already built for them. • Every founder loves to say "I delegated that." Fewer of them actually let go of the ownership that comes with it. • If your second-in-command isn't hearing from you, silence reads as failure. Downward communication is what keeps trust intact. • The real test of whether your business can run without you isn't a weekly report, it's turning the reports off altogether and seeing what happens. • A second-in-command carries the burden of knowledge with nowhere to put it. That isolation is real, and it deserves the same support founders get from their own peer groups. • Founders and their number twos are living on two separate islands. The work is building the bridge between them. Chapters 00:05 Welcome and introducing Megan Long 01:01 Megan's origin story: leading through a tornado and COVID as a COO 03:56 What second-in-command actually means beyond title 06:29 Turning a founder's vision into an operational plan 10:09 Why the best founder-operator partnerships mirror each other 12:18 Why founders struggle to actually delegate 17:06 Building trust through two-way communication 19:17 How the second-in-command role matures over time 21:11 Exit readiness and running the business without the founder 28:26 Rapid fire and where to find Megan Megan Long is the founder and owner of Second First®, a firm dedicated to the Second-In-Command (COO/Integrator) of entrepreneurial companies. Through national mastermind memberships, one-on-one coaching, and certification programs, Second First® equips right-hand leaders with the confidence, systems, and peer support they need to scale with impact, transforming their partnership with the founder in the process. Megan is also the host of "The Right-Hand Roadmap," the only podcast specifically created for Seconds-In-Command of founder-led small businesses. An experienced COO and CPA, Megan most recently served as the Second-In-Command of a $10 million IT company. Her leadership has earned recognition including Stevie Woman of the Year, the Nashville Business Journal’s 40 Under 40, the Nashville Emerging Leader Award, and Belmont University’s Top 100 Alumni Entrepreneurs. In addition to her professional work, Megan is also a professional athlete, bringing her discipline and commitment to winning to all aspects of her life. Contact Megan on LinkedIn, Instagram, or TikTok, take the Second First Assessment here, and tune into the Right Hand Roadmap podcast