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Agency Forward explores the future of agencies as tech and AI drive down the cost of tactical deliverables. Topics include building competent teams, developing strategic offers, systemizing your business, and more.
New episodes delivered every Tuesday.
Chris DuBois 0:00
Hey everyone, today I'm joined by Jen Spencer. Jen is the CEO of smartbug media. Now at inbound a few years ago, I'd met some a smart bug team and they raved about working here. So when an opportunity arose to interview their fearless leader, I jumped at the chance. Jen took over as the CEO after being smart bugs VP of Sales and Marketing. And then CRO, she has a wealth of agency knowledge from multiple foxholes. And she provided so many great insights in this episode. In this episode, we discuss how to foster a strong culture. Even as your team breaks triple digits, by training your clients is one of the best things in agency can do, how to provide value to a partner ecosystem that gives back and more. Today's episode is brought to you by Zen pilot. There are lots of tools out there for agencies to manage projects, but any project issues aren't usually caused by the tool. They're from your own processes. Zen pilot helps agencies implement their project management tools while streamlining operations. So your team can move from chaos to clarity, you can see for yourself at Zen pilot.com/forward. And now ladies and gentlemen, Jen Spencer, it's easier than ever to start an agency, but it's only getting harder to stand out and keep it alive. Join me as we explore the strategies agencies are using today to secure a better tomorrow. This is agency forward.
What's the future of agencies look like from your foxhole? Oh, the
Speaker 1 1:39
future of agencies, I think agencies in the future are evolving with customer needs and customer experiences and buying behaviors are having to be multi channel very collaborative, and partner with a lot of different other organizations as well. These, I think the future of an agency, it's it's the ecosystem that the agency plays in. And the value that they bring to an ecosystem is far more far more important than just solely what that agency does, in terms of like process and system. So I think it's the future is all about the ecosystem that you're in.
Chris DuBois 2:23
This is awesome. You said so many things that have like lead into other questions I don't want to get into all right. Okay, perfect setup. So let's actually jump right into there What What changes have you seen with like buyer behavior shifting?
Speaker 1 2:37
I think buyers are our buyers are looking for trust, they're looking for confirmation that they're making the right move that this is the right solution. I think the the infusion of AI in the marketing sales and customer success landscape, that agencies are like, like SmartBuy that we are integrating and that we're further developing is is causing, it causes there to be disruption, right. And that disruption doesn't have to be a bad thing, that can be a good thing. But it's it's it's disrupting the making us think differently about the way that we approach challenges the way we approach customer problems, and the types of tools and resources that our customers have at their fingertips. So when I think back to like, Mad Men, days of agents, at agencies, you know, company business comes in with, well, we want to sell more of this thing. We still have that, right? Like, you will still want to sell more of this one or more of this thing. And then this agency, this team goes and they, you know, they they pour themselves over and over creative and copy and look at visuals and come up with a pitch and then present that to to their customers to their to their potential customers, right. Their clients, I should say, the thing is, is like our clients today, they know a lot about their customers. They're sitting on a lot of data that their customers have like first party data. And they the best agencies are going to know how to operationalize that data, how to extract it from those clients, systems and brains and the people and everywhere and kind of put it into action, as opposed to a universe where agencies are the experts and the brands come to the agencies looking for a roadmap of like what's going to happen next. The our clients are really smart, they know what they're looking for. And they're looking for kind of data and support to backup these moves that they're looking to make. Right?
Chris DuBois 4:51
So the client is the expert in whatever their area is that with the agency now being more The expert in deploying those insights to increase visibility for the client? I think
Speaker 1 5:07
so. And so I think when a customer is looking at looking at an agency and potential clients looking at what agency do I want to work with, they're gonna they want to make sure that the agency that they're selecting, is capable of ushering them through that change, ushering them through potentially uncharted territories, right? So it's, it's, it's no longer Oh, well, I sell toothpaste, and we market toothpaste. And so I'm gonna go work with this advertising agency that has this deep experience in the toothpaste, toothpaste, you know, area of the market. That used to be and I'm you I'm using it really like that kind of sounds silly. But honestly, like, I talked to potential clients all the time with who come to me with a very similar type of type of ask. But instead, agencies have this opportunity to look at, well, what is like the what is the buyer change? Or what is the customer behavior that's changing? And how do we meet the needs of those customers? And how do we learn from what another industry might be doing? Or do we have the technical expertise, that technical prowess to be able to unlock those data insights and craft, you know, craft forward looking solutions for them? Versus Oh, we know this space, and we know what kind of art or what kind of copy resonates with that that buyer? Right?
Chris DuBois 6:32
So how has that changed? I guess your strategies that smartbug to actually collect all this information?
Speaker 1 6:38
Yeah, it's um, it's changed as well. You know, we're, we're HubSpot partner. We're an elite HubSpot partner. It's a really important part of our business. And we've evolved as the HubSpot platform has evolved. So the way that we've had to change is we started as an really an inbound marketing agency back in 2007. I'm not the founder, I was actually a client twice, I came looking for support with the HubSpot platform from a technical perspective, and then the inbound methodology, and that smart bag. But as HubSpot has evolved into being a customer platform with a CRM with and with sales, engagement tools, and with customer success, tools, and customer support sweet, we need to evolve to meet the needs of, of the of our of our customers of this ecosystem that we're in. And it's made us think more holistically about the entire customer lifecycle. It's made us question and poke holes that you know, where there's points of friction and handoffs between various departments and teams. And it's making us be when we're serving as a marketing support, it's making us be a better marketer, when we're serving in sales support, it's making us be a better partner in sales. And that's, that's impacting the type of people that we hire. It's it changing the way that we approach training, and the way that we measure success of our of our of our teams. And it's changing the way we position ourselves in our broader ecosystem that we serve.
Chris DuBois 8:20
Right with, I mean, you have well over 300 team members at this point, like that has to have an impact on just the the systems that you have to deploy now to keep everything running so that when you are looking at it full customer lifecycle, it's like those handoffs are on point, right, you can write us a beat. How do you guys approach it? Yeah.
Speaker 1 8:40
Well, we're constantly making refinements to that rocket ship, right as we're flying as we're flying yet. And in part because some of our growth has come through some acquisition. So last year, we acquired another top HubSpot partner globe Alia, out of Montreal, Canada, because we looked at them and they were about the inverse of us. So we were mainly strategists and some creative strategist, creatives. And some developers was technical expertise. And they were mostly developers, mostly technicians, and then a smaller subset of strategists and creatives. And so the our two organizations coming together with also similar values, similar goals, it made a lot of sense for us. So we're in the process right now of trying to figure out like, well, what what is our like, two point, the smartbug 2.0? You know, what are what is the future of that of that organization look like? And while we're actually like, actively just blocking and tackling, you know, right. So we looked at from that perspective, it was looking at like, well, what are the what are the strengths and the skills and the team members that we have and who do we need? Where do we have gaps, and let's get those folks plugged in as soon as possible. But while we're all So thinking about how we're scaling the future of our operations, and it's changing right now, it's actively changing the career growth paths that we had for our teams. And it's allowing us to, with our size, it's allowing us to have deeper specialization, both in specific go to market strategies and skills, but also verticalized expertise that our clients are looking for. Man,
Chris DuBois 10:30
so that that must be exciting, even just for being on the table, right? And, like, so exciting for you. Anytime you're, you're acquiring and bringing in new team members as as well as just like standard growth, and all these different things like that takes it could take a toll on the culture, if you're not having this, like deliberate, you know, attention to it. Like, how are you approaching that where you are bringing in other teams, and maybe the career path that someone came to you expecting is going to shift a little? Like, maybe it's a good thing?
Speaker 1 11:01
Yeah, well, I think first of all, it's in the process of of just, you know, going going through an acquisition, when you go through due diligence, you have an opportunity to get to know that team a bit, or get to know the culture. And it's something that's really important to be vetting to be constantly thinking about. So it can be very easy just to look at numbers on a page, or look at kind of services, like look at a company on paper, but you have to also look at the culture of the organization. And so I would say, first of all, if there's massive misalignment with the culture, then that's a big red flag. And I would really encourage, you know, anyone else, anyone in my shoes to say, Wait, like, Let's pump the brakes. And it doesn't make sense for us to maybe to pursue this, if we're planning on integrating not just the process, but the people and, and all of our systems, all of our systems as well. I think something that's really helped us with our acquisition of globe Alia was that, first of all, we were we're in the same ecosystem, we use the same systems. So we're both using HubSpot as a CRM for marketing, you know, what have you for development, we are also both using the same project management system teamwork, for our internal operations, that means we can be we can we can move quite a bit faster, and have have that integration happen more, I think, I think, more seamlessly than if we were on completely different, completely different systems. And then it's very timely at once a year, we get everyone together, all everyone at SmartPak. Together for we call it smart buy Palooza, it's a full company, in person event. And and this year, we will, we will have, we will, we will have two groups that are joining us that are from acquired organizations. And we're coming together as one smartbug smartbug to point out, and that will be I think, a like a drinking from a firehose opportunity to kind of get engaged in, in engaged in in culture, but there are so many, there's so many nuances to culture that I'm discovering, every day, every day.
Chris DuBois 13:31
Right. And within a team of that size, like you have all these subcultures, kind of that get lost within like individual teams and stuff that you kind of manage, and hopefully they fit in really well with the bigger culture. It's like you want them a little independent. So they have some pride in their their team, but you still want them tied into the bigger picture. Like,
Speaker 1 13:50
yeah, it's Yeah, we did. I mean, it's like, I think one of the things about that I've always appreciated about smartbug is the way that like the culture, it's it blooms from it blooms from within. So it we really empower team members to, to build, to build into our culture to kind of curate things and, and there's quite a lot that happens, not related to the work that we do at smartbug. There's a lot that happens behind the scenes, with people just bonding and connecting and getting to know each other. And so it's one of the first places that will really get folks to interact and build relationships. And then that translates really beautifully into the work that they're doing with their with their clients as well. So we are our individual teams have their own identities. They've got fun names, they've got different different kinds of missions and like vision statements for their their organizations, but it all rolls up ultimately into the mission, the vision, the core values of smartbug and and everyone needs to understand the role that they play on that team and how they contribute to our greater greater goals.
Chris DuBois 15:07
Okay, it's awesome. So one of the things I think, probably shook a lot of cultures last year specifically, was aI coming out a lot of teams getting worried, and it's going to take our jobs, right, how what's the future going to look like? Is how are you implementing AI solutions at smartbug? to kind of make sure your team still feels good, like they're not gonna be replaced by a robot. But then you're actually able to deliver better results for for your clients.
Speaker 1 15:35
I think the first thing is to recognize that AI is becoming table stakes. And with a team with a system, I think about like, what did we do before calculators? Right, like? Well, at some point, you know, that there was a, we had we started using calculators in various formats, right? And, and it doesn't mean that you are, are not as smart as you, as you know, that is good at math using a calculator, right? It's just you're using this tool. So it's a tool. And so I think the the most important thing that that we can do is first look at how can we best leverage this tool to achieve better results faster? Right? And so it's the best way to do that is to involve the people, the teams that are going to be leveraging that technology, or potentially that might be replaced? If you want to say that, if you want to say that, like, would they be replaced with that technology, getting them involved. So for example, when there was this, like this surge of action attention around generative AI, the first thing that we did was put together an AI committee that was spearheaded by our creative team. So rather than, than having a bunch of technologists, or, or worse than that bunch of executives, like me write it off in a corner in a vacuum deciding, like how we're going to use this, getting it into the hands of the people who understand that space, understanding what problem we're trying to solve the most. And getting their input and getting their feedback. And the way that they're finding success and using that technology, that's been really, that's been really helpful for us. I think the other thing about AI is, is and this is it's just, it's, it's got to be accepted, it's got to be kind of consumed. And and the market that we're in is making that really easy for us. Because it I don't think I've I don't think I've logged I don't know what else what I've logged into whether it's personally or professionally lately, that doesn't have some kind of an AI component in it, this is just the way it is now. So, so if there's an agency that's kind of holding off on embracing AI, I don't, I don't understand why. You're, you're gonna be, you know, make putting yourselves out of date really, really fast.
Chris DuBois 18:04
Yeah, I mean, it's a, I'm calling it the AI paradox for agencies where it's like you need it to if you want to be competitive and keep up with everybody. But if you over rely on it, and you don't have those requisite skills, even though that AI has a great output from what you're putting into it now, that's a problem, too. So it's like, how do you find that balance?
Speaker 1 18:27
Yeah, right. And it's, it's, it's, I think you do that by by, I think, through the talent that you hire, through the way that you coach and train your teams, through the access to tools that you you're able to provide, through the use of systems that are exploring and innovating with AI. And, and also to, to kind of rally that team rally that team to find creative solutions for their teams and for their clients using AI. And as you're exploring, then you can start to identify Well, here are these core areas where we see that this is very effective. And now let's make this part of our process. Now let's actually document this, let's put this in our in our quote unquote playbook.
Chris DuBois 19:17
I very much like that process. So okay, something that I have noticed from some, some of the well respected agencies out there smartbug being one of them, is that you also offer a lot of training for your clients. And there's a notice with smaller agencies, there's a lot of pushback, and I'm like, Well, if I train them, then right I'm essentially pushing myself out of a job because now they know how to do it. But like, there has to be something to be said for agencies that have reached like SmartBox caliber doing this like there's some value there obviously, like what what is your thinking, I guess around training clients and why should mortgage didn't seem to be doing this.
Speaker 1 20:02
Oh, wow. This is like a whole big, whole big topic. So first, I would say I would I would frame this by saying I subscribe to the inbound methodology when it comes to all things marketing and sales. So I'm all about giving stuff away for, quote, free, right? Anytime, in over my career, when we've had an internal process, some kind of system, some kind of tools, something that's been really helpful. It's I look at how do I get this into the hands of the market so that it can help better prepare them for whatever the next step is, in their in their customer journey. And people have said, some people have said, well, you're giving it away for free, you know, you're showing them exactly what what what you do, if you just because you give it to them, just because you show it to them doesn't mean that they can actually do it. Right. And, and in our in our market. I mean, we we want to be working with a type of revenue leader, who is also capable of doing some things, and they have a team that's doing capable of doing some things for themselves. There's things that they need to be we teach them how to fish. And then there's other things that that we're going to do too. So when I think about the training that we're providing to our clients, it's typically, you know, we're not we're not training them on how to do marketing strategy, really, I mean, we're training them on how to use systems that we've that they've invested in, we're training them on how to kind of craft content that they need, that's like bespoke content to create, like hyper personalized experiences at scale across their sales and their customer success teams. We are we are training them on how to improve how to be more productive, and and be more effective using using AI, right, using generative AI tools. Because the thing is, if if, if a typical client of ours comes to us and says, okay, hey, Jen, like marketing was responsible in our company, last year marketing drove 10% of all sales pipeline, and this year, it needs to be 30%. And we need help with both the strategy and execution of how we get there. Wow, like, we've got a lot of, we've got a lot of mountains to move. And yeah, sure, as smartbug, we could do it all, we could do all that strategy, we could do all of that execution. But our customer only has so much money to spend so much in their budget. And they've got some talent people on their team. So I think about doing Think about it like dividing and conquering. And I it makes me go back to when I was a client of smart bugs, there were things that I knew I could do as as the brand and that I had a team that was well equipped to do. There were other things that I didn't feel I was skilled to do, or frankly, I didn't want to do that I would give to the agency give to smartbug. And what I would do when I was a client that I was I would look at the way that smartbug would create systems and outlines and processes. And I would look at what could I borrow what can I now replicate across my team. And by doing that, we were able to hit our goals faster and more efficiently. And so it's it's I would, I would encourage agencies to think about, hey, you're in this with your with your with with a client. If you're working with a client, imagine that you're responsible for revenue growth or profitability, or whatever it is the reason that they're with that with that customer. And what happens when you when you think about yourself as a true extension of their team, as opposed to just outsourcing it on their behalf, it changes the dynamic of the way that you partner with that customer. It makes you more of a partner less of a vendor, and it gets you more up close and personal with the true challenges that they're experiencing, which makes you a stickier, and it will improve your retention.
Chris DuBois 23:56
Right. It definitely changes the way you think through problems within the relationship as well. Like if you're there for just marketing help, you're only looking at a small piece of the pie. But when you say hey, I need you to be successful with everything. It's like, well, actually, we can also improve your handoff to sales here by just doing these few things. And now you've inserted yourself into this entire strategy to help them actually achieve a bigger goal.
Speaker 1 24:20
Exactly. I mean, I think about times where we've had prospects come to us and they say, Well, we have to like 5x or 6x, our top of funnel leads. And I'll look and I'll see ya see like you just called out maybe there's there's a sales conversion challenge and there's some sales enablement that's needed and let's talk about sales. Let's talk about sales leadership and what's the relationship like between marketing leadership and sales leadership? So that's one avenue another is also looking at their overall go to market strategy. So when I hear something like that, and then I look at the client and see, okay, you actually have like a whole separate channel that you that You that You go to market through with whether they're OEMs, their size, their referral partners, their affiliates. What percentage of revenue? Are these folks kind of carrying? And do we really need to add 500 more leads to the top of funnel? Or could we have like modest improvements across like your top top five channel partners? And what impact would that have? And that I think that's, that's as an agency, like what we need to be thinking about how to solve the big picture problems for our clients, as opposed to just coming in with a, a kind of task based solution.
Chris DuBois 25:42
Right? Yeah, it definitely gives credence to, like, niching yourself into a problem that you can solve, rather than just saying, I'm gonna write you some blog post. It's like, yeah, no, no, we're gonna get you more awareness that drives revenue for your business. So now, it's really like if that MQL number, maybe it's just we optimize a percent there. And that has a outsize impact instead of having a double the number of people coming into the website. Yeah. And it's, yeah, super simple thinking. But I think a lot of agency is going to skip over that, as they get anchored to a tactical deliverable. They do.
Speaker 1 26:15
And I think it's, if I think back to what you're talking about with like a blog, or like a, like a creative agency, or when I think back to our, when our services, try to kind of roll back the clock and think about what our service was, we're mainly content based, because at one point they were. And we started to see some shifts in buyer behavior, and some more interest in some account based motions and better collaboration between marketing and sales, and not even getting into like ecosystem led growth and channel partners. It's a whole other whole their whole their area. But But I would start looking at well, we need a certain amount of certain amount of content, we need these blogs, we need these, we need this for a couple of reasons. We needed it for SEO purposes. Now we need it for AI, you know, visibility, but we also need it for, for, you know, the thought leadership and proof that you're a trusted brand. And when I would look at well, what do we need to build for our clients? And we think about being a professional services model, which is largely ours based. So you think about like, Okay, well, how many hours is it going to take and what do I need to charge? They need, the content needs are always, from what I've seen, always going to outweigh the content needs are always going to be larger than the budget that the client has to allocate towards development of content. And so because of that, and because we work with our clients on retainer, and they're hiring us for outcomes, not for deliverables, it made us go, Oh, alright, well, maybe it's going to take us, we know it's going to take us more than, say, four hours to write a really good blog article. But we also know that our clients probably not going to spend more than four hours worth of their budget on on this content. And so we're just going to go ahead, and we're going to take more time to write it because we care more about the results that it brings than just getting paid to do like the hourly work. And that's where if you're a content based firm, and you're not jumping, jumping up and down with excitement over Gen AI, I don't understand, because you should be able to become more outcome driven, which will make you stickier, and we'll, we'll remove any sense of like commoditization that firms have when you're strictly just delivering a deliverable or you know, just just kind of creating content. And I'm not trying to diminish the power of really good content. And there's some amazing creators out there, but I'm just trying to speak the reality that in our market content has been highly, highly commoditized. Yeah,
Chris DuBois 29:03
it definitely has. And I do think the value of AI is getting a lot of the non creative pieces kind of out of the way very quickly, so that you can really double down on just the creativity and the insights that you can provide in your SME can provide that no one else can now this article is 10 times more valuable, because you spent your time doing the high leverage work rather than all this other stuff. Exactly. Right. So you mentioned earlier about providing value back to ecosystems, and and that being something within the future for agencies. So our blog is well connected with tech partners. I don't know how many you have, I think probably four big ones. Just HubSpot being probably one of the largest and where well. I first heard of smart but probably a lot of other people. But the what are what are you doing I guess within the ecosystem to To kind of foster growth not just for the ecosystem and for your your partner, but for yourself and kind of doing it all under one. What's a positive? Like? Trying to think like, motion under goodwill, I guess would be like, right, like a lot of people go into partner relationship saying, What can I What's in it for me? And it's obviously not the case here. And so how are you approaching that in a way that goes along with the questions to get there? But there you have it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 30:29
No, I get it. There's, when I when I talk to when I talk to agency owners and operators who are platform agnostic. I, I worry about them, like I think how do you do it? Because I think about people and scaling an organization. And maybe you can do that if you're content with having an agency like sub 30 people. And there's nothing wrong with that, right? Like, that's, that's, that's the model. Maybe that works for you. But for at smartbug. We were aiming to grow, and I'm looking for scalability. And so what made the most sense was for us to go all in with like a few key partners, and then build out additional partner relationships that support those key partners. So for example, HubSpot, as you mentioned, they're a tier one partner of ours. We have very, very few tier one partners. We've got HubSpot, we have Klaviyo. And we have Google. So we're because we're Google premier partner. So we have those. And that means every single one of our clients if they're working with us, they're either they're using one of those platforms. And let's like dial in right now on the HubSpot one because that's the largest part of our market. So all of our clients that are that are that fall into the HubSpot arm like they're all using HubSpot. They're all using some some part of HubSpot, whether it's the marketing hub, sales hub, service hub, or across the entire platform. And then there are other needs that they might have. So maybe they they have a more robust account based sales and marketing motion. Maybe they have more sophisticated video marketing or sales needs. Perhaps they are a SASS company, and they need more in product insights that they want to be able to take action on through marketing and sales. You know, workflows will we'll then identify other partners. So we've got about like 3540 other partners that are tiers. I'm gonna call them tiers two through four that we might that we might add on to HubSpot, but the common denominator is they all have HubSpot. So what this does is first, it allows us to we prioritize, so we've said flat out and I can say that to other partners, hey, we're we want to work with you because we see this as a gap right now. But I just want you to know that if HubSpot bills this, like we're gonna go all in on HubSpot. That's our first first primary like that. That's what brought us to the dance, right? Like we're staying with this partner. And they typically get it. They're like, okay, no, I understand. And I say to them, you always have to show me how you're doing something that enhances HubSpot, how you're doing something how your solution helps drive more value for our customer out of HubSpot, how it helps them hit their goals faster, whatever it is. And if you can't do that, then it's probably not a big priority for us. Or if it's well, you can do it in HubSpot. And this is an alternative, it's not going to be a tier two in our book, it's going to be further down on the list. And those tiers help us decide like what to what to really prioritize. So once you start though, doing things that way, and you think about like segmenting your customers, we know I've got this group of customers that are maybe earlier in their growth stage where I just care about making them really wildly successful in HubSpot Period, end of story, we're probably not going to introduce anything else. I've got another subset that are my, my expansion team. And they're using HubSpot as their core but there's maybe other solutions that they might require based off of their go to market motion. Now, my ecosystem, the group, the community that we we serve, and that we kind of service and support that's now expanded, and there's other stakeholders and there's other there's other initiatives, and there's a way to kind of collaborate and partner together. So you can go further, further, further and faster, right together as one as one bigger team. So I think working within an ecosystem and creating these sub ecosystems for yourself, it helps with prioritization. Like it helps you say no to things. It helps you with having training and tools and resources for your team. And it allows you to To better I think scale, versus just being completely technology agnostic. That That sounds that sounds kind of scary to me. Yeah.
Chris DuBois 35:11
What I like about it, so you can say no, an infinite amount of times. And every time you just crossing off another option, once you say, Yes, you've crossed off every other option by going all in there. And, and there is some power in that and being able to say, this is what we do, it makes your decision process so much faster. Because it's like no HubSpot is, is tier one, this is what we're focusing on right now. Like, if you want to be, you know, jump on this bandwagon, kind of go along with us, like, you gotta be doing these things. I think there's a lot of value in doing that. And you can't do it if you're agnostic. And so no,
Speaker 1 35:46
I mean, I or not, at least I haven't seen how to do it, how to do it really well, or how to really do it, how to really do it at scale. And so the ecosystem approach is just really has has served us well. And then there's, there's the, there's the ecosystem that we're in. So there's people that we that we're partners up like the HubSpot side of the world. But then there's also partners, we have independent consultants, affiliate partners, people who maybe they are they go in and do really robust m&a brand strategies. So we do some brand strategy at at smartbug. But it's not the like our core and singular focus. So it may make sense for a client of ours to work with one of our other brand strategist, contractors, you know, someone that or contractors, I'm sorry, like affiliate partner that we've collaborated with, who then also knows how we function and knows what kind of value we can bring, and they start with that person. And then that kind of transitions into ongoing work and execution support that we're able to provide, you know, there, we've got it coming from from that direction as well. And then the other thing about these some of these ecosystems like not just HubSpot, but other platforms that we've collaborated with, if we can help make those customers stickier if we get help improve retention, and help expand like actual activation of that of that platform with that customer, we've now provided a ton of value to the end customer, but also to that partner, who's then going to serve as a Referral Engine for more business that they're going to send to us. And so it's you just have to have like those clear lanes that you're like you're focused on. So you're to your point, you can say no, you know when to say no, because I think the hardest part about running an agency is there are so many good ideas. And there are so many ideas, period, right? And then you have to figure out which ones are good. And which ones just sound great. Because you're sleep deprived. And and and then and then figure out like, Well, what do we actually want to tackle and being that and I imagine this is the case in a lot of other firms, although I've only ever worked at smartbug as far as an agency. So I don't have any other agency experience. And I've always ever been been in house. But But you think you can take on more You Think You Can you think oh, we can? Let's do it. All right, and you just can't. And so you have to literally protect yourself from yourself.
Chris DuBois 38:18
The struggle of every optimist. So, I'm curious, you went from CRO smartbug to CEO? What are some of those skills that you took over that you think are beneficial for for being in the CEO seat? And how have those skills kind of changed the way I guess you're you're thinking through certain problems now that you're you're in this role?
Speaker 1 38:44
Are you? Are you asking the skills that I brought from being a CRO? Or are you asking the skills that were the gap between CEO and CRO?
Chris DuBois 38:53
Well, now I'm interested in both but I met the skills you had that you've taken with you. Yeah.
Speaker 1 38:59
I think being being a Chief Revenue Officer before becoming CEO was extraordinarily helpful because I was responsible for marketing for sales. And for our delivery team, our customer success, our client Client Services team, I was in in a position where I can think holistically about the entire customer experience. So I was eating, sleeping and breathing, eating, sleeping and breathing this idea of what what is the experience that someone has with us, but before they knew who we are, right? As they're getting to know us, when they decide to actually engage with us what kind of a commitment that they give, and that we how we partner together, how we help them achieve their goals and even down to if we're no longer serving them if we are no longer working with them, how we off for them, and stay connected to them in the future because I believe that the world is a very small place. And I believe that you know I believe in the karmic rules of life and what goes around comes around and the flywheel effect that you can have in your network in your relationships with your business. And so that like big picture, vision of customer experience really helped shaped who I am as a CEO today, it means it doesn't mean that I'm not focused on profitability. Right? And that our financial, financial strength, and like market value, those are things that matter to me, very much so. But I'm going to approach growth and profitability and partnership through the lens of the full customer experience, because of having that CRO role.
Chris DuBois 40:45
I know there are a lot of agency owners that are looking for who should replace me if I wanted to pull myself out of the seat, what should happen, and so being able to identify some of those skills, and maybe people within the organization, super helpful.
Speaker 1 41:01
And I think if I, if I can go back a step, I mean, I was so I was a client, right, then I started as the head of sales and marketing. And this a little bit of insight. smartbug was Starbucks founder and original CEO, Ryan alone was hiring for a head of marketing and a head of sales. And I reached out to him and said, I want to do both. So, so I joined as that that VP of Sales and Marketing and then it was a natural progression for me to then take in client services, as we're focused on not just retention, but also expansion and growing out of scope, you know, out of scope or revenue from, you know, from our client base. And, and it was I was in that VP of sales and marketing role, when we started to talk about a succession plan. And so CRO made the next best kind of it was the next best move. And next step that made sense for us. And I would, I would really encourage an agency owner to to maybe think that way, think about the talent they have on their team and who they can groom within the organization because the institutional knowledge, and the the the connection to culture is so important for your growth as a business, that I think that is a better I mean, I'm biased, because this was my my path. But I think that is a better path to succession planning, than bringing someone from the outside in to kind of scale the company to the next the next level, I think you can have other executives that you bring in, and that's what we've done and bringing in CFO, General Counsel, you know, VPs of technology bringing these other these other roles. But, but it the difference between one agency and another is the people that are in it. And your culture is the reflection of the people that are in your organization. And so I think you have to, you have to stay anchored to that culture. If you want to kind of grow very successfully. Yeah.
Chris DuBois 43:04
I love that. I'm biased to the same approach. So but awesome. Okay, we got through a lot. I've got two more questions for you. With the first being, what book do you recommend every agency leader should read? Oh.
Speaker 1 43:25
Okay, I got the book I think every agency leader should read is Brene, browns Brene. Browns book, oh, my gosh, this is the name of it. Dare to lead, okay.
Chris DuBois 43:38
They're to lead.
Speaker 1 43:39
Dare to lead. And the reason why I would say that is one of the things I've noticed inside of, of our agency with leaders is you got a lot of dreamers you've got, you've probably got people who are very creative, and who are used to or could be their own boss and be in charge and they have X high expectations, they probably have very high expectations. If you're doing client work, man, you must have really high expectations for yourself, to put yourself out there also to do to do work on on someone's behalf. And what I love in what Brene Brown talks about and dare to lead is shining that light back on what your expectations are, and how you are enabling your team as a leader to be successful. And she talks about this idea, this concept of painting it done. So not just assigning something out, but actually being able to illustrate being able to describe what the final output looks like and why like how it's going to be used, like like actually like crystal bullet, like what is the future really look like? And I think our teams need that from a management perspective, but our clients And our account managers also need that for client growth. And so I love I love the concepts that she's that she explores and dare to lead and I would really recommend it for any agency leader.
Chris DuBois 45:12
Yeah, I think it's great for just expectation management, which is a large portion of our jobs is like leaders and so definitely, definitely awesome. Last question. If people want to learn more about you, where can they find you?
Speaker 1 45:28
Well, you can visit smartbug media.com. Or I'm pretty active on LinkedIn. Jen Spencer smartbug media. Find me connect with me. Let me know that you heard me on this podcast.
Chris DuBois 45:38
Awesome. Jen, thank you so much for joining. This was a great conversation. Great to chat.
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