Hey, thanks for tuning in to another Partner Interview at EcomBalance. At EcomBalance, we’re all about creating win-win partnerships where we are able to grow with other companies in the ecommerce space.
In this exclusive interview, we have a conversation with Blake Snodgrass from AgencyCollective.
Having launched and scaled four separate 6 & 7 Figure online businesses, Blake Snodgrass has assimilated and consolidated the best modern methods for acquiring clients through direct-response advertising & digital marketing.
With clients ranging from local brick and mortar businesses, to 8-Figure online information product companies, Blake has been able to successfully apply his methods of positioning, copywriting, media buying & multi-channel marketing to acquire clients consistently and profitably.
If you have a high-leverage online business and are looking for a marketing consultant who can help you get in front of your ideal customer avatar daily, by the tens of thousands, Blake’s mentorship within AgencyCollective will help you get there.
Connor: Hey Blake, thanks for taking the time to chat with us here. We love getting to know our partners better so that our community can benefit from what our partners are offering and doing in the industry. To get started, can you give us a high level overview of Agency Collective and how it started?
Blake: Agency Collective is a tight-knit community of agency owners who help each other grow and scale their digital marketing businesses. We provide a high level of accountability and very detailed consulting to help agency owners solve the bottlenecks and constraints within their firms.
We primarily help agency owners with things like solving their lead generation and sales issues up to their onboarding and fulfillment and client communication processes as well. But it is mainly centered around this very tight-knit accountability community or group, that’s the main aspect of it.Connor: That’s awesome. Can you dive a bit more on your support community for agency owners? I’m sure our audience would love to know exactly what problems you could solve for them.Blake: The six pillars of your agency are lead generation, sales process, closing, onboarding, fulfillment, and account management. At AgencyCollective, what we’re doing is helping agency owners spot which of those pillars has become a bottleneck or constraint for them and then we develop custom growth plans for agency owners within AgencyCollective to make sure they can solve those bottlenecks and begin truly scaling for the first time.
We do offer things like curriculum and training on different pillars as well as daily accountability and support, and custom coaching. We offer other things like coaching on staff for things like advertising and prospecting and sales and more.Connor: Jumping off of that…if there was one problem you’d say that AgencyCollective solves best for your clients, what would it be? Why?Blake: I would say most agency owners that come to us are trying to solve the problem of generating more leads and more opportunities for their business and therefore increasing sales. And then on the back end, we try helping them with how they get themselves as the owner out of fulfillment completely removed from fulfillment so they can focus on revenue-generating activities.
So the three main buckets are how we generate more leads to your agency, how we close more deals for your agency, and how we get fulfillment off your place so you can focus on scaling. Those are the three biggest problems and three biggest goals we have for the agency owners that come to work with us.Connor: As the company continues to grow over the next year, What are your plans for expansion? Any new products or offerings or enhancements to your current products?Blake: At this point in time, I believe our consulting community is probably the highest quality consulting community in the agency space given the amount of attention and detail we give to the individual agency owner. We plan to continue with that theme and make sure that we are rolling out new resources and solutions for our community members every single month.
Things like high-level guest speakers, a new curriculum, and training on how to generate leads for your agency and close deals at a faster rate. Direct partnerships with preferred vendors and other white-label contractors that can help your agency grow and more.Connor: And how specifically would you say that AgencyCollective and your team is different from other similar businesses in the industry. Blake: I would say most consulting programs or businesses in our space focus on teaching one main strategy or they have one claim to fame based on how they do something. They may teach one set of curriculum or one set of training. When in reality that’s like going to a personal trainer and then giving you the same workout plan and nutrition plan as they give everyone else.
Every agency is different. You’re going to have different services, different methods of client acquisition, different offers and pricing, and different methods of fulfillment. So the goal is not to get the agency owners, with an agency collective to fit into a box that I’ve designed.
The goal is to meet them where they are and develop custom client acquisition and fulfillment systems and plans that are going to help them grow from where they are now to where they want to be.
As opposed to just fitting, trying to fit them into, some kind of, predestined path or box. Again, every agency owner is different in the same way that every person is different, which is why to go off the personal trainer analogy again. That’s why a personal trainer doesn’t give you the same workout plan and nutrition plan as everyone else. So I try to make sure that, when I consult with an agency owner, I get a very good understanding of where they’re at and where they’re trying to be and we develop a custom plan to help them get there. Which again usually involves dialing in their lead generation, their client acquisition process, and their fulfillment and account management. Again, the six pillars: lead generation, sales process, closing, onboarding fulfillment, and account management. Connor: What made you decide to get involved in the community support space? What’s your starting online business story? From what we’ve found, a lot of business owners in the agency community support have fun stories of how they first started…Blake: For me, I’ve been running marketing agencies for the better part of a decade and it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I found my love for teaching and consulting.
So over time, my love for running marketing agencies morphed into my love for helping others do the same.Connor: Love it! Talking more about the online business industry, where do you see it in the next 1-2 years? Any unique predictions that you could share?Blake: Over the next few years, I just believe that the agencies that become great at client acquisition will survive, and those who do not will not.
There is this funny phenomenon I call the digital marketer client acquisition paradox. This is the paradox that most digital marketers are good at client acquisition and generating results for their clients, but they suck at doing it for themselves.
I believe that the agency owners who don’t solve this paradox and truly learn how to treat themselves like their most important client, like their own most important client, will start to fall by the wayside if they don’t get that problem solved.
So as marketers, a lot of digital marketers can become hypocritical and tell their clients that they are amazing at client acquisition generating leads, and generating new customers for their clients, yet they don’t do it for themselves. Again, I believe that the agency owners who don’t fix that problem will start to fall by the wayside as technology and AI and all these other things come into play, it’s only going to be the agency owners who truly know how to scale rapidly that will survive.Connor: Giving you an open mic for a minute, What is something you’d want the AccountsBalance audience to hear? Blake: I suppose I would want to continue saying the same thing that I say to any agency owners who have been plateaued or struggling for months or years. That is if you are struggling with one of those six pillars, whether it be generating your leads and opportunity closing deals, or maybe you’re stuck in fulfillment and account management and you just have this gold and hamster wheel, even if you’re making good money, you still just have a high-paying job.
If you’re stuck trying to solve any of those problems, just make sure you partner up with someone who has solved those problems and learn from them, and implement accountability into your daily routine as well. In AgencyCollective, not only are we helping you solve those bottlenecks, but we’re also holding you accountable daily to the growth trajectory that you’re seeking. Getting close proximity with people who have already done the journey that you are on and let them hold you accountable. That is the fastest path to success. Connor: Changing gears a little bit…When it comes to bookkeeping and accounting, What do you think the biggest pain points for business owners are? Feel free to speak from personal experience as well.Blake: I believe the pain points centered around bookkeeping and accounting are the same pain points that agency owners experience with fulfillment and account management and everything that happens after closing a deal, you just need to get that stuff off your plate.
As a business owner, you should primarily be thinking about what you can do to bring in new opportunities and new revenue and everything else outside of that needs to get off your plate and out of your brain. Bookkeeping and accounting were one of the first things that I outsourced and got off my plate because I should not be spending time doing. I think that when I can hire a professional, take care of it, and then in my business I can focus on revenue-generating activities. I believe that’s something you should get off your plate as quickly as possible.Connor: As we close this out, I just have one more question. Where is the best place to follow you and the company online? Also, if you have one, is there any special offer that you’ll be offering to the community today?Blake: At the moment, the best place to find us online is simply going to our website or connecting with me on Facebook. Through either of those mediums, you can sign up for a free agency audit or consultation and we’d be happy to take a look at your agency and filter it through the lens of the six pillars and see what you’re struggling with and what your constraints are.
