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Aaron Levenstadt is the Founder of Join Agency Alliance, an advisory board composed of former agency owners who have exited their businesses. He has built and sold multiple agencies, including Pedestal Search, which emerged from his experience as one of the original members of Google’s search analytics team. As an investor, Aaron supports agencies and entrepreneurs through coaching, connections, and advisory board development.

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Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

  • [03:27] Aaron Levenstadt discusses major sales mistakes agencies make and how to avoid them
  • [05:48] The three vital steps before pitching your services
  • [14:49] The art of redirecting client questions smoothly
  • [18:16] Why role models are essential for business growth
  • [29:07] How surrounding yourself with experts prevents costly mistakes
  • [33:04] Aaron shares tips for building a board of advisors
  • [44:08] Methods for preparing for a business sale
  • [48:17] How Join Agency Alliance helps businesses scale

In this episode…

In today’s competitive business landscape, many agency owners face the challenge of effectively marketing their services while avoiding common pitfalls. So, how do you transform your agency’s sales and marketing strategies to ensure success?

Aaron Levenstadt, a two-time agency founder, delves into the key elements you need to master to elevate your agency’s growth and maintain a compelling marketplace presence. He demonstrates how he navigated agency challenges by sharing his experiences and strategies in the agency world. He emphasizes the importance of presenting information in the correct order during sales pitches, highlighting that understanding and addressing the prospect’s problems should come before showcasing your services. Aaron also shares insights into human psychology in sales, stressing the need to engage both the reptilian and modern cortex brains to establish trust and credibility.

In this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz interviews Aaron Levenstadt, Founder of Join Agency Alliance, about mastering agency sales and growth. Aaron discusses major sales mistakes agencies make and how to avoid them, the three vital steps before pitching your services, the value of role models, and how Join Agency Alliance helps businesses scale.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Special Mention(s):

Related episode(s):

Quotable moments:

  • “The prospect has to buy into why they have a problem and why it’s bad if they don’t solve it.”
  • “You can’t ask somebody for directions to a place they’ve never been.”
  • “To scale properly, you need a peer network, advisory from those who’ve done it, and marketing lead gen support.”
  • “You can’t ask someone for directions to a place they’ve never been.”
  • “Being compelling is not just about the result; it’s the essence of a human business.”
  • “Adding new service lines in an agency is like adding a new business altogether.”

Action Steps:

  1. Prioritize building a strong advisory board: This approach helps avoid common pitfalls and provides insights from those who have firsthand experience.
  2. Adopt a client-centric sales approach: Build trust and relevance, addressing the psychological needs of prospects and increasing the likelihood of successful conversions.
  3. Embrace specialization in your agency’s services: This differentiation creates a clear identity and allows you to deliver superior results, which are crucial for standing out in a competitive market.
  4. Foster compelling client relationships: This human element can often be the deciding factor in maintaining client loyalty and satisfaction, beyond just delivering results.
  5. Be transparent during acquisition discussions: Honesty builds trust and preempts future issues, streamlining the due diligence process and paving the way for a smoother transaction.

Sponsor for this episode

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The relationships you form through podcasting run deep. Jeremy and John became business partners through podcasting. They have even gone on family vacations and attended weddings of guests who have been on the podcast.

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Episode Transcript

Intro 0:01

You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Dr Jeremy Weisz.

Jeremy Weisz 0:22

Dr Jeremy Weisz here, founder of inspiredinsider.com, where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders today, is no different. I have Aaron Levenstadt of Join. You can find them at joinagencyalliance.com, their agency Alliance. We’ll talk a little bit about that. Aaron also, before I formally introduce you, I always like to point out other episodes people should check out, this is part of the top agency series. So we had Jason Swenk on. He talked about building up his agency date figures and selling it. That was really interesting. And then Todd Taskey, actually, Aaron was on Todd’s podcast as well. He’s got the Second Bite Podcast.

So Todd helps pair agency owners of private equity, and sometimes they make more on the second bite than they do on the first. Aaron has first-hand experience with this twice, actually, so we’ll talk about that. Another good one was Kevin Hourigan, who had an agency since 1995 so he kind of talks about the landscape of the internet business and agency world during those times as well. You can check out more on inspiredinsider.com.

This episode is brought to you by Rise25. At Rise25 we help businesses give to and connect to their dream relationships and partnerships. How do we do that? We do that by helping you run your podcast. We’re an easy button for a company to launch and run a podcast. We do the strategy, the accountability, and then the full back-end execution. So Aaron, we call ourselves, kind of the magic elves that run in the background and make it look easy for the company and the host, so they can create amazing relationships, create amazing content, but most importantly, run their business.

For me, the number one thing in my life is relationships, and I’m always looking at ways to give to my best relationships, and I have found no better way, over the past decade, to profile the people in companies I most admire and share with the world what they’re working on. So when I saw Aaron on Todd show and Jason show, I’m like, we got to get him on, share his knowledge. So if you’ve thought about podcasting, you should if you have questions, go to rise25.com or email us at [email protected].

I’m excited to introduce Aaron Levenstadt. He grew up actually, you put in quotes Aaron, professionally speaking at Google, working on search core products like organic and paid. He actually found and sold digital agencies. Now he actually brings best-in-class scale experts and others have scaled and put them in rooms with current owners and leaders, like I was saying, with joinagencyalliance.com. He also does some investing, investing in the markets and digital agencies as well. So we’ll talk a little bit about that. Aaron, thanks for joining me.

Aaron Levenstadt 3:01

Thank you for having me. Jeremy.

Jeremy Weisz 3:03

So there’s so many places to start we you know, we won’t start in back in how you got into digital agency world, but we’ll circle back to some of those old businesses, but you hit on something that I thought would be important to start with, which is sales and marketing strategy and big mistakes people make with sales. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Aaron Levenstadt 3:27

Yeah, so I think agency sales specifically, and I went through this, I lived this journey over many years, and now, you know, fortunate that we’re able to support people in our community and join the agency alliance with, you know, going helping them through this stuff and so couple, like, big mistakes. Maybe the biggest mistake that we see is the order of information that is presented in the sale. And one of the biggest mistakes there is, agencies, I think, have this inclination they should be like, leading with logos. Or the first thing that you say when you meet a client is like, what you do and how you do it, and, you know, call that like features and benefits of your offering. And that is categorically wrong. It is the wrong way to approach the conversation.

We can get into the nitty gritty on this, but the highest level, like the prospect in this kind of sale has to buy into, why, like, first of all, they have a problem and why they should care. Second that, like, if they don’t solve it, it’s really bad, like Game of Thrones, like winter is coming, and why you are a reasonable or the right provider to help them solve their problem, and until you’ve gotten through those pieces of the puzzle, you really cannot be even talking about the specifics of your offer, or like, the nitty-gritty of what you do, or why you’re great, or the logos or that you’ve worked with Boeing and Starbucks, and even if those rare clients, it doesn’t matter until you’ve gotten those things in their head in kind of that order.

I’ve gotten really fascinating with psychology, and this is all rooted in like, psychology, of like, getting through like, the two levels of the human brain, the like, the old, like, reptilian brain, and then, like, the more modern cortex, I got, like, super science-y here for a second, but the idea is, like, you’ve got to build that comfort and through the reptilian brain and then into the cortex. And the way that you build that comfort today is not, I mean, yeah, there’s a little bit of rapport you can do, but it’s really about getting through these three things that help relax the mind before you can talk about your offer.

Jeremy Weisz 5:47

So what are the three things again?

Aaron Levenstadt 5:48

I mean, the prospect, before you can talk about anything that you do. The prospect, it has to be clear that there is going to be a big problem if the prospect does not solve what you solve, like, a serious problem. So, like, I kind of call, like, winter is coming. Like, you know, there is, there’s a big winter coming. Yeah, a good example of this would be, like, and I heard this talked about, this is an agency, but just to contextualize this with a very tangible example, like, if you were in the movie theater industry, like, back in the day, and you had a movie theater that had, like, flat seating, and you had like, in your neighborhood, like, seven or eight movie theaters coming into town that were all stadium-style seating, the new theater versions, like, unless you figured out how to do that, you’re gone. Like, it’s over like because the stadium is such a better experience that there’s no way you so, a consultant in that space, might you lead off by saying, Listen, we know the space.

We’re in real estate, or we do real estate consulting for a real estate agency, providing services for the movie industry. And we know that in this neighborhood in Poughkeepsie or Chicago or New York, there are six movie theaters coming into town in the next six months that have stadium style seating, and it’s not like a little bit of a better experience. It’s like there’s no reason for them to come to this theater anymore. And there’s a change happening, right? And there’s a change in this space, and unless you figure out Mr. Mrs. Prospect, how to get in line with this change, and to get and to work with whether it’s us or somebody else who understands and can navigate this for, you’re gonna have a colossal problem, and that has to get put on the table. That’s one.

The second is why they should care. So, I mean, the movie theater, you know, that’s, I guess, an easier example, obviously, like, their existence is at stake, or that’s, you know, the way that we’re talking about this here. And then whatever you’re doing as a firm, like in my world, we did, search engine marketing as a core offering, and you know, they should care, because same ideas, like, if they’re not found in that search when somebody’s looking for them, there’s a 0% chance they’re getting that business, I mean, right? And worst case scenario where we’d see, like, people that were buying ads but they weren’t coming up organically. And then you’re buying ads, but you’re actually kind of directing that traffic to a competitor who comes up in organic search. And that’s even worse than not coming up. So, this is why you should care, right? So that’s another one.

And then that another thing that you need to figure out, you need to establish, is why you and why you, I should say, because I think this gets and when we talk about this with members in the community, and it gets misconstrued in that why you is not about your capabilities that comes up elsewhere in the pitch. Why? If this doesn’t work out as between you and the prospect, you know after they sign the contract and send you the money, if it doesn’t work out, it is bad for both of you, like, really bad. Like, there you have serious skin in the game, and beyond the check, and you have to figure out a way to get that on the table and communicate that, like, well before it’s asked, if it’s even asked at all. Like, sometimes this will never even come up organically, but you should still be putting it on the table as to why it’s bad if this doesn’t work out.

And there’s different ways of saying that, or talking tracks around that, but the idea that, you know, if this doesn’t work out for both parties, it’s bad for everybody. And that’s really, you know, that’s how you kind of help them get help a prospect get a bit more comfortable that, and until all that’s done, you can’t get into what you do or why you’re braid at whatever it is you do, because that has to be established first, and that is rooted in human psychology.

Jeremy Weisz 9:53

Aaron, do you remember a time where you just made this mistake and it just fell flat, and then. Afterwards, you look back and go, oh, my God, I totally botched that?

Aaron Levenstadt 10:07

Many times. Like, I am not, like, I’ve gotten very good at this. I am, but I am not a natural, I mean, whatever, natural born salesperson, I don’t see myself that way. Like, at you whatever. It’s a funny story that, someone shares, like I did my undergrad at Stanford, and I was a lot friends with a lot of guys on, like, on sports teams at Stanford. They were, you know, whatever, football and basketball and whatever. And they were all their apparel sponsored Nike. And then they had the name of the sport. And then there was, like, a small subset of our friend group, which is kind of the subs that I was a part of, where we had the same apparel printed, but it was like, swoosh study.

So like, like, my background was not, I was, you know, that I was good at school. I was good. I had to learn this, and I studied it and then practiced it. And I was devout about it. And by that, I mean, like me, I mean, some may say, like, maybe a little like, OCD about it, but I would literally record myself on these calls. And this is like before zoom and otter and these other fathoms. And with that, it’s even easier. But I would have a recording device, phone or whatever, I would listen to myself. And Jeremy, to your point, I would then, like, go for walks, and I would just replay the calls, and I listen, where did it go wrong? Where did it fall flat? Where am I not? You know, where.

But, I mean, did it fall flat? I mean, yeah, like, a lot of times. To get good at this stuff, you need, I believe you need, really good role models that know how to do it, people that have surround yourself, people that have done it, so you can get into their brains and access that. Because you can’t. I mean, this isn’t something you can really Google. You can read about it a little bit, but yeah, it’s like reading about Michael Jordan playing basketball. You’re not shooting like Jordan the next day, right? So you got to surround yourself. People have done it and you’ve got to really be you got to get reps in, right? So I got a lot of reps in, and I made a lot of mistakes along the way to get to the point where I have finesse this to where, like, what I do and what I see work in practice jives with the science and it works.

But, yeah, I mean, I’ll try to give a more tangible example, but I would remember pitches where we were pitching at one point, like, a large, like Pest Control, like National pest control company, whatever. There’s probably only two or three of them, and we got into the thing. And I think again, like my natural, I think I was asked, like, the prospect was like, oh, like, tell me what you guys do. Like, want to hear about what it is. So before I even had the chance to go into this structure, the whys and the why you should care. I just started talking about the offering, and that’s a mistake, even when the prospect says, Tell me. But like, the first thing I want to know is what you guys do, and how much do you charge for it, right?

And you’re, oh, I should, you’re one might react instinctively to be like, I should just answer that, because they’re asking that’s wrong. And that pitch was, we were finalists, we got and that pitch we did not win that pitch. And I’m 97.3% certain it’s because of the way that I handled the presentation of that information, literally the ordering of the information, because you had to get in their head, and that it’s a hard thing to wrap around, because the Gulf of information between or the Gulf of how much you understand what you do as between you and the prospect is so large you forget, because you don’t live anywhere but your own head, but the gulf between your understanding of what you do and how you do it, and your model and your pricing structure, and it is the golf is Grand Canyon esque, between your understanding of it and the prospect.

And there’s, I forget the movie now, but there’s a movie, I think it’s with Denzel Washington. At one point in the movie, he’s like, listening to somebody pitch him, and he like, stops, and he’s like, tell it to me like I’m a fifth grader. And your prospect may not say that to you, but this structure helps you do that, and that’s what I would strive to do.

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