{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Can your Infrastructure Support 10X Sales Growth?","description":"Anthony Sarandrea is the founder of Siteflood, a high-revenue agency offering website design, search engine optimization, paid social, paid search management, and analytics and tracking to select clients. Siteflood\u2019s primary focus is on paid media, fast results, and a trackable ROI.  Originally, a boutique agency with select clients paying a monthly retainer, Siteflood has added a \u201cpartnership model,\u201d where Siteflood\u2019s income from a client is tied directly the number of leads it generates or the client\u2019s sales numbers. As these clients grow, the agency\u2019s incentivization grows. This model has enabled Siteflood to scale quickly without needing to add huge numbers of staff or hundreds of clients. The agency garners a daily gross revenue in the six figures \u2013 with a staff of around 30 people.  Does incentivization always work? Anthony relates the story where one of two client companies, with identical, copy-pasted Google AdWords, made $3 for every $1 net margin spend and the other company claimed they had not \u201cmade a dollar of revenue\u201d in 4 months. The difference in results had nothing to do with the generated lead flow. It came from differences in the companies\u2019 internal sales processes, products, and how each company closed deals. Anthony emphasizes that incentivization only works when you are \u201caligned with the right people.\u201d  In this interview, Anthony recommends finding clients that work . . . and then finding more of the same kind of clients. He describes the process Siteflood uses to select \u201cthe right clients\u201d: Does the company measure up on an in-depth \u201cvetting process\u201d of its processes, culture, and growth-readiness? Does this relationship look like it will be successful? Is the company at an inflection point where it is large enough to quickly scale to putting six figures a month into marketing and small enough that it can be coached to improve its internal, customer relationship, and sales processes? Does the company have the infrastructure to support a ten-fold increase in sales?  At the beginning, Anthony did it all. He explains how growing his company was an iterative process of replacing himself. He recommends a book, The E-Myth, Why Most Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It, available on Amazon at: https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Myth-Most-Businesses-Dont-About\/dp\/0887303625. The book discusses the growth journey in terms of learning new skill sets. Anthony feels the key to sustainable long term growth is to invest in his people \u2013 to serve as a facilitator and cheerleader, to provide the right tools and training, to continuously invest in his employees\u2019 wellbeing, and to set them up for success.  Growth also requires hiring . . . the right people for the right reasons: Hire quickly to replace yourself in jobs you don\u2019t like to do.  For fast results, hire people who can do things better than you can. If you cannot afford someone full time, hire part time. Anthony recommends a site called Clarity.fm https:\/\/clarity.fm\/ where experts are paid by the minute. Hire for jobs at which you excel, but expect that the person replacing you will only be 70% as good at it as you are. Here, Anthony explains his training process. He says a company owner absolutely has to replace him- or herself if the company is to grow. Anthony\u2019s interview is rich with ideas. His favorite way to be contacted is through Instagram at: @anthonysarandrea. Or google his name and reach out to him on one of his sites. He loves answering questions. Transcript Follows: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I\u2019m your host, Rob Kischuk, and I am joined today by Anthony Sarandrea, Founder of Siteflood in Scottsdale, Arizona. Welcome to the podcast, Anthony. ANTHONY: Hey, Rob. Thanks for having me, brother. ROB: Fantastic to have you here. Why don\u2019t you start off by telling us about Siteflood and the specialties that you work in?  ANTHONY: We started as a boutique agency that took on select clients. Really the paid media space is where we\u2019ve always sharpened our teeth. A lot of that is the speed of results to be able to have a trackable ROI on a lot we\u2019ve done. We started taking on select clients in a traditional agency format where they paid us a retainer per month, and a lot of clients still are on that format. Over the years, we started performing well for clients and realized, why don\u2019t we productize our service? Why don\u2019t we sell leads or sell on a per sale or something like that where essentially, instead of getting paid a flat fee each month, we were tied to incentives that aligned with the actual company itself \u2013 or our partner, I should say. That allowed us to very rapidly scale without having to add hundreds of people or hundreds of clients or anything like that. When our clients grew, we grew and the incentivization grew and we made more money. Today, we\u2019ve scaled up to a little over six figures a day that the company makes in gross revenue. I think a lot of people are surprised the team is only 30-something people. Most agencies in order to scale need to hire on dozens and dozens of people to get anywhere near that level, where because of the model and incentivization ad structure, and we\u2019ve been able to do it in a win-win format. ROB: The productization you came up with, did you get to leads? Or was there another metric? Does it vary by client a little bit? ANTHONY: It varies by client. Most of what we focus on today is in the lead space, so each customer we send. But a lot of times it was structured initially on profit sharing or rev sharing or a bounty per new customer we drove. I think a lot of agencies and brands \u2013 we talked a little bit before this on where I see the future of advertising agencies \u2013 I think brands are going to demand more, as they should, out of their agencies, where it\u2019s not just a \u201cwrite a check and forget it\u201d and pay it each month. When essentially the incentivization is in alignment, both the agency and the company grow and everybody feels good about it versus writing a 10 grand a month check about SEO and saying you might see something in the next 2 years. ROB: Right. It seems like there\u2019s always tension in pricing, and you want to drive to value for sure. It seems like when you talk about leads, there\u2019s a tension because if you price towards closed business, then you are linking your business to their sales effectiveness. But if you are not pricing to their closed business, then it leaves room for conversations about lead quality. How did you figure out which side you wanted to land on, if you have? ANTHONY: Great question. That thought process \u2013 I\u2019ll start with this, too, to asterisk the whole thing \u2013 it forced us to realize that we bring a lot more \u2013 a lot of times companies or even vendors look at themselves as vendors and they\u2019re like, \u201cThese are the guys that write the checks for me.\u201d It\u2019s like, hold on, when we\u2019re doing good services, we\u2019re actually helping write the checks for them. We\u2019re helping them pay their employees because we\u2019re driving customers. So it put us a lot more in the driver\u2019s seat than I think a lot of agencies or even brands look at vendors or agencies. They look at them as a commodity or it\u2019s just another person, where now it forced us to be infinitely more selective on who we worked with. To your point, I remember at one point we had two companies that were the exact same. We literally copy and pasted the campaigns in Google AdWords, and one company was making $3 to every $1 net dollar margin that they were spending, and the other one said in 4 months, they hadn\u2019t made a dollar in revenue. What was the difference there? It was their sales process internally. It was their product. It was how they closed deals. It had nothing to do with the lead flow we were driving. I think a lot of agencies and brands, it\u2019s easy to point and say the leads suck or the traffic sucks or they\u2019re not good at what they do. We had to really look at, who are we aligning ourselves with? That is equally if not infinitely more important, to be aligned with the right people. I guess to answer your initial question, we focused at the beginning, and we do today, on driving the best customers, really helping our clients make the most money, because we know in order for us to get paid more and put more dollars in our pocket, we need to help them put more dollars in their pocket. Otherwise they can\u2019t pay us. If the company is not making money, they can\u2019t continue to justify paying us. So by focusing on really the bottom line of our clients or for agency owners to do that, you\u2019re able to essentially justify your fees coming back tenfold. They\u2019d be silly to not want to pay you more if you\u2019re making them that money and you\u2019re able to trackably show that. ROB: As you\u2019ve dialed in on these right customers for you, have there been certain categories, certain types of companies for certain product lines that have emerged? And how do you get close enough to really, really vet and evaluate whether they\u2019re a good customer? ANTHONY: The vetting, we\u2019ll do everything. When they come in and they\u2019re asking to work with us, we\u2019ll buy the product or we\u2019ll call in and even walk through the sales process of enrolling the client and stuff like that and just see, how is their follow-up sequence? How is their upsell sequence? How do they do it? A lot of that, we don\u2019t necessarily have enough hours in the day or resources and\/or bandwidth that we want to point towards helping them tune up their sales process. If a lot of that is not already in place, we know it\u2019s probably going to be a failing campaign. Simple things that you forget, but most companies don\u2019t even pick up the phone when it rings. It\u2019s so funny. They have a $12 an hour college guy or gal answering the phone, and it\u2019s like, you\u2019re spending 10 grand a month on Google AdWords and then you have a $12 an hour girl or guy answering the phones? How does that make sense? So even just little quick things like that. Just saying, \u201cHey, is this going to be successful? Have they invested in their sales process?\u201d That\u2019s number one. Number two, we\u2019re at a really interesting inflection point where we need a big enough company that can scale so they can put six figures a month into marketing dollars, but also small enough where we can grab their ear when we need to say, \u201cHey, answer the phone in a certain way\u201d or \u201cHey, you should work on your upsell sequence.\u201d We had Fortune 500 companies where it took months to move anything, and it was hindering us, especially if we\u2019re tied to performance. If we know something is going to work, or at least we want to test it, and it takes 3 months of approvals to get through middle management to upper management to senior \u2013 that\u2019s not a partner for us either. So we\u2019ve really landed on companies that probably do anywhere from $10 million to $50 million a year that are heavily focused on direct response advertising. Things like that are really our bread and butter. ROB: Any particular categories of direct response product? ANTHONY: On our own website, a lot of the lead focus are a lot in the financial space, but healthcare has also been very big for us. Very easily, though, you can apply the same model to ecommerce. The same challenges work there, and now the conversation is on the phone with the brand. \u201cHow is your supply chain pipeline? Are you guys able to scale up quickly? Do you guys have investments? How\u2019s your cash flow?\u201d Asking those types of questions where if you\u2019re signing up 100 sales and you go to 1,000 sales a day, do they have the infrastructure to support that? I guarantee you, if you\u2019re an agency owner or if you\u2019re a brand listening, that conversation sticks out infinitely further than every other agency that\u2019s like \u201cI charge 10% of spend. We\u2019re going to get you impressions and clicks and SEO.\u201d The brand owner is almost like, \u201cI don\u2019t understand half this stuff. It feels like brain surgery. Everyone is having the same conversations with me.\u201d \u201cHere\u2019s my past work.\u201d It\u2019s like, how about getting on the phone and being like, \u201cLogistically, how would it work if you tripled it? Do you guys have the infrastructure to support that?\u201d Have that conversation. See the response you get if you\u2019re an agency owner to a brand. Or if you\u2019re a brand, think about how good that would feel to have that agency partner having those conversations with you as a partner. I keep saying partner, too. I don\u2019t say a vendor. I don\u2019t say a company. It really becomes a partnership in a lot of ways because the whole train falls off the tracks if both sides aren\u2019t keeping up their end of the bargain. If the engine isn\u2019t moving, if they\u2019re not putting the right gasoline and oil into the engine, you\u2019re just the wheels, really. You could be the best wheels on the planet; if that engine is not fine-tuned, which is the client, or vice versa, there\u2019s a problem. So there really needs to be an alignment on both.  ROB: Anthony, you said you\u2019re around 30 people in the company now, but obviously everybody starts somewhere, and it usually starts pretty small. How did you end up starting Siteflood, and what led to that beginning? ANTHONY: It really started with me doing a lot of essentially consultation or consulting work, it felt like, or side hustle, where you\u2019ve got a couple clients. I was the technician. I\u2019m the one running the AdWords accounts and things like that and having the conversations. At least me \u2013 I\u2019ll just tell my story \u2013 you start doing everything, really. I\u2019m the bookkeeper, I\u2019m the accountant. I\u2019m wearing all the hats. Then, at least my journey, I got busy enough where I was able to hire on \u2013 at the time, the first hire was a bookkeeper part-time, and then the second hire was actually my brother, someone to run the ads where then I enjoyed and was good at the conversations with the clients. Then started building out essentially people doing the work, so the technicians. I was the manager\/point of contact for the clients to liaison, I\u2019ll say. Then eventually replacing myself as that, and then last step is and was replacing myself in sales. That\u2019s the progression. I find a lot of agency owners move through a similar progression. They go from the technician to manager to learning how to be an entrepreneur. There\u2019s a great book called The E-Myth that I recommend to anybody listening. It essentially walks through that journey and how you\u2019re really each time learning new skillsets. I was a badass sales guy, and then I was a badass internet marketer, and then I had to learn how to be a good manager. Then I had to learn to be a good entrepreneur. You really start at ground zero, almost on each one. I think the quicker you wrap your head around this is a totally new skillset, even though it\u2019s the same industry or type of business \u2013 I think a lot of people fall into the fallacy that it\u2019s like \u201cI\u2019m really good at Google AdWords. I\u2019ll be a really good manager or a really good entrepreneur.\u201d It\u2019s not always the case. It\u2019s very difficult to start from ground zero and really humble yourself each time you move that progression from technician to manager to entrepreneur. ROB: Those last couple of steps that you mentioned can often be the most challenging. That switching out from being the lead salesperson, in particular, because in a services firm, so often the client wants some facetime with you as the founder, as the leader. How have you navigated that transition? Is it more that people who are taking the role and leading on sales are leading in that function and you\u2019re still brought in sometimes because that\u2019s part of the brand of the firm? Or have you found some tactics that you\u2019ve been able to move it even further? ANTHONY: I think there\u2019s one thing that really stuck with me. I think especially a lot of A type entrepreneurs are very controlling, and nobody\u2019s going to ever have the same level of care you do for your business because your name is on it. You\u2019re taking the risk, so you get the downfall and the upside. When the company is making good money, you\u2019re making good money. When the company is struggling or failing, it\u2019s really your ass. Where was I going with that? Oh, I had a great mentor tell me one time, \u201cIf you can hire someone to do the job 70% as good as you, that\u2019s what you should aim for.\u201d It was tough because at first I had someone come in and would run the AdWords accounts, and I was like, I can do this better. The reality is, you probably can. If you\u2019re telling yourself that, it\u2019s probably true. But you will never grow with that mindset. The company will not grow. Unless you find a way to get more hours in the day \u2013 which Bill Gates hasn\u2019t been able to figure that out yet \u2013 unless you find a way to be able to extend the length of the day, it\u2019s impossible for you to ever break that. Wrapping my head around that was like, got it, cool, put your ego down, understand that yes, nobody can do this as good as you \u2013 and that\u2019s okay. Now it\u2019s become a function of, can I hire someone to do it 70% as good as me. I really lead with \u201cI do, you watch, then you do, I watch, and then I manage.\u201d Essentially, I\u2019m doing it and showing it; they\u2019re watching. Then I\u2019m hands off and I\u2019m watching and I\u2019m saying, \u201cNow you\u2019re doing it.\u201d Then when it feels good, it\u2019s putting checks and balances in place. It\u2019s \u201cHey, let\u2019s track the CPA you\u2019re driving for this campaign. Let\u2019s track how many conversations you had with a client.\u201d I\u2019ll poke in time to time and just listen on mute to a sales call, little things like that. But really, at least for me, it\u2019s a function of again, I\u2019m doing and you\u2019re watching, you\u2019re taking notes. And it\u2019s not a one-time thing. It\u2019s consistently \u2013 it\u2019s funny. Now I joke I\u2019m really a cheerleader, at the end of the day, today. I work for my team more than they work for me. My job all day long is like, \u201cWhat can I get you? How can I help you?\u201d They\u2019re like, \u201cGo get me this.\u201d I\u2019m running to go get coffee for everybody. That\u2019s my job now: to continuously invest in their wellbeing, to make sure they have the right tools, they have the right training, set them up to have consultations with people that might be better. That\u2019s in personal and business life. That continuous grooming of individuals is really, at least in my opinion, the key to sustainable long-term growth. But again, that was a little tactical there. I think that same progression applies to whether you\u2019re hiring someone around an AdWords account, someone to talk to clients, or someone to sell. But short answer, yeah. The other portion of my time is putting out fires. I\u2019m not going to say I\u2019m sitting on a beach all day and the machine runs itself. I am there to put our fires. I am there when there\u2019s a difficult conversation or a new challenge that comes up for a sales guy or within the accounts. I am there to help strategize or to jump in or anything like that. Yeah, I\u2019d say I handle the top 10% of fires as well that roll up to me. ROB: Very good. Anthony, you mentioned that one of your early hires was your brother, and it sounded like he came in in this operational structuring role. How have you thought about, as you grow, handling this balance of needing process to scale while also needing creativity and the entrepreneurial spirit to continue growth and avoid stagnating? ANTHONY: That\u2019s an awesome question, dude. I think first you\u2019ve got to understand where your strength is. Is it operationally or is that continued vision? Ultimately, I think I\u2019d be lying if I didn\u2019t say you have to learn and work on both. That\u2019s where that challenge of the 24 hours comes in. But it\u2019s hiring people that can do things better than yourself. For instance, I remember when we were at a much, much, much smaller size, I hired an operational consultant who came in for a week. It was a ton of money at the time for him to come in, and I was like, this is a necessary investment. He put together project management systems and he put together processes. It was all stuff that I had been probably a year too late. We really needed it a year earlier and I just kept being like, \u201cI\u2019ll do it\u201d or \u201cWe should\u201d or \u201cWe\u2019re good, the train\u2019s not falling off.\u201d Making those investments back into the business is extremely key because if I hadn\u2019t done that, we would\u2019ve never unlocked the next level in the video game. We would\u2019ve been stuck on that same level. That process is extremely important and it is something that I am not blessed with. I was not born to be very checklist, A, B, C, D, E. I always joke it\u2019s a \u201cfire, ready, aim\u201d mentality. Essentially, finding people, whether it\u2019s consultants, it\u2019s a part-time person \u2013 whoever gets that ball moving, because a lot of times it\u2019s hard, depending on the size of an agency, to be like \u201cLet me go hire a full-time operations guy or project management.\u201d You might not have the cash flow to be able to justify that. But what can you afford and what kind of steps \u2013 there\u2019s a great site called Clarity.fm where you can pay people per minute for their time. Go find someone who ran a good-sized company operationally and have them come in and help put this together. Spend a day with someone on your team that can help do it. Because ultimately, you do need to be watching out for icebergs as an entrepreneur. If that is the role you\u2019re going to take and you are going to be the visionary, you do need to be looking out for the future and say, \u201cHey, we need to productize our service\u201d or \u201cHey, we need to focus here.\u201d Some of the most successful people in the world stare out of a window for hours throughout the day. Everyone\u2019s like, \u201cAre they daydreaming? What are they doing?\u201d You get paid as an entrepreneur to think. The quicker you can free up your time from \u2013 I\u2019ll have days where I have 200 emails, and I\u2019ll shut it down. I\u2019ll just sit outside and just think. It sounds funny. It\u2019s like, \u201cDude, you\u2019ve got to knock those out.\u201d Some of my highest ROI time is just sitting on a bench somewhere and thinking. It sounds funny and it sounds silly, but it really is true. Eventually, if you are the visionary, you\u2019re paid to think. You make money when you\u2019re thinking. The quicker you get out of the day-to-day rut and the more time you have free to just express yourself and think, the quicker the business is going to grow. If you\u2019re not the visionary, if you\u2019re not there, can you find a business partner that is? Can you find someone, again, a consultant or a mentor, someone who has been there, done that, grown to that level? How can you get around them and incentivize them again to help you? Maybe they make a percentage of growth. Maybe you\u2019re paying them high hourly to get that. Maybe that\u2019s a skill you\u2019re going to work on. \u201cHow do I study some of the best visionaries and thinkers in the world?\u201d So I don\u2019t want you to get stuck if someone is really good operationally on stuff to be like \u201cThat\u2019s not me, I\u2019m screwed.\u201d It\u2019s like, no, find someone who \u2013 essentially, understand what you\u2019re good at, double down on that, and then surround yourself with people that can pick up the slack on the other level, is really the key. I think the reason I\u2019m so good at what I do is because I know what I\u2019m really bad at and I\u2019m okay with that. So I don\u2019t need to wear 50 hats. I don\u2019t need my ego to be stroked. I don\u2019t need to be right. In fact, I want to be wrong. How can you find people that will tell you you\u2019re wrong and can help get that to the next level? And it doesn\u2019t have to be hiring someone full-time. You don\u2019t need to have a $100,000 a month payroll to do that. I\u2019m telling you, there are shortcuts. There are people that want a mentee in their life because they get a ton of value out of mentoring someone at any stage of a business. Are you reaching out to those people on LinkedIn? Are you direct messaging them on Instagram for a conversation? Again, are you hiring a consultant? Are you paying someone an hourly rate to come in? Are you finding a part-time CFO that can at least get the ball rolling so you can start seeing the value or start making somewhat of your investment back? Understand the value of a CFO or something like that at a limited facet before jumping in and hiring someone at $100,000 salary, $60,000 salary. ROB: A lot of gold there, Anthony. We will get Clarity.fm into the show notes as well. You\u2019ve been looking back a little bit on some really good lessons along the way. What are some things you might do in building Siteflood that you would do differently that you\u2019ve learned? If you said, \u201cIf I were doing this all over again, I would change\u2026\u201d ANTHONY: I had a few key moments for me. One was I remember I sat in this all-day learning thing, and they go, \u201cIf you can\u2019t sit here all day without having to go \u2013 if you can\u2019t step away from your business for a full day on a workday, there\u2019s a problem.\u201d I think that pain point really hit with me. I felt successful, I felt good enough, I was making good money, and I felt kind of like an idiot. I was like, damn. I got four or five calls throughout that thing. I had to literally go outside. I was like, \u201cHoly crap, I have not created a business. I\u2019ve created a job for myself.\u201d The second I woke up to that, I started really understanding, again, some of my pain points. Some of the things that I would do differently is niche down in the specific industry and focus on that. I hear it over and over again; it did not ring with me, and now I can say, thank God, it finally did. In hindsight I can look back, and like I said, healthcare and financial industries \u2013 it\u2019s not I just focus on plumbers or something like that, so I\u2019m not even there yet, although I\u2019d like to be one day. Even just this focus around finance and healthcare \u2013 we don\u2019t work with ecommerce clients. Even just cutting that off, it sounds funny and it felt funny at the beginning because you don\u2019t want to turn away business. There\u2019s ways to do it. Refer someone and get a referral fee to an agency that does work on ecommerce clients. Then it doesn\u2019t feel like you\u2019re turning away money. Stuff like that. But niching on one industry I think allows you to not just think about \u2013 if you\u2019re an advertising agency, not just advertising all day, but really helping you read on the financial industry or read on the healthcare industry, whatever it is. If it\u2019s legal, law firms, read on that. You start learning the conversations. You start seeing trends in what\u2019s working and not working, even as osmosis, even outside of running ads. It also allows your team to focus. Now they know how to run a law firm\u2019s account versus they\u2019re working with a car guy and then a plumber. They\u2019re learning new industries all day long. There\u2019s a compounding effect to just focusing on the same industry. So that\u2019s number one. I heard it, but I wasn\u2019t listening for probably 2 years. I heard niche down specific on one, and I was like, \u201cYep, sounds good, but I\u2019ve got this auto guy who\u2019s about to sign up, and then I\u2019ve got this DUI lawyer that\u2019s about to sign. That\u2019s money. I want money.\u201d I\u2019m not necessarily telling you turn away money. Find ways to monetize that or do it at a limited facet, but start gravitating towards which client are you performing the best for? Who do you have the best results for? Then go find more of those people. Go find more of those to essentially enroll more in your program or bring on as a client. That niching is the number one change that I would make. Can\u2019t stress that enough. I didn\u2019t listen. Number two, again, is find what I disliked the most, like what didn\u2019t I like in my day-to-day the most, and hire for that immediately. There is a massive cost that people don\u2019t see to their brainpower, to you spending time on things that you\u2019re not good at and you don\u2019t like doing. It drains your energy. Looking at your energy as a currency is a really big deal. People don\u2019t look at their energy and time as a currency. Is something energizing you and getting you excited, or is it draining you? If it\u2019s draining you, find someone who it does excite. I remember my bookkeeper, I kept apologizing when I needed her to do stuff because I hated it. One day she goes, \u201cAnthony, why do you keep apologizing? I love doing this stuff.\u201d That clicked with me. Just because I don\u2019t like to do it, doesn\u2019t mean other people dislike to do it. So that was a really big learning point for me too. Really, those two go a long way, the focusing, doubling down on a specific thing, and then essentially \u2013 there\u2019s a theme here \u2013 hiring around things you\u2019re not good at or you don\u2019t like doing. ROB: That\u2019s a great takeaway to get rid of those things. Really, it takes your mental energy to think about doing it, then to not do it, and then to do it. It\u2019s a bad, bad thing. Anthony, as you\u2019re looking ahead, what is coming up for Siteflood or the industry in general, marketing world, that you\u2019re pumped about? ANTHONY: I think marketing world in general I\u2019ll touch on \u2013 because I think it\u2019ll apply the best to everybody \u2013 I really do see a shift in the market where brands are not going to put up with just writing a $5,000 or $10,000 a month check and be okay with it. I think the companies and the agencies that are good at what they do are going to move to more and more performance-based. I think that\u2019s very healthy for the space. I\u2019m sure I\u2019m preaching to the choir here with both brands and agencies. They\u2019ve gotten burnt by the people overseas that said, \u201cI\u2019ll get you to Google No. 1 for $500 a month\u201d or \u201cI\u2019ll do this.\u201d The overpromise, underdeliveries I think are keeping a lot of brands from working with the right agencies. That\u2019s challenging, and I think we\u2019re moving that friction point of tying in performance bonuses or becoming more performance\/CPA driven agencies versus, again, these big agencies that come in and get big contracts and say \u201cLook how many eyeballs you\u2019re bringing out!\u201d, which some people are excited by, but most brands are ROI focused, CPA driven. At some point they are focused on revenue. I see that as a shift over the next few years. It will become more and more prevalent for marketing agencies, and I think it\u2019s going to squeeze out the low-performing ones, and I think it\u2019s going to put the high-performing ones on a rocket ship to the moon because brands are going to be a lot more excited to work with agencies. There\u2019s not this dirty feeling around it. I look at it as like buying a car. I hate going to buy a car because I feel dirty about it. Even when I need a car or even if I want one, I\u2019m like, \u201cNah, I don\u2019t really want to go deal with that process.\u201d I think brands probably feel that way to an extent. They\u2019re like, \u201cI know I need a marketing agency, I know there\u2019s good ones, I know I can use it, but man, I don\u2019t really want to get jerked around for another 6 months and thousands of dollars and this and that.\u201d I\u2019m hoping the overall viewpoint and feeling around marketing agencies increases in a positive light versus \u201cI\u2019ve been burnt 50 times\u201d or \u201cI\u2019ve just given up.\u201d They\u2019re too jaded. So I\u2019m really hoping for that. The other thing that\u2019s interesting is we\u2019re in a great market right now. Everybody is a little bit more lenient with spending money and things like that, and as we head towards, eventually, the economy correcting itself \u2013 I don\u2019t know when it\u2019ll be, but that\u2019s something interesting to focus on, too, for a lot of agencies. Are you working with recession-proof businesses? That\u2019s interesting to think about on the horizon. Are you working with want-to-haves or need-to-haves? Are you working with people that sell trinkets? Are they going to be the first to get cut when it comes to a recession, or are you aligning yourself with businesses that are recession-proof? That\u2019s not everything, but it is an interesting thought that I think a lot of agencies may not be looking at. Because things are good, people forget the \u201908s or \u201906s of times. Or may not have been in business or around then. I fall into that too, being younger and not really being mature in business when the recession was low. So I\u2019m really preaching to myself. Just look out for the horizon. I don\u2019t know what that exactly means to you listening, but it is an important thing that I think when times are good, everybody forgets and doesn\u2019t necessarily prep for. So apply that however you want. ROB: That\u2019s real solid, Anthony. When people want to find you and they want to find Siteflood, where should they go to track you down? ANTHONY: I\u2019m most active probably on Instagram. It\u2019s just my first and last name, @anthonysarandrea. Just google me and reach out on one of my sites. I\u2019m happy to answer any questions for anybody, too. Any way I can help. If you\u2019re an agency looking to grow, I\u2019d be more than happy to help point you in the right direction or give any feedback. Or if you\u2019re a brand that\u2019s struggling to decide which agency to work with, I can help, give you some pointers as you\u2019re going through that process on some of the best people or best things to look out for or questions to ask, things like that. It does feel a little bit like brain surgery. Really, on either respect, if you\u2019re the agency or you\u2019re the brand, having third party clarity, I\u2019m happy to jump in that facet. ROB: That\u2019s great. Thank you, Anthony Sarandrea, Founder of Siteflood. It has been great to hear your own story and journey. Congratulations on everything that y\u2019all are doing. ANTHONY: Thanks, brother. Thank you guys for having me. I really appreciate it. I had a blast. ROB: All right. Be well. ANTHONY: Thanks, bro. ROB: Thank you for listening. The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast is presented by Converge. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting, email info@convergehq.com, or visit us on the web at convergehq.com. ","author_name":"The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast","author_url":"http:\/\/spinutech.com","html":"