{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Performance-Driven Compensation Drives . . . Performance","description":"Phil Case, now Chief Client Officer, joined Max Connect Marketing after running an agency for nine years \u2013 one that consistently lost clients to this highly performance-based digital agency. One key to Max Connect\u2019s success is that 90 percent of its 47 employees are compensated based on the performance of the campaigns it runs. At Phil\u2019s previous agency, the sales team would work 6 months to close a new client and then hand the client over to the digital team. The digital team would complain about the extra time they had to spend running the campaign without that effort generating any more financial compensation. Aligning compensation with performance boosts the Max Connect team\u2019s motivation to go \u201cabove and beyond\u201d to produce outstanding results. Max Connect\u2019s clients are typically national or international  B2B companies or companies that sell big-ticket consumer goods . . . especially purchases that involve a complex, nuanced customer journey that requires education, brand-building, and a focus on the customer relationship, and involve \u201ca lot of datapoints.\u201d Phil refers to these datapoints as the up to 100 to 140 \u201cdigital breadcrumbs\u201d that people leave as they navigate a \u201cconsidered\u201d several-hundred- or several-thousand-dollar purchase decision.  The agency targets audiences based on \u201creal-time in-market data, demographics, psychographics, and online intent,\u201d runs that data through its proprietary algorithm, and then places frequent, hyper-targeted ads in front of that audience on multiple digital channels. The goal is to provide a customer journey with a high level of detail and a \u201cpersonalized touch.\u201d Phil notes that privacy concerns are creating an international trend toward a \u201ccookieless world.\u201d The immense amount of data Max Connect collects is stripped of personal information to prevent potential privacy law violations. The sheer volume of information provides an opportunity to gain the insights needed to build more specific, nuanced customer journeys and increase sales, but also to drive a company\u2019s ability to innovate \u2013 to create the types of products and technologies consumers will demand in the future. Phil believes most digital marketers make the mistake of assuming they know their audiences and how to reach them without any real-time analysis. Max Connect starts with identifying a client\u2019s audience through empirical data . . . analyzing on- and off-line conversion data, hypertargeting the audience, reaching out to them through up to six different channels, and then assessing which channels are most effectively converting audiences. Phil describes this customer journey approach as both \u201cmore personalized\u201d and \u201cubiquitous.\u201d Phil, who grew up in the deserts of Arizona, is enamored with the diverse outdoor opportunities in Utah. When the Bear\u2019s Ears monument controversy damaged the businesses of a large number of Utah-based outdoor brands, Phil worked with the brands\u2019 CEOs to found a 501(c)(6) nonprofit trade association to promote thought leadership, knowledge sharing, events, and roundtables . . . all to strengthen Utah\u2019s natural resource interests and outdoor brands. Phil\u2019s goals for 2020 were to \u201cbe more deliberate in decision-making\u201d and to put himself out of his comfort zone \u2013 which would give him the opportunity to \u201cgrow and stretch.\u201d 2020s\u2019 challenges provided that for him without his even trying. Growing and stretching remain goals for the coming year. Phil can be reached on his LinkedIn profile: Phil Case, https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/philcase\/ or on his agency\u2019s website at maxconnect.com Transcript Follows: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I\u2019m your host, Rob Kischuk, and I am joined today by Phil Case, Chief Client Officer at Max Connect Marketing based in the Salt Lake City area right in the heart of the Silicon Slopes. Welcome to the podcast, Phil. PHIL: Great to be with you. ROB: Excellent to have you here. Why don\u2019t you give us the rundown on Max Connect Marketing and what capabilities are really driving growth there?  PHIL: It\u2019s interesting; at my last agency, I came across these guys more than a few times, and I consistently lost clients to them \u2013 a few over the last couple of years. As I was able to begin to get to know them and ultimately join the team over a year ago, I began to find out that not only did they have a uniquely digital-only focus, but it was very much data-driven with an audience-specific approach that I hadn\u2019t really seen anywhere else. In terms of their capabilities and being able to see that customer journey, the level of detail and personalization that they provided blew me away. ROB: What\u2019s a typical client that you\u2019re working with over there? PHIL: The more complex the customer journey is \u2013 and what I mean by that is, if there\u2019s more datapoints, if there\u2019s more digital footprints \u2013 we think of Hansel and Gretel and breadcrumbs. The breadcrumbs that we leave as we make decisions in our own lives throughout the internet are immense. Most of us probably don\u2019t realize that. Going into a typical several-hundred- or several-thousand-dollar decision that a consumer might make, for instance, there\u2019s anywhere from 100 to 140 touchpoints or data digital breadcrumbs that you\u2019ve left. What we do as an agency is harness that on behalf of the brands we work with. It could be an automotive client selling cars to a homebuilder selling homes to a SaaS tech company selling B2B software to consumer products and other brands in ecommerce. Really what unifies all of these clients across industries and sectors is when there\u2019s a nuanced customer journey, when there\u2019s education, when there\u2019s brand-building, but particularly when they\u2019re wanting to build a relationship with a consumer or a professional. That\u2019s when we tend to really thrive in terms of what we provide on their behalf. ROB: Got it. So, you\u2019re in both consumer and B2B, but the common theme is this is a larger ticket, considered purchase. It\u2019s not a \u201cswipe your credit card right now and buy this piece of SaaS software you just saw for $10 bucks a month.\u201d PHIL: That\u2019s right. It\u2019s when you\u2019re weighing options, you\u2019re doing your research, and potentially when there\u2019s a human being that you often will speak with, whether that\u2019s via chat \u2013 you\u2019re probably familiar with Backcountry and the guides and the experts or really gearheads that they provide at Backcountry.com. Comparing that with a car salesman or a homebuilder and a real estate individual involved, there\u2019s typically a human touch either verbally by phone or in person or via chat. That\u2019s when we tend to do extremely well working alongside that ecosystem. ROB: Got it. You\u2019ve got web traffic maybe connected to email opens, maybe connected to digital chat, maybe with some logging of calls from a representative who\u2019s in on the sale? Is that a lot of the footprint, or what else is in that? PHIL: No, that\u2019s exactly right. I can get a little bit more into that, but to put it this way, when somebody in today\u2019s world goes and purchases a car \u2013 let\u2019s say you wanted to go get that new Mustang you\u2019ve had your eye on. There\u2019s about 25 points that have been somewhat standardized across an auto buying journey, and 25 steps that need to be made. Up until this year of 2020, there\u2019s 19 of those that Google has now said \u201cthis is a digital first touchpoint.\u201d Before, we used to think about car buying as \u201cI want to buy a car,\u201d so you just show up to a dealer and say, \u201cI have no idea. Tell me what I ought to buy,\u201d and they get those dollar signs in their eyes and they say, \u201cHere\u2019s somebody that I can probably pull the wool over their eyes or sell them and guide them to what I\u2019m going to either make the most money on or what my manager tells me we\u2019ll get kickback on incentives.\u201d What\u2019s changed now is any time somebody steps foot onto a lot, they typically have down to the VIN number what they want to purchase. They know exactly what the dealership has, and they know what they\u2019re willing to pay because they\u2019ve seen the invoice price. It\u2019s a little different. So as a dealer, those 19 digital touchpoints \u2013 with 2021, it\u2019s pushed us closer to 21 to 22. So, you literally show up to the dealership and it\u2019s, \u201cI\u2019d like to buy this car and I\u2019m willing to spend X,\u201d and it\u2019s a matter of will they do that for me or not? So, it\u2019s interesting. That\u2019s the challenge that businesses face now. Most of that research and backstory is done with research online. Consumers come more prepared than ever, and we need to make sure that whether it\u2019s across social channels, whether it\u2019s across video, whether it\u2019s just throughout the internet or on Google, you\u2019re being seen and found and providing relevant education and really driving that individual to purchase, that you\u2019re the right organization to buy that from. ROB: I laugh a little bit; I shared with you beforehand that I spent some time in Salt Lake City this past summer. What I didn\u2019t share is we were on a road trip and our van basically broke down, and we ended up purchasing a vehicle in Salt Lake City on the middle of a road trip from Atlanta. So, I\u2019ve been on that journey in about five days. PHIL: There you go. And I\u2019ll tell you a little bit more on that note. Most digital marketers get it wrong, and they make assumptions about their audience that they\u2019ll behave a certain way or that they\u2019re a certain age or demographic. They feel like \u201cFacebook can help me reach that audience,\u201d so they have almost a single or maybe a dual channel approach by which they invest money in, and they say, \u201cIs this channel giving me a return?\u201d We think that\u2019s entirely the wrong way to think about marketing. We think you first identify your audience utilizing empirical data. Let the data speak for itself and let your audience be able to be uncovered as you\u2019re measuring and counting and looking at those conversions that come across your website or on- and offline transactions. As you understand then who that audience is, we feel like you first hyper-target your audience and then you reach them through four to five to six different channels. It\u2019s not about \u201cIs this channel performing or not?\u201d It\u2019s \u201cIs this audience that we\u2019ve defined converting at as high a level as this other audience?\u201d It\u2019s really about being ubiquitous across that customer journey and providing a more personalized approach for that individual. For instance, if you\u2019ve ever seen Minority Report where Tom Cruise walks into the store and he\u2019s got the new set of eyes, the Asian that he purchased from, you\u2019ll notice that it says \u201cWelcome, Mr. Yakamoto. Last time you were here, you bought these jeans. Can we show you this size now?\u201d That\u2019s really where we\u2019re headed. We\u2019ve gotten to that level that in marketing, we should be able to provide a unique, curated, personalized customer journey for those audiences and individuals looking to interact with you as a brand. There\u2019s no reason that we\u2019re limiting ourselves by any one channel or medium. You should use any and all channels and mediums and digital marketing mix to allow you to reach that individual and develop a relationship with him or her. And that could be across anywhere on the internet. We all have different consumption behaviors and patterns. ROB: A lot of people do look at that Minority Report scene still as being a little bit intrusive and creepy, but we see that project into the world we\u2019re in as well. You\u2019ll hear people certainly say, \u201cI was just talking about this thing the other day and then I started seeing this advertisement from something else. I know my Alexa was listening in on me.\u201d I think sometimes we underestimate how much we\u2019ve been influenced by some prior touchpoint or how much marketers just know our demographic in the first place. PHIL: I think it\u2019s a mixture of both. I think there\u2019s enough Big Data out there that we have an idea of the type of buyer profiles we\u2019re looking at, but I think you\u2019re exactly right; there is a lot of data collection that\u2019s happening on any of the big tech companies you can imagine. And just to address that point, we\u2019ve been hearing as marketers there\u2019s going to be a cookieless world, that there\u2019s more stringent requirements in Europe and California, throughout the United States, with privacy. Which I think is a good thing. Any data that we collect is anonymized. We\u2019re in no way wanting to violate any PII type laws. But because we can integrate with Facebook and Google and these other major platforms and their SDKs and APIs, we can still get very granular data among audience with anonymized users in a way that not only allows us to have incredible attribution, but it allows us to get greater insight into the traits and attributes and digital breadcrumbs that really drive conversion. So even though we might live in a cookieless world, there\u2019s still a lot of anonymized data, and there\u2019s other ways to work through these big tech companies to almost replicate, if not even improve, the amount of data and personalization we\u2019re able to do. ROB: Right. It\u2019s almost like we\u2019ve shifted the point of contact. If you think about a company the size of Verizon, all the different datapoints that they control, all of the different touchpoints, they may only do first party cookies on each site instead of third-party cookies, but if they can tie them together \u2013 and they certainly can \u2013 it seems like it\u2019s really going to move the boundary to some of these media companies selling the audience through to the people who want to buy it. PHIL: And particularly the consolidation we\u2019re seeing in media assets. I think you\u2019re right on. We see that \u2013 I\u2019m forgetting the movie theater chain that\u2019s chosen \u2013 anyway, as you\u2019ve noticed, some of the bigger movie producers are now simply coming straight out to HBO Max. It\u2019s interesting to see not only consolidation, but across networks and entities and as buyouts are happening, the amount of data being shared. To your point, it might all be first party data, but if it\u2019s packaged in such a way and they can have a holistic vantage point of a particular consumer across multiple properties, that data alone is very valuable. ROB: Right, because HBO Max is AT&T, it\u2019s TBS, it\u2019s TNT, it\u2019s Cartoon Network, it\u2019s Bleacher Report. It\u2019s a myriad of touchpoints. They\u2019re like a Fortune 5 company or something. They\u2019re going to figure something out. PHIL: And that really becomes the currency of the future. It\u2019s data. It\u2019s being able to not necessarily control data but have data in a way that you can draw insights that you know how to target your consumer, that you can provide more personalized marketing or touchpoints. Because we\u2019re collecting an immense amount of data, the companies that can harness that will have not only a more specific and nuanced type customer journey and approach and they\u2019ll sell at a lot higher rate, but it\u2019s that data that ultimately allows them to drive innovation, allows them to drive the type of products and technology that users and consumers are demanding in the future. So, I think we\u2019ll continue to see data be a major currency of business in the future. ROB: Very, very interesting. Phil, you mentioned seeing your own business that you built coming up alongside Max Connect. While you weren\u2019t necessarily at Max Connect on Day 1, what can you tell us about the origin story, and maybe the parallel journey you saw them on versus what you were doing that you learned from along that way? PHIL: I\u2019ll give a little bit of my background to give context. In college I studied international business and relations, and I actually for a semester did Arabic. I was working on a national political campaign for president, studying Arabic, really wanting to get into the government work. Then I met a girl who would become my wife, and when I described to her this vision of living in the Middle East and speaking Arabic and having our children in these international schools and I\u2019d be a diplomat, she looked at me and said, \u201cWell, that sounds incredible, and I\u2019m really excited for you, but I probably won\u2019t be on that journey with you. I hope you can find a girl that will.\u201d It caused me to pause, and as I began to reevaluate those opportunities of business, I began to gravitate into investment banking and finance. As I graduated with a minor in business, I had taken all but one marketing class and I kind of thought it was a joke. I thought, \u201cThis comes somewhat natural and it\u2019s easy. Who would ever read the textbook?\u201d And I don\u2019t say that in a boastful way; I just didn\u2019t think very much of it. But when I looked to begin an internship and began in marketing, I was fascinated by it. For the first couple of years, I kept trying to leave to have my full-time employment be in finance and banking, but there was a moment in my career where I was speaking to a client and they said, \u201cBoy, you must have the best job.\u201d I said, \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d They said, \u201cI look forward to every week when we meet, and it\u2019s the highlight of my week because it\u2019s so fun. It\u2019s exciting, it\u2019s creative. It\u2019s what I look forward to. You get to do this every day.\u201d I began to look at the solemn, stern faces and this lack of personality of those that work in the finance industry and I thought, why would I ever want to work in finance? [laughs] This is far too much fun. So, I\u2019ve been in the agency world my entire career. My last agency, Fluid Advertising, I ran for about 9 years. I exited that at the end of last summer. But in that timeframe, one of my passions is the outdoors. I live in Utah; we were abundantly blessed with natural assets and resources, more so we feel like than other states. We have everything year round that you can imagine. So, I\u2019m an avid hiker, mountain biker, I love to camp, I love to get in the backcountry and long distances in. But in the winter, one of my favorite pastimes and hobbies is hiking up a 2,000- or 3,000-foot mountain at 5 or 6 a.m. and then skiing down it in untouched powder. It\u2019s one you\u2019ve got to be careful with because there\u2019s backcountry danger and avalanches. I\u2019ll tell you this: Salt Lake suffered a major earthquake in March of this year. It was right at the beginning of COVID. Everybody\u2019s a little nervous, and I decided one morning with a buddy that we were going to go scale a mountain and ski down it. So, we\u2019re in the middle of the canyons and the mountains, and you would think avalanches and earthquakes don\u2019t mix well together. I guess at 7:20 a.m. that morning, Salt Lake Valley suffered a major earthquake, more so than it ever had. There was damage and destruction. Not major as much as others, but fairly significant. My wife was just beside herself because all she knew was I\u2019m in the middle of the avalanche terrain, hiking, and an earthquake happens and I must be dead. I didn\u2019t answer the first three times she called me because I didn\u2019t really have my phone on. Finally, when I answered \u2013 she thought I was dead. So, we finished the run, skied down, I got home, and it was one of those conversations of, \u201cWe\u2019d better go get our food storage and how\u2019s your life insurance policy?\u201d It was interesting; that day there was a major earthquake in the valley, we didn\u2019t even feel a tremor where we were. But with that context of my love of the outdoors, I helped launch the Utah Outdoor Association, bringing brands together like Black Diamond and Petzl and Specialized and Goal Zero and brands like Amer Sports \u2013 you have Solomon and Atomic and many other iconic brands. Most of them are located, at least their U.S. headquarters, in Utah. It\u2019s incredible. I found working with these brands that the Outdoor Retailer Show had left because there was a little bit of politics there a few years back. It got very political with President Obama and President Trump with Bears Ears and land grants of what\u2019s national versus what\u2019s state-owned land. It was interesting; in the midst of all that, Utah got left with a black eye and the brands themselves suffered because there wasn\u2019t leadership. So, working across these brands with their CEOs and executives, we formed a 501(c)(6) nonprofit trade association to help these brands band together to have a voice, to speak for themselves, to be able to further develop and grow what Utah\u2019s been, again, abundantly blessed with \u2013 not just in natural resources, but particularly with having an inordinate amount of outdoor brands here. We\u2019ve begun to build over the last few years this nonprofit that I continue to be passionate about, and where we\u2019ll do thought leadership and knowledge sharing and events and roundtables. We\u2019ll tackle industry issues, we\u2019ll do joint marketing campaigns. It\u2019s been a lot of fun. ROB: There\u2019s certainly so much to direct people towards. If people get started and have a good experience, they\u2019re going to buy more of this gear. It makes a lot of sense. You just need to show people. I mentioned we were out in Utah and we did the Salt Lake City area and we did South Utah. I talk to people and I almost can\u2019t believe it when they haven\u2019t heard of some of the places around Utah because it is truly remarkable. PHIL: Again, there\u2019s wonderful places all over the country, but I grew up in Arizona, and in the back of my mind I always thought, \u201cThere has to be better places to live than a desert. Living in the foothills of beautiful mountains and all sorts of recreation, I certainly enjoy. To answer your other question on Max Connect, this agency began 8 years ago. Not necessarily a parallel story, although we were competitors. But they began in an attic. Couple of people left another ad agency, weren\u2019t being treated fairly. They recruited one of the top digital marketing minds that had done major work for Netflix and for Chevron and others. The four of them founded Max Connect, and over the process of time they grew out of the attic fairly quickly and another office building. We now have a massive space that houses about 47 professionals, most of which are doing the digital marketing efforts. It\u2019s all in-house. We work coast to coast. We work with international clients. They\u2019ve built a remarkable team. The one thing I\u2019ll say that I think is somewhat unique is that most of the team \u2013 call it 90% of all employees \u2013 are compensated based on the performance of the campaigns we run. So if you as a client are selling more stuff \u2013 more cars, more homes, more software \u2013 we as an agency compensate our team accordingly so they have skin in the game. They\u2019re willing to go above and beyond because they know it means more in their paycheck. My last agency, we\u2019d bring in a great client, give it to the digital team thinking \u201cThis took me 6 months to close. This is an incredible opportunity,\u201d and they\u2019d moan and complain and think \u201cNow I have to stay an hour later to run this campaign and I\u2019m not necessarily making any more money.\u201d Just to have that alignment, even from a financial and performance perspective, it\u2019s been night and day. The team and the commitment and the willingness to really be strategic and insightful has been so fun to work alongside. ROB: Is that something that you then also put out in front of clients and roll out as part of the agreement? Or is it more subtle than that? PHIL: Some clients it\u2019s too much for. We actually have a homebuilder that every home they sell, there\u2019s a portion of that that goes into a digital marketing bank account by which it then funds the next month\u2019s marketing campaigns. So, we\u2019ve gotten down to a transaction level. But a lot of clients will say, \u201cI have a budget of $40,000, $50,000, $60,000 a month. We\u2019re going to deploy this with you. These are the results that I need,\u201d and on the backend we then compensate our team with a portion of their compensation coming in terms of that performance. So rather than make it overly complicated, we just do that anyway. But with some clients that really want to dig deep, we\u2019re willing to structure a performance model. ROB: That would seem to me like that would create much more interest from your team and much quicker feedback on campaign data. Some people just know what they\u2019re supposed to spend in a month, and they spend it and then they ask questions later. Do you see a pressure towards tighter feedback loops? And how do you help equip your team with that information? PHIL: Great point. We have a lot of clients that are on a weekly cadence. We certainly will do a full month review where we\u2019re trying to draw a lot of insights and bigger pivots. But on a daily and weekly basis, whether that\u2019s a dashboard we\u2019re exposing to them that\u2019s starting to produce those insights and data or our team \u2013 I mean, our team\u2019s in every campaign almost daily because to get the level of results and performance, we have to. But on a weekly basis being able to report, \u201cThis is where we\u2019ve been able to lower your cost per acquisition and this is where we\u2019ve begun to pivot and adjust marketing dollars and how the response has been\u201d \u2013 it is a tighter feedback loop, but it\u2019s one that for the client \u2013 I think we\u2019re more used to instantaneous type, \u201cHey, I put money in the market. Am I getting results?\u201d So, we\u2019ve really structured our agency around that. ROB: Right. You\u2019re talking about these longer buyer journeys. I guess there\u2019s an extent to which one week is probably rarely enough to fully measure something, unless it\u2019s me rapidly buying a car. PHIL: Some of the shorter cadences, we have several ecommerce and subscription. It\u2019s been interesting. COVID has driven that industry forward in unparalleled ways. It\u2019s experiencing as an industry phenomenal growth, and for most retail-like or brands that traditionally were selling in the, for the most part, wholesale consumer space, where there were distributors and people were buying it retail \u2013 because of COVID, what we\u2019ve heard from big brands across the country and really the world has been, \u201cOur traditional brick-and-mortar is down. Our ecommerce, we can\u2019t even begin to keep up with projections. We\u2019re 400% to 500% above forecasts.\u201d They\u2019re saying, \u201cHow can we pour more money into both human assets, but particularly the digital ecosystem? Because that is our major focus moving forward.\u201d We\u2019ve actually pivoted as an agency and invested and put an entire team on just ecommerce alone. To put that in perspective, sometimes there\u2019s conversions that will take \u2013 it might be a multi-week period. But we\u2019re continually reporting on progress on touchpoints and conversions where the conversions for this week might have begun a customer journey that was the week prior. But what\u2019s important is there\u2019s week over week value creation and continuing to help sell on their behalf. ROB: It seems like once the Christmas push has passed, January could be a big opportunity. How are you looking at that with clients? PHIL: Again, there\u2019s a little bit of some cyclical nature of the businesses we work with, and some that really take advantage of the holiday season. But the cost of inventory is even more. We\u2019ve had some clients that have actually, because they\u2019re not so much a Christmas gift-giving type sector, pulled back slightly in terms of their budgets because the cost per impression, the cost per click, the cost of inventory is high right now. We saw between the election \u2013 well, the election it feels like isn\u2019t over. But between that Black Friday and Cyber Monday week, the cost of all advertising spiked so dramatically because you still were getting political ads. You had the biggest month potentially ever of ecommerce that we\u2019ve ever had in the history of ecommerce. So we see January as really level-setting with a lot of advertisers where it\u2019s really just blue sky. They\u2019re really excited because they can come out swinging. They\u2019ve recalibrated; they\u2019ve gotten past the Q4 push. They know that the cost of inventory, for the most part, is down. So we\u2019ve done a lot of planning around Q1 of continuing \u2013 again, whether that\u2019s retail \u2013 but there continues to be major consumer type opportunities as we\u2019re building to tax-free day, as we\u2019re building to Martin Luther King and Presidents\u2019 Day weekend. Again, it depends on the industry, but that certainly has been a highly talked about timeframe for our agency. ROB: For sure. Phil, between joining Max Connect and building your own agency before that, what would you look at doing differently if you were starting over based on what you\u2019ve learned on this journey? PHIL: It\u2019s interesting; first in my career it was very much about how I closed that next client and making sure I was involved in most if not all interactions and really trying to provide strategic insight. I realized it was all about me. I was a leadership athlete, I\u2019d call it. It was \u201cHow can I singlehandedly push this agency forward?\u201d It\u2019s interesting because we grew, but I don\u2019t think we grew nearly as quickly as we could\u2019ve if I would\u2019ve not only extended trust but continued to surround myself with individuals that can do the heavy lifting alongside myself, that were likeminded. I heard this terminology a few years ago, that it\u2019s not so much about being a leadership athlete, but a leadership coach. How do you help develop that next generation of leaders? How do you value the team and how do you work through others? It\u2019s about developing future leaders and helping them be totally comfortable in situations that may have been uncomfortable a year before, and really helping them in their own journey. And that\u2019s really where a lot of the satisfaction and retention comes about. Somebody is getting that fulfillment, there\u2019s autonomy at work, but there\u2019s also challenge, and they\u2019re continuing to be challenged mentally in the tasks they\u2019re taking on, and you\u2019re pushing them forward. So not only do they become more valuable to you running the agency, but they\u2019re becoming more valuable to themselves. Their earning potential continues to skyrocket, and they build that confidence. I think that\u2019s important. Another learning that I\u2019d probably take away as I\u2019ve reflected on this is focusing on the important few versus the eclectic many. So often, particularly in an agency that you\u2019re trying to grow, it\u2019s almost like \u201cHey, you want to pay us money? Great, we\u2019ll sign you up tomorrow. Let\u2019s go.\u201d As you mature and as you take on bigger accounts, you begin to become more picky-and-choosy. But I will say that even with internal initiatives, just having a focus of just a few, just a handful, the simpler the better. I\u2019ve found that the end of the row, the frontline employee, it\u2019s hard to focus on more than just two or three things at any given moment. So really simplifying business plans, simplifying go-to-market strategies \u2013it\u2019s about the right clients. It\u2019s the bigger elephants, the mammoths that you\u2019re hunting. It\u2019s not about a race to more clients; it\u2019s a race to the right clients and providing real, lasting value on their behalf. I\u2019ll give you an example. I used to be the kind of guy that goes to a networking event, and it was kind of like, how many people can I talk to before this day is over? And how many business cards can I collect and then follow up with? Which I now know was the wrong mindset. Now the mindset is, is there a person or two in this room that I should get to know? And that\u2019s it. There might be hundreds, but what are the one or two relationships that I can walk out of here that might benefit her or him or might benefit myself? I think slowing down, taking a moment, and just being strategic with the decisions, the relationships, and the initiatives within an agency or a business in general \u2013 those are a handful of things that I\u2019ve seen time and time again have proven themselves out, and a level of setting for the next agency and doing it right. I\u2019d hopefully take that with me. The last thing I\u2019ll say with that \u2013 my two words for the year of 2020, which was well before COVID was a thing, were \u201cdeliberate\u201d and \u201cuncomfortable.\u201d Those were the two words I wanted to take into the year. I wanted to be more deliberate in the decisions I made, in the turns that I took skiing. I wanted to be uncomfortable. I wanted to do those things that would put myself not only out of my comfort zone, but cause me to grow and stretch. 2020 just kind of took care of itself. I feel like in the future, that\u2019s where the growth happens, individually and with a team. So those are some words that continue to fuel me. ROB: That\u2019s all fascinating. It\u2019s very interesting to think about how the tone of those first interactions or the ongoing interactions with someone in a social setting sets it up. You can have a transactional interaction with them, seeking a transactional sale, or you can go deep and it sets the table for whatever you do eventually to be deep. It seems like there\u2019s symmetry there. PHIL: And the best clients that tend to stick around never begin from a transactional sense. Here as an agency, the two things we do well \u2013 one of those is digital, but the other that we do just as well is relationships. If you don\u2019t have both, you don\u2019t have a long tenured client. You tend to have a lot more churn. You tend to not be an integral partner of their business, and that\u2019s, I think, what clients value long term. ROB: Perfect. Phil, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. When people want to reach you and connect with you and Max Connect Marketing, where should they go to find you? PHIL: The only social channel I\u2019m regularly on is LinkedIn. Profile Phil Case, linkedin.com\/in\/philcase\/. Our website is maxconnect.com. ROB: Excellent. Thanks for sharing your journey, Phil. Congrats on everything, and onwards and upwards for Max Connect. PHIL: Hey, thank you so much. Great to be with you today. ROB: All right. Thanks. Be well. 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":"