5 Agency Leadership Lessons from 500 Podcasts with Drew McLellan

Danyel McLellan [00:00:01]: 

Welcome to the Agency Management Institute community where you’ll learn how to grow and scale your business, attract and retain the best talent, make more money, and keep more of the money you make. The Build a Better Agency podcast, presented by White Label iq, is packed with insights on how small to mid sized agencies are getting things done. Bringing his 25 years of experience as both an agency owner and agency consultant, please welcome your host, Drew McLellan. 

Drew McLellan [00:00:32]: 

Hey everybody, Drew McLellan here with another episode, actually a big episode, of Build a Better Agency. Thanks for being here with us. This is actually our 500th episode. Just hard to imagine. That is 9.6 years of podcasting every single week, which is sort of a staggering number when you think about it. So super excited to spend some time with you today.  

Sort of reflecting on what we’ve learned over the last 10 years of podcasting and what I think that means for you and for all of us. And just to celebrate a little bit the accomplishment of us hanging out together for 10 years, I’m so grateful that you keep coming back and you keep finding value. Every day I hear from somebody that there was a podcast episode, could be a current one, could be an old one, that somehow provided some insight or some guidance or maybe even just some solace and confidence that they’re not in this all by themselves. And so I am very grateful that we get to do that with you and for you every week. So thank you for that, thanks for listening and I hope you will come back for another 500 episodes. I am committed to continuing to do this as long as it’s valuable to you. So thank you, thank you for being here and of course want to give a huge shout out and thank you to our friends at White Label iq.  

As you know, they have been the presenting sponsor for many, many years. They help us make it possible to bring this to you every week and we are very grateful for their support. So White Label IQ is a company that comes alongside agencies and does white label design, dev and PPC for agencies. And they work with hundreds and hundreds of agencies all over the world. Lots of AMI agencies. And I’ve known these folks for Gosh forever. They were born out of an AMI agency, so I know them. They’ve been in one of our peer groups for Gosh before I owned AMI, so that long. So, you know, almost 20 years. Good human beings and very committed to being a great partner to their agency clients. And so head over to whitelabeliq.com/ami to learn more about them and to learn about how they can serve you and your agency better whether you need them episodically because you’re just super busy and your internal team just can’t get it all done. Or maybe you don’t want to have an internal team that does PPC or web dev, and you need some help around that on a regular basis for your clients. They help agencies do support contracts for websites. They build new websites, they build apps. They do all kinds of things. So check them out, have a conversation with them, and please, please, please reach out and let them know that you are grateful that they are a sponsor of the podcast. They really do make this possible. So many thanks to them.  

Before I dig into today’s conversation, if you’re listening to this real time, we are three weeks away from the fifth Build a Better Agency Summit. I am super excited. We have amazing speakers, great topics, and I think as we’re going to talk today, I just think there’s magic in us coming together and learning with each other and supporting each other, and not only showing up as a student, but also showing up as a teacher. And it happens hopefully in every interaction someone has with ami, but it probably never happens in a bigger scale than it does at the summit. So if you have not grabbed your ticket, we do have a few tickets left. Please hurry grab your ticket. Before we sell out, we will be glad to have you join us in Denver on May 20th and 21st for what I know is going to be two days of learning. Celebration, support, comradery, a little bit of therapy. It all gets packed into those two days. So come join us. Come be with 300 and some other agency owners and leaders celebrating the industry that we all love, also learning about how we can do it differently and better and how we can take better care of our families through the business and the families of our employees and, of course, our clients. So hope to see you there.  

All right, so without further ado, as I was thinking about this episode, if you, if you’re a longtime listener, you know I had a lot of angst over episode 300. I have no idea why. It was not 200 or 400, but episode 300, like, kept me up at night. I was trying to figure out what I could say that was significant enough for episode 300. And I invite you to go back and decide how I did on that. So if you could imagine if 300 was feeling the pressure as I have approached episode 500, I have again been feeling this need to say something significant. And what I realized was what I want to talk about today is five lessons that I think I’ve gotten out of 500 episodes of the podcast and that I hope you’ve gotten out of 500 episodes of the podcast.  

But before I do that, I do want to just sort of start with. And this will, I hope, be woven throughout the conversation today. But there’s no way, no way at all AMI could exist. There is no way Danyel and I could do the work that we love. There is no way that we could be of service to all of you if it weren’t for a lot of other people. So I approached this episode with a lot of gratitude. So, you know, when we started back in the day, when I wanted to experiment with a podcast, podcasting was just becoming a thing. I reached out to our friends at Predictive ROI who were already producing other podcasts for other folks, and I said, hey, I want to experiment with this. Would you partner with me? I was one of their sort of their test dummies. They hadn’t done it a lot. They had done their own, but they hadn’t done it a lot for other clients. And so I said, would you. Can we be each other’s mutual test dummy and will you help me produce this podcast? And they did. And for many, many episodes. We produce it now ourselves, but for many, many episodes, hundreds of episodes, they were our partner and right at our side, and so we learned how to do it together. They ended up doing it for lots of other clients, which was great for their business, but I couldn’t have pulled it off without them back in the day, and so I’m super grateful to them.  

We’ve also had every fifth episode is a solo cast, so you do the math. But we’ve had 400 plus guests on the show and people who give up their time, who share their expertise, we obviously don’t compensate them for doing that. And the show is pretty meaningless without great guests that teach us, me and you, from their area of expertise. And we certainly have had some folks who have been repeat guests, like Robin and Steve Boehler from Mercer Island Group. Sharon Toerick, the IP attorney who works with many, many agencies. Susan Byer, our research partner. So we’ve had lots of people back multiple times. Craig Cody, our tax expert. But whether they’ve been on once or they’ve been on multiple times, I could not do this show without all of those kind people sharing their expertise. So a huge, huge amount of gratitude to and for them for that as well. And then last but not least, like I said, I’m super grateful for all of you. I know how busy you are, and I know that getting an hour or a little less every week of your time is no small feat. And so I’m grateful you found ways to sort of weave this podcast into your week, whether we’re on the treadmill together or whatever it is. I know I walk dogs with a lot of you, which I love, so I’m just grateful. Thanks for being here.  

All right, so let’s talk about some lessons learned after 500 episodes of Build a Better Agency. And the first one is, ironically, it’s a marathon. This ten years of podcasting. It’s a marathon. And I think it’s very reflective of the business that we are in. Many of you have owned your agencies for five years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, and you have learned over time that it’s a marathon. So when we first started this podcast was, you know, 2017, so almost 10 years ago, actually, I guess it would have been 2016. And the world has changed a lot. And for anybody who was listening back in episode one and is still listening today, the reality is that a lot has changed. And if we don’t take that sort of long term view about our business, we’re in trouble. And so I think about it like a marathon in many ways.  

Number one, I think with a marathon, if you’re training for a marathon, it does require training. It requires a daily, a weekly, a monthly consistency in behavior. And the first one is that you have to keep getting better. And if there’s one thing I know, and I think about our business, how we did business in 2016, 10 years ago, how we did business is very different than how we do business today. And if you haven’t been learning all along the way, then my guess is you are no longer in the agency space because we have to constantly adapt to the environment, to the weather, if you will, of what’s going on, new technologies, new new client demands and needs, new employee demands and needs. We have to keep learning. And so I guess my message for all of us is that part of training is just the determination and the discipline to know that if you don’t keep training, if you don’t keep getting better, then what happens is your performance suffers and eventually you just can’t perform at all anymore. And so as we look at 2025 and everything that’s in front of us, with the economic conditions, the tariffs, AI, all the things, what it reminds us is that a, the weather, if you will, if you stay with my analogy, when you do a marathon is always changing. And we have to change with the weather. We have to change with how the world is today. And today we’re facing all of those challenges, and we have to learn how to adapt to them. We can’t ignore them. We can’t pretend they’re just going to go away. We have to adapt to them. And so that that adaptability and that willingness to keep learning and keep changing is critical to surviving in the business.  

Another thing that is true about it being a marathon is that it’s grueling. And when I say it’s grueling, I mean that it is hard to be in the agency space, to lead your team, to be inspirational, to be. To fire up your employees, to earn the confidence of your clients. It’s hard to do that every day. And it takes great mental and physical sort of steadiness and acumen. And so one of the things that I think we’ve all learned over the last 10 years is that it’s really important that we take care of ourselves, that we take care of ourselves mentally, that we surround ourselves with people who have ideas to share and conversations to have and the opportunity to learn from each other, that we take care of ourselves physically, that we be mindful of the stress that comes with this job and with this profession, and that we learn how to manage that stress. Well, whether that’s for you, that’s meditation or exercise or yoga or walking every morning or a therapist or a mix of those things, you have to understand how to take care of yourself mentally and physically and emotionally. And I believe that’s a combination of surrounding yourself by people who encourage you, support you, see you, care about you, and also taking responsibility and control for sort of how we manage our bodies and our mental state. And I think all of that becomes critical.  

Another aspect of this, in terms of it being a marathon, and I don’t think we’re very good at this, is that, you know, when you run a marathon, you celebrate milestones. You don’t wait until you cross the finish line. You, you know, grab the water, you grab the snack. You celebrate mile one, you celebrate mile five, you celebrate the halfway mark. We don’t do a great job as agency owners and leaders of celebrating things that are happening inside our agency or for ourselves as professionals. We’re so busy going to the next thing, we’re such drivers, as a general rule, that we don’t slow down and celebrate. And I think employees feel that. I think they feel like maybe we could celebrate more, maybe we could acknowledge their efforts more, maybe we could catch them doing things right more. But we also should be celebrating our accomplishments. What we’ve done, how we’ve gotten the agency over annual finish line after finish line after finish line, that we have landed a new client, that we have helped an existing client grow their business. We have a lot to celebrate. If you’ve been around for a few years, you have survived a lot. Well, I mean, think about it. Great recession, Covid, the great resignation, the economic ups and downs all along, you are a survivor, and that is worth celebrating. You have run the marathon, and you continue to run the marathon. And so I want you, as you think about the rest of this year, particularly because I think this year is going to be challenging for a lot of agencies. I want you to find ways to celebrate. They can be little celebrations. They can be somebody’s work anniversary. They can be that everyone got their timesheets done on time. They can be a win for a client. They can be that someone got a certification. They can be a great email from a client celebrating or appreciating something that you or someone else on the team did. Don’t wait for the big holiday. Don’t wait for the big accomplishment. Find ways to put joy and celebration into the culture of your agency, whether you’re virtual hybrid all together, every day, all week, however that is, find ways to celebrate the work that you all do, the meaning that you bring to your clients and your team, and make a big deal out of it. Again, doesn’t have to be everybody gets an extra day off. Doesn’t have to be that everyone goes out to an expensive dinner. But take the moments and make the most of them, because I think that also makes that long run of the marathon that also is about endurance and taking care of yourself. So lesson one, It’s a marathon, and we have to train for it like it’s a marathon. We have to keep learning. We have to be mindful of our mental and physical state and taking care of ourselves. We need to celebrate the little wins along the way. So that, for me, is lesson number one.  

Lesson number two is kind of tied to this. Not every day is all sunshine and roses. So I will admit to you that there are times when I have to do a podcast episode again. Been doing it for 10 years and I’m. I don’t wanna. I really do not want to. I don’t feel like it’s. I may not be enthused about the guest or my solo cast. I just don’t feel like when the bell rings, I don’t Feel like answering the bell. But I do it. I do it because I have a commitment to myself. I do it because I have a commitment to all of you. I do it because I have a commitment to the guest who’s carved out time on their schedule to be ready to be interviewed. And at the end of the day, after I do it, every single time, after I do it, I am grateful that I did it. I had a better time than I thought I would. I learned more than I thought I would. I feel good about it. And I think that’s true about our business. I know for some of you, Monday morning comes or a certain day comes, the bell rings, and you do not want to get out of bed and go to work. I get it. It is not always a party. It’s hard. What we do is hard. It’s one of the reasons why not everyone can do it. What we do is hard. And part of the hard, the difficulty in it, part of the hardness, if you will, is that it’s all about endurance. It’s a duration of doing the same kinds of things over and over with excellence. Yes, we keep learning. Yes, we keep getting better. Yes, we keep evolving. And some days are a blast. I don’t know about you, but I think about all the other things I could have done in my career, and I’m really glad I chose being an agency owner and now owning AMI and doing what we do every day. So don’t get me wrong, most days, I am so grateful and so happy to do the work. But just like all of you, there are some days where I just don’t want to. I don’t feel like it, I’m tired for whatever reason, but I do it. And I have the commitment, I have the resolve. And on the other side of that day, whatever that day is, whether it’s I have to get on one more plane or I have to give one more speech, or it’s tied to the podcast, at the end of it, I look back and I’m super grateful that I did it. And so I’m proud of myself for having that endurance. And I know you all feel this, too, that there are just days when it takes everything you have to rise to the occasion. And that’s okay. That’s normal. That’s the point of this lesson, is not that I’m saying do it differently. What I’m saying is that for all of us, this is average sum sport, that most days, we love our work. We love our people, we love our clients. We love the work. We get to do. But just like any other job on the planet, some days it feels like a job and it feels like a hard job. And it’s okay to acknowledge that, to feel it, to recognize it, and to know that if you push through it, if you honor your commitments, on the flip side of that feels pretty good. So for me, that was lesson number two.  

So the third sort of big takeaway for me, the third lesson of 500 episodes, 10 years of podcasting, is it’s a team sport. What we do is a team sport. And you need to choose your teammates carefully. I don’t know if you remember being a kid and being on the playground or being in gym class and choosing your teammates for a team sport. And you were very thoughtful about who you picked on your team and how they might serve the team depending on the game you were playing, kickball or flag football or whatever it was. But you were thoughtful about who you put on your team. And I think it’s critical that we also be thoughtful about who we put on our team. And in my mind, that is not just the people that work for us or that we work with, although that is absolutely critical, but it’s also the people we surround ourselves with. Who are we learning from? Who are our support system, whether it’s our legal team, our tax team, other agency owners and leaders? How do we get the most out of this sport? By surrounding ourselves with not only excellence. It’s easy to say, well, I want to hire the best people, for sure, no doubt about it. But I don’t think it’s just about excellence. I think it’s all about the spirit they bring to the team sport. Are they in it for you as much as they are in it for themselves? Do they show up in a way that is meaningful, that they care about the outcome for you, for them, and for whoever you’re in service of? Are they available to you when you are questioning something or you need a little something extra? Do they give a little extra, too? Thinking about the team that you surround yourself with is so critical. Who is going to support you on the days that it’s hard? Who are also lifelong learners that are going to keep getting better alongside you? Who is committed to keeping your learning up and keep getting better? Who has the same attitude about client service or the care that we treat each other with, or your core values? Who are your people and how do you surround yourself with them as often as possible? It’s one of the reasons why AMI’s peer groups exist and why those people stay in those peer groups for so long is because they’ve created a posse of people who look like them, sound like them, in a lot of ways, do the same kind of work that they do, but more importantly, understand their world and are there to help them. They’re there to celebrate their wins, they’re there to commiserate their losses, that are there to offer resources when they have them, and that are committed to each other personally and professionally in a way that is magic. No one in a peer group feels like they are alone, that they don’t have somebody, that they can raise their hand and go, I’m struggling with something, Nobody. So you need a posse of people around you. One of the reasons why one of our core values is we learn better and faster when we learn together. Because I know that it’s not just the learning that happens in that environment. It’s also the camaraderie, it’s the support. It’s that feeling of not being in it alone. And so the hard days are easier to slog through because you’re not slogging through them together. The great days are even more amazing because you get to celebrate them together. So I want you to really be thinking about again, starting with your own team, your employees, your contractors, the people who support you in terms of your vendors and your partners, and then also who are your compadres in this battle, who come alongside you and support you. I know that for ami, there’s a subset of people who we lean on very heavily to be of service to you, that there are subject matter experts in their area, and they just share so generously with us, so graciously with us. That allows us to have even more resources for you. And so I want you to have that same support system around you that we enjoy every day. That helps me get through 500 episodes of a podcast, that helps us be on a plane 50% of the year, that helps us make sure that. That everyone is well fed at all our events. There’s just a team of people that help us pull off everything we pull off at ami. And I know you have a team of people that help you pull off what you do at your agency.  

The other flip side of that, that it’s a team sport, is you have to be a good teammate, too. So you want to show up as their ride or die. You want to show up with gratitude. You want to let them know that you appreciate what they do for you and for your clients or for your team or whoever they help you serve, make sure that you sprinkle that gratitude consistently and heavily. Because sooner or later you’re going to ask them to go above and beyond odds are you already have. And when they rise to that occasion, it’s because they feel appreciated. So remember, it’s absolutely a team sport.  

All right, we’re going to take a quick break and then I’ll tell you about the last two lessons that I have gleaned over the last 4, 500 episodes of the Build a Better Agency podcast.  

Hey everybody. I know you’re anxious to get back to the show and so am I. But I want to remind you about the premier event for agency owners and leaders that is coming up right around the corner. I am proud of a lot of things that we’ve done at Agency Management Institute Institute, blah blah, blah. I am proud of many things we have done at Agency Management Institute, but I’m probably most proud of the Build a Better Agency Summit. I knew there was a need, a hunger for a conference for real small to mid sized agencies. I’m talking five people, 10 people, 100 people, 200 people. Where we can come together and we can learn together. We can share our own experiences. We can have killer keynote speakers, breakout speakers, over 30 different roundtables you can participate in where you’re with a subject matter expert and other agency owners who are challenged with or interested in the same topic. And we have knocked it out of the park. This is our fifth year. Over 75% of the people who attend one year come back again in a subsequent year. So I know we’re doing a lot right. We would love to have you join us. Head over to agencymanagementinstitute.com and in the upper left corner there’s a tab says Baba Summit. You can register now. It’s May 19th, 20th and 21st. We would love to have you join us. We would love to have you come learn with us. We would love to have you come teach what you’ve learned to other agency owners and leaders. This is an incredibly collaborative, cooperative community and you can be a part of it for three days. And I promise you, you have never gone to a conference like this one. So please join us.  

All right, we are back and we are talking about some of the lessons learned over the last 500 episodes of Build a Better Agency.  

So the fourth lesson for me is, you know, one of actually the leading core belief at AMI is that we lead with love. And for some people, I’m sure that sounds weird. We talk a lot about the fact that we’re huggers. One of the privileges of owning your own business is you get to decide who you serve. And for us at AMI, it’s really a privilege to only serve people that we genuinely care about, that we have a deep love for the industry, and not just the industry, but the individuals that we serve every day. And when we lead with love, when we always ask ourselves how what we’re doing benefits our community, benefits you, the listener, benefits the peer group members, benefits the people at the summit, when we make every decision around that, it actually is pretty easy. It’s easy to know what to do. And when we lead with love, sometimes is it to our disadvantage? In the short run, probably, but in the long run, never. When we show up as our best selves, when we show up committed to our own team, to the people we serve, to the partners that help us do it, and we come at it with an attitude of gratitude and with love, then the rest of it honestly, is pretty easy. And so every business decision we make is really around, how is this of service to the community? Will they find this valuable? Is this something that we can sustain with excellence, that we can provide a great experience? And is this something that we can sort of lovingly do or give to the people that we serve? And at the end of the day, what the result of that is that the community finds value in what we do monetarily and otherwise, which allows us to keep doing the work that we do. So it is absolutely reciprocal. And it’s not done out of any other reason. Then it’s just how Danyel and I want to run the business. It’s how we want to show up. We genuinely love the work we do. We love the people we do it for. And as long as we stay in that lane, as long as we don’t get distracted by, well, we could make more money if we did it this way, or our competitors are doing this. So we have to do that. As long as we just stay in our own lane, which is how do we best serve these people that we care about, the rest of it just falls into place. And so I think for all of us, your version of that may be a little different, but I think when you’re true to yourself, when you’re true to your values, leading with love may not be your core value, it’s ours. But when you really understand your core values, you weave them throughout your organization and make sure that everyone who works for you and with you knows what you stand for, knows what you believe, knows how you’re going to show up, knows the guiding principles that dictate the way you run your business. When they understand all of that, then they can tap in or tap out. That’s either on brand for them or not on brand for them. But they know what to expect from you. They know how you’re going to consistently behave and how you’re going to give at the level that you want to give for the reasons that you choose to give. What that does is it clarifies every decision that you have to make around employees, around clients, around profitability, around all of the things. It just clarifies it.  

And the other part of that sort of leading with your values is really understanding sort of what are the bumpers, if you will think of when you take a kid bowling, you put those bumpers up so that they don’t get gutter balls. What are the bumpers for you of how you run your business? Because it’s not just your core values, it’s also sort of the metrics that you run your business by. That you know. Because I suspect for most of you, one of your core values is you want to run a business that is stable and sustainable. Because we don’t want to lay people off. We don’t want to have to keep adjusting the size of our business. We want to run a good, solid business. Part of that is the values that we run the business by. And the other part of that are sort of the bumpers of the rules that we run the business by. And those two things together. When you have commitment to running your agency in a fiscally profitable way, in a way that allows you to keep paying your employees without sweating payroll or being able to give them raises when they’re due or whatever that may be. And you’ve got core values that talk about how you run your business, how you show up for each other. Those sort of two bookends really make the running of the business pretty straightforward. It’s when we steer away from either of those things.  

And by the way, sometimes those things are in conflict, right? Sometimes you want to be people first person. But the reality is, part of being people first means that you have to run the business by the numbers. And that might mean you have to downsize to keep everyone else’s job safe, to keep the ship stable. So you’ve got to find there’s a healthy tension sometimes between the financial metrics or the numbers or the rules that you use to run the business and the core values that you use to run the business. But I promise you, there is synergy in them. When you look at both of them, with clarity. And when you do that, when you have. So think of it as one bumper is the core values of your business, and the other bumper is, here are the best practices that I know I need to run my business by so it’s sustainable and stable. When you have those bumpers in place, you can’t go out of the lane. As long as you let those be your guiding principles on each side. There’s no way for you to jump a lane or for you to get a gutter ball. Yes, sometimes that means you have to do hard things because your core values may mean that somebody isn’t aligned in alignment with those core values and that maybe they’re not the right person to be on the team. But when you have those bumpers in place and you stay true to those bumpers and you really articulate, and this is a key that you’re very clear about them, but you also make sure that everyone around you is very clear about them, then you stay in your lane. Maybe you don’t move as quickly in your lane as you want to. Maybe you bang around a little bit between the bumpers, but you stay in your lane. Which means that in the long run, because remember, this is a marathon. In the long run, you are on target. You are heading in the right direction. You are behaving in a consistent way that you can feel good about. It helps that mental and emotional and physical stress we talked about, because you’ve defined the rules of engagement and you’ve put those bumpers up to say, as long as we stay within these rules, we’re all going to be great. If you don’t like these rules, it’s okay to change lanes. I’ll help you change lanes. But I need everybody on my team surrounding my team, serving our clients, serving my agency, serving me. I need everybody to know these are the bumpers. These are the boundaries that we’re going to live by. And I invite you inside the lane if those are boundaries that feel right and good to you.  

So super important for us, leading by love is certainly one of them. But for you, it’s whatever your core values are and whatever those KPIs are that you know are best practices for your business so that your business hangs in there for the long haul. We didn’t get to 500 episodes by not watching the numbers. We didn’t get to 500 episodes by not paying attention to the feedback of the audience. We didn’t get to 500 episodes or to, you know, all the years of AMI. We didn’t get to either of those places without knowing who we are and what metrics matter to us, both in terms of our values and, and the way we run the business. And I think for each and every one of you, that is true as well.  

All right, so what’s the fifth and the last lesson learned over 500 episodes? It is that together is better. That when we do this well together and when we learn together, when we support each other, when we give each other feedback, when we are in this for something greater than ourselves in service of those that we love. So many of you know, my all time favorite business book is a book called Radical Leap by Steve Farber. And there’s a line in the book which talks about sort of the pinnacle of owning a business or running a business is when you get to do work that you love in service of people that you love. And that really is at the core of ami. That is what we’re all about. But I think it’s the core of, for all of us, what we should be about, which is when we get to care about the people we serve, when we get to care about the people that we’re in this battle with together, that we are serving these clients together, when we surround ourselves with other people, other professionals who want to be as excellent as we are, who are as committed to learning as we are, who we can have honest conversations about our stress levels or what’s going on in our business and get support and help, tangible help, but also just that, emotional support. All of this is easier and better. We could have never gotten to 500 episodes without a lot of other people around us supporting us, helping us, celebrating us, sharing the podcast episodes with other people, coming back week after week, guests who had a good experience, recommending other guests, this is a team sport without exception. And I think that is true for all of our businesses as well. And so when we recognize it’s a team sport and when we recognize that together is better, that we can, by the way, when together is better, it’s not just about our business. It’s also about how we show up for somebody else’s business. That’s why I love the Summit so much, is I love walking by and watching two agency owners sort of comparing notes and sharing ideas where they’re both committed to each other’s business as much as they are their own. Together is better. This is a lonely business and it is very competitive and it can be cutthroat. And so to surround yourself with other people who push that aside, who believe that there is enough Sunshine for everybody. And that when we learn together and when we support each other, we all get better faster. That’s an amazing community of people to be a part of. It allows things to happen with consistency and excellence. There would be no greater sin, in my opinion, than if you are somehow a part of AMI. Whether you’re just a podcast listener, whether you’re in the Facebook group, whether you come to workshops, whether you’re a part of a peer group, whether you come to the summit, whether you’re one of our coaching clients, however you interact with ami, however arm’s length you are, we may have never met each other. I might not know your name, or I might know you and your kids names and all the things about you and your family, whatever that relationship is, or there is no greater sin, in my opinion, than for you to feel alone. That, at the end of the day, is why this podcast exists. I want you to know you’re not alone. I want you to know that everything you’re going through, other agency owners are going through it too. I want you to know that we are committed to helping you get better at your job every single day and running a better, smarter, more profitable, more stable business. I want you to know that if you are feeling lonely or defeated, there are places for you to reach out. Whether it’s the Facebook group or wherever it may be, Our Q&As come and talk about how you’re feeling there. That there are places for you to get support because together is better. The underlying theme of AMI is that we get better faster, we get smarter faster, we survive better when we do it together. That’s what this episode is about. That’s what every episode is about. That’s what everything AMI does is about. And I believe, honestly, it’s what everything you do is about too. That whether you’re talking about your team or your clients, that when we do it together, when we each bring our talents, our skills to the party and we share them generously and liberally with one another, then everybody is better off for it. 

And so, as I reflect on 500 episodes, almost 10 years of the podcast, what I know, without exception, is that we did this together. So the podcast 500 episode, not my accomplishment, maybe a nod to my endurance level or my stubbornness perhaps, but not my accomplishment. We have been surrounded by people who have helped us make this possible. Starts with you, the listeners, starts with our guests. It starts with back in the day, predictive, producing all of those episodes for us. It starts with everybody sharing the episodes out. It starts with all of those different elements, none of which, if any of those had not been true, I probably wouldn’t be recording this episode today with you. And so, as I started, is how I want to end. I am so grateful that you’re here. I’m so grateful you keep coming back. I’m so grateful to everybody who has touched this podcast, and it literally is hundreds and hundreds of people, thousands and thousands of listeners all over the globe. I am grateful that we are doing this together. And my commitment to you is I want to keep doing it if you do.  

So I’ll be back next week with episode 501 and we start the count almost over again. And I will keep coming back as long as you keep coming back. So thank you for listening. Thank you for being a part of this community. Thank you for understanding that there are lessons to be learned for all of us in the work we do together. And most important of all is together is better. So I’m grateful for you. Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next week. 

Danyel McLellan [00:40:25]: 

That’s a wrap for this week’s episode of Build a better agency. Visit agencymanagementinstitute.com to check out our workshops, coaching and consulting packages and all the other ways we serve agencies just like yours. Thanks for listening.