E20: Joshua Grant - Market Uncertainty to Operational Excellence: Agency Lessons in Resilience and Adaptation

E20: Joshua Grant - Market Uncertainty to Operational Excellence: Agency Lessons in Resilience and Adaptation

Welcome back to Agency Intensive, hosted by Richard Hill, where we dive into the realities of running and scaling successful agencies. In this episode, Joshua Grant, Managing Director of Absolute Design, offers a candid, insightful look at how the agency landscape has evolved over the past 18 months. Together, they explore how agencies can thrive in times of market uncertainty, win client trust, and find opportunities amidst economic pressures. You'll hear discussion on the rising importance of simplifying tech stacks, identifying and eliminating wasted spend and maximising value from the tools you’re already paying for. They dig into the practical ways agencies are leveraging AI for operations and reporting, while recognising its limits, and reveal how to truly become a trusted advisor to your clients. Whether you’re looking to tighten operations, deepen client relationships, or future-proof your agency in a noisy market, this episode is packed with relatable stories, actionable insights, and the latest trends straight from the agency frontline.

E19: Anthony Barone - From Working in Pubs and Nightclubs to Scaling an International SEO Powerhouse

“Ego Is the Enemy” Welcome to another episode of eCom@One with Richard Hill! In today’s conversation, Richard Hill sits down with Anthony Barone, co-founder of Studio Hawk and the driving force behind their UK expansion. Anthony Barone shares the remarkable journey of going from a career in hospitality to scaling Studio Hawk from a small Australian team into an international SEO powerhouse with offices in Melbourne, Sydney, London, and Atlanta. You’ll hear candid stories about rapid growth, building a company culture across continents, and why niche focus has been their biggest lever in sales and partnerships. Anthony Barone also opens up about the role of AI and large language models in the changing SEO landscape—and why mastering the fundamentals is now more important than ever. Whether you’re running an agency, building your own team, or just curious about the intersection of search, growth, and technology, this episode is packed with hard-won lessons, real-world advice, and a glimpse into what’s next for Studio Hawk. Let’s dive in! 00:00 "Falling Into SEO Career" 05:23 "Building Studiohawk From Scratch" 09:26 Scaling Sales for SEO Success 11:48 "Power of Specialism in Events" 14:03 Shoreditch Cool Commerce Event 17:45 "Building Networks Through Events" 23:12 "Advice for UK Agencies Expanding" 23:55 "Preparation for US Expansion" 26:56 "Planning International Business Expansion" 30:12 "Follow Core Values Intentionally" 35:25 "SEO Opportunities in the AI Era" 38:26 Navigating Marketing Challenges Efficiently 39:55 Shopify, Universal Protocol, Ads Update 43:22 "Ego Is the Enemy" Recommendation

E18: Mads Singer - From Founder Led Chaos to Scalable SEO Agency

In this episode of Agency Intensive, Richard Hill sits down with Mads Singer, agency trainer and management consultant who's helped hundreds of teams move from founder-led delivery to repeatable, scalable operations. Mads breaks down why most brilliant SEOs stay stuck at the same revenue level year after year, what the "superhero syndrome" really costs your business, and the exact hiring sequence that prevents you from becoming the bottleneck. He explains the four business buckets every agency needs to master, why you should pick ONE marketing channel and go deep, and how to build repeatable SEO processes that scale. The conversation covers the three critical growth stages where most agencies get stuck (0-10, 10-25, and 25-50+ people), why writing SOPs yourself is killing your time, and how to hire specialists instead of trying to clone yourself. Mads shares real examples, including the roofing SEO who 3x'd his business in 12 months by going to industry events, and breaks down what it really takes to build a sellable, scalable agency. If you're a talented SEO stuck in delivery or an agency owner trying to break through revenue plateaus, this episode gives you the exact steps to scale without burning out. Listen to the full episode now, and don't forget to hit subscribe. **Topics Covered** 00:00 Introduction 02:07 Why talented SEOs struggle to scale 03:13 Mads' background: From IBM to agency consulting 07:03 The four business buckets: Sales, marketing, operations, finance 08:04 The superhero syndrome killing your growth 13:38 Finding your ONE marketing channel 18:05 The roofing SEO case study: 3x growth in 12 months 20:36 Sponsor: Aristo Sourcing 21:38 Key hires for scaling from 5 to 20+ people 24:30 Building culture with your first hires 28:24 SOPs: What the gurus get wrong 34:34 Leadership challenges scaling £1M to £5M 35:05 Three growth stages where agencies get stuck 46:31 Starting an SEO agency from scratch today 47:19 The ONE process framework 50:02 Breaking down processes for specialization 51:40 Hiring specialists vs. cloning yourself 53:26 Book recommendation: First, Break All the Rules 54:14 Where to find Mads Singer

E17: Aaron Hutchinson - Stop Pitching, Start Closing: The Four Conversations Framework for Agency Sales

From wasted pitch decks to strategic conversations that close. Aaron Hutchinson reveals the Win Without Pitching methodology that's helping agencies stop gambling on low-probability pitches and start winning profitable clients through expert positioning instead of endless presentations. Aaron Hutchinson is a sales consultant and trainer specializing in the Win Without Pitching methodology for creative agencies and professional services firms. Based in the UK, Aaron helps agency owners and their teams move from reactive order-taking to strategic expert positioning through the Four Conversations framework. After years as Managing Director of a creative agency, Aaron founded The Hutch Consultancy to address the industry's most persistent challenge: winning new business profitably without wasting resources on futile pitches. This podcast episode is relevant to you if you're an agency owner struggling with new business, tired of losing pitches you spent days preparing for, finding it difficult to have confident pricing conversations, or trying to hire and train salespeople who can sell expertise rather than just deliverables. Find out why your pitch win rate is probably lower than you think, what the "three years from now" question unlocks in sales conversations, and why presenting three options beats a single proposal every time. Aaron reveals the frameworks that separate expert agencies from vendor agencies, introduces RAB (Revenue Above Budget) as the metric that actually matters, and explains why 25,000 UK agencies are competing in a market more crowded than McDonald's locations. If you're serious about transforming your agency's sales process or finally cracking the code on profitable new business without soul-destroying pitch work, this episode delivers practical, immediately actionable frameworks. Topics Covered: 00:00 - Introduction: The agency world's oldest question 02:28 - What challenges are agencies facing with sales and new business? 04:18 - Why there are 25,000+ agencies in the UK (more than McDonald's!) 07:22 - The two-year email: How long-term positioning pays off 09:32 - Why pitching is gambling (and the real win rates you're facing) 12:44 - What is Win Without Pitching and why does it work? 14:06 - The Four Conversations framework explained 19:50 - The magic question: "We're having coffee three years from now..." 24:58 - Expert vs Vendor: The doctor analogy 28:08 - Pricing conversations: Why money talks are so uncomfortable 31:42 - The secret to avoiding awkward "we don't have that budget" moments 33:19 - The power of options: Why three is the magic number 38:18 - RAB: Revenue Above Budget explained 42:02 - Staying resilient in agency sales: Avoiding soul-destroying work 45:25 - Conversations not presentations: Why we don't use decks anymore 47:45 - Book recommendation: The Four Conversations by Blair Enns

E16: Angelo Zanetti - Building Software That Actually Works

From necessity to 20 years of building software that adapts to businesses, not the other way around. Angelo Zanetti co-founded Elemental during the dot-com crash and turned it into a Cape Town powerhouse that refuses to compromise on quality, security, or in-office culture. Angelo Zanetti Angelo Zanetti is the co-founder and co-CEO of Elemental, a web and software development agency based in Cape Town, South Africa. With over 20 years of hands-on experience, Angelo has built a lean team of 25 specialists who focus on creating bespoke software solutions that truly fit how businesses operate, rather than forcing businesses to adapt to off-the-shelf tools. This podcast episode is relevant to you if you're building software products, running a development agency, scoping MVPs, or trying to understand why that vibe-coded prototype isn't production-ready. Find out why founders bloat their MVPs with non-core features, what happens when someone hands Angelo a Replit prototype with no brakes, and why Elemental's entire team works in-office five days a week in an increasingly remote world. Angelo shares the realities of digital transformation, the security nightmares hiding in AI-generated code, and why great SEO has driven their lead generation for two decades. If you're serious about building software that scales or positioning your agency to stand out, this episode delivers practical, battle-tested advice. Topics Covered: 1:07 - How Angelo got into the agency world out of necessity during the dot-com crash 2:25 - Meeting Richard in a Harry Potter-esque location overlooking King's Cross 4:18 - The current setup: 25 people, lean and mean in Cape Town 5:26 - Why COVID was actually good for Elemental's business 6:59 - The advantage of having strong technical backgrounds as co-founders 8:05 - How SEO has been their secret weapon for lead generation 9:51 - Doing exceptional work leads to referrals and repeat business 10:38 - The mistake of trying to be everything to everyone 11:16 - MVPs and the patterns Angelo sees when founders first approach them 12:33 - Why founders jam-pack MVPs with nice-to-have features 14:04 - The "build it and they will come" fallacy 15:55 - Walking through the Change Cars project: competing with Autotrader 18:55 - How the market tells you what features to build next 21:22 - Philosophy: software should adapt to the business, not the other way around 25:18 - Why off-the-shelf tools force businesses into broken workflows 28:21 - The commercial model: discovery, build, then ongoing support and maintenance 32:01 - Why Elemental keeps everyone in-office five days a week 36:06 - The advantages: culture, collaboration, mentoring, and quality control 38:53 - The major challenge: hiring in a world that wants remote work 42:18 - How Angelo stays connected to the technical side without writing code anymore 43:18 - The reality of vibe coding: it looks good but has no brakes 46:32 - Security nightmares in AI-generated prototypes 48:07 - Using AI tools like Copilot and Cursor responsibly 50:58 - Building SEO calculators with vibe coding versus proper development 52:18 - Advice for agencies looking to scale: stop being too generalist 55:23 - Positioning yourself as a specialist and marketing to that niche 57:24 - Book recommendation: $100,000,000 Offers by Alex Hormozi Learn more about scaling your agency at eComOne.com