Let’s be honest. Running a marketing agency sounds pretty damn simple until you actually have to run one. You need clients. You need to sell them something. You need to actually deliver the thing you sold. You need systems. You need money. And somehow you’re supposed to do all of that without becoming a caffeinated hostage to your own business. So let’s cut the bullshit. What do you actually want to learn more about? Vote for the ONE thing you need the most help with right now. Then tell me in the comments what specifically you’re struggling with. No guru bullshit. No theory from someone who has never actually run an agency. Let’s talk about the stuff that actually matters.

I want to get your honest opinion on the current monthly mastermind format. Attendance has been pretty low, and when we only have a few people show up, it changes the value of the group. Rather than continuing with a format simply because that’s what we’ve always done, I’m considering changing how we use that time. Here are the two options I’m looking at: Option 1: Keep the Monthly Mastermind We continue with the monthly group mastermind where we get together, discuss what’s going on in your business, work through problems, share ideas, and help each other move things forward. Option 2: Replace the Mastermind With 1-on-1 Calls Instead of one monthly group mastermind, each member would have a scheduled monthly 1-on-1 call with me. The group mastermind would then be replaced with monthly training calls that everyone can attend. These would be focused on practical topics, strategies, systems, and tactics that can be applied directly to your business. The basic tradeoff is pretty simple: Group mastermind: More peer interaction and group problem-solving. 1-on-1 calls + training: More individual attention and dedicated time to work on your business, while still having a monthly group training session. I’m not interested in keeping a format that looks good on paper but isn’t actually being used. So I want your input before making the change. Which would provide more value to you? And more importantly, tell me why. If you have another idea for how we could structure the time, throw that into the comments too. The goal here isn’t to protect the format. It’s to make sure the time we’re putting into the group is actually producing value for the people who are in it. @Janice Douglas @James Tarasiewicz @Tom Melton @Linda K @Paul Michel @Shelley Ward @Phyllis Brown @Sue Bookhout

t's 2 AM. Your phone lights up. "My site is down!!! Customers are calling!!!" Every agency group has this fight about once a month, and the comments always split into two camps. Camp one: "You answer. Every time. That's what separates a real agency from a freelancer." Camp two: "Never. Boundaries. They can wait till 9." Both camps are wrong. They're arguing about what you do after the text lands. That's the wrong fight. By the time your client is texting you at 2 AM, the emergency plan already failed. All that's left is damage control. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝟮 𝗔𝗠 𝘁𝗲𝘅𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘆𝗼𝘂 "You found out from the client." That's not bad luck. That's missing monitoring. A site that's down at 2 AM went down at 1:40. Something should have told you first. If your client is your alarm system, you don't have one. "They had your cell number." That's not a pushy client. That's a missing escalation path. Nobody wrote down what counts as an emergency, who gets contacted, or how fast. So the client picked the fastest channel they had. You. In bed. "You don't know how long the fix will take." That's not a hard problem. That's an untested backup. Most agency owners find out if their backup actually restores on the night they need it. Worst possible night to find out. "You're the only one who can fix it." That's not great service. That's a single point of failure. If the whole plan is "wake up Dorn," the plan is a person, and people get sick, go on vacation, and sleep. An emergency plan isn't how fast you respond. It's how rarely you have to. Now, some of you are thinking: "So I just let my client's site sit dead until morning?" No. That's not the point. If the site's down, it gets fixed. The difference is who knew first and whether the steps were already written down. Here's the same outage, told two ways. Version one: the client texts you in a panic, you scramble to figure out what broke, and everybody loses sleep. Version two: the client wakes up to "Your site went down at 1:42 AM. We were alerted and it was back up at 2:15. Here's what caused it and what we changed."

We all have something that can derail the day. Maybe it’s social media. Maybe it’s email, notifications, constantly checking your phone, jumping between tasks, or spending way too much time “researching” something that really didn’t need 45 minutes of research. Maybe it is online poker. For agency owners, distractions can be especially expensive. One small interruption turns into another task, which turns into checking something else, and suddenly the thing you actually needed to accomplish today is still sitting there waiting. So let’s talk about it. What’s your biggest daily distraction? And more importantly, do you have a system for dealing with it, or are you just hoping tomorrow you’ll somehow have more discipline? Drop yours in the comments. No judgment. We’re probably all guilty of something.