After deciding to leave the mean streets of LA, where he worked as a police officer for 13 years, Jason Smith started working at the leading Facebook and Instagram advertising agency Tier 11. He eventually moved to create his own company Spotlight Social Media Consulting in 2016. Today, he joins us to talk about the key factors that have helped him grow his team and making the decision to bring a VP of Operations. 3 Golden Nuggets Having a good foundation to grow your agency. For Jason, an integral part of growing an agency is having a great team that have your back and know what they’re doing and are team players. People you can trust with the tasks that you’re delegating and also, why not, people that you like. On hiring a VP of Operations. Many people are afraid of this step because of the cost it entails. But Jason has seen his agency really evolve since hiring his VP of Ops. Now his agency has SOPs, there are clear steps to bringing new employees and clients onboard, and a new project management system. Definitely worth it. The right Facebook ads agency will be a great partner. Make sure you ask the right questions when looking for a Facebook ads company because the right one will help you triple and quadruple your business and become a great asset to your brand. Sponsors and Resources Oribi: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by Oribi. Check out Oribi.io/smartagency for a free trial. Plus when you sign up for Oribi get 20% off the first three months with promo code: Smart Agency Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM How Hiring a VP of Operations can be the Best Call to Grow Your Agency Jason Swenk: [00:00:00] On this show. I talk with an agency owner who talks about how he has grown his team, how he's grown his agency. And when is the right time to bring in a VP of Operations and how did he do it? So let's sit back and check out the episode. Hey, Jason. Welcome to the show. Jason Smith: [00:00:24] Hey, how are you doing? Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. Jason Swenk: [00:00:27] Yeah, man, I'm excited to have you on, I've gotten to know you over the past couple of years, but for the people that have not heard of you yet tell us who you are and what do you do? Jason Smith: [00:00:35] Yeah, my name is Jason Smith, owner and CEO of Spotlight Social Media Consulting. We're a, uh, Facebook and Instagram only, I say only because we're not an all-in-one, we're Facebook and Instagram only ad agency. So we do paid media for Facebook and Instagram. Jason Swenk: [00:00:52] Awesome. Now you have a quite interesting story of how you became an agency or really even what you were doing beforehand. So, yeah, I think it's interesting just to tell people kind of where you came from. Jason Smith: [00:01:05] Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Crazy story, actually. When I tell it, people take a 360-degree turn and they're like, wait, what? So I was a, a policeman for the Los Angeles Police Department for, gosh, just about 14 years before I became an agency owner. And the reason why it's kind of crazy is because I went from getting shot at, chasing gang members, getting into shootings, all this stuff, and the mean streets of LA. And literally, I mean that literally, I mean, we're talking about 250 homicides in six square miles in a year, and very violent places in, in Los Angeles. And, uh, went from that to, you know, the thing that kinda drove me to look for something else was number one, I was never home, was in court all the time. My days off were filled with court and overtime and it was just, you know, I never get to spend time with my family and I just, it was getting old, real fast. And it sounds cool when you're up on the stand testifying as a gang expert or weapons expert and all this stuff. But in hindsight, personally, it's not that fun. So, and you know, I've been involved in tons of, and literally tons of stressful situations. I've been in shootings and been shot at and all that stu