Stephan Spencer made himself too essential in his agency, resulting in working to exhaustion. After a much-needed break, he was able to gain clarity on the best way to scale his agency. In the 1990s he founded the SEO agency Netconcepts and in 2010 it was acquired by Covario. Stephan invented an automated pay-for-performance SEO technology called GravityStream. He is co-author of "The Art of SEO", co-author of "Social eCommerce", and author of "Google Power Search." Today, he joins us to talk about how he scaled his agency to the point he could take a sabbatical. Learn how he intentionally worked himself out of a job by building a leadership team that could take over the thought leadership role. 3 Golden Nuggets Figure out what can be automated. We’ve talked about the importance of getting rid of the more tedious tasks to focus on what you really want to do. One way you could do that is by figuring out what can be automated or scaled with some artificial intelligence technology. For example, GPT-3 is a game-changer that you can incorporate into your product to have a real competitive edge. Don’t work yourself to exhaustion. It’s important to work yourself out of a job. By being indispensable, you become the biggest roadblock to the growth of the agency. Stephan wanted to be the visionary, not the integrator or the implementer, so he brought on a COO, VPs, CFO, CEO, and built his team to make sure he no longer was the company’s only thought leader. Establish authority in a powerful way. You can make a huge impact and put yourself on the map if you can find a niche where you can author a book. Another thing that can make a big impact and get you your first big clients is find a big company and offer your services in exchange for testimonials and the use of their logo on your website. It communicates to other clients that you are preapproved by this larger company and more clients are sure to follow. Sponsors and Resources SweetProcess: Today's episode is sponsored by SweetProcess. If you're looking for a way to speed up processes in your agency, SweetProcess will provide the systemization you need to scale and grow your business. Check out sweetprocess.com/smartagency and get your productivity up. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Avoid Becoming Indispensable and Working Yourself to Death Jason: [00:00:00] What's up everybody? I have an amazing show coming your way. If you want to know how one agency owner built an SEO agency over $6 million and sold it. And even before that got to a point where they could actually go on a sabbatical and the agency keep running without them. Which is total freedom. And, and to come back. This is the episode for you. So let's go ahead and get into it. Are you frustrated with how long it takes you to get stuff done in your agency? Or tired of your team missing steps or falling through the cracks? You know, you may be looking for an easy way to capture SOPs to scale your agency faster and easier. Now, our partners that Sweet Process have created an amazing tool to help you overcome all these frustrations. Sweet Process really lets you create a step-by-step instruction from every task in your agency. From writing proposals to executing client work and responding to client requests. So everything gets done more easily. No more mistakes or missed steps. Plus, I have a central place where everyone, employees, contractors, or even VAs can access your procedures anytime from anywhere. The best way to learn about how Sweet Process really can streamline your agency is to start using it. So exclusively for the Smart Agency masterclass listeners, you can try it out for 28 days free of charge. No strings attached. Just go to sweetprocess.com/smartagency to start your free 28-day free trial today. That's sweetprocess.com/smartagency to get your SOPs down and your productivity up. All right, welcome to the show, Stefan. How's it going? Stephan: [00:01:52] It’s going great. Thanks