Are you growing your agency to sell it in the future or prefer the idea of building a lifestyle business? Maybe you don't have to choose. When Anna Mannerfelt created Wired Mustang, an agency specializing in brand development and equine marketing, she decided selling her business was not the ultimate goal. Instead, she created a business to support her lifestyle. In today's episode, she sat down with Jason to talk about her negative experiences with agencies and why she fired a few plus the two-fold job of agencies. She also discusses why creating a lifestyle business doesn't mean you can't one day profitably sell it. 3 Golden Nuggets Why clients fire agencies. Before starting her own business, Anna dealt with many agencies and even fired some after growing tired of a common mistake: the over-promise. Agencies assured they had the capabilities and experience to take on the task and then ultimately would not deliver. “It’s like dating,” she says, “anyone can be a good salesperson, but can you actually deliver what you promise?” Make sure you’re really good at something before you find yourself in a situation where you can’t deliver on promises to clients. The two-fold job of agencies. In her opinion, an agency should, first of all, make their clients look good, whether by brand design or website or billboards. But most importantly, an agency should increase their clients' sales. Analytics is all good but by the end of the day, are you increasing sales? She makes sure to ask clients if her agency is getting them more business. And if not, it’s time to find out what they are doing wrong. Having a lifestyle business. We usually talk about the mindset of growing an agency to then sell it and enjoy the lifestyle you want. Anna says she would be bored out of her mind without something to do and preferred to build a lifestyle business. In Jason’s experience, we should all strive to design our business around us rather than having a business that controls us. There are a lot of negative ideas about having a lifestyle business but you could also sell a lifestyle business if you choose to. After all, any business is about setting up the right system and the business operating without you. Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design and development agency that has provided white label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Building a Successful Lifestyle Business That You Could Sell in The Future {These transcripts have been auto-generated. While largely accurate, they may contain some errors.} Jason: [00:00:00] What's up, everybody? Jason Swenk here and got another amazing episode for you. We're going to talk about growing and scaling your agency and really creating an agency that's a lifestyle business. I know a lot of times we talk about growing an agency building up real big and selling it, but what about if you just want to do a lifestyle business? On today's episode we're going to talk exactly about that, so let's go ahead and get into the show. Hey, Anna. Welcome to the show. Anna: [00:00:31] Thank you, Jason. It's great to be here. Jason: [00:00:34] Yeah. So I'm happy to have you here. Tell us who you are and what do you do? Anna: [00:00:38] Sure. I'm Anna Mannerfelt. I’m the co-founder of an agency called Wired Mustang and we're based out of Denver, Colorado. Jason: [00:00:46] Awesome. And, uh, tell us, how did you start the agency and why did you do it? Anna: [00:00:50] Oh, my goodness, Jason. So I've been in marketing for 30 years, started way back when in Sweden and advertising. And then when I came to Colorado a few years ago now to start over, I saw there was a need for businesses to be represented correctly online with actual professional digital marketers. An