Are you getting ready to sell your agency? Are you looking into potential buyers? How will you protect your interests in an M&A process? Today’s guest has a lot of experience, and even a book, in this area having sold the same agency twice and coming out mostly unscathed from the initial failed deal. He’ll share some of the good, the bad, and the ugly aspects of selling your agency and the challenges of managing a large agency team. Tune in to gain valuable insights on navigating the process of selling your agency. David Rodnitzky is a digital marketer who started and later sold 3Q Digital, a team of 500+ rockstar/ninja/guru online marketing pros who offer expertise in online analytics, decision science, strategic consulting, creative, and conversion rate optimization. He also founded Agentic Shift, a boutique consulting firm dedicated to helping agency founders successfully exit their businesses through mergers or acquisitions (M&A). Recently, David poured all his M&A expertise into his new book, Selling Your Marketing Agency, which you can get on Amazon. In this episode, we’ll discuss: The Key to managing an agency team of over 100 people. An ironclad acquisition contract clause that will save your agency. Lessons to help you avoid pitfalls in the M&A process. 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. Accidental Agency Owner in Search Engine Marketing According to David, he sort of glammed into the world of search engine marketing after started in digital marketing in 2000. He worked at a series of startups in Silicon Valley, for about eight years and moved on to a company where he found the culture was not one he agreed with. He was traveling to India three times a year to manage a team while his wife was pregnant and decided it was not a smart family decision. So he quit and set up shop in a coffee house in Pacifica, California. Soon people started calling him to help them with search engine marketing consulting and he had an agency. That agency Today is 3Q Digital, part of a bigger organization called DEPT. The Key to Managing Over 100 People: Maintaining Consistency of Quality and Processes For David, it’s a lot harder to go from managing two people to 25 people than it is to go from 25 people to 100 people. No individual can manage hundreds of people. You can only dedicate so many hours per week to checking in with your team. In this sense, he has learned the importance of maintaining consistency of quality when it comes to the people he hires, as well the importance of processes. Most agency owners would agree it's relatively easy to manage and monitor two or three employees and make sure that they are doing a great job. However, the more people you hire, the more you have to delegate that responsibility and the less you sort of know about how well your team is performing. So David has learned to remain constantly obsessed with quality on the team. As to delegating, processes will be key to maintaining quality, and unfortunately, most agencies don't have many processes. At David’s agency, when a client is onboarded, the success or failure of that client is based on the person assigned to that account. The results could vary since everyone has their unique ideas. That’s why you’ll need a solid process to ensure consistency because you can't have a brand without consistent results. An Ironclad Acquisition Clause to Save Your Agency from Ruin Initially, David wasn’t planning on selling his agency, until the offers came pouring in unsolicited. So he hired an investment banker to keep track of these inbound leads and screen them to determine which ones were legitimate buyers. At this point, David decided to do a "mini proc