Search Interviews:

Jeremy Weisz 7:05

Yeah, I would imagine the, the truth is like, Can it’s when you think about it, it is quite annoying to think about especially if you have a family or you know, the leave, like John said, buying a plane ticket going hotel, leaving your house, like, you know, you’re away from family. And it’s it takes a lot it besides the there’s obviously a price involved and all this stuff. So, but once I get there, I’m so glad I did it.

Chad Franzen 7:43

You know, when I think about when I think about a conference, I think, well, what can I What can I glean from the guest speaker, but you know, and you don’t really think about the relationships and things like that, that you build. But obviously, those are probably the most important things that tend to come out of them. Let’s talk about some of your favorites here as I share my screen. This one is the digital agency experience with Jason Swenk. Who wants to talk about this one?

John Corcoran 8:10

Yeah, I think we can both talk about it. I went to it most recently, Jeremy has been a number of times before and you know, Jason has become a friend, definitely a mentor. He is one of the most respected experts in how to build a digital agency out there, has been doing his smart agency masterclass podcast for many years now 789 years or something like that. And has been hosting events for agency owners. And, you know, he really has just such a wealth of knowledge to share. But he also brings together a lot of really giving digital agency owners who are really open to sharing, which is not always the case when you have a group of competitors get together in a room together. So he does it every year. I believe it’s in Colorado for the next couple years. And then I believe after that there, they may be moving to another venue. But yeah, it was a great experience of going there. Jeremy, your thoughts?

Jeremy Weisz 9:05

Yeah, he, um, he’s coming to conference. He’s got the Ag experience, which we’re looking at in he also has Elevate, which is kind of this, you know, I guess the beige, the experience is kind of like a mastermind format. And the Elevate is a column or like a conference with a mastermind feel to it. It’s a little bit bigger. I just spoke at Elevate, actually recently in Austin, and he’s gonna be having that I don’t know, one or two times a year depending. But yeah, it’s the same thing. That bond you get with people also, I was able to chat with a bunch of the speakers there who are Jason brings together really just giving people so everyone is really approachable. And I was just chatting with a bunch of the speakers and they were doing amazing things and people just share openly about what’s working, what’s not working. Darwin Buck really shared a bunch of great things on the last he spoke at the event. And Ian Garlic spoke at the event and a bunch of other people that I actually was able to get a lot of amazing content information from.

Chad Franzen 10:20

The next one that we’ll talk about is Bureau of Digital. Jeremy, why don’t you start with about this one?

John Corcoran 10:28

Yeah, I can talk about Bureau of Digital. Unfortunately, I missed their most recent event that they did in San Francisco. But they do a lot of events. And I’ve been a part of this community. It is both an online component. And then they have events for agency owners, they also have events for the leaders and executives within digital agencies as well. Carl Smith has been a guest on my podcast, that’s how I first connected with that community. They get great speakers there. And it’s a really vibrant community. It’s been around for I don’t know, maybe 10 or 12 years now or something along those lines. And there’s incredible engagement and activity within that community. And so this is we’re looking here at their event that I believe is in September in Las Vegas. But if you go on their website, which at bureau digital.com. You can see all of their upcoming events. They have tons of upcoming events all over the country. And so you can kind of pick and choose where pick your poison, so to speak.

Chad Franzen 11:30

There Yeah, go ahead.

Jeremy Weisz 11:36

No, just say I was able to interview one of the founders on my podcast, Carl. John, you got him on yours too, right? Yep. Yeah. And he is has an amazing journey and shared his expertise. So he brings this really cool experience to his background into the Bureau of digital and they were really, you know, giving community.

Chad Franzen 12:00

There is another one that we’ll get into called inbound.com. John, what are your thoughts on inbound.com?

John Corcoran 12:08

Inbound is it’s organized every year by HubSpot. They have 10,000 or so people that come. So not exclusively for agency owners, although that is the primary attendee. It’s in Boston every year in September. They really kind of take over the city, which is really cool about it. And you know, HubSpot has become really a go to CRM, and all around marketing tool. So they I think it’s an amazing speakers. You know, as you can see from the lineup there, they’ve got some great speakers that are coming up. So if you want a larger conference experience, where there’s going to be 1000s of attendees, that’s a very different type of experience from a Bureau of digital type of event or digital agency experience. Jason Swenk event. But that would be for you if you want a much larger experience.

Jeremy Weisz  13:00

Yeah, I this is one I haven’t been to yet and I really it’s on my list that I really want to go to. I haven’t made it out but they have some amazing speakers and you know, a lot of the the exhibitors and even some of the kind of the breakout speakers I know, but they attract just amazing companies and people I can see this year that we’re looking at, has Ryan Reynolds speaking Serena Williams speaking but also I remember I had AJ Wilcox on my podcast before he’s speaking. And he’s, you know, basically an expert at LinkedIn ads. So I’ve talked to him and there’s like, amazing people in the industry who come as attendees, but also our speaking are exhibiting.

Chad Franzen 13:43

Wow, sounds very cool. What about the next one? Here? It is Build a Better Agency Summit with Drew McLellan.

John Corcoran 13:53

Yeah, and as we record, this is actually happening next week in Denver, Colorado. And is another one that I haven’t been to, but I know a lot of people that have probably in between size in terms of the number of attendees is not tiny. It’s not like, you know, 15 or 20 people, and it’s also not 10,000 people. But yo, Drew McLellan has put out a podcast for a lot of years and shared a lot of wisdom around agency growth strategies. And so um, you know, that that would be the focus of that one.

Jeremy Weisz 14:29

I think you know, what, Drew and also John, I think you’ve had them on the podcast and so have I also just has been in the trenches before. You can see they’re actually a shout out to eat two of them. Actually, I talked to the people I love, Chad, actually mingling with the sponsors and exhibitors because I find out new tools that I haven’t used or, you know, tools that I have heard of, but I didn’t really get to meet someone from the company. So there’s some great resource says when I go to these conferences, but actually drew attracts a really amazing group of people because they were in Chicago, previous years and so people would contact me. So I actually ended up having dinner with John Morris, who has a, you know, kind of like a software and group in the agency space as well. And he actually sold his agency. He built it to over 200 people and sold it. So we had dinner because he went to the this conference, Kevin Hourigan, of Spinutech, was there who’s, you know, had an agency since 1995. And so we had dinner there along with them in a dish from E to m. So the four of us had a great dinner, and it was because they came in for this summit, and they were saying great things about it. Great.

Chad Franzen 15:56

The next one is Niche in Control, Niche in Control. Hosted by Jesse Gilmore. John, what can you tell me about this one?

John Corcoran 16:05

Yeah, this is actually not an in-person conference. This is one of his online events, digital events. But Jesse Gilmore is a past guest on my podcast, and has worked in the agency space for a long time, and advises a lot of different digital agency owners on growth strategies. So we wanted to include that one here. I believe he also does in person events and speaks at different conferences as well. So definitely someone to check out niche in control.com is his website for checking out his events and trainings?

Jeremy Weisz 16:36

Yeah, actually, shared, I discovered I think, John, you maybe you had a conversation before I did with Jesse. But I was having Corey Quinn. On my podcast, I was doing some research, he helped one of the large Scorpion grow to you know, 10s of millions and 100 million over $100 million. I can’t remember the numbers. But so I had him on the podcast, sharing his best tips and tricks and everything of what he did with scorpion. And I was doing research and I came across. Jesse had a conversation with Corey too. And so Jesse, along with this, this live training here, has some great content out there in the agency space.

Chad Franzen 17:21

Taan Worldwide as the next one we’re going to talk about. John, take it away.

John Corcoran 17:26

Yeah, so this is another group for agent digital agency owners, and they are more international. So they have people in Europe and all over the globe. And they do a lot of their events. I believe they have a couple of different events a year, some in Europe, some the United States, maybe down in Mexico, possibly as well. This is one of the older communities out there, because I believe it’s been around for 80 or 90 years or something like that really a long time. So it’s got a lot of institutional knowledge. So tan worldwide is the name of it. I interviewed Peter Garretson, who was the executive director at the time blimp. I believe he’s since retired on my podcast a while back. And so it was really cool kind of hearing their background to that community.

Jeremy Weisz 18:14

Yeah, the first time I heard about this was actually from John. So again, just love hearing about new, just when you think you know, a bunch of the players in the space, and then I realized I don’t know anything. So, John, thanks for sharing this one.

Chad Franzen 18:32

Final one. Traffic and Conversion Summit. Jeremy.

Jeremy Weisz 18:36

Yeah, I mean, we mentioned that. Actually, John went one year and he’s like, You should really go and I was just saying everything I said in the beginning chat is like, well, do I have to get up I have to get off the plane I have to get hotel I have to be from family don’t really have to go, you’re sure. He’s like, No, you should definitely go. So we ended up going and you know, the rest of story which I shared at the beginning, which was I had made some amazing lifelong friendships, contacts. And this has been always whenever I go, because it attracts 1000s and 1000s of people. So it’s kind of like to treat as like a reunion when I do get to go, just to see all people at one point in time that I don’t get to see the rest of the year.

John Corcoran 19:24

And the funny thing about that is that Jeremy had never been before I’d been once and we decided that oftentimes when we go to a conference, we want to make the most of it right. So we will oftentimes, you know, invite a couple of friends to dinner or to drinks or happy hour or something like that while we’re there. And so one thing led to another we invited someone who invited someone else and pretty soon we ended up having a huge party. We did it a couple of years in a row. At its peak. I think we had about 300 people that came to one of our our parties that we did there just inconjunct Shin in a hotel ballroom, you know, during the conference, but I love that, you know, the kind of the first time we went or first time Jeremy went, and I’d only been there once before, we had a couple 100 people that came, you know, to this party with us. And now it goes to show you the power of a conference like, yeah, it would, it would be virtually impossible, or at least much, much harder to get people together, not around a conference. But when you go to a conference, and a bunch of people are flying in, they’re looking for something to do anyways, if they don’t have any conflicts. And oftentimes, in a conference there is, you know, big gaps in the schedule. People are looking for things to do. And so it really gives you an opportunity to connect with a large group of people, whether it’s having six people, gathering them together for a dinner, or 60 people for a dinner or happy hour or something like that.

Jeremy Weisz 20:50

Yeah, I mean, she had to start off, like John said, like, Oh, they’re gonna be five of us to go to dinner. That turned into 10. It turned into two as people were like, Oh, I have a couple people, I want to bring out a couple people I want to bring so went from five to 10 to 20, to 50, to a to change venues to 100 to 150, to 200, to like 300. So we had to switch dinner venues a couple of times, and we to switch to a hotel ballroom, then we had to switch to two hotel ballrooms throughout this process. And it wasn’t because of us, it was like the network of people just they kept inviting more and more people. So it kind of took on a life of its own. That’s the power of what we saw with traffic and conversion.

John Corcoran 21:36

And Traffic Conversion Summit was in San Diego for many years. It’s since moved to Las Vegas, it’s at Caesars in March of 2025. So check that out Traffic Conversion summit.com.

Chad Franzen 21:46

Okay, sounds great. We’ve covered them quite well here. Any final thoughts on digital agency conferences.

John Corcoran 21:57

I love doing this exercise because we discovered a few that I hadn’t even heard of. And we’d been to a bunch of digital agency conferences. So I think this was a lot of fun to look at the different options out there. And I would just say anyone listening to this, if you’re on the fence, check out some of the ones that we recommended. See which ones resonate with you. What works with your schedule, and, and, you know, distance you can travel and, you know, give it a shot.

Jeremy Weisz 22:21

I mean, for me, like I said, I think, John and I like to choose maybe two or three a year that we can go to. And it’s just about forming those relationships, and then getting one great tip, because if I can get one great tip that makes it all worthwhile. So we always like to choose a couple. And then, you know, add a couple in the next year or two.

Chad Franzen 22:51

Based on what you guys have said I think any excuse for not going to one of these conferences is not really a good excuse.

Jeremy Weisz 22:59

Yeah, I mean, the other piece is one of the ways we maximize conferences is, you know, that’s why we love podcasting, right? Because we can we I have connected with a bunch of the speakers or people ahead of time and having them on the podcast and get to know them. So by the time I get to the conference, it’s like kind of mean like an old friend, as opposed to someone new. And so you obviously when we’re running podcast for our clients, we’re telling people if you’re going to a conference and have some of those people on ahead of time, so you can get to know them. So when you get there, you can form that deeper relationship.

Chad Franzen 23:37

Okay, well, hey, John, Jeremy, I can’t think of any business leaders I’d rather have on the Top Business Leaders Show than you two. So I really appreciate your time today. Thank you so much. So long everyone.

Outro 23:47

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