Episode Details

Struggle to find the work-life balance for you and your agency? As an agency owner, it's so easy to become a prisoner within your business as you strive to make it the best digital agency out there.

In this episode, we'll cover:

• How to build your agency around your life, to find a work-life balance instead of being a prisoner.
• 3 ways to build your agency around your personality.
• How to brand your agency and be the leader in your category.

Today's podcast guest is Re Perez, founder of Branding For The People, a branding agency for entrepreneurs and small businesses. Re has worked for some pretty huge agencies working on some major Fortune 500 clients. He talks to us about leaving all that behind in order to build an agency around his personality and lifestyle finding the best work-life balance.

Re had a pretty interesting journey that led him to starting his agency. His highly successful career took him from New York to Dubai and back to New York. Yet despite a successful career he wasn't fulfilled with the work he was doing. He says that feeling coupled with a negative personal experience left him deeply questioning his next steps in life.

He took 6 months off to travel, meditate, practice yoga and figure out what was next… In his travels, he learned about a yoga studio called "Yoga For The People" and later a restaurant, "Food For The People". Coincidence or fate?? :) Re took these signs, coupled with his gut instinct to become an entrepreneur, and started his agency Branding For The People - an agency that brings Fortune 500 branding solutions to small businesses.

Branding Your Agency

Re says logos and slogans do not make a brand. Those things support a brand but are only marketing tools for identifying a brand.

Branding is a desired perception. In order to create a desired perception you must first have a desirable perception of yourself.

As a small business, if you want to be perceived as the leader in your category you have to behave like the leader in your category by:

• Practice what you preach. Agency owners are famous for giving great advice to clients and NOT following it themselves. Start taking your own best advice!
• Be genuine. People can smell BS a mile away and they will call you out on it. Be who you are and be willing to let go of clients who aren't OK with the real you.
• Don't "act" like the big agencies by copying their behavior. Find your own unique position, while still behaving like a big agency.
• Don't force a square peg in a round hole. Always align yourself with the projects and brands that excite you. Allow agency's brand to be determined by your own core values.

Work-Life Balance: How To Build Your Agency Around Your Lifestyle

Re has one key motivator which determined how he would structure his business while staying true to himself: He didn't want a traditional office job. Meaning, he didn't want to work for anyone else or spend a bunch of time in board rooms. He wants to travel and connect with people outside of the office walls. He is very clear on his goals and values. Are you?

3 Ways to Build Your Agency Around Your Personality

1. Change the terminology. Re doesn't refer to them as "clients" or "projects", they are "relationships" or "engagements". He's a people person and treats each opportunity with care. A change in terminology also changes the perceived value of the experience. Check out my previous p