Jacob Brain

An entrepreneur at heart, in 2018 I acquired equity in a marketing agency, taking over operations. We scaled the agency to become a household name in the B2B technology marketing space, I enabled the original founder to step back from the day-to-day, and in early 2023, we sold the agency. After the sale, I connected with a new team to acquire several other agencies, quickly scaling the portfolio as we hit the Inc. 5000 and refined what the agencies of tomorrow look like. Today I partner with professional-service firms that want the same outcome: a founder-light, profit-heavy business that can scale (or sell) on their terms.

• 

  Building a team

  Scaling your team? As a Director of Operations, I have managed everything from knowing when to hire in the first place & creating the right job descriptions/ads (there's a difference), to developing team trainings and dealing with performance problems. HR can be really tough, and sometimes an outside perspective is all you need.

• 

  Email marketing

  Email marketing has a higher ROI than almost every channel. But it costs you your time, and it's expensive to waste time learning lessons that others already did. In many cases a few small changes in content/strategy is all that is standing in your way from experiencing that ROI. Let's connect on it.

• 

  Growth marketing

  As a marketing agency Director, I spend my days working with my team to develop marketing that can be seen on the bottom line. Where is your funnel breaking down? Is there something wrong in your messaging? Do you have the right tech stack? Let's connect and see where we can find opportunities to take your growth to the next level.

• 

  Marketing automation

  Good automation doesn't require 6-figure software or a development team. With the right know-how and a few intelligently selected systems, smaller marketing teams can have the impact of teams 10x their size. Let's take a look at your marketing and see where we can scale your efforts.

• 

  Mindset coaching

  After successfully building and selling an agency, I learned that a large part of success is the right mindset - handling stress, making decisions under fire, and more. Running an agency isn't easy, but how you think through it can make a big difference.

• 

  Pricing strategy

  Getting pricing right can make a bigger impact than almost any other element of your agency. There are many options including hourly, fixed-bid, value pricing, points, and more. Let's connect and find out which combination makes the most sense for you.

• 

  Venting frustration

  Is it HR? I bet it's HR. In all seriousness, being a business leader isn't easy. It's high pressure and lonely. Luckily, there are others out there that get it and have an outside perspective that may be what you need to resolve that frustration. Other times, you just need to get it off your chest.

• 

  Miro

  5 years of experience

  From building out our accountability charts to developing my high-level delivery processes to technical specifications for various tooling, I was creating. Miro has always been my go-to tool for sketching out processes and how we do things.

• 

  Replit

  2 years of experience

  I built a couple simple tools in Replit, including an employee directory that I rolled out across the portfolio agencies and relied upon for both leadership decision making, as well as standard user access across the team to identify who has what skill sets and experiences for task assignments. This tool became increasingly important as our agency's growth.

• 

  ChatGPT

  4 years of experience

  Developing organizational best practices and standards as a pillar of utilizing AI, rolling out across the portfolio of agencies. Some of this included training documentation and how to integrate it with the other tools we use.

• 

  Hubspot

  11 years of experience

  HubSpot is the go-to CRM for many businesses, and for good reason. It's fairly simple and scalable. I have set up, configured, and managed HubSpot for many client's over the years, and I am happy to see how you can better use it.

• 

  SaaS

  I have helped several SaaS companies launch their product and dozens more scale to the next level through various lead generation activities. In SaaS, marketing has an even bigger, full-funnel job in taking someone who doesn't even know about the product through demos/trials/etc, nurturing that relationship, and turning them into paid customers. It's a data-filled journey I enjoy going on with clients.

• 

  Small and Medium Businesses

  In the SBM world, it's even more critical that every dollar invested has a return. I specialize in working with these smaller-budget organizations to creatively develop their MarTech stack and get the results they need.

• 

  Cloud Computing

  Highly technical products in the cloud computing space require someone who actually understands the product. Otherwise, content creation, messaging, and other critical elements of marketing fall flat. I love learning about these new products and figuring out how to take these complicated products, craft messaging that fits the audience, and get that message in front of the right people to drive sales.

• 

  Marketing

  For years I have owned and consulted with different types of agencies to help them scale, exit, or simply get more freedom from the day-to-day. I believe that owners should focus on running their company, not fighting its fires.

• 

  Artificial Intelligence

  Artificial intelligence is hot right now, but it's been growing in prominence for many years. I have worked with various types of AI products for almost a decade as both an advisor and consultant as the industry starts to mature and love being on the frontier of the tech space.

• 

  Consulting

  Most of my career has been in the consulting space whether owning, advising, or simply consulting with them. I believe in the power of an individual to really shape companies. If they're supported by the right systems, teams, and infrastructure to disconnect a one-to-one relationship between their time and the revenue that they get.