How Agencies Like Align and Mowpod Are Using AI to Streamline Growth
Peter Csanyi
Building a successful agency goes beyond delivering great services - it's about scaling operations efficiently. This is especially true in marketing, where administrative tasks can quickly exhaust professionals who would rather dedicate their creative capacities to tasks such as developing business strategies or crafting innovative campaigns. By leveraging AI to handle the heavy lifting, agencies can free up valuable resources and streamline their operations.
Meet Hugh and Chase, two successful agency owners leveraging AI tools to elevate their businesses to new heights.
Hugh Macfarlane has been running his marketing agency, Align.me, for over 25 years. The agency specializes in helping B2B companies develop their go-to-market strategies and often continues working with clients as an outsourced marketing department to execute those plans. Each year, they craft over 50 strategic business plans and currently manage monthly retainers for 40 international clients.
Chase Hattie serves as the CRO at mowPod, a digital agency specializing in a niche market. Managing over 200 clients annually, mowPod is the industry leader in driving engaged listeners for U.S. podcasts, collaborating with major brands such as the Oprah Winfrey Network and Warner Media Group. In his role, Chase oversees the sales and business development teams, driving growth and establishing new partnerships.
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“Knowing AI is not a point of differentiation, it is a point of parity.”
With many of their clients coming from the technology sector, Hugh has always prioritized staying ahead of the curve. He’s constantly on the lookout for new productivity tools to streamline his daily workflow and enhance efficiency:
"Our company has fully automated all operational research tasks. We use our own custom-built AI system to generate client proposals, conduct competitor analysis for our GTM plans, and streamline workflows to automate processes after onboarding new clients. It leverages 6 different AI agents, driving significant time- and cost savings in our operations.
Understanding AI is no longer a strategic advantage - it's become a basic requirement. Over time, I believe that prompt engineering will become as fundamental as writing an email. With so many powerful tools already available, our role as leaders is to stay curious and open to exploring and integrating them when they can truly automate or improve our workflows."
“I’ve been very impressed with Mindy's ability to discover new leads in a market as niche as ours”
A survey by Agency Analytics last year found that client acquisition was the top growth challenge for most agencies. Mindy is designed to address this challenge by simplifying your research and meeting preparation. By having access to over 750 million contacts and 35 million company profiles, Mindy helps you find new leads and delivers rich insights on the people you are meeting with.
As the leader of mowPod’s scaling efforts, Chase relies on Mindy to find new leads and enrich lead profiles:
“Mindy is my go-to tool for all things sales, from outbound prospecting to meeting preparation. As we operate in a niche market, finding high-quality leads can take a while. How Mindy helps us is being really good at identifying companies similar to our existing clients. I also use Mindy to dive deeper into each company - like finding the exact person who is responsible for their marketing budgets or audience development strategies.
I still manage some of our key client relationships, and Mindy’s Daily Calendar Brief has been essential for helping me stay organized and prepared each morning.”
With over 25 years in business, Hugh’s agency doesn’t rely on outbound sales; most of their work comes from referrals. However, when a new prospect reaches out, Hugh is often involved in the initial meetings and uses Mindy to save time on preparation.
“What I like about Mindy is that it’s easy to use and fits seamlessly into my workflow. Instead of doing the research myself, I get detailed insights directly delivered in my inbox. I could do the research, but it would require constant context switching, so I prefer to rely on Mindy.
Knowing who’s attending my meetings, their current roles, and their past work experiences helps us quickly find common ground and start the conversation smoothly. The time saved each day quickly accumulates, which is why a simple tool like Mindy can be a game-changer for your workflow.”
Over 100,000 people from companies like Accenture, OpenAI, or Zoom use Mindy to streamline their meeting preparation.
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