Not too many inbound agency owners can claim they’ve been doing inbound marketing longer than me and the team at Square 2 Marketing.
Back in 2003, when we started the company, we ONLY did inbound even before we knew it had a fancy name. Since then, we’ve probably had 500 client experiences and while most of our clients have seen results, only a handful have seen game changing results. Why is that?
When I watched Marcus Sheridan talk about what it takes to make inbound work during his 2016 session at Inbound 16, it resonated with me. He couldn’t be more correct. There are a lot of elements that need to be in place for inbound to produce business transformation.
However “What does it take?” in my opinion, is not really the right question. The right question is why don’t more companies do what it takes? If we all know, and we’re all working hard to help clients do what it takes, why do the massive success stories make up just 1% of all the companies trying to make inbound marketing work?
More importantly, as owners and CEOs of inbound agencies who provide inbound services, what do you do about this new-found intelligence?
Let’s start talking about what it takes. Personal experience and research shows that Marcus and others are right. Here’s the list of what it takes to transform your marketing and sales effort into full inbound.
- Full company buy-in including every department and every leader including the CEO
- The desire to change company culture to create a company worth talking about and following
- The proper level of investment to match the business goals
- Patience and commitment - almost every single massive success story includes YEARS of effort, not weeks or months
- Company commitment to producing content, the right types of content and a lot of it
- Understanding how business and marketing strategy contribute to the results and a real desire to be remarkable
- Complete sales and marketing alignment
- The right set of tools
Take a long hard look at that list. Reflect back on all the clients and prospects you’ve met. How many of them are actually capable and ready to do ALL of it? Even if they are capable and ready, this is hard work, and most won’t be able to do it. In the 15 years, I’ve been running Square 2 Marketing, I’ve only had a handful of clients who did what’s on that list and saw the results that come from making this massive change.
Almost every agency has similar experiences. The smaller and younger agencies haven’t had enough clients to get that experience because only 1% of all clients and prospects can do what’s actually necessary.
This is also why almost every agency has a handful of these success stories but not a consistent track record of getting revolutionary results for EVERY client.
Now, what as owners do we do about it? The way I see it, you have two options.
Option 1 – Create an agency that ONLY works with people who can commit to the list of changes required to see game changing results OR...
Option 2 – Create an agency that does their best to help the other 99% of businesses navigate their own internal challenges, misconceptions, attitudes, perceptions and opinions to help them gain improved performance from their marketing and sales.
If you’re all in on Option 1 then you need a sales process that is designed to screen out most of the companies who present themselves to you. Most will not have the stomach, organization or leadership to do what it takes to achieve the transformation. You’ll bring on prospects who pass the screen but during implementation will start to stray and drag you along with them. The outcome will be less than amazing results and you’ll want fire them or they’ll want to fire you. Keep in mind, your promise is transformation. That’s a high bar to hit.
You’ll also need a team of A Players who are more than excellent marketers, they’ll need to be business transformational specialists who understand organizational dynamics, leadership, culture transformation and business planning. They’ll need to be communication experts, need top notch presentation skills and need to be able to go toe to toe with CEOs. AND, they’ll have to be awesome at marketing planning, marketing execution, marketing analytics and have the ability to bring sales and marketing into alignment. Sound like you're looking for a unicorn or ten? You are!
Let me go on record. This is the right approach. If you can deliver this level of business transformation within the SMB (small to mid-sized business) market you’re going to be wildly successful. This approach is going to feel like pushing a boulder uphill. I know because we tried this approach five years ago.
If you didn’t want to execute our program exactly like we wanted to run it. We opted out. We were labeled “rigid,” we lost clients, we fired clients and we lost opportunities and prospects. It’s hard to grow when only 1% of all business fit your persona.
What we did was start to look more closely at Option 2. How do we find a way to sell people what they want to buy, and set better expectations around what it takes to be successful? What can we do vs. what the client has to do and double down on how to get clients amazing results when they don’t follow the inbound playbook for success? There’s a 99% chance they won’t be able to follow it even when they have the best intentions.
If you’re going with Option 2, you’re going to need to look at your team differently. In short, you have to tailor your agency story to the story your clients are expecting to hear. You can always deliver the inbound experience described in Option 1, but most of the time you have to tailor your engagement to produce results quickly and then build on that success to expand into the type of cross tactic engagement that does what inbound is designed to do.
In essence, it’s now about blending inbound and outbound tactics. It’s about setting expectations together and setting realistic expectations. It’s about having honest budget conversations about what can be done and what should be done, and the level of investment required to deliver on those expectations. It’s about working with bigger businesses who have the ability to do some of what’s described in Option 1 because they understand the concepts.
It is also about teaching your team to identify signals within your clients' actions and then teaching them to respond accordingly. One of the keys to this for us has been Agile and more specifically our prioritization methodology. By helping our clients prioritize what we work on and what they work on, we produce better results in less time. We co-create and collaborate much more than we have before (remember that rigid comment? We don’t hear that anymore) and we have longer relationships, more referrals and more increasing retainers than ever before.
Instead of working hard to change a company or opting to NOT work with them from the beginning, today we’re more like a chameleon who adjusts to what our clients’ needs. Once we’re delivering value, we’re in a better position to help our clients with smart guidance around revenue generation.
This approach allows us to help more companies, work with more people, and have more successes that we can share with other companies we’d like to work with. Let me reiterate. This isn’t right, and the other way is wrong. They’re both right, but it is about understanding what your strategy is and sticking with it. This is about measuring it, making changes to it and settling into what produces the results that line up with your expectations for your business.
Start Today Tip – If you’re going to be an inbound agency and inbound only, get used to clients who might like you and your team but only get moderate results. Get used to clients who leave after 8 months because they didn’t see transformational results. Get ready for clients who are challenging month over month because real inbound takes time and energy. Get ready for clients who lose patience and faith. You’re going to have success too, and you will find clients who do everything they need to do and see those massive results. That might make it all worthwhile for you. If not, understand your options and the differences in agency models. But, most importantly, pick a direction and stick with it long enough to say you gave it your all. Make sure you get help. No one can do this on their own.
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