The Agency Growth Blog - For Owners Who Want Growth

Hiring Consultants Is Risky, Don't Make A Bad Hiring Decision in 2020

A lot of agencies are growing and that means hiring. But hiring the wrong person can set you back months. Even worse, hiring someone who is mediocre can put you in this weird position where they are too good to fire, but not good enough for you to be 100% comfortable that they’ll take wonderful care of your clients.

Both of these conditions are bad for your agency.  In this article, we’ll talk about how to avoid this.

The digital marketing industry is booming, and professionals with skills in digital marketing are in high demand. A 2018 survey by LinkedIn reported a shortage of 230,000 people with marketing skills in the 20 largest metro areas polled.

With a limited number of amazing candidates and a high risk for making a hiring mistake, what should you be looking for in 2020 when hiring new consultants for our digital agency?

When it comes questions this one is the most asked of them all. When and who do I hire? I think this is most challenging to inbound agency owners of small shops because the fear of making a mistake is petrifying. I do understand that. Hiring is a big commitment, a responsibility and one that puts someone else’s personal future on the line. No one wants to hire a new team member only to have to let them go in 30 days.

But the fear should be put aside. Fear can’t rule the day. No decisions are permanent, especially hiring decisions and yes, it would be difficult to let your new team member go, but everyone would get over it and move on—if it came to that. So, moving forward now. Let’s not “make it hurt” let’s stop this silly “boot strapping” entrepreneurial guidance we’ve all heard from experts. If you’re too busy to work ON your business it is because you’re working IN it every day, all day. You need help. You need a new team member.

Hiring, team building, and resource management is such a hot topic for inbound marketing agency owners there are over 10 different blog articles on this site alone that address related topics. With all that, what we’ve learned about staffing an inbound marketing agency has changed dramatically over the past 12 months and I’m wondering if these articles are even relevant anymore.

We’re all in uncharted waters here, so it’s not surprising that what worked last January might not be working today. We’ve changed our approach to building our team and we’ve changed the way we deliver services. It seemed like a good time to share that with all of you.

Having worked with over 100 inbound marketing agency owners over the past two years and having talked to four or five times that since launch Agencies 2 Inbound, I’ve started to see a pattern in the issues and challenges facing the inbound agency community.

Below I’ve listed out the seven most common challenges agency owners share with me during our conversations and these are in order. The first is the most common and so on down the list. I’m sure these won’t surprise many of you and perhaps you have similar challenges with your agency.

I’m also including a collection of recommendations on how you fix these challenges so you can cross these off your list and move on to other issues that will undoubtedly pop up when these are corrected. Here we go!

Does it sometimes feel like your inbound agency is like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? You’re mad to process as many blog articles, landing pages and new websites through the shop and still make a profit while having to be hyper creative and flexible when clients need that strategic thinking?

How do you teach your team to follow your processes because the efficiency makes you inbound marketing agency money and at the same time get them to understand that each client needs to have a highly creative, collaborative and educational experience with your agency?

Yes, that’s a monumental challenge. Welcome to the world of inbound agencies, where for the first time in your history you have to be great at both to make money and get your clients the leads they need to continue supporting inbound.

When it comes to hiring people to take care of your clients, most of you with agency experience lean into the idea of the traditional account manager. It kind of makes sense right? Let’s get people who are good at taking care of the clients.

However, the inbound marketing agency isn’t taking care of clients in the same way a traditional agency is taking care of clients and inbound agencies have a responsibility to get clients results, so there’s a fairly significant shift from the skills account managers leverage in a traditional agency to the skills your marketing consultants are going to need in an inbound agency.

When it comes right down to it an inbound agency is only as good as the people you hire.

Eventually you won’t be able to sell every new client, you won’t be able to onboard every new client, you won’t be able to service every client, talk to every client weekly and be accountable for every client’s results.

The more you add solid people to your team, the easier it’s going to be for you to focus your time on running, growing and strategically making sure your efforts show inbound agency growth. Freeing you up to work ON the business instead of IN the business is VERY important.