The Agency Growth Blog - For Owners Who Want Growth

Here’s A Big Hint – It Should Look A Lot Like Your Old Process, If You Had That Right

I work with a lot of agencies and it's still shocking to me how many don’t have a defined, documented, and optimized sales process.

If that’s the case, then it’s reasonable for many of you to be wondering how you adjust to the new normal when it comes to agency new business.

But if you have built a sales process that works, then the answer is going to be simple. Just do more of the same.

Yes, more people are home and not in the office. Yes, more people are distracted. Yes, you can’t network like you used to before Covid-19. Yes, you’ll have to meet everyone via Zoom. Yes, your conferences and events are not going to be rescheduled.

No matter what happens in the next few months, you’re not going back to the way it was in January.

How To Identify What’s Going Wrong at Your Inbound Marketing Agency, When It’s Going Wrong And How To Fix It

You’re getting new prospects. Some come from inbound, more still come from referrals but you’re continuing to have trouble closing them. You’re working them all the way to the end, producing proposals, submitting presentations, and creating contracts—but in the end, they pick someone else. What’s going on? What are you doing wrong? How do you fix your agency new business development challenges?

If you can’t take your prospects from click to close, you’re not going to have an agency for very long. If you can’t sustain a steady stream of new clients at the pace of two to three a month minimum, then it’s likely your agency will be treading water at a clip somewhere under $1 Million in annual revenue. Worse yet, if you’re having trouble holding on to clients and not bringing on new clients, you might actually find your agency shrinking.

AND 6 Better Inbound Marketing Tactics You Can Start Doing Today To Get New Leads Immediately

I just watched an hour webinar from the sales consulting crew at HubSpot. The session was on the virtue and application of cold calling and warm calling for agencies trying to grow their inbound marketing companies.

Having worked with hundreds of agency owners I know where the advice is coming from and I know why it’s being delivered. Over the past few weeks I’ve received many emails and calls from owners who responded to the new Biz Dev Cohort. I know getting new clients is one of the most strategic pain points for agencies trying to grow. 

However, I don’t think making cold calls to prospective inbound marketing agency clients is the right advice nor do I think it sends the right message to the very people you’re trying to help understand inbound marketing and how it works.

New Business Remains The Biggest Obstacle To Growth For Inbound Agency Owners

Anyone even close to the agency life knows that agency new business development, sales and getting new clients is the life blood of the agency. It’s not an inbound marketing agency challenge, it’s a challenge for all agencies everywhere.

I hear it every day.

“We lost a client and we don’t have any new ones coming on.”
“If we could just sign a couple of new retainer clients, we’d be great.”
“I have to cut costs because we can’t sign any new clients.”

What’s going on? We’re the ones who are supposed to be the experts at attracting new eyeballs to our businesses, helping those people get comfortable with our companies and then getting them to sign our agreements. Right? Clearly there appears to be a disconnect. But someone is closing business. At Square 2 Marketing, we close between three and five new clients a month. I’d like to think that qualifies us to know what we’re talking about and if we can do it, you can too.

Three Out Of Four New Clients Said, “We Chose You Because Of Your Sales Process”

On average Square 2 Marketing closes three to five new clients every single month. Granted sometimes they come in bunches, no new clients for three weeks and then three new clients in a single week, but you get the idea.

With all those data points, I’ve been asking our new clients why they chose use over other agencies and the answers are startling. “You took the time to listen to us.” “You and your team demonstrated expertise during the sales process.” “Your recommendations were exactly what we asked for and were aligned perfectly with our stated challenges.”

I want you to notice that not ONE SINGLE new client stated we were the cheapest. Or that we offered the most value for their budget. We got them to trust us and the other agencies didn’t. Let’s be crystal clear. We don’t win every opportunity and sometimes we fail to get them to trust us, but our process produces the right kind of leads and it helps us close the clients who are the best fit for our agency.

I’m Not Being Snobby, I’m Being Smart About Agency New Business Development And You Can Be Smart Too

The response to last week’s article has been fantastic. In case you missed it here’s a link. I’m going to continue to talk about new business development for an inbound marketing agency to keep feeding you the kind of content that supports your biggest challenges.

Today I want to talk about the challenges associated with the small (under $5,000 a month) retainers. I know, they’re hard to pass up when you’re trying to make payroll, grow your agency or you love the gal running the company and you just want to help. Trust me, I get it.

Before Prospects Hire You For Inbound, You Have To Move Them Out Of Their Comfort Zone

Your prospects are human beings. That might sound obvious, but we ignore that fact every single day. Because they’re humans, they don’t want to change, they don’t want to stop doing what they’ve been doing for 20 years, just because you showed up and introduced them to inbound marketing.

In fact, they are going to do everything in their power to NOT make changes. They are going to convince themselves and everyone around them that inbound marketing is just like what they’re currently doing.

Oh, inbound….that includes email marketing—we already do that. Oh, inbound…that includes search, we hired an SEO firm last year and that didn’t work out. Inbound…do we need software for that? Right, well we have salesforce.com, that’s almost the same thing. We’re good.

They’re pre-programed to NOT make any changes. Changes are scary, people get fired for changes. So you’re going to have to work extra hard to move them out of their comfort zone, to disrupt their status quo and get them to feel like if they DON’T change, they are going to be facing even bigger risks.

Today there are more inbound agencies on the planet than ever before. Regardless of what they look on the inside, from your prospect’s perspective they all look alike. It’s your job as an inbound agency owner and as a marketer to make your agency look different.

This differentiation exercise has to start from the first time a potential client visits your website. The prospect is probably visiting three or four inbound marketing agency websites and if they don’t know what makes you special in the first ten seconds, they might never come back.

But that’s an article for another day, today we’re talking about what happens when they actually reach out to you and ask to speak with you. 

As I speak to inbound marketing agency owners I hear a lot of the same challenges over and over again.

How do I get a steady stream of opportunities so my new business becomes predictable and repeatable, month in and month out?

The answer to that question is you need your own Inbound Marketing Machine. I actually think most people already know the answer, but perhaps they don’t know how to go about creating a Marketing Machine for their own agencies.