The Agency Growth Blog - For Owners Who Want Growth

Depending on who you ask there are between 3,000 and 4,000 inbound marketing agencies in the HubSpot partner program. History teaches us that when there are a large number of similar businesses in any specific industry—roll ups are inevitable.

You’ve seen it in local cable companies, funeral homes and local radio stations, it’s been going on in digital for years. Deloitte and Accenture have been buying digital agencies to bring new service offerings to their clients.

How do agencies compete when there are so many options for clients? There’s downward pressure on pricing. Talent becomes difficult to acquire. Clients have a hard time telling the agencies apart and worse they have a hard time knowing who’s quality and who’s not.

Investing Just Two Hours A Month Has A Massive Impact On Growth At Your Firm

I get the pleasure of talking to five to seven inbound marketing agency owners each week. What I hear the most is they all have elements of their business that needs fixing and they all don’t have the time to fix them. Many of them sound frustrated, some of them have their hair on fire and others have simply accepted this condition as their new normal.

I’m not a time management expert, but I do have experience growing a digital marketing agency from three people to 50 people. I know we would have never grown to $7M in revenue by accepting the status quo or never finding the time to work on the business.  I’ll go so far as to say, it’s one of the major contributing factors to our growth.

Agency Advisors Are Not Created Equal, Their Answers To Your Questions Help Make The Right Selection

There are more and more people wanting to help you with your agency. That’s the good news. The bad news is they’re all not created equal and who you select to help might be one of the most important decisions you’ll be making over the next few months.

How you select your agency consultants and advisors is critical and the process you go through is just as important as the person you select. Here are a couple of key questions that force the advisors under consideration to highlight the experiences they’ll be calling on when you need their help.

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.

Agency Owners Have Spoken, Getting New Clients Is The Top Priority

I recently asked a bunch of new clients why they chose Square 2 Marketing and the response was very interesting, 68% mentioned the sales process. That was shocking to us. If your agency sales process makes or breaks your chances to get new clients then the experience you deliver to your prospects is critical to closing new clients.

Just to be clear, this is more than practicing Inbound Sales. This is about creating such a differentiated experience that prospects say to themselves, “we have to hire this company.” That should be your goal from the very first touch point all the way through to the experience they have right after they sign your agreement paperwork.

Inbound Takes Time And Clients Want Leads Today—You Better Be Able To Deliver

Let me start by clarifying, I am in no way going back on my belief that inbound is how you should be marketing your business. I’m 100% ALL IN ON inbound. However, today’s marketing world is dramatically different than the world that birthed inbound marketing back in 2008 and 2009.

When inbound first burst on the scene the country was in the midst of the Great Recession. The idea of marketing based on the size of your brain instead of the size of your wallet made a lot of sense. It was smart and efficient.

Today businesses are spending and their spending on marketing. Today there are many more methodologies joining the ranks of inbound. Account based marketing, content marketing, influencer marketing, advocacy marketing and demand generation on its own is back in vogue.

What To Do Today, This Week, This Month and This Quarter

It’s not easy running an inbound marketing agency. It's even harder running a more profitable agency. You have to build your own inbound marketing machine to generate leads, you have to close those leads, you have to work with clients, you have to hire, train your team and of course handle all the admin stuff that goes along with running a business. On any given week, you have to wear five of six different hats.

What typically gets lost in the mix is—profit. At the end of the month you sit down and go over the numbers. If you made any money, it’s not because you were proactive, it’s usually just the way it worked out. You got lucky. If you made money this month, it doesn’t mean you’ll make money next month. And don’t forget to pay yourselves. If you’re making money, but not taking a pay check, you’re not profitable.

This story is typical of most small businesses. It’s typical of most agencies. It’s typical of the owners I work with, but it doesn’t have to be like this. With a little planning and strategy, you can make sure your agency does between 10% and 20% net profit every single month. You can collect enough cash to weather a sales dip, economic downturn, or even give yourself a bonus after a few months. It just takes some planning.

If You Thought You’d Be An Inbound ONLY Agency, You Might Have Been Mistaken

What? There are changes? We just became Platinum (insert HubSpot Partner Level here). We just got our fourth client and we’re starting to get the hang of it, how can there be changes?

The world of marketing is in a chaotic period and change is the only constant. If you thought what you did today was going to be what you did for the next 10 years, you might have miscalculated.

Look around you. There are new tactics, new tools, new software, new techniques, new agencies and new client requirements almost every single month. If your inbound marketing agency isn’t built to deal with these monumental shifts in the ground beneath your feet you might be in trouble.

If You Can’t Get Them For The Agency, How Can You Be Sure You Can Get Them For Clients?

Agencies 2 Inbound has worked with almost 100 inbound marketing agencies over the past two years. By far, the most frequently asked question during our sessions is about getting more leads and signing more new clients. It’s not anecdotal anymore. Inbound marketing agency owners need help with their own marketing and sales.

Some of the first guidance I provide to owners is to do inbound for their own agencies. Do it early and often. Make it a priority, dedicate resources to it and use it as a test bed to learn inbound marketing. Two very positive outcomes result from this approach. First, you’ll get better at inbound so you’ll see better results from clients and second, you’ll have more leads coming into the agency to drive your own sales results and company growth.