The Agency Growth Blog - For Owners Who Want Growth

This might seem obvious, but honestly, it’s one of the most discussed aspects of client services at Square 2 Marketing. Who is our point of contact?

Is it the CEO? Is it the marketing person we’ve been assigned to work with? Is it their boss? Is it the person who signed our agreement or Is it the person who approves our invoice each month?

Yes, it matters and yes, there’s a methodology behind how we decide who the ultimate decision maker is and then how we engage with that VIP (very important person) even when we’ve been instructed to work with a lower level marketing person.

Last week I wrote about our changing perspective on projects vs. retainers and today I’m talking about our changing perspective on generalists vs. specialists when it comes to team structure and organizational planning.

Over the past year, we’ve learned a lot about running a more profitable agency. A 20% net profit margin target is insight. As you might know, many traditional agencies are able to do 20% net profit or even higher but the inbound marketing agency struggle to be profitable and you might see 5% net profit in a good month.

I get it, long-term, contractual relationships with inbound marketing agency clients who pay you every month is going to be better than managing month to month project work.

However, what if there was a way to do both and do it in a way that kept cashflow predictable, matched delivery with revenue and allowed you to service many more clients. Would that be interesting? It should be.

When you look at the market opportunity there are just as many inbound marketing agencies who still do project work as those who only work on retainer. That means, by definition, there’s a big group of clients who prefer to hire agencies to do project work. Now the question becomes, how do you handle both, so that you can work with everyone and anyone who qualifies in to work with your agency?

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.

When it comes to blogging, one of the tricks I deploy is keeping a running list of potential blog article ideas. Then, when it comes down to writing an article, I look at the ideas, select the one I like and get started. Since this one is time sensitive, I thought it might be relevant as we’re already halfway through January already.

Over the past few years, I’ve worked with over 100 agency owners, all going through some degree of evolution from traditional agency to inbound agency. Unfortunately, I see a lot of the same issues at a variety of different agencies. I classify this as unfortunate because I would expect owners in this community to be more aware of mistakes other agencies make and then be on the lookout to avoid making the same mistakes themselves. But as I stated, that doesn’t appear to be the case.

After a short break, the Agencies 2 Inbound blog is back in action and will be posting weekly starting this week. This year nothing is more important to me than giving you all good guidance around adding inbound sales to your existing inbound marketing agency practices.

Yes, there is going to be immense pressure this year from HubSpot, specifically, for you to sell inbound sales software, HubSpot CRM and start offering inbound sales services. The long-term direction here is accurate. They are correct in wanting to create a full funnel agency experience at partners so your firm enables clients to both get leads and then close those leads.

But is that right for everyone? No, it’s not.

To give you some context, at Square 2 Marketing, we’ve been delivering sales enablement or inbound sales services in a variety of configurations for the past three years. We already know what works, what doesn’t work well and why it’s so challenging.

Six Areas Inbound Marketing Agency Owners Need To Focus On Next Year To Make 2017 Your Best Year Ever!

I wanted to let everyone know how grateful I am for all the warm wishes and wonderful feedback all the agency owners have provided me over the past year or two. Many of you have worked directly with me on your agencies in one form or the other and the progress you’ve all made is wonderful.

To give back, I’d love to be able to give all of you a gift on this holiday season. Obviously, that would be a logistical challenge as well as setting me back financially. However, I can give you the gift of knowledge and here’s a little chance for me to give you what I wish I could give you and let you know why these are the most important gifts you should be giving yourself this season.

As inbound marketing agency owners, perhaps the most important question you need to ask your prospects and clients is, “What is your marketing budget for this year?” However, the answer typically opens a consistently problematic conversation which can potentially make or break your ability to be successful.

The reality of most businesses is that they DON”T have an inbound marketing budget or if they do, it’s a wild ass guess. Responding to your question exposes a lack of proper planning, making them uncomfortable. To deal with that feeling, they respond with “We’d like you to tell us what our budget should be or we have a budget, but we’d like to see what you come up with first.”

You’re back from Inbound 16, Thanksgiving is behind you and you’re all in on taking your inbound marketing agency and making it 100% agile.

You attended a few sessions, spoke with some other owners about agile, you did some research, it sounds like the answer to your prayers. Slow down Speedy Gonzales, there are a few things to think about before you start down this path.

Not every agency is ready to move to agile. Not every agency is going to see the benefits from moving to agile. Not all your clients are going to see improved results by you moving to agile. Agile is not right for every agency and every agency owner. However, some of you are ready.

We all end up headed out to the supermarket with our list of items for the Thanksgiving Day feast. Condensed milk, pumpkin or a bunch of green onions its always something. In the spirit of my favorite holiday, here’s a shopping list for inbound marketing agency owners.

These are items you’re going to need in 2017. The competition is picking up, the number of companies looking for inbound marketing is increasing too and now sales enablement software and services are making our agencies very popular. However, if you’re missing even one of the items on this list, you have your work cut out for you.