The Agency Growth Blog - For Owners Who Want Growth

I’ve written about why an inbound marketing agency needs inbound sales services to drive significant revenue generation for clients, but this article is more about why you need to offer inbound sales services as opposed to how and why inbound sales works.

I’m sure most of you are thinking to yourselves, “I just started getting good at inbound marketing and now I have to learn how to deliver inbound sales too?” Yes, you do and here’s why these complimentary services are so important to your clients.

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.

You went to Inbound15 this year and you’ve returned to your office all full of vim and vigor. You’re finally ready to do it.

You’re ready to go ALL IN on inbound and transform your entire agency into something that one day can be a Diamond Partner for HubSpot.

You wake up Monday, look in the mirror and say to yourself, “now what?” “I don’t have the faintest idea how to start taking my company from (a ___________ agency--fill in the blank) to being a full inbound agency that’s ready to compete with New Breed, Impact, Kuno and Square 2 Marketing.”

Here’s some good news. You don’t have to compete with any of these companies. You just have to get out of your own way.

I’ve been in meetings where the team is looking at you like you’re crazy. No advertising, no direct mail, no trade shows, no banner ads—are you nuts Mike? I’ve had people say to me, “but some clients who really need advertising, we’ll still be able to do it for them right?”

No! We’re an inbound agency and we’re going to get good at using inbound tactics to get clients all the leads they need!

That has to be your answer. Once you get your own head around where the world is going and how your agency needs to position itself to take advantage of that shift in thinking, then you need to start (and start soon) to get everyone on the same page.

Earlier this month I spoke at Inbound 2015, HubSpot’s annual love fest for everyone who knows anything about Inbound. One of the topics I spoke about is hiring people for your inbound agency. Today, I’ll spend a bit more time talking about how important it is to hire and how hiring (or not hiring) might actually be holding you back.

If you read anything about running a small business or entrepreneurialism, one of the first things you lean is about boot strapping and making it hurt before you add expenses to your business. It makes sense on paper, but maybe not so much in the real world.

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. 

It’s really not surprising a lot of the inbound marketing agencies look alike. You’re all saying the same thing about what you do and how you do it. The result is that you’re prospects are confused and they don’t know what makes one agency better or even different than the next.

In addition, HubSpot provided the Attract, Convert, Close and Delight methodology around inbound marketing and I see that on about 50% of the inbound agency websites. As inbound agency owners, you have to be marketers first and inbound experts second.

Last week I spent a few days at Inbound15 with 14,000 inbound marketing pros and there were around 2,000 agencies represented at the event. Today there are more inbound marketing agencies than ever before. What does that mean to you? It means you have to innovate and differentiate your inbound agency if you want to stand out.

Yes you want to be different with your stories and messaging but another way to separate your agency from other agencies is to innovate your delivery model and innovate your service offering.

Vision. Mission and Values Helps You Match Strategy To Hiring

So you’ve decided you want to grow your inbound marketing agency and you’re ready to hire. But are you really ready to hire? Do you have a solid growth strategy in place? Can you articulate your mission, vision and core values for your agency? Do you want to be a ten person, 20 person or 100 person agency? Are you ALL IN on inbound or planning to simply add inbound services to your list of other services?

It’s going to be very challenging hiring if you don’t have these questions locked down in your mind and in the mind of your team members, partners and outside advisors.

Next week kicks of the annual love fest for all inbound marketers and inbound agency owners. In a couple of days you’re going to be overwhelmed with 10,000 inbound peeps, session after session and a generally mammoth conference facility.

To help you make the most of your investment in both time and dollars, I’m providing you an Agency Owner’s Guide to Inbound 2015. The context I used to come up with these suggestions reflects where most of you are in your inbound journey, some agency content and some inbound content—all with the overarching idea that you’re there to learn.