The Agency Growth Blog - For Owners Who Want Growth

Companies Need The CEO Role To Be Filled, Not Manned Part-Time By Someone Working In The Agency

I hope the title resonated with many of you because in all the years of coaching and consulting with agency owners, this seems to be an issue for almost everyone.

You probably started this company because you’re awesome at PR, graphic design, building websites or getting companies found on Google, and now you're trying to do a whole bunch of other stuff.

While you used to spending all your time designing, now you’re handling sales, hiring, accounting, and real estate. You might not even be doing what you love. It’s the common e-Myth scenario. Pam the pie maker doesn’t spend any time making pies anymore.

The work you did to get you to this level is not the work you need to do to get you to the next level.

We’re getting to that time of year again!  It’s October, November and December when everyone starts talking about setting up meetings and running through planning exercises for the upcoming year. Whether you’re using EOS, Gazelles or some other operating system, goal setting is almost always on the menu.

It’s not that hard to come up with 2020 goals. If you're going to finish up 2019 at $2 million in revenue, then shooting for $2.5, or $3 million sounds reasonable. Maybe you want to stretch and try to double? But that’s not what this article is about.

In this article, I thought I would share Square 2’s goals for 2019, our goals and planning for 2020 and the journey we took in 2019 to hit our 2019 goals. I think that's the real story, not what the goals are and how we set them but the journey to hit them in 2019 and how that is influencing our 2020 planning. I hope you agree. 

First, thank you to everyone who shared comments with me about the Can An Agency Survive With Strategy Only Consulting Services? blog article. I really enjoy reading comments and I try to reply to them. It’s nice to know people are reading and appreciating the articles in this blog.

I’m talking about POINTS today because in my September Mastermind Group (which meets every fourth Thursday of each month from 10 AM to 12 noon ET) was unanimous about wanting to spend more time talking and working through the points-based pricing challenges.

What I see most often and what I think continues to present challenges to agencies are the separation of points and Agile delivery.

It appears that one of the bigger HubSpot partner agencies is moving to “strategy only” services. Just consulting on how to grow, no delivery services, no content, no websites, no paid media management, no organic SEO work—just thoughts on how to drive revenue.

I’ll preface this by saying my knowledge of the “news” is second hand and via social media primarily, so let’s have a more conceptual conversation about this idea, as opposed to commenting on this specific agency’s new strategy.

Can an agency exist to just offer strategic consulting services and no delivery?

Partner Day at Inbound and Wednesday Day 1 is behind us now and the event hasn’t disappointed. At Partner Day we heard about the new Elite Level of Partner. To qualify for this level, you’ll need $50,000 in trailing 12-month sales and at least $150,000 in monthly managed revenue.

The response from the Diamond Partners I spoke with wasn’t very positive, but I think HubSpot needed to do something to identify top partners. I also found out there will be between 5 and 10 partners who already qualified for the new Elite level.

This time next week, most of us will be walking the halls of the Boston Convention Center enjoying Inbound ‘19.

This will be my eighth time attending Inbound, so I have some experience getting full value for the week of sessions, meetings, parties and exhibits.

The more you come back, the harder it is to get that real value. Inbound is specifically designed for HubSpot customers and as they add more customers, more people flock to Inbound. The content is specifically designed to help these new, unsophisticated customers get the most out of HubSpot. 

Somtimes that means agencies have to dig deep to find value in the week long event. 

Inbound 19 is right around the corner and if last year is any indication, this year is going to be filled with ideas about how to work with clients across marketing, sales , and customer service. HubSpot’s Platform play is going to be in full swing come September 3rd in Boston.

The question to agency owners is, “Should my shop be providing services across all three areas?” The answer is maybe. Let’s dig into this question to prepare you all for Inbound.

It’s easy to get swept up in the orange wave associated with Inbound and I think it’s important to arrive with a plan so you can make the most of your time in Boston.

Should my agency provide services to clients beyond the marketing services we’re already providing?

Besides the 30 or so agency owners I’m actively working with right now, I talk to roughly another 10 to 15 agency owners each month who reach out with basic questions. The time I spend with them gives me insight into the specific challenges facing agency owners today.

Anyone who has talked to me in the past or has taken the time to get to know me is aware that I’ll give any agency owner 30 minutes to talk shop, help them with challenge and share any insights I’ve gained over the past 17 years running Square 2.

Working with other agency owners is one of my passions. Over the past few months, I started noting the questions people ask and its crystal clear to me that everyone has very similar challenges.

With 17 years of consulting experience and over 30 years of marketing, sales and revenue generation experience I think I can speak in an educated way about what it takes to get clients results.

Is it responsiveness? Yes. Is it solid communication? Yes. Is it expertise around technology? Yes. But the number one reason clients fire you is because they did NOT get the results they expected.

Regardless of whether they had a hand in the failure, it is your fault, 100% of the time.

You’re a HubSpot Shop and while the community is great, the platform versatile and the ongoing retainers make the agency business much easier, is that it?

What I mean is, if you can grow your agency by working with HubSpot, can’t you grow even more by working with other technology companies too?

The answer is a resounding yes. If it fits your agency mission and vision, then yes. Of course, this means your mission or vision is to be the biggest or most successful HubSpot Partner than that helps you answer this technology question.

But if your mission is to be more than just a HubSpot Shop, then adding new technology partners to your portfolio is a NEED to have, not a nice to have.