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.
Sorry, no supermarket for these items. You’re going to have to work on these on your own.
1 Can Of A Practice What Your Preach Website
Look around at the websites for other inbound agencies. What do you see? Do you see them applying all the inbound practices, do you see them applying any? Do they look alike? Do they have active blogs? Do they seem like the sites get updated regularly? You don’t have to answer and if your site is one of these I’m talking about my comments are not designed to upset you.
However, if you’re headed out to the supermarket to pick up a few last-minute items you better make sure your website is on the list. Right now, people are looking at your site. They’re evaluating you based on your site. They’re wondering where your offers are? They’re looking for compelling differentiated messaging and they’re reviewing your site with an eye for inbound components and inbound philosophy. If you don’t practice what you preach, how can they feel safe hiring you to do their marketing. If you don’t do it for your own agency, do you even believe that it will work for them?
You can’t wait any longer to use your own website to show your agency’s ability to get found, get lead and close new clients.
A Bag Of An Inbound Marketing For Your Own Agency
Speaking of your own agency, you can’t ignore your own marketing any more. Not only is it critical for your own survival to have an active pipeline with companies who have connected with you and asked to speak with you. But if you can’t get your own leads, what makes you think you can get leads for your clients.
You can’t put it off any longer. You need a complete inbound marketing program, inclusive of marketing strategy for your agency. No matter how hard this is for you, it’s just time to get it done. There are no excuses. If you’re not running inbound for your own agency, you’re ill-equipped to do it for any of your clients. Not only will clients be asking about this, but it’s going to be apparent to most of them and to more and more of them that you’re not an inbound agency—if you don’t use inbound to generate your own inbound leads.
A Bunch Of People Who Know How To Get Leads For Clients
Wouldn’t it be great if you could roll up to the inbound store and pick up one copy writer, two marketing consultants and a project manager—to go! It would be even better if that store had them lined up and priced based on their experience generating leads. Need someone more savvy? Right this way sir. Oh, you want someone less expensive because you have your training lined up? You want to check out aisle four. This would be great—but it’s not happening.
Instead, you need to attract these people to your agency. You need to tell them a compelling professional story that gets them excited about your shop. You need to completely and thoroughly evaluate them for culture, ability, attitude and desire to stick around and grow with your agency. Then you need to hire them at a reasonable rate, train them up as fast as possible, provide them ongoing professional mentorship and guide their careers through your agency. I’m exhausted just thinking about it.
Regardless of how I feel thinking about it, we have to do it. Not only must we do this, but we should get good at it. The faster and the better we can be at this aspect of our business, the better experience our clients will receive, the more leads they’ll get, the more likely they are to renew or buy more from you and the more referenceable they’ll be before, during and after your engagement. This has to be a top priority on your shopping list.
One Functioning Remote Conference And Video System…With Batteries
I added this in for fun. Just like when you pick up a small toy at the supermarket for your nephew who’s coming to Thanksgiving but then you forget to score the batteries. As our agencies grow, we’re going to need to be able to support team members in our local community and those across the globe.
The best way to do that is with new meeting technology. Google Hangouts, Zoom, Go To Meeting, Join.Me, Webex and other similar services all provide you the opportunity to meet, have calls, use video and make the connections required to grow your agencies or expand your client relationships. Test them thoroughly, but we’ve had success using these systems to extend our culture, form strong bonds across a decentralized team and collaborate with our client on their projects.
4 Pounds Of Collaborative Creative Culture And Core Values
For the agencies who participate in my Cohort program they know that Culture and Core Values is what we talk about first. Why do I do that? Almost everything in our agency comes back to culture and core values. Who do we hire? Are they a cultural fit? Do they share our core values? If you don’t have then you can’t answer that question. Should we fire this client? Do they share our core values? Have we given this client our best advice? Check the core values.
You need these as directional signage for almost everything you do on a daily basis. You need culture and core values to act as a road map to help you get to where you’ve decided you want to go. Take it from me, I never put much value in any of this stuff. Then one day I realized my company wasn’t what I hoped it would be and the reason it wasn’t had everything to do with a weak culture and a lack of core values. Great companies always have great people and great people need to be part of a great culture. Make sure you pick up a pack of Culture and bag of Core Values this Thanksgiving.
As Many Clients As You Can Handle, As Long As They’re All In On Inbound And They Treat You Respectfully
It’s the bulk food section of the supermarket. Dig in and grab a huge handful of awesome clients. As many as you can fit into your hand. Pull them out and don’t worry if a few fall back into the barrel. Make sure you have a process that eliminates any one who isn’t going to treat you and your team like a strategic partner.
If you want to be a vendor, you need to find another community, another blog to read and probably another type of agency to be. Vendors get paid late, vendors have to discount, vendors are not respected, vendors get fired at the drop of a dime. Leave the vendor clients to the agency down the street. You’re looking for companies who value your insight, opinions, contributions and work.
A Six Pack Of Trusted Advisors
You’re on the way out and you see the impulse end cap. You know gum, candy, a drink. You’re in luck there are a bunch of trusted advisors available to help you grow your agency. Make sure you selectively look through the group and leverage their experience.
What we do isn’t easy. It doesn’t get done overnight or in a week. These are long term programs we’re working on and you should be thinking about who can help. Most of the agency owners who are transitioning into inbound agencies have very little marketing experience. They know their area of expertise like branding, web or search, but not marketing.
They don’t know how to grow an agency, scale an agency, or even develop a profitable agency. Look at all the areas in your agency. Prioritize the areas that need the most attention and then go pick up a trusted advisor or two. Don’t look at these as extra expenses, look at these as value added resources. People who can help you NOT make a mistake, who can help you fix something in two weeks instead of two years. In almost every case, whatever they want you to pay, is going to be well worth it.
We all have a lot to be thankful for. The economy has been good, most of our agencies are thriving, we are in a community poised to take advantage of an influx of people who will start realizing their old marketing tactics no longer work and inbound marketing and inbound sales are the only options for aligning buyer behavior with their company’s desired customer acquisition goals.
This should put our agencies in the zone for new client acquisition, expansion of our services, and delivering new software. We’re in the right place at the right time. Some of us will grow our businesses beyond even our wildest dreams, others will flame out and crash, while the rest will continue doing what they’ve always done, manage the day to day, get by and feed their families.
No matter what your business goals, make sure they are your goals. Make sure they align with your personal and professional desires and then make them a reality.
Start Today Tip – You all have the power. If you want to change your agencies, grow your agencies, adjust what you sell, or what you do to service your clients—you all have the power. Setting the goals, vision and mission for your agency isn’t usually the hardest part. The hard part is creating a road map to get there. Once you do that, it’s just a series of steps in the right direction. Don’t be scared, don’t be intimidated, don’t feel like it’s happening to you. Instead, take control and make it happen for you.
Enjoy your family this weekend and when you come back, take ownership of your goals and make at least one or two decisions that get you just a little bit closer to your dreams.
Agencies 2 Inbound – Helping You Go ALL IN ON Inbound!
