The Agency Growth Blog - For Owners Who Want Growth

Every few years write a similar article on the new services that agency owners should be considering. This might be a little overdue.

I don't want to scare anyone but if you look out far enough, you might see a world where content, emails, and even websites are built by bots and automation tools. If that future has even a remote possibility of coming true, then what services would a digital agency deliver?

When you’re playing a lot of defense, it’s hard to devote the time to create look ahead and make sure the agency is positioned for the future. It’s hard to do the research and talk to enough people to help inform your decisions around vision and new services the agency should be considering.

There are a couple of sayings that I tend to lean on when times are tough. These have gotten me through some challenging times in the past. I’ve shared these life lessons with my children and they seem to be doing pretty well, even reminding me of these sayings from time to time.

“Be bold and mighty forces will follow.” William Benjamin Basil King (1859–1928) was a Canadian clergyman who became a writer.

“It’s ALL about the recovery.”Pat Croce, entrepreneur, sports team executive and owner, author, and TV personality. He served as team president of the National Basketball Association (NBA)'s Philadelphia 76ers from 1996 to 2001. He also built and sold a physical therapy business, NovaCare.

“If you’re not remarkable, you’re invisible.”Seth Godin. If you don’t know Seth Godin, he’s probably the father of inbound marketing. Yes, he’s the actual father. His book, Permission Based Marketing laid the groundwork for inbound marketing. His books Purple Cow and Free PrizeInside are must read.

It seems like these quotes are even more relevant this year and going into next year than perhaps in other years.

I’ve been through 9/11 and the financial crisis in 2008. Both events caused a massive and shocking shift in the world’s economy and what we’re all dealing with today is equally shocking.

I am in touch with close to 100 agencies in some way or another and it seems most are seeing a small to medium sized impact right now. Of course, if your agency specializes in any of the decimated industries, the situation is much more dire. 

However, it seems like right now most agencies have seen a handful of client pauses, reductions or cancellations. At Square 2, it's been a small group, less then we can count on one hand. The bigger issue has been new business. It’s out there and we’re talking to prospects, but rightly so, people are slow to move forward.

During Partner Day at Inbound 18, if you were paying attention you might have heard JD Sherman, COO at HubSpot say not everyone is going to want to sell and provide services around HubSpot’s full suite of products.

I thought that was astute for HubSpot to realize that and honest for them to admit it to a few hundred of their best partners. But agencies are at an inflection point. What kind of agency do you want to be? What kind of services do you want to provide to clients?

Perhaps more importantly, is not what you want, but what your clients want and what your team is prepared to deliver. So today, here’s how to know what direction you might want to consider for your agency.

I like sharing with all of you what I learn by working with all of you. Lately, I’ve been hearing more and more about agencies leaning away from inbound marketing. Some are leaving it all together and going back to what they did before inbound marketing became so popular. Other are weaving inbound marketing services in and around traditional digital services.

What’s going on? What do you do about it? Do you even need to worry about it? Of course you do. What’s going on in the community of inbound marketing agencies and the boarder digital agency community affects us all. More importantly, you need to be able to adjust your own strategy accordingly and if necessary. So, what are you? Inbound? Digital? Or Both?