Beware easy-to-sell but hard-to-serve clients for your agency

It’s not uncommon to hear agency owners talk about wanting to target small businesses because there are so many of them and you can talk with the decision-maker more easily.

While it may be an appealing target, there are reasons to be cautious. There’s a good chance that you will be dealing with the owner, which can help lead to a faster sale since they may treat it as an impulse purchase. On the flip side, every penny you get is out of the owner’s pocket so they will be scrutinizing results far more closely than an employee in a larger organization.

Chip and Gini talk about these and other issues, while also noting that there is a time and place for focusing on smaller organizations as an agency as long as you have a clear plan and model to make it successful.

Key takeaways

* Gini Dietrich: “Because for small clients, this is their livelihood – the way that they look at spending money is this is coming out of my personal pocket.”

* Chip Griffin: “Generally speaking, the easier it is to sell somebody, the harder it is going to be to meet their expectations.”

* Gini Dietrich: “You don’t want to be chaotic. You don’t want ten or twenty or thirty new clients every month.”

* Chip Griffin: “If you’re coming in as a low cost provider, you will always be a low cost provider.”

Related

* ALP 14: Non-traditional agency revenue streams

* Performance-based compensation and other creative pricing tactics for agencies

View Transcript

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.

Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin.

Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich.

Chip Griffin: Gini, I, I’ve got this idea. We can convince millions of people really easy to subscribe to this podcast because it’s so cheap. They’re cheap. They’re they’re small. It’s great. We’re all set.

Gini Dietrich: Let’s do it. I like it.

Chip Griffin: Right after this.

Gini Dietrich: Okay.

Chip Griffin: Maybe it’s not a good idea.

Gini Dietrich: I also don’t think you want to call people cheap, but okay.

Chip Griffin: Well, I mean, as we know, I do not prepare these opens, it is, this is not like SNL. I don’t have it all scripted out, test it out throughout the week and then dive in with live from New York. I, I come up with it literally on the fly.

Yes. Sometimes that ends up better than others. So if I have offended any of you as listeners, what’s new.

Gini Dietrich: I’m sorry. And it’s sort of expected.

Chip Griffin: Unless this is your first time listening, it happens because I say what’s on my mind for better or often for worse.

Gini Dietrich: It’s not, it’s not that bad. It’s not that bad.

Chip Griffin: I’ve said worse.

Gini Dietrich: You have.