The Agency Accelerator

In today’s episode, I share with you the lessons that I learned and the key changes I made to my business in 2020. Hopefully, you can take some things away and apply them to your agency as well.

In Episode 39 I spoke with Jim James about virtualising your agency. Before that interview, I held the strong opinion that you cannot build your agency using freelancers or virtual staff because it’s like building an agency on quicksand. 

To an extent, I do still believe that; however, both Jim James and John Ashton (who will be making an appearance in an upcoming episode) both talk about how you can build an agency using staff who are spread all over the world - some virtual, and some freelance. 

After talking to them I have definitely become more open to the idea and have realised that it is not necessarily so black and white. Using virtual or freelance staff allows you to be more nimble and adapt to changes as your agency grows.

I truly hope that this podcast has helped to change your thinking in some way too. Whether from something I or one of my guests has said. If that’s the case, then I am definitely achieving my goals for recording these podcasts. 

So without further ado...

Time Stamp

4:10 The 5 Key Lessons I Learned From 2020:

5:53 The pandemic differentiated three types of agency:

• Those who panicked and cut costs
• Those who did nothing as they thought it would just be a short-term challenge
• Those who were nimble and thought about how they needed to change and adapt

6:16 Pivoting doesn’t mean drastically changing what you do; but rather, tilting your axis to adapt to your climate. 

7:26 In order to pivot you need to really listen to your audience. Don’t just make assumptions. 

8:16 DON’T cut your prices!

9:09 2020 taught us that you need a plan, and that plan needs to be dynamic.

10:58 The 5 Good Habits I Put In Place In 2020: 

11:06 I learned to delegate more.

11:34 I learned to automate more.

12:39 Got more focussed - doing more of what works, and less of what doesn’t work.

13:13 I did more of what I enjoy, and less of what I don’t enjoy.

14:00 Paid more attention to my mailing list.

14:45 My 5 Bad Habits of 2020: 

15:00 I didn’t have good boundaries during the pandemic. 

15:25 I worked WAY too much. 

15:40 I headed towards burnout at the end of the year.

16:26 I said ‘yes’ to everything - need to learn how to say ‘no’.

17:10 Seduced by shiny new products that are irrelevant to my goals and audience. 

18:51 Finally, I’d like to talk about my goals and hopes for this year. Not necessarily ‘new year’s resolutions’, but at least some targets to strive towards in 2021. 

19:05 Delegate more. 

19:28 Use data to help me make better decisions. 

20:08 Focus on building my Facebook community - you can join here!

20:38 Focus on doing less, but doing it better.

21:50 Improve my work-life balance.

22:52 I think it’s a great idea to have a record of all of this. At least I can always go back to this podcast and see where I am at in regards to my goals, and how this year is different from the last. 

22:16 I hope that me sharing my experiences of 2020 will help you to approach this new year in a positive light, and encourage you to take control of your own destiny in 2021. Touch wood this year will be focussed, rewarding and provide us with a great work-life balance.

Useful links:

Download The Self-Running Implementation Book

Join my Facebook group ‘The Agency Accelerator’

Download the 'Creating A Sustainable & Profitable Agency' Book

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You can subscribe/follow on Apple, Spotify or directly from my website.

I would be very grateful if you left me a review too as they will help other people to find my podcasts and it's also great to read your comments!

Thanks so much.

Rob

As this challenging year draws to a close we are all starting to put our plans in place for 2021 and no doubt those plans are going to be more positive and ambitious than this year.

It finally feels like we have some control again!

Of course, your 2021 plan needs to be much more than a finance and staffing plan. You need to be looking at all areas of your agency including:

• Culture
• Finance
• Marketing
• New business/sales
• People
• Clients
• Market
• Product
• Systems & processes

The list goes on!

Here are my 5 tips for creating a living plan that gets delivered:

1. Get your senior team (if you have one) to support you in the development and delivery of this plan (if you don’t have a team, my advice is to get some help so you are not creating and delivering this plan alone)
2. Break down the plan from 1-year objectives to quarterly goals to a monthly detailed plan
3. Each part of the plan (year, quarter, month) should have no more than 7 goals or projects (7 or less is the magic number)
4. Set yourself the challenge of never carrying a task from one period to the next. So always be asking yourself “where will I be by the end of this period with this particular task?” and that becomes your objective (and of course make them SMART)
5. Review your plan at least once a month and amend it based on what you know today that you didn’t know yesterday. If this year has taught us anything, it’s that our plans must be dynamic and never cast in stone

Links mentioned in the episode

Join my FREE business development Masterclass. Register here.

If you want more ideas and details on growing your scaleable agency then download my FREE ebook "Creating A Scalable & Sustainable Agency"

Subscribe & Review

Are you subscribed to my podcast yet? If you’re not, please do so to avoid missing out on any episodes!

You can subscribe/follow on Apple, Spotify or directly from my website.

I would be very grateful if you left me a review too as they will help other people to find my podcasts and it's also great to read your comments!

Thanks so much.

Rob

I am pleased to have Remeny Armitage from Brilliant and Human with me on the podcast today.

Remeny's business interviews your clients to enable you to build stronger relationships and create client advocates.

In this episode we talk about the process, the benefits and what you should start doing now (if you are not already).

Time Stamp

1;45 How Remeny helps her clients

2:10 Insights into how you can better serve your clients

2:55 What are the typical themes you hear when you are getting feedback from your client’s clients. The 3 recurring themes

4:00 What is the impact you have on your clients by talking with their clients/

5.38 It’s amazing what people will tell a stranger with no agenda. Clients are always happy to have the opportunity to give objective feedback that they know will be listened to

6:50 Example of a digital marketing agency that listened to their client feedback and made changes that resulted in a 40% increase in profits

7.27 What is the typical pain that an agency has when they reach out to you? Usually, client retention but what else?

09.05 Avoid adopting the utilities or mobile phone business model!

9.33 Understanding your niche and ideal target client: talk to clients to understand why they purchased from you – you might be surprised at their responses!

11:10 Ensure you understand why your clients stay with you and what they value from you. Also, understand what the bottlenecks are (e.g., is the owner the issue?)

12:00 How often should an agency get 360 feedback from their clients? Putting a client advocacy process in place

13:00 The risks of not seeking feedback from your clients regularly

14:00 When you win a new client it’s a great time to interview and understand and find out why they have bought from us

15:38 Learning about why you lost a pitch

18:40 Are you willing to hear and action the honest feedback you get from your clients?

19:40 Have you seen any changes between client and customer interaction during the strange year?

21:35 The importance of relationships and working in partnership with your clients

22:45 Final tips on retaining clients and making them into advocates

24:30 If you could go back in time and give your younger business self one piece of advice, what would it be?

Remeny’s contact details

Brilliant and human website

Remeny's Linkedin profile

Subscribe & Review

Are you subscribed to my podcast yet? If you’re not, please do so to avoid missing out on any episodes!

You can subscribe/follow on Apple, Spotify or directly from my website.

I would be very grateful if you left me a review too as they will help other people to find my podcasts and it's also great to read your comments!

Thanks so much.

Welcome to The Agency Accelerator’s annual wrap-up of my favourite tools of 2020.

In this episode, I discuss the importance of making each and every hour as productive as possible by utilising a range of brilliant tools and apps that will save you HOURS each week.

Remember – Ditch it, Delegate it, Defer it, Do it, or…..automate it! We are talking all things productivity in this podcast.

So I am going to cover 20 or so of my favourite tools. In case you want to skip forward, here is a handy timestamped guide for each tool. Also don’t forget to download my handy cheatsheet (listed at the end).

3:51 Kartra

4:31 Groove pages

7:08 Zoom

7:27 Loom

8:33 Livewebinar

10:42 Vimeo

11:50 Canva

12:17 Designrr

12:51Thrive Architect

14:05 ConverKit

15:38 LinkedHelper

16:30 RocketReach

16:59 Dictation

18:25 Xero

18:40 ReceiptBank

19:32 Google Drive

20:22 Amazing Marvin

21:27 Toby

If you want a detailed outline of all the tools I reviewed in this podcast then grab a copy of my free cheatsheet which outlines each tool in detail together with pricing and website info.

Subscribe & Review

Are you subscribed to my podcast yet? If you’re not, please do so to avoid missing out on any episodes!

You can subscribe/follow on Apple, Spotify or directly from my website.

I would be very grateful if you left me a review too as they will help other people to find my podcasts and it's also great to read your comments!

Thanks so much.

In today’s episode of the podcast we are talking all things CRM and marketing automation.

I am excited to have Lindsey Pickles from Bright Dials on the podcast. Bright Dials helps companies get to grips with their customer data by implementing customer relationship management (CRM) systems and marketing automation tools as well as the processes to support their successful use.

Time stamp

1.03 Who is Bright Dials?

1.35 Definition and difference of a CRM and marketing automation system

2.34 Why is it so important for companies to implement CRM and Marketing automation? 

3.10 What would you say to someone who doesn’t have a CRM in place and doesn’t have customer data stored in one place?

5.27 How do you start untangling where they are at right now and what they need?

8.40 What does volume costs mean?

9.35 At what stage should an agency start investing in CRM and automation?

10.24 Efficiency gains from using these tools    

11:55 Understanding your numbers and data  

13:00 How do you select the best tools

14:14 What is your view on one tool that can do it all rather than using individual tools and integrating them together?

 16:36 Example tools you can use  

18:49 If you are new, what should you do next?   

20:10 Customer journey mapping

22:45 closing the leaky bucket

23:00 If you could go back in time and give your younger self, just starting out in business, one piece of advice, what would it be?

Useful links:

You can contact Lindsey:

LinkedIn

Website: www.brightdials.com

Terminology guide

Download The Self-Running Implementation Book

Subscribe & Review

Are you subscribed to my podcast yet? If you’re not, please do so to avoid missing out on any episodes!

You can subscribe/follow on Apple, Spotify or directly from my website.

I would be very grateful if you left me a review too as they will help other people to find my podcasts and it's also great to read your comments!

Thanks so much.

In today’s episode we wrap up this mini-series on business development. 

Today my focus on is why you shouldn’t rely on referrals and word of mouth for new business – especially in the current environment. I explore how to build proactive campaigns that engage with your target audience and move them through the sales process until they become a client.

Time stamp

1:10 Why doesn’t word of mouth referrals work as your major form of business development

1:35 The impact of remote working

2:00 The risk of relying on one form of new business

3:00 Most business development strategies have a medium to long term impact

3:30 One short term business development strategies strategy

4:00 The key is consistency and persistence

4:44 The importance of focus

5:00 My own experience with this podcast

5:50 The importance of niche and defining your ideal target customer

6:00 Meeting your audience where they are at

8:00 Addressing your ideal target customer’s “pains and gains”

8:25 Nurturing content

8:5 0 The 3 stages of your sales funnel

9:14 Don’t expect results in the short term but you need to start today!

10:08 Should you outsource business development?

11:15 Nurturing referrals and word of mouth 

Useful links:

eBook: Defining You Ideal Target Customer

eBook: Finding Your Niche

Download The Self-Running Implementation Book

Subscribe & Review

Are you subscribed to my podcast yet? If you’re not, please do so to avoid missing out on any episodes!

You can subscribe/follow on Apple, Spotify or directly from my website.

I would be very grateful if you left me a review too as they will help other people to find my podcasts and it's also great to read your comments!

Thanks so much.

In part 2 of the business development interviews, we chat about what is working and what isn't working in this new predominantly online world of doing business.

We explore some mistakes that agencies are making and how to avoid them.

Time stamp

1.05 Introduction to this week’s guest, Darrly Sparey from Hardnumbers

2.21 What changes have you seen in the business development landscape in 2020?

3.20 Why you should not be embarrassed to sell    

4.00 Don’t make it about you!

5.08 Earning the right to sell to your audience

6.14 Applying a similar right approach to your website    

8.10 Where does your website fit in the sales process

9.10 How you present yourself to a prospective client

9.42 Your point of difference

11:25 The Ideal Customer Profile

12:25 Should I be selling in this challenging time?  

14:45 Why you should not be cutting your marketing budget right now! 

15.39 As an agency owner, what should you focus your money and time on?

16:18 Create a list of your dream clients

17:00 Don’t just focus on existing clients

17:43 What does building relationships look like in this new ‘online’ world?

18:45 Using communities to build relationships

19:44 What is working and what isn’t working right now?

20:20 We are not working from home we are living at work

21:20 Be an enabler for networking for your clients & prospects

23:10 The benefits of being in a group/community

23:36 How do you cut through the online noise?

25:46 What is the one thing you would not recommend agencies doing right now

26:45 Consistency and persistence is key

28:45 Make your business development time non-negotiable

29:25 Revenue, strategy and admin

30:00 The importance of a CRM system

31:00 What advice would you give your younger self?

32:30 What is your notional hourly rate?

Useful links:

You can contact Darryl via Twitter @darryls and @hardnumbers

eBook: Defining You Ideal Target Customer

eBook: Finding Your Niche

Download The Self-Running Implementation Book

Subscribe & Review

Are you subscribed to my podcast yet? If you’re not, please do so to avoid missing out on any episodes!

You can subscribe/follow on Apple, Spotify or directly from my website.

I would be very grateful if you left me a review too as they will help other people to find my podcasts and it's also great to read your comments!

Thanks so much.

It drives me crazy that so many websites fail to truly serve their audience, so much so that I decided to record a episode of the podcast on this topic.

I recently posted on LinkedIn about this and it generated lots of opinion including some conflicting viewpoints to my own which I always love and show that this is an important topic.

If you follow my podcast or regularly read these emails you will know I am a big fan of making your website the “centre of your marketing and business development universe” and that means all of the various biz dev activities, such as email marketing and social media, should drive traffic to your website and then when the reader gets there, it should be really clear about the action you want them to take next. It also means making your website more than just 'brochureware'.

Yet most websites fail to do this..... 

Instead, so many marketing agencies pay little attention to their website but rather make it look the same as their competition following the same old designs. For example, they start off by saying how great THEY are & what THEY can do for YOU! 

This is a typical website header (taken from a random agency website I found on google):

We’re a creative design consultancy. For fifteen years we’ve been creating and redefining brands, helping our clients stand out and be more successful

Let's explore what is wrong with this:

1. Your website should very quickly demonstrate who it is aimed at & show that you understand your audience so that it motivates the viewer to want to read on. So talking about what you do at this stage, is completely wrong! And this headline gives no clue as to who they help.

2. If your website is full of 'We' then you need to change your language to make it about YOUR CUSTOMER, not YOU (at least at first).

3. The “above the fold real estate” of your website is super valuable & you want to make it clear what you want your reader to do next. That usually means adding in a button to download something of value (e.g. an eBook, a top tips sheet or a tool) in return for their email address.

Bear in mind in this part of your website you want to show your customer that you really understand their pain points and then show how you can solve them. So for me, I might say on my website “Is your agency taking one step forward and one step back?” or “Are you frustrated that you can’t win a consistent flow of ideal clients?” or “Do you wish your staff would step up?” I know these are some of the key pain points and if a viewer were reading these and they fit my ideal target customer profile, then they would be inspired to read on because they would feel the website was talking directly to them! 

4. Using a "subscribe to my mailing list/newsletter" or "contact us" link is a waste of time because people who don't know you will rarely jump to this stage of the sales process (and without being a mind-reader, I bet you get few enquiries/leads this way). 

Remember you need to build KNOW-LIKE-TRUST before someone will buy from you.

5. Be clear what you want your website to be: If it’s just ‘brochureware’ then you're missing out on a great opportunity to use it as a lead generator.

As I said, there seems to be comfort in conformity, in that if you look like every other agency then it’s easy, safe and you are not rocking the boat.

But surely it would be better to buck the trend & look different, and that starts by showing your ideal target customer you really understand them and their pains (that your product or service can solve).

Useful links:

Download The Self-Running Implementation Book

Subscribe & Review

Are you subscribed to my podcast yet? If you’re not, please do so to avoid missing out on any episodes!

You can subscribe/follow on Apple, Spotify or directly from my website.

I would be very grateful if you left me a review too as they will help other people to find my podcasts and it's also great to read your comments!

Thanks so much.

In a challenging world, word of mouth and referrals may be drying up as we do less face to face meetings so in this episode of the podcast I interview Brad Smith from Succeed.Digital and we talk all things business development. This is part 1 of a 2-part series on business development.

Time stamp

2:26 Who is Succeed.Digital?

3:10 What are the biggest changes you have seen in the agency landscape in 2020?

Two types of agency: 

-      Those who went into lockdown mode and tried to hold out and their business has fallen off a cliff!

-      Those who used this opportunity to look at new ways at doing thing from their sector, type of work and service to clients

6.20 Word of mouth & referrals has dried up

There is no better way of winning new business by referrals because they are ‘warm leads’ so you should have a referral programme in place. However, this cannot be the only form of business development

8.00 Inconsistent consistency – you cannot base your business dev strategy solely on referrals. It should form a maximum 25% of your new business strategy

10.15 You have no control of when referrals come in or the quality of the referral or if they fit into your niche

12.00 New business strategies need to focus beyond the next 3 months. Sales need to focus on the next 12 months and use multiple channels.  . Most agencies are short term quarterly focused.

16:00. Introducing new services when you need more sales

Understanding your customer needs and researching and validating new ideas before you launch

18:00 5 questions to ask clients to build stronger relationships with your clients

N – Now: “What is the most valuable service we provide you now?”

E – Enjoy: “What do you really like/enjoy about working with us?”

A – Alter: “What would you most like to alter about the way we work we with?”

D – Decide: “What made you decide to choose us?”

S – Stay: “ What would make you stay with us over the next 2 - 3 years and beyond?”

23:40 At what stage would you have these conversations with a client?

 24:40 Don’t assume you know what your clients want!

 25:57 What 2-3 tips would you advise someone to do it they need new clients now?

29:50 Know me, Like me, Trust me, Help me

32:30 Outbound sales and marketing strategies

Useful links:

You can contact Brad at [email protected]

Validation guide for launching a new product or service

Download The Self-Running Implementation Book

Subscribe & Review

Are you subscribed to my podcast yet? If you’re not, please do so to avoid missing out on any episodes!

You can subscribe/follow on Apple, Spotify or directly from my website.

I would be very grateful if you left me a review too as they will help other people to find my podcasts and it's also great to read your comments!

Thanks so much.

Welcome to today’s episode of The Agency Accelerator Podcast.

If you get most of your business from existing clients and referrals then this podcast episode is an important one to listen to.

When I meet a new client or prospect and I ask them how they get their new business they will often tell me rather proudly that they get all of their business from referrals and existing clients and they have no other major business development strategy then they’re in for a bumpy ride. 

In this episode I explore what is wrong with solely relying on this strategy for your business development and why, even if it’s working for you now it probably won’t work for you at some point in the future. So, before you hit a deep famine period you need to put in a more proactive business development strategy that will provide you with a constant stream of ideal target clients.

Timestamp

1.00 Do you get all your business from referrals and existing clients?

1.28 If so you are in for a bumpy ride!

1.51 What is wrong with this strategy?

2.27 You have no control as to when referrals come in, the frequency and their quality

3.17 Making your network your sales team

3.50 What do you do if you need new business NOW?

5.15 The concepts of a sales funnel

6.13 How NOT to use LinkedIn to build business!

7.00 How to sell a bottle of water

7.54 Nurturing your audience through the KNOW-LIKE-TRUST journey

8.27 Many agencies are poor at the middle part of the sales funnel

8.45 The importance of providing value to your audience

9.50 Why providing value 80% of the time and 20% selling is the right balance

10.25 The importance of building your mailing list

10.54 The 3 stages of converting a prospect to a customer

11.29 Why cold outreach doesn’t work

11.50 The importance of your website to generate leads

12.52 How I make this work on my website

13.18 What should you be giving away as ‘gated content’

13.55 The importance of building your mailing list – get started today!

14.25 How to come up with email content ideas (see link below)  

15.00 A simple marketing strategy

16.11 Your customers are ready to buy when they are ready to buy not when you want them to!

16.47 Do a few things really well and consistently – keep monitoring, measuring and refining

18:20 You need to start TODAY!

Subscribe & Review

Are you subscribed to my

podcast yet? If you’re not, please do so to avoid missing out on any episodes!

You can subscribe/follow

on Apple, Spotify or directly from my website.

I would be very grateful

if you left me a review too as they will help other people to find my podcasts

and it's also great to read your comments!

Thanks so much.

Useful links:

Blog on email marketing (you can also download the Content Twister I mention in the podcast here).

Grab a copy of my book (which in itself will provide a ton of value) and see how my email nurturing sequences works.