Top 5 Business Growth Tips on How to Scale Your Agency

Are you struggling on scaling your agency and just can't find the best business growth tips that fit your business model?

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• Top 5 business growth tips to grow and scale your digital agency.
• How to juggle and manage multiple businesses.

If you’re looking for a 7 or 8 figure entrepreneur to model, this guy might be it…

Syed Balkhi is the owner of several multi-million dollar online business and he's crushing it. Syed’s trifecta of online startups includes:  WPBeginner (the largest free Wordpress resource), OptinMonster (lead generation software, and List25 (entertainment site) -- all of which are hitting 7+ figures and combined, serve over 400 million visitors! He’s also a former agency owner and a stakeholder in several other businesses.

In this episode, Syed shares his best advice for getting your business to the next level. He’s got a ton of great tips for growing and scaling.

Top 5 ways to grow and scale

#5 - Answer everybody’s questions. Syed says he spent very little on marketing his startups. Instead he would run hashtag searches on Twitter and respond to every tweet that had anything to do with a particular topic (in his case, Wordpress). Don’t reply with a hardsell. Reply with a helpful tip or solution.

#4 - Identify and solve one problem at a time. We’re entrepreneurs. It’s easy to get distracted by all those fantastic ideas that pop into our heads. Syed says a key factor in his success was concentrating on one idea at a time.

#3 - Use a lead magnet. You’ll have far better success with an opt-in that offers a payoff in the form of a useful checklist or tool. People are always hesitant to opt-in for fear of spammy junk mail. Bribery works so much better :)

#2 - Follow-up is paramount. Once you capture contact info use it to establish trust and gain authority. Don’t just send your monthly e-newsletter, which is all you. Provide goodwill content by offering resources and valuable information that helps them.

#1 - The BEST advice to grow and scale:  Find the right combination of content marketing and marketing automation. Build a system that establishes the "know-like-trust" factor with content and useful tools. Test and tweak often. 

How to succeed at multiple businesses

The key is F.O.C.U.S. - Finish One Commitment Until Success. Syed says your agency should  have to be focused on the strengths of your business.  Identify a problem your prospects experience and then solve that problem differently and better than anyone else.

Sometimes agency owners see a common problem their clients’ experience and want to develop a product solution. Resist the urge. FOCUS. If you do decide to venture into developing a product, make sure it is a separate entity with a dedicated team. Don’t overlap your resources between your service business and your product business. You can’t excel at both simultaneously, so one will always suffer. In the end, neither business will flourish.

In terms of juggling it all… Syed says he doesn’t. He is in regular communication with team leaders that manage each of his businesses. He and his teams use tools like Slack and Basecamp to stay looped in. Syed's role now is mainly marketing, support and coaching his team. In fact, he’s so far removed from daily operations, he doesn’t even have coding access anymore (and he's OK with it!) :)

If you want to grow and scale your agency, check out my Agency Playbook. It includes the 12 systems I used to start, scale, enjoy, and sell my agency. Check out this video on you can use my Playbook to take your business to the next level.

Building Your Business

Using these business growth tips, I hope you begin to see a real difference for your agency.

If business growth tips aren't the only piece of advice you need, what other challenges are you facing?

I have probably experienced all the different struggles for an agency owner through my own experience and I can help you from what I learned. From what to do with your sales processes, ways to increase your profit margins or how you can build authority for your agency.

I can tell you the best ways to stop losing money on projects, why performance based pricing can be the best pricing strategy for your agency as well as why including remote working or freelancers in your team can be beneficial in the long run.

You can learn more about my career and different experiences as well as tips, tricks and insights by checking out my blogs that cover a wide variety of topics.

Find more from my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my Youtube channel. There you will find advice from myself and other agency experts.

On this episode of #AskSwenk, we'll cover: What awards you should be looking at nabbing to attract big brand clients, whether you should be putting your published pricing on your website, and how to protect the concepts you've pitched.

This Week's Questions:

Do you know how to ensure you are guaranteeing leads for your business? If you are struggling with this as well as growing your team or how to prevent time lost to bad clients, this episode of Ask Swenk is the one you need.

In this video, I’ll cover:

• What to do when a prospect wants you to guarantee leads.
• My #1 struggle in growing my agency team and 3 ways we overcame it.
• How to fire a terrible client so you can quit wasting time.

Guaranteeing Leads in a Proposal (0:23)

Lawrence asks:  "A prospect is asking for us to guarantee the number of sales leads our digital marketing will create -- which is impossible and could change over time. How would you go about putting this into the proposal?"

Don’t shy away from guaranteeing performance! Take pride and back your work.

I have NO issue with guaranteeing leads... DO IT! But, you cannot guarantee sales. Lead generation in your control, converting leads and the sales process is not.

3 steps to guaranteeing leads:

1. Determine a very specific criteria for qualified leads. Be very definitive on what a quality lead looks like.
2. Look at similar, past clients as a benchmark for your past performance.
3. Establish compensation at both a fixed level and performance level. For example, you get paid “X” rate for deliver “X” fixed amount of leads, and an additional “Y” rate for every lead thereafter.

Here’s an interview with an agency owner who runs his business totally on a performance-based pricing model. He has over a 50% margin and a 95% close rate. Talk about qualifying leads!

#1 Struggle of Growing My Team (2:22)

Christina asked:  "What were your biggest pain points in growing your agency from a just few people to more and how did you overcome them?"

The biggest struggle I had with growing my team was worrying about being able to afford them. Cash flow and making payroll was my #1 concern.

3 things that helped us overcome cash flow worries:

1. Project receivables. We looked for holes to forecast where cash flow would be an issue and then we could be proactive instead of reactive. We use these “holes” as deadlines to motivate the sales and leadership teams.

2. Change payment terms. We made recurring revenue (retainers) due upfront with incentives for prepayment for the entire contract period. Project payment terms changed to: 50% upfront, 25% due on a specific date or at a specific point in the project (whichever comes first), and 25% due upon completion or at a specific point in the project (whichever comes first).

3. Increase pricing. We increased our prices for both our existing and new clients. Once you make the decision on what agency you want to be, make the moves to act and charge like it.

Firing a Terrible Client (5:18)

Glenn says:  "We need to get rid of a terrible client. They're not taking the hint, so I need to formally drop them. A lot of thought went into this decision and they must go.  How would you go about it?"

Congratulations! I’m so proud that you’ve realized it time to get rid of this client.

I have a motto: There’s no such thing as a BAD agency client - just a bad prospect or bad process. It’s OK that your process let a bad prospect sneak it and it’s awesome that you’re ready to get rid of them. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Check the language in your contract to see how much lead to time you need in order to end the relationship. Abide by the contract at all costs.
2. Make a phone call, not an email and definitely not a text message, to talk to them. In the call explain that it’s not working out and that your need to sever the relationship.
3. End on good terms by giving them all their files and even a refund if you think it’s necessary.
4. Draw up a letter that details everything that was discussed on your call and all the assets you’ll be releasing to them. Send this letter to them USPS Certified so that you can prove it’s been received. And, keep a copy for yourself.
5. Consider setting up an introduction between your newly fired client and your biggest competition :) 

After it’s all said and done, forget it. Good riddance! You’ll notice a huge difference in your team and your culture when you eliminate this baggage.

In fact, take a look at the rest of your client roster. Are there other clients that are causing distractions or making it harder to become the agency you want to be? Quit wasting time on the wrong prospects and concentrate on the right ones.

Do you like this NEW  3 question format?

Give us some feedback below. And, make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel so you’re getting the newest video advice each week!

Build Your Agency

Now that you know how to improve on guaranteeing leads, growing your team and more, this may be only the tip of the iceberg. But don't worry, I have all you need to get through these obstacles.

I have covered topics from how to handle a recession or expanding your brand awareness with a social media community. Or maybe you want to know the four phases of growth within your agency and want extra help in easing through agency growing pains? I have all the information you need to help you through it.

You can learn more about my life and my experience as well as lots of tips, tricks and insights by reading our blogs that cover a wide variety of topics.

If videos are more your thing, don’t worry, i’ve got you covered! You can check out more from my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my Youtube channel. There you will find advice from myself and other agency experts.

Do you really need to have a big agency experience to truly be successful as an agency owner?

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• What it’s like working at a big agency.
• Why a CCO would leave a large, publicly traded agency.
• Does size matter? 
• How you can determine your purpose and use it to build your brand.

For anyone who has questions or doubts in their own abilities to startup a digital agency and run better than the big dogs, you’ll have to check out this interview. My guest, Kerri Konik, has worked at some pretty huge agencies, and left her latest as Chief Creative Officer in order to start her own agency. She tells us what it’s like at the big agencies and why she left to do her own thing.

The grass isn’t any greener at the big agencies… it’s greener on the side that you water:)

What it’s like at a big agency (...and why leave)?

After years of working at big agencies Kerri started her agency, Brandscape Atelier, five years ago because she felt like she wasn’t making much of an impact on her clients’ businesses.  

Like anything else, there’s pros and cons, of course. First and foremost the resources are top-notch. You have a team full of people who are experts in their specific area - people don’t wear more than one hat. This means, you can learn a lot and get exposure to the big picture. However, big agencies tend to sound very glamorous when in actuality, they are not. Sure a big agency can be very fast paced and they land 2-3 year agency of record contracts, however there are too many layers to be effective. A typical client/agency meeting often included 18-20 people… making execution very inefficient.

Kerri left because she felt like she wasn’t making much of an impact on her clients’ businesses.  She started Brandscape Atelier (translation: “artist workshop”) to bring sophisticated, big agency strategies to small businesses who are looking to grow.

Does size matter?

No it does not. You don’t need a huge team to do amazing work. Kerri’s agency operates with just six core team members and they bring in subject matter specialists as needed. They are in their 5th year and Kerri has no plans to get too big. She feels it’s too difficult to be nimble when you are too big.

More benefits of staying small:

• You make decisions based on the long term. Large corporations look at making growth decisions based on the short term, which doesn’t have lasting effects for sustainability.
• You can turn down the wrong clients or wrong jobs that distract from your long term goals.
• You can make build your brand equity by defining your purpose. Why you do what you do.

How to select clients that set you up for a WIN.

Brandscape Atelier works with startups, small businesses and entrepreneurs that are looking to grow and be competitive with bigger brands. They have a pretty specific criteria on who they will (and will not) work with, including:

1. Businesses that are focused and clear. They want to work with clients who want to make a big impact in their industry.
2. Businesses the agency views as viable and sellable.
3. Businesses the agency can bring to life by bringing the owner’s unique and genuine personality into the mix.

Set yourself up for a WIN by being selective in your prospecting. It’s hard when you’re starting out - sometimes you are hungry enough to take on any work that is thrown your way. If you can avoid making decisions based on short term gain, you will reap long term benefits.

Remember: There’s no such thing as a bad client. Only a bad prospect or a had process! Click here to learn what I mean.

How can you determine your purpose?

In Kerri’s case, she kept finding herself beginning a lot of sentences with with “Someday, I’ll...” She realized she had gotten to a point where she wasn’t really doing what she wanted to be doing. She was just waiting for that “someday.”

If you want to find your purpose, figure out what you’re passion about. Ask yourself questions like:

• “What can’t I help doing?”
• “What do I want to see more of in the world?”
• “What do I want to see less of in the world?”

Sometimes it’s easier to start with what you don’t want to do, then narrow down to what you DO want to do :) Use your findings to position your agency (and yourself) for success. When you’re working on something that moves and inspires you, it also empowers you to be successful.

Bottom line is, you do not need big agency experience to be a successful owner. My best advice is to stay in the game of learning. Stay on top of trends and technology and avoid being viewed as a commodity by your clients by continuing to take your level of knowledge and service up a notch.

No matter what your size, there are five levels of agency service - check out another interview about them here. Comment below and tell me which level of service you provide? Which one are you be striving for?

Building Your Agency

I have more than likely experienced all if not most of the different struggles an agency owner experiences through my own experience and I can help you from what I learned. I have covered many topics from what to do with your sales processes to improve them, how you can increase your agency profit margins or how you can build authority for your agency.

I have the best ways for your business to stop losing money on projects, how performance based pricing models can be the best strategy for your agency and why including remote teams or freelancers in your team can be beneficial in the long run.

Learn more about my career as well as tips, tricks and insights by checking out my blogs that cover a wide variety of topics.

Find more from my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my Youtube channel. There you will find advice from myself and other agency experts.

Do you know how to ensure you are guaranteeing leads for your business? If you are struggling with this as well as growing your team or how to prevent time lost to bad clients, this episode of Ask Swenk is the one you need.

In this video, I’ll cover:

• What to do when a prospect wants you to guarantee leads.
• My #1 struggle in growing my agency team and 3 ways we overcame it.
• How to fire a terrible client so you can quit wasting time.

Guaranteeing Leads in a Proposal (0:23)

Lawrence asks:  "A prospect is asking for us to guarantee the number of sales leads our digital marketing will create -- which is impossible and could change over time. How would you go about putting this into the proposal?"

Don’t shy away from guaranteeing performance! Take pride and back your work.

I have NO issue with guaranteeing leads... DO IT! But, you cannot guarantee sales. Lead generation in your control, converting leads and the sales process is not.

3 steps to guaranteeing leads:

1. Determine a very specific criteria for qualified leads. Be very definitive on what a quality lead looks like.
2. Look at similar, past clients as a benchmark for your past performance.
3. Establish compensation at both a fixed level and performance level. For example, you get paid “X” rate for deliver “X” fixed amount of leads, and an additional “Y” rate for every lead thereafter.

Here’s an interview with an agency owner who runs his business totally on a performance-based pricing model. He has over a 50% margin and a 95% close rate. Talk about qualifying leads!

#1 Struggle of Growing My Team (2:22)

Christina asked:  "What were your biggest pain points in growing your agency from a just few people to more and how did you overcome them?"

The biggest struggle I had with growing my team was worrying about being able to afford them. Cash flow and making payroll was my #1 concern.

3 things that helped us overcome cash flow worries:

1. Project receivables. We looked for holes to forecast where cash flow would be an issue and then we could be proactive instead of reactive. We use these “holes” as deadlines to motivate the sales and leadership teams.

2. Change payment terms. We made recurring revenue (retainers) due upfront with incentives for prepayment for the entire contract period. Project payment terms changed to: 50% upfront, 25% due on a specific date or at a specific point in the project (whichever comes first), and 25% due upon completion or at a specific point in the project (whichever comes first).

3. Increase pricing. We increased our prices for both our existing and new clients. Once you make the decision on what agency you want to be, make the moves to act and charge like it.

Firing a Terrible Client (5:18)

Glenn says:  "We need to get rid of a terrible client. They're not taking the hint, so I need to formally drop them. A lot of thought went into this decision and they must go.  How would you go about it?"

Congratulations! I’m so proud that you’ve realized it time to get rid of this client.

I have a motto: There’s no such thing as a BAD agency client - just a bad prospect or bad process. It’s OK that your process let a bad prospect sneak it and it’s awesome that you’re ready to get rid of them. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Check the language in your contract to see how much lead to time you need in order to end the relationship. Abide by the contract at all costs.
2. Make a phone call, not an email and definitely not a text message, to talk to them. In the call explain that it’s not working out and that your need to sever the relationship.
3. End on good terms by giving them all their files and even a refund if you think it’s necessary.
4. Draw up a letter that details everything that was discussed on your call and all the assets you’ll be releasing to them. Send this letter to them USPS Certified so that you can prove it’s been received. And, keep a copy for yourself.
5. Consider setting up an introduction between your newly fired client and your biggest competition :) 

After it’s all said and done, forget it. Good riddance! You’ll notice a huge difference in your team and your culture when you eliminate this baggage.

In fact, take a look at the rest of your client roster. Are there other clients that are causing distractions or making it harder to become the agency you want to be? Quit wasting time on the wrong prospects and concentrate on the right ones.

Do you like this NEW  3 question format?

Give us some feedback below. And, make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel so you’re getting the newest video advice each week!

Build Your Agency

Now that you know how to improve on guaranteeing leads, growing your team and more, this may be only the tip of the iceberg. But don't worry, I have all you need to get through these obstacles.

I have covered topics from how to handle a recession or expanding your brand awareness with a social media community. Or maybe you want to know the four phases of growth within your agency and want extra help in easing through agency growing pains? I have all the information you need to help you through it.

You can learn more about my life and my experience as well as lots of tips, tricks and insights by reading our blogs that cover a wide variety of topics.

If videos are more your thing, don’t worry, i’ve got you covered! You can check out more from my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my Youtube channel. There you will find advice from myself and other agency experts.