Increase Agency Revenue 4X in One Year With 2 Strategies with Zach Williams | Ep #152

Want to learn how to increase agency revenue four times over? Or are you having trouble finding your agency's nice and the best sales process for you? Don't worry, this week's Smart Agency Master Class has you covered.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• 2 strategies that helped increase agency revenue & client list in one year.
• How to select your ideal niche to succeed.
• How to create a sales process that keeps your pipeline full.

 

This week’s podcast guest is my client, Zach Williams who is the definition of crushing it. At his agency Venveo, the client roster has quadrupled year over year, the pipeline is full, sales cycle is shorter and conversion rate is higher. Learn all the strategies Zach and his team are using for such huge success and increase agency revenue.

Zach got his start creating websites at the age of 16 and continued to do it as a freelancer through college. It’s all he’s known, so starting an agency seemed like the natural next step. They grew organically for several years with referrals but hit a plateau where they spent two years. That’s when Zach searched for something to help get them beyond that plateau in order to scale… and found me :)

 

Strategies to Increase Agency Revenue

Strategy 1 - Focus on a Specialty

WHAT: Focus on a specialty where you can position yourself as an authority.

Venveo is a digital agency specializing in building manufacturing materials but they weren’t always in that niche. In fact, Zach says they had no niche - just another “me too” agency promising they could do everything for everyone. It took him awhile to understand this was the one thing holding them back.

HOW: Stop worrying about what could go wrong and think about what could go right.

Zach said the biggest thing was getting over the initial fear of turning work away and figure out what space you can make yours. Most people fear specializing because they think they will be turning off potential clients. Zach says he learned the opposite is true. When you are aiming at a specific target you have a better chance at hitting it.

It was a tough decision but Zach says he explains it as being the intersection between what you love, what you’re good at and what people need and described it like this Venn diagram:

It’s a stressful decision and once it was made there was a ton of pressure for it to work. Patience is key. It took 1.5 - 2 years for it to feel like selecting this niche was the right move. Zach's advice is to stay the course.

Strategy 2 - Focus on a Sales Process

WHAT: Focus on a sales process for new client acquisition to keep your pipeline full.

New client acquisition is super important to the health of an agency. When Zach started focusing on a sales process he noticed a tremendous impact on his business. Agency clients quadrupled year-over-year.

HOW: Create an irresistible Foot in the Door offer to attract new clients.

Most agencies want to go after the big, high-ticket projects right off the bat. But using a foot-in-the-door offer as a lower-priced, smaller commitment is the way to go. Getting a chance to show your awesomeness in a small way will lead to bigger projects. This gives the client an opportunity to test you out AND gives you the chance to filter out bad prospects with a smaller engagement instead of a huge one.

Have trouble figuring out your Foot in the Door offer? Here's a video all about it. Keep in mind, this is not a “paid proposal”. When you’re deciding on your offer it needs to be something that is valuable and packed full of information. This is bigger than a proposal because it’s your first opportunity to ‘wow’ them. Some ideas might be: a discovery session or audit, a competitive analysis, or an analytics setup.

Beware of these 3 common Foot in the Door mistakes:

1. Over promising. A great Foot in the Door is easy to understand and simple to deliver. After learning this lesson the hard way, Zach’s approach is to set expectations low and knock it out of the park with delivery.
2. Lack of confidence. Remember you are an expert in your field and you see things other people don’t see. Something that might seem very basic to you could be highly valuable to prospects.
3. Not building the relationship. People buy people. The Foot in the Door is your opportunity to build a relationship with a potential client. Work closely and develop a rapport. And for sake - do not send them the finished product - present it.

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What Do You Do When You Have Your Ideal Clients?

When you increase agency revenue, you are both opening your business up to new opportunities as well as potential downfalls. This is why it's best to be prepared and be aware of other areas of your business you want to improve. Through evaluating other areas of weakness within your agency, you can create a better business and improve as an agency owner. And the best thing about it is, I can help you get through all of it.

I can give you support and advice on many topics from what to do when you want to speed up sales processes, ways to increase your business profit margins or how you can build an authority for your agency.

Growing your agency can be a major struggle for any agency owner and I can show you the different phases of growth you will experience, how placing a process for performance based pricing can be the best pricing strategy for your business, and the three questions you need to ask yourself to sell more!

Learn 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 me and other agency experts.