Growing Your Agency in These Challenging Times

Welcome to the latest episode of the Agency Accelerator Podcast. I hope you are doing well in these crazy times and at the very least, enjoying the sunshine. Now, in today's episode, I want to talk all about growing your agency in these challenging times. And I know that might feel like a bit of a strange topic, but rest assured, you can be growing your agency right now and you need to be thinking about the future, not just operating in survival mode if you want to come out the other side of this in some form of decent shape. So let's get on with today's episode. Accelerate your agency's profitable growth with tools, tips and value added interviews with your host agency owner and coach, Rob DaCosta. So today I want to talk to you all about growing your agency during these challenging times. Now, you may be sitting here listening to this and thinking, well, I'm just trying to survive. I can't think about growth. And whilst I appreciate that, I want to share with you five really pragmatic things that you can be doing in your agency right now that will serve you well now and will also set you up for when we come out the other side of these challenging times. Now, I've seen two types of company during this crisis. The first kind of has decided to sit it out. They've furloughed or laid off as many staff as they can and they're hoping that they can weather this storm so when we get back to normal they can kind of pick up where they left off. And the second kind of company has been galvanized into action, has really pivoted their business or suggested to their clients how they can pivot their businesses. And they've supported their clients through this process and therefore they've retained them in some form or another. Now you need to be the second kind of company. As a smaller agency, we should be able to be much more nimble. So we need to be that second kind of company. And to do this, we need to be communicating with our clients a lot more frequently and we need to make sure that we're listening and serving them. So let me share with you my five thoughts around things that you can do. And the first tip I want to talk about is really using this time to talk to your clients, to listen to them and to make sure that you are serving them them with the things that they really want and the things that they really need. Now, we all like to think that we know our target audience well and armed with this knowledge, we create ourselves a marketing content and we start selling. But my question to you is how well do you really know your target customers? Now, hopefully, if you've been following me, you'll have done some work on defining your ideal target customer or your customer avatar. And I'll include a link in this podcast to my workbook on step by step guide on how to create your customer avatar. So if you haven't done that, please go and grab that free workbook and start to define your target customer. That gives you some sense of who they are, what their job title is, what kind of business they work in, what a day in their life looks like, what some of the challenges that they need to overcome, that your product or service can help them with, where they find information and all that kind of stuff. So it really is valuable to have some kind of physical definition of an abstract concept which is your ideal target customer. But we can take this to the next level by talking to our customers more and learning more about the jobs that they're trying to get done and the pains that they have that they're trying to move away from and the gains that they're looking to achieve by getting that job done that your product or service can help with. Right now, there's never been a better time to talk to your clients because they're more likely to have the time and the inclination to spend 30 minutes discussing their businesses with you. So I think you should be doing some interviews. This is what I've been doing recently. And in those interviews, you want to identify the reasons why they bought from you, some of the objections or concerns they might have had when they bought from you. And you're ultimately trying to identify what jobs they're trying to get done by employing you or your product or service. So you want to identify, as I said, the pains that they have that they're trying to move away from and the gains that they want to achieve that they're trying to move towards. And what you're doing by carrying out a number of these interviews is you're looking for those repeating patterns. So if you could Talk to between seven and 10 clients, you'll be able to start to identify these patterns and also the kind of language that they use and the recurring themes that will inform the content that you produce, your marketing, the language you use on the website. And of course, it will also inform the products and services that you deliver. As I said, this is something that I've been doing recently, which is why I wanted to share it with you. And it is having such a big impact on the content I'm creating, not Necessarily that the content is wildly different from what I'd have created before. But I'm just making sure I'm using the language that I'm hearing when I'm talking to my customers, the language that they tell me, and I can use that in my content. And that is really resonating with my audience. And I'm getting really good feedback from people and higher open rates and so on. So that's my first tip, which is use this time to learn more about your clients. Go to the next level of not just defining your customer avatar, but actually talking to them and really learning about the pains and gains and the jobs they're trying to get done and the language that they're using and those reoccurring patterns that you can use to create future products and services and also inform the content that you produce. So the second thing I want to talk about is having a plan out. I mean, this is, you know, nothing groundbreakingly new. And really the five tips I'm sharing with you today aren't groundbreaking, which is why they're totally practical and things that you can start implementing. But every business needs to have a plan. And I appreciate that a lot of people have been in survival mode, so they can't think beyond the end of the month, let alone six months, a year, or even further into the future. But it's a fine balance between reacting to the ever changing needs today of your clients and your market and, and having half an eye on the future and having a longer term plan. And of course, you know, right now a longer term plan or a mid term plan is something that we're going to be reviewing a lot more frequently than we perhaps did in the past. When I work with my clients, we focus on first of all creating a vision which will be like three years, two years, one year. Then we'll take that one year plan and break it down into quarters, which looks like quarterly strategies. And then we'll take each of those quarterly strategies and break them down into monthly plans which are like your to do list for your business. And this is something you should still be doing, but you may well now also need like a weekly plan with clear metrics that you can take your monthly plan and break that down into. So again, I'll put a link into the show notes of a free weekly plan that you can use that I've been using with my clients that has proven to be really useful. So the message here is you still need your long term plan, you still need to be doing some long term planning, even if you don't know what the future looks like, you still need to have a methodology for taking that bigger picture and breaking it down into years, quarters, months. And now I'm suggesting being even more granular and breaking it down into weeks. And it's really important that you continue to have your working on the business time as well as working in the business. And as I say, I totally get that at the moment a lot of people are feeling like they're just trying to survive or things are changing on a week by week basis. So it's very difficult to have a longer term plan. And I get that. I'm just suggesting that as well as being being in that very reactionary now mode, you're also having half an eye on the future as well. So that's my second tip, which is have a plan and make sure you're allocating time to working on your business, not just being kind of crazy on the hamster wheel of working in your business. My third tip is pivot where necessary. Now, pivot is one of those annoying words that we're hearing a lot about in the business world right now. But what does it actually mean for you? So it means finding new ways to service your existing audience or, or finding a new audience. And for you, that might look like refining or amending or creating a new product or service, or looking for a slightly new audience or a combination of all these things. So what I found is that whilst I've had some of my bigger clients put things on pause, I've still been able to pick up some new clients who are perhaps engaging me for a shorter period of time or certainly putting shorter projects in place to start with. And people want to see results quickly. So we need to make sure that we are focused on measuring those outcomes. And we've clearly articulated at the beginning. Now, you don't want to be making the mistake that I've made in the past, and that is assuming that you know what your audience wants and needs. So you invest lots of time kind of creating a new product because you think, oh, this would be great. Like, for example, everybody is getting into the online world, so everybody's producing low cost products, or they're producing courses or membership sites or programs for their clients. And that's great, but you have to be careful that you don't think you know what your audience wants. So you invest a lot of time, energy and money into turning this idea into a product or service to only launch it to crickets. And if there were ever a time to implement my favorite expression, which is slow down to speed up, then this is it. You first of all, if you do have an idea, you need to go and test it and validate it with your audience before you start creating it and marketing it and selling it. And this is a process of refinement. So you have to talk to a small segment of your audience about your idea, get their feedback, refine the proposition, take that refined proposition out to the next group and rinse and repeat at least three times till you get to the point of knowing that you produce something that your audience wants. So that's pivoting in terms of producing a brand new product or service. But also when you talk to your audience, if you do that activity that I said in the first point about listening to your audience and learning more about them, you'll also be able to learn what they need and what they want at the moment so that you can amend your messaging and your product or service, pivoting it if necessary to better serve the audience. Right now. Now this is such an important topic that I've created a new ebook guide and some videos that take you on a step by step process, including templates for questionnaires and letters. So I'll put a link to that into the show notes as well. So that's my third point, which is pivoting your product or service where necessary, either by changing the product or changing how you deliver the product, or creating new products altogether. And the fourth area I want to talk about, which kind of encompasses all of what we've said so far, is the importance of being a good listener right now. Now, being a good listener is an art, and it's perhaps one that we all think that we're quite good at. But if ever there were a time to listen to your audience and hear the clues that they tell you about what they need from you, then now is that time. And of course, that's true for staff as well. You know, some staff are thriving working remotely because they're more introvert and they find it easier to communicate remotely. Other staff are really struggling. Those more extrovert staff who are used to constantly being around people and suddenly find themselves isolated at home. So you need to make sure that you are listening to the needs of your staff as well. But here I'm focusing more on clients. As I've already said, clients have got jobs to be done and they have certain pains about those jobs that you can solve and gains that they're looking to achieve. So by listening to your audience, you can identify this and as I've said earlier, you can market yourself against what your audience needs rather than what you have to offer. So that means looking at a website and your outbound communications, as I've already mentioned. But the point here is to make sure that you are a good, active listener, great topic, and one that you should Google and learn more about. So that's the fourth area, which is being a good listener. And as I said, that kind of covers everything that I wanted to talk about in this podcast because it impacts all of those areas. So the next area I want to focus on is getting the balance of your time right now. I've written quite a lot and spoken quite a lot about this in the past about how leaders of agencies need to allocate their time effectively. But right now, perhaps this is more important than ever whilst we're working remotely from home, which probably means working longer hours or having distractions such as kids at home and so on. So we need to be more disciplined and more structured with our time than ever. So if you want to drive the growth of your agency during these challenging times, then you need to make sure you're allocating enough time to work on the strategy for your agency. This includes everything to do with how you're going to earn money in the future. So a quick reminder here about how we can split our time. So basically, we split our time across these three pots, if you like. So number one is revenue. That's how you're earning money today. So this is everything to do with client projects and retainers that you currently are working on and everything that you already have in your books. The next area is strategy. So this is how you're going to earn money in the future. So this looks like business development, all your sales and marketing, the stuff that we've already spoken about. And then the third area is admin, and this is everything that you do to run your business. It's usually a cost. So this is things like finance, HR invoicing, credit control systems and processes, all that kind of stuff. So no matter what kind of complicated labels we try to apply to our work, pretty much everything we do falls into one of these three categories, which is why I like this approach so much, because it's kind of simple. But while each of these areas matters, they don't all matter equally, and particularly not for you as the agency owner. Your time needs to be spent in a deliberate manner across these three areas to maximize your impact. So you want to be making sure that you're allocating the right balance of your Time across those three pots. Now, there's a tendency right now to be doing as much as we possibly can to keep our clients. Of course, that makes sense. So we're investing a greater percentage of our time in the revenue pot. But those agencies who are going to flourish and grow are the ones who are making sure they're getting the right amount of time in strategy and admin as well. So my advice to you is to work out what tasks you need to be doing in each of these three pots of revenue, strategy and administrative, and then making sure you're scheduling your day, focusing on delivering those tasks. There's a tendency, as I said right now to be really focusing on serving our clients, which because we want to keep them. So that probably looks like over servicing and it looks like really focusing on revenue. And I get that, that's of course so important right now. But if we don't have time put in that strategy part, then we're not going to be looking at the future. And that will mean ultimately that your pipeline's empty. And as clients that you have currently come to an end, you'll be looking at empty order book. So we need to make sure that we are allocating time to strategy. Now, I see people not doing the strategy piece sometimes because they're not really clear about what they should be doing with that time. So as I said, my suggestion to you would be to get three sheets of paper, write revenue, strategy and admin at the top of each, and then just start to make a list, a brain dump of all the tasks that fit under revenue. That's everything you're doing this month to earn money. Strategy. That's everything you're doing to earn money in the future. And then admin, which is the lifeblood or the cost that keeps your business going. So what you need to do is make a list and then think about how much of your time should you be allocating to each of those three pots. So we'll look something like, let's say 60% revenue right now, just making my sure matter right here, 30% strategy and 10% admin. And that's probably a good balance right now. Although for every business, of course, it's different. In normal times, I would make the revenue number lower because you should be allocating the revenue work to your staff. But I get right now we want to really serve our audience. So let's say 60% revenue, 30% strategy and 10% admin. So that means half a day a week on admin, 1 1/2 days a week on just again taking my maths here 1 1/2 days a week on strategy and then three days a week on revenue. And that seems a pretty good balance. Then when you come to schedule your day, are you getting those balances right? Are you looking at the sheets to say, okay, what are the tasks that I need to do in the strategy space to make sure that I'm keeping my pipeline filled for the future whilst also ensuring that I continue to serve my current clients. So that's a really important topic that I've talked about many times. This is not anything groundbreaking. It's just something that we should all be doing and it's really good practice to be mindful and aware of how we should be splitting our time. Otherwise we can just be busy fools or we can be really focused on the revenue and have no time in the strategy and then say our business will ultimately fall off a cliff. So the last point I want to talk about is marketing your agencies. Now, I've had lots of questions from my clients over the last few months about whether they should be marketing and selling in the current climate. They seem to be worried that if they send out content it could be seen as bad taste or feels inappropriate even when they know that their clients are struggling. But my response to this is a resounding yes, you should be marketing your audience, provided that you are continuing to serve them. And of course, one of the ways that you're going to achieve this is by applying the points that I made earlier in this podcast. Listen to your audience produce content that is truly adding value and truly is something that's going to resonate with them because you're using the language that they have used when you've spoken to them. The next point about this, perhaps the most important point I can ever say is I cannot emphasize enough the importance of building your email list. I put some social media posts about this last week that got loads of comments. So I just want to say it to you again. Consider this so do you know why ebay bought Skype? And just for your information, in case you're thinking I got that wrong, Microsoft then bought Skype from ebay. But do you know why ebay bought Skype? And do you know why Facebook bought Instagram? Well, it's not for the reasons that most people think. It was because of their subscriber list. So ebay wanted Skype's 54 million customers across 225 countries and Facebook wanted Instagram's 30 million users. I know of course there are other reasons why they bought it. But that access to that huge audience is one of the key reasons why they bought those companies and was the thing that made those companies so valuable. And the reason why that's important for you is because to consider that every email subscriber you have on your list can potentially earn you £1 per month from them. So if you've got a list of hundred people on your list, and that's £100amonth that you can potentially earn, and if you've got 10,000 people on your list, that's 10k a month or 120k a year. The other thing to think about, your mailing list, why this is so important is consider that you own your list. Whereas with social media you're borrowing their contacts on platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and so on. And this is a really important point because if you recognise that you're borrowing those names and suddenly one of them change the way they do things, you could lose that list completely overnight. So your goal with your social media posts should be ultimately to drive people to sign up to your list so that you own them and you're not at the behest of whatever the social media platforms decide to do in the future. Now, I've been discussing the power of email marketing for a long time and I encourage all my clients to make building their email list of potential buyers a central part of their marketing strategy. And I encourage you to do the same. And guess what? I've got an ebook all about how to go about doing this and what you need to do to communicate with your list. So I'll put a link again into that show into the Show Notes. It's a free guide, so it's worth grabbing that. So, okay, so if you buy into the idea that you should be building your email list, then you also need to consider about what you send that list. And this is really important here because you don't build an email list and just start sending them messages to buy your services because that's a very quick way for them to unsubscribe. So you need to make sure that you are nurturing your list because you need to take them through the know like trust sales funnel before they'll ever buy from you. Now I'm not going to go into too much detail because I recorded a previous episode on email marketing which is episode five. So go back and listen to that if you want lots of detail. But generally you should think about providing 80% value and really good content to your list that isn't about selling and then just 20% with you selling services. So that's your mailing list, but what else should you be doing? Well, obviously you can't go to physical networking events, but you can get online and there are lots of virtual events and virtual summits going on. And the key here is to hang out in places that your ideal target customer hangs out, and your research again will tell you that. Also, think about how you can use LinkedIn to make connections and build empathy with those connections, which is obviously particularly true if you work in the B2B space. I think LinkedIn is really our friend, but don't be one of those annoying people who sends out a connection request with a generic message and then immediately sends a sales message once they accept your connection, because that's a sure way of them ignoring you or deleting you as a connection. Okay, so I think that's me done. Those are the five key areas that I wanted to cover today. So just as a recap, the first area was all about using this time to learn more about your clients and go deeper beyond the ideal target customer. The second thing I talked about was the importance of having a plan for the long term, medium term and the short term and even shorter right now. The third area was all about pivoting where necessary. So that can be pivoting your messaging, pivoting your product, or pivoting to a slightly new audience. I then talked about the importance of being a good listener to achieve all that I've discussed today. Then I talked about the importance of getting the balance of your time right across revenue, strategy and admin. And the final thing I talked about was the importance of focusing on your market. So when times are tough we have to work extra hard and extra smart to find and win business. But trust me, business is still out there to be had. Now I run my coaching practice through through two recessions and now this current pandemic and I've lived by that belief and it has served me well. The key is to use your time smartly and get the balance right and have a consistent focus on sales and marketing whilst communicating with your audience in an empathetic way. And obviously keep serving your clients whilst at the same time filling your pipeline with eager potential future clients. So I hope this episode has been of use to you. Please check the links in the show notes because I've mentioned a bunch of ebooks and guides that are that you can get hold of that will help you and drill deeper into what we've talked about today. And of course please share this podcast with your colleagues so we can grow the audience. And I would love you to leave a review as well, because that helps the algorithm spread this podcast to a wider audience too. Till next week. I hope you have a good rest of the week and I will see you then.