Stop working 12-hour days!

Before we jump into today's episode, let me ask you a really quick question. Did you swap your 9 to 5 job when you worked in your previous company to start your own agency to find yourself working 24. 7 in your new agency? Well, that's a position that a lot of people find themselves in and I want to dig into why this happens and what you can do to avoid it. So no matter where you are on your agency journey, whether you're planning to start your own agency, whether just starting out as a freelancer, or whether you've been running your agency for a number of years, this episode is going to dig into helping you take control so you don't end up working 24. 7 in your agency for a much tougher boss than you had when you were in your last full time job. So that's what we're talking about today. And let's get on with the show. I'm Rob Da Costa and this is the Agency Accelerator Podcast. As someone who has stood in your shoes, having started, grown and sold my own agency, I know just how it feels in the ups and downs of agency life. So this podcast aims to ease your journey just a little by sharing mine and my guests experiences and advice as you navigate your way to growing a profitable, sustainable and enjoyable business. Now before we dig into today's content, I want to share some really exciting news with you. I'm going to be running a live series of masterclasses in mid to late September aimed at agency owners and it's titled how to be the CEO of your agency or rather than a lowly paid employee. And I'm going to share with you three strategies to elevate your role and to start building an agency that's less dependent on you, I. E. A self running agency. So do check that out. You can just head over to dacostacoaching.co.uk CEO Masterclass and you can save your seat there. And of course I will put that link into today's show notes as well. So let's just cast our minds back to why we started our own agency. And again, if you're listening to this and just thinking about starting your agency, then there's some really wise words from us more experienced people who have been running our agency for a number of years. Basically, I guess we thought we could do it better. We wanted more control over our own destiny and the types of work we did. We wanted flexibility in our life and we probably wanted freedom. Whether that be financial freedom ultimately or freedom to pursue other interests or Freedom to only work a certain amount of time. Those are the reasons that we started our agency. Yet there's always this kind of contradiction here as well. Because the other reason why most people start an agency is because they want control. Because they felt like they didn't have control in their previous job. Maybe they didn't like the direction of the of the company they work for, or they didn't like the projects they worked on. So they start their own business because they want some control. Yet sometimes the need for control comes at the expense of flexibility and freedom. And of course, we are kind of quite ego driven owners of businesses, I think, and we all think that we know better. I certainly did when I started my agency. And that ends up meaning that we end up having our fingers in all sorts of pies. And that means that we work on all the client accounts. And of course the clients see us as the most important person in our agency, so they want us on their account as well. And this leads us to being stuck on the client side. Service hamster wheel of doom. I've spoken about this many times before, where you're so busy, stuck in client service mode that you have no time to breathe, no time to take weekends, and certainly no time to plan for the future of your agency. So then fast forward a bit of time and we start hiring some staff. And of course the first staff we hire are usually more junior people because that's what we can afford. Or we might hire a VA or some remote workers. But as that evolves, if that's the strategy that we'll keep following, then there becomes a big gap between you and the rest of your team. And of course that explains why clients want you on their account. And of course also all the team members are looking to you to give them guidance and advice and set strategy and so on. So again, we are more stuck in our business working this 247 kind of mentality rather than the 9 to 5 that we used to have in our old job. And we probably look back on our old job and we kind of yearn for that a bit because Instead of working 9 to 5, we're now working 8 to 8. And you're working for a much harder boss than the one you had in your last full time job. Now I'm sharing all of this from a position of experience because these are all things that I went through when I ran my agency for 11 years. And they're also mistakes that I made and mistakes I see other agencies make. Indeed, they often call me and then when they're at this point because they want some help to kind of unpick this and put some strategies and foundations in place to change this, which is what I'm going to share with you in this, this episode. So when I started my agency, I ran it on my own almost as a freelancer for the first year. And then I took on a business partner in year two. And then fast forward a year and we hired our first full time member which was an account executive. And we grew the agency that way. And like many people, we developed our team internally to grow them and we had some great success stories with that. But ultimately we needed to start hiring more senior people when we could afford it. And the net result of this in the first few years is exactly what I'm describing. I was entrenched in every single client account. I was busy doing pitching, I was trying to market the agency, I was trying to build all the internal structures to make sure we didn't fall over and obviously keep developing our offering. So you are really wearing many, many hats. And I definitely wasn't working nine to five, I definitely was working this kind of eight to eight type of job job. And it was knackering. If I'm honest with you. I'm sure a lot of you can relate to this. Certainly with the 350 plus agencies I've worked with over the past 16 years as a coach and mentor, I've seen that exact cycle time and time again. And it isn't surprising because obviously as I said in the early days, we can't afford a lot, we don't want to take too many risks, so we can't afford to hire amazing people. So we hire junior people and this big gap exists between you and the rest of them. So I thought it would be a really good idea to share with you what some of my clients have done to start building their own self running agency that is an agency that's less dependent on them. And I just jotted down a bunch of random thoughts of the commonalities between what they're doing to be able to start stepping away and be less involved in every aspect of running their agency or even get to a point where they're only working one or two days a week in their agency, which is completely possible. And some of my clients have done it. So it all starts by having a really clear business plan. You need to know where you're going, you need a roadmap for your agency so that you can assess where you are on that roadmap and what your Focus needs to be next. And then once you start having a team, you need to communicate that plan to the rest of the team, because you want them to buy into that journey, you want them to be excited by the destination, and you want them to support you on the roadmap to getting to that destination. The next thing that a lot of successful agencies who are trying to extricate the owner from the agency does is they hire people to plug that gap that I've been talking about between you and the rest of the team. So they have a mentality from day one of hiring absolutely the best they can afford, rather than kind of cutting corners and hiring a very junior person. Yes, of course you're going to hire junior people and develop them, but that can't be your only strategy. So successful agencies hire the best people they can possibly afford, and that is dictated by the business plan and the roadmap that they've created. Then of course, what they do is they invest the time in training their team to be fantastic client managers. So obviously that means delivering fantastic work to the clients, but it also means managing them, learning how to say no, learning how to push back, and learning how to make sure that it is a balanced partner, partner relationship. So that's the third point that successful agencies implement, is great training for their team. Now, the next thing you need to do is put your SOPs in place or your standard operating procedures, so that you're documenting exactly how, for example, you service clients, how you onboard a client, how you run an internal appraisal, how you recruit, and so on. So they start documenting all of this because it creates a platform for growth. And if we have these SOPs in place, then we can scale much more easily. And from a client delivery perspective, we can ensure that every client is getting a consistent experience associated with our brand, no matter who's working on their account, which is super important. And when you have this in place, it becomes easier to have other people servicing clients and convincing your customers that they don't need you on their account. Now, the next thing successful agencies do, as soon as they possibly can afford to, is they hire a really great marketing person. Now, I think hiring a marketing person is a much safer bet than trying to find a business development person, because if you get your marketing sorted, then you're going to have a consistent flow of ideal target customer leads coming into your agency, which you can then focus on converting into loyal clients. So the next thing they do is hire a really great marketing person who can not only deliver a marketing plan and knows all about the latest marketing trends, but actually can put that plan together as well. So that's point five, hire a great marketing person. Then the next point is really hand in hand with that, which is to put a solid marketing system in place. Now I'm all about scalable, repeatable systems. Because if you have these systems in place, it makes it easier to plug people in to deliver that system. It mitigates your risk a bit of having one person who has all the knowledge in their head and if they decide to leave, you're kind of screwed. So putting a marketing system in place is really smart. And another smart thing to do is to focus on a few marketing tactics and do them consistently, consistently, consistently and do them really well. That is so much better than trying a bit of this and that because this seems like the latest shiny new object and it doesn't work. And of course, as you know, one of the non negotiable parts of your marketing system will be to build your email list. And that should be your number one priority because it is from nurturing your list that you will find these ideal target loyal clients. So that's the next point, point six, which is to put a solid marketing plan in place. And then point seven is to create a senior leadership team as soon as you possibly can and start delegating aspects of the business plan to those guys to take some weight off of your shoulders. So the senior leadership team will be in charge of creating and delivering the business plan and also delivering the components of the business plan which are like working on your agency tactics rather than in your agency. And they don't all to fall on your shoulders. So even if you are creating a senior leadership team which is you and maybe your coach like me or a non exec director or one person in your agency, then you want to get into the habit of having your monthly meeting and starting this as soon as possible and making sure that that senior leadership team monthly meeting is completely focused on the strategy or the future of your agency and not operational discussions. And then the last point which kind of ties all this together is that when you are able to do all of what I've mentioned, you're able to focus on your superpower. That is the things that you as the agency owner are really best placed to do. And you can start to delegate the rest because you now have a team or you can automate, or you have a system in place. So focus on your superpower and as the agency owner that normally looks like being the figurehead for the agency, it normally looks like being a big part of setting this strategy for your agency. It will look like business development and going on those meetings and closing the deals and presenting the proposals and pitches. And it will also look like potentially getting involved in some client work, but at a strategic level where you are setting the strategy rather than delivering the content. So those are eight steps that you need to start implementing to start extricating yourself from your agency and becoming an agency that is self running. And as I said, when I look at my clients that have achieved this, those are the things that they are focusing on that are making a big difference. So I hope that's giving you some good food for thought. It's really important to remember that when you run your own business, you don't have to be tied to it. Working 12 hour days, that might feel like the only option you have, but it doesn't have to be that way. So if you start to implement the eight ideas that I've gone through, you're going to start taking steps to extricating yourself from the day to day and building your own self running agency. Now I'm going to be digging into this topic in a lot more detail and helping you with some other ideas in my masterclass which I mentioned at the beginning of the episode. So please do make sure you've registered. Just head over to dacostacoaching.co.uk CEO Masterclass and save your seat. It's live so I'll be there to answer your questions. And we're going to be digging into three kind of key mistakes that people make and three strategies you can implement to start stepping into that CEO role and building an agency that's less dependent on you, that is your own self running agency. So I hope to see you on the masterclass and of course as ever, if you found this episode useful, please do consider leaving a review. I've even put a video into the notes below to show you how to leave a review on Apple. And of course please do share the episode with your colleagues. The more people that listen to this podcast, of course, the more people I can help. So other than that, have a great rest of your week and I will see you next week for the next episode of the Agency Accelerator Podcast.