Agency Lead Generation: Build the System vs Working the System
An agency owner explains why building repeatable lead generation systems beats hustling for clients one at a time. Focus on a specific audience, understand their pain points, and use leverage so you're not the bottleneck.
Today here on Agency Vision, we're going to dig into agency lead generation, building systems versus working systems. And how do you discern where you should be spending your time as you're trying to do the most important thing, which is bring new business into the agency? Because without a steady flow of prospects and a steady flow of new business, the business is basically stagnant. And if it's stagnant, it's dying, because clients are not going to stay with you forever. So systems thinking. How can we approach this process with the mindset that says, like, how can I do something once and then never have to think about it again? I think it's easy to picture, like a mechanical system, like an assembly line to look and see how does one part move to the next and that move to the next and visualize how those types of systems can operate. But it's harder to picture more of, like a human centric system where there's people and people are the moving pieces. And it's easy for us. And I'm guilty of this myself. I see this all the time. Whether it's working with customers inside of our accelerator program, or if it's on strategy sessions, or if it's on podcast interviews, I see this all the time. Where we overestimate what we can deliver. We underestimate the complexity in what we're offering. But as agencies, we're building incredibly complex systems. And the more complex the system, the greater the likelihood that something is going to fall through the cracks. So when we think about the lead generation, the engine that fuels the business, what are the consistent systems that we can put in place that what are the consistent inputs that we can put into place that fuel that growth, that drive that thing forward? And so the number one question I want to start with here is how do we create those regular inputs into our agency sales process, that regular stream that fuels the entire operation? How does that even happen? How do I spend my day, the hours that I have in my day, because we all have the same amount of time. How do I maximize that time input so that we're growing our agency? What do I do to make that happen? Because I talk to people all the time that are doing things that are just a complete waste of time and the business is struggling because the owner's focus is diluted and it's not spent doing the right things that they need to do. So how do you create this regular input into the sales process? The answer is fourfold. One, audience. Two, pain. Three, your proven process. And four, a leveraged business model. Those four things together, we call this the agency profit maximizer. When you bring all of these things together, it's not just pick a niche, it's not just pick a service. It's not just go out there and work a system. It's bringing all four of these things, fusing them into one, that gives you the clarity and the direction to know exactly who you help, to know exactly what they're feeling. What's the pain, the costly pain that they're stuck in right now? Because when we don't want to get caught in the game of solving un costly pains, there's a lot of us in that spot right now. It's not hard for someone to find someone else to build Facebook ads for them. It's not hard for someone to go find someone else who can build a website for them or even build simple apps for them. That kind of stuff is commoditized. What we want to figure out is what's the costly pain that they're stuck in that they can't get out of right now? And how can I craft a custom, proven solution that gets them from pain to. To pleasure? How do we as a team orchestrate that transformation? Build one experience in leveraging all of our knowledge, leveraging all of our skills and deliverables, tactics, technology, industry experience, past careers, bring it all into one awesome experience that gets them out of where they're stuck and to where they want to go. And then fourth, how do we build a business model that makes sure that we're compensated and we're paid with well for that journey? Once we have those four pieces in place, this allows for your clear messaging. This allows you to test the market and see, like, what do they really need? Because we don't want to operate on assumptions. We've got to be able to pivot, pivot fast. And this allows you to close bigger deals when you're in this spot. Because when you're anything to everybody, you'll do anything for any type of business. You're a commodity at that point. When you go through this agency profit maximizer process, you put these four pillars in place. Now you're at a spot where you can charge a premium for what you do because the value that you deliver is exponentially higher than what you were doing before. The worst thing you can do for agency lead generation is to go out and just beat the streets. Without this focus that our bodies, our mindsets as entrepreneurs, we can only take so much rejection, so much frustration, so many five call sales processes that don't end up going anywhere. And when you're trying to do anything for everyone, that's not uncommon. You know, how many just business lunches or networking events can you go to before you just pound your head against the wall and say this is not working? What do I need to do differently? You need clarity where you're trying to go. You need to be able to say heck no to 99% and heck yes to the 1%. That's when you really jump forward. This is a gift to you. This is people. There's fear tied up in this. We could do a whole series on the fear that you feel jumping into this, but go there. This is a gift. One of our clients put it this way, that narrowing their scope actually broadened their reach. And now these guys have it's a three month waiting list to start working with this agency. Because they did this work and they went through the agency profit maximizer process. They're selective now. They've got a steady flow of folks coming in. So this focus is an absolute game changer with this clear messaging. You test faster, you pivot faster, you close those bigger deals and, and that steady stream of prospects is what you need. The best way to get them is to say no to 99%. Next question. How do I attract people to me? Once I've done that, how do I attract those leads to me? Because you probably know this. There's a massive difference in a sales call between someone who has applied to speak with you and someone that you're chasing down to see what do you need? Is there anything that you do that I could help with? It's all a positioning game. We want leads coming to us that see that we offer a solution that we understand before we even talk to them, that they get where I'm coming from. They felt my pain from what I've read, what I've listened to, what I've watched. They're thinking my thoughts before I think them. They know the thoughts that I don't share with anybody else. How do we get to that? How do we get to that point? The answer is create a standardized process and work that process. If any of this, like if you're, if you're overwhelmed by this, you're not sure how any of this works, you can go to zenpilot.com casestudy it's case-study and you can learn exactly how we walk agencies through this process. There's a free video there that shows you how that whole thing works. Zenpilot.com case study you can See how all that works. But what you want, what you want to avoid here is just random acts of marketing. Those random acts, they can kill, they can kill you the way you market your agency, because they're just draining, they're diluting. Your focus is a massive asset as a business owner. It affects your ability to creatively solve problems. It affects your ability to look at chaos and see opportunity. If your focus is diluted across many different types of marketing and sales methods systems, you're going to become drained. If you're consistently speaking with prospects out there that you know are, that need different things that are pulled in different directions, you're not, you're not humming on all cylinders, man. You're just not, you're not in a place of control, you're in a place of reaction and not decisive decision making. So you can't build that consistent business by switching up the deliverables all the time. That just leads to like banging your head against the wall over and over and over again. You gotta, once you've gone through that, those four pillars, that's when you can build the simple system and just work it over and over again. And so instead of trying like 15 different platforms, 15 different types of doing things, just pick one, master it, whatever it is. If it's podcasting, Great. If it's LinkedIn outreach, great. If it's doing live webinars, great. Find that one thing and just focus on running that one thing over and over again until you earn the right to try the second, to try the third, to try the fourth. You've got to apply focus to that one thing. Build the simple system and work the simple system. That's it. Show up. Work that thing that works. What you'll find if you audit your time is that you're trying to do a lot of different things. Average jack of all trades, master of none. And what we want to do is think about the business in business model wise. That's first step. How can I narrow down what I'm doing? Apply it to a singular point with focus. Get all my momentum behind that one point. Step one. Step two, then how do I show up every day and just work that system? That's going to be a game changer. So two things to remember after this rant. Number one, systems require consistent inputs. How do you create consistent inputs into your agency sales process that feeds your agency delivery process? You walk through that agency profit maximizer matrix. One, pain two, one audience. Two, the pain that that audience is feeling. Three, the proven process that solves the pain and four, the leveraged business model that makes sure you get paid for that. That's step one. Step two, simple systems worked over and over again are best. 90% of this game, guys, is just showing up and doing the work, focusing your attention, getting the distracted shiny object syndrome out of the out of the gate. Ignore that. Do the simple things. Just show up every single day and make it happen. If you can, eliminate 80% of the distraction when it comes to your agency lead generation, focus on the simple systems and just run them over and over again and you speak to a specific group of people, it's going to change the game.
