Top 5 Lessons Learned from 70 Agency Owner Interviews

In this episode of Inbound Agency Journey, we play Andrew’s speech from INBOUND16 discussing the top lessons he’s learned running this podcast. 

Here are the five lessons and an extra.

Begin with the End in Mind

If you’re starting an agency, make sure you have an end in mind. It’s easy to get caught up in the day to day and lose the vision for what got you started.

Break down what you want in life that building an agency will provide and where you want to go with your agency. What your business will look like. Get this set up for yourself.

You need to do the hard work of figuring this out. You can’t expect the rest of your team to buy into a vision if you’re unsure.

Then move from here with this clear example and direction getting your team on board. Then, figure out a way to implement this process. You need to decide on the organizational chart, how you solve problems, what’s the goal, and how you run things. A useful example of this is the EOS.

You need to lead by example and set the course for your agency.

Process Documentation is Key

We always hammer this home, but documentation is the key to building a business. To get started, list out every deliverable you do as a team. Define what these look like, how they work, if it’s worth doing.

This is a useful conversation for your business. It will help you uncover what’s working and what’s not, and the exact problems that occur when creating and delivering these solutions. Be sure to collaborate with your team when you do this. This will give them a sense of ownership. Be open to insights from others to hear if there are better ways to accomplish a project.

Have an overarching view by breaking things into piece sand milestones with tasks in between.

Treat Yourself as Your Best Client

Learn how to spend time marketing yourself. Establish what direction you’re going and your unique differentiation from other agencies.

Set aside time to market yourself even if it’s a couple hours a day or week. Focus on the building of your business. Take the deliverables you use for clients and use for yourself.

By treating yourself as the best client, you get pickier about leads, have better results, attract better customers and have much less stress.

You go above and beyond for clients, apply the same mindest to your own business.

The Client Isn’t Always Right

This is an important lesson that agency owners need to learn. You were hired for one of two reasons. To be a “yes” man and do exactly what the client tells you to do, or for your expertise and execution to improve their business.

Being willing to push back on clients is important and will build trust. You need to make sure they’re a good fit first and if they aren’t, don’t be afraid to say no.

Also, be aware of what you need as the agency, what’s required from the client, and set expectations early on. This should be happening in the sales and marketing process when you’re nurturing leads. You need to be establishing expectations.

Agency Culture Doesn’t Happen by Accident

Healthy agency cultures don’t just happen. You need to work to curate this.

You won’t always have you and a small team if you want to manage 50 clients.

You need to always be nurturing relationships with ideal fits and be willing to fire those who aren’t.

If you want to build a happy and profitable agency, you need to work hard to create and build the culture with the right people in the right seats .

Doing this will make the journey of building your agency much more enjoyable.

Make the Journey Personal

This is your life and your business.

Make sure you’re pursuing your bigger picture and make it about the life you want. Don’t do it because everyone else is or do things that way. Building a business is tough.

Be willing to get help.

Give it your twist.

Own it. 

Work to continue improving.

Don’t get discouraged.

Invest in yourself.

And most importantly, keep moving forward!