How to Pivot Your Agency to Success with Blake Imeson
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In this episode of Inbound Agency Journey, Gray interviews Blake Imeson from LimeCuda about building his WordPress agency, how to work with better clients, and developing your expertise.
After cutting his teeth in online marketing during an internship in college, Blake started LimeCuda. Since starting his agency 7 years ago, Blake and his team have made several big pivots as the agency grew that have kept them profitable and successful.
Here are the big takeaways from the interview.
Find Your Ideal Client
Like most young agency owners, Blake idealized entrepreneurs, and small business owners. This was the market he was set on serving.
However, as anyone who has worked with small business owners knows, they are hard clients!
After 3 years, Blake decided he needed to move up to corporate clients if he wanted to make his agency more successful. Corporate clients have fewer budget issues, and you’ll find yourself pulled in as a consultant rather than just a vendor.
With lower stress, more profitability, and finding niches to serve, Blake was able to grow his business faster than ever.
Sell A Product
Blake and his team realized that it would help to have a recurring revenue stream built into the business.
They decided that hosting was a service they could offer.
Early on, they priced their offer as the cheapest options in the market. But, they quickly realized how much more they value they were adding than their competition and restructured their price.
Having a product to sell, especially one that is recurring, will keep cash coming in independent of closing new deals.
Partner with Experts
With early website clients, they’d see other needs as well and start selling those as well.
However, they saw that this wasn’t the core strengths of their team.So to still provide this service, they began partnering with others.
They narrowed down to what they wanted to focus on and deliver and let others do the rest.
They take strategy lead, determine needs, focus on their strengths and hand off the rest of the marketing.
Improve Your Sales Process
Starting off selling was difficult for LimeCuda as they got off the ground. They wanted to make sure the sales process was aligned with finding top quality clients.
They focus on a lot of vetting up front and then use price anchoring to help close larger contracts.
There’s also the when needed to be more confident and sharing what you can do and not come across as arrogant of cocky.
Another piece they use when selling is to offering different price levels buckets for a variety of offerings.
When closing a prospect, it’s a way for them to pick budget they want as well as offerings as well. It’s surprising how many clients when presented this way will choose the highest priced option.
Stay tuned for next week for Part 2 of our interview with Blake!
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