You’re too busy with client work? Congrats! But never stop selling and marketing; it will come back to bite you later, as a dry sales pipeline. See an alternate take, via prolific comedian Henny Youngman, the “King of One Liners.” Magical thinking won’t keep you meeting payroll and hitting your profit targets.
Does your agency sell marketing advice? Or business advice? Clients pay more for business advice. And they pay even more for business results. It’s all about packaging and positioning, to drive higher value… and thus higher prices. But if your packaging doesn’t reflect the value, you’ll have trouble charging a higher price.
Clients hire agencies because they trust the agency. They need to trust you to do good work when they’re not in the room, trust you to put them first, and trust that your fees are money well spent. Your contact at the client needs to trust that you’ll make them look good to their boss. See 13 ways to make this happen.
When Kenneth Cole launched his company in 1982, he couldn’t afford to rent a booth at the shoe industry’s big trade show. To stand out from 1,100 other shoe designers, he found a guerrilla marketing solution: set up a trailer on the street outside for three days, getting a permit in the guise of filming a movie. It worked! See how he did it.
When you get a LinkedIn request from a random person, should you connect with them? If you’re an agency owner, it comes down to your pipeline strategy. Feel like you’re too busy or your pipeline is too full to respond? That attitude will give you a dry pipeline in six months. See my step-by-step process for handling random LinkedIn requests.
Building strategic partnerships with other agencies can be a great way to grow. But how much of the end-client’s budget will you get? Let’s look at options, based on a hypothetical $100,000 web development project that you and another agency are doing. You can apply this technique for other work, too.
