3 Mistakes Agency Owners Should Avoid (to get more sales)

Transcription:

Hello and welcome to The “S” Word LIVE. My name is Renee Hribar, sales strategist, TEDx speaker, and author. And my goal today is to help you make sales simple and fun, especially if you are an agency owner. So as you may or may not know, I work with a lot of agency owners and I’ve seen some patterns over time, especially three big ones that I think you’re going to want to stay tuned and listen to. I mean, honestly, any agency owner that I’ve ever worked with has been so skilled and so amazing, oftentimes having years of experience. I mean, I wrote down literally I interviewed some of my clients and I’m like, tell me about all the things you’ve done, media buying, marketing, extensive marketing experience, both at a corporate level and, of course, through their own agency, data tracking, making sure KPIs are where they’re supposed to be, dashboard development, supply chain management. So many experiences that these clients have had before they started their own agency. And, you know, after working with me, they come to me thinking like, I just need help with sales. But after working with me, there’s a lot of different aha moments. And I want to share these three big mistakes that I see too many of them making. And these patterns, these mistakes, I hope will help you open your eyes, especially if you’re an agency owner to where you could be now. So if we haven’t met yet, I’ve been teaching sales since nineteen ninety-six.

I started out in Manhattan selling for some of the biggest telecom companies of the time that was SkyTel. And I’ve helped thousands of people sell for the first time. I’ve got a front row seat at helping business owners, specifically women in business, sell for themselves. And it’s so different selling for themselves than selling for someone else. In fact, many of my clients were in sales. They were selling other people’s services or products, and then they ventured off on their own, whether in consulting or agency work. And we meet. So you’re in the right place if you’ve ever thought you should make the sale, but you didn’t. So let’s dive in. The number one mistake that I see too many very smart, amazing agency owners make is that they don’t have a clear indoctrination process. So let me explain what this is. For example, I had one client who had a marketing agency, brilliant, had years of experience working in the nonprofit sector as a development director, raising millions of dollars. And she had this beautiful idea where she was able to have a podcast, invite other nonprofits, worthy and amazing nonprofits, and then have them easily connect with her. She shines the spotlight on them. She would do some marketing for them and then they would see the value. So this was a great idea and she’d been doing this for quite some time, making some great money. But she kept feeling like she was undercharging.

And honestly, she was. So we definitely at least we raised her rates immediately. Say hello if you’re live or on the replay and share this with an agency owner that you love. So when they say indoctrination process, I mean, say hello whether you’re live or on the replay. So share this with an agency owner that you love. These are massive three big patterns that I see all of the time with the agency owners that I work with, those that come to me to say I need help with sales. So once we worked on her indoctrination process, so from the time she invited them to be a guest on her podcast to the time when she would present to them the opportunity to do marketing for them as their agency, there wasn’t this set piece of shared information. Right. They weren’t educated sometimes on what marketing was was meant to do or how it could be done better or differently. So when we worked on this indoctrination process, between the time that she met them initially, in the time when she had a free consultation call, there was education. There was an email that went out that showed a client case studies. There were others shared documents about different data. Hey, when you do this, when you post three times on Instagram and your target audience is in Asia, here are the results that happened.

So she was able to share data, KPIs, specifics with them. So by the time they got on the call, they not only understood what her agency did specifically through examples, but they also had heard about her successes so that she was able to show them now, not if they needed marketing, but how this marketing with her would make a big impact. When that happened, she reported making over sixty thousand dollars extra in six months of our working together. She didn’t sell more necessarily, she just sold differently. She started her indoctrination process. So this is a writer down-er. This is number one of three. Second one is they haven’t named their signature system. I see this so often. They say, well, I don’t have a signature system. You know, I just I just do what I’m supposed to do. And so when they named their signature system, this one particular agency owner, I love this story. So she had been doing very signature unique processes. So a client would come in, she would check these very specific things about their business. She would make sure that they had these things in line and attention made to them. But she wasn’t calling it anything. And I gave her the analogy of bulletproof coffee. If you went around saying it’s just butter and coffee, you’re not going to get many takers. But when you call it bulletproof coffee, all of a sudden it becomes sexy and exciting.

Right. And so I said, what’s your bulletproof coffee? What’s the name of your system? Let’s name it. So she named it. I invited her to, encouraged her strongly to share it publicly on a livestream, and then share it to her email audience. And she did that and not twenty-four hours later, she got a message from someone who she was connected to and they had said, I love your signature system. I have a client. They already have a team. So they don’t need a marketing agency, but they need someone like you to come in and help them with exactly what you said that signature system, what did you call it again? Boom. She landed her first consulting agreement. So I remember her coming to me. Oh, my goodness. I’ve never consulted without going through my agency because the company that she was consulting that reached out, that was connected to this other person didn’t need an agency. They already had an internal team. They were a big company. And so she was able to charge double what she charges for her agency to do the marketing just for her brain, for her signature system. So she reported just last night that she had made over six figures extra from our work together in the past six months. This makes my heart happy because these are business owners. These are women business owners, agency owners that are doing good in the world, and they’re able to feel more confident and have a better system.

So number one have an indoctrination process. Number two name your signature system. And here’s the third mistake that so many agency owners make that I want you to avoid. Please share this with an agency owner that you know, this one here is they only sell to entrepreneurs. So they’re all fishing in the same pond as every coach, and they’re competing with business coaches and strategists and marketing strategists and consultants. And I’ll be honest, there’s a big pool out there. So this kind of leads into what I said with number two the agency owner who finally started consulting because she named her signature system, now knows that the pool for corporate clients is vast, in fact. Say hello as you join, whether you’re live on the replay. So that right there, that just is an indication. Eighty percent, a fact, you may not know, indication that most corporations outsource eighty percent of their special projects, specifically media buying. For example, I have a client who is a Facebook Ads Manager, runs a Facebook ad agency, very good at her job, hired by some of the best coaches online, entrepreneurs, to do work for them, typically at about two to four thousand dollars per month to do her work. Well, when we finally dipped into the corporate pool, she was blown away. I remember her messages to me saying, I can’t charge this.

I mean, I’m just giving them advice. And it’s my advice worth this. I’m like, yeah, your advice is worth this. So she ended up working with a restaurant chain and then they had twelve locations and they were in the process of getting purchased. So she signed a six-month agreement with them for forty thousand dollars just for consulting. They had their own internal team. They weren’t looking for an agency necessarily. They just needed her advice because they didn’t know the ins and outs of the Facebook Ad world like she did. This is what I’m talking about, my friend. So if you own an agency, please, this is just three of the biggest patterns and the biggest mistakes that I see all too often. And I don’t want you to make these mistakes. I want you to have an indoctrination process, have and name that signature system, and don’t just sell to entrepreneurs. Look beyond that. The world of corporate is not hard. When I sold to IBM, I didn’t sell to IBM. I sold to Bob right. When I was selling to big companies. You have to find your champion. I know how to do that. So if you’re looking to do this better or faster or stronger, you know where to find me. Click the link that goes with this video. And start the journey today, I’ll see you next week for another episode of The “S” Word LIVE.