by Rei Llazani, Co-founder & Head of Strategy at 50Pros
New clients are the lifeblood of any business.
Without new clients, any successful business or agency owner will tell you that it’s only a matter of time before the business perishes.
As the former CEO of IBM, Thomas Watson, said in the 1940s, “Nothing happens in business until something gets sold.”
As luck would have it, getting new clients also happens to one of the most difficult thing for any business, especially agencies - whether that be a software development, digital marketing, or branding agency.
Since we are agency brokers and have brokered millions of dollars for agencies & clients since launching in September 2022, we are providing this guide to help agency owners, managers, and leaders get more new clients.
It is duly noted that you are the one that knows your business best, but we hope these 5 practical strategies & tips help you just a bit.
In medicine, there is a well-known phrase “Prescription without diagnosis is malpractice”. Be sure to diagnose correctly before you apply any remedy. It could certainly be possible that a bigger issue your agency faces is not attracting new clients, but maybe retaining existing clients.
It is of course a colossal waste of time to allocate massive efforts, capital, and resources on generating new clients if many holes are present after the contract is signed (e.g. client wants out after 2 weeks due to lack of initiative or performance, poor communication, no clear path to continuous or retained services, no word of mouth referrals post-engagement, etc.)
Once you have a good grip on your agency business and you know that excellent results will be delivered to the prospective client, only then it is wise to go confidently & aggressively into the market and bring on new clients.
Math, data, and statistics tells us that most customers need to see or hear about a product/service at least 7 times before they buy in.
Develop and implement a concrete strategy to roadmap when/how a specific subset of clients will see & hear about your agency, and its services, at least 7 times. (And for goodness sakes, no, this does not mean message them on LinkedIn 7 times in a row).
Here is a tip written by Rei Llazani, 50Pros co-founder, on LinkedIn about this topic:
Let’s look at a general & hypothetical example, supposing we are a software development studio in Phoenix, Arizona.
Here is what you might do:
Again, this is an example and the actual touchpoints methods will differ from agency to agency. The point here though is to establish a 7-point system like this one because it simply works if it is done effectively.
Does it usually go this smoothly? Of course not. Many times, you won’t even get a response to touchpoint #1. However, you should experiment with what works best for you and your team. Mix and mingle the arrangement and work out a blueprint that works for you.
Importantly, if you want to scale your agency, build this process “infrastructure” so it can be effectively replicated over and over again by anyone on your team. Afterall, the true test of a good business is whether it can keep operating successfully after the founder has left.
How do you get prospective clients to actually talk to you?
Clients need to know three things:
The simple answer to demonstrating these three things - your competency, discipline to work hard, and the desire/care to work for them - is by putting in the work first and proving it - not with words but with concrete proof.
Invest time upfront in identifying potential weak spots; and provide a unique solution that is not cookie cutter. And, make an enticing offer as the cherry on top.
The point is for you to do the work, not the client to do the work. That means you should clearly articulate what happens exactly at each step of the process and how they benefit from it.
That is easier said than done, but broadly speaking, a massive objective for an agency is to eliminate any risk in the client’s mind. For instance, if you charge $10,000 for a specific service, your selling technique & messaging should focus on how that $10,000 investment will undoubtedly result in $50,000+ of new revenue for them.
Let’s look at an example of how we might approach a company’s leadership, using the same software development agency example from before:
Hi John, I hope all is well since we’ve last spoken. Would you be open to our team building & implementing a booking system for your company? I ask because the only way right now for your customers to book an appointment for AC repair is by calling the phone number you have on the website, but that usually prevents many people from proceeding (e.g. they drop off & get frustrated waiting on hold). If I needed AC repair for example, I’d probably go with a company that I can book quickly & easily in under 2 minutes.
I’m attaching a deck that shows you what the end result might look like.
We can do it for just $5k. I’ll show you how to manage the bookings too (super easy).
We’d really love to build this for you.
Sincerely,
ExampleAgencyTeam
P.S. 65% of websites nowadays are viewed on mobile phones. I mention this because your website on mobile view is super clunky (see screenshot), so we’re happy to clean this up for you while we do the booking system if you’re interested.
Why is this a good example? Simply put, it shows that we have diagnosed the problem and provided a proactive solution. The client is clear about the work you will produce, how it benefits them, and what it will cost them.
If we didn’t believe in brokerage two-sided marketplaces that connect buyers and sellers (like Uber, AirBnB, and Etsy), then we wouldn’t have launched 50Pros.
Are they magic pills? For some, yes, but for most - no. Nonetheless, getting on these platforms is one of many touch points you should be utilizing.
These platforms provide more than getting prospective leads, but also third-party credibility and prestige if you get awarded badges for top performance. For instance, you have probably seen the 50Pros “Top 50” badges on various agency websites to showcase their stellar ability to deliver results; as well as publishing press releases. For more ways on how to take advantage of this, read this article.
Here are the six we recommend getting listed:
Software companies love professional service agencies because they often distribute their software to agencies, but also all the agency’s clients.
This relationship is reciprocated to agencies too. If you partner with these software companies, they may be able to funnel new clients to you through their partnership programs.
Here are 10 examples:
Unless you are a big agency with over 100 employees, your best bet is to “niche in” your services. In other words, avoid saying “We do everything” and begin to carve out a particular niche that you can excel in.
When people hear “niche”, there is an unfortunate connotation with “small breadcrumbs” - we have seen from vast swaths of data that this is not the case. The more you niche in, the greater your returns and profitability as an agency will likely be.
An industry that does this well is the legal industry. With the exception of big law, you often see niche law firms: divorce, accident & injury, immigration, bankruptcy, etc.
With agencies, carving out a niche can take place in various forms, such as:
Of course, you can also combine those niches, but be cautious to not close down your TAM (total available market). For example, “white-hat SEO firm for a pharmaceutical non-profit company in San Francisco” is probably a pretty bad idea.
Pro tip: speaking of SEO, yes, you should have a landing page dedicated for each of these niche services. However, don’t create a 1,000 of a bunch of combinations because then you are going back to saying “We do everything” and clients will be able to smell that out easily.
We hope this guide was helpful!
The #1 tip of all is: do your absolute best in any project or job. The universal laws of reciprocity will work in your favor.
If you have a question, email us and our team is happy to help.
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