What All Successful Agencies Have in Common: How to Separate from the Pack, With Tim Condon | Ep #692

Smart Agency Masterclass with Jason Swenk: Podcast for Digital Marketing Agencies

What sets high-performing agencies apart from their low-performing counterparts? How are you positioning your agency for success? Our guest today is a seasoned business executive with extensive experience in product marketing and sales leadership. In his current role, he collaborates with agencies and gains insights into what separates successful ones from the rest. Tune in to gain valuable perspectives on agency performance and growth strategies.

Tim Condon is the Chief Revenue Officer of Clutch, a one-stop-shop were businesses can identify leading service providers through an innovative research process that melds the best of traditional B2B research and newer consumer review services. He discusses the difference between high-performing and low-performing agencies and shares insights from working with professional services companies and marketing firms, highlighting key factors that contribute to agency success.

In this episode, we’ll discuss:

• Focusing on organic growth.

• Making 100,000 leads in one day.

• Shortening the sales cycle.

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Sponsors and Resources

Clutch: This episode is sponsored by Clutch, the #1 marketplace for agencies just like yours. With their innovative process, your agency will be matched with highly motivated buyers looking for the exact services you offer. Leave the lead generation to Clutch and let your team focus on delivery. Get started for FREE at clutch.co/smartagency by creating your agency profile.

Organic Growth and Operational Excellence Build a Scalable Agency

From his many interactions with agencies at Clutch, Tim has gathered some great intel on what is working for the most successful agencies. First, they start doing something they are really good at and focus on organic growth. Many prominent agency CEOs initially honed their skills in website development, later expanding their expertise to encompass SEO and pay-per-click advertising to drive increased traffic.

As these successful agencies matured, they strategically planned their expansion into new areas, leveraging their organic growth to thrive and deliver exceptional outcomes. Also, Tim has observed a crucial aspect of sustained agency growth lies in establishing a robust infrastructure. Agencies that have mastered this have implemented comprehensive systems for lead tracking, incentivizing sales teams, and organizing their operational structure. These systems are essential for ensuring seamless operations and maximizing growth opportunities.

Without a solid foundational framework, agencies may encounter challenges in effectively attracting, converting, and scaling their business. But by implementing streamlined processes, performance tracking, and identifying areas for improvement, they can enhance their lead generation, and client conversion, and ultimately scale their business to new heights.

Leveraging Brand Power and Partnerships to Land 100,000 Leads!

As CRO at Clutch, Tim has seen many different and innovative approaches to generating leads but especially remembers a time when he was working at the Washington Post. At that time, he was tasked with building a platform to showcase the Post’s potential as a local resource with a lot of local merchants.

The Washington Post faced competition from larger companies like Groupon and LivingSocial, so Tim capitalized on the assets at his disposal, particularly the Post's strong brand and local market distribution, to build a robust email list.

Strategically aligning with Papa John's, Tim proposed a mutually beneficial promotion that involved giving away pizzas in exchange for registrations on their site. The campaign's resounding success resulted in 100,000 new leads! And consequently, 100,000 Papa Johns pizzas delivered — which solidified the partnership between the two seemingly unlikely partners. This was by far the best promotion either brand had done and Tim made it happen by leveraging his assets and knowing competitive dimensions. He needed emails and had something the competition didn't, a well-established brand with a huge market distribution.

How can you create lead gen that results in 100,000 new leads? Tim’s advice is to carefully assess the core requirements, leverage existing assets, and identify the dimensions crucial for a competitive edge.

Too many agency owners focus on immediate sales. However, by prioritizing email address collection, businesses can establish direct communication with potential customers, nurture leads over time, and increase conversion rates. Additionally, by standing out in the market and using creative approaches to engage with prospects, businesses can differentiate themselves and achieve sustainable growth in a competitive business environment.

The Power of Foot-in-the-Door Offers to Shorten the Sales Cycle

At Clutch, they conduct an annual survey on the sales cycle and, according to the results, 50% of agencies say their sales cycle expands to over a month, while 20% say it’s over three months. These findings are consistent across professional services and underscore the importance of implementing effective systems to convert leads into clients.

This is where a "foot in the door offer" comes in as a powerful strategy for agencies to shorten their sales cycle and secure new clients. With this approach, you offer a low-cost or low-commitment initial service to potential clients to establish trust, build rapport, and demonstrate value. It’ll be the first step toward upselling additional services or projects to the client, ultimately leading to higher revenue and long-term relationships.

Jason believes selling a foot-in-the-door offer helped his team establish a relationship and build a high-level plan to solve a huge gap the client hadn’t noticed. This way, they position themselves as an advisor and get a project sold before other agencies can come back with their proposals.

Ultimately, implementing a foot-in-the-door offer can help you drastically reduce your sales cycle from months to just a few days, so ask yourself how do I get my foot in the door? How do I get the attention? How do I get my foot in the door? And then what is that upsell to get your clients to where you need to go?

The CRM Advantage: Enhancing Agency Performance and Client Engagement

One key component of a successful foot-in-the-door offer is investing in a CRM system. Having a CRM system in place is crucial for agencies to effectively manage their client relationships and drive business growth as a tool that allows them to track and organize client information, communicate effectively with clients, and streamline their sales and marketing processes.

According to Tim, when agencies lack a CRM system or fail to utilize it effectively, it can be a red flag that their systems are not in place. This can lead to disorganization, inefficiency, and missed growth opportunities.

Investing in a CRM system can help agencies stay organized, track client interactions, and nurture relationships effectively, which is the sort of investment that will differentiate high-performing agencies from low-performing agencies.

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