You know you are great at what you do. You have mastered all the skills. That is why you built a digital Agency around it.

You have also been smart and niched out on social media, graphic design, website building, or content Marketing. But the problems we all run into are similar. That is why we at skillzlearn through our years of experience in this field are letting you know the strategies to sail through these problems and emerge successful

These problems look the same but the solutions are all different. Let us look into it

With a little guidance you can avoid making the same mistakes that we all have made in the initial stages

When reading the 4 P’s below, remember that this is not like the 4Ps taught to you at marketing school. This is real life principles.

Even though your systems and processes are in place and efficient, you should strive to make them loophole free that comes only with experience and guidance. We live in a world where customer expectations keep changing as the technology and world around us keep changing, so if you do not constantly upgrade your skills and methodologies you will be beaten by your compititors

• Proposals

Think of all those important hours you spend at your desk crafting proposals for prospective clients. The worst part is when you spend all of that time and effort and yet end up to losing out the leads to a competitor. You have now officially wasted all the precious resources for nothing.

What do you have to tweak in your proposals? Why are your competitors better at crafting proposals?

Create Value.

If your proposals are not creating value to your consumers,but only showing how much money you will be taking from the customers, you have sure got a bad strategy

You need to find out the problems faced by your leads. Point them out. How going to your agency will solve their problems and make their lives better .You have to tell them that your services are going to help them feel better in just a little way. You do not have to write stories. It just needs to be a crisp narrative

Your customer tries to see the value he gets out of your proposal. Even if your price was lower, the proposal of your competitor won the deal. Remember the time?

Build value every step at every opportunity. When the client sees the rupee symbol, they won’t hesitate because they’ll know they’re making an investment

• Project Management

The online space is cluttered. Every Brand wants to have an online presence. This is the reason brands want to hire agencies after they have burnt their fingers trying to do it on their own and failing. This also means clients don’t understand everything you do. So, during the course of the project, they have will not think it a big deal to asking for more of this and that. This is because in their minds it’s just a “small addition or change of course” .But to you it could mean an extra three to four productive hours of work. This keeps happening and finally you see yourself spending a full day doing the extra work

For example imagine you were an architect and you got a client Your client wants a basic 2 bedroom home as they have a small family. So you begin the construction and halfway through, they decide it’s not enough and opt for four bedrooms, a home movie theatre, fountain and they still expect you to stay within the specified budget and on time.

This is how clients are. They pay so you cooperate . People understand that would mean more plumbing, electrical work, and a whole lot of things.

Similarly your client would have no problem asking you to make one more graphic change the complete design, or to create another landing page. Then you give it to them because you have a hard time saying no and he is after all writing your cheque at the end of the day or because you don’t want to cause harm to the relationship. This is called scope creep

What is this scope creep? It is any work that falls outside of the predefined and agreed upon project scope. You must firmly inform, define, and enforce scope creep policies. It is the extra work that will take over your service bandwidth and your time will lead to unprofitable projects.

Do you think we are suggesting something not practical? You think that saying no to a client might annoy them?

To avoid this situation with clients, you must clearly write and show them before the project begins that anything other than this scope of work that they want , outside of the original scope will cost them extra money. Also let them know that previously defined timelines do not apply then. As soon as something like this comes up remember to enforce it or the client will not respect your proposal and opinions. This will also let the client know that you take the budget and timeline very seriously. Clients will finally understand that they are dealing with a seasoned professional and abide by your rules

When a project gets delivered on time and on budget they will definetely forget about you firm stand and recommend your professional service to others

• Pricing

You as an agency are aware of dozens of pricing models, strategies and planning techniques. Some agencies adopt a pricing structure and succeed while another agency copies the same and fails

Neither do you want to underprice your services. What is the perfectly competitive price for your services?

High prices can make you seem well experienced, but if you set your prices too high your agency will lose clients. Low prices can attract more clients, but if you set them too low you will be cutting into your profit margins

You must know that setting low prices is that you are automatically attracting and inviting a certain calibre of client. The bottom of the rung ,clients who expect you to jump through hoops and who get extra work done at no additional cost. Then when a cheaper option comes along they will dump your agency without prior notice. The strategy is either you be the lowest in the industry or the highest. This is because if you are not the lowest then no one wants to go for the second lowest

Is it possible that your agency could sustain being the cheapest option?

Also remember here that increasing your prices will have its consequences too, and you will leave out a whole lot of clients. Scary is it? But think of it like this.

You could be charging Rs 1000 and have 10000 clients ,or you could be charging Rs 1,0000 and have 100 clients. Which strategy means less work with getting the same profits? Which one will likely result in happier clients? Which one is more sustainable?

Under-pricing your services will not attract more clients, and it certainly will not attract the clients you want to work with in the long run. If you are always getting stuck working with bad clients it is usually because your pricing model is attracting these clients. You are doing this to yourself ,a disservice by charging too little. If you have the skills, a great dedicated team, you need to charge the right prices.

The right clients will understand and accept it. Learn to build such clients in your community

Positioning

Your brand positioning is extremely crucial. When you first begin your agency, you’re small with a little pull. You need to find your clients. You create some ripples in the market but certainly not making any waves. The bigger and stronger your agency and brand positioning gets, the more powerful you become.

Failure to position or failing to have a positioning strategy can be a huge mistake . Brand positioning is where your agency sits in the mind of the customer. Regardless of the efforts you make, every single person that encounters your brand will form some kind of relationship or association with it. Having a strategy and a predefined brand positioning will help ensure that those moments and associations are positive. This is important in the regardless of which stage your agency is in

Defining and establishing a clear brand position will help you agency establish the right picture in the market. Positioning will do the essentials and nurturing so when a lead is ready to buy, your agency will already be established in their mind as the trustworthy and reliable agency that they can go to. Sounds pretty exciting right? In a recent survey, only forty percent of employees believe their management team uses brand positioning to sail through daily operational decisions along with marketing plans

Most agencies do not rely on their brand positioning to guide their marketing initiatives . It is because brand positioning statement is built through consistent planning and research

Your positioning statement, should represent in every single campaign, promotion, design, and decision. If it aligns with your positioning statement, you know it will reach attract and be received well by your target audience.

If you are not filtering every decision then you could potentially be curating and distributing content that will confuse or push away your target audience. This is not what you want right?

With these four important P , you should have gain some strategies to help your agency get up and running. Moving forward, you will be aware of the consequences if you don’t give these parameters the attention they need.

There is always scope for improvement. Hence you should constantly be changing and improving. These strategies are not to be read once and forgotten. You need to implement them in your day to day operations

As an agency you must continuously analyze and monitor your growth. You must listen to your clients and get their feedback. We list below a few strategies that will help you stand out among this cluttered space

1. Anticipate upcoming Trends

In a continuously evolving industry like digital marketing, anticipating the future is key. It is easy to get caught in day to day operations and problems.To anticipate trends and to spot opportunities requires constant upgradation. Learning may be from relevant blogs, attending conferences and seminars and speaking and getting feedback from clients, using your research skills to understand algorithm changes which happened regularly .

2. Focus On Long Term Work

Don’t do short term projects. Focus on long-term work and only think about brand building from day one. Move beyond the idea of a launch because successful brands need to stay in a market which requires consistent efforts and not just efforts in creating awareness every now and again.

3. Make Consistent Service your Mantra

Be consistent in providing client services. Have written standards and vision statements that you team is also well trained about and aware of to ensure that every client interaction is handled abiding by these lines and reflects the mission of the agency. Don’t talk products or services that you offer ,talk needs, and how you can help your clients meet those needs.

4. Specialize

When we started our agency, our first step was to research and identify on a niche where we knew we had special expertise. Then we worked hard to build our credibility even deeper, through writing extensively on this. We suggest you find your niche,your core strength. Don’t try to do everything a client asks you to do

5. Find out Your Client’s Story

Every brand has a story to tell. When your agency can understand your client’s business story how they started, what they want to do , then you can engage their audience with far more clarity, impact and get the expected results

6. Build a set process

Our practical advice to agency owners is to focus on two prime areas: One, keep your expenses low, which is crucial to sustaining your business and understanding your finances. Two, you must build a systematic and efficient sales process:

Identify and define your ideal customer profile.Also test channels to acquire customers in a systematic way. These strategies will help sustain and build your agency

7. Build a practical marketing plan

A marketing plan is necessary to build your marketing agency in a systematic manner. Do not forget to write blogs, organize events and do SEO for your own brand

8. Build a strong team

A company is made by its people. If you can search for and spend time hiring the right people, you are spending your time rightly.

9. Create Success For Your Clients

Know and identify your strong points. Know where your strength lies. Do not assure clients of all services even if you think you can deliver

10. Aim Big, Plan right

Do not hesitate to aim for the stars, even when you are small. You will never be fully ready or equipped . Unless you plunge . Take risks and experiment

11. Build Repeatable Processes

From early stages, create repeatable processes that can be performed by your team who are not yet experts in their field and can handle tasks when you are away. This will save you time to focus on strategy and save time on training new team members every time they are recruited

12. Get Out Of Your Own Way

Learn to delegate tasks. Never consider yourself as indispensable. If proper training and your agency visions are delivered to your team, you get time to focus on driving the agency ahead instead of focussing on day to day operations

Wrapping up

You have established your value and have been scrutinizing and have been selective about your commitments, but that has been helping you grow.

Some agencies try to scale their client base without establishing the team and the resources to do so effectively, but there’s a big gap between delivering your best work to one client and after scaling you see that it is not the same delivering your best work to several clients and there is a significant dip in the efficiency

Agency life as you know means long hours, high pressure work and deadlines . You can’t afford to dive in without some structure and basic plan

Once your team hits a certain size, you will then realize it is important to now add a level of middle management also. This is because you do not want all team members reporting directly to you. Make it clear for every team member that there’s a strategy in place and each person in the team can understand how they fit into that plan.

Don’t be afraid to hire and fire. For an agency that is part of scaling, it’s important to know when it’s appropriate to push people . This will allow them to perform at their max . Also know when to move on and hire new talent if your current team is not performing adequately. Nothing should stop you from growing your agency. Remember that If you are not solving new problems, then your agency is probably not growing.Being standstill will wipe you out

You have to constantly grow your agency and provide exceptional services to your clients.

Building and scaling an agency is a consistent approach

Growth requires you to put your agency’s core offering to the prospective and existing clients .

Please let us know what strategies have made your brand memorable in the below comments

Snippet

You have established your value and have been scrutinizing and have been selective about your commitments, but that has been helping you grow.

Some agencies try to scale their client base without establishing the team and the resources to do so effectively, but there’s a big gap between delivering your best work to one client and after scaling you see that it is not the same delivering your best work to several clients and there is a significant dip in the efficiency

Agency life as you know means long hours, high pressure work and deadlines . You can’t afford to dive in without some structure and basic plan

Once your team hits a certain size, you will then realize it is important to now add a level of middle management also. This is because you do not want all team members reporting directly to you. Make it clear for every team member that there’s a strategy in place and each person in the team can understand how they fit into that plan.

Don’t be afraid to hire and fire. For an agency that is part of scaling, it’s important to know when it’s appropriate to push people . This will allow them to perform at their max . Also know when to move on and hire new talent if your current team is not performing adequately. Nothing should stop you from growing your agency. Remember that If you are not solving new problems, then your agency is probably not growing. Being a standstill will wipe you out

You have to constantly grow your agency and provide exceptional services to your clients.

Building and scaling an agency is a consistent approach

Growth requires you to put your agency’s core offering to the prospective and existing clients .

Gist: With these four important P , you should have gain some strategies to help your agency get up and running. Moving forward, you will be aware of the consequences if you don’t give these parameters the attention they need.

There is always scope for improvement. Hence you should constantly be changing and improving. These strategies are not to be read once and forgotten. You need to implement them in your day to day operations

From early stages, create efficient well experimented processes that can be performed by your team who are not yet experienced in their field and can handle tasks when you are away. This will save you time to focus on strategy and save time on training new team members every time they are recruited.