Small But Mighty Agency: How to Grow Your Agency

What makes a creative agency excel past its competition? Nurturing and protecting the creative spirit in the team.  The creative spirit is the secret sauce for an agency to do outstanding creative work.  Some call it “strategic magic” or “zone of genius.”  I like to think of it as the art that makes their craft possible.  Let me explain  The craft is the production, it's 80% of the work, but...

When this seven-figure agency owner surveyed 50 of his clients about what they valued when working with a small agency, the response was a surprise. It wasn’t the price and it wasn’t even quality.  The top three things the clients of this seven-figure agency want to see from an agency are experience, communication and processes.  Yes, processes.  Processes are like guardrails. By definition, a gua...

Is it worth the time to cross-train your team?  Even the most talented people in your team can’t succeed if your entire team follows their own processes, and communication is a mess.  Cross-training leads to better communication, and communication leads to a business that is less dependent on you.  In this episode of the podcast, we’re exploring how this agency owner hires the right people, stream...

These four concepts are how I’ve helped grow agencies to multiple six figures and beyond.  I’ve supported an agency owner to grow, sell and exit his business, doubled the gross revenue of clients with small but mighty agencies and helped owners have more time off.  To kick off 2022 on the podcast, here are the concepts that always show up.  If you’re bumping up against capacity in your business, y...

Is it possible to run an efficient agency with eight part-time contractors while working part-time?  For this CEO mom, the answer is yes.  Although this may not be a way of running a business for everyone, Kara demonstrates that how you choose to operate your business can 100% fit your priorities.  Kara’s priorities are her three kids and her mission to employ young moms by providing as much flexi...

What does it mean to streamline a business for growth? At its core, it means simplifying or eliminating unnecessary work-related tasks to make running the business easier.  While eliminating things may sound simple, streamlining a business can involve hard decisions.  In this episode, we connect with Kyle who streamlined his business by restructuring his remote team.  In the case of this small bus...

Today, we explore how Amisha Shrimanker started an online copywriting agency three years ago and has since worked with some prominent names in the industry. Amisha shares the juicy details of her strategies that have landed her dream clients. Together on the podcast, we explore: Her cold pitching strategy, the one she uses to get on dream podcasts and work with dream clients How she leverages resu...

What is the fastest way to grow a service-based business to seven figures?  Not a trick question 🙂 It’s to help your clients get results faster.  Meet Lisa Genovese, five years into building her marketing agency, Lisa discovered the 20% of activities driving results for her clients and decided to go all-in on the service offering, In this episode of the Small But Mighty Agency, we dig into the 80...

How do you build a collaborative partner network that actually works and can help you grow your business? In this week’s Small But Mighty Agency podcast, we connect with Jon Allison, the owner of a Branding Studio with a track record of using authentic relationship marketing to grow his business and deliver exceptional work.  What’s impressive is that 70% of the work Jon currently does in his busi...

Focus is a superpower.  But distractions are everywhere.  You’re short on time, and you want to grow your business with less overwhelm. How do you steer clear of shiny opportunities and ideas that are vampires to your time and energy? How do you make better strategic decisions?  I rarely share about how I arrived at my mission and my why.  That’s because, for the longest time, I didn’t know how to...

How do you engage and inspire younger generations in your service-based business? Today we’re exploring Generation Z, the most entrepreneurial generation of our time.  Generation Z is disrupting the traditional ways of entering the workforce by choosing entrepreneurship over being an employee.  In this episode, I speak with Julie Wang on embracing being a Generation Z agency-owner and her insights...

Are you a marketer, consultant, or creative who started your business with a specialized skill?  You have steady revenue, a solid client base, and work coming in.  It’s more than you can handle by yourself, but you’re saying yes to everything. You’re working 24/7, and it isn’t the life you dreamed of as a business owner.  If that’s you, you’re not alone. in this episode of the Small But Might Agen...

What does it take to grow an agency from 0 to 7 figures in four years?  The first thing I noticed about Joel, founder of KARMA jack is his joy and zest for life. He has an uncanny ability to make conversations about almost any topic lighthearted yet packed with insights.  In this episode of the Small But Mighty Agency, Joel shares how he grew his agency to 7 figures in four years, and that include...

What if the traditional rules of productivity and work are broken because they are outdated?  Meet Brittany Berger, she’s on a unique mission to help neurodivergent individuals work smarter, not harder, whether a business owner or not.  Brittany believes that the traditional rules of productivity and work that people learn are inaccessible for many.  She speaks candidly about her neurodivergent br...

How does diversity drive progress and creativity in marketing agencies?  And why will agencies who don’t address the call to action on diversity and inclusion get left behind?  In this Small But Mighty Agency episode, I connected with Mooren Bofill, Partner of 123West, an award-winning agency, to explore the topic of diversity and inclusion and what Morren is doing to champion initiatives that are...

What are some of the biggest fears business owners I work with having about building a team? It’s normal to have fears, it doesn’t make you less likely to have an effective team but understanding how these fears track and what’s true instead will help any business owner become a better leader and grow a more profitable business whether you have a team of one or many.  In this solo episode of the S...

Lots of companies and corporations say they are people first but are they? Talk is easy. Alignment of business decisions to the principles and values of people first isn’t that simple.  Meet Kate Strathmann; she thinks of her business as an incubator for building a company that gives her team the freedom and flexibility they need.  In her bookkeeping agency and consultancy practice, Kate makes dec...

Raising your rates? Andréa Jones is the CEO of Online Drea a social media marketing agency that brings in between $70K - $80K per month with high ticket retainers.  But that wasn’t always the case. Listen to how Andréa transitioned from a $500 retainer service by leveling up her offer and then raising her retainers that now range between $2500 to $5000 per month.  Join us in this episode of the Sm...

When you think of having a multiple seven-figure marketing agency, you might also think to reach this revenue marker; you need to serve many clients or have a big team. Think again.  Rita Barry of Rita Barry & Co. has built a digital marketing agency that serves 15 clients with a team of 7 people and makes multiple seven figures.  Rita keeps things simple by focusing on one core service. In th...

Have you hired somebody into your business before and felt burned because it didn’t work out? Michael did, and it cost him $60,ooo. In this episode, we explore the hiring and leadership insights gained from the costly mistake and how the mistake he made 6 years ago informs his approach to  hiring and building his team today. On this episode of Small But Mighty Agency:  How to avoid making $60,000...

If you’re a service-based solopreneur bumping up against capacity, what might feel scary but necessary is to de-prioritize business-building activities like marketing and visibility for business-stabilizing activities like systems, process improvements, and building your team.  If onboarding two more clients in your business with the current structure you have now creates anxiety about servicing t...

While partnership in a business isn’t for everyone, it has its benefits.  Darian Kovacs started his agency from a storage closet in the start-up days and now has a thriving agency of 80 clients.  Jelly Digital Marketing and PR who serves clients like La-Z-Boy and Splash Down Waterpark went from an agency of one owner -- Darian Kovacs -- and towards his vision of an agency owned by a team by bringi...

Having a full service agency was not a business that Jenn Ennis planned for when she started offering graphic design services as a freelancer back in 2014.  Jenn credits a series of small pivotal moments in her journey adding up to the business she has now. In this episode we explore the small but mighty moments, including a lesson in pricing that set her up for success, and how one project can ch...

Do you feel like delegation is a struggle and you have a hard time trusting the people you’ve hired, BUT you still have hope that you can build a team that doesn’t rely on you to function? When that happens, you know you will regain time freedom and bandwidth.  Yes, it's possible. Tune into this episode to hear the four things that might be holding you back from having a self managing team  O...

How is this Leader of the Year named by Marketing News Canada making the competition irrelevant?  While most people know that consultant-type businesses don’t scale, this marketing agency owner isn’t too concerned with scaling right now, instead he’s focusing on what he calls building a defensible model.  In other words, he would rather be in an uncontested marketplace solving a unique challenge f...