10 agency growth lessons I've learned in the last 10 years

I was recently interviewed on Freelance Transformation about agency growth and in-particularly my story around growing BlueGlass.

There are many key learnings I've faced along the way, having founded my first agency, SEOptimise, in 2006, and I'm still learning just as much today...

It's been an interesting journey so far, and I haven't by any means cracked it just yet, but here's a recap on the top learnings for me so far:

1. Learning from mistakes is sadly inevitable - I'm showing my Britishness here, but I struggle to completely subscribe to the fail fast advice that is often given. My goal is always to succeed, not fail as quickly as I can. But a fear of failure could be the biggest thing that holds you back, no-one's great at something the first time around - so if you don't make mistakes, you're probably not going to grow.
2. Doing great work is much more important than looking like you're doing good work - in the early days I built an agency brand through blogging, speaking and public reputation. Over the last few years, my focus has been much more internal and on doing great work for clients - it sounds obvious, but they have to be our top priority, and then this helps your growth, perhaps even more, through having success stories to tell, which lead to award wins and word of mouth referrals.
3. Retention is growth - remember a 50% drop means you have to increase 100% to get back to where you were before! Growth is much harder if you're struggling to retain business and fighting to replace lost contracts. On the flip side, it's much easier if you're retaining/growing your existing base...
4. Focus, focus, focus - as much as you might want to, you can't do it all. Saying yes to new projects which may be a bad fit, or broadening your service offering for existing clients, might be a great way to boost your monthly revenue - but does it really take you where you want to be in the long-run?
5. Specialist > generalist - I'd much rather be great at one thing than good at everything. As you grow, it becomes more difficult to be good at everything, a key turning point for us was when we needed to hire for SEO, PPC, analytics, social media and digital PR expertise with the budget for one person. There's not one person out there who's great at all of those - if they say they are, they're lying. Hiring for specialist roles and strengthening each time you hire, as opposed to diversifying has been a big positive shift for us.
6. Culture and core values are key, protect it - as a founder, it's not you that makes the agency a success. But it is your vision and passion which got it started, the next step is retaining what make you great initially as you grow. We defined our core values 2 years ago, which was really embraced by the team and proved extremely valuable in how we grow and make key decisions, staying true to who we are and want to be.
7. Meeting with people you already know vs new people - another realisation I had was that I didn't necessarily need to meet with more people. I have a relatively strong profile in the UK search industry, and found reaching out to the people that I knew already was much more effective than trying to establish new relationships - which can then lead into more introductions to new people.
8. Helping people is better than cold-calling them - I've never been comfortable with direct sales. If people want to work with us that's great, but my approach is always to try and help them, rather than sell to them. As much as I've always thought I'm not a salesperson, I've found this to be a lot more effective for us than any of the traditional approaches.
9. Hiring great people is the key to growth - as an agency, you have to deliver on client expectations - otherwise you won't last very long. Under-promising and over-delivering doesn't always work either, sometimes you need to over-promise and over-deliver to win and retain the work. Having a strong team is the only way to scale that beyond yourself. Being selective and taking your time to build the best team possible is essential to win, retain and grow with your clients.
10. Always keep learning - surround yourself with people who have been through similar situations before, as much as it might feel like you're trying to re-invent the wheel, you're probably not - so look for support from people who are ahead of the curve and have already been there and done it. I also find that I read a lot more now than I ever have done (definitely than when I was at school!), and it's a huge help towards learning new ideas and fresh perspectives, which don't always help directly at the time, but are very useful reference points in the future.

To listen to the full interview, find the podcast here - and feel free to add any comments or ask questions below.