The Future Of Digital Agencies (If you want to play the long game)

Done-For-You Services is a smart and fast way to launch your own business.

But, it caps out quickly leaving most agency owners overworked and little to no capacity to take on more clients, yet they still aren’t making the money they wanted to be making.

Like most agency owners and service providers I started my business for a few reasons:

1. The freedom to do what I want, when I want.

2. The financial freedom and opportunity to make more than I could in a 9-5

3. The ability to bring my own vision to life

4. The ability to impact more people

5. Etc etc etc.

But many agency owners I know did it for the same reasons.

Yet, the technical capabilities that allowed them to get clients quickly doesn’t = the same skills to grow a business.

Luckily, my agency was behind the scenes of some amazing online entrepreneurs so I learned the inner workings of how to build team, install systems (beyond just funnels).

On the surface, we were "funnel builders".

It’s what got clients in the doors.

They wanted a webinar or to launch a course.

But once we got behind the scenes a piece of me lit up.

I FELL IN LOVE WITH HOW BUSINESSES OPERATE.

I always compared it to my friends growing up who loved taking things apart only to put them back together.

Seeing the inner workings of other people's businesses and identifying how I could improve them with my ability to install automation, process etc became an addiction.

And, when my agency capped out in revenue and the obvious (and seemed only) path to growth and leverage was more people - I knew needed to change things up.

People are a great form of Leverage but not the only form of leverage and usually the least “scalable” (ill link up a great podcast on that topic if you're interested)

For me, I knew that I didn’t want to grow “that sort of agency”.

The traditional agency model.

Where expenses grew with revenue almost equally while margin stayed the same or got worse.

The only thing that increased was headcount and headaches.

For quick reference - my background and career upbringing:

* Working within large agencies (Omnicom family)

* As well as small boutique agencies representing professional sports team and large brands like AT&T

* To growing a startup from 4 to 15 people in the online lead generation space

* To start a SAAS / Consulting firm that served small businesses that had a good run but had a short life.

* Closing it out with client-side for Cabelas where I got to hire some of the best and brightest agencies, consultancies to build and grow an internal marketing division all focused on mobile marketing.

So when I talk about the “traditional agency” model - I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it.

This is why I know the writing is on the wall for most agencies if they don’t adapt and innovate.

And I don’t mean innovate like “add more services”.

In fact, I mean the opposite.

Niche down.

Simplify who you serve and what you deliver.

And deliver that in more than just the traditional done-for-you method.

The future of the small but big digital agency is layers of service.

It’s the ability to deliver the SAME result your DFY service offered but:

* As a group coaching/consulting program

* As an online course

* As a 2-day workshop

* In more leveraged, systemized and automated delivery vehicles

All weaving in what I call “Pre-Loaded DFY”.

Instead of handcuffing your clients through retainers that only benefit you and hold them hostage…

…it’s about offering the ability to enable your clients and empower them to take things in-house without devaluating yourself and actually making you more profitable in the process. (Yes, it’s possible).

It’s the Hybrid Agency as I've been calling it. (Others call it Productized)

Same result for your clients. Different wrappers. Different Delivery Method.

That’s why the last 2.5 years we’ve been perfecting our process for helping agencies launch their first Group Coaching/Consulting program in 90 days.

It’s that process that enables them to package up their IP (Intellectual property or Intellectual PROCESS) and deliver it in a new leveraged and profitable way.

Once we have that validated - we get to the fun stuff part of building out the systems and automation to streamline their sales, marketing and fulfillment so the owner can be removed from the process.

In this time we’ve worked with 150+ agency owners doing this in some form or another.

Each time it’s gotten better and better.

We’re getting ready to release 3.0 of our flagship program towards the end of this year.

Re-building and optimizing the entire client experience from the ground up.

Same results, but faster, more efficient and simpler.

If you’re still reading, you’re probably an agency owner or some form of a service provider who wants a change. (Or my parent's cuz they read every post).

So, if you’re an agency owner and this struck a chord and you want to make a change - now is the time.

Jump in and we’ll help you get your first 5-10 clients in the next 90 days.

Your future Hybrid Agency awaits.

Want to chat about how I can help?

Hit me on messenger. https://gregh.co/32b2Ve9