How To Grow A 7-Figure SEO Agency That Runs Itself

The Pearl Lemon Group regularly hits $100,00+ per month (it should be doing more really) and is growing.

I'm not involved in any of the day-to-day operations - and this is the part that I'm most proud of.

To be honest - I'm way more involved than I need to be - and my current biggest challenge is practicing detachment.

Let me now run you through the process I've built to have an agency that is growing all by itself by focussing on some of the most 'uncommon' aspects of the business.

We have a managing director in Ion Farmakides who handles all incoming leads and works to turn them into business.

He'll close out anything from 3 - 6 deals a month (and rising).

This takes care of the 'new business' side of things.

I'm not involved in sales and whilst intermittently I step back in (when I panic about a poorer sales month or I just want more business)...

In truth if I analyse the data...

I haven't needed to for a few years.

Lydia Sims is our operations director and is the glue of our business - she liaises with the accounting, legal, sales, hr departments and more to ensure that everyone is doing what they need to.

She also get involved in many other aspects of my life.

Helping plan my wedding, helping organise a move to Italy, organising payments for personal trips I'll make.

Taryn - our head of HR takes care of all hiring and has specific allocations for how many she can hire, who she asks and what the general salaries are.

In Semil and Rayno I have a client head of SEO and internal head of SEO. Semil takes care of the clients, Rayno takes care of all internal projects.

All of our lead-flow is inbound.

When Ion closes deals - a proportion of that income will go back into PR, Link-Building and SEO spend to help prop our rankings up even further.

This in turn creates a marketing flywheel.

In essence - this is the CORE area of growth for us - the SEO flywheel.

Here are some other notable mentions about the agency:

- We have a communications training programme that's 5+ hours long to ensure all understand standards as a remote only team

- We have an autonomy training programme to help the teams navigate important decisions about hiring, firing, unhappy clients, legal issues, upsells, being unhappy in your role and more

- We use Whatsapp as a CRM to talk to clients and chat internally - it's all on there - for speed

- We have two-weekly standups (Mon & Fri) to discuss team wins and the like

- Our hiring process is painful to make it difficult for folks to start work here - to keep the standard high!

- Having heads of each department is huge in building a company that runs itself

- Having continuous leads coming in is also critical to success - perhaps the most important thing altogether!