7 Essentials For Accelerating Your Agency Growth

[00:00:00] Stephanie: When we asked our community of marketing agency owners, what their biggest challenges were, the number one and most pressing struggle was figuring out how to grow and scale their agency. From operational efficiency to onboarding employees, there are a ton of things to figure out when you’re trying to take your business to the next level, but the one area that we can all agree is the most important.

It’s sorting out how to get more clients and revenue to fuel that growth. Should you add a bunch of new services, offer lots of pricing package choices, make sure you’re on every channel at once? How do you actually ramp up your agency’s growth so that it’s actually accelerating at a rate that keeps profits rising faster than your expenses?

That’s what we’re covering in today’s episode of Agency Accelerated.

Welcome back to Agency Accelerated, the show for agencies who want to get bigger. Stick with us to learn how you can simplify your growth strategy with practical tips from the marketing pros. I’m Stephanie Liu and we’re live every other Wednesday at 2:00 PM Eastern Time, 11:00 AM Pacific Time on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn. Also, make sure you head on over to agorapulse.com/calendar and subscribe, so you don’t miss any episodes because I don’t want to miss you either. And stay until the very end, because you’ll get a chance to get your hands on an easy way to add more revenue to your marketing agency.

And having said that, shout out to Wiley, who is here live. He said, finally able to make it to a live stream. Yes. That’s what you do, friend. You show up because you know what, it’s going to be an amazing, fantastic show. So hey to you, too. Welcome to the episode. So having said that, let me ask you a question.

How many different audiences are you targeting? Think about that. How many different audiences are you targeting? If you had an ideal customer profile worked out for each of your target audiences? Hmm. How many would you have? Hmm, give me a number in the comments. I want to know. When you’re thinking about the trajectory of your business, how many audiences are you really actually trying to target right now?

I think for me. I mean, not honestly not think. I know. I know for me that there’s at least three. There’s large brands who want to leverage live video and go from unknown to unfreaking forgettable. And then there’s marketing consultants who want to learn how to become remote live video producers, because let’s be honest, the evolution of live streaming is totally a thing. I also work with executives who want to level up their communication skills through NLP training. So that’s three. That’s three. So let me know in the comments of your ICP is your ideal customers, right? Your ideal customer profiles. Really, who are you trying to target? Good. Good. All right.

Oh, Gabe is here. Hey Gabe. So nice to see you. So the question is though, as a digital marketing agency, how many target ICP is should you have? And how do you turn those targets into rich sources of revenue? It’s hard to know the best way to proceed, which is why I’m excited to have an expert agency coach on the show with us today.

Check this out. Okay. Chris Rudolph is a husband, father of three and business coach for digital agency owners. He specializes in helping them maximize their revenue, scale with a team and enjoy more time off. And who wouldn’t want that? He is also a national speaker at digital marketing conferences and has presented for companies like Verblio, Agorapulse and Cloud Campaign. PS, by the way, if you didn’t see his session for Agorapulse, that was impressive. He’s a Madison, Wisconsin native, and he’s also recently located to Baja, Mexico, where he runs his business coaching practice and volunteers part-time building homes for families in need. After starting and selling off two businesses, there’s one lesson Chris has learned along the way. It’s extremely difficult to do it alone. In fact, he believes if you want to be successful and finish well, you need a coach, just like any serious athlete does. So having said that, Chris, welcome to the show. How are you?

[00:05:04] Chris: Hey, I’m doing great, Stephanie. Thank you so much for having me here.

[00:05:08] Stephanie: Super excited to have you here. I’m looking at the comments here and it looks like everyone is excited to learn from you as well. We have one Facebook user says, hi, Stephanie watching and enjoying. So yes, come through, come through. So, Chris, I know that we’ve got seven essentials we want to cover today to help marketing agencies accelerate their growth.

But first, I know you have two growth principles that they need to keep in mind at all times. Can you share what those are and what they mean to agencies today?

[00:05:45] Chris: You’re probably thinking, I want to grow my agency in 2022. So you might go and download some podcast episodes, buy an online course or two, or attend a webinar.

And, you know, shortly after that, you’re probably feeling really overwhelmed. And I think the problem is that we live in an age where there’s unlimited options at your fingertips, 24/7 via the internet. And some of those things out there, aren’t very good. But a lot of them, I believe, in my opinion, are good.

The overwhelm and shiny object syndrome. And that really I’ve found leads to a lot of false starts. So basically, we discover a great growth strategy. We get excited, but we don’t stick with that strategy long enough. So that’s kind of like my first growth principle is what you focus on grows.

[00:06:47] Stephanie: Ooh, I like that.

Yeah. I always have this thing, especially with my clients where your attention goes, energy flows. Where your attention goes, energy flows. Yup. Good, good, good. Love it. When you are focusing on what it is that you want to do, that’s going to be really important because let’s be honest, your attention span, right?

Like, even if you’re thinking about what you’re doing today, your brain, the way it functions, you remember four plus or minus three things, that’s your short-term memory. And so when you’re thinking about your agency and all the different things that you have to do, you know, where are you focusing that energy?

Okay. Is it the little things or is it the difference that makes a difference as Jerrick Robbins said in our last episode. So that’s good. So having said that what’s the second essential?

[00:07:37] Chris: Yeah. So what you focus on grows. If your focus is fractured, you know, you’re focusing on many things at once, you pay what I call a distraction tax.

[00:07:47] Stephanie: Go ahead. Go ahead. Tell me more about the distraction tax, because I love that you bring this up.

[00:08:01] Chris: Yeah. So let’s say you’re focusing on four things at once. You might assume if you kind of do the math, that you’re going to make 25% progress in each one, you know, kind of a fourth, because that’s what you allocate your attention to.

But in reality, you pay a hefty tax for the additional things that you focus in on. So the more things you focus in on, the less effective and efficient you are, and growth will take a lot longer, or you might not get there.

[00:08:30] Stephanie: Wow. See. Sorry, not sorry, but some of you friends had to hear this as your first episode for the New Year.

And so what kind of reaction do you get from clients when you tell them that?

[00:08:46] Chris: You know, that is like, how do I pick just once? And I think the reason I’m so passionate about this is because I fall into this camp. I love to learn. I love to explore new ideas and learn about new things, but it’s so easy to fall into the shiny object syndrome.

And learning the latest thing that you don’t even get a chance to implement. So I think, it can be really challenging and really disruptive, but I think there’s also some peace around that if you do focus, you’re going to get to where you need to go.

[00:09:17] Stephanie: I love that. Yeah. I often find that sometimes when there are agencies, you know, they find themselves in debt.

And so they, they do fall into that trap of that shiny object syndrome. And when you try to get them to focus, they’re like, no, no, no, no, but this is the next best thing. This is that blueprint, that framework, that magic bullet. And you have to tell them, you know what? You’re paying interest to things at the expense of accelerating your agency. And sometimes I feel it just kind of like rattles your client.

And they’re like, oh yeah, got me.

[00:09:51] Chris: And you’re right on, Stephanie. I think also the people that are in digital marketing, the reason you’re good at it is because you learn new things and adapt quickly.

And so your super power sometimes can be your detriment when it comes to overall focus for the growth of your agency.

[00:10:10] Stephanie: Ooh, that’s a good one. And shout out to Mitch Jackson, who’s tuning in, he’s saying, let’s say you’re a team member of an agency who knows the owners is focusing on the wrong thing to grow the wrong way.

What’s the best way to bring this to the attention of the decision maker without stepping on toes or hurting feelings or add onto that, egos?

[00:10:32] Chris: Yeah, that’s a great question. I think it does depend on who that leader is and their overall leadership style and their level of humility. But I think all leaders, you want to come humble and suggest some things. Some way, you can position it so that you can collaborate and it can be part of their own idea.

They’re more likely to own it and be receptive.

[00:10:58] Stephanie: I love that you said that. More often than not, I’m always telling clients, you know, if you need to persuade or convince them and make it their own, make it feel as if like they suddenly had that epiphany, like, oh, I just came out with this brilliant idea and I have to tell you, and you’re just like, that’s right.

That’s right. All right, Chris. So what’s the third essential? Yeah.

[00:11:29] Chris: Those are like the two growth principles.

The first essential is you focus on delivering one result. And I think

it’s

[00:11:40] Chris: good to remember that your clients aren’t buying your marketing, they’re buying what your marketing does for you.

And, you know,

they’re

[00:11:49] Chris: really looking for a result. So think about like, what’s the one result that your clients really want? It might be more online sales. It might be more leads or more people to go into their physical location. But you really want to clarify what is that one result?

[00:12:07] Stephanie: I like that. It’s that one result.

Right? What would that do for them? How would that make them feel and how does that really align for their vision and the goal for what it is that they want to do? That’s super helpful. I love it.

Good. So if you’re just tuning in, we’re talking about how marketing agencies can accelerate their growth, but first, a quick story about how one social media agency in particular has been able to grow with the help of Agorapulse.

One, I love social media. I love what we do. One of my sayings is that I feel like we’re changing the world one post at a time. And the positivity, it’s just who I am. Currently, we are growing leaps and bounds. In the last couple of years have expanded our office. We’re getting ready to expand again. We manage over 150 accounts just on Agorapulse. So, it has to be user-friendly for me and everyone that works with it. And it has to be something that I know that I can rely on, that I can trust.

Like I said, the biggest feature that we have is just the dashboard that it is so easy to use and that anybody can use it. And actually, one of the reasons why I switched from the company that I had used before, was that the lack thereof of customer service. It’s definitely been, if not the best, one of the best companies to deal with as far as customer service.

So, if you’d like to learn more about how Agorapulse helps thousands of agencies grow and scale their business, head on over to bit.ly/AdAgencyRevenue. Did you guys see that? Look at that. That’s awesome. Thank you, producer. Really, really appreciate that.

So let’s get back to growing your agency with Chris because everything that Chris was saying resonates with me so well, having worked in the ad agency background, because these are a lot of conversations that you need to be having with your clients, especially the fact of like having your client or even the key decision makers feel as if they are owning that idea or that suggestion.

It’s always very helpful. All right. So we’ve covered the first three essentials for agency growth, right? So first is delivering one result for one niche. Right. And then what else would you do?

[00:14:40] Chris: Yeah, you focus in on one niche. And here’s why: I think you know, you talk about like customer persona and, you know, we’re, we’re focusing on these five different areas, but I highly recommend focusing on one niche.

And here’s why is because, you know, if you would go out this weekend and let’s say you’re playing soccer or basketball or something like that, and you hurt your knee really bad. Who are you going to call? Are you going to call your family doctor? Or, are you going to look up a knee specialist at your local sports medicine clinic?

Probably in most cases, you’re going to go with a specialist. So, specialists make more and they are in higher demand than generalists. So you want to definitely hone in on one niche.

[00:15:26] Stephanie: That’s super helpful. And then that’s great too, because to your point, sometimes with these new services, there’s always these agencies and like, hey, here’s the next best thing, right?

Hey you, over there. I know you’re publishing some things on social media right now, but I need you to learn how to do this. And sentence that could be really hard for your team. So once we work with our clients, Chris, and we focus on one result and we focus on in particular niche, then what do we do?

We communicate in one pitch?

[00:15:59] Chris: Yes. One pitch. So that that’s like a short for elevator pitch. So you want that pitch to be magnetic. You want to attract the clients that you want and repel the ones that you don’t. So think about this, I’ll give two examples and you tell me what is the more specific and magnetic pitch.

So we help brands increase sales online, or we help faith-based coaches running five-day challenges increase their online sales with chatbots. You know which one is going to grab the attention of your ideal audience, the general one or the more specific ones?

[00:16:35] Stephanie: I like that. I liked that. I liked that it. It targets specifically who it is that you work for, what specific service and how you’re getting results for them.

So, yeah, I felt good. There’s just like certain things, you know, when you, when you’re pitching over to a client, taking it from the generalist and reformatting it, I guess you would say, or rephrasing it in a way that is much more targeted and it’s much more memorable. I think you said that probably like 20 seconds ago.

And I’m like, oh, faith-based. I heard five-day challenge. Like in my mind, in my short-term memory that we’re talking about, it’s like, oh, that stood out to me. The first pitch that you gave, I was like, oh, I’ve heard that. And I think in my brain, because it sounded so familiar, so cookie cutter, it was already, okay, sea of sameness. Does that make sense?

[00:17:27] Chris: Yeah, exactly. Stephanie, I think, you know, if you were at a networking event at a conference or some type of an event, and you used those two pitches, for one, you’re going to find out right away, who’s potentially interested as a client, but it also when you have a specific magnetic pitch like that, it really activates people who can refer you business because it’s much more memorable for them. And they know exactly what you do and who you’re looking for, so they can be better referral sources.

[00:17:57] Stephanie: I love that. Have you ever heard that when they say like get to the know faster, because instead of trying to convince someone like, hey, you need my services, get to the know faster so that way you could focus on the actual client that does need your service. So if you are servicing the faith-based company, say that upfront, because if they’re not then, you know, shift gears. I’m like, okay, nice meeting you. Network away.

[00:18:22] Chris: Yeah, exactly.

[00:18:24] Stephanie: So shout out to Mitch Jackson, who’s tuning in and he says, I’m so good at repelling the people I don’t want as clients.

Not sure if it’s intentional, but it’s affective. And I think that’s a smart move, right? Because there are only two commodities in life, right? Time and energy, time and energy. And if you use those strategically, then you’ll get the results that you want to do. So, as we mentioned earlier, where your attention goes, energy flows.

And so when you’re intentional, it’s effective. Okay, so here’s a good question for you. How do you nicely repel a client? If they’re like, oh, okay. You know, here’s my magnetic pitch. You’re not a good fit. What’s your transition? Because you don’t just want to burn a bridge. You could possibly say, I might know someone down the line that might be helpful for you.

Yeah, I

[00:19:13] Chris: would agree with that. I think you want to let them know politely and just be kind because you want to be helpful. But part of that, you might be able to connect them with someone or some resource that could help them and point them in the right direction. So if something does come to mind, do that if not, you just, just you know, be polite. Sometimes those conversations, even if they’re not your ideal prospect or client, they could still go somewhere because think about it. They may know your ideal audience, or they might have some connection to some event or person. So there’s still value in that, but you make it very clear upfront so that it really focuses the conversation.

[00:19:55] Stephanie: Okay. I love that. Yeah. I always tell everyone there’s resources in relationships. So start building them now. Even those of you that are in the audience right now, you know, I’ve probably reached out to you. I’m like, hey, do you have a referral? Do you know someone in your network that I could tap into that could help me out with this and that?

So great advice, Chris. I want to give a shout out to Gabe Leal. Who’s saying get to the know faster. Love that, and need to get that in my game plan because wouldn’t you agree, Chris, there’s power in knowing when to say no. So there’s the power in the know, and you could use it as NO or K N O W but there’s power in knowing.

[00:20:39] Chris: Yeah. And I think of like, when you’re an agency, you’re in a relationship with your client and you maybe work with them daily. If things aren’t a good fit, I can’t think of anything that’s more stressful. I think a lot of my time, especially initially with clients is just unpacking some of those really toxic or relationships where expectations can’t be met.

We spent so much time on that, but if you can really determine fit quickly and only say yes to the people who you’d really work well with, it really saves so much your time and energy that’s normally spent like kind of doing damage control or trying to make something that square fit in a circle and your client’s results and growing your agency.

[00:21:23] Stephanie: Very helpful. Love it. All right. So we’ve talked about delivering one result for one niche and to Mitch who says, he’s a part of the niche fills a niche. So when we sell it for one niche communicated in one pitch. Oh, cause it rhymes. That’s why. So then Chris, what’s the fourth?

[00:21:49] Chris: Yeah. So you want to invite them to one conversion event and by conversion event, it’s just something that you invite a prospect to. So I don’t think anyone wants to feel like they need to pressure people into whether that in a live networking event, you know, the room or something online, or really sell their prospects, but it’s a lot better to invite people to things.

So, when you think of a conversion events, you can kind of play three roles and you want to really determine which role best fits you. Or, if you’re thinking about whoever’s doing kind of like business development for your agency, you want to think of the role that’s going to best fit them. So there’s kind of three major roles.

One is, you can be a teacher, you can be a doctor or an advisor, and here’s some examples of some conversion events for each of those categories. So if you’re a teacher, you really good at speaking and teaching, you want to be at conferences or in-person speaking events or workshops, webinars, on-demand trainings, those types of things.

Those are good conversion events for you. If you’re more of a doctor, you can really get under the hood of their marketing and find out what’s wrong and suggest what can really help them. Then, you want to offer assessments, audits, or evaluations, those type of conversion events work really, really well.

And if you’re a really good adviser, you’re really good at strategy, or you’re really good on the phone, or you’re really good in person, or you have some coaching skills, then you want to be the advisor in discovery calls or some type of branded strategy call.

[00:23:30] Stephanie: I think I lost you on the branded strategy call, but it was so good. Can you go back to when you were talking about when you are a good advisor, you could be on this discovery call. And then, I was like, and then I lost you.

[00:23:42] Chris: Or some type of branded strategy calls.

So how can you put some of the results and, and the specifics of the niche within the name of a strategy call and really design it to be able to best advise.

[00:24:00] Stephanie: I love how you organized and divided these conversion events, because it does make a lot of sense. It makes a lot of sense because I find that more often than not, decision-makers are motivated by different things.

Sometimes they want to hear about the strategy. Sometimes they want to know like, hey, look underneath the hood, give me an audit, give me your analysis and all these different things. And so, I think even in my brain, I was like mapping out. Oh, what are some really good conversion events that I could start putting in there?

Whether it’s like worksheets, audits, strategy calls. And then, yeah. In fact, Gabriel is, he’s already asking a question, Chris, he’s asking what questions or information should I be asking a prospect of client to help me accurately price and scope the project? Any tidbits on that?

[00:24:48] Chris: I think anytime you’re getting information, your questions you want to start with three things. You want their result that they want.

And then you want to find the reality of where they are. And then the roadblocks. That are in the way. And I think that you, you, first of all, find out what they’re going to accomplish. And then as far as pricing that is probably individual, but you gotta look at the return on investment and you gotta make sure, I always say this to my clients, you want to make sure the money math works for both you and them. So let’s say if, for instance, if you did a paid ads, you’d want to make sure that your agency and the ad spend, if you plug that in and then you look at the money that you’re making them, that they’re ROI positive and it works.

So that, that’s just the way that you can kind of buffer your prices. But if you’re clear with a specific niche and a specific result and you position yourself as a specialist, you will be able to charge premium and charge more.

[00:25:53] Stephanie: That was gold. Okay. Producer, we need like a sound effect for that.

That was good. Gabe, I hope you wrote that down because Chris, I don’t even know if you know this, but I’m such a big, huge fan of alliteration. And so when you said result, reality and roadblocks, I was like, mic drop. That’s amazing cause I find that even when I work with clients and I ask them, you know, what’s your desired outcome, what’s the result that you want to have?

And even when I’m speaking to them, it’s a matter of like, well, can you actually see yourself achieving that goal? Because sometimes clients can have this desired outcome of what it is that they want, but then they self-sabotage because they can’t actually really picture what that would look like. Or even sometimes when I ask them when you had mentioned like reality, it’s like, where are you right now, compared to where it is that you need to be? It’s super helpful in asking them, what are the resources that you currently have? Have you seen other people do this in your industry? What are the resources that you need?

And not only that though, but the roadblocks that you had mentioned, because it could be things like your team scaling and all that other stuff.

[00:27:09] Chris: One final tip to that I just thought of when you price, and a lot of times when you have a hard time gauging just what their budget is. A lot of times you want to, you ask that question, but a lot of times you might not get a straight answer is to offer two options. One that is like the Cadillac the thing that’s going to help get them to their result, the fastest and the most directly.

And then you can have a second one that’s maybe scaled back a little bit and you get a chance to see kind of you have a good feel on what they’re gravitating towards.

[00:27:43] Stephanie: I like that. I like that. So, we mentioned earlier that Chris is in Baja, California, and I’m probably a couple of exits away from him.

And then when you were talking about like the fastest route, I was like, yeah, get me the fast pass. That’s me. Give me a VIP strategy day, and let’s map this out. Let’s get strategic about it. Don’t put me in a coaching program where it’s going to take me 12 weeks to figure this out. Right. It’s like, I need revenue right now.

And so is that one package. Very, very helpful. So Gabriel is saying, this is absolute gold and he is taking notes. So, having said that what’s the fifth essential cause we’ve been dropping a game. We’ve been dropping a lot, a lot, a lot. So what’s the fifth essential, Chris?

[00:28:30] Chris: Okay. So you want to invite them to one conversion event and it’s going to be supplied by one traffic source.

I don’t know. Has anyone heard the saying don’t put all your eggs in one basket? If you have, I don’t recommend that as a strategy for growing your agency, I actually would recommend the flip side. So you want to put all your eggs in one basket as far as traffic sources go and watch that basket like a Hawk.

[00:29:00] Stephanie: Oh, interesting. And why would you say that? If you notice that I pause sometimes it’s because I’m like writing things down, like oh, why would he say, why would he say put all your eggs in one basket? Tell us more about that.

[00:29:17] Chris: Yeah. So it’s tough. I think you mentioned it earlier in the show too, of like, there is kind of peer pressure to be everywhere to everything. Let’s say my channel is LinkedIn. If you’re focusing on one channel, you can pay attention to it and you can learn, you can tweak it. You can get really good at that in a short period of time versus spreading your focus over five different channels.

So I highly recommend that.

The service, you know, they have like their own marketing and promotion plan. You can have more than one focus as long as it’s not confusing, especially on like social channels for your audience. It’s difficult for one individual or one team to focus on too many things.

I’d say another exception is this. Let’s say my strategy is I’m going to be all in on YouTube and creating content on YouTube. A way I could add another traffic source that doesn’t divert my focus is I can hire a vendor to really fully manage and do all the strategy for the other traffic source.

Let’s say it’s a cold email outreach. So, if I delegate that to a vendor and they’re focused on that, that doesn’t pull my focus because they’re taking care of it. So that’s a way you can be in multiple places, but really put all your eggs in one basket and watch the basket.

[00:30:49] Stephanie: I love that. Yeah. I’ve always tell, you know, friends that are starting their entrepreneurial journey. It’s very much it’s do what you do best and hire out the rest. You know? I find that some people know a better YouTube strategy than I do because they live and breathe it. They know every single nuance about it.

That’s their niche. Just tell me what it is that I have to do, whatever it is. And I need to film, let’s outsource it to an editor and boom I’m, you know, I’m still focusing on getting clients on the phone and knowing how to close that. So that was very helpful. Thank you. Awesome. All right. So Agency Accelerated friends, we’re getting close to wrapping things up with Chris.

So if you’ve got questions, now’s the time to ask and Gabe that’s for you.

Gabe and Mitch. Both have been super duper active in the chat and I really appreciate it. So I’ve just got one more question on my own that you’re not going to want to miss. So again, if you have any questions, go ahead and drop them in the comments. We do have one from Gabby saying this is absolute gold. I am taking notes.

Plenty of notes.

Good. So for Chris, you’ve talked about how agencies should focus on delivering one result for one niche, communicated in one pitch and offer it in one package. And then you’re inviting them into one conversion event supplied by one traffic source. Brilliant. It’s like all map. Yes. Then what’s the last essential?

[00:32:29] Chris: Yeah, you really want to find tune that over one year. Anything that’s going to be consistent and really gonna maximize your growth. You need to learn and tweak it and fine tune it over and over again until you become an expert and you really fine tune your entire sales and marketing system towards that one niche selling that one package over the course of the year. And I think that’s a lot of the false starts that I kind of mentioned earlier is we find out something, a really great strategy. It might be very good and we’re excited about it. And then, you know, it comes to implementation and testing and revising, and that’s the tough part.

And that’s where you can get discouraged. And not want to stick with it. And then you find that, you know, you see another thing that looks really shiny and magical and you latch onto that. So it creates kind of a false start and a lot of times people give up on something too quickly. There is a place to pivot if things aren’t working, but that’s kind of that fine tuning process.

And you want to do it over a year and that’s when you have those seven things. Those, I call them the seven ones in place. That’s when people really accelerate their agency. Clients, I work with, they really stick to that. You could see, you know, they can double their agency in a year. And that’s not uncommon.

If you violate any of those seven rules that say you focus in on two niches, or you focus in on two traffic sources, if you violate one of those, it doubles the time to get to your growth goal. So that this is the most streamlined way that I know.

[00:34:16] Stephanie: Wow. That’s interesting. And I love that you even put the timeline of a year because, I think even as an entrepreneur, having launched at my own agency, entrepreneurs were advised to embrace failure, but never give up. Always be testing and trying to figure things out because there are a lot of iterations that need to happen with campaigns and all those different things.

Having said that we do have a really great question, Chris, this comes from Mitch Jackson and he’s asking, well, what about moving agencies into the metaverse? What about trends? I know we talked a little bit about shiny object syndrome, but it really sounds, and it feels like, and it looks like the metaverse, that’s happening.

So what are your thoughts on trends?

[00:35:03] Chris: Yeah. I’m probably not the best person to talk about the meta universe. There’s probably people who have a greater understanding of that, but this is the trends that I’m seeing overall is, you know, first of all, this is still you know, digital agencies are still fairly new in the course of the different fields. They’re still fairly new and evolving versus you think of really established professions like dentists and attorneys, where they’ve kind of worked out all the kinks in their business model. And, you know, it’s pretty standard. You know, you have a standard experience at a dentist and an attorney, you know, standard rates, things that work.

It’s still a little bit of a wild west with agencies, but there’s much more of a demand. And then there’s a lot more agencies that are popping up. So it is becoming more competitive. So those that can show the ROI, no matter what service or series of services that you are providing.

That will always be in demand. If you can get ROI on the investment that the client is making in marketing, that’s going to be timeless. And that’s what I really see in the future. And then obviously, like the more specific you can be in being a specialist is also something that I see as a trend. You know, the tools will change.

The platforms will change. But I think those are the things that don’t.

[00:36:30] Stephanie: Great advice.

Chris, thank you so much. This has been such a powerful interview. Everyone’s been taking notes, so thank you. Thank you. Can you tell folks where to connect with you and learn more?

[00:36:47] Chris: Yeah, you can check out my website at freedombusinessfamily.com or you can look me up, Chris Rudolph on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

[00:36:59] Stephanie: All right. That’s all that we have for today, folks. In our next episode, we’ll be talking to Patty McGill from eWebinar to help us create better webinar experiences and leverage webinars for client onboarding. After that, we’ll have the amazing Rory Sutherland from Ogilvy, Kevin Lau from Adobe, David Fisher and Teresa Anderson. So, if you could also do me a favor, look up the Agency Accelerated podcast on Spotify and give us a rating and review. Spotify just added a new rating feature and you can really help us out there because we’re bringing out the big guns this year, as far as helping you to accelerate your agency and all the things.

So thank you everyone so much. I’ll see you and your agency accelerating into the next show.