I am putting this post together to share some wisdom from my 2022 that might help you in the growth of your business.
To give context that reinforces this information I’m going to share, here are some stats.
Q4 of last year, McBilly Sy and I lost 30% of our revenue at Good Vibe Squad Marketing and we were concerned about what we would need to do to preserve the long term presence of our company and its brand.
From December of last year to December of this year, we are up 313% as far as monthly revenue. This helps you see that while we took quite a large hit, we not only recovered lost ground but took massive leaps in our growth trajectory.
Now, I’m going to show you some of the things we did that positioned us well for massive growth.
NOTE: this advice is for marketing agencies specifically, but would apply to any service based business.
1. We hired mentors
We invested at least $100,000 to be around people who are further ahead of us on this journey in some capacity. Everyone has strengths, and rather than wasting the time to know everything that our friends in masterminds know, we just learn directly from them. We’ve done this for a few years now, but it is a game changer. Find mentors and listen to them. Do what they say. It’s way harder to try to go at it alone and do/learn everything yourself.
2. We invested into marketing
It’s no secret that we love marketing. But continuing to invest into marketing when you take a 30% hit takes commitment to the end goal. Too many people make knee jerk reactionary choices when they encounter loss and do stupid things like turning off marketing. Only to close the coffin on their own growth. Your marketing should be THE LAST thing you turn off. It’s the blood of your business.
Mistake #4 Discarding leads that aren’t a slam dunk deal
It’s no secret that we love marketing. But continuing to invest into marketing when you take a 30% hit takes commitment to the end goal. Too many people make knee jerk reactionary choices when they encounter loss and do stupid things like turning off marketing. Only to close the coffin on their own growth. Your marketing should be THE LAST thing you turn off. It’s the blood of your business.
3. We delegated
We hired, trained and did our best to empower our team to walk into the unknown when it was required. This was a difficult one, because when you go from 25 team members (last December), to 50+ team members (this December), things break. The lack of systems and processes that you can get away with when you’re a lean organization start to eat you alive when you get a lot of people. We’ve hired HR consultants and I’ve been reading about 10 books on HR, compensation strategy, etc so that our growth is predictable and our pay is fair. Considering labor will most likely be your largest expense (investment) as you grow, you should be progressively more intentional with how you hire, train, and support your team. It’ll go a long way in the future.
4. We buckled down and did the work
There’s not many secrets to business. But one of the “hacks” in business is to stop preoccupying yourself with shortcuts. The work has to be done. Doesn’t mean you have to “grind”, but someone has to do the work. If it’s not you, it better be delegated. Of all advice, this will probably feel like the most lecture-y of all. But I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen agency owners change industries that they serve over and over and over because “that niche sucks”. Every industry/business sucks in its own way. Find the kind of “suck” that you can tolerate (or ideally get excited about) and solve as many of those people’s problems as you can. If you aim to do that every day, and you do that for a few years… one day you’ll look up, and have a decent chunk of coin in your bank account.
5. We focused on the community with our clients
We truly view them as our people. We want them to win. We look forward to our weekly calls to pour into them. We spent a lot of time and money on our client mastermind this summer. We get to know them as people and we work to get them to know each other as well. When we think of our clients, there’s a true sense of family and caring. This, at our core, is probably one of our superpowers that fuels us when most signs should point to quitting, we push through for them.
6. We tripled our sales team and created new roles
Sounds small, but it opened up our capacity for growth which was huge. We mechanized our sales team so they were efficient and powerful.
7. We have a baller legal team
People complain about the costs of lawyers. And you want to know what’s more expensive than having a good lawyer? Not having one. Their counsel this year has been paramount.
8. We leaned on our CFO to help us make sense of the numbers and make smart/strategic money decisions
Having a solid CFO in your business is like having your instrument rating when you’re flying. Even when you lose sight and you’re stuck in the clouds, you know where you’re at. You know how to make sense of the gauges. Having a great CFO is priceless.
9. We linked arms with other people in the industry and forged some true and real friendships
Even though some of them, on some level, are “competitors” we have an abundance mindset and are not worried about losing business to them. And truthfully, if we lose business to an industry friend – good for them. Our friends in our industry are all bosses. I love seeing them win. Abundance is a benefit you get when you’re constantly pushing the bounds on solving more and more problems for your clients. The bigger the moat around your business, the easier it is to live in abundance. So if you feel resistance around making friends with competitors, improve your offer.
10. We only take the money we want to take
Not all money is the same. If someone comes to us with bad energy or bad expectations, we don’t work with them. Straight up. It’s not worth it. We’ve taken on those projects in the past and my team can vouch – 100% of them sucked. Your business should be fun. You should look forward to it. The best way to set yourself up like this is to only take money from the right people, and then blow their socks off with an amazing offer.
Hopefully you get some takeaways from that that you can use in your business. Let me know what advice you liked most
Wishing you all a record year next year! Let’s f-ing goooooo!
(And be safe out there tonight)
