As an agency, there’s a bit of pressure to pretend that everything is going well. That clients never leave, that the business is growing by 50% every year and that life is just getting better and better.
The truth is messier than that.
Some months are great, and some are not. Sometimes a campaign works, and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes, a client even leaves.
This happened to us a few years back. It wasn’t unexpected. In fact, there were a few red flags that indicated things were going sour. In this blog, I want to show you what we learned from this experience so that you know what to look out for.
The real core of why this client left us was because of religious problems. I’ve talked about this before. It’s the Religion of One. It’s that intolerant set of beliefs that says ONE platform is all you need in your business. For this business, that ONE platform was Facebook. The main source of traffic for this business was coming from Facebook Ads. And it is partly our fault because we weren’t moving fast enough to expand into other platforms.
When something is working, the urgency to diversify your marketing mix isn’t intense at all. But, when things start to break, that’s a whole different story. At the time, the costs of Facebook Ads had been going up big time. As this business solely relied on Facebook, it impacted them severely. All of a sudden, the revenue generated from ads started to go down.
That’s when the client made what is one of the BIGGEST mistakes you can make in marketing…
They decided to cut ad spend.
We can’t blame them for wanting to do this. If, all of a sudden, your revenue dropped and ad prices went up, the natural response would be to try and get out of the game. The question is, “Where on earth will your traffic come from?”
Getting your ass kicked by Facebook is a big problem but cutting your primary traffic source when you don’t have a good alternative is even worse. We told the client what would happen. We told them that revenue would continue to go down. Yet they went ahead anyway.
I’m part of an agency group on Facebook. Every now and then, I see a post from someone about how well they are doing. Usually, it’s something like “how I managed to build a 7-figure agency in less than 12 months.”
On the surface, those success stories sound amazing. The trouble is, on more than one occasion, I have actually known the person talking about their success. Often, what was supposedly an amazing success story, actually took years of not just ‘hard work,’ but grueling work. Some of these people who claimed “overnight success”, endured periods of being broke, working with clients they didn’t like, and feeling creatively drained from the projects they were working on. Sometimes, they even considered quitting altogether.
Now, that stuff often gets left out or minimised when somebody makes their big break. That leads to the myth of the “overnight success story”. The problem with this is that’s it giving entrepreneurs a false sense of security. They end up thinking that because their business isn’t meeting that same level of growth, they are “failing”.
In this blog, I will unpack what success in business really looks like so that you can have a realistic idea of what to expect. This way, you won’t have any surprises along the way and are more likely to stay in the game.
Overnight successes happen, but what’s more realistic is a 5-year success, or even a 10-year success story. Truth is, most business owners I know went through a long stretch of supposed ‘failure.’ For many people, they only started giving themselves a paycheck five years in, or even later.
While it’s not exactly the “overnight successes” you see on Instagram or LinkedIn, that’s the reality for a lot of people.
Yes, it may sound boring but it will transform the way you approach business. The secret to long-term success is people.
I’m not sure if I should be telling you this, but here goes…
Some of my most profitable deals have been without any sort of contract. All I have had is a verbal agreement with the other party. Often, those deals make far more money than any of our agency’s retainer clients.
Why?
Well, I only make them with people I trust. People I have been working with for years. They know we’ll perform, and I know they’ll pay me. That kind of trust gets developed from sticking to your word – from being someone with integrity. The way you build that trust is through being in business long enough to build a reputation. To get there, you need to expect some rough terrain and keep moving forward. While it can be tempting to give up, once you reach the other side, you’ll be thankful you didn’t
There are a lot of great resources out there that talk about how powerful compound interest is with finances. Well, I’ve found that compound interest affects more things than just money.
It’s also a massive player when it comes to building relationships. When you stick to your word, deliver, and keep doing it, your reputation starts to snowball. Suddenly, you’re forming relationships with people who you can help, and who can help you. All of a sudden, you’re presented with opportunities you never even dreamed of when you first started. And it’s all because you stuck with it and kept going.
Whether you’ve got a specific project in mind or a feeling that you need ‘something’, drop us a line and we’ll put our heads together.
