Five Questions to Ask Before Starting Your Agency – Question 3
Hey, Congrats!
I commend your desire to launch out and create your own agency!
Entrepreneurs are the drivers, the movers and shakers of the world. They make things happen. If you launch your agency, then YOU will begin to make things happen in your part of the world.
I want to help you get there.
(See my first blog in this series about my agency story.)
Here are the Five Questions to ask before launching your own agency:
1. Why? The Question of Motivation
We discussed that question here.
2. When? The Question of Urgency
We discussed that question here.
3. Who? The Question of Clients
Many new business owners, when asked, “Who do you want as your customers?” answer with something like, “Everyone!” That answer will not move your business forward. Inviting everyone will motivate no one.
To grow your business and get lots of clients you must “niche-ifying” your business. For example: a woman will get married soon, so she needs a photographer. When she does the web search, which ad will she notice:
1. “Photographer”
2. “Wedding Photographer”
Of course, she’ll select the Wedding Photographer, because that’s exactly what she wants.
Next she needs a wedding cake. Which will she choose “Baker” or “Wedding Cake Baker”?
Pretty obvious, right? Let’s try some harder ones: I need a website for my new business. When I do a web search, I find: “website builders”, “website developer”, or “build your own website”? Which do I choose? It depends; am I looking for someone who can build it for me, or do I want to try myself?
This is how people think when they’re looking for something.
How about ‘carpenter’? For what? New Build? Remodel? Just adding trim to my floorboards?
How about ‘marketing’? Am I marketing a physical or digital store? A new business? Trying to improve my existing business? If I am trying to improve the marketing of my existing business, am I looking for ‘print publications’, ‘improved signage’, ‘better website traffic’, ‘better SEO’, ’email blasts’, ‘cold calling’, etc.
If you’re building a marketing agency, ask yourself, “What will be my speciality?” By going smaller in your focus, you go bigger in your outreach!
Focused agencies are successful agencies. So ‘niche down in order to ramp up’!
If you are a ‘software agency’, that is a general focus. Perhaps you could focus on just one or two languages, ‘specializing in Python problems’.
Just one or two focus points is the place to begin. Then as you grow, you may have the option of expanding into other areas. Our FileMaker agency does general FileMaker development; but we advertise that we can solve “FileMaker speed issues” and “FileMaker to WordPress integrations”. Those ads get us clients for those areas, and then more general clients as well.
So ask yourself these questions:
1. What is my general area of work?
2. What is my speciality within that area?
3. Is there something within that speciality that I can really excel at?
For us it was 1. Software; 2. FileMaker software; 3. FileMaker software speed issues
Who is my client? is an important question to ask. Once you know that, then you know many other things: your market area, your market size, your competitors in just that space, the local experts, and what online guides can help you to succeed.
Based upon knowing your speciality, here are some additional steps you can take:
1. Create your client target avatar
2. Create your Unique Selling Point
3. Create your Tagline
4. Create your Business Purpose Statement
These steps move us from the Who? question to the next question which is What?
(we will look at that in the next blog in this series). For now, here are items one and two:
Your Client Avatar
This is a demographic, cultural, and social description of your ideal client, based on your business niche. An example would be “Our ideal client is a small business owner that lives in the United States, is 20 – 30 years old, and sells $1-2 Million annually through their online business but wants to double that number in the next year.”
That is a clear target market that allows focusing on that specific goal.
Your Unique Selling Point
Once you’ve answered “Who?” you nearly have your USP completed. Now write out a compelling description. It could be something like, “We provide the most cost-effective wedding photography in the county.” or “We create wedding cakes that will be a memorable and tasty addition to your big day”, or “We guarantee to speed up your FileMaker solution, and reduce your wait time for reports.”
In summary, what do we have so far?
We have a clear idea of WHO we will be serving. We’ve narrowed our niche to a specific focus that we can work on. We’ve created a custom avatar of our perfect customer and we’ve written our Unique Selling Point, which we can use every time we meet someone.
Here are a few other general steps:
1. Sign up for our “Automate Your Business” eNews to receive future articles right in your email box.
2. Download and try some software to help you run your agency: projects.highpowerdata.com
3. Keep reading the next set of blogs.
~William Miller
Minneapolis, MN
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