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Help One Ideal-Fit Client Solve a Costly Problem

Gray MacKenzie
Gray MacKenzie is a true operations nerd who has spent the past decade helping hundreds of agencies build more productive, profitable, and healthy teams by solving the core issues plaguing their project management.

To chat with Gray and have ZenPilot lead your team through the last project management implementation you'll ever need, schedule a quick call here.

This is the fourth post in a series on the Agency Freedom Manifesto.

In my last post, we worked through positioning your agency and making the hard decision that simplifies every other decision.

Today, we’re going to tackle the fastest path to mastery, results, and profit.

This core principle of serving one ideal-fit client type solve a costly problem drives our entire business.

Not just our own growth, delivery, and operations, but it’s also the fundamental methodology for scale that we help agencies implement.

Pete Caputa, CEO @ Databox, recently tweeted this:

If you’re a small mktg agency & still offering different services to any prospect, please do this…

1) Pick 1 service
2) Pick 1 industry
3) Build a site offer for that service/industry
4) Interview/feature ur target customers in your content

I’m tired of seeing y’all struggle. — Peter Caputa IV (@pc4media) June 20, 2019

What Happens When You Narrow Your Focus?

Point #4 of the Agency Freedom Manifesto, help one ideal-fit client solve a costly problem, is simply Newton’s Second Law applied to agency life.

The acceleration of your business depends directly on the force you apply, and depends inversely on the mass to which you apply that force.

Mass = variables.

Your variables are the types of clients you serve, the different services you provide, the team you need, etc.

More variables = less acceleration.

So when you narrow your focus, as Pete proposes in the tweet above, you’re able to increase your velocity.

Why?

Because you’ve made the hard decision that makes everything else easier.

Practical Benefits of Agency Focus

Narrowing your focus is the fastest path to mastery.

Mastery unlocks all kinds of benefits:

  • You know your customer’s problems before they tell you.
  • Your understanding builds trust.
  • That trust earns business.
  • Your mastery delivers great results.
  • Those results mean that customers can’t replace you.
  • Your irreplaceability means you can charge what you’re worth.
  • Those results mean that customers will refer you.
  • The increased demand allows you to charge more.
  • Charging more allows you to deliver better results.
  • Your team feels a clear sense of identity and purpose.
  • Your team loves the feeling of mastery.
  • Your ability to charge what your worth allows you to pay your team what they’re worth.
  • Your team is happy and recruits great new team members.
  • Great new team members improve results.
  • Those results allow you to charge more…
  • …and the cycle continues.

Some would call this a flywheel effect…(hello HubSpotters 🙂

It’s true — this all builds on itself (see Newton’s First Law).

As I wrote on making hard decisions, this isn’t easy.

The payoff, however, is immeasurably worth it.

Just do it.

How Do I Choose My Focus?

As George Washington is alleged to have said, “I cannot tell a lie…”

It’s difficult to do on your own.

You can do it, but as David Baker has said, it’s like trying to read the label from inside the jar.

I’d highly recommend getting qualified help to nail down the correct focus for your agency.

It’s critical.

That’s why it’s the first step, The Foundation, in our Agency Accelerator program.

You can, and should, learn more about the Agency Freedom Model here.

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