Successful services company... but stuck. Next step?

[healthylurker]

Hi everyone,

I've been lurking for awhile and finally have decided to join in on the conversations...nice to meet you!

I'm kind of in a pickle in terms of growing my company, and would love some advice..

My business partner and I own a digital marketing agency that specializes in a large industry (one that will always be booming). While we serve clients locally, we do have a global reach, servicing several clients in EU due to being internet-based. We have been a company for 3.5 years now. We have no overhead and generated $185,000 last year but now feel like we are stuck and not sure how to grow beyond that. We have a handful of clients, some small, and 1 very large name on our roster. Lately nothing seems to be doing the trick for us -- we've tried social media, SEO, emails etc. to land new business, you name it.

The real problem is -- we just don't have time for sales and don't have the skill set.

It is just the 2 of us and we wear all hats. As you all know, it's very time consuming and we feel that we do not spend enough time on lead generation. Just not enough time in the day! And to be honest.. we're just not that great at it. We're great at DOING the work, but hate the legwork of landing a client.

Is the next step to hire a sales rep with the goal of generating enough revenue to start expanding our team? To be honest, we make just enough right now to pay ourselves. Therefore, hiring someone full time would not be feasible for us. Would a lead generation company be a smarter choice, perhaps a part time consultant who puts in a few hours a week, commission etc? I fear maybe it's too early for us to start thinking about this because of lack of funds (though we can definitely put some $ aside for this), but at the same time, if we don't get help in this department, I don't know how we're going to grow. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

[Harold Mansfield]

The real problem is -- we just don't have time for sales and don't have the skill set....

And to be honest.. we're just not that great at it. We're great at DOING the work, but hate the legwork of landing a client....

To be honest, we make just enough right now to pay ourselves. Therefore, hiring someone full time would not be feasible for us.

Well, you just answered most of your own questions. Pretty much every business owners is good at doing the skilled or technical work..that's why they went into business. But as you're starting to see you need more than that to actually run a business.

Like you, I always hated sales. HATED IT! I used to say the exact same thing, "I'm just not that good at it and I hate doing the leg work". But there was no choice...I had to get comfortable with sales or I'd only be able to close deals that landed in my lap and that luck runs out quickly.

I got "lucky" in that I had a job that I hated just before I went into business for myself doing phone sales that helped my phone and sales skills tremendously.

But I still had a problem of how would I get the people in front of me or on the phone? I can't physically go to them. I'm not doing cold calling, and I had no money to run ads. Even locally..going to meet with people wastes my time and it rarely becomes a deal...most just want to sit in the same room with someone and pick their brain for free.

I figured out that I needed to deal with people who were ready to rock and roll, were comfortable doing business online, that they could be anywhere in the world as long is the work was in English, and that I needed them to come to me. So I put all of my efforts into online marketing and making people come to me and I continue to do that everyday.

Why did I tell such a long story? Because you have to do sales. There's no way around it. Someone has to be able to close the deals.
The second part of that is knowing who you're targeting in the first place and where they are. That will determine what you need to do to target them and come up with a plan to do so.



Would a lead generation company be a smarter choice, perhaps a part time consultant who puts in a few hours a week, commission etc? I fear maybe it's too early for us to start thinking about this because of lack of funds (though we can definitely put some $ aside for this), but at the same time, if we don't get help in this department, I don't know how we're going to grow.

If you wait until things are slow it will be too late. You should always be thinking about keeping the pipeline flowing.

[Freelancier]

Random thoughts:

Sorry, but $185K for two people isn't enough to hire a salesperson even on commission (which will need to run about 25%+ to be interesting to a salesperson without salary and even then you'll have to get involved in the sales process because the salesperson will sell anything even if you can't do it). Forget that road for now.

You need to grow your revenue using current staff. Which means raising your rates and becoming more efficient so that you have more hours available to bill.

You got your current customers, so you've obviously got some level of sales talent. Think about what worked, what didn't. Think about whether you'd still have your clients if you increased your rates 30%. Your first answer is likely "no", but you'll be surprised if you ask your clients who place a value on what you do that likely significantly exceeds what you're charging them.

[healthylurker]

Thank you for the advice!

[vangogh]

I'll add a few more thoughts and probably repeat a few things too. A service based business only scales so much without hiring people. You and your partner only have so many hours a week to work. You can't create time, but you can probably work more efficiently. Automate tasks where you can. Work smarter so you put some time to other things. If you can't hire someone to to work sales yet, you'll have to do it yourselves. Ideally as you do you'll gain more work, hopefully enough to start hiring.

You mentioned social media, seo, email as ways you're tried to generate leads. Social media isn't the best place to look for leads. People aren't looking to do business on social sites. Obviously there are exceptions, but it's really not a lead generation source. If you're in an industry that's always booming then there are a lot of businesses already far ahead of you where search engines are concerned. You probably need years to compete. Email can work if people have opted-in to your email list. If you're sending out sales emails to some targeted list you probably won't see much in the way of results. I don't mean to imply that none of these can work for you. I'm saying there are more and less effective ways to get them to work and maybe you need to try again, but in a different way.

It's hard to give you specifics without knowing more about your business. In general, can you raise your rates? You can only do that so much with existing clients, but can you raise your prices for new clients? Some will say no, but that's ok as long as enough say yes. Are there things you can do in addition to what you do now that clients will see as valuable enough to pay more?

Since your time is limited, I'd think about how you can make more per client or per sale and how you can work more efficiently to gain more time for marketing and sales.