The where, when, why and how of growing an agency
Robert Craven, author of business bestseller Kick-Start Your Business (Foreword by Sir Richard Branson), is helping digital agencies to grow with his new book Grow Your Digital Agency.
Based in Bath, Robert has been helping to grow marketing and digital agencies to grow since the original internet bubble! He’s currently working with Google where he’s running a coaching program for high-growth marketing agencies that focus on the digital side of their business. He is author of several business books for service firms and agencies. The FT described him as “the entrepreneurship guru”.
With the incredible growth in demand for all things digital, there has been an explosion in the sheer number of agencies selling all things digital.
As Robert says, “The trouble is that most agency directors are great at the digital piece, they are technically excellent at working in their business. What they are not so hot at is all the other stuff, the working on the business. For instance, the marketing, pricing, selling, recruiting, and creating a strategy for the business.”
So, if market demand is growing so quickly, why is there a problem?
Robert continues, “In a growing marketplace, you can fool yourself that all is good. However, the industry has a growing reputation for under-delivering especially in terms of customer relations and delivering to time and to spec. Agencies are going bust with bad debts despite being good at the day job. In what is becoming a real dog-eat-dog scenario, the winners are the agencies that are significantly better at all aspects of growing a business, not just being good at the technical stuff.”
It was suggested that Robert write the book after a trip to Dublin where he was working with 25 coaches all focusing on helping agencies to grow. He says, ”What we were doing was helping agencies with everything but the technical stuff.”
The book, with a Foreword by Raja Saggi, from Google UK is now available.
And Robert’s final comments, “Being technically excellent is not enough to guarantee survival; you also need to be able to run every aspect of a business.”