Personal Goals vs Business Goals: Mistakes Not to Make for Your Agency
Personal Goals vs Business Goals: Mistakes Not to Make for Your Agency
There is a difference between what your personal goals are and your business goals and the first step is recognising this before you start making mistakes.
In this episode, we cover:
- Hear from a former agency owner on making the decision to close.
- Learn the 3 things you can do to avoid the most common agency problems.
- Discover what to do when your personal goals no longer align with your business.
Tough times usually means desperate measures. If you’ve been running your agency for awhile and have ever thought about raising the white flag, you are not alone.
Today’s guest is not an agency owner… ANYMORE. Earlier this year Noah Stokes, a designer/developer by trade, chose to close the doors on his digital agency — 6 years and 5 employees after he founded it. Noah is now the Senior Product Designer at Creative Market and quite content with his decision.
Why become a startup digital agency owner?
Sometimes the grass IS greener…. for awhile.
I think a lot of agency owners have a similar story. It starts out as a hobby or side jobs until eventually it makes more sense to go all in and do the legit agency thing. Same with Noah. He had been working full time and began taking freelance work on the side. Eventually, he was spending full time hours and had enough retainer work to quit his regular gig and branch out on his own. He told himself he would never work for anyone else again. And that was his entire goal.
After a year flying solo, Noah took on a partner with complementary skills. They began getting busier and slowly hired team members to keep up with the demands of the growing client list, the increasing size of their projects and increasing client budgets. Noah says adding to his team made sense to offset the amount of work but created a new level of complexity to his position as founder and CEO. Suddenly the grass was NOT greener. He was forced to spend more time on “business stuff,” like business development and team management and pulled away from the “creative stuff” he loved.
3 Mistakes a Former Agency Owner Doesn’t Want You to Make:
They say hindsight is 20/20…
Every agency owner makes mistakes, but even mistakes can provide value when we learn from them. Owning an agency no longer aligned with Noah’s personal goals and he decided to close the doors to his agency. Here’s some of his insights on mistakes he made or things he wished he’d done differently.
- Lack of systems. Noah knew they were putting out good work, but finding the work was a problem. The agency relied strictly on referral business. A good lead generation system would have created a more sustainable business. He and his partner were constantly wondering where the next project was going to come from. A business development/strategist helped with that concern a few years in but looking back, a leads system should’ve been in place much sooner.
- Lack of clarity. In the beginning, Noah knew he didn’t want to work for anyone else. He knew he wanted to keep the agency small-ish (5-8 employees), but otherwise he didn’t know where he wanted to take the business. He and his partner did hire a strategist/business developer to help define their direction but eventually projects and leads started drying up. (See #1.) Fortunately, Noah eventually took the time to get clear about his goals and made a change to get himself closer to them.
- Lack of hiring (for the right role). The decision to hire wasn’t a problem. It was which role to fill, that was the issue. Looking back, Noah believes hiring a project manager would’ve saved him a lot of headaches. On paper, he felt hiring a project manager just didn’t make sense because those are not billable hours. But by not having a project manager, it was another role Noah was forced to fill himself, in addition to management, development and production.
Goals Evolve and Your Strategy Should Too
For Noah and his partner, the writing was on the wall. The leads and projects were getting fewer and farther in between. He saw clients bringing digital services in-house and other digital agencies being swallowed up by larger firms. He wanted to be able to provide for his family with a better work/life balance. He wanted to go back to his passion for designing without the hassle of the “business stuff” that was in his way as agency owner. He realized that he’d rather have the security of a regular 9-5 with step-raises and benefits. Noah’s goal of not working for anyone else was no longer relevant. And that’s OK! With this clarity, he and his partner were able to find new jobs and close up shop on their terms and by choice.
Whether you’re laying awake worrying about making payroll or wake up one day realizing your heart isn’t in it work anymore, it’s normal to have doubts about continuing to run your agency. Understanding your long term vision and goals isn’t easy. It takes clarity and honesty with yourself. I hope you stay the course — IF it’s what you want to do.
I get it – my own long term vision and personal goals changed and that’s when I sold my agency. My new goals are to help agency owners achieve their goals. That’s why I’m here to help agency owners just like you.
Systems Outperform Talent Every Time
If you agree with Noah and think having the right systems would ease some of your burden, check out the 12 Systems in my Agency Playbook. The Agency Playbook is made up of proven systems, strategies, processes, and best practices that you can apply in order to increase your sales, avoid the common pitfalls, and how to work smarter rather than harder.
If you want to know how other agencies run on a day to day basis, and discover the best practices you need in order to maximize profit, then click here to watch a video and see if the Agency Playbook is right for you.
Bring your Agency to the Next Level
Knowing what your personal goals are compared to business goals will give you a clearer idea of how to elevate your agency to the next level.
I have more than likely experienced all if not most of the different struggles an agency owner experiences through my own experience and I can help you from what I learned. I have covered many topics from what to do with your sales processes to improve them, how you can increase your agency profit margins or how you can build authority for your agency.
I have the best ways for your business to stop losing money on projects, how performance based pricing models can be the best strategy for your agency and why including remote teams or freelancers in your team can be beneficial in the long run.
Learn more about my career as well as tips, tricks and insights by checking out my blogs that cover a wide variety of topics.
Find more from me like advice from other successful agency experts in my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my Youtube channel.
