Do you feel like you are working with tunnel vision? Are you only focusing on one small aspect of the agency? Are you wondering which direction to take your agency? Do you spend too much time on the wrong projects? Time moves quickly in the agency world, and success often rides on your agency continually evolving; otherwise, it could die.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• 3 benefits of surrounding yourself within a niche.
• Finding passion in your agency niche.
• Why staying the same is an agency’s kiss of death.

I spoke with Scott Addison Clay, the Founder, and CEO of Addison Interactive, a digital marketing agency that works with the entertainment industry. The 10-year-old agency is the culmination of a number of Scott’s passions. However, along the way, Scott built the interactive department at another agency from 2 people to a team of 30. He’s here to offer some tips on how to evolve your agency from a job into a passion.

3 Benefits of Surrounding Yourself Within a Niche

Building a team from two people to thirty in a relatively short period of time seems like a difficult feat. How do you create the need to grow so fast? Scott says one of the biggest reasons the agency grew so quickly was because they were in a building full of others in the entertainment industry. Surrounding yourself with others in your niche provides benefits such as:

1. A professional network that can increase opportunities and help get the word out about your agency.
2. Fresh ideas that can prevent you from getting tunnel vision during a project.
3. Resources and knowledge that can help you provide a new service for your clients.

Finding Passion in Your Agency Niche

Many years ago, a news producer gave Scott a piece of advice he has always remembered: Pick something — anything — and just do that thing. However, passion is not simply about having a goal. It is also about the journey you take to get to the goal. For Scott, passion evolved from a love of entertainment and a curiosity about how things work. From there, he went to building an agency that started with website building and evolved to offering services like video editing and social media content for the entertainment industry.

While it is important to choose a niche reflecting your passion, it’s also important to remember chasing those passions is often a long-term commitment. It usually involves doing jobs you’re not crazy about in order to grow your agency.

Why Staying the Same Is an Agency’s Kiss of Death

When Scott started Addison Interactive a decade ago, his first projects involved building websites. Then he started learning to do content for Tumblr. “We just kept figuring things out and then staffing for those things.”

In order to grow your agency, Scott says, you have to always be evolving. This is particularly true with digital marketing, where technology and trends are changing rapidly. Evolution includes a lot of listening, both to clients about what they need as well as experts in the industry you serve. It also includes the ability and willingness to adapt. “The kiss of death is saying, ‘We’ve always done it that way,'” Scott explains.

Through the Agency Playbook, Scott learned being open to possibilities and expanding involves not just asking the question: What do you want to do? It also involves asking yourself what you don’t want to do. While there are many reasons for this, perhaps the best reason of all is the point where Scott now is. It’s the point where you can start turning down small jobs you don’t want because they don’t fit into your goals.

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