Are you looking into business scaling for your agency but just can’t seem to getting the wheels in motion?

The Four Pillars of Business Scaling

In this session of The Smart Agency Master Class, I talk with Kyle Porter, founder and CEO of SalesLoft, a software that searches through social profiles to help find prospects.

Kyle is going to tell us the four things that contributed to the growth of his business, as well as some inbound and outbound marketing strategies and how to build culture.

Kyle attributes SalesLoft’s growth to these four areas:

1. Focus on product market fit. The more you can understand your customer’s pain, the better solutions you can offer.
2. Creating an engine for client acquisition via inbound and outbound marketing, as well as a team of closers.
3. Client delightment. It’s about exceeding expectations and taking them beyond just being satisfied.
4. Culture. Kyle says this is the area he focuses on most.

By creating these systems, you will have a foundation for success for business scaling. Each area builds on another: empathy for your customer creates better solutions, which builds the content for marketing, which makes the sale that delights the client, which positively reinforces the culture.

Culture, culture, culture.

Culture is so important, it deserves its own section. “Life is too short to not love every minute you’re in the office,” says Kyle. He’s worked hard at SalesLoft’s core values: positive, supportive, and self-starting. [quote]Have fun. Get shit done. Grow the business.[/quote]

Tips for getting those inbound leads.

Kyle started nurturing those inbound leads by getting to know the thought leaders in his industry. It wasn’t about asking them for something right away. No, he followed their social profiles, promoted them when they did something of value, and began building a relationship. He also does a lot in building a community for sales professionals. And let’s not forget about content. Kyle makes sure that he’s putting out content on a regular basis.

Content Pro Tip – Have trouble finding the time to sit down and produce content? I record my blog on my iPhone, and then shoot the recording over to my virtual assistant. The blog and the show notes are then transcribed for me, and put on the website. I just have to review and schedule.

SalesLoft and outbound strategy.

Identify your ideal customer profile and use SalesLoft (or any tool, but I recommend it because I use it) to build an accurate and targeted list of those profiles. Once the list is compiled, use a cadence of emails, phone calls, and social drips until you get an appointment with the customer. Your initial email should be short and simple. Send them an email, follow-up with a phone call. Also, try monitoring them on social media. See what they’re tweeting about so you can find something relevant to get them to open your email or take your call. There are even some free tools to help you weed through all the social media noise and find the details you want from the people you’re interested in. Try Newsle and Nutshell Mail.

The new school of sales.

The old school way was to have an entire department dedicated to sales, but only the tiniest sliver of that department was focused on prospecting new business. New school sales is broken out into two divisions: the part that’s going after the money and the part that’s going after the appointments.

The part that’s going after the appointments is the sales development process. People target the audience with a specific objective. This allows for a shift in how the business thinks, empowers people to go after their mission, and enables specialization.

Next Steps for Your Agency

If the next steps for your agency are business scaling, I hope you found this helpful and you achieve the goals you have set for both yourself as an agency owner and the business itself. If this is only the first of a list of obstacles in your way, I have you covered.

I have probably experienced all the different struggles for an agency owner through my own experience and I can help you from what I learned. From what to do with your sales processes, ways to increase your profit margins or how you can build authority for your agency.

I can tell you the best ways to stop losing money on projects, why performance based pricing can be the best pricing strategy for your agency as well as why including remote working or freelancers in your team can be beneficial in the long run.

You can learn more about my career and different experiences as well as tips, tricks and insights by checking out my blogs that cover a wide variety of topics.

Find more from my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my Youtube channel. There you will find advice from myself and other agency experts.