Have you ever wondered how agency culture effects business growth? If you think they’re two separate things, think again! Your culture speaks volumes about your agency. When your culture is a defining factor of your agency, you will experience amazing growth. Simply put, the foundation of every great brand is a great culture. So spend time developing an amazing culture and you will create brand ambassadors to move the needle on your agency’s business.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• How it’s important to niche horizontally or vertically.
• How agency culture develops brand ambassadors.
• #1 way to cultivate amazing agency culture.

Today, I talked with Brandy Obvinseva the co-founder of Gallant Culture. Brandy has a degree in international studies and intended to be a political ambassador. Instead, she helps companies find their brand ambassadors. After a stint at Texaco and a few other oil & gas companies, she co-founded her agency, Gallant. Since then, her agency has changed a few times but it’s always been driven by culture. She has unique views on niching and culture that have helped her agency explode.

Why It’s Important to Niche Horizontally or Vertically

Selecting and marketing to a specific niche is a significant growth pillar for agencies. It gives you purpose, drive, and a defined process to use to score clients and drive profits. It just works.

But what is a niche?

Is it the industry you choose to work in? Is it the services you offer? Maybe. It can be. But, you don’t have to niche vertically into an industry. You can niche horizontally based on a specific skill set or expertise in a specific technology.

If your agency helps plumbers build websites. Then plumber websites is your vertical niche.

If your agency helps anyone build a Joomla (software) websites using a specific set of processes, then Joomla websites is your horizontal niche.

Ready to have your mind blow? You can really drill down and have BOTH a horizontal and vertical niche.

Here’s the secret — a niche is anything that helps you understand your clients better and motivates you to accomplish their goals effectively. Selecting a niche doesn’t mean saying “no” to clients outside of your audience. It just means identifying with and understanding a specific audience, ultimately giving your agency an advantage over others.

Want to figure out your niche? Try this!

Write down three of your clients biggest challenges every day for 30 days. At the end, map out what their issues are. And, think about how you can pivot your agency to solve those problems. That’s your niche! You could even have multiple niches but focus on building one niche at a time.

How Agency Culture Develops Brand Ambassadors

As Brandy says, “If you want to have a group of people that are going to wave your flag, they need to know what flag they’re waiving.”

Your culture is the unspoken rules of your agency. It impacts how your employees pitch to clients, communicate with them, and (most importantly) converts them. Always lead with culture, hire with culture, and even choose clients who are a good culture fit.

But, here’s where it gets interesting…

Brandy says you don’t have to specifically “define culture.” It’s naturally going to be interpreted uniquely by each team member. One of your employees may be perky and bubbly, while another may be methodical and quiet. That’s fine! There’s room both within the same agency culture.

For example, if one of your core values is honesty, both can find ways to allow honesty to shine through in their work. The important thing is that your culture drives them. They should be your brand ambassadors. To that end, they need to understand your culture and live it.

So, if you’re still trying to find your niche, start with your culture. What kinds of clients fit your agency’s culture? Which of your team members and clients can be your agency’s brand ambassadors?

#1 Way to Cultivate Amazing Agency Culture

How do you nurture and grow your culture? By being adaptable.

Your agency culture will evolve and change over time. As your team gets bigger and new employees enter the scene things will change. The rules of your business will change too, and you’ll probably pivot a couple of times along the way. That’s normal and completely natural as part of the growth process. But, you have to be willing to constantly develop and improve upon your culture as the agency environment changes.

Let your team members, clients, and industry guide you. In the beginning, a minimalist culture which promotes enthusiasm and hustling may work out great. But, 5 years down the road could be another story. You will have new clients and employees who are going in another direction.

The culture of today will not match the culture of the future ~ adaptability is a must.

Creating Authority

Brand ambassadors are a great way to grow your agency, audience and authority among your competitors. However, this growth can go south very quickly if you aren’t prepared for this influx of attention and potential work if there are other internal issues within your business that you have ignored that are detrimental to you.

Through my own experience as as agency owner, I have experienced all if not most of the different struggles you are going through and I can help you. Whether it’s how to deal with bad agency clients, the process of developing agency products as well as how you can build authority for your agency.

If it’s challenges growing your business that you are experiencing, I have agency growth hacks, the best ways to improve management of your business as well as why building a remote 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.

You can hear about all my experiences as well as advice from other successful agency experts in my Ask Swenk series and more of my videos on my Youtube channel.