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How to go from a one man show to an agency

By Dennis Yu Leave a Comment

You’re good at what you do. Clients wouldn’t hire you if you weren’t. But you’re afraid that by hiring more people, you’ll lose the personal touch and the quality of your services will go down. At the same time, your business is growing and you’re not going to be able sustain this current effort level.

So something has to give: scale up (what you’d like to do), decline business (not smart in the long run), or work harder (impossible). Clients come to you because of your expertise and relationships. When you’re small, you are the face of your business, so your personal brand and company brand are synonymous.

To survive in the world of business, you have to find ways to start working ON your business instead of IN your business.

First, start documenting how to do the simple things. Billing clients, weekly performance reporting, and other simple stuff should be driven by checklists. You can have junior folks do these things so you can focus on the 10% of stuff that is truly high impact.

Do you know what items are highest impact?

Probably those that are strategic in nature, leaving tactical stuff to be competently handled by the rest of your team. Your documentation should be step-by-step checklists, assisted with video training snippets to make it easier to digest.

Use this same training to qualify your prospective staff as a real-life litmus test of what to expect. In doing so, you’ve also solved the burden of having to interview and qualify people one at a time– a real time suck. Tools like Infusionsoft and ClassMarker let you run people through self-serve training and quizzes which you can use in the qualification process.

Boil down your offering to just the essentials. Make a package that you can reliably and consistently execute. Then you know that your training and agency offering are in alignment. Clients don’t want custom, as much as you think– they want results.

Before you argue that this sounds cookie-cutter or eliminates thinking, would you say that a Tesla is low quality?

Even movie studios have a process for how they create films– a framework that enables creativity versus no structure leading to chaos. If you seek to do things differently for the sake of doing it differently, be prepared to fail a lot. You want to use proven techniques, especially if you’re doing something that can have standards, such as advertising, website building, or anything in digital.

Get out of the day-to-day. Hire a project manager if you need to.

Ironically, if you truly want to help your clients, you’ll focus more on troubleshooting than on administrative details you can delegate. This requires that you trust the people you’ve been training.

We look at three criteria for success:

People: Good character, since that can’t be trained.

Process: Do they know what to do?

Platform: Have you trained them on how to do it?

If you have these three, then you can attend every other meeting instead of all meetings (alternating tactical versus strategic).

One effective strategy to initially wean clients off you personally is to say that you’ll show up mid-way through the meeting. They’ll later find that you didn’t have to be there the whole time, giving your people a chance to shine. Don’t worry about “cutting out” of meetings — if you’re really that good at what you do, clients would expect that you are delegating to handle the workload.

Ideally, you should just review the work instead of doing it all yourself. If your process is solid (checklists with training videos), you should have consistent delivery.

Follow the Content>Checklist>Software process to scale up.

You can share your training publicly.

Don’t be afraid of your “competitors” stealing your know-how or clients deciding they don’t need you. If that were to happen, then you don’t know enough or have enough depth to deserve serving clients. What happens in most cases is that prospective clients appreciate your sophistication and this INCREASES your new client growth. So engage in “content marketing” with no fear.

Fire the bottom third or more of your clients — the ones that are a big headache or make your staff unhappy. The clients that treat you best are usually the ones that pay the most and demand the least.

You should keep the kind of clients you want more of– handing the rest to “competitors”. This way, you have consistency across what you offer and can double down on process bits instead of trying to do everything.

The corollary to focusing on the ONE thing you do well– then doing it over and over– is to say what you DON’T do.

We like to say we don’t make creatives, don’t do SEO, don’t do community management, and don’t do strategy. What we do is implementation– drive traffic and conversions on existing assets that are already converting. The marketplace will believe you when you demonstrate you’re world class at doing one thing repeatedly well.

A good test for a great client is to raise prices– gasp, I said it. If you’re truly delivering value, they’ll have no problem paying more. Even I often struggle with mustering the courage to do this, but if you’re proving your value, then making the case should be easy.

You don’t want to be the cheapest and you do want a few clients to balk at your price. If nobody ever balks at your price, you’re undercharging for most deals and those who are paying less will often think you’re not as good, since your prices are low– a double whammy.

Avoid bad hires. Elevate your team. As these junior staff move their way through your checklists and up your leveling system, encourage and praise them. Build their personal brands and give credit where it’s due, publicly where possible.

The sum of the personal branding efforts of your teammates is your content marketing at the company level. This way, it’s not about you, unless you mistakenly named the company after you– change it, if you’ve made that mistake. At this point, you’ve gone through the steps to grow your business versus just being another employee working in your business. I think you’ll find that developing others is more rewarding than trying to micromanage every bit yourself.

You’ll have to be patient and tolerate some level of work that is worse than what you’d do personally, but if you have rapid iteration, mistakes are small and adjustments are quick.

We call this “trial and error” process MAA for Metrics>Analysis>Action, and it’s fundamental to marketing.

If your training content is solid, you’ll have produced checklists for execution. These checklists repeated at scale create opportunities for automation– so you’d build or hire this out.

When you have a repeatable process, you effectively have a franchise, with you as the first franchisee. And when you have your franchise you can prepare to supercharge your agency’s revenue.

You’re blazing the path for others to follow, so they can learn in your footsteps, do according to your checklists, and teach others who are a couple levels below them.  We call this LDT for Learn>Do>Teach:

If you find these principles powerful, check out all nine triangles and discover how they fit together.

Have you implemented any of these processes in your business?


Want to read more by Dennis Yu? For more content follow him here:

http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/author/dennis

https://www.facebook.com/dennisyu

https://twitter.com/dennisyu

Filed Under: Goals, The 9 Triangles Tagged With: agency, GCT, LDT, MAA, scaling, Triangles

How to determine your goals and build your personal brand.

By Dennis Yu Leave a Comment

We talk a lot about the importance of personal branding- so much that we’ve made it into a guide. But we get this question a lot: What IS personal branding?

In a nutshell, your personal brand is your journey to complete your goals, and has your WHY at the nucleus. That is your personal brand– the thing people will go “YOU are the person we should ask about…”, which comes naturally for you when you are passionate about it.

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But how do you determine these goals? Easily. Ask yourself: what drives you? What are your dreams? What is the thing that pushes you forward and makes you wake up excited and ready to leap out of bed in the morning? What defines you and what do you wish to contribute to the world?

Check out these articles as part of our CTO Dennis Yu’s own personal brand / goal in life, and you’ll understand what drives him:
http://www.dennis-yu.com/cold-hearted-people-cannot-be-effective-content-marketers/
http://www.business2community.com/branding/mentor-said-died-01117914
http://www.dennis-yu.com/do-you-want-to-really-understand-dennis-yu/

Once you find your WHY, your goals will come naturally to you.
Then, everything you do adds to your own personal brand, and people will begin to recognize you as an authority.

As you learn more and continue to improve, you can then elevate others by teaching them. We call this “Learn-Do-Teach“, or “LDT”. You can learn more about it here.

career-path

Let us know in the comments what your goals are, and what drives you forward– we’d love to hear them!

 

Want to read more by Dennis Yu? For more content follow him here:

http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/author/dennis

https://www.facebook.com/dennisyu

https://twitter.com/dennisyu

Filed Under: Framework, Goals Tagged With: goals, LDT, Learn do teach, Personal branding

The world needs a MILLION Aarun’s– you do, too!

By Dennis Yu Leave a Comment

You’ll never really be good at something you don’t love.

So fine tuning your personal branding is about clarifying the things you’re passionate about.
And nothing is a better indicator of passion than where you spend your time, whether you’re paid for it or not.

Aarun Rumbaugh (I call him the BOSS), is 21 years old, 6 foot 4 inches tall, and loves basketball.
If you friend him on Facebook, you’ll see posts of him practicing into the night and videos of him dunking or attending a Golden State Warriors game.

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Passion creates purpose, which translates into the drive necessary to be good at something.
So what better dream job than to be able to work on social marketing for the Golden State Warriors?
Who doesn’t want to be part of a winning team?

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Aarun runs Facebook campaigns for the Warriors that sell tickets and merchandise.
He generates an 800% ROAS, meaning that every dollar invested yields 8 dollars in revenue.
So, of course, the Warriors are increasing their presence on Facebook.

I think I’m pretty competent at Facebook advertising, but I stand no chance against a basketball fanatic like Aarun who gets to work on basketball campaigns.
He knows the players, what’s going on with each of the teams, the stuff that hard-core fans are talking about, and things I have never heard of.

Because social media is about micro-targeted amplification (doing PR at scale with Facebook ads as your minions), such passion is compulsory.
In traditional media buying, you can blast out propaganda to the faceless masses– no need to personalize or be relevantly interesting.

Real fans can spot a fake, in the same way that if I were to go on stage and replace your favorite musician for one song, you’d know instantly.
So whoever is running your social has to be a real fan. Who are you kidding?

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If you’re an agency with many clients, finding passionate customers for each client who are also skilled in online marketing is a challenge.
That’s not even counting the distance of not being on-site to participate in the day-to-day details of what’s going on.

You’re out of touch.

The Aarun’s of the world are coming to disrupt you in the same way that Uber is disrupting the taxicab industry.
The market drives out inefficiency by getting more competent marketing programs that cost less money.

Did I mention that Aarun is 21 years old and has only a few years of experience doing Facebook marketing?
He’s had some college experience, but more importantly, a ton of direct experience.

He’s also not afraid to admit when he fails or is afraid, either– a sign of someone who can get things done and be a leader.

Following the framework of LDT (Learn > Do > Teach), he’s gone through training programs, executed QuickStart packages, and mentored other young Aarun’s.

9-Triangles-Individual-7-Career
It’s like gremlins, except you don’t need any water and don’t have to wait until midnight.

So you better disrupt yourself or prepare to get disrupted.
If you’re not doing this, then your competitors will be sourcing marketing support from their customer base and driving micro-efficiency.

People with two decades of experience like me can’t compete at this level any more than the old tired construction worker can outwork the young strong men.
Anyone can follow a checklist, which boils down complex projects into simple sequential tasks.

If you’re not a young adult, then you get multiplying power by mentoring this new workforce.
I mean, really– do you want to cranking out ads and reports all day? I didn’t think so.

You can own the strategy while the kids do the tactics.
You’re the architect, while the kids have the nails.
You’re serving clients in the dining room while the cooks in the back are following recipes.

Schools are now at an inflection point, since they have to build in working experience to enable young adults to transition to the workforce.
And it’s not only an apprenticeship model, like in Europe or what Obama wants to do with the community college system.
It’s teaching personal efficiency, communication skills, and stuff you don’t learn in the classroom.

9-Triangles-Business-Framework-v1

College is as necessary as ever– so this is not an argument to drop out of college and still remain uneducated.
Rather, the minimum bar to be a productive worker in modern society is ever higher– so schools must build in stronger vocational programs and ties with businesses.

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They must have certifications that are borne of checklists which prove direct skills competency.

The students must have not just a resume, but provable work experience accomplishing measurable tasks.

Aarun has written extensively about how teams in the NBA are faring on the court and in digital.
It’s one thing to have a line of work experience on your resume and altogether another to have direct proof and client praise.

Don’t think that this new labor force only applies to entertainment and CPG: sports teams, video games, soft drinks, and potato chips– anything.
Sourcing passionate folks for Jack Daniel’s is easier than for an industrial pipe manufacturer.
You just need to look harder and train a lot more.

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Perhaps even find a stay-at-home mom or retiree who can’t come to an office, but will gladly work from home.

And while your content might not be as interesting as a last second buzzer beater by Stephen Curry, remember that you’ll certainly be able to beat your competition.
Helpful content in your industry might not be interesting to the mainstream, but you’re not going for a million fans– just leads and sales in your niche.

Nor are we talking about just Facebook (which is more a data platform now than a social media site).
Add in the other apps Facebook controls, LinkedIn, WordPress, Google, and every other digital/mobile property out there.

If I ask you about any one of these, such as your website, you’ll likely say that you have plans to do it, but haven’t gotten around to it.
You know you need an Aarun to help you.

  • If you’re a business owner, where will you find your Aarun’s and how will you train them?
  • If you’re a student, what steps can you take to build your personal brand— to find stuff you enjoy, stop procrastinating, and start getting going?
  • If you’re a school, how are you implementing capstone programs to provide real work experience accompanied by a modern curriculum?

Let’s continue the conversation over on our Facebook page or get some training materials over on our site.

Filed Under: Advice, Management Tagged With: aarun rumbaugh, ads, college, failure, goals, golden state warriors, LDT, passion, ROAS, stephen curry, the 9 triangles

How to become the “go to” person in your industry

By Dennis Yu 2 Comments

2014-12-15 21.10.44

Engaging in speed reading is like that hotdog eating contest every summer at Coney Island.
Do you really want to train yourself to eat 50 hot dogs?
It’s quantity versus quality– the goal being completion instead of enjoyment.

You know those people that boast of being able to read a 400 page book in 27 minutes, claiming they still understood it?
Maybe. But I’d wager they didn’t build in any time to digest it along the way.
They were in such a rush to cross the “finish line” that they had no thinking time, only reading time.

Reminds me of folks who are in a hurry to get that piece of paper called a diploma versus the value you’d get along the way.

You should be wary of the current speed reading rage.
Go for speed comprehension.

While there are great techniques to absorb information faster, there is very little attention given to chewing on what you’ve read.
More important than skimming words as fast as possible is to stop at key points to digest.
Consider how that point fits into your world view– do you reject it, assimilate it, or need to further research?

I like to envision reading as one not way consumption of food at the buffet of words, but a two-way conversation.
If it’s an autobiography (my favorites are from business leaders like Sam Walton and Ray Kroc), I ask questions and consider how they might respond.

Digestion is more important than raw consumption.

That said, here’s how I acquire and consume information:

  • Nearly all my book purchases come from friend recommendations– personal interactions. If I’m going to meet someone, I’ll set the date in advance so that I can buy their book on Amazon Prime and read most of it before we meet. This ensures that our time is productive, as opposed to being just a photo op with someone important.  So few people do this. It shows respect to your contacts.
  • When a friend is interesting in a particular topic, I’ll send them a recommendation immediately. Often, you get a response like this:
    2015-01-29 21_07_50-Joey Arcaro - Mobile Uploads
  • Reading alone is like exercising alone– never as good as when you have a team. So when you know others are reading along with you, you’re holding each other accountable. Ben and I have a weekly study on leadership2015-01-29 21_21_05-Ben McIntyre - Instagram Photos
  • I use a pen to underline key phrases and circling words that anchor the concepts. Unlike speed readers, I stop every 5-10 minutes to reflect when I hit something intriguing. I dog-ear some of these pages, which I know causes book-lovers to shudder.
  • If I am really moved, I’ll put down the book at write for 10 minutes, which results in a blog post. So my reading activity directly correlates with my writing activity. If you are struggling with writing or content marketing, odds are that you’re not reading enough. It’s like trying to work out without having had regular meals. You want to be interesting and communicate at depth. So if you don’t read, you’re at risk of spewing drivel– stuff that is wrong or has already been said.
  • Sharing is how you lock your learning into long-term memory, since it forces repetition of the concept, requires you to know it well enough to teach it to others, and makes you take action.

I’ve read about 4,000 books so far.

I average just over a minute a page, which means an average book of 200 pages takes me 4 hours.

Science fiction is faster, since the paperback books have fewer words per page and I stop less frequently.
Dense non-fiction, like textbooks or scientific pieces, might take me 4-5 minutes per page because of stopping.
I am not worried about slowing down my pace to look things up– I don’t even measure my speed.

I usually have 2-3 books I’m reading at any one time.
If I’m busy, such as when traveling, I’ll have just one book and read it sequentially through.
If I have downtime and can read a few hours a day, I’ll manage 7-8 books at once.

Regardless, my average elapsed time to finish any particular book is about 10 days.

The reason I don’t usually read books sequentially (one at a time) is because I buy books in clusters.
I’ll pick a topic (Christian apologetics, higher education reform, nanotechnology, whatever).
Then I’ll find the “pillars”, as books reference one another, whether in Amazon reviews or among friends.

I want a balanced view.
So if I’m studying creationism, I’ll pick authors from opposing sides and varying backgrounds.
It could be physicists on the “Genesis question”, hard-core creationists like Ken Hamm, evolutionists like Richard Dawkins, or the various  hybrid “gap theorists”.
Combine them together and it’s like having a live debate in your living room.
You are the moderator.

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How to read what’s NOT being said and putting it into action

What’s more interesting than what’s being said in a book is what’s NOT being said.
For example, Malcolm Gladwell is a business/marketing guru who preaches popular, liberal views.
The 10,000 hour rule creates false hope for people who are struggling for success.
It’s not that someone put in 10,000 hours that caused them to be at the top of the game.
Rather, early talent and success caused some people to continue to progress in their field.

If you’re failing badly and repeatedly, continuing to spend another 9,000 hours might not be the answer.
Correlation is not causation.

Many authors (including myself) are good at getting attention while being ignorant of science and a larger body of facts.
My point is not to be pessimistic or argue about any point in any particular book.
It’s to say that you must inherently recognize bias and know that all books are subjective.

If you’re speed reading– a proverbial bullet train jamming through words as fast as you can, you’ll miss it.
It’s stopping to think that’s where the power is, though it lowers your words per minute to zero.
You must also stop to tie in other bodies of knowledge, via your colleagues and other books.
And then you must apply what you learned by teaching others and putting it into practice.

This fits into the triangle of Learn, Do, Teach.

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Rapid consumption of words, even with comprehension is merely learning.
It’s enough to pass a multiple choice quiz on the topic or not be embarrassed in conversation.
You better not be reading out of fear of ignorance– then you’re not doing it for you.

Doing is initially digesting the topic from multiple angles (multiple books and people) and writing about it.
Then you’re changing your behavior based on new realizations.

Teaching is when you have real experience in that field, having gone through the learn and do phases.
For example, there are a lot of business coaches out there that have never run a business before, but advise on the topic.

And when you’ve got the base knowledge and tied it to your base network, you’ve got first-hand access to knowledge beyond books.
In fact, you might be helping to write the books on the topic, aggregating the knowledge from other practitioners.

The chicken-and-egg of business success is that you need to have knowledge, the network, and the experience.
But spending all your time learning leaves precious time for doing and for networking.
And spending a lot of time doing risks you flying off in some ignorant direction.
Yet, nurturing up a network of clients, advisors, and experts relationships, leaving little time to act or learn.

The solution to this I talk about here.

And you’ll see that once you have the basics of your knowledge, network, and own activity, you must then do it all simultaneously.
It’s why entrepreneurship is fire, ready, aim.

Filed Under: Writing Tagged With: data, Entrepreneurship, LDT, Learn do teach, Reading, Triangle

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