Grow Your Agency by Saying 'No'

Tweet it:'Tim Williams, founder of Ignition Group, outlines why it’s imperative that agencies should stop saying ‘yes’ so often and start saying ‘no’ more'

Most agencies have a fear of saying ‘no’. This fear can lead to an over-diversified list of services or clients. Tim Williams, founder of Ignition Group, outlines why it’s imperative that agencies should stop saying ‘yes’ so often and start saying ‘no’ more in the webinar Death by a Thousand Features.  

A lot of agencies have a common fear around their ability to say ‘no’. They may lose a good opportunity or a client may leave just because they don’t offer a specific service they may need for one project. This fear can lead to feature creep over time – the ongoing addition of new services that can cause bloat and over-complication to the business.

An example of a company saying ‘no’ effectively in a consumer brand is the Coca Cola Company. If you compare them to their largest competitor, Pepsico, you can clearly see the benefits. Pepsico sells many different products from soda to Quaker Oats and has a market cap of just under $200 Billion. The Coca Cola Company made the strategic decision to focus only on beverages and today their market cap is $219 Billion. This phenomenon can be applied to your agency as well in how you focus your offerings to expand your profits.

A simple way of making sure the feature creep doesn’t affect your agency is knowing if you are an expert in a few services or in a specific industry. With this you can either work with a lot of different clients but only provide one or two services that your agency excels at, or you can be experts in a specific industry and provide a wide range of services. This framework allows you to focus your energy on the things that your agency does well and not get slowed down by features that take too much time and money to execute. 

Once you’ve narrowed in on your scope, it may be time to start thinking about adding some services or clientele after seeing some growth. One of the most important things when looking to add to your agency’s menu of offerings is to make sure it makes sense in your ecosystem. An example of this is when you buy an Apple product. You’re not just buying the product but you’re buying into the Apple ecosystem. So when you’re adding services you want them to feel like an addition to your agency’s specific ecosystem and to blend together so your clients will then have to invest in the rest of your services.

For more tips on how to focus your agency’s business strategy, check out the full webinar: Death by a Thousand Features.

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