By When it comes to customers, if you had to choose between quality and quantity, which one would you choose? Would you choose 100 small clients or one client worth a million dollars?
When I ask this question to marketing agency owners, many refrain from answering. Not because they don’t know the answer, but because they feel that the question is irrelevant to them since they’re just starting up and are not ready to bring that million-dollar client aboard.
However, let me tell you this. Even if you’ve just started your agency and are in the preliminary stages of setting up your business, the principle of a million-dollar customer applies to you.
In fact, getting a million-dollar client is one of the most important aspects of having a business.
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Conventional ways to earn a million dollars
Before I reveal some of my secrets about how you can get a million-dollar client on board, let’s talk about some of the most conventional ways for your business to earn a million dollars.
1. Earn by the hour
Probably the most common way that agencies and business owners aim to reach that seven-figure mark is by charging their customers by the hour for the services they provide.
However, the challenge with that approach is that unless you’re charging a flamboyantly large amount of money per hour, you won’t be able to make a million dollars for quite some time.
It’s a different story in the case of expertise-based professionals like lawyers or accountants. For example, a lawyer might be able to enjoy the privileges of charging their clients $500 an hour. Therefore, using the rule of 2,000, they would be able to make a million dollars in one year.
Recommended Reading: How Agencies Can Charge Premium Prices for their Services
However, having said that, it’s highly unlikely that digital marketing agencies, especially those that are just starting their journey, will be able to charge $500 per hour for their services.
Further, working 40 hours a week is next to impossible when you’re running your own business since you also need time to constantly build your skill set.
2. Sell by the package
Another common way that agencies and businesses can earn a million dollars is to drive packages that empower them to earn a monthly recurring revenue.
For example, if you have 20 customers and you sell each of them a package of your services at approximately $5,000, then that would lead you to earn $100,000 in revenue every month.
However, the problem with that approach is that if you’re not able to price your package at $5,000 and still want to earn $100,000 every month, then you will have to accordingly increase the number of customers you need. Hence, for a $2,500 package you would need 40 customers.
Another challenge with this approach is that the more customers you have, the more diverted your attention would be. Therefore, this increases the chances of them churning.
Furthermore, the more customers you aim to bring aboard, the more effort you would have to put in during your sales calls while selling each one of them on the value of your package.
3. Percent of spend
One of the most well-known financial models in the media industry is the percentage of spend model, where businesses can earn a specified percentage of what their customers are earning.
For example, a typical percentage of spend that is accepted in the media industry is 10% of the revenue that a customer is earning. Therefore, for marketing agencies to earn $100,000 a month they would have to ensure that their clients are earning at least one million dollars.
That percentage could go lower than 10% if the revenue earned by the customers is higher; however, again, it’s highly unlikely that would be the case with agencies that are just starting up.
4. A revshare model
And finally there is the revenue share (or revshare) profit model where businesses can stand to earn approximately 30-40% of a sale that they help drive for their customers.
While this approach can help agencies earn the most money through the biggest deals, the challenge is that it also means they would have to take the biggest risk and endure upfront costs.
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How to land a million-dollar client
While the above-mentioned methods might come in handy once you have a customer to service, the challenge, however, lies in landing a customer who is worth a million dollars.
Here are a few tried-and-tested steps that will bring your agency the success it deserves.
1. Choose a LIGHTHOUSE
If there is one thing that I’ve always asked agencies to do before they embark upon their respective marketing journeys, it’s to choose a LIGHTHOUSE client for themselves.
Recommended Reading: How to Generate Leads Using the Lighthouse Client Strategy
The backlash that I get sometimes is that people ask me whether they would be limiting themselves and hindering their growth if they choose to service a specific niche in the market.
And to some extent that is true. For example, why would a marketing agency want to limit itself to just doctors or real estate agents or chiropractors when they could service everyone.
The counter argument that I always give in such scenarios is that choosing a LIGHTHOUSE means having a customer who will essentially do all the hard work for you and your agency.
Because of such clients, it’s easier to have processes and implement repeatable excellence. Marketing agencies will have a higher probability of positioning themselves as ‘experts’ in a field since the more they service their niche, the better they will keep getting as they add customers.
You will keep reaping the benefits as you go along. It’s like a vicious cycle where your LIGHTHOUSE will lead you to become an expert in that field, which would then showcase your marketing agency as the go-to agency to other customers who function in the same domain.
2. Don’t be a one-person show
One of the most important aspects of attracting a million-dollar client is to show that client that no matter what happens you and your marketing agency will always be there to service them.
New agency owners often tend to forget to take that into consideration because most of them are one-person armies. In a bid to either save added expenses or something similar, it’s often just the one person who handles all the tasks from sales to marketing to customer service.
Because of this, most agencies will cease to exist if that one-person steps away for a week. If your agency falls under this umbrella, it means that you’re a consultant and not an agency.
Therefore, agency owners practice Learn, Do, Teach and spend a third of their time on educating themselves about new business practices, a third on executing those concepts while servicing their customers, and a third on training others to handle crucial tasks in their absence.
Doing so will show potential customers, and that million-dollar client, that you mean business.
Furthermore, not being a one-person business will allow you to provide your customers with premium white-glove services, which are absolutely vital to keep a million-dollar client happy.
White-glove services are basically premium services intended for premium clients. Often there would be scenarios where you as agency owners and spearheads of your business will have to service a customer yourself instead of delegating that task to someone else in your company.
In such instances high-end clients need your personal attention and would want strategic consulting from you, something you wouldn’t be able to deliver if you’re a one-person band.
3. Build high-authority content pieces
When it comes to attracting a million-dollar client, it’s imperative that agencies create content that has the desired social proof and is wrapped around the three components of authority.
Recommended Reading: How to Boost Your Agency Using the Three Components of Authority
My secret weapon for generating quality leads is when I bootstrap someone else’s authority by using a combination of the three components. Therefore, your content also needs to check all the boxes of who you talk to, what you talk to them about, and where you talk to them about it.
Since the content you create will show you with some high-authority people, who preferably would be in the same LIGHTHOUSE as your million-dollar client, your content will showcase to the million-dollar client whom you’re targeting and why it would be of value to partner with you.
A lot of people ask me how much content they should be creating to land a million-dollar client.
I always tell them that the desire for marketing agencies to create content should be insatiable. You should never be satisfied with the amount of authority you build because the more authority you build, the more chances you would have of getting quality customers.
The ultimate goal is to be in a position where you have an influx of leads because of the authority you’ve been able to create for your agency, thereby leading to a million-dollar client.
4. Always have a solid client strategy
Once you manage to attract a million-dollar client to your marketing agency, you must then have a solid client strategy in place to schedule a power hour session and close them.
Recommended Reading: How to Onboard New Customers Using the Power Hour Roadmap
As a vital part of your onboarding process you must have a strategy assessment session booked with the client that would help you understand their goals, content, and targeting. Doing so will enable you to work towards fulfilling their goals and, therefore, provide them value.
This is similar to how a doctor’s office collects all the relevant medical information from a potential patient to be in a position to offer them the best diagnosis when they see them.
Once you have the desired information, you must analyze the same and create the best strategy possible to service the client. The aim here is to understand a customer’s pain points, formulate a solution about how your agency can help them, and finally implement that plan.
At this stage, you can create a strategy discussion document that would act as a success tracker. The tracker acts as an interface between you and the client, and will enable you to manage the project better and empower you to showcase a transparent operating process.
Since you will be populating the tracker consistently with content as you progress, it will act as a valuable lead generation tool in the future when you target other clients in the same LIGHTHOUSE.
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How can Vendasta help you
Truth be told, you can go and purchase the best car for yourself to drive and impress your customers. But, without any fuel the car won’t provide you with any value. Vendasta is that fuel that will help you drive your business to the next level and power you to achieve your goals.
I have always been a believer of Vendasta and I know that the team there has been doing a stellar job to empower marketing agencies by providing some best-in-class digital solutions.
One such solution is their automated sales intelligence tool called the Snapshot Report.
Landing a million-dollar client can be a tough nut to crack, but with the Snapshot Report you can analyze the client’s marketing performance and arm yourself with a local audit of their business.
The tool allows you to diagnose their main problems and allows you to provide them the best solutions to overcome them. It’s the ultimate conversation starter that will give your agency the best chance to land that million-dollar client.
If, however, you’re feeling a little overwhelmed with how to get started using the Snapshot Report, don’t worry. Join the Conquer Local Academy today and take advantage of the Snapshot Ninja course. Get started and give your marketing agency the growth it deserves.