The First Sin of Agency Owners – Being Everything to Everyone

Do you find yourself saying “yes” to any prospect who comes in asking for something even slightly close to what you do? That’s the first big sin of the agency owner.

Let’s imagine that you’re the owner of an SEO agency. Your bread and butter lies in helping people to achieve organic search results.

But a client comes in and wants a website designed. That’s related to what you do, so you accept the job.

That’s one of the biggest sins of the agency owner. You try to be everything to everyone and it damages your agency.

The Symptoms

How do you know that you’re about to commit this sin?

You can spot one of the first symptoms when you go to speak to the client. If you don’t have any case studies of similar projects to present.

The issue with this comes when the client asks what the strategies going to look like. Now, you’ve got to do spec work. You’re giving them all of these ideas for free because you’re trying to win business that you’ve never done before.

The second symptom is that you’re trying to impress the client. You put together a fancy presentation in the hopes that you’ll wow them with your content.

Another symptom is that you try to compete on quality of service. This is when the client asks why they should hire you and you just talk about how great your team is.

That’s just a promise and it doesn’t mean much to the client. They need to know why you’re right for them. Everybody says they have a great team, so you’re not accomplishing anything here.

The Problem

The big problem here is that you put the client in the driving seat. They can dictate what you charge because you don’t know how much to charge.

Usually, that means you’re losing out and not getting what you’re worth.

This creates a one-way conversation, which is fine for a single job. But you’re not going to build a relationship with the client.

The Root Cause

This all happens because you didn’t choose a niche.

It’s like the saying goes – “The riches are in the niches.”

When you’re trying to be everything to everyone, you have no niche. And because of that, you eventually become nothing to no one.

So, you need to make a choice. Your job is to select the niches that suit your agency best. And once you do, start creating content that positions you as an authority for that niche. That’s what my client, Stephen Christopher, eventually ended up doing.

He’s identified his niche as a lead provider for service businesses. Once he made that decision, he could focus on creating laser-targeted content for that niche.

The reality is that you’re positioning yourself in the market when you pick a niche and dedicate yourself to it.

You make it really clear what you do and who you do it for.

Become the big fish in a small pond.

Dev “Niche Builder” Basu