The Fourth Commandment of Agency Ownership– Thou Shalt Build a Business Around Thy Strengths

Your core strengths are what leads to your agency scaling. But many agency owners don’t focus on those strengths when building the business.

What do you look for when you hire new people?

For many agency owners, they look for people who can do what they can’t. For example, you may be great at delivering a service. But when it comes to selling, you really struggle.

So, you hire a great salesperson.

The problem here is that you’re building the business around your weaknesses when you should build it around your strengths.

The Symptoms

A lack of congruence in business is the first symptom. For example, you may hire a salesperson who on-boards the wrong clients. In return, you will have clients that don’t fit your business and vision.

Another symptom is when you end up with a “well-rounded” agency. But what you really wanted is a sharp pointy agency. You want to be the surgical scalpel that solves specific issues rather than the sledgehammer.

If you find yourself waking up and you don’t really know what you do anymore, that’s a symptom of building a business around weakness.

The third symptom is that everything you do to grow the business feels like a lot of effort. You’re constantly pushing a rock uphill because you’re not working from what you know.

The Root Cause

There are a couple of causes for this issue.

The first is that you’re too focused on building the business that you think the market wants. This can lead to you focusing too much on your weaknesses rather than on what you bring to the table.

The second is that you’re building the business based on the people you can afford at the time. So, you hire a bunch of junior prospects with the idea of training them up.

The issue here is that you may train them for skill without really focusing on attitude and mindset. This lack of focus on behavior creates a beige agency that has no real strengths.

Why You Should Fix the Issue

I have a client who’s looking to transition away from D clients so that he only has A and B clients.

His strength has always been in his product offering. In his case, that’s lead generation for home services businesses.

He’s now focusing on his unique capability. For example, he’s built a software offering that automates lead generation for small businesses.

That focus on his strength has led to greater retention of talented team members. Plus, the quality of the work that the company does has improved, which means his clients are now better than they were before.

Following this commandment ensures you grow your business the right way. Ultimately, that leads to happier teams and better clients.

Dev “Strength Builder” Basu