Effectively scaling a marketing agency depends on a few key factors: who you hire, your project management methodology, and your mission – that is, the goals and values that drive your company and employees.
Beyond these three core elements of scaling, there's also a slew of minor factors that play a role in scaling success or failure:
- Your company's pricing structure
- Employee onboarding
- Branding and industry competition
- Reaching the right customers
- Recurring revenue and client retainers
Hiring the Right People
Your success as a company is directly linked to the success of your people – their personal goals, skills, experiences, and compatibility with the team and culture. Their personal goals should align with your growth goals, or at least mutually-benefit them.
Hiring decision-makers, whether they're the CEO of an agency or human resources, should strive to find aspiring candidates that not only have the skills for the job, but also want to be a part of something bigger. As in, any growing agency with strong growth goals.
The best way to do this is by providing a framework or path for good-fit hires to excel and grow within your company. A marketing master with no drive to grow may not be as good of a fit as an ambitious counterpart with less experience.
This is something that became more and more apparent to the Bluleadz team in 2018, when we hired a dedicated talent manager to find and recruit the best-fit employees for our growing needs.
Beyond simply hiring the right people, it's also important to push them with the right team structure and values. Your company's core values, mission statement, and growth goals should all serve as a rallying point for new hires.
Choosing the Right Project Management Approach
In addition to building a great team for your agency, you'll also have to provide that team the right support and direction to scale. This is the core methodology and project management system you set in place to serve clients.
Whether this takes the form of Scrum/Agile (what the Bluleadz team uses every day) or a comparable approach, what's most important is that you set up the best system for your business.
If you're experimenting with project management tools and software, pay attention to team feedback and efficiency, and don't be afraid to pivot if one option isn't cutting it. Your project management methodology will have a huge effect on your team's ability to take on new projects and clients.
Alex Dunn
Alex is a University of South Florida mass communications graduate and Video/Media Specialist at Bluleadz. He is a big movie nerd, loves (possibly dangerous) concerts and enjoys taunting co-workers with a camera. He's probably seen The Royal Tenenbaums 14 times by now.