Embrace Content Creation and Stop Marketing Yourself Last with Jon LaClare | Ep# 651

Do you spend too much time securing new business for your agency? Are you constantly scrambling to attract new clients? You could be missing opportunities to provide more value to existing clients. It’s also time you’re not dedicating to your agency, which leaves you marketing yourself last. Pouring effort into your own marketing fills your pipeline with your perfect clients and the ability to pick and choose who you’re working with. Today’s guest saw fast growth early on with his agency until he ran into this very issue: new business from referrals was drying up and finding new leads took a lot of time and effort. What changed everything for him? Content marketing.

Jon LaClare is the founder of Harvest Growth, an agency focused on video marketing and, to a lesser degree, infomercials. His team helps high-growth companies selling consumer products and services grow sales through the power of direct response.

Jon shares how he went from one-off projects to a predictable recurring revenue model and some of the challenges he’s faced, like the difficulty of consistently finding new leads. He also reflects on the tendency among agency owners to prioritize their clients over marketing their own agency.

In this interview, we’ll discuss:

• What to do after referral leads start to dry up.
• Transitioning from project work to ongoing campaigns.
• Why you have to stop marketing yourself last.

 

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Sponsors and Resources

E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service.

What to Do After Leads Dry Up: Challenges Following Early Success

Jon always envisioned himself as the future owner of some type of business, although not necessarily an agency. Now he sees every step in his career journey always had this intent in mind. A big moment in his career was working at OxiClean. It was a phenomenal opportunity and a great place to work until it was eventually sold. At first, Jon figured it was time to look for another job. He realized, however, this was a perfect opportunity to start his own business. It took him some time to finally figure out what he wanted to do and, in a way, he feels he lucked into the agency business.

Growth came fast in the early years thanks to a handy list of contacts made during his time at OxiClean. However, at some point, those leads started to dry up and businesses slowed. This was the first big obstacle he found as an agency owner, as he admits he didn’t realize the time and effort it would take to bring in new leads.

Pivoting from Charging by Projects to Ongoing Campaigns

Jon’s agency used to heavily rely on video production projects for revenue, which was great when times were good and very difficult when they weren’t. The ups and downs made it ultimately not sustainable in the long run. He spent a significant amount of time and effort ge