The Real Secrets to Growing Your Business (It’s Not More Clients)

Many of you are familiar with the statistics of startups failure rate — majority of them fail. 

20% of small businesses fail in their first year, 30% of small business fail in their second year, and 50% of small businesses fail after five years in business. Finally, 70% of small business owners fail in their 10th year in business. 

Fundera.com

But this article is not about failure. 

This article is about growing your business, making sure you don’t lose sight of your motivation, and doing your best work.

Not one day goes by without seeing another startup getting tens of millions of dollars in funding — and still struggling to be profitable. 

But the funding doesn’t slow down. VCs are risk takers. And if they sense an idea that might take off within an industry that is ripe for a newcomer, money will pour in.

And any VC will tell you, for every 10 (or perhaps more) investment they make, all they really need is for one to work. They’ll 5X, 10X or even 20X their investment.

You don’t need money to get started

That’s the biggest crock of cow dung.

It’s a nice phrase, and often romanticized by the likes of Gary Vaynerchuk (love your content bro!). 

Reality is, you need some money to start anything. How and what you do to get your initial money is entirely up to you — legally of course. 

Let me spend a few moments on manifestation mindset here…

You need faith and ironclad belief.

You must believe, in your heart of hearts, that you will get the money you need to start your business. 

“But Derek, do you really believe in that cockamania mindset thing?”

100%! If you fill your mind with the impossible, then you’re going to face impossibilities. When your mind stakes its claim to what you want, then you start to see solutions around you. 

Pressure to be #1

Everybody wants to win. Coming in second place is never good.

We all push ourselves and people who work with us to the limit to have the title like “Best In Class,” “#1 Digital Agency,” “Software Company Of the Year,” “Speaker of the Year,” etc.

To what end? 

I know of digital agencies that win awards every year, they get mentioned in publications (pay to play, but you didn’t hear me say it), and have tens of thousands of followers.

But many of those agencies have faded away — no longer exists. Their pressure to be the best caught up to them. Their motivation no longer focused on delivering their best work for clients. It shifted to figuring out ways to gain popularity.

That is dangerous! 

Growing with Intent

When I started Fullmoon Digital in 2017, I didn’t know where I was going. In fact, I made so many mistakes in my first year that I considered shutting down.

It wasn’t after 8 months of trying to pretend I know what I was doing, when I realized my impending doom, I made drastic changes.

I needed to build my agency on the foundation of Intent.

What does that mean?

For me, it meant I had to start being intentional about everything I do, every client I work with, each new person I bring on the team, every marketing software I buy for the agency, each meeting I put on my calendar, down to the first thing I do when I start my day.

And after months of persistence, I realized that we had not signed a new client, but we still grew as a team, we grew as a agency.

Being intentional about growth

It’s so much easier said than done. 

After all, the lifeblood of any digital ad agency is signing new clients every month.

It’s how we grow annual revenues. It’s how we get more money to hire more people. 

In fact, that’s also the basis of how your peers evaluate and judge your growth. If you didn’t add 5 or 10 or 15 new clients this month, you must be doing something wrong. Right?

One thing that agencies don’t talk about is churn. We hear agencies talking about how many new clients they get each quarter. But do you ever hear about how many they lost? No. Never. Hell No! It’s swept under the rug.

No Stress, No Panic, No Problem

Admittedly, I am the only sales person for my agency.

In the back of my mind, there was still a lingering desire to get new clients — but I quickly squashed that evil desire because it was distracting me from the focus — grow with intent.

Let me say it again. Grow With Intent.

Here’s what I’ve gain awareness to when being intentional:

• You don’t put unnecessary stress on your team, thus allowing them to perform at their peak levels.
• More attention can be given to improve current workflow, process, and building meaningful client relationships.
• Life is enjoyable with the absence of needing rush to the top.
• You discover ways to maximize your time doing things that make you better today than yesterday.

Scale Your Business Deliberately

So many agencies rush to acquire new clients, aggressively, at all costs because they are beholden to quotas.

And these quotas must be met so the founders and executive team look good in the next board meeting. And of course, the annual bonus. 

If you think that’s the right motivation to scale your business, we won’t be grabbing dinner or drinks anytime soon.

I’ve been on the other side of the fence.

I participated in weekly executive meetings where discussions typically revolve around how to drive more revenue, how to beat last year’s’ numbers, and how to squeeze more money from clients. It’s nasty, disgusting, and toxic.

I despise it. Hate it with a passion.

Scaling your business must be fueled by deliberation.

It’s not about filling your sales pipeline with as many leads as possible. Definitely not about making 100 calls just to clock the numbers. And sure as hell not signing on more clients than you can honestly handle.

The main, and only reason, why we stopped taking on new clients in November was obvious to us.

We couldn’t honestly take on a new project (regardless of any sum of money) without sacrificing the quality of work for our existing clients.

Here’s what I learned about being deliberate:

• You maintain a consistent high level of quality and integrity of the work your team produces.
• Opportunities come knocking because people talk and word-of-mouth is the best marketing channel.
• The business grows as your team grows in parallel. Don’t try to outgrow — demand and supply must be in balance. It can be tamed.
• You sleep well at night, knowing that you didn’t make rash decisions based on someone else’s expectations of you.

Be Clear On Your Direction

We just said “NO” to a prospective project worth $800,000 annually for us. It hurt. But it was liberating.

In fact, it was a moment of growth that we were able to admit that it was a project beyond our scope. Let me explain…

We satisfied 90% of the project requirements. There was a couple of things that we do not support. Yes, we could have scrambled, took the deal, and figure it out — but that approach isn’t fair to the prospect. 

When you’re hired for a job, you are expected to be able to deliver — not get paid to learn.

Industry epidemic!!! So many people fall into the trap of claiming to possess the skill and taking on a job they are knowingly unqualified for and then figuring it out as they go. 

Let’s not get it twisted here…I can hear you already. Ah-ha! See…you’re thinking it…

What I’m saying here is not to believe you can fake-it-till-you-make-it. Be honest with yourself and have integrity to let your prospect know — and they can decide if they’re willing to take a chance on you.

What clarity in direction taught me about our agency:

• Missing out on a large project is 100X times better than failing to deliver on a promise.
• You don’t have to be clear on where you’re headed all the time. Sometimes, all you need to do is take small steps as you clear through the fog.
• In order to find a clear path, it requires willingness to pivot. If something doesn’t work, change it up. Instead of spending countless hours and days wondering why it didn’t work.
• Harness the insights within the team. While I steer the ship, I can only see so much in front of me. When others join you on the lookout, you expand your radius of sight.
• What matters to you comes to the surface and you begin to integrate your purpose into the foundation of your business. Growth become an experience, instead of just numbers on a financial report.

How are you growing your business?