The Secrets to a Profitable Inbound Agency Retainer Model
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Getting Your Prospects to Pay: How to Drive Value Through Paid Services in the Pre-Sale Process As Inbound Agencies, we oftentimes invest a lot of time and money in the sales process before seeing any return. What if there was a way to get paid for delivering client value during the pre-sale process, all while qualifying them further to ensure they’re a long-term fit for your agency? Join Clodagh Higgins, Senior Channel Consultant at HubSpot as she shows you how to leverage the pre-sale process to: Get paid to qualify potential Inbound Retainer Clients; Discover the industries and companies your agency should specialize in; Find out if a prospect has the budget and time to work with you on a long term basis
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The Secrets to a Profitable Inbound Agency Retainer Model
- 1. INBOUND15 The Secrets to a Profitable Inbound Agency Retainer Model Clodagh S.Higgins Senior Channel Consultant APAC - HubSpot
- 2. INBOUND15 Clodagh Higgins • Senior Channel Consultant • Joined HubSpot Dublin in 2013. • Asia Pacific Partner Channel
- 3. INBOUND15 Sound familiar? Established Agencies Low Quality Leads Tired Lots of meetings Doing Free Speaking Always Pitching Many proposals Not enough sales
- 4. INBOUND15 1Why do we need this? 2Who is it for? 3What could it look like? 4Watch out for ? 5 Questions What Will We Cover?
- 6. INBOUND15 0 0 30000 - 100k+ Current Model
- 7. INBOUND15 Great Start Signed Contract High Energy Agree to timeliness
- 8. INBOUND15 • Client delays • Content delays • Discontent Some Clients
- 9. INBOUND15 New Model Solves Two Problems 1. More Profitable Work 2. Less Bad Clients
- 10. INBOUND15 Free • Ebook • Assessment Hire us • 6/12 Month Contract Current Inbound Agency Retainer Model 0 30k - 100k+
- 11. Free •Ebook or Video •FAQ’s •Blog •Assessment Try us •Thought Leadership •Paid Assessment •Strategy Session Work with us •Group Work •Onsite Workshop Engage Us •6 Week Strategy •Pilot Campaign Hire us •6 Month Implementation •12 Month Implementation Inbound Agency Retainer Model 0 50 - 1200 1200 - 2500 2500 - 15000 30k - 100k+
- 12. INBOUND15 Free. (Audit Your Current Assets.)
- 13. INBOUND15 Ebooks 0 • Current Visuals • Use Video Ebook
- 14. INBOUND15 €0 • How to Videos • Lots of detail • Step by Step Videos Jamie McKean www.automatingyou.com
- 15. INBOUND15 €0 • Your Processes • How you work • Answer Questions FAQs Especially basic ones !
- 16. INBOUND15 €0 • Expand on FAQ’s • Tell Stories • Share Tools Blog
- 17. INBOUND15 €0 • Content Marketing • Email Marketing • Marketing Automation • Lead Generation Use terminology on your website that your customers understand. Assessment
- 20. INBOUND15 Thought Leadership 50 - 1200 • Book 15 minutes • Your Expertise • Shows Interest Level • Qualify the lead • Establish your worth
- 22. INBOUND15 Paid Assessment 50 - 1200 • Blueprint Ready to go • Rebrand • Low Cost • Not Time Consuming • Recommendations http://www.contentmarketingblueprint.com/
- 23. INBOUND15 Virtual Strategy Session 50 - 1200 • Video Conference • Discuss Goals • Create Strategy • What next?
- 24. Work with us.
- 25. INBOUND15 1200 - 2500 • Weekly Call • One Topic per Call • Record / Repurpose • Hear other issues • No travel time Mastermind Group James Schramko www.silvercircle.com
- 26. INBOUND15 1200 - 2500 • Buyer Persona • Content Creation • Blogging • Social Media • Email Marketing • Lead Nurturing • Offers Onsite Workshop Chris Fell www.g2msolutions.com.au
- 27. INBOUND15 1200 - 2500 • Linkedin Workshop • Solves their need • Builds relationship • Uncovers opportunities Onsite Workshop Casey Lightbody www.cloudmarketingservices.com.au
- 30. INBOUND15 6 Week Strategy 2500 - 15000 • 1 Face to Face Meeting • 1 Workshop • Content from client • Deliver or Implement
- 31. INBOUND15 3 Month Pilot Program 2500 - 15000 • Show ROI • Showcase HubSpot • Assess Client
- 33. INBOUND15 Ebooks 30 - 100k+ • Customised Proposal (Template) • Understand Client Needs • LTV of their customers (Retainer Quoting Tool) • Ensure your success 6 Or 12 Month Implementation
- 34. Don’t confuse the customer One offer at a time Step by Step What do clients want?
- 35. Free •Ebook or Video •FAQ’s •Blog •Assessment Try us •Thought Leadership •Paid Assessment •Strategy Session Work with us •Group Work •Onsite Workshop Engage Us •6 Week Strategy •Pilot Campaign Hire us •6 Month Implementation •12 Month Implementation Inbound Agency Retainer Model 0 50 - 1200 1200 - 2500 2500 - 15000 30k - 100k+
Editor's Notes
- Welcome to my presentation where I hope you will learn how to make money before selling a HubSpot licence or a full marketing retainer.
- I discovered Inbound Marketing through HubSpot in 2009 when I was running my own Digital Media Consultancy in Sydney, Australia. Fast forward a few years later I moved back home to Dublin and started working in DubSpot (our friendly name for HubSpot in Dublin). Over the past two years I have worked with over 150+ agencies in the Asia Pacific region, today’s advice comes from my own experience and that of the companies that I have worked with.
- Is any of this resonating with you? Are you an established agency and you are feeling a little tired. Are you questioning the quality of your leads that you are getting from your website? Do you feel you are doing a lot of free speaking, pitching and educating others about Inbound Marketing? Are you coming up against too many “we don’t have enough time or budget objections”?
- Over then next 40 minutes we are going to explore some new ideas around the traditional Inbound Agency Retainer Model, we will look at why is there a need for change, an outline of what it could look like in your agency, who it is for and what to watch out for. Ready? Lets go. . .
- Before we get started lets look at why?
- Most of you are probably familiar with this model, your HubSpot Channel Consultant will have educated you on this, let me explain for any non- HubSpot agencies. We recommend creating some free content that your buyer persona would be interested in like a free Ebook, when they download this then you follow up with some lead nurturing emails and invite them to have a free Assessment with you that then hopefullly leads to a Free Pitch or many Pitches with a prospect. If you are keen to win the business, you sell, sell, sell and more often than not the next step is a 6 or 12 month retainer with a company you barely know anything about and don’t know how you are going to work with you. Ringing any bells with anybody?
- If they do sign up, in the beginning all is fantastic, the client signs up, they pay their first month retainer, they are super excited, then you give them a list of things they need to do, they are like, “oh sure no problem we will have that over to you next week”, and we all know how the story goes. In many cases the client does their homework and all goes well, however in much more cases the client does not do their homework, you cannot create content and move to the next step of the project, days turn into weeks, turn into months etc.
- Before you know it you are now in the relationship from hell, the client is disappointed they have not seen a result from you, you are so frustrated that they have spent money with you and yet will not give you the content that you need. Then I am on the end of the phone listening to you saying “How did it come to this . . . .again.”
- Hence over the years of listening to these calls (and having been there myself in my agency life) I wanted to come up with some new ideas that Helps agencies to acquire more profitable work. Weed out potential bad clients without losing money.
- So today if we look at the a summary of the current inbound agency retainer model. I have taken out the dollar/pound/euro signs to avoid confusion so the figures here you can imagine in your own currency as they are not fixed but dependent on the customer you are working with. So today we have lots of free work then high stakes poker pitching a 12 month HubSpot licence and a 6 or 12 month marketing retainer.
- Here is a new path for your agency. Going from your free work being a smaller part of your time then the customer can dip their toe in the water for a small fee, moving up to getting to know each other, and progressing where you qualify the prospect over time, they are getting practical advice they can use and you are getting paid.
- Before we launch into the paid work now is the perfect time to do an audit of our current free assets that you have on your website/social media platforms.
- I invite you to take some time to step up the ebooks a notch, Some of your ebooks/content could include video and think of how to send it straight to an iPad or iPhone for reading later. Use fresh up to date visuals. This is a great example of a “magazine style” ebook from our own HubSpot marketing dept.
- Create more video content like how to videos, tutorials - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2jhJoMu0xg This works for Jamie – he recently got a €4k sale from this as the person rang and said they didn’t have the time to build it.
- There can be a lot of phone calls / emails with questions from the prospect before you book in their free assessment. Having a rich FAQ page is essential. This page (or pages) need to have lots of information on them about your business, basic questions about marketing & online marketing and specifically about how your engagement processes work, elaborate on each of the steps here on how you work with clients. Think of the questions you get asked over and over again and make sure they are on this page.
- Take each of the Frequently Asked Questions and expand on them by creating quality blog posts. Tell stories about your processes and the success stories of your customers.
- So now I’m going to get a bit controversial here. How many of you have “Inbound Marketing Assessment” as part of your offers? This might work in the States however in Europe/APAC the term Inbound Marketing is still rarely heard and nobody has “an Inbound Marketing problem” they have a content marketing problem, or lead generation problem. So tailor your assessments to respond to the problems that your buyer persona already has – don’t give them a new problem they don’t know anything about. What is the agency good at?
- The assessment does not always have to be so formal. Concentrate is an agency in Christchurch, New Zealand. I remember these guys really well as when I rang them in November 2013 they were already dusting off their fishing rods with their feet up on their desks talking about their long summer holidays that were coming up (down under there is almost a three month slow down in business activity from Nov to Feb). “Aw, we will do an Inbound Campaign when we get back from our holidays” they both said. Now I knew that would be February before they would get a campaign up and out the door with another 6-12 weeks before it would turn around any kind of result, here were were in Nov and they wouldn’t see any results from their HubSpot investment by potentiall March or April. NOT ON MY SHIFT I enouraged Greg & Owen to get a quick ebook up and out so that at least it was sitting there over the holiday period and we came up with their MOFU offer of “a cup of coffee” – if the person is too far away you can arrange a Skype call. Yes their buyer personas were going to take holidays however in the days/weeks that they would be returning to the office they will be reading/planning/downloading material to get their head in the game. When the boys got back into their agency they over 33 leads and they closed two sales within a week. They still have the caffeine shakes
- So now all of our free assets are up to date, lets start moving into getting paid for our time and knowledge in small steps. Now this will take time for some of you to retrain your current habits of jumping at every opportunity to sell/pitch your services. I want to preface these steps are not for any companies that you have a relationship with, have the budget the money and are ready to go. These are for people you need to qualify more and you need to get paid to do so. Next time you get “invited” to pitch Inbound Marketing to a company you can respond “thank you for the invitation, we are fully booked up for our free pitching spots for the coming months, however I have some availability for . . . . And insert some of the new services that you have chosen from the coming list”. Now if this idea is too far fetched for you right now I would like to bring to your attention to who I call the supermodels of the HubSpot Agency World – Zooma – Sweden who “don’t get out of bed for less than 5k a day”.
- Everyone in this room is passionate about Inbound Marketing and I’m sure we have all been in a situation where you have shared some of your knowledge and then the person listening says “tell me more” and so you do. I don’t know about you, sometimes I have been in a situation where my passion has overtaken and I have given lots of advice only to feel drained at the end of the conversation and wishing I was on the clock. Clarity.fm is a platform where you can set up a profile, hightlighting your expertise and people can book you in 15 minute increments. How do you do this . . . . You can set up a free profile or page on your website about your expertise and promote on your website/social media. You can also set up a simple pay pal button on a landing page on your website to book a 15 minute consultation with you.
- Bryan set up a profile after seeing this presentation last year. Quote from Brian “From an experience point of view, we're finding our perceived value is higher earlier in our process and those who have historically been scared off by the large fees have had a chance to experience the value they will receive before risking a large budget and so they are now more likely to convert.” You can say you are booked up and happy to talk more with them then send them the link for your Clarity.fm page. See how serious they are when they have to pay for your expertise.
- This is another step in the “try us” offering – who has heard of The Content Marketing Blueprint”? You can purchase this whitelabel and then rebrand to sell to the customer. €2000 to join their training and €795 per blueprint there after (a great business model – well done guys). http://www.contentmarketingblueprint.com/join-the-community
- Another offering you can have is a Virtual Strategy Session. You will see Jamie here again, he lives in a remote part of New Zealand making it time consuming and costly to travel to do meetings, so he doesn’t. He has set up a whiteboard and video conferencing, sends his prospect a link to pay along with a questionnaire and then books them in for a consulting session. How to : Set up a page on your website with what your strategy session will cover. Set up a paypal button for payment or something similar. At the end of the session you can take a picture of the whiteboard and email it along with your recommendations or if at the end of the call you want to work with this person tell them what your next steps are or simply tell them you would like to work with them and ask them if they feel the same.
- By now you may have done a consultation phone call or a strategy session with a customer and they are still want more information before committing or in some cases you might want to get to know them a bit better. So here are some options for when they ask “What next?”
- You could set up your own agency mastermind group for your ideal buyer persona. One example of this would be to set up a weekly coaching call for Marketing Managers of Medium to large companies where they can pay a small monthly fee on their company credit card and dial in online from the comfort of their own offices. You can set a calendar of topics that you are going to discuss, then go around the call asking if anybody has any questions that you can help with. For them they get to hear about common problems from other marketing managers too. For you, you can record the call, use the content for blog posts and new material. You can also follow up with people individually if you can see problem that they have that you can solve and propose your solution. How can you set this up? build a sales page with a pay pal button for ordering and a video conferencing platform with recording option. Set calendar of topics, promote online and grow – you can start of with 2 to 3 people in the beginning. Email group a week before the call telling them what their homework is. Hold the call, go around the group and ask them 1. what did they learn from the topic this week, what could they have done better with the topic? And what do they need help with. Record the call (you can reporpose this material in the future). Use each call to see if there is anybody that needs more help and that you would like to work with and follow up with them individually.
- Instead of going out pitching for business set up two or three different onsite workshops and charge €700 to €1800 depending on the length of time. Make sure the price point is relavite to to the client don’t be do cheap. Examples of these could be Buyer Persona Content Creation Blogging Social Media Offers Lead Nurturing How to . . . . Set up a page on your website with the information about the onsite workshops you would like to do with a way for people to book you for an appointment to scope the workshop. Download the HubSpot materials and work with me to help you with the content. Deliver the workshop and qualify the customer for future business. During these workshops you are also able to assess the people in the company, how do they work? Are they resisting the process? Do they seem easy to work with? This is as much about you showing them how you can get results for them as much as they are showing you if you would like to work with them on a long term basis, make sure as many of the team that you would be working with is going to be in attending the workshop. If there is an Awkward Arnie or Annie in the room, constantly questioning you and being difficult, he or she is sure not going to be any easier to work with when you are in a 12 month retainer for over 70k.
- Agency in Brisbane, Australia doing Linkedin Workshops as a way into companies and then uncovers their other needs. I remember Casey calling me saying that a law firm had asked her to do a Linkedin workshop for their marketing staff, they had a budget of 2k, she was about to turn it down as it was not “Inboundy” – I convinced her to take it as number 1 it was profitable revenue, 2. she knew Linkedin well & 3. she could qualify if they had any other marketing opportunities. She did, they did and she got to work with them on a large marketing retainer and also wrote a book that is on Amazon about Linkedin for Business. Moral of the story, don’t overlook opportunities that appear too simple for your agency or aren’t “Inboundy” just because you know about doesn’t mean others do.
- If you would like to get help with building out a workshop Marcus Sheridan has a course - http://www.thesaleslion.com/workshop-training-for-agencies. Marcus is speaking here at And there will be a panel afterwards to ask questions. If you are interested in doing workshops I would recommend you come along to this too.
- You’ve made some money, feeling like you know the prospects in your funnel better you can now either to choose to move ahead with the companies that are ready to go, or if Awkward Arnie/Annie is giving you a weird feeling, you think they are going to be too difficult to work with, lets look at some other ways of qualifying and earning money.
- Working with the company over a 6 week time frame - 1 face to face meeting and 1 workshop (Buyer Personas as an example then present them with a online marketing strategy that they can either Implement himself or b. include a price that reflects your desire to work with them. If they have been difficult to work with - delayed in getting content to you then that is a sign they could potentially be a nightmare customer. When pitching for a 6 or 12 month retainer then you can price accordingly (price high or walk away - we don’t think we are right for each other.) How to . . . Create your own Online Marketing Template or make an enhanced one from the Content Marketing Blueprint one earlier, do one face to face meeting and set homework do be done prior to the workshop – like do their buyer personas. Hold the workshop. Then deliver your strategy with recommendations on how to do it themselves or a proposal to do it for them.
- If you have an Enterprise Portal you can do Paid Campaigns in your own portal. This is actually a training presentation in it’s own right however a quick overview is you can create a campaign for your client over 12 weeks in the campaign tool and charge them between €5 to €15k This will show them a ROI on a campaign and showcase HubSpot too as an opportunity to resell the software. The key here is less is more, don’t over do it – just a simple campaign, get a result then show them how much more you could do for them (if you want to work with them over a longer period of time). How to . . . We have a project in the Partner Projects section – here is the link.
- Finally I hear you say . . .
- Ideally you will have worked with your potential client in one or more of the previous offers. Your proposal should be a template document around your core service packages and should not take you too much time to do as you will have built up knowledge about the customer. Work with them closely to understand their cost per client as per the pricing calculator training and then you will have a pretty good indication of how much you can charge for a 6 or 12 month retainer.
- Watch out for Confusing the customer can be easy to do here. Don’t building all the offers together - Pick one or two offers that you are drawn to and finish that first. Don’t share all of your steps at the same time - tell the customer the next step only, reveal slowly.
- Here we are again. Hopefully now after explaining each one step by step you can see some new ways for you to make money with Inbound while qualifying out the bad fits and getting to know your ideal prospects better to create longer lasting profitable mutually beneficial business relationships.