Securing revenue is one challenge, but to maximise it is quite another. Consider that statement for a moment.
Locking in key clients, contracts and pillar products is all part of the journey, but the cornerstone to maximising your revenue lies in your past success.
Any entrepreneur, agency, freelancer or business owner worth their salt will tell you the same. You have to be looking for the next step at all times, and the trick to achieving that next step is leveraging your past successes to work for you. Work smarter, not harder.
The best agencies in the market today are the ones that win business off the back of their previous work and the glowing testimonials that followed. They used their success to win their next bit of business and dovetailed that approach with constant networking.
It’s a tried and tested method, so it’s no secret sauce. Become a thought leader, and your network will do the rest for you.
Networking has changed. For the better.
Whilst in-person networking still has its place; it hasn’t been a regular feature in our working lives since early 2020. It may sound lazy to reference a pandemic, but it’s a fact. Networking moved online when LinkedIn started to boom at the same time.
This works in favour of the modern agency. No longer do we have to shake hands and wear name badges, but instead, we can post industry-defining gems of knowledge on social media to build a brand – both personal and company.
And it’s not confined to LinkedIn. Answering queries on sites such as Reddit, Quora and in blogs are becoming common places to network. Not only that, but these sites have a crucial part to play in content marketing distribution channels.
This all makes networking far more accessible and only serves to accelerate the growth of the digital age. Agencies can build a network of past, current and potential clients from the comfort of their own offices – or homes.
It’s not just restricted to clients, either. Networking has become synonymous with the ‘community’ buzzword for like-minded individuals, agencies and entrepreneurs seeking to band together to share knowledge and create a thriving hub of creativity.
With networking a vastly different landscape to what it was less than half a decade ago, those with minds tuned into revenue have figured out how to leverage it for success.
Tips for Maximising Your Revenue
When leveraged correctly and tastefully executed, your past success can profoundly impact your future success. I’m going to take you through my top five tips for maximising revenue, relying on your network. Beware, however, as there is a fine line between leveraging past success and bragging in the newsfeed.
Build your network
This is step one, tip one, rule one and back to basics all rolled together. Without your network, you’ll struggle to build a personal or company brand and will end up shouting into the void.
The best place to start building a brand and a network is LinkedIn. It’s the go-to community for selling and growing B2B, and not only will you be able to grow your business, but you’ll also find many a helping hand there willing to offer advice and wisdom along the way.
You can grow your network with nuggets of wisdom of your own that’ll attract an audience and keep them right where you want them. It’s exactly the same principle as content marketing and blogging in that you’re guiding an audience down a sales funnel with thought leadership.
Once you’ve begun to network with:
- a) Like-minded professionals
and
- b) Ideal customers
…you can begin to consider tip number two on this list. Remember, though, that LinkedIn is big on the C-word – Community. You have to give to receive, so remember to comment at least twice as much as you post to offer insight and value away from your own platform. Sometimes the relationships you build away from your own posts are the gems you didn’t know existed.
Showcase your expertise with case studies
Case studies are the tried and tested method of showcasing expertise, and it’s no different when broadcasting to your network. I’ve been talking about ‘leveraging past success’, and this is exactly what I mean.
By taking your best work and packaging it up into a neat, digestible bundle of humble glory, you can prove to your network that you can do precisely what you say you can do. You may have the best go-to-market strategy, value proposition, branding or copy, but if you can’t prove it, then you might struggle.
Ask questions and solve problems
Within your agency, you should be actively encouraging members of staff to network and build their own personal brand piggybacking off of the agency brand.
If the team asks questions on social media channels, blogs, and podcasts, they can solve problems and answer questions. Ultimately, they can guide prospects down the sales funnel through their own efforts without being reliant on the agency strategy. Make your staff part of the strategy.
All client-facing members of staff should be selling all the time, but not ‘actively’ selling. What I mean by that is not cold calling and resorting to old school tactics but instead using modern content marketing and personal branding tactics.
Use your network to find The Next Big Thing
One of the critical advantages of growing your network online is that opportunities will consistently present themselves.
If you’re sharing your past success with your new connections, you will undoubtedly garner the interest of new relationships and clients. This is where you can really leverage your past wins to create new ones by utilising the steps I’ve already covered.
Combine your network with a referral system from your previous clients, and you’ll be well on your way to maximising your revenue. If you’ve executed your briefs to the best of your ability, your clients will do the hard work for you and recommend you to their own network.
Networking is all about relationships, and you can cement and build relationships through the hard work you put in on your projects and products. Utilise your network and past clients to find new ones.
Pin down your KPIs
The final tip for maximising your revenue revolves around KPIs. Without clear expectations and metrics, you’ll be lost, swimming round in circles.
It’s tempting to take a scattergun approach and frantically measure every KPI under the sun, but by really homing in on the ones that matter, you’ll get a much clearer picture. Don’t be fooled by likes and views on your posts within your networking efforts. Instead, focus on the leads that your efforts generate.
By focusing on that one golden metric, you can begin to see what garners results and what doesn’t and tweak accordingly.
Let’s wrap this up
As you can tell, I’m pretty big on networking. And with nearly 800 million users and an average growth rate of two new members joining per second, LinkedIn is clearly the place to grow your network.
That’s not to say that in-person networking doesn’t still have its place, however. There will always be a position for real, in-person relationships in the agency world, so be sure to mix it up once in a while.
But remember, networking is good for nothing unless you capitalise on it. The contacts are great, and relationships make us feel good, but don’t forget that you’re attempting to maximise revenue.
Share your success, create compelling case studies, and use your network to find the next big thing while your team guides prospects down the sales funnel. When done well, it should all marry up into an effective strategy – that works.