Solomon Thimothy is Founder and CEO of OneIMS, where he works with clients to develop customized and effective marketing strategies.
getty
Agency owners tend to want to do it all. Just offering one service isn’t enough. If they provide content writing services, they also want to offer social media management, website development and video creation — anything that the client is looking for.
While multiple services can be a selling point by positioning your agency as a one-stop shop, I’ve found that piling on too many things can actually be overwhelming. If clients can’t figure out what it is that you do, they might leave for a competitor with clearer messaging.
So how do you find the appropriate number of offerings to close more deals without scaring prospects away? Here are four steps to finding that fine line.
1. Find Your Main Selling Point
I believe that every agency should center on one core service. This might be the service you’re best known for or what you’re best at.
Having one main selling point gives you (and your prospects) something to focus on. This might be SEO or PR or even bookkeeping. Make sure it’s a service that’s strong enough on which to build the foundation of your business.
Nail down your core service. This is the service that clients come to you to look for, so if you’re not strong at your main selling point, you might need to choose a different direction.
2. Identify A Handful Of Supplemental Services
To avoid overwhelming your clients, the additional services you provide should supplement your core service. For example, if your main selling point is SEO, you could provide content writing as a supplemental service.
These two services clearly go hand-in-hand. If your main selling point is SEO, it probably doesn’t make a lot of sense to then offer bookkeeping. While clients might need both, the two aren’t related and could create confusion that makes your agency seem unfocused.
Find a few supplemental services that you can add to your list. Consider what your clients’ most frequently needed services are that go along with your main offering.
You can always build on this list as you grow and develop new clients, so don’t overwhelm yourself from the beginning. Start small.
3. Know Your Competitors
I’ve noticed that part of the reason why many agencies are so quick to expand before they’re ready is that competitors can overlap in many different ways. While you might focus on one service, another agency will focus on something else — maybe one of your supplemental offerings.
It can be scary. What if a client chooses to go with a competitor because they offer something that you don’t? While that’s a reasonable fear, it’s not realistic to do everything — and clients don’t always want one agency to do it all.
Knowing your competition helps you position yourself to reduce overlap and identify offerings that your clients need most. When you know what your competitors are providing to prospects, you can better position yourself against them.
You can also identify other agencies in similar spaces to create partnerships. If you each provide supplemental, but not overlapping, services, you can recommend clients to one another, which improves your chances of landing new business.
4. Write Your Elevator Pitch
When you’re talking to a new prospect, you need to know how to sell yourself. If you simply rattle off a list of things that you can offer them as a client, they’re likely to feel overwhelmed and not fully understand why they should work with you.
Instead, create a clear and concise elevator pitch that explains exactly what you do. Focus on your core service and how it benefits the customer. Keep it short and to the point. Your elevator pitch should only be a sentence or two, so make it as clear as possible.
Having a strong elevator pitch can prevent you from overwhelming prospects early in the conversation. By first presenting them with your elevator pitch, rather than jumping straight into a full sales pitch, you can let them know exactly what you do without overexplaining or providing confusing explanations.
Conclusion
We often falsely believe that the more services we can provide, the more clients we’ll land. Unfortunately, adding more services that don’t make sense for your business can actually turn customers away.
Instead of overwhelming your prospects, focus on finding your niche as an agency and building upon it. When you have a clear offering and a strong elevator pitch to explain what you do, closing more deals will come almost naturally.
Forbes Agency Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?
Go to Source
Author: Solomon Thimothy, Forbes Councils Member
