Ep 20 - Going from In-House Operator to Starting an Agency

We get asked by a lot of accomplished in-house operators what it’s like to start an agency. As strong talent is now hitting the market, even more folks are considering it.

To help you get some answers, we assembled a panel of five leaders who went from being in-house Marketers at popular companies to building million-dollar agencies, and all have their own unique paths to getting there.

Here’s What We Discussed: 

• [04:44 ] Our panel shares how they acquired their first customers and their advice on finding seed clients – Focus on 1:1 relationships 
• [12:18] Don’t seek a solution to replace yourself; The barriers our panel had to break in order to scale their agencies 
• [20:50] Advice for going from in-house to founding an agency. “Be ready to take that entrepreneurial leap.”  
• [23:15] The best way to grow clients is to have current clients refer you to other clients 
• [23:53] Raising pricing with clients – How do you deal with clients that won’t budge or ask for discounts? 
• [27:45] How to optimally partner with vendors for clients
• [29:27] Will agencies use more tech to replace people in order to scale? 
• [33:38] Going from In-House to Agency; What were the problems you faced that you only learned on the job? 
• [36:09] Tips on handling difficult clients 
• [43:30] How do you know when the right time to make the jump from in-house to agency is? 

About Our Speakers 

Corey Eulas, Chief Strategy Officer at Power Digital Marketing – Corey was an SEO leader for ZocDoc and Intuit. He built Factorial Digital, an SEO agency, a little over 6 years ago, and took his agency to acquisition by Power Digital Marketing in Oct 2019.

Shamanth Rao, Founder of Rocketship HQ – Shamanth is the founder and CEO of the boutique growth marketing firm RocketShip HQ and host of the podcast Mobile User Acquisition Show.In the past, he’s led growth leading to 3 acquisitions(Bash Gaming, by GSN Games; PuzzleSocial, by Zynga; FreshPlanet, by GameLoft).

Amit Khera, Managing Partner at OAK Digital – Amit led multi-million dollar customer acquisition budgets at publicly traded companies like Ralph Lauren and Aeropostale, as well as high growth VC backed startups. He subsequently founded OAK Digital, focused on performance marketing, servicing clients like Freshly, Angie’s List, Manitoba Harvest, and the UFC.

Rebecca Nackson, Founder of Notable – Rebecca has over a decade of experience managing acquisition, engagement, and product development for leading startups like iHeartMedia, Brandsintown Group, and Audible. She now runs Notable, an agency focused on engagement and retention.

About Our Moderator

Anish Shah is the CEO & Founder of executive search agency Bring Ruckus. Anish has worked in-house in Growth roles at Snapfish and Getable. He started Bring Ruckus as a Growth consultancy 11 years ago working with 40+ clients, then re-focused his firm on executive recruiting for Growth leaders.

 

Quotes

“So in terms of scaling… you want to templatize the parts of the engagement that you can… I think one of the big things that you bring to your client is, ‘We have a couple of different ways of tackling the situation that you're bringing to us. And we have proof that it's worked before because other clients of ours have used it.’” – Rebecca Nackson

 

“Be true to yourself and self-aware that you are the person that's going to progress your agency forward. Stop looking for that silver bullet solution.” – Corey Eulas

 

“Like any small or big business, I think there has to be a part of it that you really just love… That compliments the parts of the business that you ultimately hope to have somebody overseeing… You should still stay connected to the core of what your agency is offering.” – Rebecca Nackson

 

“Something that's worked enormously well for us is templatizing for our internal processes. We got a project management system… Just templatize as much as possible that is internal so that the team can do as much of it without really leaning on you.” – Shamanth Rao

 

“If you're going from in-house to founding an agency, you better be ready to be an entrepreneur. I was very comfortable taking a nice, fat salary as head of marketing here and there. But there are times when I run this agency, including going through crisis, where I'm not gonna pay myself. And if you want your clients to do really well, and you want them to refer you, you better hire everyone that it takes… give really high level of service, and you better be ready to take that entrepreneurial leap.” – Amit Khera 

 

“We just bite off this little part of the pie, and try to do it better than anybody else.” – Rebecca Nackson  

 

ABOUT RUCKUS

We are growth leaders who recruit your game changers. Visit https://bringruckus.com and connect on LinkedIn. Subscribe and listen to more episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify Google Podcasts, Audible, or wherever you get your podcasts!  

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