Are you an agency owner or an entrepreneur who wants to take your business to the next level? Do you want to learn how to grow your revenue, profit, and impact in the world? Have you found yourself chasing only the money and feeling dissatisfied later? Today’s guest grew her agency from zero to seven figures in just two years, while also making a positive impact in the world through her social responsibility initiatives. She has transitioned from being a consultant to being a leader and aligned her business with her personal goals and values, and has used her agency as a platform to create social change and help others.
Natalie Hogg is the founder and CEO of Method Q, a marketing agency that offers a unique combination of services, including traditional marketing, talent placement, and fractional CMO work. Under her leadership, Method Q has achieved remarkable growth, evolving into a seven-figure enterprise within just two years of its inception. She reveals how she started her agency with a vision and a press release and explains how she faced and overcame the challenges of scaling her business.
In this episode, we’ll discuss:
- A press release setting a clear vision.
- Allowing room for solutions to emerge.
- The key to building a scalable business.
Subscribe
Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio
Sponsors and Resources
Gusto: Running payroll and benefits is hard. Especially when you’re a small business. Gusto is a tool that helps make payroll, benefits, and HR easy for small businesses. You no longer have to be a big company to get great technology, great benefits, and great service to take care of your team. For a limited time, Gusto is offering a deal to Smart Agency Master Class listeners. Check out Gusto.com/agency for 3 months FREE once you run your first payroll with them.
Making the Best Out of an Unexpected Layoff
Natalie's journey into the world of marketing and agency ownership is marked by a blend of strategic foresight and a deep understanding of the digital landscape. Her career began in the bustling world of digital marketing, where she was getting ahead until an unexpected layoff derailed how she’d seen her path thus far. The idea of starting her own business had been in her mind as something she’d do further down the line. However, this shift made her question “Why not now? Why should I have to wait years until I’m more experienced?”
She found a gap in the market, with many companies laying off their marketing and sales teams and later falling behind in reaching their goals. This is where she comes in to help them figure out who to hire. It all started as consultancy work, but soon evolved into a growing team and officially having her own agency.
One of her signature services is fractional CMO work, where she acts as a part-time chief marketing officer for her clients, providing them with strategic guidance and direction. This service has positioned Method Q as a trailblazer in the marketing world, offering a novel and valuable solution that sets them apart from their competitors.
With every success she tries to give back by taking on non-profit clients and she herself is on the board of StandUp for Kids, helping youth at risk of homelessness.
How a Clear Vision Will Take You All the Way to Success
Natalie’s vision for the agency started with a press release she wrote in 2020 about her future and her retirement. Everything she wrote there became a reality, even faster than she could have expected.
Growing an agency is a very complex endeavor that will have many ups and downs. For her part, Natalie has been able to pull through the hard times and not let fears of failure get to her. In fact, she says she’d never go back now that she’s had her taste of entrepreneurship. Her success is the proof that having a clear idea of where you’re going makes it much easier to take full advantage of the little uptick moments that get you to the next level.
Feedback Over Firefighting: Allowing Room for Solutions to Emerge
With over 20 clients, Natalie has had to accept she’s no longer able to handle all accounts herself and started delegating. It was time to make her team accountable and trust their work.
Giving up control is not easy and it will take hiring people you trust. If you’re finding it too hard to delegate tasks, it may mean you don’t trust your team. Ask yourself why this is the case. Did you have clear standards when it came to hiring or just started hiring when you were desperate for help? For her part, Natalie made many valuable contacts while working in-house and was already aware of the incredible value they would add to her agency.
As a boss, she sees herself as an empowerer and has no issue giving up control; however, she’ll always want to be in the loop to influence decisions rather than make them. Agency owners tend to fall into the trap of wanting to solve all problems and not let their team figure it out. This is a mistake. Instead, hard times can become teaching moments if you allow your team to talk through the possible solutions. In this sense, she knows the importance of having a good team to grow your agency and is doing the work to add the necessary talent to take her agency in the direction of being full service.
The Key to Building a Scalable Business
As the head of a multimillion dollar agency, does she have more freedom? “I did in the beginning,” she says. Now past that initial fun stage, boundaries means making a conscious decision to not put her full self in the business and end up exhausted.
Moreover, once you make the decision to take care of yourself to avoid burnout, who’s going to be there to fill the gap? Finding the right people to fill that gap is crucial for that transition into more freedom. As she continues to take on more, she will have to delegate part of her load. Sure, creating these jobs can end up initially impacting profitability, but it will surely help the business make more money down the line.
Letting go and being very strict about your free time is all about building habits and creating rules for yourself. Just like you schedule your meetings, block some time in your schedule exclusively for your enjoyment. It’ll help you enjoy your business that much more.
Building a business that is scalable means building a business where you’re not doing everything. You’re just doing what you do best and keep learning and evolving to then bring that to the business.
Making a Clear Mission Statement for Yourself
Curiosity and the will to keep learning is the key to any type of success. It also means not letting yourself getting too comfortable with what you know and continue to improve yourself however you can. That was the idea behind Natalie’s original press release, to set herself some goals that would take her out of her comfort zone. Now that she accomplished everything on that press release, she’s due for a new one.
The idea of a press release or any kind of statement where you publicly declare your goals for the next couple of years is a good exercise for all agency owners. It’ll be a clear mission statement regarding the type of business you want to create that can provide direction as to where you’re going and what your next steps should be. If a giant like Amazon does it, it can sure benefit your business.
Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset?
Looking to dig deeper into your agency's potential? Check out our Agency Blueprint. Designed for agency owners like you, our Agency Blueprint helps you uncover growth opportunities, tackle obstacles, and craft a customized blueprint for your agency's success.
