Grow A Small Business Podcast A full service Digital Agency with 75 to 80% client retention that has been growing with 50% sales growth yearly for the past 3 years with now under 10 FTEs. (Sabrina and Rik Konings)
In this episode, Troy interviews Sabrina and Rik Konings from Kings Digital based in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. Kings Digital is a team of digital specialists who provide expertise across Strategy, Digital Brand & Web Design, Technical Development, and Digital Marketing.
The business started in 2013 as a sole trader and then evolved quickly into the original business KingsDesign. The business grew organically with the help of consulting work for larger Tasmanian businesses and founder Rik's foresight to create a good network of professional contacts. The Kings Digital team uses customer retention to measure the success of their business and aims to work with clients across multiple areas of expertise.
What Rik and Sabrina have found the most challenging is creating a good team, which is integral to the business. To them, success would be to be able to step out of the business for a reasonable period of time and not feel that you need to be part of it.
This Cast Covers:
- How they got a 75 to 80% client retention
- The struggle of finding the right staff
- How effectively removing the single-point dependencies within the business allows for growth
- Self-funding the business without any investor and financing
- Rebranding from Kings Design to Kings Digital
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Quotes:
"Marketing can be quite confrontational upfront because you're literally questioning your client, whether what they want is right or not. Sometimes that means we're literally not getting to work because we don't agree with their approach. But I think that honesty upfront does build a lot of trust in that relationship." — Sabrina and Rik Konings
"I think we've said no to more work than we've said yes to because we are now looking at work that isn't going to serve us and isn't going to make our team happy." — Sabrina and Rik Konings
"We're going to make a lot of mistakes, we're going to get things wrong but it's about constant discipline, chipping away at it and getting that momentum in terms of growing your business." — Rik Konings
"Honesty upfront does build a lot of trust in that relationship." — Rik Konings
"In Marketing, I think the main thing is to do your research upfront. And then to not try a single thing, try multiple things, and have well-detailed reporting in place." — Rik Konings
Be strategic upfront, think about your audience, think about what you're trying to do, really think about those goals and then try the channels that you think are going to be worthwhile. Be brutal, cut what doesn't work and hone in what does and capitalise on that. - Rik Konings