How We Built a Multi-Million Dollar Agency in Just a Few Years

Have you recently started a marketing services business, agency or consultancy? Or maybe you’ve been in business a few years and have hit a ceiling in terms of growth. If so, you’ll want to pay close attention to today’s episode because I’m going to share how we went from a cramped office above an auto parts store to one of the hottest agencies in Milwaukee, billing over six million in fees. 

Full disclosure – when we started our business, we were very good technicians but we had no idea how to drive growth, set pricing, get profitable clients or manage the work. We didn’t understand the financial aspects of our business – and I could write a book about what we didn’t know when we started. 

My wife (then girlfriend) was working at a design firm and was miserable due to a terrible work environment. I was 32 years old and fresh out of the University of Wisconsin. We decided that we could do it better. But we soon found out there was more to running a business than being good at our craft. 

We started out as a pretty humble design studio, taking over a rehearsal room in my apartment above an auto parts store in Glendale, Wisconsin. The floor had a huge hole that went all the way through to the business below – we covered it with a sheet of plywood – threw some carpet over it and started looking for clients. 

It didn’t go well. We quickly found that doing postcards for the local hospital wasn’t going to pay the bills – we had to change our business model. This would end up being a pattern throughout the life cycle of the business – continual change and adaptation. 

At first we read books and talked to clients to understand what they really needed. We learned that, even in 1991, graphic design service didn’t offer enough value to have a viable business. Clients needed help solving tough marketing problems – they needed more than brochures – they wanted help improving their strategies. They wanted to see hard, measurable results. 

It took a lot of hubris to start a company without any experience. We kept trying things, failing, and trying again.The truth is, we didn’t figure it out ourselves. Our secret to success was to lose our ego’s and seek help from people with more experience.  

That meant surrounding ourselves with more experienced people, mentors and coaches. Soon we found ourselves winning clients like NML, Harley Davidson, Eaton, Rockwell, Abbott Laboratories, ABB Industrial Systems – and so many more. We had a beautiful office in downtown Milwaukee and we owe it all to our team of experts. 

People like Anthony Mikes from Second Wind Network, Dave Woods from Agency Management Roundtable, Bill Lowell, Jim Locatelli, Matt Shultz and so many other agency owners (I’m sorry I don’t remember names!) who shared what they knew, including financials and everything they learned the hard way. We had coaches before it was cool. To this day I still seek out great coaches to help me better understand how to overcome problems in my business. – and that’s after having 34 years of experience under my belt. 

Here’s the top five problems new agencies face where seeking out a mentor or coach can help: 

• Not understanding costs
• Self limiting beliefs
• Attracting the wrong clients
• Not having formal SOP’s
• Not seeking help 

We spent years in trial and error. If we had sought out mentors and coaches sooner we would have grown faster and would have been more profitable. We also listened to our clients and hired more experienced people. But mostly, we didn’t assume we knew it all. 

Final Thoughts: 

If you are hitting a wall with your company, consider a mentor, advisor or coach. You’ll save years of trial and error (mostly errors) and what you pay in fees to these experienced folks is returned ten-fold. Our company has lasted three decades – it’s smaller now, our clients are different – almost everything is different. And now I get to return the privilege by helping small marketing services businesses become bigger and more profitable. That’s a pretty good deal if you ask me. 

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