Growing an agency presents significant challenges requiring considerable time and effort. Finding clients, delivering results, building teams, implementing processes, and ensuring profitability. It’s a lot.

Here are eight practical strategies for faster growth.

1. Narrow Your Service Offering

Expanding services to capture more client business often backfires. The Pareto principle suggests 80% of outcomes result from 20% of causes. Most profit likely comes from a small portion of services.

By specializing, agencies can:

2. Build Your Own Brand

Agency owners often neglect personal brand development while focusing exclusively on clients.

Building your brand strengthens employer appeal, increases revenue per client, and attracts ideal prospects. Become your own best customer first. It demonstrates expertise and allows direct communication with prospective clients.

3. Find Strategic Partners

Not every competitor remains competition. Strategic partnerships with complementary businesses or support services, accountants, developers, designers, strengthen capacity and create referral opportunities.

4. Ask for Referrals

Asking clients for referrals directly drives growth. One referral from two clients represents 50% business growth.

Using systematic approaches transforms referrals into major growth drivers.

5. Hire Slow, Fire Fast

Rapid hiring risks bringing wrong team members. Thorough recruitment and onboarding increase success likelihood.

Conversely, underperforming employees should be addressed promptly. Delayed dismissals create toxicity affecting everyone.

6. Build Relationships

Business fundamentally relies on relationships. Strategic relationships with team members, prospects, and suppliers should serve clear business purposes supporting agency growth.

7. You Are Not the Oracle

Founders often become bottlenecks by centralizing decisions and processes.

Empowering others to make decisions and fostering fail-forward environments enables scaling. Delegation requires surrendering control, challenging for many owners, but essential for growth.

8. Fire Clients You Can’t Grow With

While retaining clients proves easier than acquiring new ones, sometimes agencies outgrow clients unwilling to evolve.

Firing misaligned clients frees resources for scaling. Not all revenue is good revenue.