Episode Details

Are you struggling with client acquisition? Do you offer a ton of services but still can't scale? Wonder what else you could be doing to get the attention of the right clients? In today's episode, we'll learn how an agency went from getting most of its business from cold emails to evolving its acquisition model. Our guest also shares the mistakes he made in his first two agencies which led to massive success the third time around and a merger deal which led to more growth.

Chase Dimond is a partner at Structured Agency, a highly-collaborative eCommerce marketing agency. With three agencies under his belt, Chase now reflects on past mistakes and shares how he grew this agency to a team of 100 people working from 6 countries working with brands doing 7-9 figures online.

In this interview, we'll discuss:

• Mistakes and learning what not to do with your agency.
• 3 challenges of an agency merger.
• 3 ways to acquire new agency business.
• Tips for growing a following on Twitter.

Sponsors and Resources

Verblio: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by Verblio. Check out Verblio.com/smartagency and get 50% off your first month of content creation. Our team loves using Verblio because of the ease in their process and their large pool of crowd-sourced writers.

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Learning Hard Lessons on What Not to Do to Grow a Digital Agency

Chase formed his first agency as a side gig hustle from his full-time job out of college. As a kid who, he admits, thought he knew more than he actually did. He didn't have case studies but he was lucky to purchase a dating website for Bernie Sanders supporters that ended up going viral. It was the best way to attract clients and he learned a lot from the experience. They quickly scaled that agency to $30K per month on the side of their full-time jobs, but offering 8 different services as a side gig wasn't sustainable. The partners disbanded the agency and focused on their full-time jobs.

A couple of years later, he gave it another try at creating an agency with some friends. Admittedly the lessons learned the first time didn't stick. This time, they got it to about $80K/month but went their separate ways after a falling out.

From that experience, he knew he wanted to start an agency with a singular focus. Email had been at the core of everything since Chase's first business, so in 2018 he started an email marketing agency for eCommerce brands. They later merged with a paid social agency in 2020 servicing similar clients so now they can offer both customer retention and acquisition to their clients.

Looking back, he can see that in the first two agencies he made the mistake of trying to offer too many services right away. It was impossible to staff and predict demand for each offering. This time around he's been successful because they focused on doing one service well and then merged with another agency offering a tangential service.

3 Challenges with a Digital Agency Merger

Recently, his agency merged wit