Episode Details

Are you driven to grow your digital agency fast? Are there drawbacks to growing your agency too quickly? One agency went from chaos to $5 Million by doubling every year. However, growing too fast without the systems and processes to support it makes agency owners feel like they're always trying to catch up. Today's guest is the founder of one of the fastest-growing businesses in Dallas in 2022. Quickly reaching many milestones in a short time made it difficult to build the structure for that growth to continue. She shares some of the aspects she focused on, the roles she sought to fill, and the systems put in place to ensure her agency's success without growing too fast.

Antonella Pisani is the owner of Eyeful Media, a digital marketing agency focused on paid social, paid search, SEO, copywriting, and digital strategy. Antonella's agency reached a 1000% growth rate in just one year. Although it was an incredible achievement, it also meant she constantly felt like she was trying to catch up to their growth and couldn't really focus on setting the agency's structure.

In this episode, we'll discuss:

• The chaos of growing too quickly.
• Which agency roles to fill to create the right infrastructure.
• How to avoid scope creep to keep projects within budget.
• Why you need to focus on leadership training.

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Dot & Co: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by Dot & Co, client management specialists that will help digital marketing agencies keep their clients happy. With the help of their knowledgeable account managers, agency owners can step away from the day-to-day and focus on driving results. Check out dotandcompany.co/smartagency and get 20% off your first month working with them.

Antonella's agency grew very quickly, reaching a 1000% growth rate in just a couple of years. She constantly felt behind because they experienced 10 years' worth of growth in just one year. Looking back, that level of growth and chaos kept her so busy she failed to implement this structure much sooner. There are some things she wishes she had structured from day 1.

It's not uncommon for entrepreneurs to thrive and even get energy from the chaos around them. However, not everyone thrives from chaos. Some people need more structure to be successful in their roles. So it's important to create a structure to allow employees to onboard quickly and get up to speed.

Three years ago she decided it was time for a "year of infrastructure". As a first step, she and her team thought about the software pieces they needed in order to grow. They had some things figured out, like the software for billing clients and time tracking.

As she looked at the available solutions, she realized the choice was about what type of business she wanted to build in terms of culture and values. It's not necessarily something you want to rush. Infrastructure can be created over time as you figure out