At DigitalMarketer, we get to work with a lot of incredible businesses, and our absolute favorite thing is seeing a great company find even greater success with the trainings and strategies we teach.
And it’s not just because we love celebrating our customers’ success (though we really do love shouting them all out!). It’s also that we want to see what exactly it was that pushed the needle, landed those clients, and took their sales to the next level. Because our second favorite thing is passing on those successful tricks and strategies to the next struggling marketer.
It’s a never-ending cycle of marketing gold, see?
One such success story comes from SiteGeek, an award-winning digital marketing training consultancy. By implementing the strategies and processes from the DigitalMarketer Certified Partner Program, SiteGeek started to rake in more, better-qualified leads, and landed bigger, higher-ticket clients. This meant they were able to save and then double the size of their business!
We wanted to share this story, and then in case you are struggling to find your own success, we’ve broken down 3 strategies you can try for yourself. We know they worked for SiteGeek, so they will probably work for you!
Struggling to Find High Ground
When Steve Hooper, the Founder of SiteGeek, first joined the DigitalMarketer Certified Partner Program, he was struggling.
His company was in deep water because of a catastrophic accounting error, and while he had a steady stream of customers, he wasn’t happy with the direction his company was headed.
Steve was relying heavily on word of mouth and referrals from years of SEO and networking to get customers. And the clients he did get were usually low budget, often with less than $500 total to spend.
It was a constant, daily grind of building websites and doing minor consulting work, and Steve felt more like he was up the creek in a leaky boat with teaspoons for paddles, when he should have felt like an elite-level white water rafting expert, navigating the sharp rocks and rough currents of the marketing world.
And then he found DigitalMarketer.
Or more like, DigitalMarketer found him. One evening, while scrolling through Facebook, Steve happened upon a video from Ryan Deiss (the man, the myth, the legend), whom he recognized from a conference several years prior.
And before he knew it, Steve was joining on as a new partner in the Certified Partner program, looking for structure and direction, as well as ways to grow his business and hone his process.
The Ah-Ha Moment
Joining the CP Program gave Steve access to a wealth of marketing tools and tactics that he could not only use to help his clients, but he could also use to better his own marketing efforts.
What’s the biggest problem most marketing agencies face? Hint: it’s not bad marketing. They can create some of the best marketing for their clients, but they often don’t have the time or energy to market their own business.
Steve dove right in and started to implement programs like the Double Your Sales sessions (a legacy DM product), which took his conversions to a rate he’d never seen in his previous one-on-one or email conversations with potential clients.
The one-page product sheets, Agency Growth toolkits, and video trainings all gave Steve the structure and direction he needed in his own marketing, and soon he was able to do it in a quarter of the time—which meant he could spend more time working on his clients’ businesses.
It wasn’t all sunshine and daisies. Anyone who’s ever taken a great training or learned a new strategy can understand that it’s not as simple as just snapping your fingers.
With so much new material to work with, Steve found himself struggling to see how some of it fit into his business model. But after mastering the foundations laid out in the CP Program (like the Customer Value Journey we will cover later), he began to see how it all fit together.
This Side of Success
With all these new tools and tactics, Steve is seeing his company rise to new heights.
He has fewer, better clients with budgets upwards of $5000/month. More than 10X what they were before. And he is able to hire more team members to work with those clients.
He is seeing a return on ad spend that has doubled, because his funnels work better than ever, and he has even launched a podcast, Digital Marketing Confessions, where he talks with marketing experts about what’s working (and not working) in digital marketing right now.
SiteGeek has doubled in size, and since Steve is currently going through the 90-Day Accelerator, he expects to see even more growth in the coming months and years.
When Steve was looking into becoming a Certified Partner, he was trying really hard to discover new ways of doing things and a true path for himself and his business. The training he found in the program allowed for exactly that, and he dug deep and pushed himself to do the work that got results.
But what were those specific things that got results, you ask?
There were 3 specific tactics that Steve found to make the most impact in his business, and in his success as a CP.
3 Tactics to Help You Grow Your Own Business Like SiteGeek Did
When we talked to Steve about what really made the biggest difference, he said that honing his Customer Value Journey, providing value in advance, and leaning on the CP community were the most important strategies.
So we’ve broken those ideas down a bit more, that way you can use them yourself. We’re providing you the value in advance 😉.
The Customer Value Journey
We talk about this framework a lot. Like, A LOT a lot.
But if you’re new to the game, the Customer Value Journey is a marketing framework that breaks down the different stages your customer will go through in their relationship with your business, from just becoming aware of you to shouting your name from the rooftops telling everyone to be your customer.
This should be one of the most important foundations of your business and your marketing. You should know exactly what content, emails, or ads your customers are seeing depending on where they are in the value journey.
And different stages should have different content. After all, if someone just learned about your company, you don’t want to immediately ask them to buy your highest-priced item or service. You want to make sure your customers are flowing through this in the right order and hitting every step.
And when you map out how your funnels align with the CVJ, you might just find that you are missing steps or getting ahead of yourself.
So map out your own customer’s journey through your business and you’ll be better prepared to guide new potential customers who could have gotten lost without this map.
Provide Value in Advance
A lot of business owners (and marketers in general) are leery of giving away too much information or content before they get a contract signed and a check in the mail. After all, what’s stopping potential customers from taking what you give them for free and then going to someone else, or even trying to do it themselves?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
But Steve learned (and we have always taught) that when you provide value to your customers before you ever ask for a dime, most times they don’t just cut and run. Usually, they stick around and see what else you have to offer.
When you give value, you are getting something worth way more than money in return (and we all know that money is worth a LOT). You are getting trust. By showing your customers just how much you know, and giving away some of your expertise for free, you are proving that you are the expert they should turn to when they are ready to break out the checkbook.
Because remember, marketing is hard. There’s a reason that marketing agencies stay in business. If you do give away a strategy for free, most people are going to see what it takes to implement and turn right around and ask you to do it for them.
So always start your sales conversation by providing value in advance. Maybe this means you fill your blog with tactical content (like you can see SiteGeek did below), or maybe you set up a sales presentation that is full of useful strategies before you ever bring up contracts.
Whatever is best for your business, when you start with value, you’re guaranteed to see a return.
Lean on Your Community
This was the tip that came up again and again. Steve’s favorite thing in the CP program, and his biggest piece of advice to anyone joining the program, was to really take advantage of the community.
In the case of the CP Program, we have a Facebook Group where all our CPs can talk about their businesses and help each other out with any sticking points. This community is often what keeps our partners in the program for years and years.
But you don’t have to be in this specific community to benefit from this tactic. Whether you are in this CP group, the DM Engage group, a different online marketing group, or just part of a brunch crew with other business owners, community can make or break your success as a business.
When you are a part of a community of people in similar situations or with similar problems, you can not only get advice about your particular issues, but you can help other people with theirs. You can build up your authority in the industry and find new networking opportunities (just make sure you aren’t that person trying to hark your product in the Facebook group if it’s not allowed).
A community is usually a safe place to discuss roadblocks, and the best place to bounce ideas off people who really know their stuff, and may have gone through a similar thing.
Remember, you don’t have to go it alone. Take your community with you.
And no matter what stage your business is or what you hope you improve, these 3 tactics will give you a step up. So if you want to double your business, just follow the advice above. After all, we know they work!
