Leverage for Growth Podcast

Episode 82: Why Retention is the Key to Long-Term Agency Success

Episode Date:May 4, 2023

In the Leverage for Growth podcast, Jesse P. Gilmore discusses the importance of client retention for the long-term success of an agency. Retaining clients leads to monthly recurring revenue and creates sustainability within the agency. Gilmore emphasizes the benefits of a sustainable client-focused approach, which includes high-quality results, developing trust, regularly reassessing and adapting to client needs, and providing value-added services. He also encourages measuring retention metrics and prioritizing retention as a key factor in long-term agency success.

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Show Notes

Episode Transcript

Jesse P. Gilmore:
You are now listening to Leverage for Growth. Hey everybody, this is Jesse P. Gelmore, founder of Niche in Control and creator of Leverage for Growth. Welcome to the Daily Leverage Edition. Today’s topic is this, why retention is the key to long-term agency success. Sit back, relax, and welcome to today’s Daily Leverage. So ultimately, when it comes to retention, it’s basically your retaining clients. or employees, we’ll focus on clients this time, but employees retention is also very important. But the topic of client retention is all really based around being able to rely upon monthly reoccurring revenue. If you really get down to the nuts and bolts and the numbers behind it, you’re making it to where people are not leaving when they start working with you. And I talk with agency owners all the time. when it comes to either the podcast, the agency leverage podcast, or the free trainings that we give qualified agency owners. And I’m always asking about churn. I’m wanting to know more about how long do clients stay with you? Because ultimately, when you have a agency that brings clients in and keeps them for a long period of time, it is… creating sustainability within the agency. And from there, we start to understand what is keeping those clients there, what value you’re able to offer. On the contrary, if for any reason you are not able to retain the clients for longer than three or six months, ultimately you’re going to spend so much time and energy and resources and money towards trying to acquire new clients you’re leaking clients on the other end. And this is ultimately the cost of attrition. The financial and operating costs of losing clients includes things like lost revenue, time spent onboarding new clients, and the potential damage to your agency’s reputation. And it ultimately is a cycle where if you’re losing clients within three to six months, for an example, Ahem. Ahem. If you’re losing clients between three and six months after starting to work with them, ultimately what’s going to happen is that every six months you’re basically having to backfill these clients. And over a period of time, if you had like a long-term growth plan where all you needed was one client per month in order for you to hit your goal, you ultimately start needing two because you can’t keep the clients for a long period of time. And if you want to grow or scale, you’re going to have to keep on, you know, increasing the number of clients because you can’t keep them. And this just loses money. And a lot of times that first month when you’re onboarding a client, a lot of times that’s actually the most, you know, strain on your time and resources. And so maybe you might not actually make a good profit in the first month of actually onboarding a client. So. really the issue with client retention is big. So there are a couple of different client retention strategies in order for you to employ this retention kind of strategy into your agency. Number one is based around high quality, consistent results. This is part of the reason why in the Leverage for Growth program, we’re so focused on giving value and continuing to… nurture that relationship with clients so that they stay long, but more importantly that they’re getting to their goals. So they have a certain goal of whatever they’re trying to accomplish. And our Leverage for Growth clients basically focus on bridging that gap for the goal, which allows them to stay in this focus of retention. Another retention strategy is based around understanding that there is a client relationship, and it’s really based around developing trust. through communication, transparency, understanding if you messed up that you own it, as opposed to try to cover it up all the time, and being able to understand that they are trusting you in order for you to deliver the results and have it be the best experience possible. And regularly reassessing and adapting to the client’s changing needs and preferences. Having touch points with them and check-ins allow you to have more of a collaborative type of relationship. And then being able to provide value-added services and really going the extra mile. Not to the point where it breaks the bank, but just to the point where they understand that they are being supported in the accomplishment of their goals. So it’s important to start to measure this. through retention metrics, including things like the client churn rates, and being able to use this data to inform your client retention strategies and efforts. And it takes a leader, you as the agency owner, to lead your organization towards being able to retain clients. And it means that those micro decisions where you’re deciding whether or not to focus on short-term gains or long-term success ultimately is based around how your whole organization is gonna look at you and the decisions that you make towards retention. So I’m encouraging you to prioritize retention as a key factor in long-term success of your agency and emphasizing, and I wanna emphasize that, benefits of creating a sustainable client-focused approach. So why is this important? A lot of times we focus on just bringing on new clients not really focusing on so much with the retention. And in actuality, the retention allows you to have a sustainable agency. So being able to focus on not only acquiring clients, but also retaining them is ultimately how you get to your long-term goals. So now it’s time for the data leverage. So where in your business? Have you been focusing on this kind of short-term gain as opposed to the long-term success? when it comes to client retention. Have you focused solely on acquiring new clients without really focusing or measuring client retention? If so, this is what you need to change. And my question to you is this, what are you willing and able to do about it today? That is the end of the daily leverage. This is Jesse P. Gilmore. You’ve been listening to Leverage for Growth podcast. And if you are enjoying these daily leverage and agency leverage episodes, Make sure to subscribe on Apple or Spotify now.