Wasif Kasim Consulting

I'm passionate about helping scale ups unlock rapid growth by building sales & marketing engines that 10x their revenue, leads, and brand awareness. 

After over a decade of working in-house and helping businesses go from $5M to $30M+, it's time to share the formula with the masses.

Founder

Online Marketing Gurus

Across my 4+ years at OMG, my goal was to scale the business rapidly and profitably. 

Starting off as CMO, then promoted to Managing Director, and subsequently appointed as CEO (APAC) - OMG is now the largest independent digital agency in Australia.

Highlights of my tenure include:

→ Quadrupling annual revenue in 4 years
→ Growing staff from 30 to 200+ people globally
→ 400% increase in monthly deals won
→ 20:1 ROI from marketing.
→ Building an incredibly well oiled sales & marketing engine (including an SDR team)
→ Shortlisting OMG as AFR's Best Places to Work
→ 4x increase in employee satisfaction
→ Several industry awards (Fast Starter, SEM Rush, Fast 50, Clutch & many more)
→ Successful expansion into USA, Singapore, and Phillipines

Chief Executive Officer (APAC)

Managing Director

Chief Marketing (and Sales) Officer

Crimson Education

Crimson Education was founded with one goal in mind - to help students reimagine what’s possible by achieving their greatest potential. Since beginning as a small start-up in New Zealand in 2013, Crimson has grown to be a global company supporting thousands of students gain admission to the world’s top-ranked universities, particularly Ivy League colleges, Oxford and Cambridge.

Overview of responsibilities:
✪ Led digital transformation, customer acquisition, brand awareness & sales enablement globally across 10+ countries globally.
✪ Established, built and managed a global digital team of 17, across SEO, Adwords, Facebook, content marketing, marketing automation, community management, video & more.
✪ Implemented best practices globally across SEO, SEM, WeChat, Facebook acquisition, content strategy, marketing automation, events (connecting offline to online), and website optimization. 
✪ Launched Hubspot, SalesForce & various other platforms/initiatives to provide complete transparency of business outcomes,  empower sales & marketing alignment, and capture a two-way feedback system for continual improvements.
✪ Drove cross-departmental collaboration across sales, events, PR, content, creative, tech, social & multiple agencies 

Highlights include:
✔ 1,000 % increase in visitors to the site 
✔ 50X increase in subscribers 
✔ 900% increase in organic visits 
✔ 40k+ new followers on Facebook
& much more.

Global Head of Digital Marketing

King Content

King Content is a multi award-winning content marketing agency, recognised for creating end-to-end content marketing strategies for blue-chip clients globally. 

Key responsibilities:
✪ Driving digital transformation, lead generation, and revenue results globally - Americas, Europe & Asia-Pac. 
✪ Enabled complete closed-loop reporting via tight integration of Salesforce, Hubspot, Website & other platforms.
✪ Implemented marketing best practices globally across SEO, SEM, content strategy, marketing automation, events, PR, and website optimization/development.
✪ Cemented global partnerships with Marketo, Hubspot & LinkedIn to drive mutual lead generation.
✪ Managed PR, content writers, creatives & multiple agencies to drive revenue growth. Re-engineered global editorial and sales processes to drive client growth.
✪ Trained global sales teams on SEO, SEM, Marketing Automation & content marketing best practices.

Highlights include:
✔ Achieved a 14:1 ROI from marketing spend
✔ 100X increase in website conversion rates
✔ 30% uplift in blog readership
✔ 8x increase in global site traffic
✔ Ranked 70% of new blogs on page 1 of Google

Global Head of Marketing

Salmat

✪ Responsible for driving lead generation best practices & optimisation via all digital channels - including SEO/SEM, content marketing and marketing automation (Marketo)

Heading of Digital, Content & Marketing Automation

✪ Drove lead generation and revenue for our Digital Marketing Services portfolio (SEO, SEM, Mobile Marketing, Email, eCommerce)

 ✔ Improved ROI from all digital channels to drive sales.

 ✔  Develop the content strategy and processes to scale output content.

 ✔  Build and manage a rich content/editorial calendar that attracts a qualified audience to our owned properties (including blog posts, whitepapers, ebooks, reports, webinars, infographics, etc.).

 ✔  Grow new leads, including marketing-qualified leads, by converting site traffic through calls-to-action, landing pages, and lead generation content (including offers).

 ✔  Optimize our marketing automation and lead nurturing processes through email, content, and social channels.

 ✔  Establish closed-loop analytics with sales to understand how our inbound marketing activity turns into customers, and continually refine our process to convert customers.

 ✔   Manage the strategy and setup of all paid campaigns.

 ✔   Measure and optimize our paid marketing using vendor-specific dashboards, Google Analytics, and  landing page sources reports

 ✔  Stay up-to-date with digital marketing trends and potential new channels and strategies, including updates to social media marketing, attribution, and programmatic media buying.

★ Specific areas of expertise includes ★ 
Marketing automation, Inbound/Modern B2B Marketing, Content Strategy, Content Creation, Content Mapping, Search Optimisation (SEO and SEM), Conversion optimisation, Landing page optimisation, Marketing, and Web design.

Marketing Manager - Digital

✪ Led the National marketing and sales development efforts for sourcing, influencing and accelerating new/existing business opportunities through marketing programs, targeted outbound prospecting, sales development and strategic partnerships.

 ✔ Achieved 7,900% increase in YonY net new sales sourced through marketing, 30X increase in monthly leads, 30:1 ROI from SEM campaigns, 156% increase in SEO traffic and 500% increase in content creation/blogging.

 ✔ Managed a cross-functional team to strategise, deliver, and measure national digital marketing outcomes, resulting in the growth of new and existing sales pipeline across all industry verticals and segment. 

 ✔ Developed and executed national marketing plans in alignment with revenue objectives, local sales strategies and regional marketing goals. Developed strong stakeholder relations both internally (sales, services) and externally (customers, partners) to ensure all units had the required tools, training and support to support regional business objectives.

 ✔ Built and managed client references, as well as client surveys which were made available for national team use. Provided counsel to management regarding marketing strategies, the governance of key messages, tactics, budgets, timing and measurement.

 ✔ Researched, outlined and implemented key buyer personas, a 12 month content strategy for these key buyer personas, in-depth content mapping, and lead nurturing automation to drive sales and revenue growth.

★ Specific areas of expertise includes ★ 
Inbound/Modern B2B Marketing, Content Strategy, Content Creation, Content Mapping, Search Optimisation (SEO and SEM), Conversion optimisation, Landing page optimisation, SMS marketing, Email Marketing, and Web design.

Sales & Marketing Director - MessageNet

✪ Managed the national sales efforts for Salmat's Mobile Marketing division - MessageNet.

✔ 30X increase in monthly partner pipeline.
✔ Increased sales close rates from average of 5% to 50%.
✔ Maximised sales through existing channel relationships and developed programs for growing/nurturing channel partners.
✔ Increased sales performance with newly recruited, enabled partners.
✔ Hired, coached and mentored direct & channel sales teams to develop a high performing sales culture.
✔ Worked closely with 30+ sales executives nationally to position MessageNet & our channel partners within strategic opportunities.

National Sales Manager - Direct & Channel

Cloudoman

✪ Achieved 500% increase in new sales soured though marketing, 400% increase in website visits, 1400 % increase in social engagement.	 

✔ Created, managed and implemented all direct and partner marketing for Key partners include AWS, Rightscale, Rackspace, & Puppet Labs. 	

✔ Built, led and developed marketing strategies in a start-up environment including marketing plan, SEO/SEM,  website development, social media presence, competitive differentiation and more.

✔ Achieved international recognition as an AWS services thought leader, secured partnerships with global technology pioneers, shortlisted as one of AWS’ preferred partners.

✔ Leveraged social media marketing (Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+) to drive lead generation and global brand awareness. 

✔ Increased traffic to online real to drive sales growth and long term profitability.

✔ Led the design, production and messaging for marketing collateral including creation and maintenance of website, brochures, advertising material and digital creative.

✔ Managed sales, lead generation, partner recruitment, partner marketing, training and contract negotiations.

Head of Marketing (Self Employed)

OpenText (MESSAGEmanager Solutions)

✔ Created and implemented key channel strategies, including messaging, partner enablement kits, key prospective partners, etc.

 ✔ Significantly grew ANZ & overseas for SMS and IPfax solutions.

 ✔ Developed, recruited, trained and managed all ANZ and International Cisco/Avaya partners 
including Canon, Konica Minolta, Dimension Data, Axient, and Ricoh New Zealand.

 ✔ Negotiated and managed partner agreements to sell our solutions with strategic accounts.

 ✔ Led market research and helped produce marketing strategies and collateral.

Global Channel Partner Manager

Gartner

✔ Responsible for new business, renewal and uplift for high tech and telecom CXOs.

 ✔ Augmented client relationships, increased client retention and revenue growth.

 ✔ Amplified brand awareness with Gartner analysts for numerous IT organizations.

 ✔ Leverage consultative sales strengths to identify opportunities, nurture relationships and close deals

Account Executive

Dell Australia

✔ Collaborated with Marketing Manager to create & implement key go to market strategies , including messaging, sales enablement kits, key collateral, etc.

 ✔ Achieved 100% of target for 6 consecutive quarters.

 ✔ Grew the NZ Territory by 30% within two quarters.

 ✔ Awarded Dell Direct to the Top in March 2009 (received by APAC top 1%).

 ✔ Top Account Manager (March 2009), Sales Director Top Achiever Award (November 2008).

 ✔ Sold desktop, server and 3rd party software solutions for over 300 organisations per quarter.

Senior Account Manager

If you’re an agency or B2B founder turning over at least $1.5M but struggling to scale, then it’s probably because:

1. Your revenue, profits and EDITDA are unpredictable
2. You're not generating enough leads
3. Your customer churn rate is too high
4. You’re struggling to find and keep top talent
5. You’re spending lots of time on little results

What if there was a faster and easier way to scale your B2B or agency without relying on referrals, reinventing the wheel or stabbing in the dark? 

Hey, I’m Was and over the past 10 years I’ve helped scale 100’s of Australian B2Bs and digital agencies, collectively generating $80M+ in ARR.

As your “Growth Co-Pilot" I’ll help you:

1. Create consistent revenue and a powerful outbound sales engine
2. Build your brand and create a scalable lead gen engine system
3. Improve customer retention and reduce churn rate
4. Attract top talent and build a growth-minded company culture

The result?

→ You can enjoy the clarity, predictability and success your B2B or agency deserves without spending years chasing your tail or treading water.
→ You’ll spend less time putting out fires and more time delivering world-class experiences for your clients and customers. 
→ You’ll create a growth-driven company culture that makes it easy to retain top talent and has people hungry to work with you.

And you won’t be the first. I’ve helped 100’s of B2B founders and agencies quickly scale without stress including:

→ Chronos Agency
398% in pipeline, 2x deals won 
https://wasifkasim.com/case-studies/klaviyo-email-marketing-agency-case-study/

→ SEO agency
9x pipeline, 175% increase in deals won
https://wasifkasim.com/case-studies/seo-agency-9x-pipeline-generated-case-study/

More success stories:
→ Quadrupled revenue to $30M+ in 4 years for a Digital Agency
→ Tripled revenue to $25M+ in 1 year for an Education Consultancy
→ Doubled revenue to $20M+ in 7 months for a Content Agency

Ready for a faster and easier way to scale your B2B or agency?

If you’re tired of unpredictable, slow and painful growth, let’s talk. 

DM me today to lock in a free 1:1 session where I’ll show you the path to consistent, scalable growth and creating a business everyone is proud to be part of.

Agency founders - what if you had a coach that’s scaled the best agencies worldwide?

StudioHawk, Online Marketing Gurus, Defiant, Chronos, AreaTen,  & many more?

[aka the Agency Whisperer]

Work with me, and I’ll show you the fastest, most efficient, and sustainable way to scale your agency.

Heard that before from others too? This is different - here’s why:

I’ve ACTUALLY been there & done that, and helped the BIGGEST agencies in the world thrive beyond their wildest dreams.

[This isn’t stuff I read in a book or came up with overnight. This is a decade's worth of hard-earned lessons, mistakes, and success stories I’m now imparting to other agency founders].

A bit more about that in a bit.

But first, a quick intro -

→ I’ve been doing this for a long time (10+ years).
→ I’ve scaled various B2Bs & agencies, that 4x’d revenue in a few short years.
→ For the longest time, I had to figure it out myself.
→ I scoured the internet for help, coming up short each time.
→ And finally, I decided to make my own playbooks for sustainable growth.

So here’s what I did -

Around 2 years ago
→ I resigned from my job as a CEO (decided to prioritise family)
→ And start consulting on one thing - helping agencies scale.

And now -
→ I've worked with various agency founders to help them attain growth, confidence, and consistency they’ve never experienced before.
→ They get real-life, hard-hitting, been-there-and-done-that coaching (and hands-on doing).

Most founders have the same problems -

→ Unpredictable revenue, profits and EDITDA
→ Inconsistent lead generation
→ Uncontrollable churn
→ Struggling to find and keep top talent
→ Spending lots of time on little results

And that’s what I’m here to solve.

Some results -

★ Klaviyo Agency: 398% in pipeline, 2x deals won
★ SEO agency: 9x pipeline, 175% increase in deals won
★ Digital Agency: Quadrupled revenue to $30M+ in 4 years
★ Content Agency: Doubled revenue to $20M+ in 7 months

How?

By building the right systems, people and processes to scale their sales, marketing, HR, recruitment & retention practices.

So -

If you’re an agency founder & hungry to level up…

Say hello to learn more 👇

Ps:

[Programs & Availability]:

1/ For agencies less than $1M ARR per year:
*** Group sessions - June ‘24 - only 5 slots left.

2/ For agencies min $1.5M ARR per year
*** VIP 1:1 coaching - July ‘24 - only 2 slots left.

Wasif Kasim

Even on bad days, you gotta keep rolling.

Hard times build character, showing you how strong you really are.

In business, you'll come across tough times, there's no escaping this:

→ Not hitting goals
→ Losing customers
→ Low employee morale
→ Profits taking a beating

But, instead of being stressed, and passing it on to others -

Focus on what’s in your sphere of control during these moments.

My key takeaways:

→ Let go of trying to be perfect.
→ Stay calm, even when it’s rough.
→ Put your mental & physical health first.
→ Be open with your team and ask for help.
→ Take care of yourself: walk, rest, take breaks.
→ Reward yourself to stay driven and keep going.
→ Move things forward, even when you’re not 100%.

How you handle hard times shows your true colours.

Stress out - this will reverberate through your business 10x.
Stay calm, be vulnerable & find solutions - this drives high-performance culture & teams.

Remember, tough times often make the best leaders.

Face challenges head-on and grow through hard times.

P.S. How do you deal with tough times?

Using part-time or client-facing resources to run your marketing efforts?

Don’t, it’ll get ugly. Here’s why - 

When you have an employee who’s great at getting client results, it’s easy to think they’ll get the same results for you.

They can already do the job (and do it well) so it doesn’t make sense to outsource, right?

Not exactly.

And here’s why.

1. Their #1 priority is clients.
↪ Not leads for your business.

2. They can’t give your strategy 100% focus.
↪ It’s almost a favour for you - not their primary role.
 
3. They get rewarded by client results, not company results.
↪ KPIs = client happiness + retention.

This means lead gen will be de-prioritised, sub-optimal and inconsistent (putting out client fires will always come first).

But when you hire a full-time employee or external contractor for your paid media:

+ They have more time to focus on your strategy
+ You’re paying them to get you results
+ They are less distracted

And to ensure cohesion, have them report to your marketing lead internally.
↪ Who ensures everything works in tandem from a strategic perspective.

“But is it really worth hiring for this?”

With agencies I've worked with, this change = 5x better results.

+ More leads
+ Better quality leads
+ A LOT more $$$ in the bank

(And much quicker results too)

[Bonus: You’ll also free up your client-facing employee to produce better results for your clients. It’s a win-win situation.]

Do you use dedicated or part-time resources for your marketing efforts? 

Tell me in the comments below.

Most agencies have an extremely high-risk profile (impacting their ability to scale)

→ Depending on a single lead source (revenue plummets when it fails)
→ Over-dependence on one salesperson (business breaks when they leave)
→ Relying on Excel sheets & gut feel to combat churn (profits take a hit unexpectedly)
→ Assuming employees are happy (people leave, employees get overworked, clients churn)

To de-risk your revenue engine, prioritise the following:

1. Don't depend solely on the founder for sales (or just one BDM).
→ Hire a BDM to close deals and share the load.
→ 6-8 months later, hire another BDM.

2. Diversify your lead sources.
→ Don’t rely on just 1-2 lead sources, diversify.
→ Ensure you have marketing and non-marketing leads sources firing consistently.

3. Invest in SEO.
→ Generate high-quality, cost-effective leads through organic search traffic.
→ These are some of the best leads you’ll get.
→ Make this a priority.

4. Leverage Meta and Google ads.
→ Capture high-intent leads in buying mode.
→ Drive brand awareness via Meta to support Gads success.
→ Create a unique USP to stand apart from your competition (and strong LPs to boot)

5. Create valuable content consistently.
→ Write in-depth blogs monthly, addressing customer concerns and questions.
→ Use this in your Meta ads to build trust, credibility, and brand awareness.

6. Systemise your client retention
→ Leverage a CRM like Hubspot to track everything.
→ More, better comms = better retention.
→ Automate monthly NPS surveys.

7. Prioritise employee satisfaction, retention & growth
→ Use tools like OfficeVibe to set up automated weekly pulse checks.
→ Listen to feedback, act on it, and make employee satisfaction the #1 priority.
→ Establish clear roadmaps for career growth, and help your employees get there.

Remember, scaling your agency is not plug-and-play magic.

It requires a combination of streams executed simultaneously.

And takes time, continuous monitoring, focus, and de-risking.

Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

Have a plan A, B, and C for everything.

And you'll set yourself up to scale successfully.

P.S. Ever had one of your core business drivers “break”? Share some stories below.

Let’s stop prioritising the wrong sh#%t.

If you don’t prioritise your life, someone else will.

“Just a few more minutes, I promise I’ll be with you”

Whether it’s your kids, your partner, your friends or someone else.

We’ve all been there, knee-deep in work.

Prioritising work consistently, putting it above all else, at any cost.

One more deliverable to finish
One more meeting
One more email
One more text

And before you know it, it’s been hours, weeks or even months.

Neglecting those close to you, more than you know.

Calls unanswered.
Big life events missed.
Family you haven’t spoken to.
Best friends you haven’t seen in months.

🛑 Stop for a bit, audit your life 🛑

Where does your time go daily, weekly, monthly?
→ Are you spending most of your time and energy on the things you love the most?

The answer?
→ Your time is not going where you WANT it to go.
→ You’re likely spending the LEAST time on things you care MOST about.

It’s time to change that.

No matter how “busy” you are.

Put those things first, not work.
Prioritise your life.

Hustle, and work hard.

But, don’t let work run your life.

It’s your life; own it.

Don’t let others run it for you.

11 harsh truths no one will have the guts to tell you [that you wish you knew sooner]
.
.
.

Self
→ #1 priority is work, forget everything else.
→ Hustle 24/7. Breaks & downtime is for losers. 
→ Money is the only thing that matters, live life later.

Personal
→ Work life balance? Rubbish.
→ Put work first, above everything else.
→ Work more = more money = more happiness.
→ Focus on your career; come back to fam & friends later.

Work
→ Emotional Intelligence? Overrated.
→ Do everything yourself, trust no one.
→ Employee satisfaction - a waste of time.
→ Work staff hard; get them to 200% capacity.

In case you haven't caught on, I’m being sarcastic.

[ Never been the best with sarcasm, but practice makes perfect :)  ]

The sad truth is - many people ACTUALLY think this way.

Don’t be like them; do the exact opposite.

Be kind
Be considerate
Help others succeed
Prioritise fam & friends
Take care of your mind and body

And know this - life will pass you by before you know it.

Don’t let it slip by, make the most of it.

A common misconception agency founders have:

Never “Overhire”.

It’s a short-term “profit-led” stance, that will impact your long-term scale.

Instead - 

Always have a little more capacity than you truly need (especially with client-facing roles).

Do this, and it’ll fuel consistent, uninterrupted growth.

Imagine this:

→ Employee resigns
→ You lose clients in the process.
→ You overload staff to try to keep up.
→ You get more resignations (overworked staff)
→ Employees feel stressed, work quality drops.
→ You get unexpected resignations
→ You backfill roles and catch-up
→ You stop hiring and recruiting
→ You think capacity is good
→ Another resignation hits
→ More clients lost

Keep doing the above, and scaling your business will be impossible.

You’ll be forever fighting a losing battle with churn.

You’ll take 1 step forward, 10 steps back.

Instead, follow these strategies:

→ Expect 10% of your team to leave each month
→ Hire ahead, as new hires need time to ramp up
→ Don't fear "overhiring" - it balances out quickly

Make talent pipelining a continuous process:

→ Headhunt everyday
→ Engage in daily headhunting with 20 new conversations
→ Aim to have 2-3 candidates "on the bench" every month, you can hire if needed.

Break the cycle of "Groundhog Day" by hiring proactively.

Watch your client and staff retention rates go through the roof.

P.S. Being short-staffed is the most stressful part of agency life. Agree or disagree?

5 core principles to add $5M to your bottom line within 5 years. 
 
I’ve worked with many agencies - some scale well, most don’t. 
 
What do the best have in common? 
 
𝟭. 𝗜𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 
 
→ Your biggest asset, also your most expensive. 
→ Put people first, you’ll get profits. Put profits first, you’ll get problems. 
→ Always “overhire” - have 1 or 2 more people than you need. 
 
𝟮. 𝟭 𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵 “𝗡𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗵 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿” 𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰 (𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗰𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗞𝗣𝗜𝘀) 
 
→ 1 for retention, 1 for sales, 1 for marketing, etc. 
→ Set the 3 core KPIs for each, and review weekly + monthly. 
 
𝟯. 𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗲 
 
→ Stop wearing multiple hats 
→ Instead each role has 1 core focus (eg: customer success - retention, sales - new business) 
 
𝟰. 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗼𝘆𝗲𝗲𝘀 (𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀) 
 
→ You CANNOT manage employees AND clients - one bucket will suffer eventually 
→ Hire team managers (80% of their time is spent QAing & mentoring; 20% on hands-on client work). 
 
𝟱. 𝗜𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 
→ Your biggest ticket to scale 
→ Hire a dedicated full-time resource to own this 
→ Treat sales & marketing as one team 
 
𝗥𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 - 
 
Agency life can often feel like a dog chasing its tail. 
 
Stop for a moment, and think about the big picture. 
 
Learn from what’s working out there, and be inspired. 
 
It might mean you take a “hit” today 
 
So, you can thrive tomorrow. 
 
But - it’s worth it. 
 
 
-- 
 
PS 
 
If you're an agency >$1.5M annual turnover, and looking to scale, you’ve got two options: 
 
1/ Figure it out yourself 
Make (many) expensive mistakes, get frustrated, and the Groundhog Day cycle continues. 
 
Or 
 
2/ Work with me 
I’ll show you exactly how to 4x your business in the quickest & most efficient way possible. 
 
DM for more details, and get a free 1:1 agency founder consultation.


Scaling an agency means always pushing for more (but...)

It's a delicate balance.

Be thankful for where you are, enjoy the process, and celebrate the wins.

However - 

Avoid getting complacent (or competitors will be all over you before you know it).

Remember these four things:

1. Pat yourself on the back (celebrate wins).
→ Look at how much you've grown over the last year. Enjoy it.
→ Recognition & celebrating wins help fuel even more success.

2. Don't get comfortable with today's success.
→ Just because things are good now, doesn't mean they'll stay that way.

3. Look for ways to improve every part of your business.
→ Refine current core initiatives, improve efficiencies.
→ Small changes can lead to big results.
→ Resist shiny object syndrome.

4. Take a close look at each department for incremental changes:
→ Improve client onboarding to improve the overall CX.
→ Tweak sales presentations better to close more deals.
→ Survey clients often to proactively combat churn.
→ Focus on getting fewer, but better leads.

Often, the least "exciting" things drive the biggest outcomes.

Pick one big rock every 6 months.
Double down on each division, go deep.
Give your team more time back to be more strategic.
Stay focused on core "rocks", but get better outcomes.
Ensure employees are engaged, and empowered to do their best.

Always strive to be a little bit better each quarter; avoid complacency.

Don't settle; keep growing.

P.S. 
Are you celebrating success enough?

How do you run a profitable agency?

(It's simpler than you think)

Do these 5 things to boost your bottom line:

1. Generate consistent leads from multiple sources.

→ Never rely on a single lead generation channel.
→ Diversify your lead sources to ensure steady growth.

2. Prioritise conversion optimisation.

→ Fix website speed, build highly optimised landing pages, and invest in strong messaging.
→ A consistent lead flow is meaningless without effective conversion.
→ Implement systems to ensure sales are maximising leads.

3. Embrace offshoring

→ Offshore to reduce local talent’s workload and improve overall employee satisfaction.
→ The local talent pool is fairly small, expensive, and hard to retain long term.
→ Having 100% onshore staff is not a value proposition - move past it.
→ Smart offshoring will be vital in driving profitability. 

4. Put your people first.

→ Ensure your employees are happy and engaged.
→ Prioritise employee career pathways and training.
→ Happy employees, means happy clients, higher LTV and profitability.

5. Continuously QA work quality & efficiencies

→ Create strong SOPs for everything.
→ Have team leads monitor, coach, and improve efficiencies (they only work 1-2 accounts).
→ Better process, means more capacity per employee, which leads to more profits.

Yes, you’ll need to take a hit short term - but it’ll set you up for long-term success.

Profitable agencies prioritise their people, processes, and service quality.

Nail these five areas & you'll thrive.

P.S. 
Where do you need to focus the most?

There are too many secrets in the agency world.

Particularly around how to grow.

So I set myself a goal:

To share my knowledge from running, scaling and consulting agencies so others can succeed too.

There are 3 ways I’m currently working towards this goal.

1. Working 1:1 with agency owners.
↪ Very hands-on. Scaling to $5M - $10M+
↪ Not accessible to all agencies 

2. Sharing through posts on LinkedIn.
↪ Giving you all my knowledge
↪ Harder to give personalised advice

And I recently found a third way.

Since sharing my knowledge, smaller agency founders have requested coaching - but I had to turn them away since my programs were designed for agencies with over $1.5M ARR.

I still wanted to help so I spent some time putting something new together.

3. Agency Spark
↪ In-depth training on scaling
↪ Designed for smaller agencies

The foundations and principles of scaling are the same, no matter the size of the agency.

Once you know these foundations, you have a launchpad for success.

These include best practices across:

- Sales
- Marketing
- Retention
- Recruitment
- HR

And teach you how to delegate effectively so you can take a step away from the business.

It’s over 10 years of agency growth knowledge packaged up into 6 live training modules.

Intrigued? 

I’ve opened Agency Spark up for 5 driven founders who are:

→ Under $1M per year.
→ Feel stuck or are unsure how to scale.
→ Battling consistent churn, don’t know how to stop it.
→ Struggling with lead gen, sales and/or consistent revenue.
→ Hungry and open to listening to following best practices, from the best agencies worldwide.

And we start in June.

Ready?

DM me or comment “Spark” and if you’re the right fit, let’s scale.

___
PS
* This isn't free; it's a high-value paid program.
* Ideal for those open to investing at least $2k/month on coaching.
* Only available in APAC time zones.


9x marketing pipeline. 175% inc in deals won.

Here are the exact steps I used to crank this SEO agency's growth.

When StudioHawk reached out to me, they had a few goals:

↑ Accelerate inbound leads
↑ Improve brand awareness
↑ Build and scale the sales channel
↑ Build and scale the marketing channel
↑ Scale the customer success team’s capacity
↑ Level up client retention from great → excellent

[For context, they are a specialist SEO-only agency with 70+ staff and 100s of clients]

This is what we did.

1/ Gap analysis

They were struggling to scale quickly so we:

↪ Identified their obstacles
↪ Set a clear strategic roadmap
↪ Followed through with hands-on execution with dept leads

2/ Accelerating growth

↪ Clarity on how to hit growth goals (right KPIs, systems, and processes)
↪ Found the quickest and most efficient route to success (focusing on the right things)
↪ Leveraged my deep experience in scaling agencies (and avoiding common pitfalls)

3/ High-performance sales and marketing engine

↪ Set it up for consistent revenue
↪ Recruitment and expansion of the team
↪ Setup and launch of holistic B2B marketing strategy

[Including launch and optimisation of value proposition, brand positioning, social media ads, Google ads, design, content, website CRO, email, Hubspot setup and more]

4/ Ongoing coaching and mentoring

↪ Working closely with sales, marketing, retention, recruitment and HR teams to implement best practices for scale
↪ Deep integration across various teams; coaching, QA & support across all functions

10 months later and StudioHawk had:

↑ Tighter alignment between sales and customer success enabling better capacity planning 
↑ More structured and streamlined retention efforts - better churn prevention
↑ A new “Inbound approach” led to a huge jump in enterprise prospects
↑ Consistent new business, and less reliant on 1 or 2 key players
↑ Record months in sales, marketing and retention success.

In July, I’m starting a new round of my agency coaching program.

I only work 1:1 with 5 agencies at a time - and I have 2 spots left.

So if you want your agency to get results like StudioHawk, drop me a DM.

PS. After that, I won’t kick off with another set of agencies until September.


Here’s why you need to use monthly revenue as a primary KPI for your sales team.

(Not total contract value) - or other other KPIs you currently use.

Agencies operate on a month-to-month basis.

When you use contract value, you assume the client will stick around.

But some clients will always pull out of contracts earlier than you think.

Imagine this.

The client signs up for a 6-month contract.
- It’s worth $5k/month or $30k contract value.
- You make decisions and investments based on the $30k total.
- After 3 months, the client needs to pull out.
- You’ve only received $15k from them.

Since you’ve made investments based on the contract value, you’re now in deep debt and in the red.

But when you’re working with MRR, you can see how it fluctuates monthly.

New MRR added vs. MRR lost through client churn.

And adjust your spending accordingly.

By focussing on MRR rather than contract value, you’re able to:

- Plan recurring costs
- Have stronger liquidity
- Create better forecasts

Leading to → better profitability

(This also means leaving out any one-off projects or consulting gigs. Take them on but view the revenue as a bonus)

Here are all the KPIs I recommend using for your sales team.

Primary:
- $ of deals won per month
- $ value of pipeline generated per month
- % of deals won from marketing vs non-marketing lead sources (aim to have this 50/50)

Secondary:
- Contact all marketing-generated leads (MQLs) are contacted within 10 minutes
- Follow up all MQLs, post initial contact, at least every 3 days (till qualified in/out)
- Follow up all "open" deals are followed up every 7 days (till qualified in/out)

Are you struggling with forecasting, planning costs and keeping churn to a minimum while scaling your agency?

I have a consultation link on my profile for agency owners like you.

I’ll see you there.

The truth about revenue-driven marketing?

Not every marketer is a revenue-driven B2B marketer (most aren’t).

To scale your agency, you need marketers who:

1. Are revenue-driven
The main focus is on generating revenue, not just vanity metrics.

2. Think like a salesperson
They should prioritize commercial outcomes; short-term and long-term.
As a B2B marketer, they focus beyond the conversion; are leads turning into revenue?

3. Help build your brand
Skilled marketers create awareness that leads to long-term revenue.

4. Collaborate with the sales team
They should optimise messaging (your USP) to attract high-quality leads.
They protect the sales team’s time and make it easy for them to focus on high-priority leads.

5. Manage stakeholders
Top marketers live & breathe KPIs; MQLs generated, pipeline generated and deals won.
They proactively communicate results weekly and monthly, setting realistic expectations.

Don’t rely purely on fancy brands names on a resume.

Even those who’ve worked for the biggest brands, will struggle with the above.

Instead, rely more on screening and interview questions to qualify outcome driven marketers.

Focus on their skills and revenue-generating abilities whilst at it.

Hire based on revenue impact, not just impressive resumes.

Your agency's growth depends on it.

P.S. What's the most important trait you value in a marketer?

Spend $30k, make $1.3M in ARR.

The essential checklist you need to maximise event ROI.

60% of leadership believe that events are the most critical marketing channel for achieving business goals

But without proper planning, they can be a huge waste of resources.

So to make sure that doesn’t happen to your agency,

Here are the 9 steps you need to take.

1/ Goals

→ Get specific on your desired outcome
→ And aim for more than brand awareness
→ eg. number of MQLS, pipeline generated & deals won

2/ Measuring success and ROI

→ Split leads into: Leads and MQLs
→ Split deals into: Created and Won
→ Calculate event ROI: deals vs investment

3/ Event selection

→ Choose the right event for your goals
→ Min $500 for attendee tickets to avoid tyre kickers
→ Aim for events with 1000+ attendees, with high % of your ICP

4/ Pre-event

→ The earlier you prep, the better the success
→ Early booking = better rates + location + speaking time
→ Have a timeline for prep (details included in my full resource)

5/ Speaking slot

→ Use paper forms to gather leads data (It’s old school but works best)
→ Educational talk (don’t sell!) plus free value packed CTA 10 minutes in (push traffic to your booth)
→ End the talk with a 5-10 min Q&A

6/ At the booth

→ 1 marketer for logistics so salespeople can focus on selling & prospecting
→ Staff booth with 3+ quality salespeople to start conversations with passersby
→ Ask prospects to fill out a paper form and follow up on leads while still at the event

7/ Downtime

→ Ask the team to walk around sharing merch to start conversations
→ Assign 1-2 people to after-hours social events, others follow up leads
→ Study and use the event agenda to your advantage

8/ Follow up

→ Follow up with leads within 24 hours to secure event ROI
→ Send high-value insights and nurture them with value
→ Monitor data and calculate event cost

9/ Wrapping up

→ Follow these steps to make incredible returns
→ I’ve typically spent around $30k for each event
→ And returned $1-2M in annual revenue

Crazy returns when you use this channel correctly and integrate events into your wider sales and marketing strategy.

It takes a lot of work to maximise event outcomes (don't just sponsor & event and hope for leads to turn up).

This checklist is just the beginning.

Are you interested in getting your agency more than brand awareness at events? 

Comment “ROI” and I’ll send across the full checklist.

PS Connect with me first to speed up the process.


Every agency founder I've spoken to makes this MASSIVE mistake with marketing.

Here's what to do instead.

Setting "lead" based KPIs, instead of pipeline/revenue generated metrics

Your marketing leader, joined at the hip with your sales leader will be your biggest ticket to scale. 

Get them both to work in harmony - and tie EVERYTHING to revenue.

✔️ Build shared OKRs.
✔️ Establish weekly catch-ups between sales & marketing
✔️ Create a mantra of one "revenue generating" team - instead of sales vs marketing.
✔️ Any initiatives that do not generate revenue - park for later.

To get you started, here are revenue-driven KPIs to incorporate across your sales and marketing teams.

Marketing
-----------

Primary
- # MQLs generated per month
- $ value of pipeline generated from MQLs
- $ value of deals won from MQLs

Secondary:
- MoM increase in traffic
- MoM increase in organic rankings
- MoM decrease in % on unqualified leads

Sales
-----------

Primary
- $ of deals won per month
- $ value of pipeline generated per month
- % of deals won from marketing vs non-marketing lead sources (aim to have this 50/50)

Secondary:
- Contact all marketing-generated leads (MQLs) are contacted within 10 minutes
- Follow-up all MQLs, post initial contact, at least every 3 days (till qualified in/out)
- Follow up all "open" deals are followed up every 7 days (till qualified in/out)

Things to note
-----------

- Sales target = sales generated revenue (eg: networking, outbound, partnerships) + marketing generated revenue
- With the above methodology, sales & marketing are 100% aligned, ensuring they work as a "team" to hit the company's desired goal.

TLDR: 
Don’t just focus on “leads” for marketing, focus on revenue metrics.
Plus, prioritise sales & marketing aligment - it’ll pay you back 10x.

Good luck!

Confession - the last 2 months, I’ve messed up (a lot).

Worked later than usual
Spent less time with family than I'd like to
Barely went to the gym and looked after myself a lot less.

Why?

Life’s randomness.

School holidays (kids at home)
Unexpected overseas trip
“Peak season” at work.
Various short weeks
& other stuff too.

I’m a creature of rhythm & habit 
And, when external forces break that rhythm 
I find it so hard to get back into the swing of things.

But, you know what? It’s ok.

We’re all human.
We’re not perfect.

It’s ok to fail.
It’s only natural.

Don’t quit.
Don’t get discouraged and give up.
Don’t beat yourself up about it - it happens to the best of us.

Stay focused.
Be “aware” of what’s happening.
Stay determined to get back on the wagon.

Persevere, good things will come.

PS:
2 months in, and I'm about 70% back on track - still chipping away

PPS:
What keeps you motivated when you fall off the wagon?


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