Case study: Influence Agents

Starting to focus on our own strategies - not just customers - Influence Agents

Influence Agents helps IT and B2B Technology to generate Higher Volumes of Quality Traffic, Targeted Leads, Paying Clients, and Loyal Fans, through the Effective Use of Social Media and Inbound Marketing. In contrast from Penguin Strategies, they chose to start the collaboration with the Discovery Package from Growit Group.

For Matt Hodkinson, chief executive officer at Influence Agents, it was an easy decision to get an agency mentor. He had been looking for support from a mentor for a long time. He found however that the main reason he didn’t find someone was that he didn’t have good enough experience in how an inbound agency should work.

Matt states further that working with a mentor who has many years of experience with inbound marketing and HubSpot was an opportunity he couldn’t miss. Also, the chance to be part of a community with ambitious, like-minded agents was a big plus.

Matt explains the process that led to the collaboration with Growit Group like this: “I really felt that it was the only community and mentorship option that really speaks specifically at this level of having inbound experience and expertise. So it was an easy decision to make”

With the Discovery Package, Growit Group got the opportunity to discover the areas that needed improvement for Influence Agents. With the Discovery Package, the Growit team focuses on analysing 5 critical areas within your digital agency, which will result in a complete report with recommendations at the end of the project. You can either choose to implement the actions yourself or continue to work with the team on an commitment of 6 months or 12 months.

The two agencies are now working together on implementing and executing everything that needs to be done. Like many agencies, Matt says they had been focusing on clients for too long, and not on their own strategies as much as they should have.

A normal thing to do for agencies, often in the beginning, is to focus too much on acquiring lots of clients to earn money. Of course, it is important to be financially stable to grow, but that won’t happen without a concrete strategy in place. The clients you work with, and the work you do for them will automatically reflect back on yourself and your company. Hence it’s vital that you don’t forget what the core focus should be - your own strategy.

Some of the initial best wins for Influence Agents after starting the collaboration has been in drilling down and identifying their core weaknesses. “Sometimes you’re just a bit too close to your own business where the issues lie”. It was beneficial for Matt and the other Influence Agents to be asked questions they would never ask themselves. You know, the really uncomfortable ones. That truly helped in identifying where they were lacking.

“I think, to go through that process is embarrassing. It really is quite challenging to have to admit that you are short in a few areas that you really should have things nailed, but I’m a firm believer that you have to go into that discomfort before you can come out on the other side and do something about it.” - Matt Hodkinson

Influence Agents started with educating their target market. Today, they are hosting breakfast seminars, which is the first quick win they executed from the strategy - which gave them attracting proposals after just a few weeks. Further comes all the fundamentals. Things like having an agency playbook, digging deeper into the financials and getting a perspective of the financial situation.

Influence Agents hired Growit Group again as a result of the project, as an extension of how well things are going.

Matt is really excited that Growit Group and the Discovery Package are helping them with staying on the growth trajectory, keeping them honest and holding them responsible for what is planned.

The main reasons why Matt and Influence Agents chose Growit Group was that the Growit Circle is a fantastic community to be a part of. Inspiration is coming from left, right and centre from people that know the business. “I think the more relevant the experience of the people that you surround yourself with, the better it’s going to be for you”. Also, Matt states, agencies often need something more than just the HubSpot community, as it doesn’t give you everything you need as an agency. Growit Group has the understanding of the day to day goings of running an agency and supports their clients based on own experience.

“It’s all going swimmingly, and I’m loving the journey.” - Matt Hodkinson.

When hiring a mentor for your agency there are a couple of things, amongst others, you have to remember and look out for. First, before you meet the coach face-to-face, it is almost self-explanatory that you should do a little (or a lot) of research about the person and/or agency you are thinking about hiring.

Then, ask the necessary questions to make sure you have all the information you need. At the same time, the coach should ask you lots of questions back to learn all there is. Like both Perry Nalevka and Matt Hodkinson felt, Growit Group asks the tough questions and is not afraid to dig deep when helping new clients.

Last but not least, be coachable. Nor Penguin Strategies or Influence Agents would have gotten to where they are now if they were not willing to change and receive and implement the help they got from the team at Growit Group.

How Growit Group helped us reach our goals - Inbound Norway - a part of Avidly