Top 15 Things that Retain Clients

I’ve done a lot of agency audits over the years.

In the last 9 months I’ve done around 70-80 audits on marketing agencies.

FYI If you are doing over 100k per month in revenue and are interested in a Scale & Profit Audit let me know. I’m doing 5 for free in July - hit reply to this email and say AUDIT.

I’m Nick Avaria, agency owner, and founder of Agency Acquisitions. Every week I share a client story, insights, and tips into scaling your agency faster. If we’re not yet connected on LinkedIn send me a connection request here for daily agency insights.

This is what I’ve learned about churn (client turnover) at a high level - then I’ll break each down:

1. Great churn (clients lost) is less than 2.5% of clients dropping per month - some large agencies are at even less 1%.

2. Agencies are only as good as their weakest service.

3. Once the service delivers on the sales promise and that promise is market competitive - being exceptional at the service matters less than you think (diminishing returns - there are a few exceptions - you are likely not one.)

4. Agencies that don't align their sales people to long-term success via how they compensate them can never break out of low retention rate. 

5. Client retention starts at sales and the way to maximize it most will not please your sales team, and likely some internal people as well. (Two choices 1. easy life now, hard life later or 2. Hard life now, easy life later.)

6. The main source of client turnover is misalignment between departments within the agency itself. 

7. Agencies that obsess over client insights retain clients the longest.

8. The most important non-delivery task for high retention rates is how much an agency trains their staff.

9. Being a generalist agency does not mean that your retention will be lower.

10. Agencies with the highest retention think beyond the scope of their service to ensure that their service gets results no matter the client situation.

11. Great client onboarding translates into higher retention rates (first 100 days are key.)

12. The more you educate your clients, the longer they stay.

13. Being a one-service agency will make you grow really fast, but will limit how long clients stay with you (there are some notable exceptions like organic social.)

14. Agencies that believe they have a client turnover problem have the lowest turnover and on average have 2-3x longer retention. 

15. Agencies who believe that they don't have have a churn problem always believe they have a sales problem.

In the next newsletter I’ll break down the first 5 in detail or if you want all the details now check out my YouTube video on this:

If you are interested in a Scale & Profit Audit let me know.

 I’m doing 5 for free in July - just hit reply to this email and say AUDIT. 

Until next time,

-Nick