Are you guilty of making one of the biggest agency sales mistakes? Do you rely too much on referrals? Do you have three channels working to find new prospects and fill your pipeline? Without this, you're always playing catch-up leaving no time for working on growth. A lack of systems hinders your agency's growth by keeping the owner tied to daily operations. As today's guest learned the hard way, you can't rely too much on any one specific channel of lead generation. He shares the lessons he learned on maintaining a balance and working hard to set up the different channels to secure new leads. He also recalls the pitfalls and mistakes made as well as the ways he learned to set up his agency sales team for success. Chris Brewer is the cofounder of OMG Commerce, a digital agency that’s highly experienced in crafting Google search ads designed to target traffic that converts. Their team is really connected to the Google ecosystem and knows what’s new and noteworthy, what’s tested, and what’s not quite ready for primetime. In this interview, we’ll discuss: 4 biggest sales mistakes growing your digital agency 3 systems to setup for agency sales success. The worst and best day in an agency owner’s life.   Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service.   Pivoting to the Agency Service Offering with Market Demands  Chris and his business partner Brett Curry are both serial entrepreneurs and accidental agency owners. In 2009, after selling his business and feeling miserable about it, Chris attended the Dan Kennedy Super Conference in Dallas. This conference was a great place to network and Chris actually left with a pretty good idea for a new business he later presented to Brett. They started selling Google Maps optimizations to local businesses. That first year they sold $30K worth of optimizations. This allowed them to pivot to other areas which provided opportunities for repeat business. They turned their Google Maps model into SEO and PPC and continued to grow their agency in other service areas. Their most recent focus is on eCommerce. 4 Sales Mistakes to Avoid When Growing Your Digital Agency  With such a long history in the business, Chris is embarrassed to admit it was only eight years ago he realized he needed to get out of sales. Now he shares mistakes made while growing his agency: Not focusing on outbound. When the agency was growing, it seemed there was no need to focus on outbound. However, there came a time when the inbound pipeline dried up and they scrambled to hire for outbound sales. This is reactionary and, as Chris says, “hindsight’s always wonderful in agency land.” Jason recommends a 3-channel approach to lead generation: inbound, outbound, and a strategic partnership. Relying on referrals. Chris and his partner worked hard to establish themselves as a reliable and trustworthy partner. With that kind of reputation, other agencies felt comfortable sending them referrals. However, if most of your strategic partners are other agencies, they’ll hold onto business when things get slow for them. Conferences and events. Before the pandemic, conferences were the place to network since all the big brands were usually there. As we've seen, things change quickly so it's important not to rely heavily on events you haveno control over. Lead gen companies. They turned to the many emails they regularly got from lead gen companies coming after their agency. In the end, however, the ones they chose didn’t play out too well. It was a disappointing experience, but he still believes in outbound. 3 Systems to Set Up Your Agency Sales Team’s Success By now, Chris has figured out