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Today, we’re talking about how we’ve decided to build our business with an agency model in mind. Since leaving our corporate agency jobs, we’ve been very anti-agency. But we realized we can build a boutique marketing agency how we want to and feel good about it.
This decision came from our annual planning meeting, which we talked about in episode #141. We’ll chat about why we decided to make this our goal, how we will do it, and some of the amazing team members we have working with us behind the scenes.
Why We’re Building a Boutique Marketing Agency
We realized that we can’t grow anymore without making this change. We can only do so much with the two of us. We need others to help us with the tasks that we need to step out of (day-to-day tasks, admin tasks, etc.). We are growing our team so we can step into our C-level roles.
What’s a C-Level Role?
A C-level role as an entrepreneur involves leading the strategic direction of the business, making high-level decisions, and overseeing key areas like operations, finance, or marketing to drive growth and success.
Don’t get us wrong – we still LOVE the client work we do and will continue to work with them 1:1. The work our team does and will do is the time-consuming, tedious tasks, like pulling screenshots, scheduling, running reports, etc. We will still have our hands in the strategy and implementation for client work!
When We Realized We Needed to Build a Team
We became too busy with the day-to-day and didn’t have the space or capacity to work within our C-Level Roles. Our business took a backseat so we could focus on clients. And while client work is important, so is growing your own business. Otherwise, you can’t help more entrepreneurs!
We have outsourced for a long time, but now, we’re focusing on building a long-term team just as invested in Duo’s growth as we are.
How We’re Building a Boutique Marketing Agency
We’re growing slowly and intentionally. We want to find the right people who fit our brand and have the expertise to bring value to Duo and our clients. We’ve only ever hired people we have worked with before (like in SEO on Tap), referrals from business owners we trust, or people we know personally. This model has worked out well for us so far!
We really need to define specific roles and responsibilities for ourselves and our team. We talked about this in our annual planning meeting. What tasks or responsibilities can we give to our team, and what do we need to keep for ourselves?
As we continue to grow, we will keep you up-to-date on how we are building our new agency model.
Who is on our team, and what do they do?
We love all the people on our team, and they help us SO much in our day-to-day work. If you aren’t a student or client of ours, you probably haven’t heard of them, but that is going to change! We’re going to brag on them a lot more 😊 We’ve been working with a lot of these people for years. We love the long-term relationships we’ve built with these amazing women, and they are truly the biggest blessings.
Heidi
Heidi is our Director of Smooth Sailing. She is our project manager and also Abbey’s sister-in-law. We brought her on the team right after Court’s maternity leave. Abbey was drowning in work, and some things that were eating up a lot of her time were sending contracts, proposals, and invoices through Dubsado. Setting up project deadlines and due dates also caused Abbey a lot of stress. Heidi has taken all of that and more off our plates. She’s the first person clients are introduced to because she manages all the timelines and sends them all the documents they need. She is just the best!
Dana
Dana is Heidi’s sister, so also Abbey’s sister-in-law! Dana is Courtney’s sidekick and helps with everything from a design perspective. She doesn’t have a degree in design or pursue it as a career but she is SO talented. She has a natural eye for design so when Court was drowning in work, we decided to give her a chance at Duo. She has been an incredible team member and assistant for Court.
Lauren
Lauren is our SEO strategist. She took SEO on Tap, and we just loved working with her. She has always been eager to learn and jump into all the tools and processes we have set up. Lauren has fit seamlessly into our business. We’ve gotten nothing but positive feedback on her work from clients.
We still outsource blog writing and strategy, podcast editing, and other tasks. And who knows? We might explore other outsourcing options as we continue to grow Duo.
We are still a small business and want to keep it that way. We aren’t dreaming of being this giant corporate agency. We love the boutique marketing agency model that we are building.
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Abbey Oslin and Courtney Petersen are Minnesota-based marketing experts, educators, and co-founders of boutique marketing agency Duo Collective, which specializes in SEO, social media strategy, and branding for small business owners and creative entrepreneurs. To learn more about Duo Collective, or to inquire about working with our team, head over to www.duocollective.com.
To inquire about being a guest on Duo On Air, please fill out this application form.
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