Cracking Profitable Agency Growth with Shannon Fitzgerald | Ep #667
What fears or limiting beliefs hold agency owners back from pricing their services assertively? What critical ingredients are you missing to confidently quantify value? Today’s guest co-founded a small yet highly profitable creative agency in less than four years by starting out with a clear concept of the value she provides. Charging according to your worth is usually a difficult subject for many agency owners, as it gets to the core of how they value their work. However, establishing your value and pricing it accordingly sits at the heart of every agency's growth potential. Tune in to learn how starting out with a clear idea of your pricing will help you find your ideal audience faster and weed out bad prospects.
Shannon Fitzgerald is the co-founder and CCO of The Hooligans Agency, a boutique agency specializing in video content for small to mid-size agencies, advocacy organization, non-profits, and more. As she puts it, they make culturally dope shit that makes the world a more fair and equitable place. Shannon recalls her road from the media industry to focusing on the political and advocacy space, the challenge of not losing yourself in hustle culture, and much more.
In this episode, we’ll discuss:
Standing unflinching on price.
Communicating your values to find the right clients.
How to build a workflow structure to ensure smooth agency sailing.
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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.
From Success in Entertainment to Becoming an Agent of Change
After starting her media career very young working at the BBC and rising up the ranks at MTV developing binge-worthy series, Shannon decided to change her focus and go beyond primetime profits into the political field.
Following the 2016 election, she became a creative strategist and worked with over 80 congressional and statewide candidates. Eventually, she decided to create her own agency to focus on the non-profit and advocacy space, which was in great need of a new creative and storytelling perspective, and has been working on getting these more traditionally-minded organizations to take creative risks.
Standing Unflinching on Price: Projecting Self-Worth to Clients
For Shannon, quantifying her agency's value started by trusting decades of expertise. With 20 years as an entertainment power player, her creative vision at last found purpose converging politics with media. Intuitively connecting candidates' objectives to audience-captivating messaging, early wins confirmed - this was her niche.
Even while securing that first client, self-doubt barely surfaced. Shannon charged $12,000 for a 30-second ad, cementing her positioning confidence. She knew the right customers would recognize a premium creative's worth and pay for ingenuity.
Ultimately, if you don’t understand your worth, neither will clients. For founders struggling to project certainty, she admits self-valuation reflects inner beliefs. Shannon and her partner started out establishing their worth and trusting the right clients will appreciate their expertise and have been successful in finding an audience. Establishing your worth can be really difficult, but it’s a hurdle all agency owners must face on their path to growth. By boldly embracing self-worth from inception, her agency found its niche and charted the path toward maximum impact.
How to Communicate Value to Find the Right Clients
Once you have a clear understanding of your worth, it is important to effectively communicate this value to your prospects. This involves highlighting your experience, expertise, and the unique solutions you bring to the table. Being clear about your worth will also help you be clear about the type of client you want to work with. For Shannon, this means making sure the values are aligned; is the message they want to put into the world something she wants the agency to spend time on? Are they willing to try new things and trust her agency’s guidance? In this sense, she’ll typically turn in a document with 5 to 6 ideas for the client’s project varying from new and risky to more moderate. The client’s pick will let her know how far they’re willing to go in terms of creative risks. Next, they’ll develop the selected idea to create a campaign.
It is also important to be confident in your pricing and not undersell yourself. Charging prices that accurately reflect your abilities and the impact of your work are essential for attracting clients who appreciate and are willing to pay for your services. Confidence in pricing allows you to establish profitability, work fewer hours, and have the freedom to do what you love.
Structuring Workflows for Smooth Agency Sailing
Shannon's agency survives the chaos of campaign cycles through ruthless workflow efficiency. By maximizing available resources and strictly limiting revision round robin, projects emerge unscathed by decision delays.
Early on, Shannon learned overthinking routinely murdered great ideas. Now her team trusts initial creative sparks, moving decisively to harness that raw momentum. This scrappy, disciplined approach sets firm boundaries around agency bandwidth, eliminating time-draining distractions.
With non-negotiable processes comes responsibility on the client side as well. With cascading deadlines for feedback completion, accountability transfers to customers themselves. Stakeholders must consolidate direction, no drifting directives landing sporadically.
Failing that test risks additional charges - fees enforcing alignment. Weekend emergency edits draw penalties too. These rules, while rarely weaponized, provide productive pressure. Just knowing outputs remain on track guides teams internally to hit targets for which they stand accountable.
In such high-stakes environments, structure keeps all moving briskly towards the finish. By maximizing her crew’s gifts and limiting second-guessing revision requests, Shannon’s agency delivers despite unforgiving timelines. Within carefully defined constraints, creativity thrives.
Finally, although they are starting to move more towards a retainer-based model, Shannon talks about being project-based so far and how it’s helped her small team take on different kinds of projects. For big projects, they’ll call in contractors who’ll work with them for the duration of the project. This has allowed them to stay flexible about the type of projects they take on and not have to build a bigger team before the agency is ready.
Designing Your Agency Around Your Life & Not the Other Way Around
Shannon has been conscious of building the agency around her life. As someone who cannot stand hustle culture and the glorification of being busy, she wanted nothing to do with a life dedicated solely to working. Of course, building a business is no easy feat and requires a lot of work but she gives herself permission to take a break, workout, and take care of her mental health if needed.
Working non-stop will only lead to burnout. What you really need to start building the life you want today is a clear vision of what you want. How does that life look like? What do you need to start doing now to make that happen? How do you need to hire? Shannon refers to the idea of making yourself as obsolete and unnecessary as possible by building a team that can operate without you, ensuring continuity and growth.
Once agency owners free themselves from minor tasks, they can focus on strategy and on leveling up to take their agency to the next level. An agency can only reach its maximum potential based on the current level of its owner. The goal should be to create systems and processes that can sustain the agency's growth even if you’re not directly involved in every aspect of the business.
Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset?
Looking to dig deeper into your agency's potential? Check out our Agency Blueprint. Designed for agency owners like you, our Agency Blueprint helps you uncover growth opportunities, tackle obstacles, and craft a customized blueprint for your agency's success.
