Growing Your Agency as a Journey: 5 Personal Branding Tips by Dan Knowlton

Digital agency business expert and Head of Agency Growth at PromoRepublic Dylan Hey sat down for a talk with Dan Knowlton, Co-founder of KPS Digital Marketing, to get some insights on his agency growth strategy.

KPS Digital Marketing is a 2018 finalist for Video Campaign of The Year at The Social Day Awards working with Nestle, FIFA, and Kent County Council.

Dan believes there is no silver bullet to building an agency, as it requires consistent steps. He shared his approach to agency business and gave us these five tips.

You can connect with Dan Knowlton and Dylan Hey on LinkedIn. 

And here are the main insights from the interview:

During the last year and a half, we’ve been working with much bigger and more credible clients. It took years of working with small businesses.

To build an agency, you need to do a number of small things, consistently, to gain that special trust and generate more leads.

Something that ties it all together is personal branding. It’s a broad topic, so what to focus on? Well, there are some go-to.

1. Focus on getting good at something

Before going out there and saying: «I’m a brand, I focus on conversion, on accountancy» get good at something.
And you have to decide what this thing is.

It requires consistent learning. Do some courses and apply what you’ve learned. Or learn by online content. Take in all the information and then apply. Learn by doing.

2. Put emphasis on speaking events

Getting good at communicating with other human beings is a real power. This is where personal branding comes in. I truly believe a personal brand is the number-one thing that influences your success in life.

It may seem kind of like a sweeping statement, but if you think about how you can reach success — wealth, health, happiness — the one commonality, is you need to be good at communicating your ideas to other human beings. You simply can’t do it alone.

And speaking at different events is the best way to learn how to become good at communicating. There’s a lot of pressure and it’s very scary, but you learn really quickly.

3. See a bigger picture

So you have a speaking event and you may not have people suddenly say: «I want to work with you!».

Try to think of the bigger picture, of a customer journey, discovering who you are through seeing your speaking engagements.

And over a period of time, they’re going to build trust in you through different marketing touchpoints — seeing you online, listening to your podcasts, seeing you collaborating with other people.

4. Put relationship first

If you’re not quite ready to speak yet, go to events, have conversations with people, nurture those relationships.

Develop a selfless mentality. You are not there to sell something, you are there to make friends.

If you can shift this mentality, you will see how it influences converting. Because we convert people, who we are already friends, and there’s trust already established.

5. Try to build a proactive mentality

It makes you successful in the first place. Because you are actively going out there, reaching out, participating in different events, asking questions. A lot of people are too nervous to even do this.

It’s very important to have this proactive mentality and do what other people are too shy or too scared of doing. It’s about consistency and taking action.

It looks like some feasible steps to accomplish, right? So next time you’re hesitating, just remember those tips by Dan and go on in your journey!