Agency or Consultancy? What am I building?

Mark Elliott , Mark Elliott Coaching

Starting out on your own after a successful career, can be daunting, but setting better goals leads to better choices about how you deliver value to clients.

Reflecting on my clients from 2019, I realise that I’ve clients have shaped their lives in a number of ways this year: new jobs, portfolio careers, new starts. Two particular clients have very similar goals but are achieving them with two different business models.

Both women started with goals for building their businesses in order to use their skills and expertise built up over 20 years, to provide the best for their children and to achieve flexibility to work on their own terms.

Whilst the industries that they work in are different (Corporate events and Luxury brand PR) they both have services businesses, both operate B2B and both share attention to detail of the highest standard. One has opted to maximise their value as a Consultant and one is building an Agency. Both are achieving their goals but with two different models.

The achievements that they share are:

Increased income
Freedom to set personal boundaries
Freedom to set boundaries with clients
Clean and clear time with family
Doing things they love
Working with clients they enjoy

They have also created things specific for their business model.

Building sales funnel (agency)
Increasing operational capability (agency)
Increased value delivered within Social and Traditional media (consultant)
Increasing client retention (consultant)

The details of the goals that set them apart were the scale of their desired businesses and the time line for reviewing their choices.

“I don’t want an agency and all the growth headaches that brings whilst my children are so young”

“I want to be ready when my kids go to secondary school for my business to delivery for me”

So if you are in a quandary about how you can increase your income, create clean and clear time with your family and continue to work with clients you enjoy doing things you love, it will be good to think about the following:

What scale of business do I want & what do I want from that business?
What value can I deliver for clients?
What type of Client Relationship do I want?

What do you want from your business?

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Mark Elliott Mark Elliott Coaching

My first job was in a technologically advanced UK company, but through their lack of vision the company remained small. My second job was working for a US company with a grand vision, and exactly the…