There’s a moment in every entrepreneur’s journey when clarity hits like lightning. For me, one of the biggest epiphanies came not from a whiteboard or boardroom but from the chaos of more clients than I could handle and the need to build a team that shared my beliefs and had skills that I did not. It was in the rapid, unrelenting growth of our agency, forged from both opportunity and experience, that the winning strategy revealed itself.
The Starting Point: What we did not want to be
After selling my first agency and experiencing the bureaucratic bottlenecks at WPP, I was invited to help IBM create a world-class search team. Some of the specifics and lessons are mentioned in Epiphany 1. At the same time, I was consulting for WebMD in a David vs. Goliath battle against Google Ads. These projects gave birth to our second agency—one we built on our own terms.
“Within four months, we were a multi-million dollar agency with just seven people.”
We weren’t just taking on clients—we were redefining how search strategy could scale, integrate into the enterprise, and drive real business impact. And it worked. IBM, WebMD, Yahoo, Intuit, P&G… the logos followed because the results spoke louder than our pitches.
The People: Building the Dream Team
Our strength wasn’t just strategy—it was the team.
When I won Yahoo!, I needed someone on the West Coast who could deliver the strategy like I would. The obvious choice was Jeremy Sanchez. Jeremy is one of the best Digital Strategists I have ever worked with. We had worked together before at Outrider and spent hours strategizing how to elevate search for some of the biggest companies. We did not want to have those same constraints, narrow focus with big media clients whose naivete about digital restrained our effectiveness. Jeremy and I created many crazy models to shift media dollars into search and created the first co-optimization program. With Jeremy and his strategic thinking, global account management skills, and finance acumen, he was the perfect partner.
As WebMD grew, we needed to work with the content and development teams on training and process change in a very hostile environment resistant to some lowly search expert telling award-winning writers how to write. This required a person with far more personal skills and patience than I. This called for Andy Weatherwax, Zen Master, Artist, and Musician, whose presence disarmed the most vocal of naysayers. Jeremy became the third partner, creating a management and strategic thinking dream team.
We all focused on strategy and delivering for clients, but our other jobs played to our strengths:
- I handled primary strategy, client relationships, and business growth.
- Jeremy focused on finance, process optimization, and people.
- Andy led everything creative, including documentation, training, and team building.
“We divided responsibilities and stuck to our roles. It worked beautifully.”
Our direct experience with this new approach to scaling search required us to hire differently. We embedded strategists inside client teams—people who could sit at the executive table and speak their language. We hired business strategists laid off from large companies, and then we taught them search. They had consulting, strategy, process and most importantly, people skills that are harder to teach and must be honed through experience. Our in-house team members we looked for athletes, problem solvers, and anyone with attention to detail and a competitive spirit. Having an office in Bend, Oregon, was the perfect place to have the team. There is no shortage of brilliant people who are there working to live. This made coffee shops and adventure sports stores prime recruiting grounds.
Actionable Takeaway:
- Hire for adaptability and communication, then teach the domain. And clearly define the roles of your founders or leadership team.
Our Mission: Value, Efficiency, and Repeatability
We had a simple, powerful mantra: Deliver value, do it efficiently, and never stop improving. One slide we shared often became a mission statement co-opted by clients:
“Build a search marketing capability that provides a sustained competitive advantage, can scale globally, and contributes significant revenue to business units.”
Everything we did laddered up to that. We didn’t chase visibility—we earned reputation through results. That was our marketing.
Actionable Takeaway:
- Write your agency’s mission in operational terms. How does every client engagement help you grow margin, reputation, and impact?
Process + Automation: Scale Without Bloat
Efficiency wasn’t optional—it was foundational. Every role had a “book of knowledge,” a detailed guide on each task and job written so that anyone could jump in and replicate what was needed to be done.
“In a pinch, anyone could step in and do a job—even if not perfectly—because we documented everything.”
Automation was our secret weapon. We hired a process and automation savant in Ken Schultz, who built tools in Excel and Access that would make modern SaaS blush. We scaled output without adding headcount by focusing on what was needed, centralizing tasks like keyword research, report building, and technical audits with a core team. We leveraged multiple internal tools and workflows that made each activity scalable.
Actionable Takeaway:
- Build internal automation MVPs. Encourage tools that save time and reduce friction. Institutional knowledge always beats heroics.
Client Fit: The Power of Saying No
We weren’t afraid to fire clients or say no to those who weren’t a fit—not because they weren’t big enough, but because they didn’t fit our growth model or culture.
“If they’re dragging the team, always complaining, or blocking results—they’re not worth the mental effort.”
We developed a scorecard to assess every client:
- Revenue & potential
- Strategic alignment
- Influence and brand value
- Service utilization
- Willingness to evolve
This boiled down into three rules for any new client, which I still use today. We even mentioned this to prospects. In fact, when we were being acquired a few of them asked the Ogilvy review team if these would continue but most likely change the order.
- Intellectually Stimulating: It needs to challenge us to think differently and smartly. If it is just another cookie-cutter approach, we are typically not interested. There were a few projects we took that were not the most profitable but challenged us to solve a new problem or test one of our crazy theories.
- Financially Rewarding – We were not cheap and did not need to be because of the differentiation and value we delivered. We were never shy about being expensive because we understood our value.
- Enjoyable to Work With – This was often a deal breaker for us. Not that we expected to be partying weekly with the client, but they needed to be enjoyable to work with. Most of our clients were very demanding task masters with high expectations, but they respected our team as partners and collaborators. When we were viewed as just guns for hire with a micromanager that needed to be the smartest in the room, those projects never really worked for us, so we would avoid them.
Actionable Takeaway:
- Design a Client Value Matrix. Score clients on fit, future potential, and friction, and then choose accordingly. Below is an example of the categories and weighting.
Reputational Value Proposition
This is our creative name for a sign that helped remind the team of our focus, why we were successful, and why it was essential to deliver value in everything we did. This mantra starts with the idea that our reputation opens doors for us, and if we provide for clients, that becomes a self-fulfilling mechanism for success.
•Our reputation gives us the basis to “request” an initial dialogue with Global 200 companies.
•Our methodology and track record give us the basis to “earn” the business from Global 200 companies
•Our program performance enables us to deliver the value to grow clients through the Search Maturity Lifecycle (SML)
•SML phase shifting allows us to increase revenue and margin without increased sales and marketing costs
Actionable Takeaway:
- Your reputation is your biggest asset, and it often precedes you to any meeting. The more others rave about you, the less you need to do it.
Our Growth Formula
I am often asked about our “formula for success.” These were our main agency targets and objectives:
- Increase client lead or revenue performance by at least 10% YoY.
- Improve team performance through training, automation, and empowerment.
- Uplift margins by moving clients through the Search Maturity Lifecycle (SML).
- Divest low-value clients that dilute focus and drain morale.
- Focus on SML Phase 2 & 3 clients ready for strategic search marketing.
“Our growth strategy allowed us to scale revenue and margin—without increasing sales and marketing costs.”
Final Thoughts
We never wanted to be the biggest agency; we just wanted to be the best at what we did—lean, effective, and respected. Our agency succeeded not because of volume, but because of the value we delivered for them.
“You succeed if your clients succeed. You grow if you deliver. That’s the game.”
If you’re building an agency today, don’t get distracted by vanity metrics or hype cycles. Define your value proposition, align your methods to it, and never stop improving.