Scaling Your Search Marketing Efforts - Agency Edition by Phillip Thune

Scaling Your Search Marketing

Efforts: Agency Edition

Phillip Thune

CEO-Americas/Advisor-Europe

Textbroker

@textbroker

About Textbroker

› Custom content creation in 10 languages

– US English, Spanish, UK English, German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Polish

– Textbroker.com only allows US-based authors

› Almost 300,000 Freelance Author Accounts

› Almost 100,000 Client Accounts

› 5 million orders delivered

– Articles, blog posts, product descriptions, press releases, newsletters, white papers, etc.

Phillip Thune #Textbroker #SMX #23B

About Your Speaker:

Driving Rapid Growth at Three Companies

› Broadcasting Partners, 1996-2000

– Bought/built 38 radio stations in 11 cities

› FindWhat.com/MIVA, 2000-2006

– SEM platform (US/EU), toolbars, shopping cart

– 35 to 500 employees

– $500k to $200 mil. in revenue

› Textbroker, 2010-2013

– Crowdsourced content writing

– 20 to 150+ employees; #836 in 2013 Inc. 5000



Textbroker Growth in Employees

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

Q1'10

Q2'10

Q3'10

Q4'10

Q1'11

Q2'11

Q3'11

Q4'11

Q1'12

Q2'12

Q3'12

Q4'12

Q1'13

Q2'13

2010 – 2013

EU

US


Exec Milestones at a Growing Company

› Not everyone reports to you

› You no longer interview every new hire

› You cannot fill key roles by promoting

from within the company

› You need an annual budget

› You no longer know everyone by name

› You need a division called Corporate

› You no longer make, or should make, every

key decision


Exec Responsibilities Not to be Delegated

› Overall strategy

› Potential new big deals

– Big new client; acquisition; merger

› New HQ office space

› Opening a second office

› Reviewing your cash and cash flow

› Interviewing key hires

› Compensation structure

› Culture (??)


Exec Milestones at a Growing Company

› Not everyone reports to you

› You no longer interview every new hire

› You cannot fill key roles by promoting

from within the company

› You need an annual budget

› You no longer know everyone by name

› You need a division called Corporate

› You no longer make, or should make, every

key decision


How to Hire Professional Managers

› Focus on candidates with previous

management experience in that role

› Make their sphere of responsibility very clear

and don‘t invade it

– But have a weekly/bi-weekly update meeting

› Give them sizeable bonus and/or equity

compensation and think very carefully about

the metrics they need to hit

› You work for them, not vice versa


How to Deal with Turnover

› Nobody – including yourself – should be

indispensible

– Which is easy to say, but hard to adhere to

› Key is that every manager should know who

on their team could replace them

– In a growing agency, there are always new

opportunities

– Good employees want new responsibilities; can

only pursue them with strong understudies


How to Deal with Turnover

› Turnover at the entry level is ok

– The best should get promoted, others might be

a better fit elsewhere within the organization,

unfortunately some might not work out

› Ultimate goal is for every employee to find

where they fit

– For some, that might not be in your agency


Compensation Structure

› Rule #1: nobody thinks they are paid enough

› Rule #2: employees shouldn‘t compare their

compensation, but you should be able to defend

yourself if they do

– People with similar roles should be paid roughly

the same unless there is a big gap in experience

or education or clients won/mgd

– Entry level employees should all start at the same

salary, but those who do good work should have

the ability to make more with bonuses/promotions


Compensation Structure

› Rule #3: bonuses – even small bonuses –

clarify the company‘s goals and have a major

impact on employee behavior

– Be very careful of unintended consequences

– Try to mix bonus criteria between overall

company performance and individual or

departmental performance

› Rule #4: your best employees should have

significant upside to their compensation


Changing Strategy – Case Study: Textbroker

› Founded as self-service

– Marketplace of thousands of freelance authors

– No guaranteed deadlines

– No editing/proofreading

– Great but reactive client support

› Revenue grew quickly – strong demand from

SEO agencies for inexpensive, adequate

content, driven by AdWords and referrals

› Then: New Sales Team / Panda & Penguin


Changing Strategy – Case Study: Textbroker

› To continue revenue growth, some clients

needed to get perfect content, on time

› Key decision: hire in-house authors?

› Key decision: use freelance editors?

› Key decision: how to price this new full-

service offering?

› Key decision: how to broaden our brand

– move from Mini to Mercedes, or

– move from Mini to GM


Broadening A Brand


Broadening A Brand


Broadening A Brand


Acquiring / Being Acquired

› Very few agencies stay independent for long

periods of time – so an acquisition should be

seen as a milestone, not The End

› Change as little as possible at first –

introduce bigger changes gradually

› Do everything possible to lock key employees

in for at least a year

› Reassure key clients and expand their team

until you know which employees are staying


Thank You!

Phillip Thune

CEO-Americas/Advisor-Europe@Textbroker


Date post:	18-Oct-2014
Category:	Business
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Scaling Your Search Marketing Efforts - Agency Edition by Phillip Thune

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