Is Your Agency Best Positioned to Grow as the Economy Improves?
The first half of 2025 has been and will continue to be a roller coaster economically. Then what? Our Growth Driver Audit can unlock your agency’s potential for explosive growth.
Managing and growing a marketing communications agency has never been easy. The first five months of 2025 have been even tougher. The new President and Administration have involved the nation in tariff battles, federal spending budget-cut fights and a tax bill influx. Thus far, a rapidly rising/falling stock market also has most agency owners struggling at least for the short term.
However… what happens if the U.S. is successful in reducing food prices, lowering energy costs, getting more income into the hands of consumers via the tax bill and reaching agreements for decreasing tariffs on American-made goods? And what happens if all of the promised corporate and foreign investment actually starts to get realized and the Federal Reserve drops interest rates?
While this may seem like a fantasy today, the signs for all of the above are starting to fall into place.
Get prepared to take full advantage of a better economy.
Tariff deals as well as massive corporate and foreign investment in U.S. manufacturing have already been announced. Energy costs are starting to decline. Inflation in general has stabilized. A tax bill of some sort will probably be passed before July 4th. The Federal Reserve has provided guidance on future interest rate reductions.
The result is highly likely to be an economic upturn with many predicting a boom. Is your agency fully prepared to capture market share and grow before (and then throughout) the upturn when it happens?
Start taking advantage of these factors now. Don’t wait.
There are major opportunities for marketing communications firms to break through the competitive clutter more effectively. Before the economic turnaround begins later this year, you should be exploring how to propel your firm to new levels of market competitiveness, capabilities and overall performance.
This starts with a clear understanding of the clients whom your agency is built to serve and then giving them a compelling reason to work with you. To become super-competitive in the market, many agencies still need:
A sharper positioning and differentiation.
Truly proprietary and branded processes for providing more effective solutions to clients (while also proving your brand proposition).
More effective marketing of the agency to the right set of prospects.
Upgrading your financial model and management to deliver significantly more money to the bottom line.
Prosper Group’s Growth Driver Audit is our proven methodology for helping agencies become more competitive, overcome challenges and take advantage of opportunities. It offers many important benefits to agency owners.
Here’s how it works.
For every type of agency, the factors which drive growth and profitability are the same.
We have many years of experience working with hundreds of agencies of virtually all types throughout the United States. We’ve identified the nine most important factors for long-term success. We call them Growth Drivers.
The Growth Driver Audit is a comprehensive, action-oriented assessment of these critical factors.
There are many benefits for the agencies which know (or learn) how to manage each of these Growth Drivers.
These benefits include:
Providing a clear vision of where you’re going and a plan for how you will get there.
Enhanced market competitiveness and brand differentiation.
Identifying growth opportunities (new revenue streams).
Increasing ongoing revenue and profitability.
Adding measurable market valuation to your firm.
Identifying holes in your senior team structure.
Evaluating potential new service offerings and products.
Also identifying current and future critical inflection points in your agency’s evolution that require changes in staffing or operations.
Addressing issues with your agency’s pricing model, billing, scopes of work and staff productivity that can increase profitability.
What your Growth Driver Audit will cover.
This a partial list of what we will carefully examine for each Growth Driver:
Mission - What are you and your team most passionate about? Where do you have the deepest, strongest category knowledge and experience?
Vision - Why does your agency exist? Are you prepared to achieve it?
Brand Proposition - Do you have a distinctive brand and compelling service offerings?
Leadership - Is responsibility for success shared by a broad team? Are the necessary resources and staff architecture in place?
Structure - Are you most efficiently and effectively selling and servicing the brand proposition?
Methodology - What’s your “secret sauce”? How strong is your IP? Are you demonstrating why you’re the best agency to meet the prospect’s needs?
Business Development - Are you fully leveraging your expertise and capabilities to reach those prospects most likely to hire you for what you know?
Culture - Is everyone aligned with the agency’s vision and mission? Are you building next-generation leadership?
Finance & Operations - How effectively are you managing pricing, billing, scopes of work, client budgets and required investment in the agency’s future vs. short-term profit?
We will first carefully examine your online presence, written materials, presentations and financials. Then we’ll hold in-depth discussions with you, your senior team and selected clients. The process normally takes 5-6 weeks.
Then we present our detailed findings, specific recommendations and action plan which includes priorities and next steps.
Each of these Growth Drivers requires a strategy, leadership and resources. The levels of leadership and resources required vary based upon revenue. Increases in revenue lead to inflection points where you need to re-analyze how you are managing each driver.
Finally, as a separate assignment, we can help you develop a strategic plan which incorporates the Audit’s learnings to identify the key goals, assign accountability, establish timelines… and help you achieve your Vision.
Why choose Prosper Group for this audit?
Your Growth Driver Audit will be conducted by former agency owners, CEOs and C-level executives who have built, run and sold successful marketing communications firms.
Here’s what agency owners are saying about the Growth Driver Audits which we’ve conducted for them:
“Our Growth Driver Audit has become the roadmap which is already turning our agency around.” (Owner of a public affairs firm with $10 million in revenue)
“We’ve used Prosper Group’s findings to propel our firm to significantly higher levels of revenue, profitability and talent.” (Owners of a multi-service public relations agency with three offices and $14 million in revenue)
Please contact Alex Halbur, Managing Partner at alex@prospergroup.net or 310-936-3774.
We’re here to help you succeed.
Prosper Group exists to help the owners of independent marketing and communications agencies to achieve their ambitions and maximize the value of their life's work.
Our team of former agency leaders and owners focus their deep experience on implementing proven proprietary methodologies across our three practices of agency performance, owner exit planning and M&A transactions in order to drive owner and agency success.
To learn more about us, please visit our Services page.
