How Bill Hauser Grew His Agency to $15M ARR in Less than 5 Years

Listen in as I interview Bill Hauser on how he grew his agency that serves the legal niche to over $15 million annually in less than 5 years!

Bill is the CEO & Founder of SMB Team, helping law firms go bigger through cutting-edge digital marketing, management and marketing coaching, courses, and events.

In this interview we talk about:

• How Bill chose the niche
• What he did to grow his agency so quickly
• What his service offering/packages include
• How he gets amazing results for his clients

This episode is jam-packed with amazing insight and takeaways every agency owner can learn from. Don’t miss it!

Outline of This Episode

• [1:36] Learn all about Bill Hauser and SBM Team
• [12:51] What the coaching services look like
• [18:52] Bill’s process to land new clients
• [27:26] Why they use a contingent risk-reversal
• [32:36] What Bill is teaching at his summits
• [44:25] Leveraging traditional sales methods
• [49:18] Learn more about Bill’s talk show
• [55:00] How your net promoter score leads to retention
• [1:08:51] Don’t seek freedom—seek impact

Why did Bill create the SBM Team?

Bill’s family went bankrupt in 2008. His dad’s business went completely under. Bill’s dad spiraled into heavy drinking and even attempted to take his own life. It was one of the most painful experiences in Bill’s life. He questioned why his dad’s business went under. The bottom line? Bill’s dad didn’t have a recession-proof niche. He was dependent on lead generation. And he didn’t have a team. So when Bill started his business, he knew it had to be recession-proof. He created a 10-year plan before he had a single client. He set revenue goals and would do whatever it took to get there.

If you were targeting restaurants or fitness centers throughout covid, you were screwed. Why did Bill choose lawyers? He wasn’t necessarily passionate about them. But he learned that the legal vertical wasn’t tied to GDP changes. When people are anxious about a looming recession, they stop spending money and discretionary verticals see a huge dip in revenue.

Secondly, after talking to experts, Bill targeted a niche with a higher profit per client. Why? If the business doesn’t have a large margin per client, they won’t be able to spend a lot of money on marketing. Bill also focused on their competencies in local SEO and PPC management.

When they started, they were just using PPC. He did that and hit $1.5 million. But they were hitting retention issues. So he rethought the business model. The highest retention agencies sell full-service. They added website design, SEO, Facebook ads, and continued the PPC. Their retention rate skyrocketed. SBM Team also offers full-service coaching. Listen to learn more about their coaching services and packages.

Bill’s process to land new clients

When covid hit, Bill had to choose to either scrap his goal or change his business goal. Bill knew nothing about webinars. So he met Jason Fladlien, the author of “One to Many” after reading his book and learned how to run webinars. Bill already had a plan to grow from $1.5 million to $4.5 million that year (his 2nd year in business).

So Bill decided to run a webinar to teach lawyers how to do PPP loans. He had 3,700 lawyers register for the webinar. Bill simply interviewed a PPP expert. He took the model and started interviewing big-name lawyers, creating a webinar-based talk show. Then he interviewed people like Ed Mylett, Daymond John, Kevin O’ Leary, Verne Harnish, Magic Johnson, and many more.

After two months, he had to figure out how to make money doing these talk shows. Within one week, Bill launched the “Grand Lawyer Marketing Plan.” They got 500 lawyers to sign up for the online course, which turned into lead generation for his agency, which snowballed into 100+ clients for his agency. All because of webinars.

Then he decided to think bigger and dove into live events. How did that catapult his growth? Listen to find out how the SBM Team grew exponentially.

Learn more about Bill’s talk show

Bill’s talk show is essentially a live Zoom conversation. Bill shares a tip that everyone needs to remember: Don’t make a talk show about the person you’re interviewing. It has to be about thought leadership. When Bill interviewed Emmett Smith, they labeled it “How to Create Unstoppable Momentum in Your Law Firm.” Why? The listeners need to leave thinking that you’re the expert—not the person you’re interviewing. You want them to feel like the guest provided value in the context of the talk show.

To do that, dedicate the first 30 minutes toward something you’ve prepared and focus the last 20–30 on the thought leader. But the big flashy names don’t sell as many tickets as the lawyer that’s going to show their exact intake system.

How your net promoter score leads to retention

The first thing the SBM Team focused on was their net promoter score. You have to survey clients and ask them for feedback to gain insight. The score ranges from 1–10. Anything below 9–10 means there are things you need to improve. An excellent net promoter “score” is 60 and a world-class score is 70+. The average score is 30.

Bill admits that their first score was trash. Only the angry people who had complaints responded. But Bill looked at their complaints and took ownership of them. Then they dug deeper: Were they dealing with an expectation problem? A true product problem? A budget problem? They reversed engineered the complaints to change their process.

Then they built an elaborate expectations agreement that they rolled out to all their clients. Clients have to check each box agreeing to follow the proven process and sign it. When you take everything you know your client will complain about and move it to the front of the relationship, you’re proactively preparing them for the process.

What else helped SMB Team hone in on retention and scale the business rapidly? Listen for some massive insight into scaling and growing an agency.

Resources & People Mentioned

• One to Many
• Ask Nicely
• Never Lose a Customer Again
• Scaling Up
• Traction

Connect with Bill Hauser

• Follow on Instagram
• Bill’s business growth tools

Connect With Josh Nelson

• Josh’s Coaching Page on Facebook
• The Agency Success Facebook Group
• www.SevenFigureAgency.com
• Seven Figure Agency on YouTube
• Josh on Twitter: @joshnelsonimc
• Josh on LinkedIn

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