BI 342: How to Ignite Scalable eCommerce Growth with Brent Weaver

On the show with me today is Brent Weaver Founder & CEO of UGURUS. From a bank balance of three dollars, Brent grew his digital agency to seven figures a year while managing more than 300 active clients, including Dish, Anheuser-Busch, InBev, and Adobe.

In today's conversation, Brent and I talked about the biggest risk facing agency owners today, why focusing on a single niche is so important, and how to do it correctly. We also covered topics that included how to create awareness for your brand, how to identify your target audience and where they hang out online, how to create awareness for your brand with this audience, how to focus on the 3-5 things your audience cares about so they will be attracted to your company, how to establish the authority you need to be seen as an expert, and finally, how to convert these leads into paying customers.

If you are an agency or eCommerce brand owner and you are looking for proven strategies to ignite more growth, this episode is for you!

Episode Highlights

[2:56] — Brent introduces his business, uGurus

He runs a company called uGurus. They do business training and coaching programs for digital agency owners and entrepreneurs.

He founded the company in 2012 after he sold his successful web agency that ran for 13 years.

[3:55] — The most significant threats for agency owners today

The reliance on referrals and word of mouth is the biggest challenge of agencies.

Most agencies are busy working with their clients; they don´t take the time to work on their own business.

Due to the pandemic, many agency owners got caught up and had to pause or delay projects for not having strong lead generation and marketing engines.

[6:13] — The importance of selecting a niche for your business

A generalist motto is saying yes to every business.

If you choose a specialization, you will have to turn down clients that don´t align with your niche.

In choosing a niche, it should directly relate to your level of expertise.

[8:48] — Finding solutions for your chosen niche

Finding your niche or specialization might not work on the first try.

Define your target audience and figure out where those people hang out.

Create awareness about your business.

[10:35] — Brent shares how to test ideas and see what works for the business

To know the language that his market responds to, Brent uses ad platforms to run ad tests.

Advertising is an excellent scale platform when you're ready to scale in your market.

Go slow, go smooth so that you can go fast. Find inroads with people who have embedded in your target market with trust and credibility and do customer development interviews.

Create more exciting marketing opportunities, such as publishing your niche, content, and webinars. Use ads as an amplification and leverage tools in the market.

[14:47] — Know your target audience and talk to your customers to know how to grow your business online

Ask your clients about their experience using your products or services and how you can better market your products. By building a relationship with them, you can grasp how to grow your business online effectively.

Through conversations with your customers, you can generate a marketing strategy for your business.

Brent shares that they used their customers' language, quotes, and phrases as content and marketing strategy.

[21:11] — Why should you niche down?

Some companies that serve broad audiences today were once very niche. Going from specialized to a more general market has helped some companies gain clients.

Brent saw that service companies, once they specialized in a niche, they tend to stay in their domain and become even more experts in their space.

The specialization provides a better path to generalization than generalization does the specialization.

[24:46] — Get Rich in the Deep End

Get Rich in the Deep End is a book where Brent tells his and his client's stories.

The five A's in the book are: Audience, Awareness, Attract, Authority, and Acquire.

Ensure that when you publish content, you do it where your target audience will listen and read. Don't fall into the garage band trap by not taking risks