The Client Retention Handbook for Digital Marketing Agencies: How to Keep Clients on Board Long-Term and Reduce Churn

I stumbled across Josh Nelson and his 7 FIgure Agency in mid-2020. I attended several workshops, joined his "On-Ramp" program, read his first book "The Seven Figure Agency Roadmap" (and have read it cover to cover several times since) and immediately became a fan.In "The Client Retention Handbook" Josh lays out a commonsensical approach to the critical skill of retaining your agency's clients once you've landed them. I say commonsensical but in these days of 'self-proclaimed guru's everywhere', Josh is the antidote to hype and promises that won't come true.The Client Retention Handbook is a must-read for anyone in the agency space - although frankly, it works for anyone with a client roster that you want to retain long-term.This is a thoughtful, practical read on specific tips, practices, and processes to building long-term client relationships, streamlining your agency's onboarding and client launch roadmap, as well as delivering consistent results - and sharing those results consistently with your clients - so you can build profitable, long term relationships and avoid costly client churn.No hype. No promises. No ego. Just straightforward advice and a practical roadmap for engaging new clients and ensuring they remain profitable, long-term clients for your agency.On a personal note, Josh is one of the most selfless mentors I've ever had the pleasure of connecting with. I am a small agency startup, and Josh has provided advice and counsel along the way. He and his team are available for guidance and support, and he has even made his core programs available at no charge to help agency owners like me develop a systematic approach to building our agencies.If you don't know Josh, please grab a copy of his first book "The Seven Figure Roadmap". It is one of the best end-to-end solutions to starting up a digital marketing agency. It is the first time that anyone has ever put together all of the steps in a logical, coherent sequence that is almost 'paint-by-numbers' simple. Hard work? Yes. But having a well-thought-out roadmap is priceless.And his Client Retention Handbook is every bit as helpful, practical, and usable as all of his advice. If you're not following Josh, I think your hardwork and agency-building efforts will amplify using his approach.Josh has a saying "How You Do One Thing, Is How You Do Everything!" This book is yet another example of learning from Josh's mentorship and coaching to help grow your agency. He delivers! Consistency. Quality. Humility. Approachability.

I run a Marketing agency for Churches, and I’ve come across Josh Nelson in many different ways in growing my agency, the most recent way being this book I’m reviewing.In the book The Client Retention Playbook for Digital Marketing Agencies, by Josh Nelson, Josh gives great help on how to keep clients.Unlike what the title could sound like, it’s not just simple advice on how to keep a client, it’s a framework on how to build your agency for success from the ground up to make your agency able to retain clients.And it’s not even a book based on theory. It’s based on his real-life years of experience (even making the Inc. 5000 for four years in a row). You can’t make the Inc. 5000 several years in a row by accident. This is why reading this book is a must for ALL agency owners, whether you do relatively well in keeping clients or not.Josh didn’t start his agency this way, so it’s not something that came naturally initially to him, either. In the book, he recalls a moment when a friend noticed that Josh’s agency had taken two steps forward and one step back by gaining 10 clients in a month and losing another 8 clients.Josh spent many thousands of hours and thousands upon thousands of dollars on courses and mentorship to arrive at this formula. This book will cost you a very tiny fraction of that. While I’m not a fan of Alabama Football (War Eagle!), Nick Saban is unarguably one of the greatest college football coaches of all time. If you were a football coach, how much would you pay to spend just a few minutes sneaking a peek at Saban’s playbook to learn his secrets? Reading this book (at such a low price), you can get just the equivalent of that for the agency world by reading Josh Nelson’s playbook on client retention for Marketing agencies.As Josh has written another book to help agencies get (and retain) clients, I’m glad to see that he’s put a short few-page summary in this book as well for agency owners who haven’t yet had a chance to read that book.This book goes head-first into essentially plug-and-play SOPs that you can put to use in your agency. He goes through these SOP frameworks and then also at the end of the book shows examples of other Marketing agencies that are using these frameworks in their agency.Even the last chapter is a great help, as it’s a short, quick summary of key points from the book. I highly recommend you read this book if you own a Marketing agency or are looking to start one. If you’re starting an agency, read this book first because it gives you advice that will keep you from making mistakes as you grow that agency.