Have you ever asked your team what they don't want to do anymore? What would your employees eliminate, if they could? One agency owner started asking these important questions and unlocked rapid growth by implementing their ideas and truly innovating processes. For his agency, niching down and adopting innovation as an agency value made all the difference. He discusses how he implemented those changes and the 5 big questions you need to ask your team. Josh Webber is the co-founder of Big Red Jelly, an agency focused on digital branding, web design, and development. His team helps businesses focus on all the steps a business should complete before working on advertising and marketing. Although his agency is five years old, Josh has been in the agency world since graduating college, working at several agencies around the country. As is often the case, his agency started as a full-service digital marketing agency. The decision to niche down came after the pandemic. This marked a point where his team started to focus on what they did best: branding. The decision led to exponential growth for his agency. He now shares how focusing on innovation and making the jump to niche down changed everything. In this interview, we’ll discuss: How to make innovation a top value at your agency. Why innovation can also mean simplifying processes. How to get a fresh perspective to bring new ideas. Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Overcoming Hard Times By Niching Down For Josh's agency, the two years leading up to the pandemic were years of slow and organic growth. Once Covid hit, more than a third of their clients had to close shop and were unable to pay invoices. It seemed as good a time as any to do something they’ve been discussing for a while and niche down. Josh had been listening to several experts talk about the importance of niching down and owning your niche. Ultimately, they pulled the trigger and it was the best decision they have ever made. In fact, their finances started to improve almost immediately. If anything, Josh only regrets waiting so long to do it. Luckily, he was able to turn the regret into creating a culture of innovation within the agency. Innovation is probably at the heart of most agencies' mission and vision. What’s actually hard is clearly defining it with actions. There is a gap between how many agencies place innovation as one of their top values and how it’s actually one of the lowest when it comes to seeing this investment take place. Most agency owners want to be innovative but fail at “how”. How Can You Find and Implement Innovation Within Your Agency? In the agency world, you’re either moving forward or going backward. What can you do to make sure you’re always moving forward? Josh and his team organized a vision meeting where they defined innovation for their agency.  They started by “abolishing” some terms like “that’s just the way it is” and “this is how it’s always been”. By doing this, they started recreating their culture. The concept of innovation in the agency space is usually attached to creative roles, which is a mistake. Anyone can innovate and it’s the youngest people on the team who usually bring a completely unique perspective. So, step one for Josh's team was deciding that innovation would be a huge part of the agency moving forward. Secondly, they focused on meetings, processes, and implementing tactics to ensure this. Making huge changes in the agency is never easy and some team members may not be on board. In Josh’s case, about 30% of the team weren't accepting of the