Season 9 | Ep 107 | Selling a Brand Identity Business with Jane Bayler

How do you grow and sell an agency at four times its original worth? It’s not easy to sell creative work or reposition a brand. Many changes must happen, from how you show up to how the creative team operates. 

In this episode of The Agency Blueprint, I’m joined by Jane Bayler, an entrepreneur, investor, top 2.5% global podcaster, and brand and online marketer, who has built multiple businesses, including a London brand identity business, that she grew from £1m to £6m in under 2 years, quadrupling profits and selling to a US communications group. 

Listen in to learn how to leverage a big brand you’ve worked with to get through the door and then build relationships. You will also learn why selling creative is more of showmanship, and the more of a showman you’re in selling agency work, the easier it is.  

Key Questions:   

  • [01:33] What is your background story? 
  • [06:36] What were you looking at when you repositioned, and how exactly did you reposition? 
  • [11:27] Did the case study you leveraged have a lot of numbers behind it?  
  • [15:11] What was it like from a team scale perspective in maintaining the quality of work? 
  • [19:54] How did the actual sale come about, what did the deal look like, and what did it look like before and after the sale? 

What You’ll Discover:  

  • [01:53] Jane on her background in creative design, television, advertising, and how she grew and sold an advertising agency.  
  • [07:15] She explains how they leveraged an old case study to specialize and sell their services.  
  • [11:46] How to leverage a big brand you’ve worked with to get through the door and then build relationships.  
  • [14:16] Why the most articulate, charismatic, and persuasive agencies find it easier to sell agency work.  
  • [15:33] The team challenges they experienced moving from small exciting projects to more factory-like work.  
  • [18:21] How aggressive agency growth negatively affects your ability to take care of your team. 
  • [20:10] Jane describes the agency sale process – the good, the bad, and the in-between before and after the sale.  

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