Joey Gilkey on Building Sales Driven Agency: Hiring, Pay and Graduating Clients
Joey Gilkey is the CEO of Sales Driven Agency, which builds sales departments, teams and operations, mostly for digital marketing agencies. It was his third agency, started after he exited his previous company. In this 2022 conversation, Joey shares how he got his first clients, the SDR team behind his client acquisition, the hiring mistake that cost him most, and why Sales Driven Agency aims to graduate clients rather than retain them. He also gives his advice for agencies that do want long retention.
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Topics covered
- Joey's path from a corporate phone cubicle to his third agency
- How he landed his first agency clients with outbound
- A client acquisition engine built on cold calls and cold email
- Why cutting corners on hiring costs more
- Recruiting with cold outreach, a vetting process and strong pay
- Graduation instead of retention
- Retelling the client's story to keep them, and Joey's next goals
Key takeaways
- If you enjoy selling more than delivering, build a business around the part you're best at. That's how Joey ended up doing sales for agencies.
- Joey's first agency deal, as he recalls it, came from cold email. Cold calling, cold email and LinkedIn got him his early opportunities.
- His team's main channels are cold calls and cold email, which he says drive about 70% of the business.
- Someone who can sit in a seat isn't necessarily the right person for it. Cheap hires cost more in the end.
- Use cold outreach to recruit people who are already employed and performing, then run them through a strict vetting process and pay well.
- Expect margins to dip as you scale, because you start paying people who don't directly generate revenue.
- Never assume clients know what you've done for them. Keep telling the story of where they were, where you've taken them and where you're going.
Show notes
🚀 Three agencies in six years
Joey had been in the agency space as an entrepreneur for about six years. His first agency was essentially a growth hacking agency for software companies, back when "growth hacker" was a new term around 2015 and 2016. He landed a big Salesforce tool as a client but realized he enjoyed selling far more than servicing what he sold. So he merged that agency into Flightseed and started Tribe, which focused only on sales.
Michael relates. He has always enjoyed getting to the meeting more than anything after it, which is exactly where his agency helps clients.
📞 How Joey got clients, then and now
His first clients came from "hardcore outbound". Joey has never been afraid of the phone. He learned to grind making 100 dials a day early in his career. As an agency owner, he found more scalable ways in, including cold email and LinkedIn when it was new and barely automated. As he recalls it, his first deal came from cold email, and his strength in sales process took prospects from cold to closed.
By 2022, client acquisition was a full machine. His SDRs each make 100 dials, send about 50 emails and do about 25 social touch points a day. He was hiring a fourth SDR, with an SDR manager over the team and closers taking the meetings. Joey says about 70% of the business comes from cold calls and cold email, with the rest from inbound sources like ads, his YouTube channel and his podcast. He also mentions they were starting to work with Michael's team as another channel.
👥 Hiring the top 1%
Michael asks how bigger agencies find A players. Joey says his biggest mistake running Tribe was trying to cut corners and hire cheaply. He thought he was saving money, but hiring the wrong talent cost him far more indirectly.
He's not a fan of job boards, where he says you sift through 500 people to find 10. Instead, he recruits. You can use the same principles as cold email or LinkedIn outreach to go after top talent who are already employed and producing, and get a first interview the way you'd get a first meeting. Once you have candidates, you need a strong vetting process; his team uses a six-step one. And you have to pay. Joey says his lowest paid employee makes 70 grand base salary.
Both agree that margins tend to drop as you scale into the multiple millions, because you start paying for people who don't directly generate revenue.
“just because someone can sit in a seat does not mean they're the best person for that seat.”
Joey Gilkey, 6:51
🎓 Graduation, not retention
Unlike Tribe, which was retainer based, Sales Driven Agency is project based. Joey charges on average about $85,000 per client, usually paid over about three months. Any time a client stays beyond that eats into his margin, so the goal is to deliver a high-quality product fast and graduate the client. He still wants them to come back, for example to use the in-house sales recruiting company as they scale.
He argues that when you're good at sales and have a sales process and salespeople, projects can be just as predictable as monthly retainers.
“my goal is actually graduation, not retention.”
Joey Gilkey, 10:55
💬 Keep retelling the client's story
For agencies that do run on retainers, Joey's advice is simple: never assume your client knows the work you've done for them. It's often a "what have you done for me lately" relationship. Tell the story of where they were, where you've taken them and where you're going, and probably over-communicate it. He points out that at Tribe the average retainer was $15,000 a month. When a client sees a $180,000 line item in a slow December, you're at the top of the chopping block unless they remember why they pay you.
Michael shares what his team was working on: automated notifications when a lead list is started or finished and when a campaign launches, plus recurring monthly calls and weekly messages.
“Never make the assumption that they are very clear on how much you've served their company.”
Joey Gilkey, 11:18
🔭 What's next for Joey
Joey says he doesn't need to work anymore, but he's "addicted to the game" and building businesses is his hobby. He thinks Sales Driven Agency has about another $10 million a year in revenue before it reaches the edge of its market in the agency space. At that point he'll decide between exiting or licensing the model to industries like IT managed service providers or high-ticket professional services.
He's also looking to acquire companies, or parts of them, and use his team to help six-figure businesses become seven-figure ones. He thinks Sales Driven Agency could exit for 50 to 75 million in the next couple of years, with some big decisions to make before then.
About Joey Gilkey
Joey Gilkey started his career in a phone cubicle at the corporate Fortune level, where he built a 115-person sales team. He then became VP of sales at a HubSpot digital marketing agency, where he learned to build sales teams for agencies.
His first agency built sales funnels for software companies and was merged with another company. He names it as Flightseed. His next, Tribe, was an outbound sales agency that he exited to a software company. He then started Sales Driven Agency, which was just past its two-year anniversary at the time of recording. He also hosts a podcast for agency owners, the Best Damn Agency podcast.
Episode links
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