We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alyssa Gay a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alyssa, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Folks often look at a successful business and imagine it was an overnight success, but from what we’ve seen this is often far from the truth. We’d love to hear your scaling up story – walk us through how you grew over time – what were some of the big things you had to do to grow and what was that scaling up journey like?

Back when I first drummed up the idea of starting my own business, I didn’t want a team. In fact, I swore against it. Growing up engrossed in small business, I saw the challenges that both being a business owner and having a team brought.

I started as a one-woman show – but soon realized that with how passionate I was to inspire and empower business owners to take back their life by outsourcing their marketing efforts, and that if I wanted to help as many business owners as possible, I couldn’t do it alone.

My first step was hiring a virtual assistant position which soon became my director of operations. We spent significant amounts of time breaking down every nitty gritty detail in the business – from day to day operations to the client journey to every detail necessary for an employee to come in as an account manager. My goal was to create SOPs so that if I were to get hit by a bus, AG Creative could keep going.

5 years and over 10 employees in, we use those SOPs to this day – though we are regularly updating and adding to them as AG Creative grows and adapts to the ever-changing marketing and branding landscape. I recognized early that the way to scale efficiently and quickly was through repeatable processes.

From there, we have worked to optimize our systems and vendors. This has included upgrading our CRM and project management systems, as well as updating our SOPs for team members to increase their efficiency. Additionally, outsourcing recurring services to vendors (such as legal and accounting), while a monetary expense, in turn, provides peace of mind and additional time to better focus on running AGC as well as cultivating client relationships.

While many businesses suffered and faced substantial loss during 2020, AG Creative was very blessed to have the opposite. Throughout the last two years, brands all over the world, big and small, were pushed to activate their online audiences like never before. With so many businesses closed or altered, social media, websites, and email lists became the lifeline of business.

2020 saw our biggest growth to date – financially, client roster, and team growth. COVID-19 made many business owners understand the need to have a solid, consistent digital presence and we are grateful that they have trusted and chosen us to lead the way for them.

Alyssa, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I got started like any other entrepreneur does, I saw that there was a need in the market. Rather than going to college right out of high school, I did it a little backward. I spent some time in college, then took time off. I got married at 21, was working full-time, and decided to go back to school full-time.

Throughout most of my life, I worked for small businesses and start-ups – even working in an entrepreneurial incubator. My family is also very entrepreneurial. I’m now a 3rd gen entrepreneur. In each of these businesses, it most often was the owner and me that’s it. I saw just how much hard work, grit, and determination it took to start a business. I also saw how many more failures there are than successes. I learned very quickly to wear many hats and one of my favorites was social media and digital marketing. I decided to study communications in college and graduated from the University of Florida summa cum laude in 2017 with a degree in communications and a focus on media and the public. My courses covered everything from telecommunication to PR, to journalism, to social media and more.

I began sending out my resume and going on interviews. Some agencies just weren’t the right fit, others never called me back. In the meantime, a friend who I had previously worked with had recently asked me to handle the social media and marketing for his company. So I was doing that while also working full-time in my day job.

After not finding what I wanted in the job market and seeing a need for digital marketing for small businesses, I typed up my business plan in about 15 minutes (while at the said day job). I emailed it to my husband, Taylor, and he texted me and said: “Looks good, let’s do this.” (He had said for years that I would own my own business and for years I said no way.)

I then spent time researching the market – what services are out there, price points, ideal clients, etc. – and sought counsel from professionals (i.e. CPAs and lawyers) as I formulated the business plan and the not-so-fun fundamentals of the business.

I officially launched in January 2018 while still working my day job. I thought it would take me years to replace my income and be working fully for myself – it took four months. I haven’t looked back since.

AGC has grown, expanded, and refined in that time – including brand strategy and development as well as influencer marketing. AG Creative is a full-service creative agency serving businesses nationwide. Our mission is to provide conversion-driven social media and digital marketing strategies to help business owners get real results. We want to change the way business owners run and manage their business so it can fuel their life, not take away from it. We do this by creating buzz-worthy brands and results-driven strategies designed to take businesses to the next level.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

As cliche as it sounds, the most effective strategy for growing our clientele has been to put our heads down and do good, focused work for our existing clients. When we focus on that, the results speak for themselves and other businesses see that and want to be part of what we are doing and accomplishing at AG Creative.

Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?

At AG Creative, we are results and relationship driven. Because of the nature of marketing today, which heavily relies on business-specific, personalized content and storytelling, we are extremely collaborative with our clients. That means that we are in regular communication with them on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. We know that great communication and even over-communicating is imperative to our clients’ success. We provide monthly analytic reports along with strategy suggestions and work with our clients to do whatever it takes to implement those suggestions.

We are regularly working to improve upon our client experience and satisfaction. That includes sending gifts when they reach a milestone and notes that we’re thinking of them. Trusting someone to handle your marketing and tell your story is a big deal – and we do not take it lightly. We truly do our best to go the extra mile and have unparalleled client service.

Contact Info:

• Website: alyssagaycreative.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alyssagaycreative/
• Facebook: facebook.com/alyssagaycreative
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/alyssagaycreative/

Image Credits
Two Stories Media Brittany E Photography