5 Years of Attention Experts! The top 3 things learnt in building this social media agency marketing agency

By George Hawwa, Growth Director

August 11th, 2021 marks five years since our social media marketing agency, Attention Experts, started. In what has become known for Attention Experts staff as ‘Attention Experts Day’ or ‘AE Day’, it symbolises a milestone in an industry where the average business shelf life is 18 months. As the founder of the business, I’m very proud of what we have achieved in that time.

The business itself started from scrappy beginnings. It started after I was being approached by companies to help them with their social media marketing on a paid contractor basis after I sold a business I had built entirely through social media. 

I had 12 companies I was helping, and I decided I might as well start an agency. I called a friend at the time to help me out, and with $250 we happened to get some more clients by making a few phone calls and employed our first staff member, then away we went.

Since that frugal time, we have become Australia’s most 5 star rated social media agency and a known leader in what we do. There have been many lessons learnt, and many challenges overcome. I think the Attention Experts story is as much about the challenges as it is about success.

So here are 3 key learnings from building this social media agency.

1. Celebrate your story and the business personality

The Attention Experts story is a unique one. The story has come about through the people who have built this social media agency in Sydney. With that, in turn, it has created its own personality as an entity. Attention Experts as a business has its own look, feel and tone. 

The Attention Experts personality when you are around it is about being genuine, warm, down to earth, reliable, ethical, adding value, being selfless, taking ownership and aiming high. It is someone you’d consider making a groomsman or bridesmaid at your wedding – it is reliable, won’t be too out there during the speeches and is just a good egg. 

Through that, the clients we attract are generally aligned with these values and find us attractive due to the people in the business embodying these personality traits. 

Our most successful staff are also these types of people. I remember a partner of ours when they first walked into our office in Sydney, paused before he shook my hand, looked around, took a deep breath and said ‘wow, I love it’. At that time we had a small office of around 79 square meters and around 7 staff, so he definitely wasn’t in awe of our size. I could see and feel what he really meant, he loved the vibe and feeling the warmth you get when you walk into Attention Experts. As we have grown, we still carry this. 

The personality of our social media agency has a direct causal link to the growth of the business. I actually can trace, statistically, where I think we have lost our personality and where we have strengthened the great things about us and see stats decrease or increase accordingly. 

2. When things are tough, double down

In the five years at Attention Experts, I would say at least once every year of those five years, I would turn around and go – okay, things are looking pretty tough.

• In year 1 – cash flow was a big problem, and I had to count every cent I was spending to keep the business there, while hiring more people and trying to acquire new customers.
• Around Year 2, I was dealing with building a team-culture after realising I had hired the wrong people to grow the business.
• Year 3 was transitioning away from the wrong people I had hired, and trying to swap out the team to new people, without losing morale or growth in the business.
• In Year 4 we were putting final touches on team hiring practices and then COVID. 
• Year 5 was further COVID lockdowns, lower business confidence in the economy and growth challenges as we grew around 100% in accounts under management in 12 months.

Through each one of these challenges, we doubled down. We didn’t settle. When we had an off moment with a client or a bad hire, we tried to rectify it quickly. Sometimes it meant a total upheaval of that part of the business. We sought to make it better. And we succeeded every time.

3. Know your strengths and don’t bother with anything else

Our strengths at Attention Experts have always been two things:

• Proficient knowledge of data towards social media becoming a strong ROI channel for businesses.
• Business acumen and knowing our potential client or existing client.

We don’t pretend to be what we are not and we are very certain of what we know. This is what our clients love and the feedback we receive. If we don’t know something, we’ll bring in a very able partner in that area, whether it’d be video editing, photography, or other forms of digital marketing away from social media. And we become specialists in what we do know, which is data-led social media marketing campaigns that lead to ROI.

As I’ve mentioned earlier, we are proud to be a notable industry leader in our space. Our future is looking bright with some amazing growth plans in the works. The next 5 years will bring its challenges and we’ll still be learning.

The beautiful thing is, Attention Experts is no longer just about its founder or its founding story, it is now also about where it’s going and the people who will take it there.

How We Can Help You with Grow Your Business

If you’ve read to this point, you’re likely very interested in growing your business through Social Media Marketing. If so, you should join our next FREE webinar to learn more about Social Media Marketing & ROI.

Each Month, our Growth Director, George Hawwa, present a 30-minutes webinar to cover a new topic in the social media space. You will have the opportunity to learn, ask questions live and grow your business.

Wondering what our current topic is? Check out the upcoming webinar HERE.

George is in charge of Attention Experts’ overall growth and best practices. George shares some accolades: being named in the ‘Top 30 leaders under 30’ in 2007 by Entrepreneur Australia Magazine and having won ‘Outstanding Young Entrepreneur of the Year’ for 2018 at the NSW Business Chamber Regional awards.

He also currently lectures at Sydney University on social media strategy to Postgraduate students at the Centre for Continuing Education. In addition, George is a sought after speaker and educator on social media strategy and business.

Make sure to REGISTER NOW!

And if you need help with your social media strategy. You can also give us a call for a FREE Strategy Session. Our number is 1300 809 935 or message or message us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/attentionexperts. You can also book a meeting with us via our website.