How to Choose the Right Agency Niche and Stick With It Through Uncertainty with Filip Lugovic | E... скачать в хорошем качестве

How to Choose the Right Agency Niche and Stick With It Through Uncertainty with Filip Lugovic | E...

Would you like access to our advanced agency training for FREE? https://www.agencymastery360.com/trai... Starting with a clearly defined niche can make all the difference when you're landing your first clients and deeply understanding that niche can carry you through the toughest seasons of agency life. Today's featured guest built his agency on exactly that foundation. Before launching his firm, he spent years working as a consultant for governments, UN agencies, and the European Commission. Along the way, he identified a clear gap in the market. That expertise proved invaluable during the pandemic. While uncertainty hit many agencies hard, he trusted his understanding of the space and chose to weather the slow months, confident the work would return. His patience paid off as demand surged later in the year. He'll share the lessons learned from more than 20 years of building and running a thriving niche agency in one of the most political and complex markets in the world—and why focus, patience, and deep domain knowledge remain his greatest competitive advantages. Filip Lugovic is the co-founder and CEO of The Right Street (https://therightstreet.digital/) , an EU-focused digital communications agency based in Brussels. For the last 20 years, he's lived in the middle of the "Brussels bubble," where organizations, trade groups, and companies fight for attention from the European Commission, Parliament, and Council. His agency sits at the intersection of public affairs + digital communications, serving organizations trying to influence policies that impact nearly half a billion people across Europe. In this episode, we'll discuss: • Identifying and owning a highly specific niche. • Building a client list with the power of low-hanging fruit. • Getting their best quarter during COVID. • Keeping a creative team inspired during slow cycles. Subscribe Apple (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...) | Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/0FiKuRT...) | iHeart Radio (https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-sm...) Sponsors and Resources This episode is brought to you by Wix Studio: If you're leveling up your team and your client experience, your site builder should keep up too. That's why successful agencies use Wix Studio — built to adapt the way your agency does: AI-powered site mapping, responsive design, flexible workflows, and scalable CMS tools so you spend less on plugins and more on growth. Ready to design faster and smarter? Go to wix.com/studio (https://www.wix.com/studio) to get started. From Door-to-Door Sales to the EU Policy Bubble Before he ever pitched a digital campaign, Filip was strangers' knocking on doors in Southern California selling heart-shaped pillows and screwdrivers with built-in flashlights. Not exactly glamorous, but it taught him the skill most agency owners run from: sales. When he landed in Brussels in 2005, he fell into a job selling ads for EU Observer, one of the leading political publications at the time. His clients were the same organizations trying to get in front of policymakers. Over the next decade, he built a deep network and a knack for relationship-based selling. Eventually, he left to consult on his own, but by 2017, he hit the same wall most consultants do: "I'm making money… but it all goes to someone else." A lunch with his current business partner (a seasoned communicator who had served as spokesperson for governments, UN agencies, and the European Commission) led to a plan to build something together. Building a Niche Agency: Where Marketing Meets Lobbying Once they figured out their roles and what they brought to the partnership, Filip and his partner started making plans and realized something: Most agencies in Brussels fell into one of two buckets: • Lobbying firms who knew politics but didn't understand digital. • Marketing agencies who knew digital but didn't understand politics. No one sat in the middle. So they built an agency that merged both worlds, pairing policy context with high-quality digital production. At the time, it was a hypothesis, and a risky one. Only a couple of competitors existed (https://flatworm-caterpillar-3mha.squ...) . But they saw the gap and took it. Landing the First Clients by Leveraging Existing Relationships Filip is no stranger to knocking on doors to sell a product, and he would have for his agency. However, this wasn't the right environment for that, so when it came time to start looking for clients, he relied on his network. Filip's approach to sales was never transactional and he very much enjoyed building lasting relationships....