5 Limiting Beliefs Crippling Agency Owners

Everyone has limiting beliefs. 

Conquering them is what unlocks our potential and lets us drive towards growth. 

But beating our limiting beliefs is hard. Most of us don’t even notice we have the beliefs, and once we do, changing our thinking is incredibly uncomfortable. 

I can’t help you with changing those beliefs in an article. That’s got to come from you. But I can at least help you become more aware of the ones that might be holding you back. 

Alright, pull my arm, why dontcha? I’ll provide a couple fixes too. 

In no particular order, here they are: 

1. "I need to be involved in every aspect of my business."

Getting involved with everything only prolongs the problem. 

Your team gets used to you jumping in and solving everything, so they don’t bother doing it themselves. Every time you jump into the rescue, you train your team to let you solve their problems. 

You hired your team for a reason. Let them do their job. 

The reason you don’t want to give them a chance is that you’re worried they screw up. After all, it’s your reputation on the line, right? 

Wrong. 

Well, kind of. 

As a business owner, you’re not being looked at as an independent contributor anymore. People are judging your ability to run a company. 

So every time you don’t let your team from these problems, you’re prolonging the problem. 

Instead, get better at providing clear guidance. 

For most agencies, the reason teams under perform is because they don’t know what they should be doing, why it’s it important, or how to do it. 

As the owner of the agency, you can have a direct influence over all three. 

A leader is responsible for everything the team does or fails to do. This is 100% on your as the team’s leader. 

Remove your superhero complex and let the team get better. 

2. "We can’t charge higher prices without losing clients."

The issue isn’t your pricing; it’s your value.

One Thanksgiving, I was sent to the store the night before for things that were missed. One of these items was cranberry sauce. 

We’re not a cranberry sauce family. It usually sits on a plate, untouched. So when I got to the aisle with the cans, I found the cheapest one and tossed it in my basket. 

Our visiting family was worried we wouldn’t have enough meat, so they asked me to pick up a Butterball turkey. 

It HAD to be Butterball. I’m not entirely sure why. But they were adamant. 

On the ride home, I was thinking about these purchases. 

The reason these specifics items were chosen is because of the perceived value (or lack of). 

My family wanted the bird, regardless of price because there was an emotional connection. I wanted the cheapest can because it didn’t matter. 

Price only matters when nothing else matters. 

If you’re worried about charging more, it’s because you’re not confident in the value you can provide. 

Ramp up the value to increase your rates. 

3. "The market is too saturated for us to stand out."

Yeah, it’s tough to stand out when you look like everyone else. 

So many agencies get stuck like this because they’re jumping on the services bandwagon. They’re listening to what their MarTech partners tell them to do, and they’re not providing the true value they can as an agency. 

Your MarTech partners have one common goal. Sell more of their software. They’re not trying to help you build your agency. They’re trying to help you sell more on their behalf. That’s how channel partnerships work. 

Instead, pick an outcome that your audience wants and you can effectively solve for. 

Then tailor your services around that and get really good at solving 1 problem, for 

1 audience, with 1 service. 

When you anchor to a service or MarTech, people will put you in a box with similar companies. When you anchor to your target audience’s dream outcome, you create a new box. 

Your offer will shine compared to everyone else. 

4. "We need to be perfect before we launch."

I hate the saying, “Shoot for the moon, and you’ll at least end up amongst the stars.” 

That’s stupid. If you’re talking about space travel, you better be way more exact. 

But nothing you’re doing is rocket science. Lives are not on the line. So you need to give up on the idea of perfectionism. 

Launching with an 80% solution is going to get you a positive result better and faster than a 100% solution. 

Why? Because the market gets to decide. 

You can do everything you want behind closed doors, but you get real feedback only when it touches the market. 

The goal needs to be getting something “good enough” out as fast possible. It’s the “ready, fire, aim” philosophy. The faster you get at producing “good,” the closer to “great” you’ll get. 

And when the first round hits close to your target, it’s much easier to adjust your aim so the next round hits, rather than spending a lot of time aiming, only to miss. 

Launch fast to learn fast. 

5. "My agency can’t succeed without me."

Congratulations, you’ve built a prison.

If you truly believe this, it means you failed to hire the right people and build an actual business. 

It means you failed to create the right systems and processes. 

It means you lack clarity around what you’re doing. You lack trust in your team. You lack the understanding of what a business actually needs. 

A business requires the ability to continue delivering results, even in the absence of a team member. 

The reason this limiting belief gets under my skin is because it’s egotistical. Why do you think you’re so special? Because you came up with the idea for your agency? 

Well, it’s never going to grow into something bigger and better unless you can learn to conquer this one. You’ll end up just hiring button-pushers and you’re going to keep yourself trapped in this prison, working 80 hours a week to keep the train on the tracks. 

Package your vision. Assign the roles. Hold people accountable. 

Stop avoiding the actual work of leading your business. 

Destroy Your Limiting Beliefs

If any of these limiting beliefs resonated, it’s ok. I’ve talked with A LOT of agency founders and these are incredibly common. 

The only reason you should be concerned with these is if you can’t break free. 

They will destroy your agency and make you incredibly miserable while you wait for the inevitable end. 

Alright, that might have be over-dramatized, but it’s going to suck. 

Grab some time on my calendar if you want to go through any of these. A 30-minute call could be enough for you to see the path forward and crush these limiting beliefs for good. 

PS - I made a carousel on LinkedIn if you want to check out my Canva skills.