When I first started my business, CJAM, I started like most freelancers who did websites, google ads and SEO. Quickly I didn’t have time to take care of my customers and needed to start partnering with different agencies.

I had a pretty wide network, so I reached out to one of my marketing friends who said he’d partner with me and we’d share some of the profit on projects. Little did I know, the idea of CJAM started being born.

Through different local networking events, I started to meet other marketing agencies in the Vancouver area. Very slowly, I started adding partners one by one. Each one having unique personalities and services they provided. Sometimes those services overlapped. So I had to figure out which agencies would fit a customer better. Lots of things to consider from personalities, prices, and expectations.

I did spend a bit of time trying to find some agencies off google, but man was it hard. Most agencies spending time on their own marketing meant they didn’t have customers to really focus on. Or they were large enough that they had internal teams to manage their own stuff. So finding the boutique, great agencies was hard.

Fast forward a little to when I joined Trends. I met a lot of great agency owners in this group. Allowing me to start meeting agencies in different parts of the world. I would meet with anyone who wanted to talk.  As my partner list began growing, so did where my customers came from.

As my network grew, so did the access I had to different types of partners from within my own network. I got invited to different marketing groups and got plenty of referrals from my own partners who do great work. What was interesting is that most of the agencies I have, barely work on their own marketing presence. They are to busy working on all the referrals they get from their own customers and network. 90% of my agencies I work with you wouldn’t find online through a google search.

For example, I have one google ads guy who has over 200+ customers in the service , SaaS and home service based niche. This guy absolutely kills it. I have 5 customers with him and all have loved his approach and his level of detail.

 The funny part is you will never find him… he doesn’t even have a website.

So where do I find the best marketing agencies now?

• I use my amazing strong marketing partners! Become friends/partners with them and ask them if they know people who kill it in a certain thing. People who do great work end up finding other people who do great work.
• Through other marketing brokers I know and who share my passion. We share lists with each other. Why compete when you can win together!
• Through agency groups, and paying attention to who people refer and those who have built a great culture in their organizations.

It’s taken 4 years to build out my network, and in another 4 years it’s going to be even stronger.