The Client Retention Handbook for Digital Marketing Agencies: How to Keep Clients on Board Long-Term and Reduce Churn

I stumbled across Josh Nelson and his 7 FIgure Agency in mid-2020. I attended several workshops, joined his "On-Ramp" program, read his first book "The Seven Figure Agency Roadmap" (and have read it cover to cover several times since) and immediately became a fan. In "The Client Retention Handbook" Josh lays out a commonsensical approach to the critical skill of retaining your agency's clients once you've landed them. I say commonsensical but in these days of 'self-proclaimed guru's everywhere', Josh is the antidote to hype and promises that won't come true. The Client Retention Handbook is a must-read for anyone in the agency space - although frankly, it works for anyone with a client roster that you want to retain long-term. This is a thoughtful, practical read on specific tips, practices, and processes to building long-term client relationships, streamlining your agency's onboarding and client launch roadmap, as well as delivering consistent results - and sharing those results consistently with your clients - so you can build profitable, long term relationships and avoid costly client churn. No hype. No promises. No ego. Just straightforward advice and a practical roadmap for engaging new clients and ensuring they remain profitable, long-term clients for your agency. On a personal note, Josh is one of the most selfless mentors I've ever had the pleasure of connecting with. I am a small agency startup, and Josh has provided advice and counsel along the way. He and his team are available for guidance and support, and he has even made his core programs available at no charge to help agency owners like me develop a systematic approach to building our agencies. If you don't know Josh, please grab a copy of his first book "The Seven Figure Roadmap". It is one of the best end-to-end solutions to starting up a digital marketing agency. It is the first time that anyone has ever put together all of the steps in a logical, coherent sequence that is almost 'paint-by-numbers' simple. Hard work? Yes. But having a well-thought-out roadmap is priceless. And his Client Retention Handbook is every bit as helpful, practical, and usable as all of his advice. If you're not following Josh, I think your hardwork and agency-building efforts will amplify using his approach. Josh has a saying "How You Do One Thing, Is How You Do Everything!" This book is yet another example of learning from Josh's mentorship and coaching to help grow your agency. He delivers! Consistency. Quality. Humility. Approachability.

Josh Nelson is one of the realest, most down-to-Earth and legitimate marketing agency owners in the industry. I’m at the beginning of my journey and I’ve learned so much just from his free content he share’s in his FB group, as well as from his first book and now this book too. So many people teach to prospect prospect prospect and don’t worry about client results and not to worry about minimizing “perceived indifference.” This leads to a never ending revenue hamster wheel of highs and lows always trying to keep new client numbers above client churn rates. If you want sustainable growth, a good reputation and a legitimate marketing firm, rather than just a “sales firm,” you must put client retention as your number 1 priority, I believe. The name of the game is providing an invaluable service throughout the entire client lifecycle. This is how you can reach the “7 Figure Agency” checkpoint - and even possibly make the Inc 5000 like Josh’s agency. If you just prospect and focus on sales without having any idea of fulfillment and providing a great service, you’ll never get past $50k/month, let alone $30k/month.. It’s slower than diving straight into sales and figuring it out as you go, yes, but once you have a client enrollment, fulfillment & retention system built, it’s much easier to go from $0k/month to $83k/month… with way less headaches!! In my opinion the time it takes to read AND implement this book will pay off 10fold in terms of time saved (in the long run). Play the slow game like Josh and build a nationally recognized marketing firm, not just another fly-by-night “mArKeTiNg AgEnCy.” Amazing book and I’m beginning to implement it now. I cannot wait to join Josh’s SevenFigureAgency OnRamp program next month! If you’re serious about this business venture, follow everything and anything Josh Nelson puts out into the world. You’ll find him so refreshing and caring compared to an industry of “coaches” that don’t walk the talk, and, ultimately, only care about selling people on the agency dream.. That’s not the case with Josh - he is here for business and exemplifies amazing ethics that attract everyone who’s started an agency, and I literally mean Everyone!!

I run a Marketing agency for Churches, and I’ve come across Josh Nelson in many different ways in growing my agency, the most recent way being this book I’m reviewing. In the book The Client Retention Playbook for Digital Marketing Agencies, by Josh Nelson, Josh gives great help on how to keep clients. Unlike what the title could sound like, it’s not just simple advice on how to keep a client, it’s a framework on how to build your agency for success from the ground up to make your agency able to retain clients. And it’s not even a book based on theory. It’s based on his real-life years of experience (even making the Inc. 5000 for four years in a row). You can’t make the Inc. 5000 several years in a row by accident. This is why reading this book is a must for ALL agency owners, whether you do relatively well in keeping clients or not. Josh didn’t start his agency this way, so it’s not something that came naturally initially to him, either. In the book, he recalls a moment when a friend noticed that Josh’s agency had taken two steps forward and one step back by gaining 10 clients in a month and losing another 8 clients. Josh spent many thousands of hours and thousands upon thousands of dollars on courses and mentorship to arrive at this formula. This book will cost you a very tiny fraction of that. While I’m not a fan of Alabama Football (War Eagle!), Nick Saban is unarguably one of the greatest college football coaches of all time. If you were a football coach, how much would you pay to spend just a few minutes sneaking a peek at Saban’s playbook to learn his secrets? Reading this book (at such a low price), you can get just the equivalent of that for the agency world by reading Josh Nelson’s playbook on client retention for Marketing agencies. As Josh has written another book to help agencies get (and retain) clients, I’m glad to see that he’s put a short few-page summary in this book as well for agency owners who haven’t yet had a chance to read that book. This book goes head-first into essentially plug-and-play SOPs that you can put to use in your agency. He goes through these SOP frameworks and then also at the end of the book shows examples of other Marketing agencies that are using these frameworks in their agency. Even the last chapter is a great help, as it’s a short, quick summary of key points from the book. I highly recommend you read this book if you own a Marketing agency or are looking to start one. If you’re starting an agency, read this book first because it gives you advice that will keep you from making mistakes as you grow that agency.

I bought Josh's last book so was nervous and excited about the sequel as I was worried it would be like Top Gun 2... just not quite hitting the mark. However..... Unlike Top Gun 2, I was NOT disappointed!! This book is reeeeeeally good. Josh lays things out in a simple and easy to understand format that allows you to follow along with ease. The Information is really powerful and is something you can action straight away and see results within a few hours in some cases. In all cases the information is NOT scammy or unethical (unlike some others...) and has info that will help to grow your business in a sustainable and measured way. Chapter 8 was especially powerful for me where Josh has insights from other business owners and what they found worked for them. This really help me see different ways I can utilize what was in the book. I bought the Kindle version first as I was not sure what to expect. As soon as I finish this review I am going to look at getting the physical book so that I can highlight and tab pages... just the same as his first book :) Josh, if you read this, then thank you for doing what you do, I appreciate you and your values of delivering value non-stop, being an ethical marketer and trying to genuinely help others without trying the hard sell.

Excellent book and extremely helpful

I love how Josh gave me a clear actionable plan in his book that allowed me to jump right in and make changes. I was having issues with client retention after hitting about 25k/month. I knew I had to make changes and this handbook was exactly the help I needed. I even hired a Client success manager immediately after reading the book. This not only helped with retention but took so much off of me as a business owner. It freed me up more to grow the company. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is concerned with retaining their clients.

We all spend most of our energy, money and time on generating new customers while missing out that the hard work we're putting into might lead to dropping clients because we don't focus enough on the two retention factors, which are results and customer satisfaction. My name is Marco Julian Grishaber and I run WunderAds.agency where we help eCommerce clients ranging from international corporations to startups on how to gain traction via PPC & Social Media advertisting. I just got a copy of The Client Retention Handbook by Josh Nelson Kindle edition, and I almost finished it within the first day. The book breaks down simple, implementable chunks of processes and actions that you can implement into your onboarding & ongoing client management processes. Therefore, I highly recommend this book because with a few steps you can have an immediate impact on your clients and hence overall revenue/profits.

It is generally an ok book. A lot of repetitive pages, filler pages. This book could do with 30% less pages.

This book gives me everything I need to maximize my churn. I struggled with churn until I understood how to stop it with Josh's help. I've been stagnet for months because I'd gain clients and lose other clients and I was spinning my wheels. Since implementimg ALL the strategies in this book I've now see churn as a tiny issue in my agency. For digital marketers looking to figure out why clients are leaving and how to keep them longer you must read this book. It's a game-changer. Highly recommend it.

Client retention has always been a big issue for agency owners. Josh has perfectly laid put the activities a business needs to do to earn trust of clients from the onboarding and making them love your process and results you achieve for them. Totally love this book. Will keep it on my desk for taking notes and improve our client engagement and retention in the next few months. Highly recommended for agency owners in digital space.

I love all of Josh’s content as it has value even if it is free and The Client Retention Handbook is not an exception. I am learning and practising a lot from it.

Josh is a master of digital agency success material, sharing real experiences, examples and frameworks in an easy to follow guide. Any agency wanting to improve customer experience and retention should get out their highlighter and get a copy of this book. Now is the time to reflect on what keeps customers coming back and The Client Retention Handbook is a must read, the complete end-to-end guide for digital agency success.

Another masterpiece after 7 Figure Agency by Josh Nelson. This is again in continuation of creating an agency, making it successful and now how smartly you can RETAIN is what this is all about. Just read few excerpt of it and found it amazing.