I’m writing this in early March from Miami after listening to Chris Yano speak at the Seven Figure Agency Intensive. Chris founded RYNO Strategic Solutions, one of the most dominant home services marketing agencies in the country.
Before selling the business to private equity-backed EverService, RYNO had grown to roughly $30 million in revenue. After merging with Blue Corona, the combined company reached over $90 million with more than 260 employees.
Listening to him talk felt a bit like looking several years into the future.
The processes he built are the exact things most agency owners avoid when they are smaller.
When I first started my agency, I said yes to almost everything. Small SEO projects. One-off websites. Random work … anything for money. I thought I was building a business. In reality, I was building a collection of projects.
Chris did the opposite.
He said they rarely sold services à la carte. Every client bought a full package. They always rebuilt the website. And they focused on larger companies that could spend fifteen to twenty thousand dollars per month.
When you do these things, you control the strategy. You control the platform that everything runs on. And you’re working with clients who have the budget to execute properly.
That changes the relationship entirely.
The client doesn’t see you as a vendor selling tactics. They see you as a partner responsible for growth.
Another lesson that stood out was how seriously they took retention. Their churn was only about 3 percent per month. That is strong for an agency. When coupled with a strong sales team, growth is inevitable.
One of the reasons for their low churn was something simple but powerful. Instead of account managers saying “let me check with the team,” they brought SEO and PPC specialists directly into quarterly client meetings. Clients could ask questions of the technical folks and get answers immediately. That increased trust overnight.
That concept should be a reminder that most retention problems are really communication problems.
Chris also talked about building community around the agency. They created a private event called RYNOX where only about fifty people were individually invited. Tickets were more than ten thousand dollars. Clients and prospects were in the same room with the top operators in home services.
The agencies that grow into significant businesses don’t just sell marketing. They build communities around their clients.
Chris eventually sold the company at a high point. The most interesting thing he shared was what he would do differently if he could have a do-over on the sale. If he could go back, he wouldn’t sell 100 percent of the business and abdicate control. He would sell 49 percent and keep control.
That’s a lesson I’ve been thinking about a lot as I build toward the next phase of my own journey. Today our agencies generate more than eight million dollars per year in revenue. My long-term goal is to build a one hundred million dollar portfolio of agencies, and my exit plan was always to sell one day.
The path to that outcome isn’t shortcuts or clever tactics. It’s making the right structural decisions early. Packages instead of projects. Premium clients instead of small deals. Retention systems instead of reactive client saves.
If you’re running an agency doing a few hundred thousand dollars per year, you’re in the exact place I once was. The difference between staying there and growing is to learn from people who have already built the thing you want to build.
That’s why I write this newsletter. The Business of Agency newsletter teaches agency owners how to run profitable agencies that give them more time while building something that can truly scale. Subscribe to this newsletter at businessofagency.com.
I hope that helps and gives you something to think about.
~ Erik
Correction: The original article stated a reason for their “low retention,” which should have instead stated “low churn.”