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Establishing your marketing agency took time, guts and a lot of work. Now you’ve got a good staff, a few good clients and occasionally more paperwork than you prefer to deal with. Looking ahead, you can see that your finances are looking solid for the next while, but you’re not as excited about what you’re seeing for growth options. No matter what you try, you’re finding it difficult to gear up past the million-dollar mark.

Part of the process to reaching the next tier is self-marketing: You need to let the public know that you’ve mastered your craft, and are in a position where you can help companies get ahead of their competitors. Finding your niche is another part of that marketing. Knowing the exact needs and challenges particular industries or company types face make you a valuable ally. After all, you’ve seen their problems, and have already discovered what works — and what doesn’t.

While improving your firm’s marketing is a start, it’s only a start. There are a lot of other factors to consider. Below, members from Forbes Agency Council talk about their recommendations for boosting your business, along with why they work. Here are the specifics:

1. Network And Build A Robust Social Media Network
As a start-up, one must leverage relationships to help forge a sustainable organization. Networking and building a robust social media network are tools that can help maximize exposure for a growing company. Helping others and providing subject-matter advice can go a long way in establishing credibility, which creates strong relationships that can yield successful opportunity.- Matt Anthes, SociallyMined

2. Find The Right Talent For Your Team
Spend time and money on building your brand and pushing new business development from day one. From there, work on curating a pool of talent that you can pull from as you grow. Our biggest hurdle with growth was finding the right talent for our team.- Jordon Meyer, Granular

3. Respect Your Clients And Their Budgets
Treat your clients' budgets as if they were your own. Show clients work they love but never expected to see. And learn something new, every day, and share it.- Justin Daab, Magnani Continuum Marketing

4. Seek To Refresh Your Bottom 20% Of Clients
Knowing which clients to nurture and which clients to show the door is vital to sustainable growth. A simple rule of thumb is always be seeking to refresh your bottom 20% of clients, ensuring that the quality of your client list is continually being upgraded, while not being afraid to show some clients the door. It is a courageous act to resign a client, but worthwhile.- Peter Bray, Bray & Co

5. Find A Niche And Own It
The riches are in the niches. This is my second go around at building and scaling an agency. The first agency was heavy on the top line but non-existent on the bottom line. In reflecting on what went wrong, we had a lot of great clients, but every client was in a different niche. This made scalability close to impossible, and inefficiencies part of the daily code. Find a niche and own it.- Michael Tasner, No Joke Marketing

6. Help Your Clients Succeed
Focus on truly understanding your client's core objectives and make those the measure of your success. If you help your clients succeed in their marketplace, then you will succeed in yours.- Peter Ladka, GeekHive

7. Make Sure Teams Have Access To The Right Expertise
If you are not building your processes, you are really not building a company. There is no way for you to scale without them. Once you have those solidified, hire for skill sets, not people, that your company needs to deliver the absolute best to your clients. If you don't have the right skills and expertise on staff, you will not be able to scale.- Jacob Hanson, PR with Panache!, LLC

8. Streamline Your Processes
Focus on systems and processes to help streamline both the back end and front end (client-facing) portions of your company. Having well-defined systems for doing things and delivering your service is what can help you scale your business and become more profitable.- Steven Willi, Rankings.io

9. Never Settle For Right Now
Always evolve. Decide what type of agency you want to be right out of the gates. The power of a can-do attitude will take you further, quicker. Always make sure the agency you are building is the agency you want to be in five years. Never settle for right now. - J.D. Blair, Mad Men Marketing

10. Invest In Tools And Staff
Invest in your staff and technology first. In order to grow a successful agency, you cannot be stretched too thin and you should not operate without advanced toolsets to showcase your digital marketing expertise.- Charles Kim, Executive Digital

11. Focus On Fixing A Problem
One of the most powerful philosophies that I incorporate into how I construct a business or approach a new concept starts with the initial goal: What are we here to do? Create a business simply to make money? Or create a business that removes the pain out of processes and fixes a problem. Fixing a problem is the most effective way build a business. It's the Silicon Valley approach.- Ronaldo Symon, Trend Capital Holdings Inc. 

12. Identify Your Core Value
Identify and focus on your organization's core value proposition as soon as possible. Once you do, make sure that every one of your offerings and processes has a direct impact on enhancing your core value proposition. Neglect any new initiatives that do not: Those are distractions. This will ensure that your organization will continue to have a defensible USP, and thus a path to scale.- Eric Dahan, Open Influence

13. Invest In Continued Education 
Invest in continued education through mentors, books, conferences, courses and more. Don't be afraid to invest in something to make money so that you can press the fast forward button for your agency. Do this for your top team members as well. Not only does the owner or CEO need to invest in continued education for their own success, but they need to do the same for the leaders in their company.- Mike Arce, Loud Rumor

14. Consistently Deliver On Promises
Do what you say you are going to do. Every time. All the time. Even into overtime. Mid-size to mega agencies start to lose their edge in the details and follow through, so utilize that deficit to your advantage. Deliver consistently and over deliver regularly. Oh, and never, ever miss a deadline.- Faithe Dillman, Marbaloo Marketing

15. Remember: It’s A Marathon, Not A Sprint
Take your time. There's always an urgency to grow at the beginning and that can lead to poor quality of your work, which you can't afford as you build the agency's reputation. It's a marathon, not a sprint.- Elliot Schimel, Mission Control Marketing