Unapologetically You

Hey everybody, Drew McLellan here from Agency Management Institute, this week coming to you from Boston, Massachusetts. We were here this week with a peer group and one of the agencies in the peer group has been based in Boston and upstate New York for over 50 years. They're celebrating their 50 year anniversary this year. And one of the things I love about this agency is they really understand who they are and who they serve. And so, the way they position themselves, the way they talk about themselves is that they are unapologetically small. What that means is they're less than 10 people and they use that as a huge advantage to talk about the fact that clients get access to senior people, that there's not a lot of middlemen between the owner and the clients and that the senior leadership team has an active role in all the accounts. I don't care if you're 5 people or 50 people or 500 people, there is an advantage to your size. There is something about the size you are today that gives you a competitive edge.

But oftentimes, especially agencies that are small, tend to shy away from acknowledging their size. And the reality is, number one, with today's technology, people can figure out how big you are. Number two, most agencies are a blend of full-time employees and contractors. So many agencies are actually getting smaller in size not larger in size. The average agency in the US is only eight people so stop apologizing for your size, whatever it is. Figure out what advantage your size gives your clients and leverage that. Talk about that, share that with your clients so that they and your prospects as well, so that they can see that you are the right fit for them. And by the way, also acknowledge that no agency of any size is the right fit for everyone. So part of understanding the benefit of the size you are is also recognizing the kind of clients, the size of clients, the geography of clients that you can best serve. Once you figure that out, finding new clients that are a great fit, a right fit, that are going to stick with you for a long time gets much easier. So, don't be apologetic, no matter what your size is.

All right, we'll see you next week.