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About Drew McLellan

For almost 30+ years, Drew McLellan has been in the advertising industry. He started his career at Y&R, worked in boutique-sized agencies and then started his own (which he still owns and run) agency in 1995. Additionally, Drew owns and leads Agency Management Institute, which advises hundreds of small to mid-sized agencies on how to grow their agency and its profitability through agency owner peer groups, consulting, coaching, workshops and more.

How do you recharge?

Our business is rife with myths. What clients will and won’t do. Which channels are dead long before they are dead. But the one that I think is most dangerous to your business is that it can’t survive without you. I know too many agency owners and leaders who are afraid to leave the office for more than a day because they are convinced disaster will ensue. I am constantly encouraging agency owners to book the trip to Paris, to go on the African safari, or to take a few days off around their son’s graduation. Don't worry, I follow my own advice. This past Spring Break, despite a huge level of demand, I took the week off. In fairness, I worked a couple hours a day while the kids slept (young adults can be counted on for uninterrupted mornings!) but for the most part — I was “out of the office.” I slept more that week (11.5 hours one day alone!), put more steps on my Fitbit (we averaged 20K a day) and rejuvenated my energy. When I did sit down for those few hours to get something done — I was better, faster, and more efficient. Best of all, my team handled all of the fire drills, drama, and client issues that I thought I had to be around for. If you honestly believe your team can’t handle your absence — then it’s time to start training them to do just that. Here’s a smart way to ease them in. One day a week: Work from home, a coffee shop, or anywhere that you can be productive. Turn off your email notifications and your phone. Turn both on at lunch and at the [...]

By |September 28th, 2020|

New mini course added!

Okay -- so not only is it new, it's our first. Check out the Foundations mini course! Having a strong foundation for your agency is critical any time but right now, it may be the difference of surviving or not. Whether you are new to the agency owner game or even a few years in -- I promise, there will be plenty of takeaways. We've cherry picked some key metrics, decision points and techniques that every agency must employ to be successful. Foundations is a 12-week mini course that is a combo of video lessons (with some homework, downloads, etc.) and a weekly live Q&A call to talk about how you're implementing what you learned earlier that week. We are starting our next 12-week cycle the week of October 5th. Calls are every Monday night at 7 pm central. At this point, we only have a small handful of people registered which means this is pretty much going to be like private teaching/coaching for you for 12 weeks! We'd love to have you join us!

By |September 27th, 2020|

How you can help your digital team

Every year, I get to hang out with 30+ digital team members from various AMI agencies hailing from California to Connecticut and everywhere in between. They come together once a year to pick each other’s brains, learn about new tools, and share best practices. One of the things that impresses me the most about them is that their focus is bigger than tools, tactics, and techniques. They’re also asking about agency new business strategies, how to help the agency’s social media get on track, and how to streamline processes so the agency is more profitable. These are employees who care about their agency and the agency’s performance. As I listen to them strategize together on how to bring even more value to the shop and your clients, I also identified some unspoken needs that would make their work easier and better. Require everyone in your agency to get some basic digital certifications so they have a better understanding and can work together better in identifying opportunities, writing proposals, and spec’ing projects. Use your agency as the test dummy — try video, voice, social experiments — but be out there and be bold. Be smart about tools versus time. You may be saving a buck or two by having them do something manually but if there’s an automated tool out there — use it so they have more think/learn time. Keep your own digital saw sharp — there’s always something new to learn and as their mentor and leader, you chart the course. I’m impressed and encouraged by the drive, curiosity, and hunger that these professionals display. It is definitely to your advantage to help them help your agency!

By |September 21st, 2020|

Who should be on your leadership team?

A few of the agencies we’re working with have committed to building a leadership team and actually holding each other accountable (you all let each other off the hook way too often) for the internal goals they’d agreed needed to be tackled that quarter. So, how do you create that leadership team? It’s not about tenure or titles. It’s about who can actually advance your agency. Who is a holistic thinker, rather than protecting his/her department? Who offers off the wall solutions that force the entire group to step way out of their comfort zone? One of the best litmus tests? Who is an influential mentor inside your shop? Who loves to teach and celebrate others? Who lives your core values? Disregard age and title. Who is proving to you every day that they’re ready to lead? I got very prescriptive in an article I wrote for Spin Sucks so you can build a team around you that is equipped to take you and your agency further, faster. I’d love to hear if your leadership team strategy is aligned with mine or if you’ve taken a different approach. You can’t grow your agency alone. Grow your leadership team as you grow the agency. They'll serve each other (and you) well. This was originally published in the weekly AMI newsletter.  To subscribe, click here.

By |September 14th, 2020|

You can crush those internal goals

In the last couple weeks, two agencies I’ve been working with onsite, every quarter wrapped up our first year together. As part of their homework, they had to prepare a PPT deck of every goal that they had crushed as a leadership team. I have to tell you — it was impressive. I take no credit for their efforts other than holding them as capable and accountable. They did all the hard work. I promise you, if I’d shown either agency owner the list of what they presented a year ago and promised them they’d get all of those items done (and done well) they would have laughed out loud. They’d never achieved so much in a mere 52 weeks before. So what was different? Their intentions. They entered into this year-long experiment by making a commitment to each other that they would not drop the ball or let each other off the hook. And they didn’t. Here’s what else made their efforts so successful. They didn’t over commit. One single focus per quarter and they weren’t allowed to chase any squirrels until their original commitment was complete. Regular accountability meetings. They met and reported on their progress. There was no tolerance for excuses, evasion, or the usual “well, we know you’ve been busy....” Measure what matters. We set up a list of metrics and they measured themselves against them every week. They were never surprised and they found that they anticipated shifts faster and better. They decided together which needs should get priority attention. There were no lone rangers, not even the owner. They worked in concert to assess what the agency needed most and what was needed to get it done. They stopped [...]

By |September 7th, 2020|

How to Strengthen Your Agency’s Hiring Process During a Pandemic

Attracting and retaining talent is likely a challenge in this unprecedented time. The coronavirus pandemic forced agencies around the globe to go fully remote whether they were ready to or not. Only 16% of HR professionals say they were ready to go 100% digital. Right now, it’s imperative to control what you can, and when it comes to hiring, you still hold the cards. By shoring up your hiring process now, you’ll strengthen your talent recruitment and onboarding processes in a way that sets you and future employees up for success. I recently wrote an article for Business 2 Community about this very topic. I hope you take the time to read through it and let me know what you think. I look forward to hearing back from you!

By |September 7th, 2020|

Getting it all done

I can remember early in my career I was bemoaning the fact that I couldn’t seem to get it all done. My boss started laughing. Like belly, starting to cry laughing. At me. When he finally caught his breath, he said, “Drew, it’s never all done. This isn’t a 9-5, leave when the work is complete sort of job. You need to learn how to work smart but also not let the inbox (back then it was a literal inbox) get in your head. When you can get it all done, there’s a problem.” I’ve spent my entire career, as I imagine you have, trying to define and refine my own work habits to be as effective as possible. I have a much better sense of how I work, when I am most effective at certain tasks, and how to cleanse my palette so I stay fresh throughout the day. But, there are some days, like when I’m on planes all day (pre-COVID), that work has to get done and the time is now. Much of my job requires writing and I can’t wait for quiet, a muse, or inspiration. It’s due and it’s due now. Thrive Global asked me to share how I pack my plane trips with productivity and while my specific circumstance is probably not yours — I’m hoping these tricks and tools will be helpful in your quest to make the most of your workday. Being more effective and efficient is a key component (among many) in our Advanced AE and AE bootcamps (Sept 1-2, 3-4) as well. An AE needs to get the most not only from their own day but in how they frame up the work for the [...]

By |August 31st, 2020|

Your boat can only carry so much weight

Agency owners are, for the most part, some of the bravest people I know. They have put everything on the line to start/own their agency and every day they face and move past tough decisions. But if there’s an Achilles Heel for most owners, it’s the staffing issue, especially if your agency has hit a rough spot. It’s ironic but in a typical agency, the higher a person’s salary, the less billable client work they do. They’re running a department, doing admin work, or chasing after new clients more than serving clients. I’m not suggesting their work isn’t valuable. It just isn’t billable. What balances that out is that most of your younger, less expensive employees are very billable. Their billable hours cover the non-billable hours of the more senior staff. If you look at all of the hours your agency employees (including the owner) works — you need to be at 60% billable overall. Most agencies struggle to get into the 50-55% range. Which is why you aren’t making the kind of money you’d like to make. Unfortunately, many of you are out of proportion. You’re over-staffed in general and in particular, you’re top-heavy. You might have a large leadership team or multiple owners. On top of that — you’ve got an employee or two (or more) who have been with you for a very long time. You’ve given them regular raises and now, if you’re honest with yourself, they’re overpaid. Odds are, their skill sets and energy aren’t really what they used to be. But you feel a loyalty to them and so they stay. You’ve been okay with a net profit that’s nowhere near the ideal range and you’ve stayed in the [...]

By |August 24th, 2020|

Timesheet compliance for agencies

First, let's dismiss the idea that timesheets are somehow unnecessary.  It doesn't matter how you bill, from time and materials to value pricing -- you still need accurate, daily timesheets. Timesheets actually have very little to do with billing.  They're really all about effectiveness and efficiency. Let's say your agency is dropping 20% to the bottom line.  Some would suggest that as long as your agency is profitable, there's no need for timesheets.  But without those little buggers, how will you know which projects were contributing to the profitability?  How will you know if your estimates are spot on or a huge miss? How will you know which employees are super stars and which ones are spending twice as much time on a job as they should be? What if your profit could be 28% and you're settling for 20%?  Worse...what if you profitability could be 15% and you're settling for 3%? No one likes them but everyone likes the data and insights they provide.  But how do you get your team to actually do them.  Here's a foolproof system that has brought dozens of agencies from 23-45% daily compliance to 95-100% daily compliance. Step one:  Review your timesheet tools (software, job numbering/naming convention, and task codes.  If you have more than 10-12 billable tasks and/or more than 8-10 non-billable tasks, then you need to trim it down.  Let them use the comments section to be more specific. You need to make doing timesheets easy and convenient. Step two: Hold an all staff meeting and explain that daily timesheets (weekly timesheets are 67% less accurate) are required for every employee, including you the owner and that you will be implementing a new program to encourage/reinforce [...]

By |August 23rd, 2020|

Did you email me?

A couple years ago,  I updated my OS on my laptop and it literally ate any email sent to/from me after 2015. I went through several weeks of trying to get back to all of the people who had emailed me and never heard back.  They probably thought I had no manners but I promise — I was raised better than that. This illustrates a point that I teach regarding email. We depend on email too much and we assume it’s more reliable than it is. Which is ironic, given our own inboxes and how much clutter we dodge throughout the day. I was talking to an agency owner the other day and she was lamenting that their new business efforts are falling flat. As she described their efforts it was pretty clear that the problem was they were tossing the ball into the prospect’s court by email and then just waiting for it to bounce back. This is also a huge problem with your AEs. In our AE Bootcamps, one of the best practices I stress is not to just use email to shift the burden to the client/check the item off their To-Do list. Your AEs need to be adept at quickly accelerating a conversation beyond email. If you’re not coaching to the advantages and foibles of email with your team, you should be. If you’re not building out a more robust communication matrix with prospects and clients, you should be. If you would like your AEs to learn more about this best practice as well as many others, there is still time to sign up for one of our virtual AE Bootcamps here or here! This was originally published in the weekly [...]

By |August 17th, 2020|
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