3 Traits to Look for in any Great Account Executive
The toughest jobs are those that put people between two equally strong and demanding forces. Waitresses, for example, are at the mercy of their customers and cooks, yet their tips and livelihoods often depend on their abilities to provide high-quality [...]
How To Give Every Employee A Personal Stake In Your Company
If you’re a business owner, you want your employees to feel as personally invested in the company as you do–but you probably know that isn’t likely. Still, your management strategy can have a huge impact on how deeply invested your [...]
Don’t Be Held Hostage by Your Rogue Tech Team
Some things creep up slowly in life, like global warming and receding hairlines. Now you can add to that list: The reign of a digital team in agencies. As digital advertising continues its double-digit growth, more and more agencies routinely [...]
Best Practices when Forming an Agency Leadership Team
The smartest, most successful business owners have surrounded themselves with a strong, powerful leadership team. They don’t go into battle alone and they know that it’s easier to climb the mountain as a cohesive team. If you really want to [...]
Clients Should Align with Your Company’s Mission Statement
A company’s mission statement should influence every move it makes, including what clients or customers it takes on. Serving clients who don’t align with your mission statement might bring in more money, but it often can hurt your company more than you [...]
Don’t Be Mad About Promoting Mad Men (or Women)
The expression “those who can’t do, teach” is well known for good reason. But many business leaders nevertheless assume that top-performing employees are automatically good at managing and teaching their skills to others. The consequences of this assumption can be [...]
The Secret Sauce: Quintessential Ingredients for Hiring an Agency
Every company has its own process for evaluating potential agencies to work with. Some use objective rubrics, others use gut feelings. Still, others claim to have a “secret sauce” or hybrid evaluation process. While that secret sauce is helpful, developing [...]
How to Get Speaking Engagements that Fill Your Pipeline with Gene Hammett
One of the best ways to get on a prospect’s radar screen is for them to see you on stage at a trade conference or show. The implied endorsement of your thought leadership can open many business development doors. But [...]
Here’s Why Your Agency Didn’t Get Hired
When a client chooses not to hire your agency, it's easy to start second-guessing yourself. Often, I hear from agencies that are curious to know why they were disqualified and what they can do to improve. In our 2015 report, [...]
Why You Can’t Wait for That Magical New Business Person to Arrive
I’m not afraid to admit that during tumultuous times, I harbored a secret fantasy. Like many stressed-out agency owners, I dreamed of a magical “new business person” who would join my team and, with barely a trace of oversight, begin [...]
