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 [...]
How to Differentiate Your Agency From All the Rest
Despite their best efforts to stand out, nearly every agency looks, sounds, and acts just like every other one. We all think we have figured out how to differentiate ourselves using catchy taglines and clever techniques, but from the outside [...]
The Dos and Don’ts of Agency New Business with Lisa Colantuono
"It all begins and ends on chemistry. Everything else in between is absolutely vital, there's no doubt about it, but it begins and ends on chemistry.” My podcast guest, Lisa Colantuono isn’t telling us anything we don’t already know. Chemistry [...]
Has Your Agency Lost Its Swagger? Tips for Boosting Your Confidence & Winning New Clients
The recent recession beat the life out of agencies and their owners. We were so busy begging for business and compromising on our rates that, by the time the economy recovered, we had gotten used to acting beholden to our [...]
How to Make Your Company an Irreplaceable Partner in 3 Steps
Your company might think they’re building relationships with clients, but until they sink multiple hooks into an organization, the relationship is volatile. The deeper the connection with your customer, the longer it is likely to last. And, of course, losing existing relationships [...]