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Hey agency owner — it’s time to learn how to share the sandbox and work with other agencies

Building client relationships and working with other agencies can be challenging, but it is vital for your agency’s long-term success. In fact, one of the agency/client trends that is toughest for most small to mid-sized agencies is learning how to and accepting the idea that you’re going to have to work with other agencies.  The whole agency of record model is crumbling and more and more clients are telling the marketplace that they prefer to work with multiple agencies. When AMI partnered with Audience Audit last fall to do some primary research with CMO types, one of the things that popped off the page was how prevalent this attitude is.  Many of our respondents worked with 3+ agencies and thought they were better off for doing so. The reasons they opted for multiple agencies varied but the predominant message was — “no one agency can be excellent at everything. We would prefer to buy subject matter expertise across agencies.” The other thing the respondents told us is that they hate it when agencies bicker and try to throw each other under the bus.  They end up distrusting and often firing the bigger whiner among the agencies.  (You can download the research report here) Who comes out on top?  The agency who finds a way to work well with the others.  The agency who busts a hump to coordinate their efforts and actually recognizes what the other agencies are good at and takes full advantage of those talents. Why?  Because then you are actually building client relationships. You are doing what’s best for the client, rather than worrying about the lost billable hours.  Because then you are acknowledging other agencies has something to contribute.  Because then you are [...]

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Should agencies be re-inventing themselves?

A recent article by Blair Enns has re-ginited an age-old question: should agencies be re-inventing themselves? My answer is that question is -- of course.  But this isn't a new business development strategy. Agencies have been re-inventing themselves since they started.  Grants, the pace is very different but how an agency works and how it sells have always evolved.  In the beginning we sold signage and shouting.  Stand on the corner and shout the loudest — because your market place was pretty much the reach of your voice. Then, agencies sold cleverness and the ability to be remembered, a la David Ogilvy and his cronies.  In some ways, that was the heyday of branding (at least on the consumer side) and it’s been limping along ever since.  Again — because there wasn’t all that much noise, you could still talk to everyone and hope it stuck. Then in the 70s and 80s, agencies shifted their business development strategy into selling stuff for our clients. We took the cleverness of the era before and made tangible things out of it. Some of it was media assets but a lot of it was printed materials etc. The ideas and cleverness didn’t stick for as long so we also sold a lot more albeit short term ideas and then executed on them. Think about the catchy TV based taglines of that era -- like "Where's the beef" or the theme song for the perfume Enjoli that taught us that a woman can bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan. I think that’s when the mediums started getting crowded and we began really fighting for eyeballs and attention. Then technology smacked agencies on the rear end — and we became tech experts.  Suddenly we were selling [...]

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Hey agency owner — it’s time you got clear with your expectations

I know you think you’re a good communicator but I’d bet you $100 that, when it comes to setting employee expectations, you aren’t as clear as you think you are. No matter how good you are -- you could be better. It’s not entirely your fault.  You have several strikes against you. Agencies tend to attract very strong willed, opinionated people. They’re tough to manage. You probably grew up in the agency world and you miss being “one of the gang” so there’s a part of you that manages in a way that at least you’re a popular boss. You are wearing a lot of hats and since the employee issues are rarely on fire like the client ones are — it’s an easy bullet to dodge But here’s the problem. When people don’t know exactly what is expected of them… The great ones leave because they want to be part of a team that is very clear about where it’s going and they want to contribute somewhere Or — the great ones stay but over time, lose their drive and become mediocre The mediocre ones will never rise to the occasion and become great The crappy ones stay because you never ask too much of them How’s that for team building? Worst of all — you deal with it in a very passive aggressive way.  You give vague directions and then you’re angry that they don’t behave in the way that you want.  Or an employee steps out of your perception of how your employees should behave but you don’t give them the feedback.  You just get angry about it. See if these sound familiar.  “I handing him a book and said ‘it’s a [...]

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Hey agency owner — ask your leadership team this question (agency metrics)

I've been spending a lot of time with agency owners and their leadership teams over the past month or so, talking about agency metrics and strategic planning tools. I'm always a little surprised but in almost every instance, there is a missing component that gets in the way of the leadership team really working cohesively and exceeding the agency's goals for the year. Want to see if your leadership suffers from the same deficiency? Pull your team together and have them each write down the answer to this question: Assume it is December 2015. What are 3 -4 agency metrics would you use to determine if the year has been successful or not. Once everyone has done that -- have everyone read their answers out loud and put them up on the wall. I suspect, fi you are like most agencies -- you will get a wide variety of answers. Many of them will dance around some of the same issues, but you will not get a unified list that consistently reflects the same metrics. That's a problem. Without everyone working towards the exact same goals and monitoring the metrics tied to those goals -- do you really think you're going to get there? Using strategic planning tools such as this one can help you work toward the exact same year-end results. Not only will this help your agency to exceed expectations but it will also help employees to far surpass their own expectations. Your leadership team is filled with good people and they all want to give you 110%. So each of them attaches their talents, resources and skills to what they believe is the agency's #1 priority. It's as if everyone has tied a rope to a little red wagon based [...]

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Hey agency owner – make 2015 the year of action

My wish for you -is that 2015 is your year of action! I don't know about you but as much as I love the holidays, I look forward to this time of year as well.  The slate is clean and for the first couple weeks in January as things rev back up -- it's the perfect time to finish your annual planning. Want to have a spectacular year?  Here's how to give yourself a fighting chance. Complete the One Page Business Plan for the year and follow it. Institute a bonus program that gets every single employee focused on AGI (ask me more about the AMI model) Have an aggressive, unstoppable new business system and assign a bulldog inside your agency to manage it Resolve to be a owner of action this year What do I mean by being an owner of action? I think one of the human truths that cripples many agencies is that their owners are too slow to take action.  You either overthink everything or you are a little passive/aggressive and hope if you ignore an issue, it will go away. I know running an agency is complicated and exhausting -- but honestly, sometimes you are the one who makes it that way.  (I can say that because I've also said it to the guy in the mirror more than once!)  Are you sometimes going to make the wrong call?  You bet.  But more times than not, you know what you need to do. You're just afraid to do it. Owning an agency takes a blend of insanity, courage and confidence. I think he recession beat a lot of that courage and confidence out of agency owners.  The ones who are back and kicking ass are the [...]

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Hey agency owner: accomplish more by doing less.

As a CEO, you’ve built your business to be strong and competitive, you’re proud of your successes, and you’ve probably learned a few lessons along the way. One of those lessons probably is that you can’t do everything yourself.  But what should you actually do?  When is it important to delegate and when should you lead the charge yourself? We Work asked me to think about the role of the CEO in a company. CEOs need to have some level of involvement in every aspect of the business to keep an eye on the long term goals.  So if that’s true, and it is, maybe the question isn’t what areas you should be actively involved in but how you should be involved with each aspect of your company. How about you? How to you determine when to step into an area and when to just keep apprised of developments? How do you engage your employees to take the lead in strategic areas and yet still keep you in the loop? Let me know!

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