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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 your 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 skills 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 [...]

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Make the next few weeks all about you

Even if you’ve had a spectacular year and you’re trying to figure out how to spend all of your profits — by now, you’re probably feeling a little weary. As agency owners and leaders, we’re not so great at slowing down or listening to our body’s signals that it’s time for a recharge.  Perhaps that’s the hidden beauty that the holidays happen to align with the end of the year. These next few weeks are the perfect time for you to slow down, reboot and focus on getting ready to take 2018 by storm.  Here are some suggestions on how you might spend your time. Family, friends and feasting: Make sure you give yourself plenty of time to enjoy those you love. There’s nothing more rejuvenating than laughing with the people who mean the most to you. A little wine doesn’t hurt along the way! Soak in some smarts: You know that pile of books or downloaded but never listened to podcasts you have stacking up? Why not replenish your idea pool by enjoying some content by your favorite authors and thought leaders? Get organized: The office is usually pretty quiet — which makes it the perfect time to clean up your office, get rid of some of that paper and Connect: Whether its an old client you miss or a high school friend you haven’t talked to in ages — reach out.  Set up a time to talk on the phone or grab coffee. These are the people you’ve been missing for the last few months.  Fix that now. Prioritize: Take a couple hours and complete our one-page business plan and owner’s life plan.  Know where you’re heading and why you need to head there. [...]

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Your Employees Aren’t Practice Dummies to Test Management Styles On

If you don’t manage people well, they will find someone else who will. According to The Mercury News, Americans are quitting their jobs at the highest rate in 16 years. In January alone, 2.2 percent of the entire American workforce either left in favor of a new opportunity or quit outright. As a business owner, you face the same problems that managers have encountered for decades. Unfortunately, you don’t have the luxury of management training -- your daily interactions with your team are your training. However, your employees are not practice dummies for you to feel out your management style. They expect you to be a competent, fair and engaging manager, regardless of whether you’ve had formal managerial training. In my experience, many startup managers new to the role end up using a passive-aggressive style, alienating employees and making them feel disrespected. To avoid this fate, you must learn to ask for forgiveness as you actively seek to improve your abilities as a manager. Own the transition from employee to owner Your passion and ability for your craft led you to create a company. Perhaps you were an excellent art director or programmer, but now you’re tasked with supervising accounting and sales departments. People who were once your peers are now your employees. If you don’t learn how to handle that transition, things can get ugly fast. Many of the challenges in this transition stem from a lack of clarity, both within your own decisions and in the way you present them to your team. If you didn’t have good role models for management before you started, you likely don’t know what to do when someone needs constructive criticism or disciplinary action. When you fear hurting people’s [...]

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Are agencies a dying breed?

I always find it fascinating when conferences bring together a panel of professionals and ask them to look into their proverbial crystal ball and tell us how the world will be different. A couple weeks ago, during AdvertisingWeek's conference, a panel that consisted of Jack Bamberger (SVP of Global Partnerships at Oath, Jeannine Falcone, the Managing Director of Digital Marketing for Accenture Interactive, Kelly Mooney, Co-lead of IBM iX Studios, Stephanie Anderson, CMO and Strategy Officer at AI Media Group, Andrew Bailey, Partner and CEO of The & Partnership and Tim Castree, Global CEO of WAVEMAKER) pretty much predicted that agencies will not exist. You can watch the entire panel discussion here. A takeaway quote that you might listen for -- "In 3-5 years, agencies have a 30% chance of  survival." Have no fear -- they're wrong. First note that they all work for companies that sell with the "if you don't want an typical agency" line.  They are positioned against agencies already.  So of course they don't want to suggest that agencies can or will flourish in the future. Which doesn't mean they are completely wrong. As I have said many times, agencies need to: Stop focusing on selling stuff and instead sell their smarts, counsel and insight Need to re-think their pricing strategies Need to teach their account people how to ask better questions/be a strategic thinker Need to invest in continued education for themselves (owners) and rising stars I do believe that agencies will have to continue to evolve (as we always have) to stay relevant.  We have to get back into the C-suite.  We have to understand that we can't exist if we only serve the CMO anymore.  Our job is [...]

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5 Big Agency Owner Mistakes Make and How to Avoid Them

All agency owners have one thing in common: the desire to create a company that does it better and does it their way. But you can’t realize your vision if your agency isn’t financially successful. It’s simple: Your agency must bring in revenue, and your team must be rewarded for its hard work. Agency owners still trip up on the same five mistakes over and over, despite having a straightforward goal. These five agency owner mistakes aren’t unique, and fixing them isn’t optional. Get back to your main goal, and get over what’s making your agency more complicated and less successful. The Big Five Agency Owner Mistakes These five mistakes are probably things you already know you need to fix. They’re the things holding your agency back and keeping you from being as efficient and successful as you could be. 1. Your agency doesn’t have a business plan. Most organizations don’t have one; of those that do, very few actually use them. But without one, how do you recognize areas that need improvement? Your plan needn’t be a 20-page monstrosity that sits on your bookshelf collecting dust. It can be a single piece of paper that identifies your most pressing needs in finances, management, staffing and more. If you commit to your business plan, you can increase your bottom-line profits significantly. The plan should focus on your vision for your company. What do you want for your future? Take your ideas, make a list, and then make them real. 2. You don’t stick to your processes. No one violates an agency’s procedures more than the owner. But we both know the problem with that. If you don’t do it, neither will the rest of your team. That’s why [...]

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How to Develop a Thought Leadership Content Strategy with John Hall

Now more than ever before, you have to differentiate yourself as an agency but with so many channels out there to consume content and distribute it in, how do you do it?  Two words - thought leadership. Agency owners talk about the idea of thought leadership and the importance of it but never seem to get off the dime. They just don’t know how. My podcast guest John Hall has thought leadership down cold. As the the co-founder and CEO of Influence & Co, he spends his time advising agencies on how to differentiate themselves with thought leadership and leverage the content they are creating. John and his team have helped agencies position themselves as leaders by creating content that is helpful, unique and truly their own. Join John and I as we lay out a blueprint for you to finally get that thought leadership done: Thought leadership: why it’s something you have to do Creating a thought leadership content marketing blueprint Why your blogs should have the author’s name for a byline -- not the agency’s name Strategies for creating content that isn’t generic How to build thought leadership into your schedule so that you actually spend time on it -- and what to do if you can’t Finding the ideal mix for publishing content on your own site vs. externally Big mistakes agencies make with their content Why thought leadership content marketing is here for the long haul John Hall is co-founder and CEO of Influence & Co., a content marketing agency that helps companies and individuals extract and leverage their expertise to create, publish, and distribute content to their key audiences. In five years, John has grown Influence & Co. into one [...]

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Get Your Clients to Sing Your Praises

In the Flight of the Conchords song “Carol Brown,” Jemaine’s attempt to serenade a love interest is thwarted by a choir of his ex-girlfriends. As Jemaine sings his own praises as a would-be lover, the choir sings Jemaine’s many faults: “He doesn’t cook or clean; he’s not good boyfriend material.” (“Ooh, we   can eat cereal,” he counters.) Contradicted and drowned out, Jemaine laments, “Who organized all my ex-girlfriends into a choir and got them to sing?” Poor Jemaine. One lone voice doesn’t stand a chance against a choir singing in harmony. A Choir of Clients Place your agency in Jemaine’s shoes. You’re wooing a company you hope will hire you. Instead of ex-girlfriends, though, the choir is made up of current clients. When you start singing, does the choir back you up? Or does it warn the potential client to make like Carol Brown and take a bus out of town? You can stack the odds in your favor by organizing the choir yourself. Build a strong, vibrant community for your clients — something that gives them a real sense of connection and value — and they’re much more likely to sing your praises. The Benefits By forging meaningful bonds among your clients, you become their common ground. As you foster connections for them and add value on all sides of the equation, they’re drawn closer to you. A community of clients also prevents your agency from being pigeonholed. When your clients tell one another about the customized services you provide, they’re helping you by painting a complete picture of your agency’s capabilities. This leads to opportunities to engage them in new ways. From your client’s perspective, the community provides added value in the [...]

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What Makes an Effective Leader

Organizations that don’t have a set of guiding principles find themselves struggling to be consistent and to always be moving towards their bigger picture goals. A lack of defined expectations also makes it difficult for your team to understand what makes an effective leader. If you don’t give them a sense of what the company values and how you expect your leaders to behave – they have to make it up as they go along. Those challenges become even more pronounced in times of rapid change. And if there’s anything you know for sure about our industry – it’s that we are experiencing a state of constant change. My podcast guest John Rossman had a front row seat in being one of the co-creators of the leadership principles that have steered one of the biggest titans of industry, Amazon. They too exist in an industry that doesn’t even begin to resemble itself from a decade ago! Since he left Amazon, John has been using what he learned to help clients define and live by their own guiding principles.  He also wrote the book, The Amazon Way: 14 Leadership Principles Behind the World’s Most Disruptive Company. In our conversation, John talks about some of the most critical of Amazon’s principles and how they apply to agencies today: What makes an effective leader Why you need to get really clear on what your future looks like John’s favorite Amazon leadership principles Why you need to be proactive and take action The importance of prioritizing getting to the right answer over getting along Structuring interviews so you find the employees that are actually willing to grow and improve Amazon’s “think big” and why it’s all about experimentation John’s [...]

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How to Run an Ad Agency

Working at an agency means you get to hang out with smart, creative people all day long. It also means you’re dealing with a lot of strong personalities — imaginative, outspoken, and sometimes a bit too confident. When you step into agency leadership, you have to transition from collaborating with these personalities to managing them. Outspoken team members are always difficult to lead, but they present a special challenge in an agency environment, where you rely on their original thinking and courageous attitudes. When thinking about how to run an ad agency, reining in these personalities without breaking their spirits requires a delicate leadership balance. As an agency owner for more than 20 years, I’ve had the chance to work with outstanding talent, and I’ve seen my fair share of strong personalities. I’ve learned that nurturing creative thinkers requires a special approach. But with smart management and clear communication, both your strong personalities and your agency can flourish. Here are four ways to maintain control of your outspoken team members without dampening their creativity: 1) Invest in leadership training. A lot of agency leaders came up in the industry. Many landed their positions because of their creative and technical expertise — not their interpersonal skills — and have never had formal leadership training. This problem is magnified for young leaders. They’ve been praised throughout their careers for being outspoken and unafraid to take risks, so they may not handle disagreements as respectfully as they should. If the people below them are older, they may feel intimidated and project a false bravado to appear more confident. Sound familiar? Even if you’re a natural-born leader, invest in leadership training for yourself and your entire team. Communication and [...]

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Ready to Retire From Your Business? Avoid These 4 Mistakes

You’ve poured a lot of time and effort into building your business and watching it grow. In fact, you’ve probably built a contingency plan to troubleshoot any emergency that’s thrown your way, but what you may not have thought about is an exit strategy. OK, maybe you don’t feel ready to retire or even plan for it. But that’s a mistake. There’s a great deal of uncertainty that can impact your business without a well-defined succession plan in place. You might think it’s a given that you’ll hand the business over to a family member. But what if you become unable to run the business before your family is prepared to take over? Or perhaps you’re banking on the money it will bring in when you sell it. But what if it isn’t worth what you’d hoped? To guarantee stability when it’s time to leave your business, you need to plan accordingly. Use these four tips to avoid common retirement mistakes: 1. Don’t Assume That Your Family Members Want the Business If it’s important to you that your business lives on after you hang up your hat, make sure your family is fully prepared to take over. It may seem obvious to you that your family will step in, but that isn’t necessarily the case. You need to make sure someone in your family wants the job, is qualified for the responsibility, and can make smart business decisions. Properly groom your successor to ensure the business prospers. 2. Don’t Linger Once You Let Go Whether you gift your business to a family member or sell it to a trusted employee, you need to be able to let go. This can be difficult because of the emotional [...]

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