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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 employees feel in the work you do together. And getting everyone on your team to think and feel as passionately as you do isn’t as hard as it sounds. All Hands on Deck As an owner, your business is your baby. You watch over it obsessively. You make choices based solely on what’s best for it, even if that means pain in the short term. But I’ve been through the battles of running a business for 30 years, working with baby boomers and millennials, fax machines and iPhones. The most pervasive lesson learned through all those years was simple: Running a business is not a one-person job. You have to share the load. Teach your team that when the company does well, everyone does well. If you try to do everything, not only will you exhaust yourself, but you’ll risk your staff–either intentionally or accidentally–pulling in the other direction. If it begins to look like the boss can handle everything, no one else will feel their own work is mission-critical. They’ll feel unimportant, and your whole team’s enthusiasm and investment will flag. Instead, make it known that you all share the same objectives, and it takes every single person’s contribution in order to achieve them. Driving the Business Forward Employees often want to take more personal ownership for the companies they work for, but leaders don’t usually have the time and energy to teach their entire staff what it takes to run a successful business–let [...]

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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 scale your agency, build it for eventual sale and exceed your goals – you need a strong group of invested professionals around the table. In this solocast I look at agency leadership teams and how they should function, who should sit on one and why you’d have one in the first place. I explore the best practices around having a functional leadership team that helps the agency owners guide and run the agency day-to-day. Before you put your leadership team together, be sure to take a listen as I walk you through the steps with: Reasons to build a leadership team Why you should never start a leadership team out of frustration or overwhelm Why your leadership team is a great place to mentor employees ready for the next level How building a leadership team fits into your succession plan What kinds of employees should be on your agency leadership team (and why you shouldn’t just look at employees with certain titles) The huge decisions that you as the agency owner have to make before having your first leadership team meeting What leadership team meetings should accomplish Why every leadership team member needs to leave the meeting with a goal to accomplish before the next meeting How to decide when to include your agency leadership team in the decision-making (and the three levels of decision-making you can use) Drew McLellan is the Top Dog at Agency Management Institute. For the past 21 years, he has [...]

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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 to sell the agency night and day, acquiring profitable new clients. But that mythical new business specialist is just that: a myth. Unfortunately for those of us wanting to stay in dreamland, this fantasy will only hurt a business. Not the Merlin You’re Hoping For The vast majority of new business specialists never pan out. Most agencies aren’t set up for that person to succeed, so he actually ends up costing an agency money. The reality is, agency owners want that magical new business guy because they don’t want to do new business themselves. They think there’s some kind of secret to it that someone else possesses. It can be a hard pill to swallow, but the best person in your agency to drive new business is the owner. Prospects want to talk to a business owner about business problems. You probably know that you have different conversations with them than anyone else on your staff. I’m not suggesting for a minute that you should do new business entirely by yourself, but you shouldn’t abdicate that control to someone else and walk away. Fulfill Your Own Fantasy The key to confidently stepping into the role of “new business guy” is simply improving those skills. Just like joining a gym for the first time, you may feel like an idiot at first. But as you develop your skills, you’ll grow more comfortable and successful. These three tactics will help you improve your skills and ensure that [...]

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Hey agency owner – how do you recharge?

How do you recharge? I worry about you. I hang out with a lot of agency owners and I know that one of the biggest risks to your agency is owner burnout. It's that wearing fatigue that comes with 60+ hour weeks, sweating payroll, never really unplugging and everyone heading to your office when the s*#% hits the fan. We're coming off a long holiday weekend. Did you focus on recharging your battery, investing in your family and friends, and most important — doing something that makes you feel like a priority?  And before this week -- when was the last time you did that. I'm all for using the holidays as a respite but it's not enough.  You need to be taking better care of yourself every week, not just when a long holiday weekend presents itself. Agency owner and leader burn out is one of the biggest threats to the health of your agency. You have to understand your role in the agency.  You are the epicenter. Your energy, your focus and your contributions are what set the course. When you let yourself get too weary, too burdened or too overwhelmed — everyone feels it.  they may not be able to articulate what they sense, but it absolutely changes the dynamics in your shop. This is a conversation I have with most of our remote coaching clients  — I believe your #1 obligation as an agency leader is to make sure you stay replenished, refreshed and that your head/heart is in a very good place. That does not happen by accident. Is protecting your state of mind a conscious part of your week?  DO you even know what refills you? I know I'm not [...]

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What Your Key Executive Needs from You, the Business Owner with Craig Barnes

The cornerstone of AMI is our agency owner peer networks. As an agency owner, there aren’t a lot of people you can be 100% candid with, when it comes to how things are going, what you’re working on and the struggles along the way. That’s why network membership is so valuable. The owners get the best of both worlds by joining. You get that outside perspective you really need but from someone who walks in your shoes every day. Many of our network members have been a part of AMI for almost 20 years. They find it so valuable, they asked us to create a lookalike network for their right hand men/women. So we have done just that. We call this our key executive network. My podcast guest is Craig Barnes who is a part of the AMI team and facilitates the key executive networks. Craig‘s uniquely qualified for this role because of his 30+ years of agency ownership. He’s an amazing mentor and teacher so he’s perfect for the job. In this episode, Craig and I dissect what makes a great #1 and how an agency owner can set up their key teammate for success. The key executives (#1s) group Craig facilitates for AMI What makes key executives so valuable Integrators: the employees that don’t want to be owners and just want to pull the levers How we as agency owners make life hard for integrators by not letting go of control Having an empowerment agreement with your #1s for setting expectations for who gets to control what Setting regular meetings with your key executive that you do not break How agency owners can know whether or not they’re ready for a #1 to take [...]

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7 Things to Consider When Taking On an Employee as a Partner

Let’s say you have an employee named Bob. He’s a great employee. Not just great, stellar. You can’t see the agency functioning without him. You don’t want to lose him. So how do you ensure that he’s happy and not being wooed by a competitor? Or maybe you’re 55 and beginning to think about your exit strategy. What if Bob could buy you out? Or you could still keep a piece of the business but not work so hard? In both cases, the solution I often hear agency owners come up is, “Why don’t I offer him some sort of equity or employee partnership in the agency?”   Taking on an employee as a partner may be a brilliant solution all around. Or it could be the demise of your agency. This is a huge commitment that involves many more moving parts than you might be considering. My solocast sheds some light on the issues that I have helped agency owners walk through as they are considering this option, including: Why you need think long and hard before making employees partners Why partnerships will look different if you’re a C Corp than any other structure (S Corp, LLC, etc.) Why you need to make sure someone actually wants to be a partner before you offer them a partnership Why you need to sell shares and not gift shares Why you should only bring on one partner at a time Why -- if your employee doesn’t have the skills they need to be a partner -- and they probably don’t -- you need to teach them Why it usually takes about 10 years to groom someone to take over for you Why you really need to [...]

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How to Inspire Creativity and Innovation in Business with Jason Keath

On your mark, get set, be creative! Wouldn’t it be awesome if being creative on demand was that easy? And it’s not just confined to your creative department anymore. Today, everyone at the agency has to be creative whether it’s your account service team bringing fresh business ideas to clients, your biz dev team trying to figure out ways to get on your prospect’s radar screen or, of course, your creative department in all aspects of what you produce. So, how do you keep the creative juices flowing?   My podcast guest Jason Keath, the founder of Social Fresh, is steeped in creativity and innovation in business and is here to help you develop and define creativity and show you how to bring it to life inside your shop. In reality, creativity is a process. And it’s within this process that the answers are found. Join Jason and me as we follow the road to creativity with: Jason’s background Why Jason started Social Fresh How to get your whole team to be creative Why you need to hear bad ideas and how to manage your team so they aren’t afraid to voice them Why you should brainstorm at least 50-100 ideas for every one that you actually put into place How having your team prepare ideas anonymously in advance will save you time and result in a discussion that’s more free How infusing creativity and innovation in your business leads to business success Why creativity comes from having at least one core competency (and how to figure out what your core competency is) The filter phase of the process post brainstorming where you take ideas and combine and eliminate ideas until you’ve broken them down [...]

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How to Work ON Your Business, Not Just IN It with Ryan Ayres

How much of your day do you spend working ON your business as opposed to working IN your business?  If you’re like most agency owners, you are too busy fighting fires day to day to even think about anything else, let alone focus on the visionary work needed to move your business forward. It’s important to understand how to delegate tasks to let you better focus on the business as a whole. Most of us know how we are spending our days but don’t know how to change it. My podcast guest Ryan Ayres has been where you are and is here to show you how to get out of your own way.  It can’t happen without some hard work on your part but as he says, “Believe it or not, you can get yourself out of the day to day work and if you leverage your team, it can happen faster than you’d think.”   Join Ryan and I as we pave the way with … How Ryan got himself out of the day-to-day and got his team to take things off his plate that he did not need to be doing Why great employees will help you when you reach the point when you’re forced to sell what your business does instead of selling what you do Why — if you can’t get rid of 100% of what you’re doing — that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get rid of any of it Why you need to make sure everyone understands and buys into your vision and why it benefits them Ryan’s employee rating matrix Why people very rarely stay or leave based on money (and why this means you don’t need to give as [...]

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5 Key Agency Metrics Every Organization Should Be Tracking & Why They Matter

You know my drill – you’ve taken a huge risk in starting or buying an agency. I want to make sure you get the rewards that should accompany those risks. Most agencies have a few KPI (key performance indicators) or agency metrics they track. Unfortunately, most agencies track the wrong ones, like gross billings. I want to make sure you're measuring what actually matters -- the agency metrics that really give you insight into your agency and help you run a more profitable business. In this solocast, I walk you through the five agency metrics that every agency owner should be tracking and why they matter. Why you have to measure inside your agency The AGI/FTE ratio: why you should be aiming for this to be $150,000 (and why many agencies struggle to reach this goal) Measuring over/under on projects: how often are you over, how often are you under, and by how much? Why you need to look at profitability on a client by client basis (and how to know when to fire a client due to profitability) Why you need a minimum standard AGI for all your clients Why you absolutely need to use timesheets inside your agency (and why this doesn’t mean you should bill by the hour) Drew McLellan is the Top Dog at Agency Management Institute. For the past 21 years, he has also owned and operated his own agency. Drew’s unique vantage point as being both an active agency owner and working with 250+ small- to mid-size agencies throughout the year, give him a unique perspective on running an agency today. AMI works with agency owners by: Leading agency owner peer groups Offering workshops for owners and their leadership [...]

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