I learned the most important lesson about new business pitching from an unlikely source for a man in my business: record producer Jimmy Iovine. In 2013 I was a proud dad sitting in the audience at the University of Southern California’s commencement ceremony. The keynote speaker was famous music producer and co-founder of Beats headphones, [...]
Launching an agency means challenges are bound to arise, and these challenges often revolve around money and perspective. When the two collide, that’s when most brave agencies stumble a bit. As soon as the words “revenue” and “loss” appear in the same sentence, many brave agencies understandably freeze with fear. It’s easy to lose objectivity [...]
Despite a mandate to drive growth, chief marketers are still stuck in a decade-long rut that has yet to see them fully optimize the lifetime value of existing customers. In 2008, when asked if brands were fully realizing the revenue potential of customers, 76 percent said no. Ten years later, 77 percent of respondents to the [...]
No, thin-slicing isn't a phrase to describe the way you cut a loaf of bread; it's a term that denotes what we do upon first meeting people. According to Oregon State University professor Frank Bernieri, people make immediate judgments about others from observing only mere seconds -- aka a "thin slice of" -- their behavior. "From the [...]
Numbers and data are no longer a daunting task — they’ve now become an integral part of a company’s operations. The issue is most companies are only given the basic facts of their data without the what’s, how’s, and why’s that are driving the analytics. Jaywing, a British data-based digital agency, found that brands across [...]
The only thing worse than losing a client is working with one who stalls. As an agency owner for 20 years, I have seen clients hesitate for every reason imaginable, and I've developed best practices to limit lost resources and keep projects moving. Understand How Project Delays Happen Every stalled situation starts the same way. [...]
Agencies love to talk about their “stuff.” From event strategies to promotional packages, they get deep into the nitty-gritty. Although nuts and bolts might be great for a home renovation project, they don’t produce tons of revenue. What’s the problem? Selling tangible things limits the conversation to stuff that everyone offers. You create websites? Great, [...]
Think of the last time you went shopping online. Was it for clothes? Shoes? Maybe even a graphic designer? We live in an age where creative contractors are only a click away. More and more, clients are hiring them for single projects or just a few months at a time. The industry has moved to [...]
Everyone wants to be the quarterback — the agency that signs a client and is ushered right into the C-suite to serve as the backbone of the client’s marketing strategy. Your agency loves clients like these because they value the same thing you do: the work. They expect you to be the workhorse of their marketing [...]
You wouldn’t visit a tailor and request a custom-made suit without providing measurements, would you? So why would you approach an agency in search of better lead generation without sharing data? In short, you wouldn’t. Yet this happens all the time—to the detriment of an otherwise fruitful agency partnership. Just as it’s impossible to make [...]
