You help your clients do it every day but have you defined your values, mission and vision? As you preach to clients, it’s vital to every business that they have a clear idea of who they are and what they’re all about. Usually the owner has some vague (or maybe very defined) vision for their [...]
As times change, so must agencies. AMI does some research every summer and in talking to CMOs across the country, it's been very clear that clients are no longer interested in only working with just one agency anymore. In fact, our study showed that over 50% of them want to work with multiple agencies, allowing [...]
Everyone in the agency business has a deep hatred for two aspects of your business. The billable hour and the timesheet. My podcast guest, Ron Baker, believes agencies should do away with both. (I disagree with him on the timesheet and you’ll hear why in our conversation). Ron’s philosophy is built around the concept of [...]
Internal fraud. Two words that strike fear into the hearts of any agency owner. It’s not a subject that we want to talk about but it’s a real danger for agencies. And while most agency owners think that it could never happen to them, I know from my experience with hundreds of agencies that it [...]
Throughout the entire process of building your agency, you have a lot on your plate. Depending on where you’re at in the life of your agency, you may be struggling to eat something other than ramen noodles or on the flip side of the spectrum, you’re spending all your time servicing your clients and trying [...]
Words matter. They’re often an agency’s go to tool for clients and biz dev. Your prospects spend time on your website, follow you on social media, and read your content long before they ever reach out to you – so your written word is critical. It’s the first thing that your prospects see, so it [...]
A lot of agencies are still trying to figure out how to wrap their arms around digital since the evolution of digital marketing - what it means, how they deliver the benefits of it to their clients, what parts of digital to embrace internally and what parts to outsource. My podcast guest Nick Westergaard has [...]
“We're a full service integrated marketing agency.” Sound familiar? Trying to be everything to everybody is just one of the big mistakes that agencies today are making when it comes to attracting new business. Agencies hate to leave money on the table, even if it’s “bad money.” But we all know what happens when you [...]
One of the most heartbreaking realities in agencies today is what I call stale employees. These are employees that usually have been on your staff a long time and were a wonderful fit for your agency back in the day. But today, they really aren’t pulling their weight, their attitude is slipping or you just [...]
Whether you want to improve the skill, leadership and commitment levels of your current team to elevate them to be the best they can be or you need to add a superstar to your roster – you have to be able to assess their skills, attitudes, behaviors and motivations. How do you make increasing employee [...]
