I know it’s a rare individual who can weather the rocky road that is agency ownership.  After spending more than a decade working with over 250 agencies a year (and doing it for my own agency for 25 years) I know it’s not easy.  The highs are glorious and nourishing.  But the lows — man, do they suck.  Whether it’s a tough streak of new business losses, a spiteful review on Glass Door, or an accounting error that impacts your taxes — it can be disheartening during those rough patches. One of the traits I admire most about agency owners is your tenacity. No matter how tough things are at the moment, you know that there’s a better day ahead and you are willing to power through to get here.  The reality is, like all businesses, there are cycles or seasons.  No agency is always on top.  No agency bats 1000.  But what stands out to me is how agency owners show up even when they are scared, hurt, or frustrated.  You refuse to be beaten back.  It’s a rare and potent combination of optimism, tenacity, and as my mom used to accuse me of often — sheer bullheadedness.  But it works. I will never forget the agency owner who stood in front of her peers at a network meeting and announced that they just been handed loss #12.  Her frustration was so palpable.  She finally exploded and said, “we just need a f’ing win.  I don’t care who it is or what it’s for.  But we need it.”  If you’ve owned your agency for more than three years, you know what she was going through.   Flash forward a year later.  Her agency was [...]

As the pandemic fades, many agency owners are breathing a sigh of relief. I understand the urge to take a break and slow down but now isn’t the time. The agencies that remain flexible and continue to invest in business development initiatives will capture the clients who are eager to rebound from 2020. In this piece I recently contributed to Forbes.com I discuss three client trends that emerged over the past year that I believe will affect agencies for the next 12 to 18 months

Marketing campaigns take a lot of work. From scoping and strategizing to executing and reporting, even small campaigns can involve multiple moving pieces and lots of planning.  With so much work involved it’s important to understand if those efforts have been successful or if they need to be reworked for next time. No one wants to tie up resources in campaigns they’re not confident will get results. Whether that’s new email addresses, brand exposure, or new leads, implementing the right tracking from the start will make repeating winning campaigns a breeze.  5 Tips for Measuring Marketing Results Setting yourself up for success starts long before any campaign assets have been created. Understanding what will need to be tracked and how is the first step in tying tracking back to marketing. Ensuring there is a process in place for planning campaigns can help avoid any loopholes in tracking. Tie in these tips when creating your strategic process and you’ll be good to go! 1. Establish Your Goals Upfront The hallmark of any good marketing campaign is having established goals right from the start, along with measurable Key Performance Metrics (KPIs) for those goals. When it comes to setting a marketing goal, there are usually only a handful of options. The goals are usually one of three things: lead/sales generation, brand awareness, or fan base growth.  Unfortunately, there are many metrics that will help track any of these three broad goals. Deciding which marketing performance metrics are the best for a campaign will come down to the details. For example, working to increase email signups probably means that the most important metric to track would be growth of the email list. However, if you’re using a freebie [...]

The content that leaves the strongest impact doesn’t detail a product’s every bell and whistle. Instead, it makes us feel something: happy, relieved, sad, angry, scared, etc. In this piece I recently contributed to SpinSucks.com I discuss how to use emotional theory to inspire a connection to your brand. 

Right now, many agencies struggle with the same serious problem. This issue can drag down profitability, lower employee engagement, and harm the reputation of the offending company, and in many cases, the biggest offenders are agency leaders. Unfortunately for clients and teams, some agency leaders struggle to keep their promises. We might be busy — and we usually have valid excuses — but those excuses don’t change the facts. Every time we fail to deliver something on time or on budget, whether it’s for an internal client or an external one, we erode a bit of the trust in ourselves and in our business. And we set an example that can destroy an agency’s reputation, ability to grow, and profits. Mot agencies (and agency owners) deal with this issue at some point. I know I have — as have many of the other owners we’ve worked with over the years. You can change yourself and your agency’s culture, but to do so, you have to start taking accountability seriously. Saying it matters is lovely. Demonstrating it matters is when your team will actually take notice. If it’s time for you to revitalize accountability inside your agency, an article I wrote for Forbes may hold some tips worth considering. But it starts with recognizing that it’s not okay just because you’re the boss. In fact, it should be less okay because we’re the boss. This was originally published in the weekly AMI newsletter.  To subscribe, click here.

This is a topic you have to handle with care. People's views on vaccines can vary as well as their unique healthcare situations. In this piece I recently contributed to Mediapost.com I discuss how to create a vaccine policy for your agency and why it is important to be thoughtful about the parameters you put in place for your agency because employees and clients will likely have questions. 

COVID-19 forced HR professionals to adapt to a new business landscape. Now that we're entering a post-pandemic world, HR must evolve again. In this piece I recently contributed to TalentCulture.com I discuss the new responsibilities of HR to revisit their cultures and policies, helping them understand the importance of prioritizing diversity and inclusion, flexibility, and employee mental health.