It’s no secret that there has been a sharp growth in the development of internal agencies. Ad Age reported about a year ago that 78% of Association of National Advertisers members have now developed some level of in-house agency. That’s up from just 58% five years ago. Further, of the 22% that didn’t have an [...]
What’s that old adage — nothing kills a business like growth? I’ve seen agencies get way too close to the edge more than once. Managing growth is no easy task and scaling your business requires something that many agency owners struggle with — getting out of the way. Entrepreneur Magazine asked me to offer some [...]
Referrals are every agency's dream. Do good work. Others take notice. Inbound, warm leads get referred. What happens when those referrals aren’t coming in as much as they were in the past? Or, better yet...how do you get in front of the drought to ensure a steady flow of new leads that could convert into [...]
Study after study tells us that CMOs rank lead generation as their #1 priority and one of their biggest sources of frustration. So if we practice the tired “what keeps you up at night” exercise — I think we know the answer. Most of our clients and prospects need to generate more qualified leads and [...]
If you’re running a marketing agency, there is a good chance that you deliver social media marketing services of some form or another for clients. Your prospects are convinced of the value of social media amplification. Moreover, they feel that social media can generate leads to their business. While you probably provide some kind of [...]
Want to learn how to win your top ten dream clients in just a few easy steps? Then you’re in the wrong place. One of the biggest problems with most case studies and sales tactics is that they attempt to make hard problems seem easy to solve. What nobody wants to admit is that convincing [...]
I live in the Midwest and as a result, I am fascinated by farmers. They can do everything right and in the blink of an eye — a hail storm, too much rain or on the flip side, a drought can wipe out all of their efforts. It seems like the riskiest and most frustrating [...]
I have had several phone conversations lately with agency owners who have sales pipelines that have dried up. They’re frustrated and scared about business development. I get it. We’ve all been there. But when I asked them about their new business activity, they all admitted that they’d taken their foot off the pedal. Sure — [...]
My intention with a short email isn’t to talk about the bigger, cultural issues our world is facing around diversity but I think we can all agree it’s a topic that we need to keep front and center. That’s true in our agencies as well. Our clients are starting to demand it. It will have [...]
I’m a big fan of the book Traction by Gino Wickman. It’s a business parable that outlines a systematic way (EOS or the Entrepreneurial Operating System) of running any business. It’s incredibly well suited for understanding how to manage a digital agency, because it forces a discipline onto a leadership team that is often plagued [...]
