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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 [...]

August 3rd, 2017|

How to Build a Leadership Team That Makes Your Agency Better, with Drew McLellan.

[easy-social-share buttons=”facebook,twitter,google,linkedin,mail” counters=1 counter_pos=”topm” total_counter_pos=”leftbig” style=”icon_hover”] 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 teams Offering AE bootcamps Conducting individual agency owner coaching Doing on-site consulting Offering online courses in agency new business and account service Because he works with those 250+ agencies every year — he has the unique opportunity to see the patterns and the habits (both good and bad) that happen over and over again. He has also written two books and been featured in The New York Times, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Fortune Small Business. The Wall Street Journal called his blog “One of 10 blogs every entrepreneur should read.”     What you’ll learn about in this episode: 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 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 [...]

July 31st, 2017|

Here’s Why Your Agency Didn’t Get Hired

When a client chooses not to hire your agency, it's easy to start second-guessing yourself. Often, I hear from agencies that are curious to know why they were disqualified and what they can do to improve. In our 2015 report, Agency Hiring & Firing Insights, we got the scoop on what 500 marketers -- CMOs with budgets up to $10 million -- believe and how those beliefs influence whether they hire or fire an agency. The results surprised us. We found that a whopping 94% of respondents believe their search and selection process is effective in finding agencies that are good fits for their organizations. So if their processes are so effective, what's that "special sauce" that makes them hire an agency? We saw a range of answers -- everything from "gut" to "socializing with clients" to a "review by a variety of staff, not just the marketing department." But we also learned a number of surefire deal breakers. What's Getting You Kicked to the Curb? We asked clients why they would disqualify a firm. These reasons came up consistently: The agency is a generalist. In other words, it doesn't have experience in the client's industry. It's increasingly important for agencies to find their niches and stick to them. The agency personnel is arrogant. The employees are self-aggrandizing or imply that the client should be grateful just to work with them. The agency has poor testimonials. The potential client reaches out to the current clients (often on LinkedIn) and learns that it hasn't grown those clients' businesses. The agency brings a pitch team, not the people the client would be working with on a daily basis. Clients want to know exactly with whom they'll be [...]

July 26th, 2017|

How to Differentiate Your Agency From All the Rest

Despite their best efforts to stand out, nearly every agency looks, sounds, and acts just like every other one. We all think we have figured out how to differentiate ourselves using catchy taglines and clever techniques, but from the outside looking in, it’s hard to tell the difference from one to the next. Don’t believe me? See whether any of these phrases ring a bell: “We are a full-service integrated marketing agency.” “We partner with our clients.” “We’ve been in business for X years and have more than X years of experience.” Sound familiar? These phrases might sound like good differentiators, but in reality, they just muddy the waters and make it more difficult to discern what makes one agency better than another. Don’t Please Everyone All the Time Looking across the landscape of agencies we work with, the ones that struggle to stay afloat are the generalists. I know how scary it can be to neglect part of what looks like an appealing market, but agencies today must find and attack specific niches to survive. New avenues of competition are part of the reason for this. Agencies are now commodities competing with freelancers and others who take advantage of low barriers to entry. Differentiating your agency from the masses requires clearly defined areas of expertise. Clients want specialists, not indistinguishable, cookie-cutter generalists. According to our research, one of the biggest factors for clients choosing an agency is industry-specific expertise, which they define as having 25-50% of the agency’s business in one industry. Differentiate Your Agency (For Real) Although most agencies struggle to stand out, differentiating isn’t as hard as it seems. These four strategies help the most successful agencies split from the pack and [...]

July 21st, 2017|

The Dos and Don’ts of Agency New Business with Lisa Colantuono

"It all begins and ends on chemistry. Everything else in between is absolutely vital, there's no doubt about it, but it begins and ends on chemistry.” My podcast guest, Lisa Colantuono isn’t telling us anything we don’t already know. Chemistry is key to winning any new business opportunity. But how do you influence that chemistry? And how do you come out on the winning side?  Lisa and her team at AAR Partners have figured out a way to research and land those right fit clients so you can count on more new business with every search. Their prospecting tool will put a prospective sweet spot client on your doorstep every time.   Let Lisa and I walk you through what you need to know when it comes to figuring out your agency’s chemistry with: The simple mistakes agencies make in the new business search process Why complacency is a big problem for agencies The importance of continuing to court your current clients Why chemistry is so vital in an agency-client relationship The dos and don’ts of agency new business Prospecting smarter with Lisa’s Four T’s Building relationships by teaching Why you need to know what your agency is -- and isn’t -- good at What to do when executives change (both on client and agency sides) Finding project work for your agency (and growing that into a larger relationship) The danger of coming off as desperate to leads Why you need at least one person whose job is new business The importance of an integrated new business plan Not only does Lisa believe in enduring partnerships that matter, but she actively participates in creating them. Having consulted on and managed agency reviews including Lee Jeans, [...]

July 20th, 2017|

Has Your Agency Lost Its Swagger? Tips for Boosting Your Confidence & Winning New Clients

The recent recession beat the life out of agencies and their owners. We were so busy begging for business and compromising on our rates that, by the time the economy recovered, we had gotten used to acting beholden to our clients. During this, we lost our swagger. Thanks to years of agency struggles, today’s clients and prospects can practically smell desperation during a pitch. To make clients hungry to work with agencies again, we have to stop begging and remind ourselves that we are worth the prices we charge. Bad Times, Good Times Many agencies went through hard times in the late 2000s. I can still remember that sinking feeling when I couldn’t save a client or convert a prospect. I always worried I was going to lose a great employee because I wouldn’t have enough money to keep him or her on the payroll. I know you remember it, too. That drop in your stomach when the phone rang, knowing it was a client about to say he’s canceling his contract or she’s closing shop. Those sleepless nights spent wondering which person you would have to lay off if things didn’t pick up soon. I always felt like the next day would be better and business would pick up soon, but I (like many of us) learned how to be afraid. I spent a long time waiting for that better day to come, and only recently did I realize that the new era has already dawned on us -- and we never noticed until now. How Agencies Get Their Swagger Back The first step toward becoming a confident agency again is recognizing that things are much better today than they were seven years ago. That [...]

July 19th, 2017|

Do You Know Your Prospect’s Secret Process for Choosing an Agency?

All prospects have a unique approach when selecting an agency -- a “secret sauce” he or she uses to evaluate potential partners. Surprised by this? So were we. We just completed a study in which we talked to 500 CMOs and business owners about their decision-making processes when hiring and firing agencies. Not only did we learn more about what a secret sauce for agency selection is, but we also learned the personal recipes of 92% of respondents. And what we learned will dramatically change the way your agency pitches new clients. Why You Need to Know the Secret Sauce If you don’t know your prospect’s secret sauce, you put yourself at a disadvantage from the start. You don’t know what’s important to your prospect or what the client's hot buttons are, so you never know which wrong step will set off a land mine. Why invest time and effort into a pitch you have no chance of winning? It’s better to know a prospect’s secret sauce and decline the interview than to not know, spend weeks perfecting a pitch, and find out that you wasted valuable business hours. Knowing your prospect’s secret sauce allows you to tailor your message to her needs and avoid the strategies or subjects that will strike you off the list. You’re competing with several other agencies that can provide similar services, and to your prospect, you all look more or less the same. Understanding the secret sauce helps you differentiate your business through a deeper connection with your prospect and, in some cases, through preparation for an unusual vetting process. Discovering the Recipe Some prospects scour LinkedIn and other social networks for agency employees and examine their behavior. Some hunt down former clients [...]

July 10th, 2017|

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 [...]

July 3rd, 2017|

The Top Agency Trends of 2017 (Part 2)

Working with 250+ agencies a year gives us a great perspective on the top agency trends that impact (or are going to impact) us all. With that in mind, I hope you were able to listen to podcast episode 85 where I covered the half of the trends that I expect will have the biggest influence on your agency in the next 2-12 months. This solocast will cover the second half of those top agency trends of 2017. This would be a good episode to share with your leadership team because it’s all about the realities we need to be prepared to face in the coming months. Our conversation will cover: Augmented reality and virtual reality: what you need to know about this technology that is coming fast Influencer marketing: connecting your client’s brand with their audience through social influencers who have built an audience around a specific topic Ratings & Reviews: How agencies can turn a profit by solving this problem for existing clients (and how to use it as a door-opener for prospects) Why agencies are developing relationships with more people inside companies than just CMOs Why you need to play nice with the other agencies that you share a client with If you’re not being offered exclusivity, do you need to offer it in return? Selling what you know and what you think instead of “stuff” ROI: why it’s not an optional conversation Why you need to be transparent on your fees Bragworthy benefits like a student loan repayment program 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 [...]

June 29th, 2017|

The Top Agency Trends of 2017 (Part 2), with Drew McLellan.

[easy-social-share buttons=”facebook,twitter,google,linkedin,mail” counters=1 counter_pos=”topm” total_counter_pos=”leftbig” style=”icon_hover”] 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 teams Offering AE bootcamps Conducting individual agency owner coaching Doing on-site consulting Offering online courses in agency new business and account service Because he works with those 250+ agencies every year — he has the unique opportunity to see the patterns and the habits (both good and bad) that happen over and over again. He has also written two books and been featured in The New York Times, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Fortune Small Business. The Wall Street Journal called his blog “One of 10 blogs every entrepreneur should read.”     What you’ll learn about in this episode: Augmented reality and virtual reality: what you need to know about this technology that is coming fast Influencer marketing: connecting your client’s brand with their audience through social influencers who have built an audience around a specific topic Ratings & Reviews: How agencies can turn a profit by solving this problem for existing clients (and how to use it as a door-opener for prospects) Why agencies are developing relationships with more people inside companies than just CMOs Why you need to play nice with the other agencies that you share a client with If you’re not being offered exclusivity, do you need to offer it in return? [...]

June 26th, 2017|

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