Culture is like a hairstyle: Everyone has one, even if they’re bald. You can either pursue a style that accurately reflects your personality, or you can pretend it doesn’t matter and end up looking like Edward Scissorhands. If you haven’t been actively focused on your company culture, it can be hard to see clearly. It’s the [...]
Organizations that don’t have a set of guiding principles find themselves struggling to be consistent and to always be moving towards their bigger picture goals. A lack of defined expectations also makes it difficult for your team to understand what makes an effective leader. If you don’t give them a sense of what the company [...]
Like the Don Draper three-martini lunch, the agency-of-record model is becoming a thing of the past. Big brands like General Motors and PepsiCo are building agency teams rather than trusting one agency to handle all their creative needs. Back when marketing consisted of print, broadcast and PR, a generalist agency could easily handle all of [...]
New business isn’t something most agencies worry about — until it’s too late. Unfortunately, “too late” is often the moment after you’ve lost your biggest client. Every agency owner dreads this moment. After receiving the call, he rallies the leadership team to bring in some money, and the creatives get to work sending out some direct-mail [...]
Agencies are beautiful, chaotic places to work. The nature of creative client work means the agency is always in a state of flux, growing and pivoting as clients do. The ability to adjust quickly is critical to survival, but it makes it all too easy for the agency vision to get lost in the daily [...]
Agencies face all sorts of challenges as they struggle to decide what kinds of clients to serve and what kinds of deliverables to offer, and there are many different types of agencies you can be as well. For this special solocast (it’s our 100th episode!), I want to get you thinking about what kind of [...]
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 [...]
Since the clock struck midnight on Jan. 1, I’ve seen a lot of articles trying to predict the future of agencies. And I’ve uncovered a common theme: Agencies need to be better this year. They need to be faster, smarter, more digitally minded, and more client-focused. But like any New Year’s goals, it isn’t just [...]
For many unemployed young people, the job hunt is a dismal pursuit. Books about resume writing state the importance of “standing out,” but it’s hard to showcase your achievements when everyone around you has comparable triumphs. Even that stellar academic history becomes a minimum requirement when colleges are handing out As at record highs. You’ve listed [...]
“I hate networking.” I can almost hear the collective moan from agency owners when the subject of networking comes up. Most of us think it’s either a waste of time or it makes us feel uncomfortable, like used car salesman uncomfortable. But in today’s world, networking is a necessity. And not just any [...]
