My guest, Jami Oetting has seen both sides of agency life and is with me on this podcast to discuss new business development for agencies. She worked as a strategist at a full-service agency before deciding that she really liked reporting on what agencies are up to more than living it day-to-day. As the editor [...]
Everyone talks about digging into your clients’ issues and discovering “ what keeps them up at night.” But are you really doing that? Is your staff trained to do that? Doing so makes your agency better at innovation and strategy – which is what clients are hungry for, according to the research AMI does with CMOs every [...]
A potential client asks you to describe your agency. How do you communicate your compelling value proposition to the client and differentiate your agency from others? Quick – what makes you stand out in the agency crowd? Do you find yourself using words like full service, strategic, creative? Or maybe you say, “We partner with [...]
Can you run an agency without any employees? You're about to find out. Recently I received an email which in essence asked how feasible it was to run an agency without employees. I thought it was a worthy discussion to share here. Here's the question I was asked: In the last year or so I've [...]
What are business processes and systems? Most business owners flinch at these words but the truth is that your agency cannot grow/scale without both. Processes and systems actually increase the ability to be creative by freeing your team from re-inventing the wheel every time they’re trying to get something done. That’s exactly what my podcast [...]
Agency owners are creative by nature and as such, our minds are churning 24/7 with ideas and new initiatives we want to experiment with and implement. But which ones are worthwhile? What should we pursue and what should we skip over? It’s helpful to have a sounding board to explore these potential directions before you [...]
Integrating both marketing and customer service is extremely important to effectively running your business. But do you know exactly how important it is? I’m not sure you do. Imagine working for a company that actually has a position called your Director of Customer Experience. Now that’s a company to watch. Now, imagine if the Director [...]
I recently had an AMI agency ask me which 2016 content management conferences for agencies I would recommend they consider putting into the budget. First -- bravo to the agency for actually baking professional development into their budget. Most agencies underspend in this area and it costs them their best talent. A recent survey showed [...]
What do CMOs and other decision makers say is the final decision point when it comes to hiring an agency? Chemistry. Many agencies believe that chemistry is not really in their control but actually, there are definitely some things you can do to connect at that level. In a recent podcast, I had a conversation [...]
You look at your employees and you see what’s possible. They’re capable of even more. But what’s in the way of coaching and mentoring employees so that they can get there? There are lots of reasons, but the biggest one is you. You have to make the time for coaching and mentoring employees if you ever [...]
