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What’s Your 2022 Plan?

I know some of your are still hustling to make 2021 as profitable as possible, but it’s time for you to begin thinking about 2022 and your plan of attack once the holidays are past.   As I always do this time of year, I’d like to suggest that you complete the AMI One Page Business Plan.  It’s a straightforward document that forces you to really narrow your focus and just identify the biggest barriers (or opportunities) to an incredible year ahead.  Most of you won’t take up the challenge but for those of you who will — you can have a shared clarity and get everyone on your team ready to pull in the same direction. Agencies that use the one page business plan as their roadmap for the year report better numbers, stronger teams and resilient client relationships.   But before you do that, I want you to complete the Agency Owner Life Plan.  This one looks simple, but honestly, it’s not.  It asks some tough questions but it supports my strong belief that the agency should serve your life’s goals and purpose.  Otherwise, why take the risk?  Yes, I want your agency to be more profitable in 2022.  Yes, I want you to be innovative and score some amazing new clients.  But more than that — I want you to feel like your work is supporting your life and life goals.  I want you to feel like you are contributing.  I want you to be happy and fulfilled. These tools will help you take a big step in that direction.  I hope you’ll make the time. Grab both plans and the link to the podcast that will walk you through them both here.   [...]

December 24th, 2021|

Are your clients thankful for you?

In a previous newsletter I told you about a business partner that was making it tough to love them because we were paying the price for their growth through mistakes, lack of attention to detail, and dropped balls. That triggered a series of emails from some of our other partners who asked, “was that about us?”  The answer in all cases was no because I had forewarned the partner who inspired the article so they already knew.  But the fact that so many had to ask got me thinking. A few thoughts…  If you aren’t 100% positive that your clients are happy, you should ask.  Ideally, through a third-party who can get past the “I don’t want to hurt your feelings” stage but even if you ask them yourself — don’t wait until you get some hint of trouble like a purposefully vague newsletter article. When you hear “everything is okay” the translation is everything is actually not okay.  It means there’s room for improvement. You’re at risk if you are okay.  Dig deeper into any “okay” or “fine” responses you get. You want an ecstatic response, not a lukewarm one.  Okay is lukewarm at best. As Maya Angelou said: “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”   Man, does that matter.  You can do everything well or right and if your client doesn’t believe you genuinely care about them and their business, it isn’t enough.  On the flip side — when your client does know how much you care, you earn a lot of grace for when things do not go according to plan. Does your [...]

December 17th, 2021|

Be vigilant against complacency with Len Herstein

When things are going well in our agencies and our personal lives, it’s easy to relax into the comfort of that success. One of the risks of that comfort is missing the signs that trouble is brewing below the surface. There’s a difference between living in fear and anticipating challenges. No one is suggesting we live a life of paranoia where we’re constantly waiting for things to fall apart, but a vigilant approach to life and business can help us steer clear of troubled waters before we’re knee-deep in them. […]

December 13th, 2021|

Research 2021

2021: How over 1,200 agency clients are operating during an economic boom post-COVID As we planned our 2021 study in the spring of 2020, it seemed clear that the United States was moving out of the pandemic and into a period of economic resurgence. The first COVID-19 vaccinations were administered in December 2020, and by mid-April, all US states had made vaccines available for residents 16 and over. U.S. economic growth surged in the first half of 2021, reaching 100% of pre-pandemic levels in July. However, during that same month, COVID-19 cases began increasing due to the highly contagious Delta variant, and it was clear America wasn’t out of the woods yet. In addition, the Great Resignation in which millions of American workers left their jobs to pursue more money, more security, more flexibility or just to reconsider their work/life balance had gained steam in early 2021, with over 4 million workers leaving their jobs in April alone. Our 2021 study, fielded in the first half of July, reflects both the hope, enthusiasm, and lingering concerns of this critical juncture that became the hallmarks of the year. Fill out the form to download the 14-page executive summary. This statistically valid study is brought to you by Download Free Report Enter your email address to get this free report. Email * Get Your Report! Your information will never be shared or sold to a 3rd party.

November 18th, 2021|

Creating Systems That Your Team Will Actually Use

If you're a busy agency owner like myself, you know that systems are so important, but likely the last thing on the never-ending to-do list.  My secret sauce? Standard Operating Procedures (living, breathing documents) so that at any point in time, your team can hand over the SOP to someone else on the team and they can jump into the role no problem. But, where to start?  Here are some of my top tips to get started on building systems your team will love, and actually use:  Sharpen up your client onboarding system. How do you hand over a new client from sales to client manager? If you're shaking your head, I'd recommend peeking at what your workflow looks like. Of course, there will be clients that need to have specialized onboarding, but for most, it's the same! What are the assets you need? The briefing docs? The email templates? Workflow that into your systems so it's not stressful to onboard a new client. And bonus— it'll allow your team to scale quicker because you have your team confident and waiting on the other side of that sales call. Get a copy of our Client Onboarding Checklist here. Who's responsible for what? This is a super important element to any agency, and it's really important in understanding the roles within your team! This is key to getting buy-in from your team so they’ll actually want to use these systems! Who's responsible for sending the client onboarding package? Who's sending reports? The definition of each team members' role should be identified in an org chart or job description so it's super clear.  Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) Documents. When you create these documents, share them with each [...]

November 15th, 2021|

Winning the long game with Dorie Clark

As agency owners and leaders, we all want to succeed at the long game. We plan and work with the hope that it will lead to long-term success. But it can be difficult to hang in there when faced with uncertainty, and we constantly wonder which bets are going to pay off and when we need to pivot. Fear can paralyze us or force us to make decisions that undermine a potential payoff because it all feels a bit like a guessing game. […]

November 15th, 2021|

Building a client-focused community with Pam Slim

Putting yourself in the center of a community is a powerful tool for any agency owner, but that just scratches the surface of what is possible — if you make one small tweak. Imagine putting your client at the center of a community instead of yourself. An ecosystem of businesses, experts, and tools, all designed to help your clients become even more successful. This shift allows us to completely redesign how many of us think about biz dev and how best to serve our audience. And this is also how we can keep leveling up without having to know it all ourselves. […]

November 8th, 2021|

If you win them all, you’re not playing in the right league

If we’ve ever met or you’ve ever watched any of our weekly videos, you know that I love baseball.  For those of you who think it’s boring or slow — we should chat. But stick with me through the analogy.  Ty Cobb ended his baseball career in 1928 with a career batting average of .366 over 24 seasons.  That’s the highest career batting average of any baseball player in the games history.  Other players, like Ted Williams have had single seasons that were higher (Ted Williams — .406 in 1941) but you get my point.  The absolute best professionals in the field were successful less than 50% of the time.  Because it’s hard to hit a tiny little ball that is being hurled at you at 90 MPH.  It’s equally hard for agencies to win new clients. Ted or Ty would have been a rec softball team’s dream player.  And they would have ruled the league because they were too good to play there. If you tell me (which many of you do) “if we can get in the room, we always walk away with the business,” I’m going to suggest you set your sites higher.   You are playing rec softball and you’re good enough to play in the big leagues. (It could be the client is too small, your prices are too low or some other factor). But if you’re in the middle of a losing streak (which every single agency experiences sooner or later)  the way to get out of that slump is to keep getting up to bat. I say that flippantly but I want you to know (because my agency has been through slumps too) that I get how difficult [...]

November 5th, 2021|

R&D tax credits available to agencies with Mike D’Alessandro

The federal government and 36 of 50 states in the U.S. have research and development tax credits that many agency owners incorrectly believe our agencies are not eligible to receive. In reality, many AMI agencies take full advantage of these credits, sometimes earning back in excess of $100,000 a year. Needless to say, it’s important for your agency to explore whether or not you are eligible for these benefits because the impact on your bottom line could be a huge win. […]

November 1st, 2021|

Building a DEI policy that works with Nikki McCord

The conversation of diversity, equity, and inclusion and DEI policy creation is something on the minds of many agency owners. How to tackle such a delicate and complicated topic can be overwhelming and confusing. The fear of getting it wrong or not doing enough can lead to no action at all, which we can all agree does nothing to further the cause. But how exactly do we begin and how do we get it right? […]

October 25th, 2021|

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