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Search results for: agency management

How to manage and communicate our emotions as leaders with Dr. Roger Hall

I have repeatedly said that many agency owners have earned an MBA in emotional leadership over the last year and a half. It’s been exhausting, frightening, paralyzing, motivating, inspiring, and, at times, you’re simply doing whatever it takes to survive. You’ve done so with grace, authority, enthusiasm, and vision, but I also know that you’re tired and anxious about what’s coming next. The question becomes, how can we best manage and communicate our emotions for the good of our agency, team, and personal well-being? […]

May 17th, 2021|

Have you planned for the unexpected?

When it comes to succession planning, many agency owners think about the eventual closing or sale of their agency. Truth be told, most of you are not really prepping for that day as early or in as detailed a way as you should. You greatly reduce your options when you don’t have a long-range succession plan in place. But sometimes, there is no long-range scenario. Most agency owners have no plan in place for a sudden change — the proverbial hit by the bus scenario. I know it’s not pleasant to think about, but you owe it to your family, your employees, and your clients to have a plan in place. If something unexpected happens to you — your family and team are not going to be in a mental or emotional place to make good decisions. They will be rightfully dealing with the loss. Do not add to their burden by leaving things up in the air. I recorded a video on this topic (I am adding new videos every week on LinkedIn — are we connected there?) that I want to make sure you watch. I know the topic is morbid — but you owe it to those you love, work with, and work for to have a contingency plan in place. I know you get a lot of information coming to you — but please don’t ignore this topic just because you don’t want to think about it. This is far too big a burden to pass onto those you love. Working out the details is going to take you the better part of a year, so set a goal of having this handled by the end of 2021. Do it for [...]

May 14th, 2021|

Are you having the tough conversations?

No one is excited to have a difficult conversation with a key team member. But you choosing to avoid that conversation (I initially wrote your inability to have that conversation but we know it’s not really inability) because it’s uncomfortable can cost your agency so much. In today’s super snug employee recruitment/retention environment — you think you’re tiptoeing around that challenging situation or employee, but the truth is, you’re afraid. Giving in to that fear can cost you some of your best employees, your reputation as an honest (remember those values you preach or have hanging in the agency’s conference room) leader and clients. Leaders who fail to address bad behavior tacitly endorse such behavior to other workers. If one person gets away with late starts or low-key insubordination, your team will emulate the behavior (or think less of the manager who allows it). This is a skill that every agency owner needs to embrace and improve. Entrepreneur Magazine asked me to write about the risks of not being good at the difficult conversations and I did a solocast on the topic with what I hope are some helpful tips. If this is an area of growth for you, please check out the article and the solocast. But beyond that — commit to making this a focus for you in the coming months. This should also be a high priority skill for anyone in your shop who manages other employees. You all have to get better at this. The risks are too great to ignore the consequences of letting this slide.   This was originally published in the weekly AMI newsletter.  To subscribe, click here.

May 7th, 2021|

04/19/21 AMI member only webinar

Thanks for attending the AMI Members only webinar with Adam Pierno.  (Or if you missed it -- here's the replay!)/ Below you'll find the replay video and Adam's deck.  You might also check out his book   https://youtu.be/aSPV72DuuzI   Download the deck here Check out Adam's book here

May 4th, 2021|

How are agencies making money these days?

I get asked some variation of this question every single day. Successful, profitable agency owners ask it. Agency owners that are struggling with having their work commoditized ask it. What they’re really asking me is “what are agencies selling that is profitable” but of course the answer is much more complicated than that. The answer is some agencies are making money selling everything from print ads, brochures, Google Adwords, strategic planning, package design, branding, and everything in between. Other agencies are fighting to hold their head above water, selling the same list of services. It’s not as simple as knowing that clients are hungry to buy crisis communications plans (which they are, btw) and beating the streets with that offer. If your agency is bloated with too many people or your ability to accurately estimate and track a project’s profitability in real time is non-existent, it doesn’t matter what you sell. But, let’s assume you have the right people in the right seats and you have systems in place to make sure you get paid what the project is worth. (Both criteria are topics for another conversation down the road). Now — what’s the short answer to that complicated question? What agencies seem to be able to sell for a premium price these days (in no particular order): Amazon ads and product placement on Amazon Employee recruiting campaigns Direct mail campaigns with a digital overlay Video (ideation, creation, publishing) A paid social media strategy Research and all of the tactics that are borne from those new insights What I think agencies should be selling more of and earning a premium price: The creation and management of a true content strategy where the brand thinks of [...]

April 30th, 2021|

Do you talk to your employees?

I’m guessing when you read that headline, you snorted, rolled your eyes, or made a “duh” expression. I know you converse with your employees but do you actually have meaningful conversations? Here’s what I observe in most agencies. You greet employees as you see them during the day You have “as you run by them in the hallway” conversations which are 50% social and 50% functional in which you drop little bombs (updates, facts, commentary) on work in progress You have info passing email conversations But most of you are not setting aside time to actually dig in. Here’s what can and should happen on a regular basis: You’re teaching as you explain decisions and reactions to client requests, changes, strategies You’re learning where they’d like to invest their time in terms of learning something new and adding more value You’re giving them an opportunity to give you a heads up on potential client and team issues You’re coaching them through new challenges they’re facing You’re celebrating their growth, their wins, and their best attempts All of this can be accomplished in a 20 minute one-on-one meeting with your direct reports. Every employee should have one at least twice a month, if not more often. This is a meeting that the employee owns. There are huge benefits to you, the owner or leader of the agency as well. Fewer interruptions throughout the week (they’ll learn to save it for their one-on-one) Employees that are fired up to keep learning and understand that it’s part of their job An early warning when trouble is brewing Better employee retention (they want more of your time and attention) A much more accurate sense of what’s going on in [...]

April 23rd, 2021|

Influencer Marketing

Influencer Marketing is not new. In this episode — we discuss rethinking what it means to be an influencer and tracking Influencer Marketing ROI. Influencer Marketing is a bit of the wild west and we’ve all heard the horror stories. That’s why many agencies and brands have shied away from Influencer Marketing. What if you could sidestep the risks while maximizing the credibility and trust that the right influencer can bring to our clients? Jason Falls wrote his latest book Winfluence, Reframing Influencer Marketing to Ignite Your Brand, to help agencies re-think this important opportunity. He’s been an agency leader for many years, owned social media properties, and created an influential blog in the marketing space. Jason believes that if we redefine who we think of as an influencer, we can change the game. In this episode of Build a Better Agency, Jason and I dig into his version of influencer marketing. We discuss how we need to rethink what it means to be an influencer and why it doesn’t need the celebrity stamp that so many people associate with the word. Among other things, we look at the various ways influencers can work both online and off, where agencies miss the mark with these campaigns, and how to measure and track ROI for influencer marketing. A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here. What You Will Learn About Influencer Marketing In This Episode: Why we need to rethink the definition of Influencer Marketing Examples of off-line influencers Where agencies [...]

April 19th, 2021|

How to level up your leadership trust with David Horsager

Trust. It’s always been at the core of running and leading your agency. If our teams don’t trust us, they don’t follow us. If our prospects don’t trust us, they don’t hire us. And if our clients lose trust in us, we lose them. The challenge is – how do you know if you’re trusted? You can’t just point blank ask. If an employee doesn’t trust you, they sure as heck aren’t going to say so. And even if you are trusted – how do you level up to an even deeper degree of trust with your team, clients, and prospects? […]

April 12th, 2021|

We should be better communicators

I’m betting you have said on more than one occasion, “isn’t it funny, given what we do for a living, that we aren’t better communicators?” And you’re right it is funny in an ironic, funny way. But definitely not in a laugh all the way to the bank sort of way. In my work with agency owners and leadership teams, there is almost always a broken line of communication. It can come in many shapes and sizes. It can be a situation where Bob said something 10 years ago and Babette is still clinging to it like it’s gospel even though Bob has long since changed his thinking on the issue. Or Babette made a big announcement at a state of the agency meeting three months ago and is surprised that no one accurately remembers the details. Or Bob made a statement and no one asked any clarifying questions so all kinds of assumptions were made and held for way too long. You know, from your work with clients, that this is not an issue that in unique to agencies. It’s a challenge in every organization. But in small to mid-sized agencies, it can be a killer. It can cause people to shut down, quit, or make a mistake that costs you serious money. How do we solve it? We don’t shortcut the messaging — we may have been thinking about some aspect of the business for awhile, but our team has not had the benefit of walking that path with us. We need to give them the back story and all of the supporting information so they can fully understand the core idea. We can model asking clarifying questions — you know that it [...]

April 2nd, 2021|

Niche Criteria

In our book, Sell with Authority, my co-author Stephen Woessner and I talk about the power of being a subject matter expert when trying to attract and win business.  If you've owned your agency for more than a month, you've heard the argument for specialization or niching. Many agency owners tell me that one of the reasons why they haven't niched is because they don't know which niche to choose.  I was working through this issue with an agency's leadership team and decided we needed a way to look at the issue more objectively. So I took all that I know about what works for agencies in terms of deciding on and being successful as a specialist and created a tool.  It's not super sexy but it really does the trick. Feel free to modify it as needed but it should help you get the clarity you need.  Now the courage  to do it -- that's a different conversation we should have. First Name * Last Name * Email * Submit

April 1st, 2021|

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