Project Management That Drives Profit with Rachel Gertz

Drew McLellan [00:00:37]:

Hey everybody. Drew Mclellan here with another episode of Build a Better Agency. Super excited about this guest and this topic. So there are some topics that just come up over and over and over again and we just hear about them pretty consistently. And one of them is all of the miscommunication around what a project manager is and does and what project management does inside an agency and what they shouldn’t do. So for some agencies, a project manager is like an entry level position, like a junior account exec. And for others, it is a new label or title for a production manager or a traffic manager. And that’s really the role we’re going to talk about is today, is the project manager somebody who’s actually helping run the operational side of the business, making sure that work comes in and goes out on time and on budget. And so I have been talking to a lot of people about this, and one of the professionals who has helped many, many agencies over the years sort of get their act together around how to create a project management system, what kind of a person to have in the role, what that role can mean to an agency, is a consultant named Rachel Gertz. And so I am super excited to have her on the show today and have her talk to us a little bit about sort of what project management looks like, what it could be, what it should be, and how we can embrace that role in our agencies. You know, if you’re an agency of 10, 12 people, it might be a luxury, but you get north of 15, close to 20, and it’s pretty much, in today’s world, a necessity. And so getting it right is really mission critical to your profitability and your efficiency and sort of the utilization of your team. And so I know this is an important topic that you’re going to lean into and I think you’re really going to enjoy learning from Rachel. So let’s welcome her to the show. Rachel, welcome to the podcast. It’s taken us a while to make this happen. I’m glad to have you on the show.

Rachel Gertz [00:02:30]:

It’s so good to see you, Drew. How you doing?

Drew McLellan [00:02:33]:

I’m good. So for folks who may not be familiar with you or your work, Give everybody a little bit of sort of your background and history of how you work with digital agencies.

Rachel Gertz [00:02:43]:

Absolutely. Yeah. So it’s been like 15, 16 years now. And originally started out as a trained educator, teacher, and I think we have that in common, don’t we?

Drew McLellan [00:02:51]:

Do. Yeah. I’m not trained, but I teach for sure. Yeah.

Rachel Gertz [00:02:55]:

Yeah, absolutely Right. And so my passion for taking complex concepts and turning them into just simple, actionable things that connect with the heart, I think has always been a thing I’ve cared about. I converted that into project management, operations, training, support, consultation. And I’m doing that because I love seeing folks eyes light up when they realize that when you put a container around something and the safety of getting things done, it’s like anything can happen. You can do anything you want.

Drew McLellan [00:03:27]:

Yeah, it’s interesting. You know, we were talking before we hit the record button about the power of constraints and that when we actually have a. I think agency owners and many agency employees, we don’t like rules, we don’t like systems. Like, the S word to us is systems. Right.

Rachel Gertz [00:03:42]:

Yeah.

Drew McLellan [00:03:43]:

We want to be free. We want to create. And we miss the reality that constraints actually remove a lot of sort of the static in our head and allow us to truly focus on the creation of our work, whatever that kind of work is. And so it’s always interesting to me to watch agencies resist project management systems or processes or operational improvements because it feels like a rule that they have to follow, as opposed to, as you put it, sort of a container that nicely nestles them in a safe place where they can really create. Create at a different volume and depth.

Rachel Gertz [00:04:25]:

Totally. I’ll actually never forget, like, one of my first agency jobs. The idea was kind of told, like, process is a meat grinder, and we don’t want to put anyone or anything through a meat grinder. And it was so interesting to me because, you know, my brain would always take things that were different and put them together. And so for me, I was like, oh, wait, but if we are able to say what we mean and ask for what we need and clarify our meaning, that is process and that is safety. So that is freedom to me. And I think that that’s something that has kind of changed my approach and I think my tune on operations, and I think there’s a lot of softness in that that people may not realize.

Drew McLellan [00:05:10]:

Yeah. And actually it’s sort of an oxymoron, but the systems and processes actually give you freedom. It feels like it doesn’t, but it really does do that. So in your work with. I have so many questions to ask you because this is such a. It’s such an important topic. And I know a lot of what we’ll talk about are sort of specifically around the idea of a project manager and what that role is. But before we get there, how do you help clients? So, you know, everyone listening owns an agency or plays a leadership role in an agency somewhere in the world. So they’re all struggling with the pace of change keeping up. You know, I can remember when it was perfectly acceptable to take a month. Now this ages me for sure. But back in the day, a month to get a print ad done for a client because you had to send out for type and you had to do like there was just so many natural constraints in the timeline that we don’t have now. So how do you help agency owners and leaders wrap their head around the idea of that there is value in an operational or a project management system? How do you get them, from the meat grinder analogy right to. I actually am hungry for this because I think it will allow us to do better work on behalf of our client. Yeah.

Rachel Gertz [00:06:32]:

I think, I mean, a big part of this is once they understand that when you, when you think about a system, like, we’re all systems, right? Like organisms, we have inputs and outputs. What you put in there gets transferred, formed, and then you get something on the other side. When we take a look at an agency system, regardless of what type of agency run more or less, there are going to be the levers and dials of the business, right?

Drew McLellan [00:06:56]:

Yeah.

Rachel Gertz [00:06:56]:

And so I think part of it becomes like, even in the creativity that you have to create the outcomes that you care about, you’re going to still need to just know how the levers and the dials of your business work. And for me, project management is kind of the superglue of the entire organism structure.

Drew McLellan [00:07:16]:

Right.

Rachel Gertz [00:07:16]:

You have your sales engine, your marketing engine, and your operations engine. And in a way, project management is able to kind of tie all of these pieces together. It’s at the forefront of like, financial stability. Right. So what I, what I like to do is once folks kind of click into how these levers and dials work, which is actually pretty straightforward. And for most businesses in general, you’re going to have like the limits on what do you dial up, dial down, switch on, switch off, or, you know, something like that. Then I just love to inject. It’s like the heart and soul of project management, which is basically it’s how are you going to have that tough conversation with a client who is coming in hot? You want to be able to support them. And they’re also asking for the impossible.

Drew McLellan [00:08:04]:

Yeah.

Rachel Gertz [00:08:04]:

They’re asking for something to be done in, you know, months or weeks less than you can. Can offer that. And I think when you start to wrap, I almost had a metaphor of, like, wrapping meat around, like a bone structure, but I don’t know if I want to go in that direction. But if you start to wrap the softness around the structure, you can see that there is almost like this art form to that communication piece that layers on top of a container for the safety to get the work done. And I love balancing those two. Those two types of elements. I think it’s magic when it’s done correctly.

Drew McLellan [00:08:42]:

Yeah. I think it’s so challenging today. When we do something today for a client, the very first draft looks like it could go to market. Right. And so I think the idea of buying ourselves time to really be thoughtful and to let things soak a little bit and to improve and iterate, I think that’s challenging for agencies today. And I think a system or process that bakes in some of that is actually an amazing safety net for an agency. Right. It. It keeps us from doing mediocre work. We all give the speech, you know, you got to get out the bad ideas before you get to the good ideas and all of that. But the reality is, the pace of our work often doesn’t let us get past the bad idea. Yeah, right. The mundane idea, maybe it’s not bad, but it’s expected or it’s been done before, or it’s just not as insightful. And so one of the things that I love about a good operational or project management system is that it can, when built with thought, give us time to actually be better at our craft.

Rachel Gertz [00:09:52]:

Mm. Oh, yeah. And you’re making me think, too. Like, oftentimes folks will, like agency owners, directors, even project leads, or like directors of pm. They’ll approach me and they’ll sort of think that I can just fix the tool that they’re using, and that tool will be the replacement for the entire operational system. And I actually find that interesting to me, because, yes, a tool that you need a tool to be able to operate anything, but a tool is a tool is a tool. And it’s like, that’s the tiniest part of what project management operations is. I don’t even know if the average bear knows. It’s not even just about getting tasks done. Or a lot of times the folks that are running projects will kind of be put into a box of like, like a coordinator type role where they’re just moving work from A to B. But like project management operations, that is a whole level above that, right? Like that’s like units of work. How you get the work done, how you have the conversations about the work, how do you report on the work, how do you make sure you have the right amount of work. Like it’s so much different than what people think it is. And I do think there’s so much room for this system to come in and take, you know, like everyone’s talking about automation. It’s like take the thinking work and put it where it needs to go and automate the parts of your business that can be automated so you can do the iterating that you need to do.

Drew McLellan [00:11:18]:

Right? I think you’re right. I think a lot of people. First of all, two things. One, by the time the agency has gone through the third project management software in two years and none of them worked right, and it’s all the software’s problem. I’m like, okay, let’s. What is the constant here?

Rachel Gertz [00:11:35]:

Right?

Drew McLellan [00:11:35]:

It’s not the software, right? No. And so I think it’s so easy to get, especially today, to get enamored with the user interface of the software. And you know, all the things that we don’t actually do, what we have to do first, which is how do we want this to work regardless of the tool, like what are we trying to accomplish and what does success look like in a variety of scenarios. And then the reality is, and you have a much deeper knowledge of this than I do, I think all the tools kind of do the same stuff. Yeah, right. And so whether you pick Software A or Software B or Software C, none of them are going to be perfect. There are going to be parts that you don’t like about all of them. But for the most part, 85 to 90% of the sort of functional work is the same. Right. And when you know what the outcome is before you start evaluating the software, you can then nuance the last 5, 10, 15% to get as close to what you want as possible. But it’s not gonna magically garbage in, garbage out. If you don’t have a, if you don’t have a vision, you don’t really know what you’re trying to accomplish. And to your point, it’s not about just checking the boxes of getting stuff done. It’s really about resource management. It’s about Talent management. It’s about making sure everybody has variety in their work so they stay engaged. It’s about all of these really nuanced, important stuff. If you don’t start with that, then I guarantee whatever tool you pick, it’s the wrong tool.

Rachel Gertz [00:13:14]:

Yeah, yeah. You’re not going to get the data you need anyway. Most folks come to me and they’re like, I need a forecast, I need a three to six month forecast and I can’t see anything. The work is moving so quickly. The bars keep shifting, the timelines keep moving. The capacity is never predictable with the staff members. And it’s like. Yeah, because we have to systematize that. Right. If you can bucket work and you can bring about like a normal cadence for that work, where you have days where you’re not in meetings or you have days where you have launches and days where you don’t, you have maybe a fast, slow cadence with some projects or a big little cadence with other projects, that’s how you create clarity. That’s how you get your forecasts. You will use the tool to then see that. But that is not going to fix your problem no matter what tooling is.

Drew McLellan [00:14:07]:

Right. So why do you think we get it so wrong? Because when you describe that, it’s logical, it makes perfect sense. Everybody listening has always said, has uttered the phrase garbage in, garbage out. Maybe not about their own business, but about some aspect of life. So why is this so hard for us to understand?

Rachel Gertz [00:14:26]:

I honestly do. I don’t know how many folks running agencies or being in agencies actually get exposure to what, what a healthy system looks like. Like, it’s not. You can, you can read about it, but in terms of like, how many projects can you run through, how many clients should you have? What is the dilution factor if you start bringing about work that is not profitable? I don’t know if the average bear is able to internalize that right off the bat. It’s something you actually have to learn over time or you have to bring someone in to actually help you understand there are constraints to the pipeline that you have available to you. If you try to push work too fast or too slow or it’s too much. Thank you. Yeah. You’re going to be putting that system to its breaking point. And I think in systems dynamics, like, one of the things I find most fascinating is that like, I think it’s like 95% of our systems around us and think anything where you have multiple stages or steps or phases, anything around us is a system, 95% of them. Failure mode and they’re still hobbling. They’re getting by, but they’re not doing great. So there’s so much opportunity there for just like, getting a sense of what is healthy.

Drew McLellan [00:15:44]:

So before we get into how to do it, what would healthy feel like? If I’m in an agency that has a healthy operational project management system, how would I know? Like, what would I see or feel or know that I don’t see, feel, or know now?

Rachel Gertz [00:16:01]:

Yes. Well, when most folks come to me, this is the common thing that I hear all the time. It doesn’t look like we’re that busy on paper, but my PMS or my delivery team, they just are so stressed out, they’re burnt out, they’re leaving all the time. We can never keep our staff and we’re so tired. But it doesn’t look like we’re busy and we don’t have maybe that many.

Drew McLellan [00:16:27]:

Projects or we’re not making the kind of money we should be making if we were this busy. Right. Like, if. If I have 40 people on my team and they’re all billable at the appropriate amount, there should be a lot more money at the bottom line.

Rachel Gertz [00:16:41]:

Yes. So that sense of busyness is very difficult to sort of investigate when you’re not sure where it’s coming from. And it tends to format itself in a way that is, let’s say, at times, a distrust of delivery. Right. It’s kind of like a sales versus delivery thing. It’s like, well, I don’t understand why. Right. Work is coming in, but it doesn’t look like it’s actually. It’s actually being managed or being profitable. So the opposite is a feeling of fl. The opposite is having breaks and buffers between projects, starts and stops so that you can catch your breath. Having predictable workflows where you’re not like, oh, I have an endless task list. Great. No, you have an actual list of amount of work that’s been prioritized. And you have the autonomy to choose the work you want to work on. And you also know how to prioritize between projects. And you can actually launch something in a given time period, like maybe a week, maybe two, but you’re actually getting towards something that feels like, I have created a value exchange here. Not only that, you have the ability to have time to talk with your colleagues and build relationship connection. You’re not just in meetings from the beginning of a day to the end of the day now, I guess, remote and hybrid. Obviously, if you want connection, that can make it a little challenging. Not to be in a meeting. But you have time to learn and time to grow. And I mean, I always look at this. So in North America, you know, the average agency is giving, like, anywhere from like, two to maybe four. I don’t know. What do you see for time off? Like, two to four weeks, maybe max 85. If you’re.

Drew McLellan [00:18:21]:

I think here in the States, it’s probably not counting holidays. I’m gonna say three to five.

Rachel Gertz [00:18:28]:

Okay. Yeah, that sounds about right. From what I’m.

Drew McLellan [00:18:31]:

I think a lot of people don’t take it all. They have it. Yeah, but they don’t take it. Right.

Rachel Gertz [00:18:35]:

An ending vacation is, like, the worst invention. No one takes any of it.

Drew McLellan [00:18:39]:

Right.

Rachel Gertz [00:18:40]:

But if I look at Europe and how Europe functions, the majority of Europe, they could take two months, three months off, and they’re doing fine. They’re still operating efficiently. So I think the thing is, yes, there’s going to be pressure in a system always. We’re going to be in a commoditized industry always. And at the same time, there are so many ways to go about creating value exchange and actually generating this sense of peace in the work that is outside of that scarcity mindset.

Drew McLellan [00:19:13]:

Yeah, that sounds nice. All right.

Rachel Gertz [00:19:15]:

Yeah.

Drew McLellan [00:19:15]:

So let’s take a break, and when we come back, we’re going to talk about how do we start to think about going from the state we’re in now to the state you just described? Hey, everybody. Just want to remind you before we get back to the show that we have a very engaged Facebook group. It’s a private group just for podcast listeners and agency owners that are in the AMI community. And to find it, if you’re not a member, head over to facebook.com groups podcast. So again, facebook.com groups bab podcast. All you have to do is answer a few questions to make sure that you are an actual agency owner or leader. And we will let you right in. And you can join over 1700 other agency owners and leaders. And I’m telling you, there’s probably 10 or 15 conversations that are started every day that are going to be of value to you. So come join us. All right, we’re back, and we’re talking to Rachel Gertz, and we’re talking about project management, operational systems, the power of constraint, the freedom of feeling like you have control, that you have a sense of not only what’s happening now, but you can look into the future and see what’s coming around the pike and that you’ve planned for it. It’s not a panic. Or a oh my God, we’re, you know, we’re good this week, but we’re screwed next week kind of a feeling. But it’s just that sense of that there is a flow and a process. So if an agency heard you describe that and say have no idea what that feels like, don’t know that, how do they begin to explore moving from where they are now, wherever that may be. Google Sheets, Excel document, fill in the blank of the project management software. But whatever tool they’re using isn’t giving them what you just described.

Rachel Gertz [00:21:05]:

Yeah.

Drew McLellan [00:21:06]:

How do they take a step back and do it different?

Rachel Gertz [00:21:10]:

I think that they need to zoom out and look at the fact that, you know, there’s sort of the sales and the operations that are hooking together. And so sales job, when I look at it, is basically bringing in profitable work. A project management job is to keep it that way. Right. So it’s a tango, it’s got to work arm in arm. There’s a natural tension point throughout that, you know, taking beautiful ideas that are developed maybe during the sales phase. And even I will, I will have something to say about this, about when we are generating ideas for sales and then actually committing to reality within the constraints of time, energy, space, all of those things, budget. So if agencies can zoom out then first of all what you’ll notice is that probably 80% of your issues are the sales to hand to PM and delivery handover process. The 8020 Pareto principle there. You fix your handovers, you’re going to fix a lot of your issues.

Drew McLellan [00:22:09]:

So what’s broken in that handoff from sales to production?

Rachel Gertz [00:22:13]:

Yes. Okay. So the first thing that I see is that sales is usually diving right into the middle of the relationship instead of starting at the beginning of the relationship. There’s natural pressure for sales to close. Right. And especially now with the sales cycles dragging out months and months and sometimes even a year more.

Drew McLellan [00:22:31]:

Right.

Rachel Gertz [00:22:31]:

Sales feels pressure to try to get a shape and crystallize a deal. And I understand that what can happen instead is if sales comes in with more curiosity, a business that is reaching out to someone in an agency world like they hire us because we are able to actually we understand the technology we’re using. We’re at the bleeding edge in most cases of like the direction they need to go to take their business and either push sales, push marketing or push something else in it. So if we become more of almost like a consultant type mind to them, what we would do is we’re zooming out and we’re looking at how do I create business value for this client that I’m actually working with instead of how am I solving the problem that you’re coming to me with? Right. We’re kind of reframing the issue and slowing down. Like do, maybe do a business canvas, like have some proper conversations early on where you’re not just saying great, then this problem is what we’re trying to solve. And here’s the price for solving that problem. Because what that does is immediately shortcut the problem solving thing, this double diamond of like what is the actual issue? And then trying to figure out the solution, which is something that, I mean, you should be paid to do that. That’s your, your strategy, that’s your, your brain work. Right?

Drew McLellan [00:23:50]:

Well, and it, it is the one thing that no tool or technology can replace us in. Right?

Rachel Gertz [00:23:56]:

Exactly. So far we are good on that one.

Drew McLellan [00:23:58]:

Right? That’s right.

Rachel Gertz [00:23:59]:

Yeah. And I think too, like, if you think about that, what ends up happening is that then sales will sort of push that solution and do a kind of sloppy handover to the project management delivery team where sometimes there’s like no introductions to who’s running the project. There’s no actual handover meeting where you have to, you have to like flip the communication style. Instead of a salesperson talking at you and pushing all of the information at you. As a delivery team, you need to pull the information out in a way that makes sense to you. Right. You have to be able to reframe questions, you have to put them down in an order that makes sense to you. You also have to make sure that like the conversations you’re having don’t leave room for ambiguity. So you have to, I would say like, I would recommend like a PM lead or even a subject matter expert and a PM lead coming in after the first sales call if there is an actual client fit. Because I look at it as like, first call is like, is this client even a fit? Second call, is the project even remotely a fit? And then maybe there’s follow up calls to like kind of whittling down, like what are we talking about in terms of what we’re agreeing to? And so usually what I recommend, and I’m sure this is no surprise to you or any of the audience members, it’s like get paid for the research that you’re doing. And actually those are easier to size in terms of scope. You have a small discovery, a medium discovery or a large discovery. And the steps in those are going to be generally the same. To get to that final piece that then allows you to scope the project.

Drew McLellan [00:25:30]:

Right.

Rachel Gertz [00:25:31]:

Yeah.

Drew McLellan [00:25:32]:

So are you saying that the handoff is broken because the sales team determines what the clients need prior to a discovery, Sort of prescribes a solution with modicum of detail, but perhaps not enough knowledge or detail.

Rachel Gertz [00:25:51]:

Yeah.

Drew McLellan [00:25:52]:

And then when we hand it off to the project manager and they actually do the discovery, they’re like, oh, no, that thing we sold them is not actually what they need. Or we sold them a little one, but they need a ginormous one. But they’ve already committed to the budget, they’ve already signed the project authorization, and now we’re stuck in. Either we’re going to give them a little one, which is what they’re buying, which isn’t going to work, but we’ll be profitable. But we’re only going to get this one project because it’s not going to work, or we’re going to do this as a loss leader. This is a foot in the door. We’re going to give them a ginormous one for a tiny little budget. We’re going to lose our shirt, and we’re going to hope they understand that we can’t keep doing that because then everyone has to feed their children ramen noodles every day. Right.

Rachel Gertz [00:26:42]:

You just nailed it. I probably couldn’t have said that better. Like, just absolutely. That, hands down, is what. When folks come to me and they’re like, help me. And I ask those questions, that is what I learned. That is what I find out. And it’s so painful to watch that happening because the pressure to close. I understand that as a person who operates with the sales head as well. Right. This is something that, like, absolutely feels like a scarcity mindset. We have to close, we have to feed the engine, we have to do all of these things. And at the same time, if you actually slow down to ask the right questions, you guarantee if they’re talking to three other agencies and those other agencies are promising something like that, they’re also going to be eating their shirts or hats or whatever. Right. Item of clothing they want. So I think that part of it is like, you know, if you’re looking at like your blue ocean strategy versus your red, you’re trying to think about this, like, what are the things that if I’m in. I, meaning if leadership is in their zone of genius, it’s like actually separating you out from the average agency out there. What’s the thing that you know that you could help them do that would actually make your lives easier? So that’s where the Project management piece converts almost into this operational upsell. Because if PMs are really good at being like, oh, I’m noticing that it’s really tough to find meeting times that work for you. You know, we, we could help you set like a, like a milestone calendar on your side and actually help you work through some of the deliverable work back schedules on your side that can actually help your client. And they might be like, at first, they might be like, I don’t know, we don’t need that, we don’t need pm. But PM is actually vital to the success of your project launch. So if you use phrasing like that, yeah, we can tank it. We don’t need to include it. But are you okay if your project fails? Because it will, you know, like that kind of confidence, right? Yeah.

Drew McLellan [00:28:38]:

So what we talked about is precursor to any project management system or process or tool. It’s really about, it’s interesting our conversation is around project management, but really what we’re talking about is the teeing up of the project to begin with and really scoping that project appropriately, which is hard to do without some sort of discovery.

Rachel Gertz [00:29:08]:

Yeah, it’s, it’s virtually impossible. I mean, okay, the, the one exception I’ll say is that if you have projects that you’ve done them a thousand times over, they don’t change, you know, the ins and outs. You can pretty productize what you’re selling then. Yeah, maybe your discovery doesn’t have to be as extensive. But here is the key thing I hope that your audience takes away from this. Today, when we are scoping, we are not just scoping the DNA as in the bits and bytes of what we’re making, doing or building. That is not what we’re talking about. We’re actually scoping the environment around the project. I kind of liken it to like, imagine you have DNA and then you have cellular membrane. The membrane is the stakeholders and all of their quirks. It’s like new faces at the table being like, I have big shoes to fill, so I better make sure that I’m on board. You are talking about risk. And risk is not just product risk. Right. Or like campaign risk. You’re actually talking about, okay, well, how long has this business been in operation? Do they have a lot of churn? Are they growing? Are they shrinking? How much opportunity for their revenue generation is there? What’s happening in the economy right now that is actually going to impact this business? That’s what you’re scoping on top of the layer of the DNA. That you’re like, this is the thing that we’re providing to you.

Drew McLellan [00:30:22]:

Yeah, yeah, how do I bake the pie? But also, yeah, right. Am I doing it at altitude? Am I doing it right? Am I doing it over an open fire? Am I doing right?

Rachel Gertz [00:30:31]:

Yeah. So when you’re just scoping the project, like, of course you’re always going to come up short because people are like, oh, well, I’m feeling so busy, but I’m not actually showing this work, you know, in our Gantt chart. That’s because you’re spending most of it hand holding or guiding or sort of supporting or pushing back. And those are also things that you need to scope in. And this is why I am definitely a proponent of challenging the traditional RFP process. Because you, you’re walking into a predetermined, like, library that’s like, this is all of the books you’re going to have to go through and read. And you’re like, well, actually we’re going to have to get rid of those altogether because those are not relevant. Right. So it can be very risky to walk into that, close a deal, stick to the scope, and not again, eat your shirt. There’s a lot of shirt eating that is happening.

Drew McLellan [00:31:25]:

Right. That’s why a lot of agencies struggle with profitability, because they can’t. To your point. So when you were talking about sort of like the hand holding and all of that, one of the things I find sort of astonishing is how many agencies don’t bake into their scope, the account service people’s time. Right. Like. Like they think about the whole production team, the writers, the artists, the, you know, coders, all the people who are making the things. Yeah, but they forget about all of the nuance and the conversation and the approval process and the four phone calls it takes to get a hold of someone. They don’t bake any of that in. And so even if everybody on the production side of the work, the makers of the things, hits their numbers on the dot, if they have not allowed for fill in the blank X percentage of account service time on top of that, there’s no freaking way the project can be profitable.

Rachel Gertz [00:32:28]:

Yes. And so people will usually then apply like a percentage. Right. So I’m not sure what your numbers are, but I’ve heard anything from minimum 15 to 20% project management allocation and then again like 10 to 15% on the account side. And some folks blend that because they don’t have separate account management roles, which is very common to see it in, like, you know, web or platform services. So the thing about that is I want to add another little bit of a nuance. So yes, you should do that. And if you just apply the percentage and you’re like still wondering why you have overages, don’t forget that there are still standardized blocks of time for project management that you should be baking in with the team because the team is doing project management tasks. Sometimes when they’re talking with the PM or when they’re like reporting back. And some of that stuff can be planned, but some of it, like if you are just talking about handholding or, you know, changing a lot of expectations or changing timelines like that stuff, you never know how much more time it’s going to take. So you do want to build your standard percentage buffer in. But I also think it’s really wise to scope in project management related tasks throughout the project timeline so that you have an idea of like, what are we talking about with the level of commitment and you know, small projects are going to have, it’s going to feel like they have an inordinately high amount of project management. But that’s just because all projects take a minimum amount of time to set up and run. Right. And then it seems to kind of flow into like a more reasonable amount as the project size grows.

Drew McLellan [00:34:01]:

Which makes sense when you are brought in from the outside because there’s such power in that outside perspective. It’s so hard to read the label of the bottle when you’re inside the bottle. Right. It’s just hard to sort of see anything with accuracy and with objectivity. What do you typically notice? So when somebody calls you and goes, rachel, we’re on our third project management system. Nothing works. This is stupid. Help us, we’re losing our shirt. What do you typically like, what are the warning signs? What are the things that you’re like, oh, I’m going to look for these three things and odds are I’m going to find at least two of these three things every time. What are the things you always look for that you know, from your outside perspective? If we fix these things, the exponential effect is huge.

Rachel Gertz [00:34:48]:

Yes, absolutely.

Drew McLellan [00:34:49]:

Maybe we miss when we’re in, when we’re inside that bottle.

Rachel Gertz [00:34:53]:

Yeah. So, okay, I got really excited. There’s like so many things I want to talk about here. But okay, so I think that number one, if you’re talking to an agency, like founder, director, something like that, and they are, if they’re doing the sales, they’re. If they’re not actually that familiar with project management as a whole or they Just see it as task management. That’s an instant flag for me because they’re missing so much of the deeper components of like that system. So we talked about that at the beginning, right? So I, I’m like, okay. And then I, and then I’ll poke, I’ll like ask more. So how do you, how do you get your work done? And like, how do you know if it’s done and that kind of stuff? Then I’ll often start asking questions about the sales cycle because for me, I’m going to get details if the agency owner is doing it or if they’ve hired someone. The other thing is, because of the three engines that are involved, I know that if sales is down, then the pressure on operations is up, right? And usually what it is is agencies are great at doing marketing for other people and they’re not great at doing it for themselves. So if your sales engine’s down because your marketing engine’s down, guess what? Your oppos system’s doing it is like coughing and struggling and all of this pressure is on your delivery team and your PMs. So if they’ve told me that they’ve lost a PM within a year of bringing them on, it is like, it’s like you might as well watch a submarine with all alarms. You have got to fix the bleed because your PM is the canary in the coal mine. They are going to let you know right away if things are tenable or not. And my heart hurts when I hear this because what I see a lot of is almost like a breakdown of understanding. And so leadership will often blame the PM team because they’re just not handling things efficiently. And that’s. That can be true at times. But what I often see is that in reverse, the PMs are saying things like they don’t understand that, you know, this work is. The stuff that they’re selling is not feasible, or they’re trying to push work through so fast because they say we should be able to handle it. But they’re not accounting for, like we talked about the project environment or they’re not accounting for the quickness or this one is a killer. I find out, yeah, yeah, we do discount projects when we have to, you know, And I’m like, okay, well like, how are you discounting? How are you going about the process? They don’t realize that when you discount, you are immediately taking your scope out of the project budget. Right? You have to still pay taxes, salaries, opex, all of this and put aside for profit, but you are immediately carving out money on the scope. And if you don’t do that right, you still have to pay the people to do the work, and you won’t have profit. And that is a killer, because what I get asked is, well, how can we make it so that the. The folks that are doing the work do the exact same amount of work for less money, but we need to get more savings back? And I’m like, well, mathematics is math. So, like, there are things we can do to. You can lower the quality, and no one wants to do that. Right. You can quicken the speed by automating the process. You can simplify things, simplify your scope. You can pull back on items and prioritize them and have the client prioritize them. But these are all things that are going to require hard conversations, and that’s usually the piece they’re not willing to have. That’s another question to ask them. Can you have a hard conversation?

Drew McLellan [00:38:27]:

Yeah. Right. Oh, my gosh. I feel like we’ve just scratched the surface of all of this as we wrap up this conversation, and we need to have you come back, because I still have 322 questions that we didn’t get to, but give us some hope.

Rachel Gertz [00:38:40]:

Oh, I love it.

Drew McLellan [00:38:41]:

Okay, this all sounds yucky and hard and complicated, so leave us with a hopeful thought, and one thing we could do that is small enough that we can do it and see improvement.

Rachel Gertz [00:38:58]:

Ooh, I love it. Thanks, Drew. You’ve asked such great questions. I am very hopeful. I know a lot of agency owners and delivery teams out there. You might be struggling. You might be really wondering if this is the work you want to continue to do. But I want to give you a lot of hope because I see this as constraints provide us with freedom. Drew, we talked about this. Having to put in some levers and dials or just looking at refining those levers and dials. In your business, if you are willing to spend a bit of your time going out and thinking about what the feeling of calm and peace could be in your business, it is so within your reach to do that, even with the chaos around us, even with that. Because the nature of running a business is that if we have enough work coming in and if that work is actually achievable, then we have a business that functions right. We have to know that the efficiency side, our PMs, will absolutely be able to do things in a leaner, smoother, cheaper way if needed, and that if we can get outside of our fear mode, just know every other agency owner right now is Going through the same thing you’re going through. They are panicking, they are freaking out because what is happening. Right? But if you keep your head because you know and you see there’s more than enough business, it’s changing, but there’s more than enough. Right, Right. It’s asking those questions about what would your clients need in order to actually bring in the type of work that would help them thrive and help you thrive. And then the compliment is your PMs will be able to watch for these opportunities. Like, hey, if we changed this lever or this style for the business we’re helping, we could actually turn this into a long term relationship. Right. That is power and that is freedom and you have it. So don’t give up. Don’t give up.

Drew McLellan [00:40:58]:

Yeah. I think the opportunity, I think you’re right. I think the opportunity is. Again, we were talking before the, we had the record buddy and I was chatting with Marcus Sheridan earlier today and we were talking about the role of an agency now is we have to be indispensable. We cannot be a commodity anymore. We have to be an indispensable partner. And so when we, when we can bring calm to a chaotic world for our clients and ourselves and we can do that profitably, then all of a sudden, why in the world would they ever want us to go anywhere? Right? I mean, they will crave that calm just like we do.

Rachel Gertz [00:41:39]:

And you do remember back in the day when everyone would be like, they’d have like the, the banner and it have the white writing on the site and it would always say like the experience, like we want to design an experience you’ll never forget. And it was like, I still think about this, and this is an early business thought for us, but it was like, what is the experience of working with you?

Drew McLellan [00:41:58]:

Like, right.

Rachel Gertz [00:41:59]:

Like you’re selling that too. Right. So good. Make that great.

Drew McLellan [00:42:05]:

Well, and at the end of the day, you know, if it doesn’t go well for us, we don’t make any money, which sucks. But if it doesn’t go well on the client side, they lose their job. Right. So it’s much more personal for them. It’s personal for us as the owner. Right. Or the leader, but it’s different. Like the stakes are different for us. And so, so if we can create an environment where our clients feel like we have it dialed in and we honor every promise and they understand the constraints of those promises and how they have to participate in the activities to make sure that the outcome is a good one and it’s on Time and on budget and all the things that they care about. If we have a methodology to do that that feels logical and easy and accessible, that’s the fodder of. These guys are easy to work with. And I get what I need at the budget that we’ve agreed to now. Okay, then. Why would I ever want to break that relationship?

Rachel Gertz [00:43:08]:

Yeah, it’s. It’s wild when you think about it, but a lot of the success stories I hear are related to. Yeah. We’re told often as an agency, that our PMs are incredible and they love working with us. And, I mean, that’s it. That’s it right there.

Drew McLellan [00:43:22]:

Yeah, I love it. So we will have you come back, Rachel, because like I said, I still have a ton of things that I want to talk about. But in the meantime, tell everybody how to find you, how to follow you, how to learn more from you until they get round two of our conversation.

Rachel Gertz [00:43:38]:

Love it, Drew. Thank you. Yeah, you can definitely check me [email protected]. i have a full site there and all of my services, and I’m not as active. I don’t know if anyone’s as active on social media anymore, but you can find me @The Straymews on Instagram. And I just. Yeah, I’m just, like, excited to have a conversation. So if you just want a strategy call or anything, just to get an idea, like, is this, like, what I’m going through? Am I having these issues? I’m absolutely there for you.

Drew McLellan [00:44:06]:

Yeah. That’s awesome. Thank you. Thanks for being with us today.

Rachel Gertz [00:44:10]:

Thank you. I appreciate you so much.

Drew McLellan [00:44:12]:

Of course. All right, guys, so homework from this episode is start looking at where there is chaos in sort of your system. And I would start. I think Rachel’s right. I would start with that handoff of, am I handing you a pile of a bag of apples and saying, hey, I need you to make a steak out of this? And then you’re like, your. Your team is like, well, I don’t have what I need to make the steak, but we only price the steak. And really, what I need to make is a. You know, so I want you to be thinking about sort of that incongruity that happens and the miscommunication, all of which can be sort of sourced at the. We actually don’t know enough to know. We have to know enough to know. And even when we know, we have to build in breathing room, because the more we learn, the more we realize there’s more to be done, there’s more to offer. There’s more to help. And we want to make sure that we have room to think about that so that when we’re coming to our clients, because one of the things, remember, one of the main reasons why clients fire us is they say, you know what, in the beginning they had all these big ideas, they brought me all this great stuff, and now they just, they just do what I ask them to do. They dial it in, they phone it in. We have to bake in thinking time, we have to bake in ideation time. We have to bake in questioning ourselves time so that we can be the value to our clients that we want to be. And so, so all of that, it starts with what we’re promising versus what we can and should deliver. And sometimes, as we said earlier in this conversations, those are not matching up. So start there and then wrap it up with everybody’s struggling with this. And so if you can get a little better at it, you’re better than most. If you can get a lot better at it, you can be best of class. And there are opportunities and people like Rachel that can help you do that. So that’s your homework for today. Huge shout out and thank you to our friends at White Label iq. As you know, they’re the presenting sponsor of this podcast, been with us for years. They make it possible for us to bring smart people like Rachel to you every single week. I learn a lot. I know you learn a lot. So please reach out to [email protected] AMI check them out, but also say thank you. Let them know that you appreciate the fact that we are on episode 500 and whatever number we’re on and we want to keep going. And thanks to their support, we get to do that. And that is to all of our benefits. So please be grateful to them. Right. I will be back next week. I hope you will too. See you then.