Welcome to AMI
Learn Webinars On demand webinars on topics that matter to agency owners/leaders. Perfect for lunch and learns and an agency leader’s continuing education. Online Courses We’re currently offering two on demand web-based courses: Agency New Business Blueprint and the Account Executive Bootcamp. Live Workshops We get incredible accolades for our live two-day workshops for agency owners, leaders and account executives. Come learn with us! Podcast With a new episode every week – our podcast Build A Better Agency is designed to bring seasoned experts and fresh insight to agency owners. Blog We write about the trends, best practices, and topics that are gnawing at agency owners. Get Drew Coaching Agency owners work one on one with an AMI coach to crush their goals, build their shop and hit their financial metrics. Consulting Some challenges require some face time. We’re happy to come to your agency and settle into your conference room for as long as it takes. Speaking Drew is one of the industry’s most sought after speakers. His straight-shooting style is a crowd pleaser and everyone leaves his presentations with a To Do list! Memberships Live Owner Peer Groups Members call it the best decision they’ve made as an agency owner. Learn why. Virtual Owner Peer Groups Want to connect with other owners but don’t want to commit to travel? We’ve got you covered. Associate Members Interested in AMI membership but not in a peer group? We’ve got plenty of benefits and discounts for you too! [...]
Hey agency owner – do you REALLY act like a partner?
Building client relationships is vital to the success of any agency -- but -- this doesn’t necessarily mean agencies always treat their clients in such a way that the agency is regarded as a partner in the client’s business. I hang out with agency owners all the time and over and over I hear them say "I want clients who treat us like partners, not vendors." This sentence is usually uttered in the context of the good old days versus running an agency today. I don't disagree at all -- every agency should be treated like their clients' partner. They should be marching in step towards the client's business goals. But I find myself asking these same agency owners -- "okay, but do you really act like a partner?" In building client relationships, I think we have to be careful about what we wish for. I'm not suggesting for a second that it's not a worthy goal. But you have to be worthy of the title. Partnership is a two way street, so you can't just get the goodies without doing your fair share. Here are some best practices if you actually want to be your client's partner. Know their business: Not just the marketing side of their business -- but understand it like you're running it. Learn about their distribution challenges. Look for ways their sales system could be improved. Offer to walk the production floor so you can see the actual manufacturing process. Get your hands dirty along side them and add value with your observations on the whole of their business, not just their marketing. Be transparent with your pricing: However you are choosing to be compensated -- are you being 100% transparent about it? [...]
SMART Goal Planning is Key to Running a Successful Agency
I recently recorded a podcast about the value and process of smart goal planning for your agency. I know you’re crazy busy with the day to day. I get that you never have more than 10 minutes uninterrupted. Which is why you absolutely MUST carve out time to put together a plan for where you want your agency to go and how you’re going to get there. But before you do that – I want to encourage you to also think a about your own life goals and why you’re working so hard. As part of the podcast, I walk you through two documents – The Life Plan and the One Page Business Plan. In the Life Plan, you’ll get very clear about what you want from your life, the legacies you want to leave and some tangible steps for creating a life of purpose and contentment. With the One Page Business Plan, you’ll identify the #1 goal you have for your agency in six key areas and prioritize those goals so you know which one to tackle first. I promise if you use these two documents, you’ll be stunned at what you will accomplish over the next twelve months. Just like you tell your clients – the lack of smart goal planning is a plan, just not a very good one. Take this opportunity to get very clear on where you want to take your agency and why. Drew McLellan is the Top Dog at Agency Management Institute. He has also owned and operated his own agency over the last 20-years. And all through the year, he straddles the fence of working in his agency and working with 250+ small- to mid-size agencies [...]
Coaching and Mentoring Employees for Success in Your Agency
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 want them to reach their potential and serve you, your agency and your clients at the level you’re looking for. In a recent solocast, I walk you through some ideas that can help you find the time to become part of the solution, rather than contributing to the problem. The solution is actually pretty straightforward and is critical to not only the employees’ success but your agency’s as well. In this solocast, I help you explore: how to be a good mentor and teacher on a regular and consistent basis how to set priority or growth goals for your employees how to provide your employees a time and place to ask questions and relay important information how to give your employees the opportunity to toot their own horns or those of their co-workers how to identify obstacles for your employees before they become overwhelming By putting these ideas for coaching and mentoring employees into play, you will not only create an environment where the employees know they need to keep getting better but they’ll be hungry to do so. It will also help you keep your best employees. Drew McLellan is the Top Dog at Agency Management Institute. He has also owned and operated his own agency over the last 20-years. And all through the year, he straddles the fence of working in his agency and working with 250+ small- [...]
How to Develop a Compelling Value Proposition and Differentiate Your Agency from Others
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 our clients.” “We've been here for X number of years.” “We’re not a traditional agency.” “We don't do digital, we are digital.” Unfortunately, the truth is, whether you like it or not, you sound just like every other agency out there. Even if we think we're standing out in a crowd, we tend to sound very much the same. We all believe that we sound distinct but the truth is our words all blur with the same phrases that every other agency uses. So how do you truly develop a compelling value proposition and differentiate your shop when the competition is getting tougher and tougher and we sound and look more and more alike? By clearly defining your mission, vision and values. In this solocast, I help you flesh that out by exploring: How to communicate a compelling value proposition to your clients by telling your own story via content. How to put a stake in the ground and say this is what we do and how and why we do it. How to answer the following big questions: Why do you do this work? What is your why? What would happen to the world if your agency simply faded from existence? How to specifically define your mission, your vision, and your compelling values. Drew McLellan is the Top Dog at Agency Management Institute. He has also owned and operated [...]
How to Deal with Stale Employees in Your Agency
One of the most heartbreaking realities in agencies today is what I call stale employees. These are employees that usually have been on your staff a long time and were a wonderful fit for your agency back in the day. But today, they really aren’t pulling their weight, their attitude is slipping or you just don’t have as much use for their skill set as you used to. The other unfortunate byproduct of this type of employee is that the rest of your staff is either working around the stale employee’s lack of skills or they are resentful of them because they have slacked off but are still getting paid a pretty penny. Neither helps your agency be the best it can be. It’s a tough, emotional situation. These are people who have been loyal to you for a long time. But the truth is, they aren’t worth what you are paying them. In this solocast, I give you some tangible steps to move that stale employee either out the door or back to becoming a productive part of your team again. What you can learn in this solocast: Stale employees: how to recognize them and why they’re holding your agency back Can these employees be saved? It’s a firm maybe How to have the necessary conversation with stale employees — you owe them honesty The kinds of goals to set to see measurable change and growth before determining their place inside your agency The costs to you as an agency owner for working with stale employees to up their game How to recognize if you really do have to let the employee go How to make a decision while realizing that you aren’t [...]
How to Prevent Internal Fraud from Happening in Your Agency
Internal fraud. Two words that strike fear into the hearts of any agency owner. It’s not a subject that we want to talk about but it’s a real danger for agencies. And while most agency owners think that it could never happen to them, I know from my experience with hundreds of agencies that it can and does happen to the best of us. But have no fear, by following some very simple best practices around your accounting systems and the people you trust with your money, you can take great strides in making sure the right checks and balances are in place inside your agency. Take a listen to this solocast where I detail out: Common ways internal fraud is committed and ways to prevent it from happening How agencies are targeted with email scams The ways agency employees embezzle hundreds of thousands of dollars from agencies The systems you need to put in place to prevent fraud Drew McLellan is the Top Dog at Agency Management Institute. He has also owned and operated his own agency over the last 20-years. And all through the year, he straddles the fence of working in his agency and working with 250+ small- to mid-size agencies in a variety of ways. He works with agency owners in peer network groups, teaches workshops for owners and their leadership teams, teaches AE bootcamps, and does a lot of consulting. Because he works with a lot of agencies every year — he has the unique opportunity to see the patterns and the habits (both good and bad) that happen over and over again. He has also written two books and been featured in The New York Times, Entrepreneur [...]
Today’s Agency Employees Crisis and What to Do About It
New business is on the upswing, you’re experiencing shorter sales cycles, and your business is growing by leaps and bounds. All of that is great. But you’re still facing a crisis. An agency employee crisis. There just aren’t enough qualified people to fill the spots needed to service all that business. Or maybe you have just enough employees right now but you are seeing other agencies lose staff to corporate clients and media groups and are fearful that you might be next. It’s time to take a breath and discover all the reasons that your agency employees want to stay with you and how you can attract more of the same. Your employees have lots of reasons they like agency work and you just might be surprised at the number one reason they offer for wanting to stay. Believe it or not, it’s not about the money. Find out my take on the current agency employee situation as I detail out: The agency employees shortage: why it’s happening right now What agency employees want most (and how to use this to attract and retain them) Things that will cause employees to leave The best benefits you can offer to attract and retain employees How you can compete with the corporate world for employees Why you need to be actively looking for employees, even if you don’t need them right now Drew McLellan is the Top Dog at Agency Management Institute. He has also owned and operated his own agency over the last 20-years. And all through the year, he straddles the fence of working in his agency and working with 250+ small- to mid-size agencies in a variety of ways. He works [...]
How Many Clients Can an Account Executive Manage?
One of the questions I get from agency owners all the time is "how many clients can an account executive manage?" On smaller accounts or where you don’t have multiple levels of AEs working on the same client, it’s pretty easy. There are two different ways of looking at it. The first one is an AE should be able to manage 5 – 7 times their annual salary. So if someone is making 50K, they should be able to manage between 250 – 350K. That means they can handle the account/s AND have time to work ON their book of business to grow the book of business by at least 10% annually. The other way to look at it is — it is a very rare AE or client type/style that would allow an AE to effective manage and have time to grow more than 500K in AGI annually. But when you start thinking about having an account coordinator and other folks on the same account, now it gets a little muddier. In theory, a client that requires that much attention is more layered, complicated etc. And there’s some inefficiency/duplication in the hand offs between the AE team. For example…two of them in a meeting, rather than just one. So when you have two account people of different levels on the same account, It’s more than likely they can’t handle much more than 5 times their combined salary. I’d say the same is true of three account folks. Depending on their maturity level and how much else they’re juggling — that should hold. In most cases, AEs who can't manage that much business are struggling in one or more of these areas: They can't [...]
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