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The Work-Life Balance is Dead: How to Achieve Perfect Work-Life Blend with Scott Beebe

The work-life balance is dead in 2018: it’s time to work towards work-life blend. When I was a kid, my “work dad” would come home from the bank in his three-piece suit and he’d go upstairs and my “home dad” would come downstairs in jeans, looking for his martini and the download of our day while my mom cooked dinner. Sounds very Leave it to Beaver, doesn’t it? It really was. My dad didn’t have a computer or a cell phone. I can remember the only time the office called him at home – the bank building was on fire. But other than that – there was complete separation of work and home life. We do not have that luxury. We carry our laptops home and even when we don’t, that pocket-sized computer means we can work 24/7.   At best, we can strive for work-life blend. Our personal lives will seep into the work day and our work will seep into our personal time. But for many agency owners, what that translates to is that you are always on and always working. That’s not only unhealthy for you but it’s unhealthy for your business. You can’t grow your agency if you have to do everything that’s mission critical. Everyday I talk to agency owners who bemoan the fact that they can’t get everything done because they are too entrenched in working in the business, which means they do not have the time they need to work on the business. If you hear yourself saying (or thinking) “I am the only one who can do XYZ” then you know your agency is broken. Whether you’ve hired super junior people and then not invested in them [...]

How to Clear the Obstacles that Prevent You from Growing and Scaling Your Business with Karl Sakas

Starting an agency is easy. Growing and scaling your business is anything but. There are lots of obstacles and landmines, not to mention just trying to run the agency, which can get in the way.  My podcast guest Karl Sakas and I chatted about those obstacles and how to move around them.   Some of the specifics we talked about included: the number one question owners must answer in order to understand what type of agency they want to grow ways to delegate work so you can focus on what you love about agency work how agencies can manage their time, stating, “no one will defend your time but you” how to figure out where you want to go and get people to help you so you can get there faster. Karl Sakas served as the #2 man in a couple different digital agencies before he created the Marketing Agencies community at Inbound.org, which has over 1,000 agencies in 48 countries. As president of Sakas and Company, Karl advises agencies worldwide about strategy, operations, and leadership.He has recently published a book entitled, “The In Demand Marketing Agency: How to Use Public Speaking to Become an Agency of Choice.” To listen – you can visit the Build A Better Agency site (https://agencymanagementinstitute.com/karl-sakas/) and grab either the itunes or Stitcher files or just listen to it from the web.   If you’d rather just read the conversation, the transcript is below. If you're going to take the risk of running an agency, shouldn't you get the benefits too? Welcome to Build a Better Agency, where we show you how to build an agency that can scale and grow with better clients, invest in employees, and best of [...]

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 [...]

Time Management Advice for Agency Owners

Every fifth podcast — I’m doing a solocast. That’s just you and me, having a conversation about a topic that I know is on the minds of agency owners. For this solocast — we’re going to dig into a topic that I probably dive into every single week with agency owners — some good old fashioned time management advice.   How should an agency owner spend his/her time? As you know and are probably a example of — most agency owners struggle with extracting themselves from the day to day enough to actually work on the business. Too many agency owners are too deeply engrained in the work of the agency, which prevents them from running a successful and scalable agency. “If you are still serving clients, you are not servicing the agency.” That’s the bottom line. You are diminishing YOUR bottom line. Instead, you need to build an agency that someone would want to buy some day. An agency where you are dispensable. In this podcast, I’ll outline this time management advice by where you should invest your time and what vital priorities you can knock out if you do. We’ll talk about your role in new business, in mentoring your team and much more. To listen — you can visit the Build A Better Agency site (https://agencymanagementinstitute.com/drew-mclellan-solocast-episode-1/) and grab either the iTunes or Stitcher files or just listen to it from the web. If you’d rather just read the conversation, the transcript is below. If you are going to take the risk of running an agency, shouldn't you get the benefits too? Welcome to Build a Better Agency, where we show you how to build an agency that can scale and grow with [...]

How to make time to work on the business

Every agency owner knows that they need to devote more time and attention to their business but they're so busy helping clients with THEIR business, it's tough to carve out the time to take care of your own.  Any time I chat with an agency owner, they admit they struggle with the same issue --  how to make time to work on the business. Agency owners need strategic planning tips in order to make time to work on their businesses. Every agency owner knows the way to more profits, more success and ultimately, more satisfaction is to invest the time to not only serve your clients but to work ON your business.  To think strategically about how to improve what's already working, fix what's not and plan for the next zig or zag you need to make. But, as I meet with agency owners from all over North America -- I find that most of them really struggle with this.  Are you wondering how to make time to work on your business? Here are five strategic planning tips that will get you focused on YOUR business and not everyone else’s. Re-think your relationship with email: Email is like crack cocaine for most agency owners.  Between their laptops, tablets and smart phones, they are checking email several times an hour, feeling this burning sense of urgency to answer within seconds of receiving the latest.  If you want to find time to work on the business, you'll need to tame your email addiction. Here's the reality.  If a client or staff members needs you, they will probably send an email first.  But if they don't get a quick reply -- what do you think they'll do next?  Right [...]

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