Employees

Work ethics

There are many assumptions about our employees, the way they work, and their understanding of work. First, I think we assume that they know how we want them to work. Second, I think we assume that they know how we work. Third, I think we assume that there is no wiggle room in their perception of work. Want to know the fix? Keep listening. Watch »

Facetime

Many research studies have proven that, unfortunately, when our employees leave, it's not that hard for them to leave us. But what makes it hard, what makes our job sticky, is that they don't want to leave their coworkers. They often have deep relationships with their coworkers that they don't want to sacrifice by taking a new job. Post-Covid, as more of us have gone hybrid or completely virtual, it's really challenging to create the kinds of relationships that feel sticky to your employees, where they feel like they have a vested interest in each other's success, personally and professionally. Watch »

Three kinds of growth goals

In our business, being irrelevant happens quickly. If we are not constantly learning, constantly stretching ourselves, exploring, and experimenting, it's easy to lose our edge and the ability to lead clients. This is why we are such big proponents of a) one-on-one meetings with your employees and b) inside those one-on-one meetings, making sure that the very first topic of conversation every time you meet with them is their quarterly growth goals. And they should have 3 different types of growth goals per quarter. Watch »

How inclusive is your agency?

How can you continue to create a welcoming environment for all kinds of diversity, not just – not just sexual orientation or race or gender or faith, but also the way people think. There's a lot of talk today about neurodivergence and how different people's brains are wired and how they work. And I think there's a huge opportunity for us to think about that and create pathways inside our organization where we can tap into everybody's experiences, strengths, and uniqueness and make those part of what we offer our clients. So as always, I, I hope that we all believe this as people, but certainly as business owners, the more unique and diverse our ecosystem is inside our agency, the more we can connect with and be of service to clients and their audiences, who are also very diverse. Watch »

It’s our fault

See if this feels familiar -- "I'm so frustrated with the younger employees because their expectations and understanding about the work is very different. They set very firm boundaries around sort of their personal life and their personal time, and they're not willing to do the things that I need them to do. For example, I'm frustrated that they won't attend after-hours networking events. I'm frustrated that they won't travel to client meetings. I'm frustrated that they will not invest some of their own time and professional development." Does that sound like how you're feeling? I totally hear you on all of that. But the reality is this is not them. This is us. This is our fault. Watch »

Should agencies only have full-time employees?

I recently got asked this question: Do you think the agency team structure should include only full-time staff and talent or expand into contract and part-time? The reality is there are very, very few agencies that only operate today with full-time talent. Most of you have a blend of go-to 1099s or contractors that you use on a regular basis. Some of you have actual ongoing contracts with those folks who've locked them in for a certain number of hours. In some cases. They may even come into the office if you're in the office to do some of their work or to attend meetings. And I think one thing that's really trending and I think it makes a lot of sense is part-time employees. Watch »

Cultivating relationships beyond your AE

As agencies, we don't do a good job of talking to our entire team about the importance of really recognizing that it's part of their job to create a relationship with the client, whether that's by email, whether that's by phone, or whether that's in meetings. We have to make our clients feel like they are surrounded by a team. And for anyone and everyone on the team, it's their goal is to take care of the client and their needs. When our clients only know and like our AE, we are setting ourselves up for risk and failure. Watch »

Can agency employees think like an owner?

Many agency owners want their employees to think like an owner. And what we mean by that of course, is we want them to care as much about the business as we do and we want them to make decisions that are in the best interest of the agency rather than themselves or even their department. In some cases, we're talking about a leadership team. But the reality is it's pretty hard to think like an owner when you've never been an owner and when you don't have the weight things like can I make payroll this month? Watch »

What Employees Want Most

We surveyed almost 1,000 agency employees to find out what made them sticky or not, in terms of choosing to stay with a specific agency. Turns out there was one overwhelming reason to stay. Watch »