Building your 2023 budget

Hey everybody, Drew McLellan here from Agency Management Institute, this week coming to you from Nashville, Tennessee. We were just with a peer group and one of the conversations was, of course around 2023 budgets and projections. One of the conversations that we had that I think is important for all of us to think about is where is the revenue going to come in 2023? Many of you are finishing up, hopefully, plans with your existing clients for their 2023 budgets and this is the ideal place for you to add some incremental dollars as new budgets and new client opportunities get a little tighter, get a little slower to make decisions. We've still got to have the revenue to keep the staff going, to keep the office open, all of those things. So, one of the things I want you to be thinking about is how can we add value to our current clients? That might be a new service offering, that might be a new audience for them to reach. That might be you adding onto your capabilities and talking to them about something new. One of the agencies that we were with had just bought a small video company and so they were augmenting their offer and their services to their existing clients by talking about how now video could be a key component of their marketing plan. But right now, with everything getting a little snug, you need to be thinking about how can you increase revenue from existing clients? Hopefully, you're always thinking about that. But one of the things that I find, is when we go into agencies and we say, "Show us your growth plans for your existing clients. What is the plan to grow that existing book of business?" A lot of times, it might be up here, but it is rarely written down, and it's rarely calendared or outlined. Remember that you should be able to grow your existing book of business, so your existing AGI from existing clients by at least 10% a year. Now, that doesn't mean you're going to grow it equally with every client growing 10%, somebody might grow 20, somebody might cut back by 5 but overall, when you add your AGI, your goal is 10% incremental growth from existing clients your goal is 10% incremental growth from existing clients and then the rest of your growth can come from new clients. So if you have not sat down and put together a growth plan for each client and you haven't thought about the new ways that you could serve them, that would be genuinely of value. Remember, this is never about selling them something they don't need, but if you can take them some new ideas, some new channels, some new service offerings, now is a great time to do it, as they are thinking about their '23 budget. All right? I'm going to leave you with that. I'll be back next week, see you then.