Facetime

Hey, everybody. Drew McLellan here from Agency Management Institute. And as you might have guessed, we are in Chicago this week, very close to Wrigley Field at the beautiful Hotel Zachary.

One of the things that many agency owners are thinking about and talking about right now is their team and how to engage their team, connect with their team, and keep their team motivated and engaged with each other. You know, it's been proven through many research studies that typically when our employees leave, it's not that hard for them to leave us, unfortunately. But what makes it hard, what makes our job sticky, is that they don't want to leave their coworkers, that oftentimes they 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 really feel like they have a vested interest in each other's success, both personally and professionally. So one of the things I want you to think about is how are you bringing your team together? And I don't mean virtually. I don't mean that you're playing a game on zoom. I don't mean that you are going to virtual conferences together. I'm talking about physically, how are you bringing your team together? We all know that there is no substitute for facetime, for hanging out with another person, for sharing a meal, for having a cocktail together, for collaborating around a table. And while you may not do that every day or every week in your work environment anymore, it doesn't mean it can't be done. It doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.

The smart agency owners, who now have a dispersed team of any kind, are figuring out ways to bring that team together once, twice, four times a year, depending on how dispersed your team is. But that time, that day or two of physical togetherness time is critical for creating relationships, for creating a sense of obligation to each other and commitment to one another. And what they see is that it immediately elevates morale, the willingness to bust a hump to help each other, and it reduces churn inside your shop and it increases retention. So some of that money you're saving by not paying for rent or some of the other things you are being able to cut corners on because you're virtual or you are hybrid. That's where that money needs to go to. You need to figure out ways to bring your team together. Some people are doing actual retreats where they're going away for two and three days, and doing a lot of team building and strategic planning. Other agencies are bringing people in once a quarter to just literally work together in either a co-working space or the office space that you use a few days a week. Some people are doing service projects together. Habitat for Humanity and things like that. It's important that your people hang out. It's important that they have facetime. It's important that they have that eye contact back and forth. How you do it is up to you, but whether or not you do it should not be optional.

All right? I’ll see you next week.