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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 »
What’s your Minnie Pearl pillow?
I've been thinking about how much I love being in a place that knows who it is and celebrates who they are and what makes them unique. Which, of course, made me think about you and us and how we create that sense of uniqueness with our clients and our prospects. Watch »
Details matter
We usually cover the big items, but we don't take the time to think about the tiny details that will surprise and delight our clients or our team. So, as you prepare to make a new business pitch, welcome a new employee to the team, or plan your agency get-together or retreat, I want you to think about the big things. But I also want you to give a lot of time and attention to the tiny details you could add, probably at minimal cost or extra effort. It's just – it's not that we don't want to do them, it's that we don't think about them. I want you to stop and ask yourself, where are some little things I could do to surprise and delight -- could be a meeting. It could be an event like an agency retreat. Again, it could be onboarding a new client, they’re coming into your office for the first time, or you're going to their office for the first time. It could be a conference. But take time to think about the tiny little details and what you could do to make that moment memorable and special, and something that people will take pictures of, brag about, or talk about those brag-worthy moments that we can create with a little extra effort. Watch »
Annual contracts?
One of the conversations we've been having with agency owners is the pros and cons of annual contracts, especially for ongoing offerings like web maintenance, SEO packages, or any other product or service. The conversations have circled around the idea that annual contracts invite clients to reconsider the purchase. Do they really want to renew for another year? A couple of agencies have talked about the success they've had with evergreen contracts, which have the annual increase built in, and there's a 30-, 60-, or 90-day out, but they are perpetual contracts that just keep going. So the question is -- are annual contracts really your smartest option? Watch »
Values guide decision making
As agency owners and leaders, we have to help our employees participate in decisions every day. Do your time sheets. Treat clients a certain way. Show up on time. How you dress for a Zoom call—these are just a few of the millions of decisions that impact our business. But if we don't come at those decisions, many of which are made independently of us, we can talk about how we want them to behave or the decisions we want them to make. But at the moment, our employees are making hundreds of decisions a day that impact the way the world sees our business. And I believe that one of the foundational tools that we should and could use to help our employees make better decisions is for them to understand the core values, foundational elements, and beliefs that our business is built on and that we really want to be defined by. We want to be graded on that. 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 »
It starts with being known
For many of our agencies, we're hearing that the flourishing new business conversations they were enjoying in the spring and even early summer have dried up. Their pipeline is dry. They are having a hard time getting a hold of anybody and having meaningful conversations. They're not writing proposals, they're not participating in pitches, and they are not winning new business. When you think about it, for our prospects, it is the dog days of summer. They have probably planned out the rest of the summer, and they have sort of put it on, set it, and forget it because they, too, are going on vacation and doing all the things that we like to do in the summer. So, most of them are not thinking right now about hiring an agency, and they probably won't be available until Labor Day unless they have a need. The problem is the way most agencies prospect; the way most agencies sort of hang up their shingle and announce that they are open for business is very random, right? We're out there. We hang up our shingle, we're knocking on doors, but we have no idea if the people that we're approaching have any interest in talking to us right now. Good news -- there's a better way. Watch »
Doing hard things
The work you do as an agency owner is hard. One of the prices we pay for the opportunity to own the agency is that we have to do hard things. For many of you, you know what you need to do, yet somehow you convince yourself to delay it. You delay it because you don't want to have a difficult conversation. You delay it because you know it's going to impact some of your team members or be unpopular. Or you delay it because you hope that some magic is going to change the circumstance. Owning a business is about managing and understanding the risks and making good choices. And I will tell you, in the almost two decades of consulting with agency owners, I can't recall one time when an agency owner said to me, “You know what? I am delighted. I am grateful that I delayed that difficult decision.” Watch »
10% growth
An account person's job is to get the work done. But another part of that job is to focus on the client's goals and what else the client can be doing to achieve those goals. Sometimes, those ideas that we take our clients don't have anything to do with the agency. It might be about distribution or pricing or something else. That's us being a good partner, but a subset of the ideas that we should regularly take to our clients to help them accomplish their goals would also generate additional revenue for the agency. It might be putting more gasoline on a fire or something we already do. It might be trying something different. It might be beta testing something with AI. Doesn’t really matter what it is. But your account person's job is to know the client well enough that they can prescribe other marketing activities or other business activities that will help the client accomplish their goals. Watch »
Do what you love!
I think we are the privileged few. We all got into this business – nobody got into owning an agency or working at an agency to be wealthy. So we got into this because there was something about the work we loved. And I want to remind you to make sure that whatever it is that drew you to this work—for me, it was the writing; for you, it might have been something different—you bake some of that into your day and your work. We are privileged. We get to control how we spend our days. Yes, there are things we have to do. We have to do team meetings. We have to look at the books. We have to pursue new business. And for some of you, that may be precisely what you love. But for others, there's some other element of the work that really fuels your passion. And I want to remind you that you don't let the burden of owning or helping run an agency keep you from doing the parts of the work that fill your heart, give you passion, fire you up, and inspire you and your team. Make sure you bake that into your day because we're the lucky few who get to do that. Watch »
