AMI Videos

3 ways to improve your presentations

One of the cool things about our profession, and certainly about the work that we do, is that we get to do a ton of public speaking. And when I say public speaking, I don't necessarily mean giving a keynote at a conference. However, there certainly is that opportunity – it doesn't necessarily mean we're on a stage in front of thousands of people. As agency leaders and owners, we get to give presentations every day. Maybe one-on-one conversations with an employee or a client, it could be in a small group setting or it could be that we step on a stage, formal or informal, and talk to a larger group. Regardless of the size of the audience, we want to make sure that our presentation is impactful and memorable, and that we get our key points across to our audience. So I want to give you three tips today on how to be a better speaker. If you apply these three practices to your speeches, big and small, I think you'll be thrilled at how powerful and effective they can be. Watch »

Cleanse your palate

Sometimes a thorny problem must work itself out in the background of our brain and then pop its answer to us in the foreground. It might happen when we're driving or in the shower – we're giving our brain that break to think in the background. It's like when we go out for a fancy dinner. The wait staff clearly states that we need a fresh palate to experience this next course. And I think sometimes our brains need that cleansing of the palate as well. So, one of the things I want to challenge you about is how you give your brain time to process in the background without actively working on a problem? Let me give you a couple of examples. So, do you go running and listen to music? For me, one of the things I do to cleanse my palate is – probably like you, I'm very curious, and I'm always reading business books. But I allow myself – and sometimes I make myself – read a mystery novel or some other fiction in between business books, so I won't let myself read two business books in a row. I give myself that palate cleansing so that I can process what I just read before going on and putting more new information in my brain. So, for every one of us, how we cleanse our palate may be different. It might be playing with Barbie with your kids. It might be going for a long walk, running, and listening to music or instrumental music. So, as odd as it is with a business tip, what I'm suggesting to you is that you identify 3 or 4 ways that you can turn the active part of your brain off and let the sort of background part of your brain do its job. So, 2 or 3 things that you can sort into your week, work into your routine, work into your everyday life, that give your brain that time to think in the way that it can only think when you're not paying attention to it. Watch »

Me, me, me

I find it interesting and a little ironic, given what we all do for a living, that often times the feedback we give agencies is, Wow, your website is all about you. It's not about the client. It's not about the client's problems. It's not about how you can help them right now by giving them some insight, some tools, some resources that will allow them to see this agency understands my industry or niche – this agency understands my job and how hard it is, and they're going to help me be better at my job. This agency wants to teach me, coach me, and help me get better. Look at this agency—they're giving me help right now, and I haven't even hired them yet. So I want you to think about going back to your website and taking a look at it through the eyes of your prospect. Watch »

How will you show up?

As economic conditions and social situations unfolded in the spring, things have gotten tight, and they've gotten tight for our clients, too. And I think today, in today's video, what I want to remind you of is that we talk a lot about being a partner to our clients. We talk a lot about wanting to be at the strategy table at the big decision table, which means that we have to actually be their partner. Being a partner means that we care as much about what's going on with them as we do for ourselves. It's challenging when clients are cutting budgets or not approving things or prospects are ghosting you, and you have to make payroll. It's hard not to think just about what you need, but the reality is that we have to show up differently for our clients. So I want to challenge you this week to think about, from your client's perspective, what's going on in their business and how you could help them. How could you help them save money? How could you help them make money? How could you help them protect the clients or customers they already have? How can you ensure that the situation swirling all around them, the economic situation, the social situation, whatever is impacting their business, doesn't diminish their business anymore? Watch »

A new revenue opportunity

We just came off the Build a Better Agency Summit, and one of the things we did at the Summit, like we always do, is that Susan Baier from Audience Audit and I unveiled the results of the Agency Edge research series. So this is our 12th year. This year, we focused on AI, how clients are using AI, how they feel about us using AI, and what they wish we were doing differently around AI. The results were startling, but there was also lots of good news and great opportunities. Let me give you a little overview of what we learned. If I were going to say there's a theme, one of the themes would be a huge opportunity. Why is there a huge opportunity? Because we are not meeting their expectations. They want more from us when it comes to AI, and there are revenue streams available to us that they're anxious to give us money to help them with, but we have to be able to offer it first. And not only revenue, but revenue with new kinds of clients inside the organization, not just the marketing department. So huge blue sky opportunities in this study for us. So join us and hear more about it. All right? But the bottom line is your clients want more from you when it comes to AI. And it's time for us to step up. Watch »

Be present

We spent three days on site with about 320 or 25 agency owners and leaders. For me, the big takeaway this year was being present. We've all got a lot going on. It's so easy, especially if you're on a Zoom call, to have other screens happening and check email or text or do all the other things, the multitasking things. But what I really felt for the last couple of days was just the power of being present. That everybody has a story to tell: our employees, our colleagues, our peers, our mentors. Everyone has a story they want to tell. Not just that they have to tell, but they want to tell us. And it may be about something that's going on with a client. It may be something that's going on with them personally. But when you are fully present and when you make that eye contact again, whether it's on a screen or in person or when you are in physical proximity of each other, and you can kind of feel each other's energy and you stay in that moment, what happens is it's almost like, implied permission to tell that story. And people – the connection is deeper. It is more meaningful, it is more nuanced and layered. But I think when we feel distracted, whether we think we feel it that way with others or not, then I think we get more of the perfunctory communication, like, tell me what you have to tell me, as opposed to tell me what you want to tell me. So, something I want to encourage you to try this week is just to be really present when you're in conversation, a real conversation with someone again, whether it's electronically or in person, and stay focused on them and let them feel that focus. Let them feel that they have your 110% of your attention. And I think you're going to be surprised at the stories that you hear, at the nuances you notice, at the intonations and facial expressions and all of that. I think you will get a much deeper story from the people who help you support clients or the clients that you serve. And that's going to serve you well. And it feels good. It feels good to be that connected to your people, whoever that may be. So full attention, full presence. Try that this week and see if it feels any different to you. Watch »

Let it ride

We're in Las Vegas with our two oldest kids. We decided to play a game. Everybody got $20, and we had 30 minutes. The goal was to see who had the most money at the end of 30 minutes, so you could keep your $20. You could play on a single bet or color at roulette. You could play one penny slots, whatever you want to do. But you had to cash out at the end of the 30 minutes. And then we are going to compare. It was interesting. Two of the kids crapped out and had nothing. I think Danyel had about $10 left. But I was playing dollar slots, and about 20 minutes into the 30 minutes, I hit. I hadn't won anything, and then I hit, and I won $130. So then the decision is, I have another ten minutes. Do I try and turn that $130 into something more, or do I cash out and call it a day? So I opted to cash out. The stakes were low. There was no big prize or contest, but it got me thinking about how we think about cashing out, how we think about ending something when we think it's gone as far as it has. And my experience is that most of you cash out too soon, that you decide to start something. And I find this ironic, because this is the conversation you have with your clients all the time. Like you have to let things simmer. You have to let them work. It's like planting a bulb and then digging it up the next day because it hasn't broken ground. But I find many agency owners don't have the patience and the discipline to let things ride for as long as they should. And so what I'm going to tell you is if you start a new initiative, unless it's incredibly expensive, you have to give yourself at least a year for that initiative to take root and to grow and to kind of break the ground and for you to see the fruit of that labor. So as you're thinking about the rest of 2025, especially as you're probably cutting some budget and you're looking for things to sort of trim down, if you're struggling with some of the economic conditions that many agencies are today, I just want to remind you that if you believe in it enough to start it, you need to believe in it enough to let it ride for at least a year. Watch »

Comp should be personal

How should we reward employees of our agencies? Of course, you want to pay them fairly. You want to give them good benefits. You want them to have a flexible work schedule, all of that. We often erroneously assume that everyone wants to be compensated number one, by money, or number two, based on what we want to be compensated by, which for many agency owners and leaders, is driven by monetary success. But for many of your employees, that may not actually be the thing that they value the most. They may value time off, they may value a bonus or a raise. They may value perks like plane tickets or theater tickets or a spa day. They may benefit or love the idea of having the opportunity to have a new educational experience that maybe is a little more expensive than they can afford, or that you would normally invest in. It is worth the time and energy to explore with each of your team members what motivates them and what actually matters the most to them which allows them to help you build at least part of their compensation plan in a custom way that serves them and their family, whatever that may be. I think you're going to be surprised that it actually is oftentimes less expensive to the agency what they want versus what you are going to give them. And so it's worth the conversation. And if nothing else, it makes them feel seen and heard and thought of as an individual and that you care about what makes them happy. So it is a win win win all the way around and is worth having that conversation. Watch »

Run your own race

Sovereignty was a horse in the recent Kentucky Derby and was in the middle of the pack in terms horses favored to win. And I think there was an interesting lesson for us all to learn from the way that horse and that jockey ran that race. So when the gates opened and 20 horses came barreling out, the pace was fast. It had been raining all day. The track was muddy. And so I am sure that everybody was concerned about getting through the race as quickly as possible, but also as safely as possible. But the pace was fast and our horse was about two thirds of the way back in the pack for about half of the race, and then started slowly coming up on the outside and ultimately actually won the Kentucky Derby. But the lesson here for us is that had Sovereignty come out of the gate as hot as a lot of the other horses did, and had run as fast as early as some of those horses did, that by the time they rounded the final bend and hit the straightaway, those horses were fading back. They had run out of gas. They had sort of burned through all of their energy too fast. And I think sometimes it's easy for us as agency owners to watch what everybody else is doing and think we have to do it their way. We have to lean in and we have to go as fast as they are. We have to go in the direction that they go as opposed to having a game plan. So in the post-race interview, they were talking to the trainer and the jockey, and what they saying is that they knew that they needed to go slower in the beginning of the race, because Sovereignty loves sloppy tracks, and he loves when he's behind and he can try and catch up. And so they knew their horse. Just like we know our agency and our clients. And they had a plan. And they didn't get distracted by what everybody else was doing. They just ran their plan. And for them, that was the winning game plan. And they put $25 million or so in their pocket. I think we have to be reminded sometimes that we know what we're doing. We know our agency. We know our clients, and we have a plan. And that what other people are doing around us is interesting and we can learn from it, no doubt. But it doesn't mean we always have to defer to what everybody else is doing, as opposed to sticking to the plan that we believe is the best course of action for our agency, for us to win the race. So little lesson from Sovereignty for all of us today. Watch »

Are you misspending a valuable asset?

We talk a lot about billable time, how we track time and does that time actually translate to an invoice, and what do we do with all the time we write off. But we spend far less time thinking about the non-billable time. The question is, where is all of that non-billable time going? You want to make sure that you value every hour of your team's time at the same level, regardless of how it appears it's being spent. In most cases, when agencies pay attention to non-bailable time, a couple of good things happen. Watch »