We all know that feeling of a first meeting with a prospective client. There’s excitement in the air. We’re convinced we can help them before we even know what the exact challenge or opportunity may be. We can practically smell the check.

It is important to resist those feelings. In this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast, Chip and Gini discuss how to approach that first conversation and how to use it to your advantage.

The topic was inspired by an article written by Lee McKnight, Jr. of RSW/US where he talked about an agency principal who preferred to do first meetings face-to-face (or via video in today’s world). While Chip and Gini agree that those formats help nurture the relationship more, it turns out that the agency principal wanted this approach because he would bring as many as five people to that first conversation.

During this episode, you will learn why that’s a bad idea that will likely lead to less revenue (rather than more) and what you should do instead.

Resources

* The New Business Gang’s All Here-Not Always A Good Thing (LinkedIn)* RSW/US

Transcript

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.

Chip Griffin  

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin,

Gini Dietrich  

and I’m Gini Dietrich,

Chip Griffin  

and we’re here to talk to you about the first time we met, you know, yes, anything. I have to have some kind of.

Gini Dietrich  

So maybe From now on, what we’ll do is, when we when we work on our topics, we will also work on the segues

Chip Griffin  

fine you know what, how about From now on, we’re just gonna have you do the opens. I’m not I’m just gonna I’m No, I don’t

Gini Dietrich  

want that kind of pressure. All right, I’ll stop making fun of you. I’m not gonna be in front of you. I’m good. You’re good. That was an amazing, excellent transition. Thank you.

Chip Griffin  

That’s what it so in all seriousness, we are going to talk about first meetings with prospects. And this is a topic idea that I got from LinkedIn because Lee McKnight, Jr, of our SW us and agency sales outsourcing firm wrote an article on Had a post where he talked about an agency principle that he had been speaking with recently and talked about how this agency owner handles first meetings. And this agency owner prefers to meet in person or by zoom video or something like that for first meeting fun, okay, I, I’m with you on that I, anytime you can make a more human connection with someone, that’s great. But the reason why this individual didn’t really like phone calls, was because he takes what’s called a team approach to prospecting. And he would have as many as five of his employees on that initial prospect call. And so I think that’s worth discussing. And, you know, broader question is how do you handle first meetings with a prospect?

Gini Dietrich  

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss why they have shifted their advice to agency leaders from focusing on short-term survival to building a new long-term plan. For the past few months, everyone has been focused on doing what needs to be done to get by, but it’s now clear that the disruption will not be short-lived.

Regardless of how long the health and economic effects linger, we now recognize that the landscape has shifted significantly. In-person events are likely a long way off, workplace structures are likely permanently altered, and businesses are likely to continue to be more cautious with their resources. At the same time, clients realize that they can’t remain in a holding pattern and have begun to become more active. These changes create real opportunities for agencies ready to take the steps needed to plan for the future.

Transcript

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.

Chip Griffin  

Hello, and welcome to the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin,

Gini Dietrich  

and I’m Gini Dietrich.

Chip Griffin  

There’s always sort of a pause after I say I’m Chip Griffin I’m I’m wondering what it is that you do you think that I’m going to overrun and you’re just wait because I know I’ve done that before in recordings but I just, every time I listen back to the recordings and I’m getting ready to publish them, I there’s that slight pause after I say my name.

Gini Dietrich  

It’s because chip, I have to, I have to filter myself to be professional. And I have to remember we were recording so I think filter filter filter, and then I speak

Chip Griffin  

I think that ship has sailed Jenny anyone who has listened to the show, expecting the two of us to be professional all throughout, you probably ever have never heard one of these shows before.

Gini Dietrich  

But you know i do i do begin the recording. By trying to be professional.

Chip Griffin  

That is good. That is good. You do try

Gini Dietrich  

that’s why Filter filter filter.

Chip Griffin  

All right. Well, I took us right off the rails right off the bat before we even could say anything about what we’re going to talk about. And, and it’s, it’s tough because you know, I want to try to do a better job of planning the show. I don’t want to just, you know, wing it and take it day by day. We

Gini Dietrich  

don’t wing it. We had three topics in a row that we plan that you plan. You did, and emailed to me and three in a row. We don’t have anything for next week. But you know, we have time.

Chip Griffin  

I mean, that’s a whole seven days away. I don’t know. That’s totally fine. Yeah, rolling it. But what you did was you just stomped all over my segway, because I was trying to lead into our topic today, which is long term planning. So instead of running with my segway,

Gini Dietrich  

sorry, sorry, I lasted all of three minutes.

Chip Griffin  

Most of us don’t go a day without someone talking about “Zoom fatigue.” Some agencies have moved to Zoom-free Wednesdays or camera-off Fridays, or other approaches to combat it.

But the problem isn’t the technology. Zoom is great. Video conferencing is a fantastic tool.

The real problem is that there are too many unnecessary meetings with unnecessary participants.

Chip and Gini discuss how to get things under control without resorting to gimmicky solutions.

Transcript

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.

Chip Griffin  

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin,

Gini Dietrich  

and I’m Gini Dietrich,

Chip Griffin 

and we’re here today to talk about something that you may be experiencing. You may be feeling it yourself and we’re not therapists. So we’re not going to cure you of this. But we do have some ideas.

Gini Dietrich

Yes, it is zoom fatigue.

Chip Griffin  

And we’re all tired of a lot of things but we’re only going to talk about zoom fatigue today.

Gini Dietrich

Or I would I will loop all video chats into well

Chip Griffin

yes I mean, we have nothing’s going

Gini Dietrich

to go meet Yeah,

Chip Griffin

we have nothing against zoom in particular. I do love Microsoft, but I don’t like Microsoft Teams. So maybe I I will put them into a separate bucket. I just, every time I get invited to a Microsoft Teams call. I just,

Gini Dietrich

it’s Yeah, it never works ever. Never. It works. It’s just it’s not. It’s not as smooth. I’d rather

Chip Griffin

use Skype or something like that. And to my friends in Redmond, I am sorry. Because I do love my I’m doing that this whole production is being done on Microsoft Windows. I’ve switched from the Mac. So I’m a huge fan of you guys. I’m not a huge fan of the team’s meeting software.

Gini Dietrich

On that note,

Chip Griffin

so zoom fatigue, everybody’s talking about it, we have people saying, Oh, my God, zoom. And you’ve got people have come up with all of these quote unquote, solutions, like, zoom free Wednesdays, or, you know, no camera Tuesdays, or I, I don’t I can’t really wrap my mind around a genie.

Gini Dietrich

I think it’s less about the technology and more about we’re having meetings just to have meetings just to have meetings. Yeah. And I’m finding that people are like, Oh, we need to have a meeting about that. And you’re like, No, no, no, we don’t we can just, we can put that in slack or we can eat It or whatever the communication method is, we do not need to have a meeting.

Chip Griffin  

That Yeah, and I think that is really what this comes down to. It’s not zoom, it’s not video, and switch switching your meeting to audio isn’t going to solv...

On this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast, Chip and Gini discuss different agency pricing methodologies to help you determine which model or combination of models is the right fit for your business.

They go into the pros and cons of 9 different models used across the industry and apply their own personal experiences, providing a unique take on the topic.

Resources

* Choosing the Right Pricing Model for Your Agency

Transcript

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.

Chip Griffin 

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin

Gini Dietrich 

and I’m Gini Dietrich,

Chip Griffin 

and we’re here today to talk about pricing models. Not pricing models but pricing models. Oh boy. Yeah. I gotta give listeners know at this point, Jenny I have to come up with something weird to sort of tight to make Joe weird. Yeah. Strange. I’m a strange person. It is what it is.

Gini Dietrich 

Today, dear listeners and viewers, I learned that Chip Griffin used to have an earring. I did I did. That is so uncharacteristic that I am still shocked at this news.

Chip Griffin 

Time a shocking individual journey. But in fairness, as I told you, I was a kid. So this is no

Gini Dietrich 

doesn’t matter. You you as a kid, it doesn’t matter because it’s still uncharacteristic. You as a kid, I pretty much can guarantee He wore a suit and a tie or a bow tie every single day in high school while you’re trying to take down the school board. So you having an earring just just not fail.

Chip Griffin 

Now, wait a minute here. I did not wear a suit and tie. I did wear a collared shirt every single day. Of course you In fact, I’m not sure well, it’s probably just in the last few years that I’ve worn a non collared shirt in public. I still remember the first time that I went No, I Well, I sometimes will wear it to a sporting event. Like if I’m out in the sun. I don’t I don’t put on a golf shirt like I have on now but I generally I don’t

Gini Dietrich 

what do you what do you wear a T shirt or your Oh, your friend has let’s say that I’m taking

Chip Griffin 

I’m fairly certain that that that that is that is not on the approved list of

descriptive terms anymore.

Gini Dietrich 

Thank you, right?

Chip Griffin 

Please come into the 2020s or the 20. teens. Yeah, no, I still remember the first time that I walked into the custom scoop offices probably 15 or 16 years ago in a pair of blue jeans. And I had a staff member say to me, I didn’t even know you owned blue jeans,

Gini Dietrich 

exactly where they pressed with, like pleats on them and everything they were

Chip Griffin 

not because the only time back then that I would wear jeans in public was if I was going to Home Depot or something like tha...

This week on the Agency Leadership Podcast, Chip and Gini discuss the drawbacks to pricing wars, and how you can extract fair value for your services as an agency. They go into the dangers of undervaluing what you provide solely to get new customers in the door, because not only will it hurt your bottom line, but it can have a negative impact on the industry as a whole.

They explain how pricing under costs sets a precedent you cannot meet in the future, and this will in turn give your clients the wrong expectation of how much it will take for you to complete a certain project. Other topics on the table include agencies who intentionally wish to undercut others and what percentage profit should you be taking.

Resources

* PR agencies: don’t start a price war on fees (PR Week)

Transcript

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.

CHIP: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin,

GINI: and I’m Gini Dietrich,

CHIP: and we’re here today to talk about war. Price wars To be more exact. I don’t know, Jenny, I mean, it’s, I think we’re all feeling a little rundown right now, as we record this head of Independence Day holiday here in the United States, we are out of gas. I’m gonna fake it as much as I can.

GINI: I think everybody as I said this in the Spin Sucks community, but it really I mean, I don’t know if everybody has, but it feels like everybody took this week off because everyone’s just like, I’m done. I’m out. Taking a week off. I don’t care if I have to just sit in front of my TV, but I’m out.

CHIP: You know, it’s it’s not about me, you know, we all sort of, I think overestimate the additional time that we’ve supposedly gained by being at home and obviously, I know you were having a young child at home Have not really gained anything she actually lost. I’ve just lost the difference.

GINI: Yeah. But what I think that happened before March however, so.

CHIP: Well, okay. Yeah. So. So today we’re talking about an article that appeared in PR week and it was by Steve Strickland. And unfortunately, I do not know the name of his agency. Oh, Tucker Taylor troublemaking force. Yeah, it was that cool agency name? Yeah, it’s one of the ones that is

GINI: nice. Yeah, nice alliteration. Exactly.

CHIP: any case, so he talked about why PR agencies should not start a price war on fees right now. And obviously, this is this is a concern because as anytime that there is an economic storm, people will do whatever they can to get business whatever they can to grab market share. And so you know, what were what were your thoughts? After reading the piece, Jenny,

GINI: you know, I mean, I liked the piece I thought it was, it was interesting. I appreciated that he talked about two things. One, one that large agencies typically have savings and so they can undercut their own fees and still make their payroll in order to bring on new clients. And I also appreciate that he said, You know, when we do that, even if we can afford it, not only do we hurt ourselves in the long run, but we heard our small agency partners because they can’t do that. And so we’re undercutting the entire industry by cutting our fees, which I agree with.

CHIP: Well, that that is absolutely true. And I am of the belief that I don’t care if you are a one person solo agency, a small agency mid size large agency, you should not ever be pricing below your actual cost. You shouldn’t be using savings to subs No, no, no, you absolutely need to be pricing appropriately because it will back to bite y...

This week on the Agency Leadership Podcast, Chip and Gini talk about how to make a living while doing something you love. It can be difficult to get to a place where you’re both happy with what you do, and also getting compensated well, but it’s far from impossible. They discuss their past experiences, both the good and the bad, and share what they have learned along the way.

Transcript

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.

CHIP: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin

GINI: and I’m Gini Dietrich,

CHIP: and we’re here to talk to you today about bs absolute total BS.

GINI: Now which you can’t actually say the word because we will get flagged

CHIP: that’s what we’ve noticed that I may or may not, but that’s what I’ve heard. So since we’re putting this up as videos now we’re we’re gonna watch our language will be very prim and proper, as we always are.

GINI: But to be fair, I never swear on this stuff

CHIP: anyway. So no, I don’t either. Now if I’m off camera no different right yeah. I’m you know, that’s that’s the advantage of having done media training and provided media training and all you learn to say certain things and not say other things and probably haven’t been in politics. I tend to be

GINI: especially for you. When you give your cleaner but we are. You cannot Yeah, no, no sound bites? sound bites, sound bites?

CHIP: Yes. Yes. Which shot we are going to talk about how many people in the PR space are not good at being able to speak succinctly, and I’ve had it happen on my interview podcast where I just have guests who go on and on. I’m like, you provide media advice to people? How How can you not know that you shouldn’t talk for four minutes without coming up for air?

GINI: Well, I think they know. Right, because they teach it but teaching it and doing it are two different things. It’s It’s It’s challenging. It takes practice. And if you’re not doing interviews, illogical,

CHIP: no. And I’m still not perfect at it. But I’ve gotten better at it over the years because I you just have to make an effort to focus on it. Right. And the advantage of having hosted podcasts for so long is that I get a chance to hone in some of these skills and away from saying every other word and I’m, yes, yes, I still use them more than I should. But yes,

GINI: we all do. But you know, it’s funny as I’ve been transcribing videos, I have not been transcribing. I’ve been reading transcriptions of videos for a client, and oh, man, they’re bad. I read these transcripts and it is an AWS every other word. It’s really challenging and use

CHIP: a different service that doesn’t transcribe those. Oh.

GINI: Oh, do they is there? Yeah, you can tell me I didn’t.

CHIP: You never go. Um, so it. Generally speaking, these services can be set up to either include or exclude them.

GINI: I did not know that. All right. Thank you. So see, look at that. I learned something on our podcast, I will do that. Thank God because it will make me less it will like make me less angry because I get angry. I’m like,

CHIP: I do not want to see you angry. So speaking about angry. I think that’s a great segue into the topic today, because it was an angry tweet that I saw last week from David C. Baker, who is an agency consultant and general expert. He’s advisor. He’s got lots of great content. He’s got some good books and good podcast to Bob’s with Blair ends, puts out lots of great content, but he had one that sort of made me want to react. So why don’t we talk about that, shall we, Jenny?

On this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast, Chip and Gini talk about business development, sales responsibilities, and the importance of defining the roles your team members play in contributing to the growth of the agency.

They discuss how giving important growth tasks to other employees, like taking the lead on a pitch for example, can boost morale and lead to happier and more driven employees, among many other benefits. Other topics on the table include finding the right balance between sales staff and content creation personnel.

Transcript

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.

CHIP: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin,

GINI: and I’m Gini Dietrich,

CHIP: and we’re here today to talk about new business. One of the favorite topics that we know all of you have for us to ramble on about for 20 minutes or so with you each week. And I think this is this is going to be a very focused portion of it, though this is not a general new business discussion, and I’m gonna let the genie kick it off more directly.

GINI: Well, there was a conversation in a Facebook group about this and what the question said was, my PR pros hate selling even though we do it all day, every day with our proposals, ideas, etc. Is your sales function always part of the account managers duties? Or do you have team members specifically tasked with business development? We’re a small agency and we get bottleneck because our account managers always tend to prioritize account busy work over uncomfortable networking and lead development, advice experience training and consulting tools available. Question mark

CHIP: So just the question mark mean that we’re supposed to answer it. I guess that’s that’s probably Yeah, we’re supposed to answer. If we just share the question. Probably people will tune out very quickly if they haven’t already.

GINI: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you did say we ramble on for 20 minutes. So they may have already tuned out.

CHIP: Fair enough. But I think I like to think that some of the charm of this show that we’re not,

GINI: I would like to think

CHIP: that that’s our story, and we’re sticking to it. Right. So, I mean, this is a great topic, because this is this is something that I talked to a lot of small agency owners about. It’s something that has frustrated me over the years in agencies that I’ve owned and run and said cheese, you know, why? Why is the team not, you know, stepping up to the plate and helping to grow the business. And what’s the answer to that, Jenny? Why aren’t Why aren’t they doing that?

GINI: Because it’s not their business. Wow, there

CHIP: you go. Ding, ding, ding. Yeah, I think that’s a tough lesson for all of us as owners to appreciate. Nobody cares nearly as much about the business as we do.

GINI: You know, when I worked at Fleischmann and I think about this a lot, actually, that we had business development training, and they brought people in to teach us and there was a partner, Ron ARP, who would consistently help us along and help us understand what networking and all that kind of stuff was. But when you’re in your 20s, or even early 30s, you just don’t have the relationships. You don’t have relationships with the buyers yet you just don’t your your group of friends are the people that you go out drinking with are not people who are making decisions in business every day. And I think a lot about that, and especially as I started my own agency and had that same frustration, and then very quickly realized, and I certainly have hired business development people and I’ve hired salespeople, and I’ve tried it all.

In this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast, Chip Griffin and Gini Dietrich discuss reports that Edelman has reversed course and decided to lay off employees in the midst of the current crisis.

What does this news mean for other, smaller agencies? And what does the future look like for the whole agency industry?

Transcript

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.

CHIP: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin,

GINI: and I’m Gini Dietrich.

CHIP: And after lots of technical glitches, we finally got the intro to this show. If only you had been here to see how the last 90 seconds have gone with false starts and stops. And so hopefully we will actually make it all the way through this recording such that you can listen to it.

GINI: Yeah, you think we’d never introduced ourselves before? That was a comedy of errors?

CHIP: Well, at least I introduced myself by my correct name and didn’t introduce myself a few, for example, that would be

GINI: Well, that’s true. That would be awkward. Yeah,

CHIP: yes. But that’s sort of a sort of a parallel for the times in which we live, right. So things are just a little bit crazy. And who knows what’s happening from day to day, so why should we know how our show is gonna go?

GINI: Yes. It’s a little crazy right now.

CHIP: And so that craziness is sort of kind of what we’re going to talk about today. And I know we’ve talked about it a bit over the last couple of months. But we really wanted to try to peer into the crystal ball a little bit and look ahead to the next few months and see what we see. And this was really spurred by the news that came out this past week that Edelman is going back on their pledge not to do any layoffs during this economic shock, and instead, we’ll be cutting I guess, what about 7% of their global workforce? So you know, not not a not an insignificant staff cut and obviously, lots of good people will be impacted by that. But I think it’s it’s something it’s a it’s a signal that the rest of the agency community needs to be looking at.

GINI: Yeah, it’s, um, I’ve as, as we both have have been watching this pretty carefully, and it’s, it’s sad. I have some personal friends who have been affected by this for sure. It’s interesting though, to look at things like 7% is a single digit from a layout perspective. So when you perspect, when you put it into that, when you look at it from that perspective, it’s not terrible. It’s terrible when you think about the friends that that have lost their jobs in a time like this, which is just a horrible time to lose your job, in any case, but it’s also I think, really hard and admirable at the same time that Edelman Richard Edelman had to come out and say, Hey, listen, I promised that we weren’t going to do layoffs two months ago. And here we are, and I’m really sorry. And it’s it’s tough to have to lay on that sword. And admit that you made that kind of mistake. That’s tough.

CHIP: Yeah, look, I mean, nobody wants to eat Crow, right. That’s, that is probably one of the least pleasant things you can do in life and certainly in business. When you’re as prominent as someone like he is, you know, you that’s something you want to avoid at all costs. But I think, you know, one of the points that he made in the announcement was it this is this is not 2001. This is not 2008. And it’s a good point. Same playbook. Yep. Yeah. And frankly, that’s something that you and I have been saying all along, but you can certainly learn lessons from that. And as someone who ran businesses in 2001 2008, I think there’s a lot of things that that I can ...

To be hired, you have to be known. Chip and Gini discuss how you can make sure that your targeted prospects know about and respect you and your team before they even become clients.

Getting noticed means figuring out where those prospects “live” and what media they consume. Then you must get creative about how you get your name and expertise in front of them.

Transcript

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.

CHIP: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin

GINI: and I’m Gini Dietrich,

CHIP: and today we are not recording in video sorry to say so we will be doing that starting in June on a permanent basis but we have a few things to tweak or I have a few things to tweak after last week’s experiment in video which hopefully you all enjoyed listening to and perhaps even watching and if you haven’t, you can always go to agency leadership TV to get our YouTube channel and see us in all of our stunning HD glory.

GINI: And and the best part is you did not burn your camera out like you thought you had

CHIP: I did not I die I overheated it during that that recording but I did not destroy it which I am very very grateful for

GINI: Yeah. I’m grateful on your behalf

CHIP: that would have been quite unfortunate. So that means we’re back here for another episode and this week. We’re gonna Talk about something that I know is on the minds of lots of folks as they’re thinking about how to focus on business growth in this new era, which is how do you raise your profile in the industries that you serve? So, if you are focused on the restaurant industry are well, probably not a great example these days. But, you know, if you’re, if you’re focused on high tech, or you’re focused on pharma, or those, how do you raise your profile as an agency in that space so that you can more effectively win business. And of course, we’ve talked in the past about the importance of niching and figuring out you know, who it is that you serve, and not trying to be all things to all people. But once you figure that out, how do you become known as an expert in that space?

GINI: Yeah, and this is a topic that is near and dear to my heart. for a couple of reasons, one, because it does allow you to create some expertise around yourself in your agency, but also it’s a right smack dab in the middle of the PESO model. And when you use the PESO model effectively, you do build reputation both both online and off. So it is a topic near and dear to my heart. And it’s something that is widely debated even just the term thought leadership is widely debated because I think anybody with a Twitter account and a keyboard can be considered a quote unquote thought leader. So what you really need to be thinking about is, How are you different? What do you have to say that truly is does differentiate yourself or your agency and your agency? And are you willing to, for lack of a better term get on your soapbox to talk about the differences that you that your expertise provides?

CHIP: Right, and I think that it’s important that you develop a perspective or a point of view, again, something we’ve talked about previously, particularly in, in these challenging times. You need to be different and you get different by having an outlook on things and being able to share that. Right. You know, I you know, I do think that thought leadership Probably one of those terms that’s overused. But the reality is that it still matters. So whether whether you that term or whether you think that it’s a

GINI: 30s reputation, whatever it happens to be,

CHIP: right, and that that’s not anything new, which this is not something that has just come about in the last five or 10 years,

PR and marketing agencies around the world have been forced to abandon their offices and work together as a team remotely. This can be a challenging transition for many reasons, but the challenge of maintaining a positive company culture is magnified.

Chip Griffin and Gini Dietrich discuss how agency leaders can engage their employees effectively without becoming micromanagers. It starts with strong communication and a willingness to innovate. It improves through feedback and adaptation.

In this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast, Chip and Gini share their experiences in building culture while running remote and hybrid businesses. The practical advice they share will help you become a more effective manager of your own newly remote team members.

Transcript

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.

CHIP: Good. Hello, welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I am Chip Griffin.

GINI: And I am Gini Dietrich.

CHIP: And if you are watching this, you know that we’ve done this one in video if you are not, it’s because you’re listening in audio, or because I totally screwed up the video because this is a first a first time ever, and we’re not doing something chintzy, like a zoom recording. We’re going all out. So if you’re watching this, you should be seeing lower thirds and fancy graphics. And

GINI: also, I mean it is like it’s fancy. I feel like I’m on some cnn broadcasts or something. It’s nice.

CHIP: Our audience is slightly smaller than cnn

Unknown Speaker

slightly.

CHIP: Maybe particularly these days. I think a lot more people are watching the news these days. But in any case. So we have a topic today. So we’re not just reading about the fact that we’ve got

Unknown Speaker

Wi Fi video,

CHIP: cameras and all that kind of stuff. We are going to talk about How to Build culture for all those agencies that were not remote to begin with and have now become remote agencies, a lot of them are worried about how do you keep team culture? How do you bring your team together? How do you keep them engaged? And so that’s what we’re going to talk about today. And it’s something we’re very well suited to, because I’ve worked in a number of businesses that have either been all remote or partially remote. Right? Of course, your current business is all remote. But you transition from having an office to many years ago?

GINI: I did. Yes. Yes. Yeah. It’s interesting, because it keeps coming up with agency owners, which is it’s even though states are reopening, we’re still thinking that we probably won’t go back to being in an office anytime soon. So what does that look like for a company culture? How do we continue to build what we have? How do we continue to keep employees engaged and still be productive and efficient?

CHIP: And it’s a thief I’ve already screwed it up. I got the wrong word. So And I miss anticipated but it is the wonders of recording as we go yeah, I mean it is a it is a challenge and it’s one of those things where I think a lot of people are trying different things right now. Some of them will stick some of them won’t sure you know I saw is the start of this there was an explosion of virtual happy hours I’ve seen them sort of start yet yes people’s livers started to protest about you know, doing a virtual happy hour every night. That could be problematic, I suppose.

Unknown Speaker

I suppose. Yeah.

CHIP: But so you know what, I’ll see now I can slide the wrong or third up there. This is just terrible. Terrible. It looks right on my end. It is now it’s just changed as I was talking got

GINI: it. Okay.