In this episode, Chip and Gini have a candid conversation about the challenges of bring employees back to your agency’s office. There’s a lot to consider — starting with when — for you to consider.

As many states and countries begin to try to resume more usual operations for some businesses, agency owners face some difficult decisions. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution, and the show hosts strongly recommend involving your team in the important choices ahead.

Chip and Gini also address one of the elephants in the room: will this cause many/most agencies that have offices to become virtual businesses with everyone working remotely.

Resources

*

What to consider before re-opening your agency’s office

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 am Gini Dietrich.

CHIP: And we’re here to talk about reopening your agency. Because Well, folks are talking about relaxing the rules and getting tattoos if you’re in Georgia. Really, that’s what most people have been craving during a tattoo.

GINI: I think it’s more that you we were told we couldn’t and so now that we can, kind of like when you were a teenager, and you were told you couldn’t have those things.

CHIP: Yes. I mean, I when I’m not traveling, I generally work from home. And so I will if I’m not traveling, I will spend you know, weeks at a time barely leaving the house but there is a difference between being told I cannot leave the house right and choosing Yes, leave the house, right. Yes, it is definitely a different experience. But the reality is that as the rules on stay at home begin to relax in some states and countries. It agency owners need to give more thought to what is their plan for reopening If they have an office, and you know, how will they do it? When will they do it? And so that’s the topic for today’s show.

GINI: Yeah. And I think it’s really interesting. There was an interesting conversation on Facebook with a girlfriend of mine who runs an agency in California. And she said that Governor Newsome has said PR firms are part of phase two so that they can reopen. And then there was this big conversation about that they think we just stopped working like, right, I mean, we’re still working. It’s not like we’re reopening. But we could go back, they can go back to the office. And she said, My challenge is, I don’t feel safe doing that. And I don’t feel safe, asking my team to do that yet, even if even if it is part of phase two. And so there was a whole conversation about what that looks like. And, and I think that it’s really individual. I mean, unless you’re a huge global firm with offices worldwide. You know, you’re in and then you have to make decisions based on country and on State. But, you know, if you’re an if you’re an independent, you have to it’s really an individual decision.

CHIP: Yeah. And it is it is certainly a challenge. And I know from the conversations that I’ve been having with agency leaders, there are there are some, I would say, in general, most agency leaders that I’m talking to are on the conservative side. Sure, as far as reopening, because a lot of things can be done remotely if you’re an agency. And so I know that some of the ones I’ve talked to in areas where they are allowed to open now who said, you know, we’re going to wait at least, you know, a few weeks or a month before we pull that trigger, because we want to make sure that we’re erring on the side of ...

Chip and Gini have talked regularly about the need for agencies to adopt a helpful mindset, especially amid these turbulent times.

In this episode, the co-hosts explore some specific ideas that listeners can implement to be helpful to their own clients, prospects, and others.

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 am Chip Griffin

GINI: and I am Gini Dietrich,

CHIP: and we are here to be helpful. We are and actually, of today’s

GINI: episode Wow, what a weird segue.

CHIP: Yeah, you know, it’s like occasionally I don’t totally muck it up and you know, do a decent job of it. So we are we are talking about ways that you can be helpful because we’ve been saying on this podcast for quite some time since we got into the midst of this crisis that you need to find ways to be human and helpful and all that and so we thought it would be helpful to talk about being helpful

GINI: and you were very prepared because you actually wrote down some ideas. I have them all in my head and I did think about it but you went the extra step and wrote them down.

CHIP: Well, I my memory has gone the same places my hair, it’s just

GINI: non existent,

CHIP: non existent. And so I thought I would write something down and I’m, you know, one of my goals for this year was to be more prepared. For this podcast, I’ve generally failed at that. But today I’m

GINI: I mean, to be fair, I think that we probably all had some goals in January that we’ve not been able to fulfill

CHIP: that year. That is fair. That is fair. Oh, I do like to say when people ask me how things are going, I always say, Well, this is exactly how I drew it up when I was doing my 2020. Planning.

GINI: Yeah, we all did. Yeah, exactly.

CHIP: Not so much. In any case. So if you want to be helpful to people, because being helpful is something that will come back in and benefit you and your agency in the future. How can you be helpful, Jimmy?

GINI: Well, you’re the one with the list. But I actually it’s interesting. We have started this series on Spin Sucks called my hot mess, which runs every Friday and we’re talking to different communicators about how they’re managing how they’re managing with kids at home, different ages, how they’re managing with aging parents, how they’re managing if their business has gone away, like you know just how we’re managing And we’re trying to look at different different perspectives and different experiences just to you know, so that people understand that while we are not all in this together we are in this at the same time and they are different experiences in all this and as part of that I was editing tomorrow’s we’re recording this on a Thursday I was editing the one that Rob bees and Bach has done for us. And he talks about in there how he created a an online course that teaches people how to take their keynote presentations there panel discussions, you know, things like that online because a lot of people don’t have that experience. They don’t they’ve never done a webinar before. They’ve never participated in a webinar that you know, so those kinds of things. So, he’s he did, he’s done a really nice job of his pivoting his own his speaking business into something online and he’s offering it for free. So I think that’s a really interesting way to both give back and create good karma, but also build thought leadership and brand equity in a time where people need it.

CHIP: Absolutely. I mean, creating resources for people and particularly research resources that you make available for free. It’s,

The sheer magnitude of the health and economic challenge facing every agency leader right now can be a bit overwhelming. The solution is to take it all in manageable chunks instead of solving every problem all at once.

In this episode, Chip and Gini review some of the things that every agency leader should be thinking about and doing in the near-term.

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 to you about next steps. What should you be thinking about after the current lockdown house arrest, whatever you want to call it, it’s called and look ahead to better times in the future and how you can prepare yourself for that now. Yeah, I think it’s it’s challenging right now, because everybody’s trying to figure out how to maintain optimism, especially when their teams are freaking out, which is understandable. Because you’re probably freaking out too. So trying to maintain that optimism and positivity is, is a real challenge right now. But I also think we do need to be thinking about, you know, six months from now, what does this look like? We’re hearing in Chicago, that is probably going to be July before we can leave our homes. That’s a really long time. That’s four months that will be shelter in place. And so maintaining some sort of optimism and positivity and being able to look forward is challenging right now. But I think as leaders, it’s something we need we need to have on the forefront of our brains. Yeah. And I think, you know, I mean, obviously, we’re continuing to deal with the uncertainty over when things will turn around and and what, what that will look like. Sure. I think July is likely for a lot of folks, but I think I think we’re on the as we record this year on April 10. I think that in the next week or so, we’re going to see increasing pressure to at least loosen some of the restrictions as early as May one. And so then, you know, that may put some agencies in the position where they need to think about, you know, how are they going to react, you know, if they’re, if their jurisdiction or the jurisdiction where their employees are, loosen the restrictions? Are you going to, you know, loosen your own restrictions, you’re going to keep some in place. You know, I think folks also need to be thinking about when people do return to the office, whether that should make July September whenever right right what what kind of policies are you going to put in Place? Are you going to be taking temperatures of employees when they come in the door? Are you going to be making everybody wear a mask in the office, even if your local jurisdiction isn’t requiring it? There’s, there’s a lot of those logistical things there. It’s worth thinking about now. It’s worth having conversations with your professional advisors about to see what is permissible and not. And I think we’re, frankly, we’re an environment that’s a little bit more permissive now, overall, but you know, I mean, six months ago, if you if you came to me and said, you know, is it okay to ask my employees if they’ve got a fever? Or if they’ve been sick recently? I would say Hell no,

GINI: right. Yeah.

CHIP: Do not ask if they’ve had COVID-19. Because you don’t want to know that. But now, we’re in an environment where I think, you know, the government’s going to be encouraging, if not requiring employers to ask a lot of those questions. But you still want to make sure that you’ve cleared that with your own professional advisors to make sure that it’s permissible under the rules that you’re living und...

Small PR and marketing agencies may be feeling a disproportionate share of the hurt right now as the Covid-19 crisis ravages the global economy, but there are inherent advantages to being small that will help in recovery.

Chip and Gini spend this episode talking about the small agency advantage and the steps needed to survive the immediate challenge and come out stronger on the other side.

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 these are disruptive times we have lots of small agencies that are listening. And so, you know, we thought we talked about what it’s like to be a small agency right now and in particular, how you can use the fact that you’re small to your advantage. With everything that’s going on, you may sit there and say, Wow, what do you mean this is, this is not an advantage. But I think there are some real advantages to being small in this environment as opposed to one of the larger agencies with lots of overhead, lots of infrastructure, I think the smaller you are, the more nimble you can be. So that will be the subject of today’s episode.

GINI: I like it and as a small agency, I can speak from experience that that has gotten smaller.

CHIP: Unfortunately, many small agencies have gotten smaller. A very small number of held steady and an even smaller number have actually grown just slightly but I think those that growth will be short lived. Because the you know, at some point, even if you’re in crisis, or some of the sectors that are doing particularly well, right now, I think you will see, the overall economic contraction will have its impact. Yeah. Anyway. But the, you know, I think that the advantage that a lot of small agencies have is that they are, they do have the flexibility because they don’t have the same cost structure that larger agencies have. And so, you know, on the one hand, that means you don’t have tons of bodies that you can lay off to save money, right. So, you know, and so far, particularly here in the United States, we’ve seen a lot of government aid coming in. And so that is, has slowed down the layoffs that I think would otherwise be taking place. You know, there’s particularly with the incentives that some of the stimulus has for businesses to keep employees on sort of the loan forgiveness, yeah. But I, you know, but nevertheless, you know, the larger agencies You know, from what I’m hearing, you’re probably going to have some pretty substantial layoffs in the not too distant future because they just have to I mean, they, you know, they’re, they’re losing 10s of millions of dollars in business right now. And it’s, you know, that’s much harder to deal with, in aggregate than it is for a small agency, even a small agency that’s losing, say, 50% of revenue, you still have more room to maneuver with your 50% loss, then, you know, 1000 person agency who was, you know, 40 or 50%?

GINI: Sure, yeah. I mean, it’s, somebody said to me, You know, I’ve lost 50% of my revenue, but at least it’s not as much as you and I was like, 50% is 50%. Like, half is halfway. It doesn’t matter if it’s large numbers or small numbers, but I do agree that when with a larger agency, it proves more challenging because the overhead is gigantic. Something that you said that has stuck in my brain. I think it was during the you know, don’t don’t forget to do new business development during this time episode. But you said, No, I lost my train of thought.

CHIP: That’s how things are these days at all. We all lose our train of thought more often than we would like to. And I do in fairness,

Perhaps now more than ever, communicators need to be adopting the PESO model to maximize results. PR agencies, in particular, should be looking at how to leverage the tools beyond traditional earned media since many journalists and news outlets have precious little time and space for non-virus content right now.

As the creator of the PESO model, Gini Dietrich understands its value and has a variety of tools and trainings available to help communicators take advantage of the approach. Chip and Gini discuss the importance of the PESO model and how agencies can better utilize it.

Resources

* The PESO Model Certification

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 pesos because really Mexican money is what this podcast is all about. Hey, listen,

GINI: pesos by the PESO model. So

CHIP: Ah, that’s right. Actually, we are talking peso, all capitals today and that is how has the PESO model changed the agency world, particularly PR agencies and of course, we have nobody better to talk about it then the creator of the PESO model, my co host, Gini Dietrich.

GINI: Wow, that was, wow. Yes.

CHIP: So yeah. What is for those who have been living under a rock for the past? Whatever it is almost 10 years now. Right? Eight? Yeah, yes. Okay. What is the PESO model?

GINI: The PESO model is paid, earned, shared and owned media. And it’s taking those four media types and integrating them so that you can build a thorough both online and offline.

CHIP: And so this is it requires different thinking from particularly PR agencies, right? Who maybe 20 years ago were primarily Media Relations. You know, some influencer marketing, although wasn’t really called that back then events, that kind of thing. But now it’s really it for many agencies, they become a bit more of a hybrid model now. Right.

GINI: Yeah. And I mean, I think it’s for any communicator, not necessarily agencies, but um, yeah, it’s, it’s really looking at a couple of things. Number one, and I think a good catalyst for this is that it’s shown over and over and over again, that in every study on earth that executives value earned media the most, which makes sense because it’s third party credibility, right? At the same time, they want that to translate to sales. And it’s unfortunate that we can’t really translate that Sure, we can show an increase in website traffic and we can show that that way. Like traffic, maybe became email subscribers, and then we can follow them through that process. But that also requires that you have other things that requires that you have an email and that you have content and that you’re have promotion and distribution, and that you’re putting some money, some budget behind some paid stuff. So it requires those other things. You can’t just do earn media alone and translate that to sales. But that’s where we are is, you know, we see executive CPR, and I’m putting PR in quotes as Media Relations, but they expect it to translate to sales. So if we if we truly want to demonstrate that that work, and the work that we do does translate to sales, we have to have the other stuff in there. We have to have content, we have to have email marketing, we have to have paid social, we have to have social media, we have to have promotion and distribution. We have to have search engine optimization, we have to have all those things to be able to demonstrate that.

CHIP: And it’s I mean, it’s really helpful to agencies to have these additional tools...

There’s no need to sugarcoat it. These are challenging times. But agencies can and should continue to engage in business development.

It requires a delicate balance, so Chip and Gini address how to thread the needle appropriately to make sure you are meeting the needs of prospects without unnecessarily alienating those who may be less receptive to your message right now.

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 to you about how it is that you’re going to generate new business in the midst of all that’s going on, not that anything’s going on, it’s kind of a quiet now

GINI: there’s nothing going on. I don’t know what you’re talking about.

CHIP: There’s no news to be had. There’s nothing going

GINI: on news. No. The world’s not ending. No, nothing going on.

CHIP: If the world ends good news is you don’t really need to worry about new business. No, the world’s not gonna end though. So you don’t need to worry about it. You do need to worry about new business.

GINI: You do need to raise awareness. And it’s a really challenging and I would say sensitive topic because you don’t want to be seen as dry. Right? I can see chip space and he’s trying not to laugh.

CHIP: Focus, Jenny focus.

GINI: I can’t you’re trying not to laugh and I don’t know why.

And okay, so as I was saying This is it is a challenging time because you have to be really sensitive to the fact that lives are up ended. And lots of people are homeschooling and trying to run businesses and trying to keep everything going. And it’s a lot. It’s a lot. At the same time, there is I think there’s an opportunity. There’s always opportunity, as you said, In a previous episode, as rahm emanuel said, find it was not this nice, but find opportunity in crisis. Um, you do have opportunity, and doing doing that and going after new business and prospecting is one of the things you should be doing right now. For sure, and just just be sensitive to the fact that everybody’s lives are up ended.

CHIP: Yeah, and look, I mean, you know, we, you know, we we’ve tried to have some levity in the last episode where we talked about this crisis and obviously, a little bit of levity here at the start of this one as well. outlook, you have to have some of that. Otherwise, I think you just too crazy. At the end of the day, everybody here is impacted by this. It’s unlike any other crisis that I think we’ve ever seen there is not a single person that is not impacted on the entire planet in some fashion, either because they’re concerned they might get at a concern a loved one might get it or because they’re infected economically directly. Right, right, better off for it. I mean, so this is this is very different. But you know, not everything can stop, you know, we may have to all sit inside of our homes and, you know, kind of stare out the window and wonder what’s going on out there. But there’s a there’s a need for us to continue what we do, particularly in the agency space. In fact, there are a lot of my clients that are seeing increases in business for certain clients, because there are there are absolutely businesses out there that are producing more work for their communications teams as a result of what’s going on whether that’s crisis work or Because you work for a pharmaceutical company that maybe is working on a potential cure or vaccine or what have you. There are opportunities to be had and make no mistake, there are some businesses that are doing better to...

It’s an uncertain time for everyone. Business is disrupted. Personal lives are upended. Fear and anxiety are common feelings.

On this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast, Chip and Gini look at how agencies can and should be handling the situation. There’s no one size fits all answer — it really does depend — but they have both been through tough times in business and the economy before and they share the lessons they have learned along the way.

From staffing to business development, the pair have helpful advice designed to help you get through this challenge and come out stronger on the other side.

Even though it’s a difficult time, Chip and Gini still try to bring some of their trademark humor to lighten the conversation.

Resources

* How agencies can handle the economic fallout of the Covid-19 crisis

* Agencies already feeling economic impact of Covid-19 crisis

* Virtual Happy Hour on March 19, 2020

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 there’s just a bit of news these days. So we thought we thought we would diverge from our usual content calendar, which we actually sort of kind of do have, despite the way it may seem. And we will talk about the corona virus kovat 19 crisis, whatever you want to call it, and how your agency should be responding to it today.

GINI: Yes, it is a very challenging time. I think that, you know, we certainly live through 911 and we lived through the great recession and this this seems to be significantly worse. I don’t think that anybody who is alive on this planet has experienced something like this. No, yeah. It’s It’s It’s a real challenge, and nobody really knows what to do.

CHIP: It’s an incredible challenge. I think the the uncertainty is something that differentiates it from those previous crises? So, you know, if you look back at the great recession of oh eight, you know, in, in part, first of all that, that didn’t affect everybody. I mean, it certainly affected a large swath. But there was a sense that, in some respects, some people were getting their Just Desserts out of it, because, you know, they played fast and loose. So the, you know, the fat cats got screwed. Yes, we’re getting screwed in the process. But it was it was a weird, weird dynamic, I thought at that point in time. And then you look back to 2001. And a lot of people have compared the current situation to 911. And, you know, what, I’ve been telling people, I’ve said, this look it to me, it’s different, because in 911, the original event was the bottom. And, you know, certainly that that first week was was sort of surreal. And everybody was sort of walking around days to sort of like everybody is right.

GINI: Yes,

CHIP: but but but then people sort of got a resolve and said, okay, you know, we’re not going to let them win. We’re going to fight back and And people were asked to do things give blood, you know, continue to fuel the economy go about your daily life, things like that. Whereas now it’s first of all, we don’t know when the bottom is how deep the bottom is. It’s really every day just brings more uncertainty, which is tougher. And then the second piece is the the solution is do nothing. Stay home isolate, don’t

GINI: talk to anyone. Yeah, right.

Agencies rely on their people to succeed. Ultimately, agencies are selling labor hours, no matter how much we may all try to price things to obscure that fact.

Having the best talent helps make the difference between successful client engagements and those that come up short. But how do you get the quality you want and need?

Chip and Gini review the recruiting and hiring process in this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. The pair offer tips on how to find the right prospective hires and how to screen 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 we’re here today to interview you and see if you might be a good candidate. Well, now we’re sorry, we’re not out here to hire you today. We are here to talk about the hiring process and what it takes to recruit the best talent to your agency. Because obviously, agencies are all about the people, any agents will tell you that and if you’re all about the people, how do you get those best people?

GINI: You know, the slogan hire slowly, I almost did that backwards, hire, hire slowly, fire fast, exists for a reason. So I do think there’s some value in having a process that allows you to evaluate somebody over a several week period. So I have a very personal story. My sister got a new job and she, she she got the interview on a Wednesday. on a Thursday she went in at 11 had the interview left They’re like 1215 had a job offer by one o’clock. And I was like, have you had any time to? Like, evaluate them figure out if that’s where you want to work, talk to people you’d work with? No, she just met the CEO. And that’s it. Like she didn’t meet her own. Who is she? She would be a direct reports or anything. And it was just like, I mean, I watched it from, you know, my perspective going, holy cow, I cannot imagine hiring somebody after meeting them for an hour, an hour.

CHIP: So I have two stories in my career that that, that are even faster than that. So the first was my own. The first time that I got a professional job as an intern. I was a student at American University. I went to Capitol Hill, where I would just hang out on my off days or off after hours, you know, I mean, I was I was an 18 year old political geek in Washington and right just wander around the Capitol, particularly, particularly back 1991 when there was not as much security as there is anyway, so I walked into my local member of Congress’s office, I knew nothing about them at all, except I’d seen the name in the press. And I walked in and I said to the receptionist, I said, you know, I’d be interested in some information on your internship program, you know, sort of planning ahead for maybe my junior year or something like that. And the the legislative director came out, he asked me two or three questions, and he said, you know, can you start tomorrow? So, Mike, sure, okay. So, I mean, obviously, less monumental point of my career that ended up being very important and valuable to my career, but right but no consideration whatsoever, really on either side. It was, it was the fastest interview I’ve ever seen. It lasted I think

GINI: they were like, do you breathe? Can you be here tomorrow, your high?

CHIP: Well, what it was was that they were he was a freshman member. They’d only been in office for at that point seven or eight months, and they had just been talking About how they needed to create an internship program. And so this was a way to jumpstart. And interested on the House side, you have very small offices, usually only a half dozen or so folks working in your office in Washington. And so, you know, getting someone in who can even work,

A recent question on the PRSA member discussion forum came from a client who was looking for guidance on setting goals for their PR agency. The individual inquired if “3-5% [growth is] fairly standard.”

Chip and Gini tackled this question, along with the broader topic of aligning agency work with client goals. They also discussed how these goals might factor in to agency compensation.

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 goals. Not your goals as an agency, but the goals that your clients have for you, and how should those be set. So this is a topic that came up in the prsa discussion forum that they have on their website for members. And someone wrote in to say that she was looking for best practices when it comes to increasing the goals for our agency partner in 2020. is three to 5% fairly standard. And she goes on to say as background, we measure for both quality predetermined list of VIP outlets and quantity impressions. Our team has far exceeded the impressions goal in 2019. goes on to say what percentage are considered standard, what percentage increase should be or should the percentage increase be based on the 2019 gold or 2019 actual How should we take into account the retainer increase? Because they’ve increased the agency’s retainer by 37% monthly 2020 she says, so watch to chew on their journey. Where would you like to start?

GINI: I would like to begin with why, why? Why are we measuring goals against impressions in 2019 and 2020?

CHIP: At least it’s not a BS,

GINI: it may as well be it’s just as bad. It’s not a goal.

CHIP: Well, we probably call it opportunities to see them. That sounds much fancier OTS.

GINI: This is the thing, and this is this is this is real. They This is part of the problem with that the communications industry has overall and this is part of what we talked about, consistently at spin sucks. impressions are not a goal. impressions are not even a vanity metric. They’re not a real metric. Because you don’t know just because the New York Times has 10 million readers and you multiply that by Two and a half, and now you have 25 million impressions that all of those people have read your article. That’s just not the case. What?

CHIP: What are you trying to tell me, Jenny, that

GINI: needle in me?

CHIP: I get mentioned in the New York Times, every single person who’s ever heard of New York Times isn’t going to read and adore my quote. No. Wow. Sorry. That’s had some will for sure. My family probably I’ll send it around. I won’t even send it they won’t.

GINI: They won’t even read it. Now. They probably can send it around to you. You can I

CHIP: will read it you find something impressive. Unfortunately, it’s a negative impression by the time you’re done with it. Say Why did you say that chip? Yes.

GINI: Hi, challenge I have with this is this is a Director of Communications for a very large organization. Very large organization. And I understand that in large organizations, it takes a long time to turn the ship. I get that but If we’re talking about measuring goals and an account team that’s over servicing the client, let’s talk about the things that really mattered. And in this case, I would imagine it’s a hotel chain. I would imagine that things that matter are, you know, bodies and beds. I was trying to think of a better way to say that.

CHIP: I think the industry actually calls for the bookings.

GINI: bodies and bags won’t work butts and seats won’t work.

Most agency owners have at least mused about the possibility of selling their business at some point. After all, who wouldn’t want someone to get a nice fat check for that recognizes their significant professional accomplishment.

But why would someone buy your agency?

That’s the question that Chip and Gini address in this week’s episode. They discuss the recent report published by Agency Leadership Advisors that summarizes PR agency M&A transactions that took place in 2019. The co-hosts look at factors like capabilities, talent, geography, and size — to name just a few.

Resources

* 2019 PR Agency M&A Report

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 buy your agency. We’re going to buy all of them. If you’re listening, we are buying your agency. So just the paperwork, and we’ll send you the checks. And yeah, well done.

GINI: If only it were that simple,

CHIP: if only it were that simple, but the reality is selling your agency is very difficult. It is something that a lot of agency owners aspire to, in fact, I would dare say most of the agency owners that I talked to have at least noodled on the idea of selling their business at some point or another. And but the question is, which agencies actually get bought? And that’s the topic of this week’s episode.

GINI: Yeah, I think it’s really it’s a really interesting topic for a couple of reasons. I mean, to your point, a lot of agency owners do have that as the end goal. But you’ve also put together what I think is a really compelling piece on m&a activity for last year, and there I, you know, as I’m looking through it through the data, there are some really interesting things in here that will allow agency owners to plan and plan for the future and plan for time of year as well as you’re thinking about when it would be when it would be the right time to sell if that’s what you if that’s your goal.

CHIP: Yeah, and and so this is a report that I put out recently, and it looks at 2019 mergers and acquisitions in the PR agency space in particular, and NPR is defined fairly broadly. So you know, PR, integrated communications, marketing communications, but would not include advertising agencies and that sort of thing. So a lot of the the general information is still relevant, regardless of the type of agency you have. But that’s, that’s the data set that we use to analyze it. And, you know, I think there are some interesting insights there. The first one, and I think probably the top line number is that there are 62 PR agencies. were sold in 2019.

GINI: That’s a lot. It’s

CHIP: like that’s a lot. It’s a lot. And it’s not at the same time, right? So it’s a lot as far as if you look at it from an external perspective, but if you’re someone who’s interested in selling your agency, and you realize that just 60 were sold in fair in a year, and there are thousands of agencies out there, it’s a relatively small percentage. So, so I think it cuts both ways. I it’s the kind of information that helps you understand it’s it’s not a rarity by any means, you know, they’re barely a week goes by but an agency salesman now and I should say, you know, these are, these are agency sales that, you know, received some press mention of dwyers, homeless report, PR week, those sorts of things, which means that would probably cover just about any deal of any significance, right? It doesn’t,