It’s a never-ending battle for agency managers to keep their teams on track. With the volume and pace of work that everyone is trying to get done, it can sometimes be frustrating to figure out what needs to be done next.

This is a topic that came up in a recent conversation in r/agency on Reddit. Chip and Gini found some of the responses to be just a bit off the mark, so they highlight some bad advice that they saw — then offer up their own take on the challenge.

Spoiler alert: secret lists are never the answer.

Quotes

* Chip: “Keeping secret lists really is never a good management tactic. No, I can’t think of an occasion where there is a good secret list to be kept. So let’s just start with that concept that if you’re hiding something, or being secretive about something that probably suggests there’s something amiss.”* Gini: “Tell them what the priorities are, have monthly company wide meetings to say, hey, these are the priorities for next month. Let’s talk through who needs to do what and what we’re going to be focused on.”* Chip: “And like so many things, it almost doesn’t matter which tool you’re using, as long as you’re using it consistently. Because the reason why most project management tools fail is not because there’s something inherently wrong with the tool, it’s because the team isn’t using it. They’re not updating on a regular basis.”* Gini: “Please do not keep secrets from the team.”

Resources

* Reddit post with original question* Ken Jacobs episode* Karl Sakas episode* Trello* Asana* CoSchedule* Basecamp* 60+ project management tools for agencies (by Karl Sakas)

Transcript

CHIP: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I am very pleased to report that Gini Dietrich is back in her guest – or not in her guest. Let’s let’s start this over.

GINI: No I think you should leave it. in her guest -permanent co host spot.

CHIP: So she’s she’s our permanent guest co host Sure, we’ll just we’ll just ride with this because because why not? This is this is we are real about the Agency Leadership Podcast. There is nothing fake about this. We don’t use all sorts of editing tricks. We just lay it right out there for you. So…

GINI: Kind of like how our community manager was like the two of you should do this on video. So we can do your outtakes as bloopers and you were like, No, that would require us to be somewhat somewhat professional. And that’s just not happening.

CHIP: I to be clear, and you pointed this out in the Spin Sucks Community. I said pretend, pretend be professional because neither one of us is really all that professional if truth be told. We try to fake it as much as we can for the show. Because Well, we want you to continue to listen. So on that note, it is great to have you back. Thanks. Thanks to Ken Jacobs and Karl Sakas for filling in for the la...

Karl Sakas of Sakas and Company fills in for Gini Dietrich as Chip Griffin’s co-host on this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast.

Chip and Karl discuss how agencies can raise prices and increase revenue from clients by moving them along a continuum toward higher-priced (and higher-value) services.

Quotes

* Karl: “If you lead with strategy, if you lead with the think activities, you’re positioning yourself as more of an expert, and you can charge more, get paid more, you and your team will be happier, ultimately getting paid more, with fewer hours.”* Chip: “Start thinking about it, what are the kinds of activities that I can start to shift and empower my clients to participate in, as opposed to having to do for them, it really allows you to think much more broadly about the value that you can deliver to that client, which at the end of the day is how you continue to get and retain clients by showing that you’re delivering that value.”* Karl: “If you’re using teach services to make your clients less dependent on your agency for the really low level stuff that your team hates doing, that sounds like a win.”* Chip: “it takes time to be able to move up these tiers, and do it well, because nothing’s going to expose you faster than if you pretend to be an expert in something that you’re not. So really make sure that you have that close alignment between what you’re targeting on these tiers and what you can actually deliver on.”

Resources

* Agency Services Framework: Charge More via “Think, Teach, Do”* Strategy Tiers: Charge More for Strategy Work* Boost client retention with Warmth & Competence* Get paid more later with “strategically free”* Listen (and delegate!) better via Values, Goals, and Resources (VGR)* How to pick a vertical specialization for your agency* Newsletter: Business tips for agency leaders (and eBook on handling difficult clients)* @KarlSakas on Twitter* The Human Brand by Chris Malone and Susan T. Fiske* Jay Baer

Transcript

CHIP: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. And once again, Gini Dietrich has a scheduling conflict. So I am fortunate to be joined by another excellent guest co host. This time it is Karl Sakas of Sakas and Company. He’s a fellow agency consultant. And Jay Baer has described him in probably the most entertaining way that I can think of. So I’ll just use his line, which is that Karl is the Dr. Phil of agency owners and managers, one part confidant, one part ass kicker. So with that, Karl, welcome to the show. Thanks for joining me.

KARL: Hey, Chip. Great to be here.

CHIP: So what did I miss in that intro?

Ken Jacobs fills in for Gini Dietrich as Chip Griffin’s co-host on this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast.

As an executive coach, agency consultant, and trainer, Ken has a passion for leadership issues, so he and Chip share three lessons that each has learned over many decades of management and leadership roles.

Some of the topics covered include:

* The importance of listening* The value of servant leadership* The need to customize your leadership style* The requirement to show (and not just tell)* The understanding that how you climb the leadership ladder is how you descend it one day* The significance of the “Washington Post test”

Quotes

* Chip: “A fantastic lesson is the importance of a leader understanding that when they listen and when they speak can impact the outcome of a meeting. Because if you’re not listening, and instead, as a leader, you’re coming out too soon and sharing your views, you may inadvertently stifle creative thought, you may stifle useful opinions and insights that your team has.”* Ken: “When you put money in the stock market or the bank or wherever, you don’t expect to just get the same thing back, you expect to get more back, you expect to get great ROI. And I know if leaders out there work on their leadership, get trained, get coached, they will get that time back. And, more than that, they’ll have a more impassioned, inspired follower, who is really helping you achieve organizational goals.”* Chip: “In the PR and marketing community, it is a small world. So your employee today could very well be your client or prospective client tomorrow, your coworker today could be your boss tomorrow, or could be managing that account that you just won last year, but you need to now get through a renewal process. There’s all sorts of ways in which relationships change over time. So you want to make sure that you are generating that kind of respect over time, “* Ken: “And this, I think, is one of the differences between managing and leading, because we manage programs, projects, budgets, calendars, production schedules, etc. Those are things. But when we’re ready to step up, and step into leadership, and want to have inspired, motivated followers, it is about the human dynamic.”

Resources

* Jacobs Consulting and Executive Coaching* Ken Jacobs on social: Twitter | LinkedIn

About Ken Jacobs

Ken Jacobs

Ken Jacobs, a certified coach and experienced leadership consultant and trainer, is the principal of Jacobs Consulting & Executive Coaching. For more than 12 years, he has helped senior leaders and executives in public relations and integrated communications achieve and surpass their goals by becoming more inspired and inspiring leaders.

Jacobs has also helped nearly 50 agencies grow

and manage business, improve client service and relationships, and enhance

staff performance, communications and leadership skills.

Prior to launching his consultancy, Jacobs spent 25 years in management and leadership positions with a number of firms, including Ogilvy & Mather PR; Marina Maher Communications (MMC); and Maloney & Fox. (read more of Ken’s bio)

Transcript

CHIP: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. And this is where normally Gini would jump in a...

Chip and Gini discuss the importance of being as transparent as possible with your agency team members, sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly when necessary.

Too often communicators focus so much on their clients and the external world and fail to invest properly in internal communications. Yet some of the greatest business gains will be achieved by bringing your employees into the conversation.

A well-informed group of talent can often spot things that you might miss or offer innovative suggestions. On the flip side, if you keep your team in the dark, they will make assumptions and guess about what’s really going on — and often be very wrong about it.

In this episode, Chip and Gini provide practical examples and suggestions for improving your agency’s own internal communications efforts.

Of course, Chip mentions one of his favorite techniques — Management by Walking Around — and Gini points out that this can even be done in virtual agencies (something that they discussed in more detail on a previous episode).

Quotes

* Chip: “Agency owners and executives really need to be thinking about how and what and in what manner they’re communicating with their own teams about the agency business itself.”* Gini, on learning from personal experience: “But since then … I’ve been far more transparent about the good, the bad and the ugly, because you find that people do want to rally around and help you find solutions. And you don’t have to take that all on yourself.”* Chip, on owners using good judgment: “You always have to figure out exactly how transparent to be because there’s a fine line between sharing enough that people can help you solve the problem and sharing so much that you create a sense of panic.”* Gini, on how one-on-one meetings benefit in many ways: “It definitely helps with culture, it helps with retention, it helps with loyalty, it helps with all those things. So that when somebody is approached for a new position, they aren’t interested, because they really love where they are, and they love that they have access to you.”

Resources

* AIM-GET Framework* Management by Walking Around (Wikipedia)

Transcript

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 internal communications.

GINI: Yippee!

CHIP: Not the internal communications of our clients, but the internal communications at our own agencies. It’s something that I think gets overlooked. We’ve mentioned that before in previous episodes, but agency owners and executives really need to be thinking about how and what and in what manner they’re communicating with their own teams about the agency business itself.

GINI: Yeah, it’s interesting, it’s a good topic for right now, because our team has grown. It’s tripled this year. Wow. And yeah, so when you think about, you know, the process that we had in place in January, for internal communication, and I had direct contact with pretty much every member of the team at that point. And now I don’t I just have direct contact with my direct reports,

As fall approaches and clients start working on plans for 2020, it may be time to raise your agency’s prices.

Chip and Gini explain why you should be thinking seriously about bumping up your rates (and what it can mean for your bottom line), and they also offer tips on how to do it effectively.

Quotes

* Chip: “I run into very few agencies who are overcharging their clients, and many, many, many, many who are undercharging their clients.”* Gini: “Eventually, you need to run your business as your agency as a business. And I think we can agree that that now is the best time to start doing that whether or not you think you need it.”* Chip: “I’ve had clients in the past I’ve gone to, and I’ve told them that they have to pay twice as much for what they’re getting, if they want to continue. And I tell you what, every single time I’ve done it, 100% success rate on that. If someone is being that over serviced, they really recognize  it.”* Gini: “Clients are really reasonable. I mean, they get raises every year. Why shouldn’t they be paying their agency a little bit more every year?”

Resources

* A small price increase can lead to a big boost in profits for your agency (Agency Leadership)* How to Grow Your Agency Without Retainer Work (Spin Sucks)* Anchor Advisors

Transcript

The following is a lightly edited 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 raise our price on you, you’re gonna have to pay more to listen to us jabber on every week,

GINI: Hey, more of zero is still zero.

CHIP: True, I guess when you look at it that way we could double our prices, and we’re probably not going to be generating any more revenue.

GINI: Or profit for that matter.

CHIP: Or profit. Yeah. Oh, well, well, maybe if we can’t raise the prices for this show, perhaps we can talk about agency owners raising their own prices to make more money and put it in their own pocket.

GINI: That is a hot topic right now, especially as people are looking towards September when, you know, new budgets and plans and all that are created for 2020. So I think it’s a good topic to to discuss.

CHIP: It is a very good one to look at. And to be honest with you, I run into very few agencies who are overcharging their clients, and many, many, many, many who are undercharging their clients.

GINI: I would say undercharging is probably more typical than overcharging.

CHIP: Absolutely. And it comes in a lot of different forms. Part of it is just not asking for enough to begin with, part of it is over servicing so that you end up under pricing over time. So there’s a lot of different ways that you can get there. But the bottom line is that most of you listening probably are not charging as much as you could or should for your services.

GINI: Yeah, I mean, I have an agency owner client who said to me today, so I did it, I had the conversation. It was awesome. I presented the price and the prospect was like, yep,

Chip and Gini discuss the basic financial reporting that every agency owner should have ready access to and systematically review on at least a monthly basis.

Knowing the numbers may not be the most exciting part of being an agency owner, but it is essential to understanding the business and positioning it for profitable growth.

In this episode, the hosts explain various financial terms and why specific reports may be useful. They also describe what to look for when reviewing these documents.

Resources

* Spin Sucks Community* FreshBooks* QuickBooks* Bench

Quotes

* Gini: “I will admit that when I started my business, and people were talking about P&Ls, I had no idea what they meant. I’ll admit that.”* Chip: “If you’re in business long enough, as an agency owner, you’re effectively getting an on the job MBA.”* Gini, on creatively getting around big companies’ payment policies: “Some of the pushback I get from other agency owners is well, I work with big companies such and such, and they won’t work that way. That’s baloney.”* Chip, on the importance of getting started using accounting tools: “…a lot of agencies do not have their houses in order with these reports. The important thing is to start getting at least the basics correct. And then you can bite off more and perfect it.”

Transcript

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 P&Ls. What is a P&L, Gini, this is one of those terms just gets thrown around a lot.

GINI: I will admit that when I started my business, and people were talking about P&Ls, I had no idea what they meant. I’ll admit that.

CHIP: And it’s, you know, we all have that point, because nobody knows the term until they get it defined for the first time. We’re not born with this knowledge. And very few agency owners come with the business knowledge to know what these things are.

GINI: If you have an MBA, you definitely know, but most of us agency owners do not have MBAs.

CHIP: No, in fact, I, I can think of very, very few agency owners who have MBAs or anything even close to it. But if you’re in business long enough, as an agency owner, you’re effectively getting an on the job MBA. And one of the things you learn about are financial documents like P&L, but the P&L is something that you as an agency owner, you should be using all the time to assess your business.

GINI: Right. So you ask the question in the agency owner channel in Slack, which I thought was really interesting to see different perspectives, but most people, I would say, said that they have it either through FreshBooks or QuickBooks that their accountant updates for them every so often, and they don’t really use it to run their businesses. I think that was the mass majority. Right?

CHIP: Yeah, that seemed to be the consensus, obviously, it was not a scientific study, right. But there didn’t seem to be many folks chiming in and saying, Yes, I look at this on a monthly basis, or even a quarterly basis to, to really look for trends and figure out what’s working and what isn’t. But I would argue that is the wrong approach, you need to,

One of the biggest challenges that many agencies face is how to fairly compensate employees. Talent is the heart and soul of the business, so you want to ensure you’re doing everything you can to keep your performing employees around.

At the same time, you’re running a business so you need to make smart decisions that will ensure sustainable profits to keep the doors open.

Some agencies turn to COLAs (short for Cost of Living Adjustments) to try to ensure that salaries at least keep pace with inflation.

However, this approach has some drawbacks that Chip and Gini discuss in this week’s episode.

Whether you choose to use COLAs or not, you’ll get lots of useful insight from listening to the discussion.

Quotes

* Gini: “Transparency and communication — it’s almost like that’s what we do for a living for our clients. So maybe we should do it internally as well.”* Gini, on non-monetary compensation: “I always do things for my team. I try to go the extra mile and give them experiences or gifts that they wouldn’t necessarily buy themselves, but that they want.”* Chip: “Ultimately, when it comes to compensation, the goal is to make your employees feel appreciated.”* Chip’s bottom line on COLAs:  “I think that that they are the easy way out and not the smart way out.”

Resources

* Drive by Daniel Pink

Transcript

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’re here to talk to you about soda. Oh – COLA, COLA. Sorry, you know, I sometimes I get confused… pop, whatever we want to call it. No, we’re here to talk about COLA.

GINI: I am curious what do you call it? Soda or pop?

CHIP: Soda.

GINI: Oh, see it was pop for me growing up, it’s a very regional thing, I think.

CHIP: Yeah, and some people call it coke even when it’s not coke.

GINI: Yeah, Atlanta definitely calls it coke.

CHIP: Which is why Coca Cola actually sends people around restaurants ordering cokes to see if they actually get Pepsi because in order to enforce their trademark, they have to send letters if they’re not, if they’re not calling it correctly within the restaurant.

GINI: That’s crazy.

CHIP: So that’s, that’s why when you go to a lot of restaurants, you’ll say, you know, can I have a coke? And someone says we have Pepsi. Yep. Partly, it’s to keep you happy. But partly, it’s to keep the trademark people happy.

GINI: That’s crazy.

CHIP: Yeah. I always thought that’d be a weird job to have just traveling around and ordering…

GINI: Asking for a coke.

CHIP: A coke. Yeah. But hey, you know, I guess everybody’s got to make a living somehow.

GINI: That is true. And that’s not a bad way to make a living I don’t think.

CHIP: No. And and, you know, look, making a living is what this episode is all about. Because the COLA we’re talking about here is actually cost of living adjustments. So those are the kinds of things that a lot of people in large companies tend to get, agencies,

Many agencies offer content marketing and related services, and a new study from the Content Marketing Institute attempts to uncover just how it fits in to the overall service mix.

Resources

* Content Marketing Institute 2019 Agency Survey* PESO model

Quotes

* Gini: “We have a client who always says common sense is not so common. And really, to get in the minds of your buyers, you have to actually talk to them. So creating content that appeals to them is where it should be. And it doesn’t have to be that you’re creating as much content as you can. But you’re creating really quality high value content.”* Chip: “When I look at a survey like this, where someone’s asked to self assess extremely, very, somewhat, etc, successful, you know, I sort of view that as asking someone what their weight in that they’re not going to outright lie, but they’re probably going to shave it just a little bit. And so to me, I sort of I tend to skew everybody back a step from where they say they are.”* Gini: “Three fourths of the agencies that are offering content marketing services, are advertising, marketing content and digital — only 9%, are PR firms. And that, to me, is a huge red flag because PR is communications. Communications is storytelling. Storytelling is content. And this is what we’ve done for the entirety of our industry is content, it may have been called something else, but this is what we do, and it just infuriates me.”* Chip: “The survey said 56% [of agency revenue] was retainer based, 41% was project based, 3% was unsure — and I’m just unsure about those respondents. If you’re an agency leader, and you can’t tell me what most of your work is, I’m a little concerned for the health of your agency.”

Transcript

The following is a lightly edited computer-generated transcript. Please review audio for 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 going to talk about content marketing today, content marketing for agencies, of course, because well, that’s who we serve. And a lot of agencies are getting into the content marketing business. And so this little known organization called the Content Marketing Institute, that – that’s a joke, everyone out there, the Content Marketing Institute, well known, well established, thought leadership place to learn about how to do content marketing effectively, they put on Content Marketing World, a great event. And they recently did this survey of agencies, where they surveyed a couple of hundred agencies to find out what they were doing in the content marketing space. And this seems like a good topic for our audience. And Gini, I know that you had some initial thoughts after having dug through it. So why don’t we kick off with with some of your thinking.

GINI: Cool. So there are a couple of things that I want to preface this with. Statistically speaking, it’s not a huge survey, it’s 197 people. So when you – that responded, so when you think about it from a statistic standpoint, it’s not significant enough for it to make a huge difference on trends or anything like that. That said, they did look, they did ask agencies that are full service. So that means that they provide a full service suite of content marketing services, services,

Clients may end their relationship with your agency for a variety of reasons, many of which you have no control over. On this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast, Chip Griffin and Gini Dietrich suggest the best ways to protect yourself, your work, and your finances when the unexpected happens.

Quotes

* Chip, on thinking ahead about what happens if the relationship ends abruptly: “If this relationship were to terminate suddenly, what would I lose access to? What do I need continued access to what should I be keeping backup copies of?” * Gini, on protecting yourself as an agency owner: “But really looking at the relationship, at the very beginning of the relationship as if it may end in divorce, for lack of a better term, because things happen, and relationships don’t always work out. And so you have to protect yourself from a contractual perspective, so that when a client does get a bee in his or her bonnet, you are protected.”* Chip on the importance of contracts: “Ultimately, that’s the only reason you have the contract. Nobody ever pulls out the contract and says, ‘Everything’s going great today, I just think I’m going to look at our contract to see what it says.'”* Gini’s advice: “The moral of the story is, protect yourself, protect yourself, protect yourself.”

Transcript

The following is a lightly edited computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to verify 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 ending this show. Unexpectedly. We’re just we’re, it’s all over. No more. This is the last episode. Did I not get – did I not get the topic right Gini? Did I screw this one up?

GINI: You got the topic right, but not ending this show unexpectedly.

CHIP: Oh, okay. So but what are we ending unexpectedly, then?

GINI: Client relationships. Or when clients end relationships with us unexpectedly.

CHIP: I see. Okay. All right. Well, thank you for clearing up that confusion. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes I don’t pay attention to our pre show meetings.

GINI: That’s not true. You’re just finding clever segues.

CHIP: Well, hopefully the listeners find them just as clever as I do. I know that my wife listens to these, working on the transcript, she does not find them nearly as entertaining as I do. But…

GINI: I’m sure she groans and rolls her eyes.

CHIP: Yes, indeed. But in any case, it is an important topic for any agency owner to contemplate. And it does happen from time to time, we’ve all had it happen to us, at one point or another where a client says, You know what, we’re not going to keep going forward. And it may be that they’re unhappy with your work, it may be that they run out of budget, it may be that their circumstances change, or all sorts of reasons that it can happen. But it does happen. And then the question is, as the agency owner, what do you do to deal with it?

GINI: Yeah, it’s – it was a conversation that happened in of course, the Spin Sucks Community. And I think there are a few things at play here. Certainly, client relationships end, and hopefully all of us have termination clauses in our contracts. We have 90 days, I know that the person who posed the question has only 15 days, I’d probably recommend increasing that a little bit. But the point is,

From simple things like taking junior employees to client meetings to more formal training programs, a range of options exist to build better employees and future managers.

This is an episode that agency leaders will want to share with the rest of their teams because it offers lots of good advice for junior employees on how to find that training and guidance they’re hungry to get.

Quotes

* Gini: ” I thought Kathryn Mason’s response on this was probably one of the most valuable. She said … I always take my junior employees with me to media interviews, radio interviews, press interviews, because they need to see what goes on after they’ve pitched and how it all comes together. “* Chip: If you help your junior employees advance, “not only are you going to have better luck with having them as future middle managers, you will actually be able to retain your juniors at a much higher rate. If they see that path to progress, if they see colleagues moving up, if they see that previous people in their position have moved up.”* Gini: “One of the things that I always say is, I don’t want to hear about a problem unless you have three solutions.”* Gini: “Look for reasons to have conversations with the people you’re not talking to every day that don’t directly report to you. Because they’re going to learn a ton, but you are too.”* Chip: “if you can teach them the way that that you want to do things, if you teach them the way that you look at things, you will be able to mold someone [and] you will end up with that more senior employee down the road who really is part of your culture, who thinks about things in a way similar to you, and carries out the mission of the agency in a consistent way.”

Resources

* Setting KPI’s for agency employees* Spin Sucks Community * MasterClass* Zoom

Transcript

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

GINI: And I’m Gini Dietrich.

CHIP: And we’re here today to help you improve your junior employees because they are the lifeblood of your agency.

GINI: They are, and they become the mid level employees, which is the hardest position to find, when you’re looking when you’re recruiting for that. So if you can grow them through your agency, you’re going to have far better luck than if you have to add somebody midway through your agency’s growth.

CHIP: Not only are you going to have better luck with having them as future middle managers, you will actually be able to retain your juniors at a much higher rate. If they see that path to progress, if they see colleagues moving up, if they see that previous people in their position have moved up. And this is something that’s particularly important, I think, for millennial employees who are always thinking about Okay, you know, how do I how do I get ahead? How can I continue to learn, you know, how can I reach that next rung, and agencies that don’t have some sort of path for progression, are going to have problems. So you need to be focused on how you continuously improve your junior employees.

GINI: Absolutely. And I mean, usually they’re very enthusiastic, full of passion, super creative and have a great ideas. So you need to harness that and bottle it, but also give them the path to success.