In the first part of a special two episode series, Chip and Gini discuss fundamental skills that PR and marketing agency owners should spend time and effort to improve to be more successful.

The topic was first raised by Gini on her Spin Sucks Podcast.

The skills she identifies include:

* Networking

* Financials

* Estimates

* Patience

* Communication

* Negotiation

* Learning

Over the course of these two episodes, Chip and Gini look at why each is important and how to find ways to improve.

No matter how experienced an agency owner may be, there is always room to grow.

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 coming at you today in a special two part bonus double long episode. Why? Because Gini was kind enough, or cruel enough, or whatever to decide she was going to take a vacation.

GINI:

I’m going on vacation but I gave you a few weeks notice.

CHIP:

You did. You did. But you know still it…but sure, that was nice of you. But you know, I mean, people shouldn’t take vacations. I mean, you’re an agency owner. Agency owners don’t take vacations!

GINI:

Oh, I take vacations. I love vacation. I bought a new swimming suit. I’m ready. There’s water slides. I’m going.

CHIP:

Hopefully you’re going somewhere warm then.

GINI:

Miami.

CHIP:

Oh okay. That’s that should be pretty warm.

GINI:

Yeah, we were like what is the warmest place in this country we can go? Look at that. Miami.

CHIP:

It’s probably about right for this time of year. Yeah.

GINI:

Mid 80s, it will be perfect. Yeah, can’t wait. Yeah.

CHIP:

Well, while you’re enjoying that this podcast will be airing and so folks who are listening to it in a timely fashion will get to hear your wonderful voice while you are kicked back, sunning yourself. Remember sunscreen.

GINI:

I will. I will. Oh yeah. I can hear my – my dermatologist who is literally 100 years old. And he speaks like the priest in Princess Bride. “Mawwiage” – he speaks like that. I can hear him in my head saying wear 100 SPF sunscreen. “Mawwiage…”

CHIP:

But doesn’t the research say that anything over like 30 doesn’t really have any…

GINI:

Hey listen, I’m just telling you what he says. I’m not, I’m not the professional.

CHIP:

But he’s 100?

GINI:

I think he’s close to 100. I really do. He’s really old, really old.

CHIP:

Well to each their own. In any case, so that, you know, the, the, the substance of this episode, because we probably should get to that…

GINI:

Not sunscreen? SPF?

CHIP:

Not sunscreen. But you know, I mean, we can keep talking about that. But then we might still be talking when you’re supposed to be on vacation. Probably not…

GINI:

Let’s chop chop. Let’s get to it. Chop chop!

CHIP:

We’ll start creating some real substance here for our listeners. And so you did a podcast recently on the Spin Sucks podcast. Because as listeners may know, you are a podcast maven and have three podcasts.

GINI:

That is true….I’m a masochist or something, I don’t know…

CHIP:

Because you just love sitting behind a microphone….. something. Something. But any case, the Spin Sucks podcast had an episode recently where you talked about skills that every agency owner and others need to b...

In this episode, Chip and Gini conclude the two-part series on hiring and firing in PR and marketing agencies.

Chip kicks it off by firing Gini. (Fret not, ALP fans … it was a joke.)

Gini explained that, “I’m very bad at it. I let people go far longer than I should just because … it’s a very personal thing.”

Chip agreed that “in some cases, I have been too slow to fire.”

“As you’re growing an agency, there are going to be situations where there’s not really a fireable offense that happens, it’s just that … the business has outgrown somebody on your team or members of your team,” Gini said.

What about the actual termination process itself?

“If I see an employee and a supervisor, go behind closed doors for a termination and it lasts more than three to five minutes, something went horribly wrong,” explained Chip.

Gini also touted the benefits of having a specific process in place. “Because we learned the lesson, we have a checklist of everything that we need to do, either when somebody leaves  of their own free will or when they’re let go.”

The hosts wrapped up by agreeing that most terminations look like the right decision in the rearview mirror.

“Not a fun thing. But you’re exactly right. In the end, it ends up being better for everyone,” Gini concluded.

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 Gini, you’re fired!

GINI:

You know, that brings me back to The Apprentice. You’re fired. If only he would have stayed doing that.

CHIP:

Yeah. Well, I think we probably should leave politics out of this podcast….that’s a rabbit hole that I’m sure we could go down. But I suspect that we would end up pissing off listeners, if not ourselves, so, we’ll avoid that. But it nevertheless it is the subject of this show. Because as we promised in our last episode, where we talked about hiring, if you’re willing to hire, you have to be prepared to fire so and you know, hiring’s a lot easier than firing.

GINI:

It is, but in some cases, cases it is necessary. But it is not an easy thing to do. And before we started recording, we talked a little bit about it. I’m very bad at it. I let people go far longer than I should just because…it’s a very personal thing. And I’m very, very bad at it. I’m very bad at it.

CHIP:

Well, frankly, most people are and there’s two pieces to that. So one is waiting too long. And and, and then the second piece is how you actually transact the firing, if you will. And, you know, and I, you know, I admit that in some cases, I have been too slow to fire. And so, you know, we should talk about figuring out, you know, when is the right time because you don’t want to do it too soon, you know, and give up on someone who there’s still hope for, but at the same time, if you draw it out, that doesn’t work out well, for anybody. And then, of course, the, you know, the process itself is, is just as important. And I think that’s probably one of the reasons why people hold off on the actual firing because they – they’re either scared of or, you know, uncomfortable with the process itself.

GINI:

Yes. And I also think there’s a piece to it too where you do, I mean, to your point, you want to make sure that you’ve given them every chance that they can possibly have. And I think as you’re growing an agency, there are going to be situations where there’s not really a fireable offense that happens,

This week is the first of a two-part series on hiring and firing in PR and marketing agencies.

Chip and Gini offer advice on when to hire and some guidelines on how to make the process most effective.

With the shape and size of agencies changing significantly in recent years, the show explores things like whether to use contract help versus in-house employees, hiring in a virtual environment, and how to be competitive in the process.

Next week, the co-hosts will look at the flip side: when and how to fire employees. It’s not a pleasant topic, but it’s one that agency leaders need to confront periodically.

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 with a special two part series.

GINI:

Whoo.

CHIP:

That’s, that’s the first time we’ve done that. It is something new and different. But since it’s Episode 21, that’s sort of the, you know, the,

it’s, you know, this, this episode kid, or this show can now drink. So, you know, why not do something wild and crazy.

GINI:

Hey, look at – we’re all grown up. Look at that. We’re all grown up. We’re all grown up. Yeah. 21.

CHIP:

So, yeah. God, to remember when I was 21. I can’t really remember that.

GINI:

I didn’t drink yet. So I remember.

CHIP:

Oh, okay. Well, it was it was very good of you. I drank before I was 21. I’m pretty sure the statute of limitations has expired on that, though. So

GINI:

you’re not going to get arrested now? You’re good.

CHIP:

I think it is unlikely. Yeah, yeah,

GINI:

I think so, too.

CHIP:

But, you know, after folks listen to these two episodes, they, they may want to drink themselves, because, you know, they’re, they’re too stressful times for agencies. Yes. And so it’s, it’s how to hire and the flip side how to fire because if you’re going to hire, you have to be prepared to fire.

GINI:

You do. And you also have to follow the higher slowly, fire fast mantra.

CHIP:

Hmm. Absolutely. And I think actually, that’s a, that’s a good place to start. Let’s let’s dive in there. Because, you know, knowing when to hire is as important as understanding how to do it right. So, you know, there has to be a certain reluctance, right to hire, you don’t, you know, you don’t want to jump out and say, okay, you know, I need to hire, I got a new client, let me go hire somebody right away, you know, you have to be really, you know, thoughtful about it, and understand what it is that you’re needing and what you ought to be hiring.

GINI:

And we’re in a different position in 2019 than we have been in years past where a good majority of the force, especially the workforce, especially in our industry is freelancing. And so now you have the opportunity to look for somebody who has a unique set of skills that are specific to exactly what you need, versus bringing on an account executive who may be a great project manager, but you got to teach other stuff to. So I think you’re in a really good position right now to think about, is it a contractor/freelancer? Is it a full time employee? What do both of those things look like? What are the pros and the cons? And where do you start?

CHIP:

Right. And I think you know, that that flexibility is is actually both good and bad, right? Yeah, so in the old days, you sort of knew what you had to do right? You know, you if you had you know, a lot of extra work come in or subspecialties where you know,

In this episode, Chip Griffin and Gini Dietrich explore a variety of ways that agency owners can expand their business development and sales efforts — without taking on the expense of a salary.

Some of the approaches discussed include:

* Commission-only sales reps

* Partnerships with other agencies

* Referral fee programs

Chip and Gini discuss the pros and cons of the various tactics, as well as their differing experiences with them.

Be sure to listen in and find out why they’re calling this the “wine and scotch” episode, too.

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 free things like this podcast. This podcast is free. We don’t charge you for it. We appreciate you listening. Of course, it’s it’s always great if you’ll leave us a nice review on iTunes. Consider that your payment right … Or you can just send us some lovely thank you notes, particularly handwritten ones we really appreciate we do

GINI:

Or bottles of wine, scotch, you know, we could take those as well.

CHIP:

Those are all good white truffles once they’re their back in season in eight or nine months. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, we’re pretty easy. But we do appreciate

GINI:

In fact we could write a list in the show notes. If you want to make it easy for you.

CHIP:

We could we could put together a little wish list right? Yeah, maybe go on to Amazon. Add some items there that people could can use to thank us and I like it. Yeah, yeah. But no, you know, they say nothing in life is free. But it turns out in in business, some things can at least appear that way from the outset. So after last week’s show where we talked about how word of mouth is not a viable sales strategy we thought it might be useful to talk about in the next couple of shows some things that are useful sales strategies, and one of the ones that many agencies explore from time to time are various free approaches. In other words, not hiring someone on a salaried basis. But perhaps doing a commission only approach, perhaps setting up a partnership with another agency, perhaps creating a referral program for friends and family, things like that. There’s a lot of different approaches that that one can take to extend your resources without upfront cash outlays, right. And some are good ideas. Some are not so good ideas, but they all have you know that it’s important to think about how to manage them, effectively, whichever ones you try, and I’ve tried most of them I know that Gini, you’ve tried a number of these as well and I think based on our pre show discussion that we’ve had some different experiences with some of them so I think this will be this will be an interesting 20 plus minute conversation and hopefully listeners will be able to take away some value out of it.

GINI:

Yeah. And, you know, I have tried several of what you’ve mentioned. And I think some of it is in the execution as agency owners, we don’t tend to be consider ourselves, sales people. And so what comes naturally to us in terms of what we talked about last week with relationship building, and, you know, those kinds of things that comes really naturally it’s hard to teach that.

So it is somewhat in the execution. But I think I’d say that because there are some things we’ll talk about that didn’t work for either one of us and some things we talked about, that didn’t work for one of us and not the other or vice versa. But that doesn’t mean that you should not try it. It’s definitely in how you execute the idea versus the idea, right.

CHIP:

And I think, you know,

How many times have your or another agency owner answered “word of mouth” when asked how you get new clients?

In this week’s episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast, Chip Griffin and Gini Dietrich discuss why this is not a good answer — and what you should be doing instead.

You also won’t want to miss a special guest appearance by Jack Bauer — so listen in for that plus lots of practical business development advice for your PR or marketing agency.

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, and we’re going to share some words from our mouth that will be hopefully very illuminating.

GINI:

At the very least illuminating.

CHIP:

I mean, at the very least, that, you know, this is this is,

I’m sure the most fascinating podcast that everybody is listening to each week. And the good news is, we’re not talking about lawyers and accountants this week, so we will not put you to sleep.

GINI:

No, not this week, maybe next week, but not this week.

week,

CHIP:

Right. Yeah. And if and if you’re still awake at the end, we’d love it if you’d go over to iTunes, or your favorite podcast directory of choice and leave us a review. Hopefully, it’s a nice one. But even if it’s not we’ll read it and internalize it and stew over it.

GINI:

Put you on our bad list. Send hitmen after you…

CHIP:

Yeah, but maybe make changes because of it. So go ahead and leave us a review. It’s how people find the podcast and well, we kind of like it when people listen.

GINI:

That is true.

CHIP:

Otherwise, we’re just wasting our time. And that would just be sad.

no,

GINI:

No, that’s not entirely true. I get to talk to you every week. So that’s not a total waste of time.

CHIP:

It may not be a waste of time, but I’m going to go out on a limb and hope that there are more valuable uses that you can probably could do…

GINI:

…to generate some revenue. Speaking of generating revenue…

CHIP:

…Wow see now usually I’m the one who comes up with that little segue there! … I just came up with the funny lead-in, you came in with the good segue. So congratulations, Gini, you are correct. We are going to talk about revenue, in particular, we’re going to talk about word of mouth and why it is not a sales strategy. Even though I think the vast majority of agency owners that I talk with, seem to think it is, because when I say to them, you know, how do you generate business? Well, word of mouth!

GINI:

Referrals and word of mouth, yup.

CHIP:

Yeah, not a strategy. No, it can be part of a strategy that but there are things you need to do to do it. And usually when someone says word of mouth, what they really mean is they just sit back and wait for the phone to ring.

and

GINI:

that’s true. And,

And that’s true. And, and a lot of us grow our agencies, especially starting out, by doing exactly that. Because what happens is, you know, we know somebody and they know somebody, and you do get, the phone does ring and you or you get emails and introductions or things like that. And then you get busy and you start servicing clients. And you don’t notice that the phone hasn’t been ringing for the last nine months, and then you lose a client and all of a sudden it’s like, oh, shoot, what do we do now? So yeah, not a strategy. I call it the hope strategy. Hope, not a strategy.

CHIP:

yeah, it is.

It is wishful thinking. It is. It is sort of like my kids seeming to think that if the the dishes sit o...

This week, Chip and Gini explore how to handle clients who want around-the-clock social media management or other services that require major staff commitments — and would prove to be quite expensive to offer.

As is often the case, this question originated in the Spin Sucks Community, where an agency leader said he had stopped providing social media management services:

We used to offer it a few years ago but continued to run into expectations issues with clients. Mostly our clients wanted our team to be 24/7 on and often they would not approve our content fast enough … To give the clients what they needed / wanted, we would have had to charge more than they were willing to pay so we stopped offering it to avoid losing clients.

This is a challenge that many agencies face — especially in a 24/7 media environment.

Chip and Gini discuss strategies for handling these situations, and also explore other lessons that come from requests like these.

The co-hosts also give a shoutout to Shel Holtz who will be recording the 1000th episode of the For Immediate Release podcast next Monday.

Transcript

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’ve got a great episode ahead of us today. But first I wanted to give a shoutout to the founder of the FIR Podcast Network who is getting ready to record the 1,000th episode of FIR.

GINI:

1000! Crazy! 1000.

CHIP:

and here we are on episode 18

GINI:

We’ll be there someday. Someday, someday.

CHIP:

Yeah, now in fairness, Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson did have an advantage in the early days, if you can call it that, in that they recorded twice a week. So you know, they were able to squeeze in 100 episodes a year as opposed to us doing it weekly, where we do 52.

GINI:

And I just looked, Inside PR is 534 and I think it started in 2006. So yeah, so he’s doubled it. That’s crazy.

CHIP:

That is, it is absolutely insane but it is a great listen, continues to be and the network that he’s put together and that the show is part of, I think is really fabulous for the communications community.

GINI:

Totally agree. Congratulations, Shel, that’s great.

CHIP:

Absolutely congratulations, Shel. And another milestone this week – I don’t think it was number 1000, but I believe that you may have had a birthday.

GINI:

It was definitely not 1000!

CHIP:

definitely

Probably even less than 534.

GINI:

It is less than 534 as well.

CHIP:

But I suspect higher than eighteen. This is episode number whatever of Gini Dietrich’s life.

GINI:

Of my life. Thank you. Thank you.

CHIP:

So happy birthday. We will we will not sing it, or I will not sing it for two reasons. One is I am not good at singing. And secondly, we don’t want to pay the royalties to use that song, which really boggles my mind, that you can’t sing happy birthday in a commercial setting, without paying a royalty. You know, it is what it is. So…

and

and so I guess with that, we will, we will jump into the more meaningful topics of the week, or at least for those people listening to this podcast who are maybe less interested in birthdays, anniversaries of shows and things like that.

So in any event, let’s jump in. And we’re going to talk about how to basically take client projects and make them of a manageable scale. And it’s based on a particular question that came up in the Spin Sucks community as so many of these shows do. It’s a great place to be. So if you’re not part of it, I encourage you to reach out to Gini and and join. But Gini, why don’t you tell us about this particular question an...

The recent documentaries about the disaster that was the Fyre Festival raise an interesting question: are agencies responsible for their clients’ actions?

Chip and Gini tackle the topic in this week’s episode and explore the different ways that agency leaders can handle their concerns about prospects and clients.

The duo discuss what expectations of agencies are reasonable, how money influences decision-making, and some real-world examples where both have had to confront ethical dilemmas in the past.

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 you know, I’m very excited because the Patriots were on fire this weekend and won the Super Bowl for the sixth time in this century, it’s fantastic.

GINI:

I loved the NFL Centennial commercial where they’re all you know, tossing the football back and forth, and it comes up to Tom Brady. And he takes all these rings off and goes here, hold these, I laughed.

CHIP:

Well, and now he’s got another one in that collection. And now he will certainly have to use two hands.

GINI:

Well, I was going to say at this point he may as well get one for every finger. Right?

CHIP:

Well, yeah, I mean, and he would like to, he said he wants to play until he’s 45. Although I still have a sneaking suspicion that that he might retire and I know that

He has said that he would not do it. But there was just there was a mere moment in the interview after the game

where he seemed to almost be suggesting that he was going to think about it and then caught himself and it was it was you know it could be completely wrong but you know just my impression is that he’s getting a lot of pressure from home to just stop playing.

You know Gisele has been pretty open in some of her interviews saying that she doesn’t particularly like it but that she supports him and he emphasized the importance of having support from his family to continue to play so, I don’t know I just, you know we’ll see what happens. You know and I think I mean honestly i think you know most of those players at that level are you know it does take them some time to come down off of the season and figure out you know, what really matters and so whatever they you know, even if they say zero percent chance going into it, you know, as Brady did i i think that’s it’s hard to rely too much on that because who knows how you’ll be thinking after you’ve had a chance to go sit on the beach for a week and say geez do I really want to take another blow to the head.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

GINI:

yeah, yeah.

Ah. How old is he?

CHIP:

He is 41.

GINI:

Oh, well, yeah. If he did four more years and won four more Super Bowls, then he’d have one for every finger.

CHIP:

He would. Yeah. Yeah,

that would be,

that would be fantastic. But, you know,

one season at a time, one game at a time. It’s the Patriot way.

GINI:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

CHIP:

Don’t get too far out ahead. Actually lots of good lessons there for for agency owners, as far as you know, how to stay focused on those sorts of things. In fact, maybe I’ll write an article about that just to help agency owners and piss off all the Patriot haters at the same time.

GINI:

Not even that, there was a really good article, I can’t remember where I saw it, about his, the way he approaches just life in general, his

the way he eats and the way he exercises and you know sleeps and all those kinds of things, I mean he is super super disciplined and there are some good lessons in that.

CHIP:

Absolutely. You know I think as as successful people often do he’s taken...

If you’re a PR or marketing agency leader, you have likely had someone ask to “pick your brain” recently.

These requests can seem like a burden. After all, someone wants to get a bit of your time for free. And agencies are used to selling their time.

This topic recently came up in the Spin Sucks Community, and it inspired Chip to write an article encouraging agency leaders to say “yes” to “pick your brain” requests.

Since this topic struck a nerve with many agency owners and executives, it seemed like a good subject for Chip and Gini to take up on the podcast. So they did.

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 are here today to talk about picking your brain.

GINI:

Pick my brain.

CHIP:

Maybe not your brain, you the listener. I mean, maybe we do want to, but you know, we’d have to see, I guess first, but we’re going to talk generally about picking people’s brains, you know, and particularly as an agency owner leader, when someone asks to pick your brain, how should you respond? And it comes from a particular question in the Spin Sucks Community, which we’ll get to in just a moment. But first, I would like to encourage our listeners, and I haven’t done this in a while, if you haven’t had a chance to go over to iTunes to leave a rating and review for the podcast, we’d really appreciate it, whether you like it or not, just go ahead and give it the score and a couple of comments. And of course, if you’ve got feedback, feel free to share it with us directly as well, because we’re always looking for ways to improve this show. Not that it really needs improvement, Gini, I think

we just have this thing nailed.

GINI:

Of course we do every week. Yes. There’s never a challenge with the sound or anything. Yeah, we have it.

CHIP:

Exactly, exactly. So in any case, let’s go from there to the topic itself. And Gini, why don’t you share the question that came up in the Spin Sucks Community?

GINI:

Sure. So this question came up last week. And it was a there was a lot of conversation about it. So the question was, how do you handle “I want to pick your brain” requests. My response to this has evolved over the years, and I’m still trying out different approaches. That’s why I’d love to know how you handle it and what has worked well for you? Do you take people up on it, only offer a short call, charge for a consult, or something else?

CHIP:

And it did lead to some lively conversation in the community. And, and I felt motivated enough by all of that discussion, to actually to write out a blog post on it. I had actually written one, gosh, probably about a decade ago. This is a this is a topic that tends to circulate on social media periodically, it seems like, you know, every 6 or 12 months, so at least in the circle of friends that I have on Twitter, or someone you know, complains about not being paid for their time when someone asked for coffee, or that sort of thing. And people start jumping in and saying absolutely, you need to say no, and I tend to take the contrarian view, which is that you should say yes, and that should be your default answer when someone asks to pick your brain, because I think there’s a lot of value to be had from it. And I can explain more in a moment. But that’s, that’s sort of where I come from. And so to set the table Gini, what’s your, you know, what’s your general reaction when that question comes up?

GINI:

Well, I,

we,

In this week’s Agency Leadership Podcast, Chip Griffin and Gini Dietrich discuss the importance of creating and managing budgets for agency client projects, including both retainer and one-time work.

The discussion was prompted by a tweet by Karl Sakas that urged agency leaders to include project management costs in their budgets.

Be sure to add 20-35% to your project budgets to cover project management (PM) time, including a few unplanned client meetings.

— Karl Sakas (@KarlSakas) January 22, 2019

This topic is something that Chip as written about previously on the Agency Leadership Hub, including why project budgets are important and how to create an accurate client project budget.

Chip and Gini discuss how projects serve as building blocks for overall agency profitability, the challenges in properly tracking project costs, and items that can be easily overlooked when building those budgets. They also have a robust discussion about how to bill for some of the less glamorous aspects of agency work to better maintain the relationship.

Transcript

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

GINI: And I am Gini Dietrich.

CHIP: And we are here today to talk about the importance of projecting project costs.

GINI: Very exciting topic for creative types who always say, I went into advertising, pr, marketing, whatever, because I’m not good at numbers.

CHIP: I find that it is everybody’s favorite topic. And so that’s why I decided to try to work “project” in, back to back project and projecting. Yeah. Uh, and, you know, and we will project our voices as well. So we’ll see how much we can abuse that term over the course of the next 28 minutes or so. But it is critically important because when you, when you think about your agency’s overall success, it breaks down on a project basis, right? Whether that is a recurring project, i.e. retainer or one time project, it’s still something where if you’re not making profits out of all of the little pieces, then you’re certainly not going to be making a profit as a whole. So trying to think about the financial aspects of each of your engagements is absolutely correct.

GINI: You wrote a blog post on the Agency Leadership site that I thought, well you have two actually, but the one that I’m going to speak to first is, you talk about, okay, let’s say that you’re projecting a project. There you go, at $150 an hour for 20 hours. Well let’s say then you end up spending 25 hours your, so you’re overservicing number one, but number two, your hourly rate just went from $150 to, what? Eighty something dollars an hour. So you have to think about it from that perspective and from the perspective of all the hidden costs of things that you do to help clients. Media monitoring, you know, email marketing, software, any kind of software, travel and expenses, any time that you have to outsource or use a freelancer for things, research, entertaining, events, you know, all that kind of stuff. It’s really hard to project some of that. There are some things you can do to get around it, but I think it’s really important to think through all of the things that you might take on for a client throughout a project or a retainer that you end up paying for that you wouldn’t have unless you were doing this work for a client and so yeah, they should. It should be included as part of your fee.

In the latest episode of Chats with Chip, James Papiano discusses the role of leadership and culture in the PR and marketing agency environment.