The results are in, and 2018 was clearly a good year in agency life.

On this episode, I unpack and dig deep into the findings of our most recent Salary and Benefits survey. Employees are reaping the benefits of the continued tight labor market. Agencies that want to attract and keep the best and brightest are paying better and providing some robust benefits. We all know it's hard to compete against the lure of a corporate paycheck, but agency life has so much more to offer than corporate life. Many of you are finding ways to express that to your employees, and my advice is simple: keep going!

There are many more trends to unpack and some considerations for what the road ahead may look like. The salary and benefits survey always gives us a lot to talk about, and this year is no exception!

What You Will Learn in this Episode:

• What similarly sized agencies in your market are doing with salary and benefits
• How the focus on content is favoring writer creatives over art creatives
• The state of entry-level starting salaries
• What agencies are doing to keep their staff from seeking greener pastures
• Why agencies tend to be so generous with benefits
• How to attract and retain top employees when you can't compete on price
• The intangibles that make agency life so rewarding, and how to emphasize them

Drew McLellan is the CEO at Agency Management Institute. He has also owned and operated his own agency since 1995 and is still actively running the agency today. Drew's unique vantage point as being both an agency owner and working with 250+ small- to mid-size agencies throughout the year gives him a unique perspective on running an agency today.

AMI works with agency owners by:

• Leading agency owner peer groups
• Offering workshops for owners and their leadership teams
• Offering AE Bootcamps
• Conducting individual agency owner coaching
• Doing on-site consulting
• Offering online courses in agency new business and account service

Because he works with those 250+ agencies every year — Drew has the unique opportunity to see the patterns and the habits (both good and bad) that happen over and over again. He has also written two books and been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Fortune Small Business. The Wall Street Journal called his blog "One of 10 blogs every entrepreneur should read."

Helpful Resources from this Episode:

• 2019 Salary Survey: https://agencymanagementinstitute.com/agency-tools/salary-survey-2019/

Ways to contact Drew McLellan:

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/drewmclellan