FIR Podcast Network

How do you handle the cancellation clause of your client contracts?

What type of notice period do you require? What are the exit terms and how do you handle clients who leave on bad terms?

These are questions that Chip and Gini address in this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast.

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It’s no secret that I am a lover of numbers. For the first few years of my career, I was constantly frustrated by the lack of real measurable metrics for the work we do, outside of media impressions and advertising equivalencies—which I think we can all agree are bunk.

But then digital marketing and communications changed my life because it allows us to track our efforts specific to an organization’s goals. And, in the work we do with SaaS companies, recurring revenue is the Golden Ticket. As machine learning and artificial intelligence have gotten smarter, so has our ability to not just track our efforts to the all mighty dollar, but to attribute first, middle, and last touch marketing and communications efforts. 

We have a client that has a very robust data science team and I’m constantly asking them questions. Now tell me about this! And what happens if we do that? I don’t know if they love or hate me, but I love getting all the data I possibly can from them. 

So, imagine my shock when I opened the MuckRack State of PR Measurement Report…and found that 94% of respondents measure their efforts by the number of stories placed. Ninety-four percent, y’all.

Maybe we don’t all agree that media impressions and AVEs are bunk. But I aim to fix that on today’s episode of the Spin Sucks podcast.

Resources Included:

* MuckRack State of PR Measurement Report

* PESO Model Certification

* Trust Insights

It is not uncommon for agency employees to want to do a bit of freelancing on the side. Some even have dreams of starting their own agency or other business.

How do you protect your agency’s interest while not stifling your employee’s ambition? What should you do when an employee comes to you to share what they’re doing or considering? How about the times when you discover what they’re up to and they never disclosed?

Chip and Gini cover these questions and more in this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast.

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The same bottle of water costs the same to make but is priced differently if you get it at a convenience store, grocery chain, or four-star hotel.

What can you learn about that when it comes to pricing and positioning your agency? Are your lower-priced clients that much easier to service than the high-ticket ones?

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Is it possible to lose your client’s business because you have done too good of a job for them? Should you intentionally underperform in an attempt to keep the client longer?

These questions may seem far-fetched, but they have actually been asked — so Chip and Gini address them in this week’s episode.

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We talk with a lot of small PR and marketing agency owners who are weary of their own businesses.

They feel overworked, underpaid, and burned out.

What is the cause of this feeling and what can you do about it?

That’s what Chip and Gini explore on this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast.

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If you’ve spent any time with me on this podcast, you know I love content. My dad often says how amazed he is that I took my passion and built an entire business on it. And here they thought my English major wouldn’t amount to anything!

I love all sorts of content. I love videos and podcasts. I love stories told through images. I love books and articles and short stories and poems. But mostly? Mostly I love blogs. I love that any one of us has the opportunity to become storytellers in ways that are meaningful to each of us—and to build an audience of people who care about the same things we do.

It’s not easy, of course. That’s why not everyone does it. It’s also why many people (and companies, too) start it and abandon it. But it’s worth every last drop of blood, sweat, and tears you put into it.

And that, my friends, is what we’re going to discuss on today’s episode of the Spin Sucks podcast.

Resources Included:

* Andy Crestodina

* Orbit Media

* Orbit Media Blogging Statistics

* Spin Sucks Blog Post: Happy, Happy Birthday Spin Sucks!

Communications, by its very nature, is an industry full of thinkers. The work that we do is often the same across disciplines—and other work is unique to every one of us.

The work that is unique is our intellectual property, yet it’s pretty rare that we spend our resources on protecting it.

On this episode, we talk about what that might look like for you, why it’s important to protect your ideas, and how to go about doing so.

In this episode of Chats with Chip, Shannyn Lee of Win Without Pitching joins to talk about how agencies can step up their business development game.

Agency owners don’t need to be sales-y to generate new revenue, and Shannyn shares some of her best advice on finding the right prospects to work with you and your team.

[Watch this episode]

Resources

* Win Without Pitching

* Shannyn Lee on LinkedIn

In this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast, Chip and Gini discuss whether or not you should be using waitlists to manage demand for your agency’s services.

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