Guest R. Shawn McBride

Guest Pam Thomas

When Sean Cassidy walked out of Tufts University in 1990, he graduated with a major in Cold War foreign policy -- just as the Soviet Union was about to dissolve. He hadn't aspired to a career in public relations, but it turned out he was a good writer and he caught the eye of a small agency owner. Three decades later, Sean leads DKC, a prominent independent PR agency headquartered in New York. They recently rolled out a new tagline: "maximizing return on news." In this episode, he explains why he believes PR agencies should be news-driven organizations and what skills that requires. He and Chip also explore the role of analytics, the benefits of spending time working in politics, and more.

The co-hosts discuss an article that Gini wrote for Spin Sucks that looks at 6 reasons that agency owners have trouble scaling. The conversation includes lots of actionable ideas -- despite Chip's best efforts to sidetrack things as he struggles to remember high school science basics in making an analogy. Reason #1: You Don't Have a Business Plan Reason #2: You Can't Break Free from Client Work Reason #3: Operating In Chaos Reason #4: Freakin' Technology! Who Can Keep Up? Reason #5: Not Understanding the Whole "Measurement" Thing Reason #6: You Lose Focus Agency owners are entrepreneurs and Gini notes that tends to come with a certain level of stubbornness. Or as Chip put it: "There's great similarity between a toddler and an entrepreneur." The pair try to help owners break out of this tendency to find solutions and help them scale.

Guest Joe Folkman

Guest Jon Ferrera

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Content marketing excellence at the BBC; pointless happy words litter press releases; people still don't know that advertising supports social networks.

Guest Dave Kenney

Guest Niel McDonnell