In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the challenges of dealing with team members who may not be enthusiastic about the clients or the work your agency is doing.

They cover whether agency owners should be concerned if their employees dislike the job, the consequences of ignoring such issues, and the importance of alignment between client work and employee satisfaction. They also emphasize the need for transparency in the hiring process and preparing employees for potential pivots or shifts in the agency’s focus.

Gini shares her personal experience with pivoting towards the PESO model, and both hosts advise on involving team members early in the process to avoid misunderstandings and to gather valuable feedback. The episode underscores common themes such as the significance of communication, transparency, and knowing your financials in successful agency management.

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.

Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin.

Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich.

Chip Griffin: And Gini, I hate everything we talk about on this show. I hate recording it. I hate the subjects. I don’t hate the listeners. That would just be mean. So I won’t say that. And I won’t say that I hate you, but

Gini Dietrich: Well, first you wanna quit, then you wanna be paid. Now you hate everything.

Geez.

Chip Griffin: I am just, I am full of gripes and complaints.

Gini Dietrich: Sounds like an employee.

Chip Griffin: Or a child or a toddler or whatever, but you know, the

Gini Dietrich: both,

Chip Griffin: it is what it is. No, but we are going to talk about what happens when you have clients that your team members aren’t in love with. They don’t necessarily like the work that you’re bringing in the door, whether that’s because they don’t like what the client stands for, they don’t like the kind of work that you’re doing for them.

There’s lots of reasons that employees might not be thrilled with your client base. And so I guess we start with should we even be concerned about that?

Gini Dietrich: Well, yes, because if you have employees who don’t like the work that you do, that’s a problem. Especially if it’s not gonna change and you’re gonna continue to do that kind of work.

You need to have employees who enjoy the work that you do and enjoy the clients that you’re servicing. Now it’s a different story if the client’s, if one client’s a jerk. But if it’s, I don’t like the industry or I don’t like doing media relations, or I don’t like doing social media, or I am burnt out on doing community management, that’s a different story.

Chip Griffin: But I think, I mean, I’m sure you’ve talked with agency owners as, as I have, who are of the mindset that, you know, I’m, I’m signing their paychecks and they just need to suck it up and, and do the work for whoever we’re able to, to get. I mean, particularly, you know, right now it’s, it’s tough times and, and so if, if I can win a client, I don’t particularly care if they enjoy it or not.

It’s what pays them. So they, they need to do it.

Gini Dietrich: Hmm. Well that’s, that’s an approach.

Chip Griffin: It, it’s not, I mean, honestly it’s not an uncommon approach in the agency world. It’s, it’s one of the many challenges that, that the agency industry has as a whole historically.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I, I mean, and I think that I probably had that attitude back in the day as well, but I don’t think that it’s the right approach because that’s what’s gonna cause burnout.

It’s what’s gonna cause churn. It’s what’s going to cause, you know, people badmouthing you on Glassdoor or to their, their peers, that you have to find a way to either hire different people or find a way to marry the work that you’re doing with the, the team that you have.

Chip Griffin: Well, and I, I think that the, the hiring point is, is really something to emphasize here because part of the problem in, in my experience is that too often agencies are not candid with prospective hires about the kind of work they will be doing and who they will be doing it for.

And particularly when an agency knows that they have either challenging clients or challenging work, challenging objectives. They often have a tendency to try to sugarcoat that a bit during the hiring process because they’re looking to get people in the door to help. But my encouragement is, is always when you are in that stage of interviewing a, a prospective hire, you need to be brutally honest with them.

Not, not in a way that scares them off, but they have to clearly understand what they’re getting into. Because they’re going to find out, they’re going to find out very quickly. Once they show up.

Gini Dietrich: They are going to find out.

Chip Griffin: And there’s really no benefit to convincing them to come in the door and, and then only then realize that, that this is not the right fit for them.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, and I think for you too, finding out that they’re not the right fit for you because like I said, if there, if you are a media relations heavy agency and the person either doesn’t have that skillset, has gotten more senior than being, than wanting to do to do that every day or just doesn’t enjoy it, it’s gonna be a problem.

So you absolutely should be honest about it. About 80% or 85% of your day is going to be pitching media. Let them make that decision because neither one of you are gonna be happy. They’re gonna be unhappy that 85% of their job is pitching media and you’re gonna be unhappy that they don’t wanna do that. So you may as well just be honest from the start.

Chip Griffin: Well, and I, and I think, I mean, you know, as, as important as that is, it’s also the easier problem to solve, right? Because if, if, you know, there, there are going to be issues sharing that upfront, making sure people understand what the expectations for the role are, what they’re going to be doing. But I think another piece of this problem emerges when an agency feels the need to pivot. Either because it is a challenging economic time and so you’re taking in whatever work that you can reasonably win, or because you’ve made a strategic decision to take the, the agency in a different direction that perhaps some or all of your team may not see eye to eye with you on. And I think that is the tougher one, because now you’ve got people who you may have set the right expectations coming in, but now it’s, it’s changing.

And so, you know, how do you handle those situations? Because now you’ve got people who they may be just as disgruntled as if they had come in fresh without knowledge. But it was not something that you could head off because you’ve made this decision for whatever strategic reason you think is right for the business.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I mean, I’ve had that experience. When we started to switch the business from media relations heavy to more of a PESO model framework, I, I said to my team, this is the direction that we’re going. We’re gonna be adding in these other layers. I’d like to know from you what makes sense for you, where you have some interest, where you’d like to transition, and about half my team quit.

Not, they were like, we don’t see this as the future. We don’t see that this is where things are going and we’re gonna go find another job. Two of those people came back later and said they were wrong, and I was right, but, and that made me feel good. But, it was interesting because I,

Chip Griffin: I bet that made you feel really good.

Gini Dietrich: I was like, I know. but it, it really,

Chip Griffin: I told you so I told you so.

Gini Dietrich: It was a really hard conversation because they didn’t believe that communications PR was going to be anything more than media relations ever. And so they went to find media relations heavy jobs instead of evolving with us. And it, that was tough because there were a couple of people that I really wanted to keep and they both said, Nope, we’re outta here.

And so you have to be willing to, to give that up too, I think to be able to say, this is where we’re going. Are you on board? And sometimes they’re gonna say no.

Chip Griffin: Is there, since you’ve been through that experience, is there anything in hindsight you would have done differently as far as either how you communicated it or, you know, how you prepared them for it or any of those kinds of things?

Gini Dietrich: I don’t think I would do anything differently. I think it’s different than during the great recession when I was keeping my blinders on and not paying attention to what was going on, and I had to lay people off to, to what them felt like overnight. And I didn’t bring them into the conversation or, or help them or have them help me with that.

Which in retrospect I would’ve done differently. But because I had that experience, I was very open. I said, you know, I just published this book. It talks about this model. We have to lead by example. This is what we’re gonna be doing. So and so, I think you’d be really great at content and so and so, you’d be really great at social and so and so, you’d be really great and, about half of ’em were like, yeah, we just don’t see it. Good luck. But I did, I brought them into the conversation. I, you know, helped to, to extol their strengths. I complimented them. I boosted their egos. I let them think about it. You know, I didn’t say like, make a decision now.

I let a couple of them try the job and a couple of ’em were like, no, this is not for me. So I don’t, I wouldn’t, I don’t think I’d necessarily do anything differently in retrospect.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, you know, sometimes you just have to do what’s right for the business and accept that the, the chips will fall. So to speak, where they may. Yep. And you know, I, I had an experience at one point where I was, I was merging two of my businesses together. One of them had a very heavy public affairs crisis component. And so you can imagine that some of the clients that come along with that kind of work are a little bit polarizing.

Yep. And so, so some of the team members in the other business who had not been exposed to that before, were uncomfortable with some of the people who would now be on the, the client roster. And so, you know, one of the things that, and, and one in particular had a very strong negative reaction to it.

And, and I, you know, my approach at the time, and I, I think it turned out to be the right one, was to, to give that individual and other individuals the space to, you know, be uncomfortable with it for a bit and to share with me their concerns and that sort of thing. And then talk it through and, and what does it really mean?

And, and in, in the cases of the, the people who were uncomfortable, they were never gonna be working on those accounts anyway.

Gini Dietrich: Interesting.

Chip Griffin: So, so it was really more about the business than about their role. And so as, as they got comfortable with that, we were able to, to push past it. You know, there, there are obviously times where you’re asking someone to change what they’re doing, to your point of if they’re gonna have to all of a sudden do more or less media relations, well that’s a big change to them personally.

Right. So I, I think. When it’s a concern about the business as a whole, you know, give them the space to, to express their concerns and that sort of thing, but then reassure them that it’s not going to change their role. If it is going to change their role, now you have a, a more direct problem that you have to cha to deal with and try to figure out can you move them around.

Do they just need to come along or move along or, you know, how do you, how do you handle those things? And I, I think it is often a case by case situation, but it’s certainly not an uncommon one for agencies to have to deal with.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I totally agree. And I think, you know, to your point, it’s, it’s case by case.

It’s definitely, you have to really think about what’s best for the business, and figure out, you know, which employees go or stay or evolve or change or whatever happens to be. But if, if the case is that your business is pivoting, then that’s, that’s something you’re gonna have to consider as you do it for sure.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, and you should, you should be considering it before you decide to make that pivot, right? I think that’s, that’s also key to this, right? You don’t, you don’t figure out how to handle it after you’ve decided to pivot and, and so it’s another argument for involving your team in some of these conversations so that you can spot potential issues and you may decide to move ahead anyway.

You may decide to, to go to a particular industry or change your service offerings despite the fact that team members have concerns, hesitations, outright objections. But if, if you are doing it without their input, you might be surprised. And, and not in a good way. And that’s not helpful. So you really wanted to pull them into it so that you can make an informed choice to move ahead despite the potential problems you may have with your team, not only discovering them later.

Gini Dietrich: I think there’s also a layer of most people don’t like change. And so when you broach it with your team at first, there’s gonna be a lot of pushback. Don’t take that first conversation as the end all be all, because do, do exactly what you were saying earlier. It may just be that they need to get comfortable with the idea and let them mull it over for a little bit. And continue to have the conversation because eventually, they’re gonna go one of two ways. They’re gonna continue to push back and be like, this is not for me. Or they’re gonna be like, oh yeah, I can totally see this. All right, let’s go. But that first conversation, I would venture to guess you’ll probably get a lot more pushback than you anticipate because people don’t like change.

Chip Griffin: Right. Absolutely. And I think that’s why when we’re communicating with our team, we need to do it in such a way where we’re communicating that it’s more of an evolution than a revolution in the business. But I think too often our instinct is because in our minds, we, we’ve made a big decision.

Gini Dietrich: We’ve already done it.

Chip Griffin: We communicate using revolutionary terms. Yeah. When the reality is, even if we decide to pivot, it’s not likely to be an overnight change to everybody on the team. It’s, it’s likely to be gradual changes for most people. And so there’s time for them to adapt. There’s time to shift things up yourself as, as a business and so.

Be careful about speaking as if things are sudden, right. When they’re not really, because you’ll scare people in ways that aren’t helpful.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I mean, yes, you will absolutely scare them and they will, they will react that way at first, regardless of how, definitely, if it’s, if you’re positioning it as we’re just ripping the bandaid off and going, but even if it’s an evolution, they’re still gonna be scared and they’re still gonna wonder what it means and am I gonna lose my job?

And those are all of the things that happened first. So you have to, it has to be part of an ongoing conversation. Hey, let’s try doing… Like, for us, it was very much, let’s figure out what this blogging thing is and introduce it to our business first, and then let’s take a client that’s willing to take a little bit of risk and start it with them.

And so it was more of an evolution of how those things were being incorporated into our day-to-day work versus, all right, this is what we’re doing. Are you in or out? So it’s it you, you have to think really strategically about it. And it’s not an overnight thing. It’s a multi-month, if not multi-year process.

Chip Griffin: Absolutely. And, and I think it’s, it’s important too to be as transparent as possible with those team members about what, what you see the future being, right? So sometimes it, it might be I need you to shift up your role, but it’s, it’s a temporary thing. I, I don’t see this as permanent. Maybe it’s because we added this new client that needs a lot more of this work, but my longer term plan is to add additional staff so that you can kind of go back to the role that you were at and we’ll have someone else, but I need you to, to pinch hit on it for now, if you will, and talk about what you see as a, a potential timeline.

Be honest with them that, that you don’t have a crystal ball that tells you exactly when certain things are gonna happen in the future. But I think it’s important to communicate is this a permanent change in your role? Is this a temporary change? If so, how long does that appear to be? If you’re bringing on a client is an experiment to see if this new industry is a good one to serve.

That’s right. Or a new service offering. Is it one you’re just testing? And so use that kind of language and set those expectations. So if in your mind you’re just trying to figure it out, be honest. Don’t… you know, people understand that, that you don’t have certainty. And, and if you pretend that you do when you don’t, you’re probably gonna scare more people than if you are just honest with them about the uncertainty of the future that’s inherent.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Yeah. And to going back to what you asked earlier about if there’s anything I would do differently, I do think that bringing your team into those conversations earlier rather than later is really smart. Because I think we all tend to be like, well, I’m not certain yet, or I haven’t kind of figured it out yet, or I need it to be fully baked. And I don’t think that’s the case. I think that we need to trust our, our teams to be grownups that the grownups that they are, and they also may have some valuable feedback or insight that you didn’t think about. So I think the sooner you can start to have those conversations, the better.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, you don’t wanna have aimless conversations that make them sit, you know, go back and talk with their, their coworkers and say, God, Chip has no clue what he’s doing. He is, that’s right. He is dazed and confused and we need to do something about this. But, you do want to bring them in because to your point, they do have useful perspectives.

They’ll ask questions that will at least make you think even if, even if they don’t have good advice. Those questions will help you to figure out things that you should be considering, either in terms of how you communicate it or how you structure it, or what your final decision is. And so as, as long as you can you know, be confident in the uncertainty. I think you’ll be in a strong position.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s just communicating, being transparent. Being authentic, and kind of figuring out what those steps are to get you where you need to go.

Chip Griffin: So basically we’ve circled back to the consistent themes that we have, solutions to almost everything.

Communication, transparency. Know your financials, collaboration. Know your financials. Yeah. So there you go. On that note, so before we start running around in circles, then I think it’s probably a good time to wrap this episode up and, and hopefully we’ve made you think about, you know, your next pivot, your next staff meeting and how you perceive the, the feedback that you get from your team and, and how you think about your hiring process and all that kind of stuff.

So on that note, I’m Chip Griffin.

Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich,

Chip Griffin: and it depends.