In this episode, Chip is joined by Karen Swim and Michelle Kane of the That Solo Life Podcast for part one of a special crossover episode exploring the practical effects of AI on agencies, solos, and the communications industry.

Karen and Michelle share their view that AI is no longer optional. Practitioners who resist it risk falling behind, while those who embrace it can dramatically expand their capabilities. The conversation goes beyond basic content creation, exploring how AI can elevate strategy, reinvigorate professional skills, and free up time for deeper, more creative thinking.

Chip, Karen, and Michelle also discuss the importance of treating AI like a new employee — providing context, voice, and guidance to get the best results — and address common concerns around ethics, privacy, and copyright. They encourage communicators who haven’t revisited these tools recently to dive back in, as the technology has advanced rapidly and shows no signs of slowing down.

Michelle Kane co-hosts That Solo Life, with Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro, a podcast supporting solo PR and communications professionals. She is also the founder of VoiceMatters LLC, where she helps organizations turn their messaging into measurable growth through strategic communications, content, and public relations. Her work focuses on building visibility, credibility, and connection for businesses and nonprofits.

Karen Swim, APR, is an accredited public relations professional, speaker, podcaster, and authorShe owns Words For Hire, a full-service B2B, Healthcare, and Technology PR agency working with clients across the globe. Karen is also the President of Solo PR Pro, a membership organization for independent professionals in public relations, communications, and related fields. 

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

Chip Griffin: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Chats with Chip. I am your host, Chip Griffin, and I am delighted to have with me two guests in part one of a special crossover episode of this podcast with the That Solo Life Podcast featuring Karen Swim and Michelle Kane. Karen, Michelle, welcome to the show.

Karen Swim: Chip, thank you so much for having us, Chip. Yes.

Chip Griffin: It is great to have you and I’m looking forward to, to part two where we do sort of the law and order style crossover between shows and there, there will be, you know, no murders or crimes committed here in the next 20 minutes though. As far as I know.

Karen Swim: Watch out Dick Wolf, coming for your empire.

Michelle Kane: That’s right. Oh man. Right. We’ll, we’ll see if Ice-T might be able to show up by the time we do part two.

Chip Griffin: And, if only we could generate the same kind of revenue that those shows do, but

Michelle Kane: seriously. Right?

Chip Griffin: Alas.

Michelle Kane: Well.

Chip Griffin: So we’re gonna talk about two things that are related. In the first part here on my show, we’re gonna talk about the impact of AI on agencies, solos, the communications industry. And then we’ll talk in part two on your show about the overall business climate that we’re in, economic world affairs, all those kinds of things and how we function as business owners, in that universe as well.

So I think it should be productive and lots of interesting conversation. It’s always good talking with the two of you. And, so let’s dive right in and start talking about AI because it seems to be on everybody’s minds these days. It’s almost impossible to just go about your normal daily life, let alone things in the world of PR and communications without hearing about it, without having some people be super excited about it and some people just terrified of it.

So let’s just start with that big picture question of how do you see AI in the worlds in which we operate professionally?

Karen Swim: I think it’s an essential, honestly. I think we’re way past the point of being resistant to this technological change, and we should all be pretty deep in utilizing it. Refining our, not only our workflows, but how we think about the job and really becoming more innovative. Because I do believe that it’s important to be at the forefront and not trailing behind. That’s how you get lost, you know, in the shuffle when you’re trying to catch up. So, you know, I know that there are probably practitioners that still have not, you know, fully embraced AI and I think this is your wake up call to get in the game.

Michelle Kane: I agree. I mean, at this point, it’s a tool that we really need to harness and use, you know, not just to service our clients, but to grow our business and to at least, at the very least, be able to speak the language and understand what’s involved with its use. I mean, you know, in the back of my mind, of course, is data centers and resources, which, you know mmmm.

But that’s not going to stop it. So we still have to be smart about it and, you know, know what we’re doing in that realm because, you know we say AI and I know when we say it, we probably think through a certain lens. Of course, it’s, you know, it’s a massive concept. And I think probably people in different industries have different notions about it.

I know my friends in academia are still hating it for decent reasons, of course. But as far as being a communicator, it’s absolutely necessary.

Chip Griffin: I mean, academia is kind of known for resisting many new technologies beyond when the rest of the world has adopted it. So that’s, that’s not particularly surprising.

But unfortunately, I think in PR there’s also oftentimes a lot of resistance to technology and change. And so I’m curious, in your conversations with other solos, small agency owners, that sort of thing, are people generally adopting this same mindset that you have or is there, is there more trepidation and resistance there than, than you think there ought to be?

Michelle Kane: I have seen it’s mixed. I have seen, you know, my colleagues, they realize it’s a good tool, but at the same time, I don’t know if you have noticed this, we’re all sort of hating on the cookie cutter social media graphics that all look like they were made by the same Americana agency with the dark wood back.

You know, we’re cognizant of spotting it where people might be overrelying on it. But at the same time realizing that even though AI will certainly change the landscape of what we do and how we do it, the human touch, the human mind is still going to be necessary, which is good.

Karen Swim: Yeah. I think you know, I love Chip by the way, that you have an AI survey and I took the survey and thought the questions were really thoughtful.

So I’m really interested to see, because what I see is what Michelle sees. There’s a mix. But what I see the majority of PR practitioners doing is scratching the surface with AI. So they’re still kind of locked into the content and you know how my media database uses it and they haven’t gone levels deeper.

Here’s the thing. I just read this article that talked about, because, AI, for example, is training. They’re, they’re doing like deeper work. So they’re, you have this group of attorneys that are teaching AI to replace their jobs. They’re scientists. If you’re training it to do scientific discovery, you actually need human beings that are doing scientific discovery.

So what that means is, in that sense, AI is creating a demand for highly skilled positions that are not directly AI related because you need human beings that have those, those specialties and have that type of expertise. And I think as a PR practitioner, if I’m somebody who really has gone deeper into AI and I understand how to utilize these models to improve the way that I do work, to reignite the way that I think, to take the time because it takes away a lot of the busy work. And to now take the time to think deeper about what are the other ways that I can change this job going forward? How can I get better at analyzing markets on behalf of my clients? How can I make this, make me think deeper as a business person, as a CEO? The more skilled I am, the more that I’m protecting my own job, but it’s not me against AI, it’s me using AI to reinvigorate my skillset. And, I don’t think everyone’s there, unfortunately.

Chip Griffin: I think far too few are there. In fact, I mean, most people look at AI in my view, as sort of a, well, this can, it can replace this task for me or it can do, you know?

And, and usually it’s in our world, usually it’s around content creation, whether that’s an image, an article, a social post, something like that. But it, it has so much greater power available to it. I hear plenty of people say, well, you know, you still need us for strategy. So, you know, AI can’t do that.

Baloney. AI is actually pretty good at strategy today. And, if you tested AI 18 months ago and haven’t gone back, yeah, I mean, it, it wasn’t great then. But the models that are out there today and readily available. They actually, you know, do a passable job at strategy and ideation and even creativity.

And so, you know, we need to be much more ready to, as you say, I think, partner with it and treat it more like a team member as opposed to just, you know, a functional tool. And, I do worry that, that as an industry, we are not doing that. We’re too worried about, well, what does this mean for our pricing models?

And you know, I see, I see plenty of complaints about that. Well, you know, it’s, it’s driving down, it’s commoditizing. No. You, because you’ve gotta find new ways to create value. It’s like when we started, you know, having fax machines and email.

Michelle Kane: Exactly, yes,

Chip Griffin: It saved time from other things that we were doing back then.

And so we didn’t say, well, we gotta change our pricing model because we’re becoming more efficient. We’re not standing at the copy machine for half the day copying things. We found other ways to utilize that time and create new value. We need to do the same thing with AI if we’re gonna be successful. And not spend all this time complaining

Michelle Kane: So true, so true. The press release. Put it in an envelope.

Chip Griffin: So my other pet peeve is,

Michelle Kane: No, go ahead. Sorry. I was on delay.

Chip Griffin: Sorry that there was a little technological hiccup there.

Michelle Kane: Sorry.

Chip Griffin: So, my other pet peeve, and I wanna talk to you both about this. Obviously we do create a lot of content and we were referring earlier to the cookie cutter nature of some of this.

And, so I do see lots of complaints. I’m just filled with AI slop and all of that, so, you know, how do we think about that? And I see people saying, well, you know, you need to write your own stuff. And, honestly, this reminds me of the early days of social media where we had these inane debates about whether CEOs needed to sit down and write their own Twitter posts and blog posts and that sort of stuff, which was dumb.

They didn’t do it before with op-eds and that kind of stuff. And why should they do it with that? And, to me, I think we’re missing the boat if we are focused on who wrote this. It’s a question of is it good quality? And if it is, I don’t really care how we got there. But, but are you seeing, you know, more resistance to this or more embracing of the technology getting you to where you need to go?

Karen Swim: Resistance all the way. Yeah. Yeah. Because you know, as you said, and you know, some people are like, oh, you mean like chat GPT? Well, if you still use chat GPT, but there’s like tons of other models and I’m sure you have experimented with lots of them. I am always adding, like I used to, you know, in the early days I learned on chat GPT, but then I started playing around with Perplexity and wove that in.

And, you know, I love Claude today, but I, I use everything. I use Jasper and no tool is perfect, but I think you’re right around the strategy piece. I think people miss it. How really good your strategy can get with AI as a partner and how good your content can get with AI as a partner. They don’t realize that you can give it your voice.

You can teach your AI to write like you. You can feed it different ideas. You can take raw notes and upload it and have it do something that would’ve taken you a long time. And it just takes that work out. It doesn’t take away the high quality, it doesn’t take away the creativity. It just makes it easier for you and saves time.

And so I think it is a mistake again to think of AI or no. That’s just, it’s not going to work, and you’re going to find yourself sitting over on the side line, like a 90-year-old saying, get off my lawn, yelling at AI and resisting the change and saying, this is what people can do. And no one’s gonna hire you because your rate structure is old, your processes are old, and you’re gonna have 22 year olds running circles around you doing 10 times the job that you can do while you’re over here saying, this isn’t gonna work. Robots can’t replace people.

Michelle Kane: I could not agree more. I especially as, as you both brought up, it is a partner. And if it helps you serve your clients better, because at the end of the day, we are still the people giving it the green light.

What it gives us, we will either synthesize into our thoughts or, there are times, oh yeah, I didn’t think of that. That’s an excellent point. It’s, it is just a tool that we really, as you say, Karen, we really need to start adopting. And you know, Chip, you put it so perfectly, or else we are going to get left behind.

We can’t be reluctant. And, you know, as far as pricing structure, no one says, oh, you had an employee do that, so I need to pay you less. What? And, again, it’s not gonna replace, but you know, I, I am print out the press release, put it in the envelope and mail it years old and well, that took a ton of time.

Chip Griffin: Yep absolutely.

Michelle Kane: Yeah, like you say, no one batted an eye when we switched to fax and email and FedEx so.

Chip Griffin: Although I do remember debates back in the day with some folks that I was working with who were like, no, no, we need to mail these press releases. I’m like, but we’ve got a fax machine.

Why? Why don’t we send them by fax and they’ll get them faster? They’re like, no, no, we’ve always mailed them. I’m like, yeah, but it’s like 1992. We don’t need to do that anymore.

Michelle Kane: We’re so modern now.

Chip Griffin: We’re so modern. Right. And then of course, we’ve had a lot of developments since then. But I wanna pick up on something that, that you mentioned there, Karen, because I think that we all need to be thinking about how we train these tools and, you know, I think one of the reasons why we end up with so much AI slop is because people just go in and say, write me a blog post on x. And so it will dutifully salute and do that. But you would never think of having an employee or a contractor that you go to and just say, give me a blog post on X. You’ll give them guidance. You’ll say, and here are some recent pieces I’ve done that you might wanna look at for my style. And my voice.

And, and so you need to be thinking about how you’re training it if you want to get the most out of it.

Karen Swim: Yeah.

Chip Griffin: And so in the conversations that you’re having. Do people understand this is there, you know, what do we need to do to help educate people about this? Because in my view, AI is like an employee and you have to think about how you would manage and train an employee when you’re thinking about how you manage and train the AI agents.

Karen Swim: I agree. I mean, from the beginning I talked about keeping your own personal prompt library, but I think it also goes to exactly what you said. With an employee you’re gonna have an onboarding document, you’re going to have, you know, brand guidelines. You’re gonna have that style guide. So I think that you have to really think about it in that same way.

What would you give a human being that was starting with you? How do you talk about the company? What’s the tone of voice? Who’s the audience? What’s the objective of this piece? What are the goals? I don’t divorce my PR background, you know, my professional skillset for AI, because it’s easy. And I even have trained my models to ask me deeper questions.

Mm-hmm. Which honestly has made me like my job a lot more because I’m free from doing mundane tasks. I’ve been able to automate some really complex things that make it fun for me to look at this data and to dig into things. And it makes it fun for me to develop these strategies and frameworks because I’ve got this assistant saying, When you ask me to do this, what are you thinking? And like, what’s the end goal of this? Or what, you know, I noticed this thing, what about that? Or pointing something out like, Hey, when I pulled this, I saw this trend. Is that something that you wanna dig deeper into internally? I 100% agree, agree. No, it’s not a human, but you should absolutely be treating it like an employee.

Michelle Kane: Agree. Yeah.

Chip Griffin: As, as we think about trying to, to treat it more like an employee, how, how do we get more people to come along with this view in the communities that we serve? I mean, as I think about the solos that, that you all serve with your show and the work that you are doing through Solo PR Pro, et cetera, there’s a lot of potential here for AI tools to make you bigger than you are as far as capability. You don’t necessarily have to become, you know, larger in terms of clients that you, but your capabilities can expand substantially. So, and I think that’s more important than ever today because, you know, the single specialty hire, even on a contractor basis, just, it’s not quite as appealing to organizations where they want a little bit more of the one shot solution.

Is that, how do we get more people to come along with this view that it’s clear the three of us have, but it’s also clear that our, the industries we serve in terms of agencies and solos, just that there’s too much resistance. Is it scaring them or is it motivating them, or you know, what is it?

Michelle Kane: I think there’s certainly the fear.

The fear of the new, the fear of the replacement. But honestly, anything that can help me be a better communicator, to do my job better, to serve my clients at a wider breadth and depth is good. Why would I not want that? And, I think that’s the mindset that we need to come around to. Don’t be afraid of it.

Like Karen said, dig deep. I mean, I have a friend who’s a photographer and she has used it to help work her brand and she is the coolest sassiest person that I know. And she’s like, oh, I talk back to it. I say, I don’t talk like that. This is how I say it. And I thought, you’ve got it. Like you have grasped it and you know, keep going.

So that’s really, you really do have to interact with it. Now, I understand for, for some people that may just be way too creepy for them. And I get it, but it, I don’t think it’s gonna take over your toaster in your house today, you know? Or burn your house down. So I think it’s okay.

Karen Swim: Yeah. I mean, I think that we’re gonna lose some people.

Yeah. I’m just gonna be realistic. There are some people that are like, this is my exit ramp. I want no parts of that. But I think that this, what we’re doing today is a step. Educating people, talking about use cases, making it a little less scary, making sure that people understand where to go to get educated, you know how to get trained.

Some people function really well with taking a course and learning how to do it. They’re not comfortable jumping in. Encouraging people, you know, giving them those beginning steps. If you’re not familiar, here’s where you can start. And putting out things that kind of guide people and making it a little less scary, but also teaching them, you know, this is not without its problems.

So it’s communicators. We have to be aware of ethics. So we don’t wanna, you know, we wanna make sure that we’re not putting sensitive information into public models. We want to learn how to make sure that we double check that we are not, you know, breaking copyright laws, that we’re not stealing other people’s content.

We wanna learn how to look for the things that are popping up now where AI is pulling true things, like from client stories and putting it into something else that’s not true. So you’ve gotta start to train yourself. And then understanding risk, like what do I give my AI models access to? So you still wanna make sure that you’re protecting, you know, ethics, copyright, and privacy.

So there are things that I don’t do. I mean, funny enough, like when everybody jumped on the Alexa bandwagon, I did not because I had concerns about privacy. That is, you know, and people think that’s funny, ’cause you know, I’m a tech girl, but that was just the one thing and I was like, eh, no thank you. I don’t want anything listening to me in my house that has that kind of access.

I lock down certain things on my phone. I do. I do things where I see a risk. I will not give my models access to write all of my files. Or access to my drive. Because I need to protect my sensitive information. So be smart about the use, but you won’t be able to be smart if you’re not using it and you just shy away from it.

I mean, and at the end of the day, learn how to be sensible. You know, reality is our stuff is out there anyway. I mean who are we kidding? Like stuff is out there. There are so many things getting hacked on a daily basis. If you use a reputation service, it will make your head spin the amount of times that your data has been compromised.

So I think that we do the best that we can to protect ourselves, but we don’t allow that to stop us from moving forward and progressing in how we do our jobs.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, I think that makes total sense. I mean, to me, at the end of the day, the scariness of, of AI or the, you know, the bad things that can happen from it is more than outweighed by the fear that we ought to have of what happens if we don’t embrace it.

And, you know, I tell people, if you do not adapt, AI is absolutely coming for your job. So I’m never gonna sit here and say that, oh, you’re, you’re fine. AI’s never gonna take your job. It absolutely is. It will take the job that you have today. So it’s your job, whether you’re in an organization, or you’re a business owner, to create the job of the future with the help of AI.

So I, I really, I, I think we need to drive this point home repeatedly because I think there’s just far too much resistance to these new tools and technologies. And if you haven’t touched them recently, go in and use them again, because you’re gonna find that it’s a lot different than when you kicked the tires a year or two ago, and it’s only gonna get better from here.

People always like to say, this is the worst it’s ever going to be. It’s true. It is accelerating at a rate that most of us just can’t even fully appreciate, even if we are deeply steeped in it, which I think all three of us are.

Karen Swim: Right. Yeah, for sure.

Chip Griffin: So with that, that will draw to a conclusion part one of this crossover series episode. I don’t know exactly what to call it. But stay tuned for part two on the That Solo Life Podcast. For now, we will wrap up this episode of Chats with Chip. I’m Chip Griffin. Thank you for joining me, Karen and Michelle. It has been a great conversation. I look forward to part two on your show shortly.

In this episode, host Chip speaks with Emily Allard, the founder of 24 Sports Marketing. Emily shares her journey from being a professional softball player to starting her own sports marketing agency focused on women’s athletics. She discusses the challenges and opportunities in promoting women’s sports, emphasizing the importance of storytelling and education in digital marketing.

They also delve into the growth of women’s sports, the impact of key personalities, and the need for strategic and integrity-driven business practices. Emily offers insights for aspiring agency owners and highlights the potential future directions for her business.

24 Sports Marketing – Founder & CEO
Emily Allard is a veteran digital marketer with more than a decade of experience executing tailored marketing plans for a wide variety of brands. With a special focus in women’s athletics, her work has led to record-breaking online sales days, membership and event registration milestones, and successful paid and organic marketing campaigns. From nonprofits to multi-million dollar companies, Allard has garnered sustainable success regardless of budget, size or resources.

Informed by a 21-year softball career that took her to the pros, Allard founded 24 Sports Marketing, LLC to fulfill her lifelong dream of moving women’s sports forward. She brings high-level and multi-channel digital marketing experience to an industry with unlimited potential.

Allard holds two degrees from Northwestern University and is a 2022 NU Athletics Hall of Fame inductee.

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 Chats with Chip podcast. I’m your host, Chip Griffin, the founder of SAGA, the Small Agency Growth Alliance, and I’m delighted to have with me today the founder of 24 Sports Marketing, Emily Allard. Welcome to the show, Emily.

Emily Allard: Thanks, Chip. Thanks so much for having me.

Chip Griffin: It is great to have you, and I’m, I’m really interested to get into your story, for reasons that will become obvious to listeners as as we go on, hopefully. And if not, I’ll spell it out for them just to, to make it simple. But before I do that, why don’t you just share a little bit about yourself with our listeners.

Emily Allard: Sure sounds good. So my name’s Emily Allard. I was born and raised in the Bay Area. I grew up playing sports literally since I could probably walk, is what my parents would say. I ended up playing softball for about 21 years and was able to take that career into division 1 and then for a couple years into the Pro League at the time.

And as I was going through all that and really just trying to understand how much I was loving marketing and all the things behind the scenes. I was able to merge those two passions, over the last couple of years. So bringing high level digital marketing back to an industry that really needs it in women’s athletics.

So, 30 seconds. That is the story arc, but there’s a lot in between that I’m sure we’ll get to.

Chip Griffin: I, I was gonna say, we’ll, we’ll dive into lots of that. And you know, I mean, I love that you were able to take something that was a, a passion of yours for most of your life and, and find a way to parallel that as you moved into the agency world.

And know there, there’s a lot of debate in agency circles over whether you should have a passion for the kinds of clients you serve and the work you do, or whether it should just be profitable work or mm-hmm. And I, I’m a firm believer that there’s a Venn diagram where those two can intersect and you just need to find it.

Emily Allard: Sure. I think that’s a great point. And I am definitely the type of person who wants to wake up in the morning and like, enjoy opening my laptop and enjoy what I’m doing. That is me for sure. So I lean on that passion side as well. Very much.

Chip Griffin: Excellent. And, and you know, my view is if you want to be miserable, just go get a regular job.

It’s a lot less stressful than, than running your own business and, and all that entails. So.

Emily Allard: 100%

Chip Griffin: Go be miserable and let someone else cut you the check.

Emily Allard: I like it. I like it.

Chip Griffin: So, for those of you who may not know, one of my side passions, side businesses is sports photography. And so that’s one of the things that, that particularly drew me to this conversation and, and the fact that you have a background in sports and, you know, I kind of dabble with it.

For those watching on video, you can see a picture of a mocked up front page from the local newspaper where they were thanking me for some of the pictures I had given them over the years. And so it’s, it’s always part of me. And so, you know, finding this intersection is, is really interesting ’cause we don’t see this all that often.

And so, and I particularly like that – and we were talking about this pre-show – that you’ve sort of found a niche within a niche. So you’re not just doing sports marketing, you really are, you have a special focus on women’s athletics. So talk to me about, I mean, other than the passion bit of it, was there a, was there business thought behind being that focused, or was it really more driven just by the passion?

Emily Allard: It’s a great question. I would say it’s a little bit of both. So the passion from me as I grew up playing softball specifically, I got to see so many different levels of women’s athletics, little league, travel ball, college, Pro. And we’ve seen a huge shift, I would say over the last three to five years in women’s sports.

But while I was playing, it was lack of resources, lack of investment, lack of this ability to like hire the right people and, and all of these different things. So I saw both sides of, wow. Once I was learning more about marketing, I was like, this would be amazing for teams and programs and schools and leagues to be able to have this type of just high level foundation and bringing that to an industry that really needed it.

So it was a passion project for me. It still is, but at the same time, I think there was this need in this niche that I spent a lot of my time just educating clients on what’s out there and what are the channels that we can use and how can we best like fit within them.

So it’s, it’s a lot of fun and I think it, it’s both.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and I, I like how you sort of, you bring those two together and, and you’re absolutely right. I mean, you know, women’s athletics has had a transformation in, in recent years. Yeah. You know, it, it’s still not where it, you know, probably could or should be.

And it hasn’t really fully trickled down or, or really trickled down all that much to the youth level, which is where, I spend most of my time. Sure. And, you know, I, I, my, given my preferences, I generally prefer to shoot women’s sports in high school and those kinds of things, really in part because I’m not competing for as much space with other photographers and it’s not, they don’t get the same level of attention, so they’re more appreciative of, of when I show up at a game.

Emily Allard: Very much so.

Chip Griffin: And, and that’s unfortunate, right? Because sometimes these games are, you know, better than the, the boys’ variation of, of the same sport. Yeah. But there’s fewer people in the stands, there’s fewer media there. And, and so I, I think there is real opportunity to be had in doing more to promote them.

So, as, as you are going about doing this, are, are you focused at, at a particular level of women’s athletics? Hmm. For the work that you do, is it, is it mostly professional? Is it collegiate? Is it, you know, youth organizations? Who are you working with within that subset?

Emily Allard: Great question. So we are currently avoiding the college landscape because it’s a bit of the wild, wild west.

Currently. We don’t have to get into that topic. But our big focus is really the companies that are within sports. So not the athletes. At some point we’ll get probably into the team space, I would say, but we are working with like nonprofit organizations, sporting goods companies, tournament companies and organizations. We’re trying our best to help prove the value of being in the women’s athletic space. Mm-hmm. And we firmly believe the more that we can grow the companies, the more the industry itself is going to grow. And then, you know, give back to the players, the teams, the universities, et cetera.

So we’re in that company specific space, but of course, will expand at some point, wherever that goes.

Chip Griffin: Sure. I mean, any good business owner is always willing to listen to opportunities. There you go. And, and, and follow the Golden Brick road, wherever it goes.

Emily Allard: Mm-hmm.

Chip Griffin: So, you know, as you do that, I mean, talk a little bit about the kinds of things that you do for these companies in organizations in order to, help them break through, if you will.

Particularly given the special challenges that women’s athletics have versus men’s.

Emily Allard: Sure. So I think I mentioned this a little bit earlier, but a lot of what we’re doing is education of just, you know, tell me about your marketing efforts right now. A lot of times we’re working with companies that have really small staffs or you know, a lack of resources, lack of budget.

So us even just coming in and being a second pair of eyes, a sounding board, like, oh, this is really interesting. Tell me more about X, Y, Z. Have you ever thought of doing paid media? Or, you know, we have some clients who are still emailing like BCC, not using a platform like we are really working to bring, elevate this level of marketing, right? So we have certain services, email, organic social, paid media, SEO, things like that. But a lot of times, again, we’re educating clients what SEO even is. So there’s a lot of consulting I think that just happens naturally from that. And then we can start to direct them into maybe some service specific channels, if that makes sense for them.

Chip Griffin: So it certainly sounds like there’s some, some low hanging fruit to be had. Very much so in a lot of these, which is, I, I think always helpful, when you’re starting a new client engagement is to find those because it gets you those quick wins that shows progress to clients.

Emily Allard: 100%. Yeah. Yep. Couldn’t agree more.

Chip Griffin: You know, what, what would you identify as the, if they exist, the particular challenges of reaching the, the women’s market versus the men’s market when it comes to this kind of work? I mean, is it, is it or, or is there really no distinction? You’re just kind of doing it all and it just, it it sort of, it all floats to the top as a result?

I mean, are you doing direct outreach targeted at women and supporters of women’s sports?

Emily Allard: Sure. So we’ve been very fortunate as of late where word of mouth is our biggest marketing vehicle for the company. We will be getting into maybe some direct outreach here, I would say in the next year or so, but a lot of where we’ve gotten clients in the past have just been from my past connections through softball. Clients, I don’t wanna speak for them, but they seem very happy. So they’re sharing our work with others. And then it really is just, it goes back to that education piece of just companies knowing that this type of marketing exists. I worked in a nonprofit for about six years and when I left, I went into corporate agency world and I was blown away.

I was like. Oh my gosh. Like all of this can come back to that. I know. We don’t know that this exists. You know what I mean? So there’s just this big hole in a lot of areas that we’re really working hard to fill.

Chip Griffin: Mm-hmm. One of the things I’m always curious about when I talk with agency owners is sort of the, the thought process that went into deciding to pull the trigger and start the business.

Mm. And, you know, there’s all sorts of, of different ways that we become agency owners. A lot, It’s purely accidental. We’re just doing some freelance work and, oh, look, I’ve got an actual business here I need to do something about. You know, I, I can say that’s, that’s how I started my first agency, you know, back 20 some years ago. It was very much, I was between jobs and so I called myself a consultant ’cause it sounded a lot better than unemployed. And

Emily Allard: yeah,

Chip Griffin: pretty soon I was signing up clients and figured I ought have set up an actual business around it. But yeah. So talk to me, you know, was it, you know, was it a well thought out plan, to go down this path?

Or at least as well as it could be at the time? Yeah. Or, or was there something else to it?

Emily Allard: Great question. I had a very similar path as yours. So once I went to that corporate agency side, our, my first freelance client, real client was the company that I used to work for. So stayed in touch with my boss, who is a dear friend and mentor, and as soon as I left, maybe six months later, she was like, Em, what you’re doing now, do you think that would help our association? And I was like, absolutely. And then again, it’s this education conversation of here’s what I’m learning, this is how it’s impacting, this is how we measure. I would love to see what we could do, you know, with the association for this.

So that’s how it started. As that builds to your point, now I’m up at 6:00 AM working on my freelance clients, starting my real job at 8:30/9. You get the idea, you can only sustain that for so long. But I am very, very, I will jump off a cliff, but I’m very calculated when I do it. So I built a safety net.

I like worked on an emergency fund where if I quit my job and then every single freelance client canceled. I would have a cushion to figure out my life. So I just, I worked both for as long as I could, and then it was the scariest thing I’ve ever done to take that leap. But I have not looked back and I will proudly say I have not dipped into the emergency fund yet.

We’re almost two years in, so I feel very proud about that.

Chip Griffin: That is fantastic. As, as you look at the, those two years, what has surprised you the most? In being an agency owner, for better or for worse?

Emily Allard: Yeah. This probably will not surprise you one bit, but it is literally everything that does not have to do with marketing, right?

So all of the behind the scenes, the hiring my first employee, I probably cried for nights over that. Am I doing this right? Are the benefits correct? You know, do I have enough to pay a full-time salary? Taxes, thank goodness for CPAs, also would cry myself to sleep, trying to figure out how to do taxes. Just all of those different requirements.

I’m very much, I want to do it right and have that integrity and accountability. So, that’s been a big piece of just something that surprised me or I didn’t think would play as big of a role as it does, but trying to do it the right way.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. No, and and that is, that is not surprising to hear.

That is. Yeah. That is a lot of what I do at SAGA is helping, you know, handhold agency owners as they’re, they’re crossing those various bridges. What I can say to you is that the good news is once you cross those bridges, it’s so much easier. Totally. I always say that the, the hardest employee to hire is the first one. After that it almost becomes too easy at times. And so you, you’ve gotta be, you know, probably cautious that you don’t overdo it.

Emily Allard: Totally. It’s good to know.

Chip Griffin: But so having, having those systems and processes in place gives you the flexibility to make decisions that are right for the business without, yeah. I’m not gonna say without any stress, but without the same level of stress.

Emily Allard: Totally. I think there, Brene Brown calls it an FFT, um, I’m not sure if we’re allowed to cuss on here, but it’s blank first time. Yeah. And anytime you go through something for the first time, it always comes with its own challenges to your point, but it gets easier as you go. So, thank you for that.

Chip Griffin: Absolutely. And, and what I always say is that, that everything that I do and the content I produce and the consulting that I do is really just sharing what worked and what didn’t work for me when I tried it, so that you get the experience of my first time instead of having to do it with yours.

Although even then, you know, everyone’s situation is different. Yeah. As we, as you think about the future of marketing in women’s athletics.

Emily Allard: Yeah.

Chip Griffin: You know, what are the, what are the biggest opportunities and what are the biggest challenges ahead? Sort of, you know, looking in that, that larger crystal ball.

Emily Allard: Yeah. I would say 10 years ago we were really adamant while we were playing in the pro league about telling stories, telling our stories, which is what marketing is all about, right? We’re storytellers. But the, to your point, you know, photographers aren’t there. It was really hard to get media companies there, us being on tv, like all of those things.

There were so many cool stories to tell, but just one, no one was capturing them, and two, no one could hear about it. And I think that’s a big shift that we’ve seen over the last three to five years is now there are people in this space and there are people listening. And because it is visible, you know, a little girl can turn on the TV and see so many different women’s sports.

So it’s, that has come such a long way. I think, in terms of the maybe opportunity side of it is we’re starting to see a lot more investment in women’s athletics. There’s lots of conversations that happen where, you know, the NBA was around for X number of decades before they ever made any funds. There’s a lot of these leagues that were subsidized by X, Y, Z, like getting that type of investment on the women’s side to then see that return, I think is the, the next like big opportunity.

And we’re starting to see it, but I think there’s a lot more that can be done there.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. I, I, and one of the things I’m particularly curious about is, you know, your thoughts on, on the focus, the extreme focus on one or two individuals Hmm. When it comes to women’s sports and, and is that, I mean, obviously it, it draws a lot of attention to, you know, the various leagues.

Emily Allard: Mm-hmm.

Chip Griffin: Is that, is that sustainable? Is that, do you think that that then, you know, lasts, you know, five or 10 years down the road, even as the personalities change, do they have to get replaced by new personalities? I’m cur because it, it strikes me that the growth in, in a number of things. I mean, if we look back, you know, 25 years ago to, to women’s soccer, that was, you know, it was personality driven by a single team.

Emily Allard: Mm-hmm.

Chip Griffin: Now we’re having the WNBA driven by

Emily Allard: mm-hmm.

Chip Griffin: One or two personalities. Sure, sure. I’m, I’m curious. Your thoughts on that as a marketer? Yeah. And what that means long term.

Emily Allard: It’s a great insight. I, the thing that comes to my mind first is it’s a double-edged sword, right? Like there one of one to two individuals have certainly put a league farther on the map, let’s say. Everyone knows that the WNBA has existed. Now we’re on this whole different level because of one or two faces. As you were talking, I was thinking a lot about like LeBron. Jordan. Kobe. Like we’ve always had those one or two individuals on the men’s side too. And my favorite thing is like SportsCenter will tweet, post whatever, something on LeBron, and then all the comments are like, shut up enough about him.

Like we’re, we’re so tired of listening to him. I think you’re starting to see that a little bit too on the women’s side, which I think is a good thing. Like it’s a, like people are listening, they’re engaging, they’re interacting, and now we have an opportunity to spread that publicity across multiple different things.

I think my favorite thing I’ve seen recently is A’ja Wilson’s campaign for her new shoe, through Nike. It was a like, so incredibly well done video, and I think there’s just a lot more of those opportunities that are gonna keep coming because of one or two faces who came in and kind of push this, this envelope.

So, a rising tide lifts all boats. Right? That’s, that’s what I’m hoping for.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. And do you, do you foresee this trickling down to more of the youth levels? And maybe changing attitudes and, and attendance, frankly, at, at a lot of those things. Or is, is it really gonna, is that a longer road? I mean, you, you’ve obviously experienced every level possible within women’s athletics personally, and so, you know, you probably are, are better suited to, to speak to that than just about anybody.

Emily Allard: I appreciate that. I do think there is trickle down effect for sure. I think as the pro leagues continue growing, you know, when I was growing up, I went to men’s sporting events. I, we went to Giants games, we went to A’s games, we went to, you know,

Chip Griffin: I’m so sorry.

Emily Allard: Hey now, hey now. you know, but that

Chip Griffin: I’m a Red Sox fan, so you know.

Emily Allard: That’s fair. That’s fair. You can’t beat Dollar Dog Night though. I don’t know if that still happens for A’s Games, but we were balling on. I know.

Chip Griffin: The Colosseum is the worst stadium I’ve ever been to personally and I, Ugh. Anyway.

Emily Allard: Imagine that being your home though, like. That’s, that’s all I knew growing up.

And I was like, this is the greatest. Now I’m,

Chip Griffin: and then you went to other parks and you’re like, oh my God. Totally. They actually can be built properly.

Emily Allard: Totally. 100%. 100%. Um,

Chip Griffin: sorry to take you off track.

Emily Allard: No, no, you’re good. And there, there is that trickle down effect though for sure. I think what will be interesting and why I am not a good person to talk about this is I’m not a huge fan of this NIL landscape.

Like I certainly think that we should be, like compensated maybe for name, image likeness. But my understanding of that when it first came out was like, you know, someone buys my jersey and I get a royalty. Not I’m getting paid and you know, I’m moving schools and all these, so anyways, we don’t have to get down that road.

But I do think the landscape in youth sports is changing and I am very much a passion driven person. You play the game the right way, the game will give back to you. And I think we’re seeing a lot of money and profit involved in sports right now, especially at the youth levels with tournament organizers and things like that.

So sports in general is shifting. And it’s, it’s been really interesting to see that. And I think that has a larger trickle down effect on the youth, just landscape than maybe some of these pro teams.

Chip Griffin: So with all of these changes taking place and your optimism for where things are headed Yeah.

What, what does that mean for your agency, you know? Yeah. Where do you see yourself headed, in the business and, you know, what, what are your ambitions, for the future?

Emily Allard: Great question. We have right now, we’re really service driven from like a digital marketing perspective. I think one of our growth areas that we’ve really been looking at and trying to grow into well and strategically is branding. I think that’s a big piece, especially in the sports world, but for women’s sports specifically and helping, helping companies establish a brand. And even things as simple as like a brand guide or, you know, those types of things. Consistency across all of the different things that we’re doing and look, feel, messaging.

That is a tap, an untapped area we believe that I think we could fit well into. And also dream. We really wanna get involved in pro women’s athletics, whether that’s, let’s say a WNBA team, running ads for a league, like just that kind of stuff. We are, I would say more in the youth, nonprofit, sporting goods, retail space, and I think it would be really fun to get into that pro scene.

So those are just a few areas that we’ve been toying with and thinking about, but again, very smart, very strategic, not trying to grow too fast and trying to, to go into services that we feel our clients would fit within versus just growing to grow.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. No, that’s, that’s smart. You know, it’s, a lot of agencies try to, to grow too fast because they, they, you know, they chase the big logos and things like that as opposed to thinking about how do we, how do we grow and scale intelligently.

Sure. And I’ve seen a lot of agencies struggle when they manage to go out and win that big logo way too soon. Mm. And, and they don’t have the know, the know-how, the bandwidth to handle that kind of a client. It can be really challenging.

Emily Allard: That’s really interesting and we, we’ve had a couple of those like kind of opportunities and I, the first thing I tell a client too is like, I’m so appreciative that you thought of us first.

And also I want to make sure that we can deliver. So, you know, gimme some days and times to, to think this through a little bit. And if we aren’t the best fit, I’m gonna tell you and then we can have a conversation about maybe some recommendations. But I think, I don’t know if it’s because it’s mine. Or like I started it or whatever that is.

But I just feel this protection around the integrity and wanting to do good work for our current clients versus what you’re saying, chasing some of these other logos. So, that’s definitely something that has come up a few times for us.

Chip Griffin: And it’s, I mean, it’s, it’s tough because you get, it’s really easy to get excited by the prospect of working for large clients. And I’ll, I don’t have any particular experience with sports leagues or those kinds of things, so I can’t speak to them.

But, but in other sectors, a lot of the big businesses, frankly, are pretty abusive towards their agencies, whether that’s in payment terms mm-hmm. Things like that. And so, you know, oftentimes it becomes a little bit of an albatross. Sure. If you could say a little bit of an albatros. Yeah. For the agency when they win them.

And so, you know, oftentimes being more mid-market can be helpful, at least for a period of growth until you figure out how to navigate those waters. That’s a really, if you were, if you were talking to someone right now who was you know, thinking about building an agency, you know, maybe it’s based on their own passion.

Yeah. Maybe like you, they’re, they’re an athlete and they kind of want to, you know, to find a way to, to continue to keep their foot in that game a little bit. Even though they’re no longer playing. What, what would be your advice to them as they’re thinking about doing that?

Emily Allard: Be really strategic in how you approach business. And I, I think what I mean by that is, clients talk, your employees talk, people who know you talk. And I think every day we try to approach doing good work, doing work well, communicating again under promising, over-delivering, like that integrity piece, I think is the most important part, especially when you’re handling clients’ money.

Whether that be paid media budgets, their retainers, whatever that looks like. So I think my biggest advice is how you move throughout the world is going to come back to you tenfold. And like we’re talking about chasing logos, you know, I’m not a salesperson either. I just love what I do. So I try and say that as well of like, I’m not trying to sell you anything if this isn’t a good fit, like, let’s move on, or I’m happy to steer you in the right direction. So just that integrity piece I think is, has served me really well and hopefully will serve others in the same way.

Chip Griffin: Well, I, I don’t think I could find a, a better way to, to wind down this interview because that is, that is the exact kind of advice that we love to share with listeners because it’s the, the practical things from your own hard won experience.

And I think that’s what, what tends to resonate with other owners the most. So I certainly appreciate you doing that. If someone would like to learn more about you or have a conversation with you or whatever. How can they do that?

Emily Allard: That’s a great question. So the company itself is on LinkedIn and Instagram, but I will be honest. We try our best. Like I said, 95% of the time we’re helping clients. So that 5%,

Chip Griffin: the cobbler’s kids have no shoes, right?

Emily Allard: Totally, totally. Our own website, SEO don’t come for me, but, so the, the company, 24sportsmarketing.com is our website. We did just start a newsletter, so if you wanna subscribe to that, that would be amazing.

You can find that on our website. Social media is the same at @24Sportsmarketing. Me personally, if you wanna follow my shenanigans on Instagram. It’s E and my last name Allard, A-L-L-A-R-D 24. Those are probably the best places to start. Professionally you can find me on LinkedIn as well.

So yeah, that’s, that’s all I got.

Chip Griffin: Excellent. Well that those are lots of opportunities for people to connect. And I would certainly encourage them to do that. Thank you. This really has been a, a great conversation. I appreciate you taking the time, Emily, to Yeah. To spend with me and, and the listeners and, you know, I wish you all the best as, as you move forward, because I think what you’ve got is, is not just an interesting business, but also a good mission.

And, and something that, that needs more attention.

Emily Allard: Thank you, Chip. I appreciate that. Thank you so much for having me on. It was a delightful conversation, and I’m looking forward to learning more as well.

Chip Griffin: And thank you to everyone who has listened all the way through here. We, we do appreciate it, and I look forward to having you listen to another episode very soon.

In this episode, Chip speaks with Ken Jacobs, principal of Jacobs Consulting and Executive Coaching, about providing constructive feedback to team members.

They discuss the importance of leadership coaching in the PR and communication space and the challenges of becoming a good leader without formal training. Ken emphasizes the necessity of providing constructive feedback that builds trust and respect, as well as the importance of listening and asking open-ended questions.

Chip and Ken also highlight the continuous process of coaching and the significance of maintaining open communication with team members to encourage their growth and success.

Ken Jacobs, PCC, CPC, ELI-MP, an experienced consultant and certified coach, is the principal of Jacobs Consulting & Executive Coaching, which serves agencies, companies, senior leaders, executives and managers in the public relations, corporate communications, integrated communications, advertising, and marketing space.

Since 2007, he has helped agencies grow and manage business, improve client service and relationships, and enhance staff performance, communications, and leadership skills, while empowering communications CEOs, presidents, leaders, and senior managers to achieve and surpass their goals.

Jacobs holds Professional Certified Coach (PCC) credentials from the International Coach Federation (ICF), and is accredited as a Certified Professional Coach (CPC), Energy Leadership Index (ELI) Master Practitioner and a COR.E Leadership Dynamics Specialist by the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPEC).

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 Chats with Chip podcast. I’m your host, Chip Griffin, the founder of SAGA, the Small Agency Growth Alliance, and I’m delighted to have with me one of my most regular guests, Ken Jacobs. Welcome to the show, Ken.

Ken Jacobs: It is so nice to be back. Thank you for having me, Chip.

Chip Griffin: It is nice to have you. We have a very important topic on tap. We’re gonna be talking about providing constructive feedback to team members. But before we do that, before we dive into that topic, why don’t you share a little bit about yourself with anyone who might be listening who hasn’t heard you on one of my shows previously.

Ken Jacobs: Sure. There might be a few. So, I’m Ken Jacobs. I am the principal of Jacobs Consulting and Executive Coaching. So from that you can guess some of the things we do. We offer leadership coaching as well as consulting in a few areas, primarily to those in the PR and communication space. Primarily but not limited to those on the agency side, but we, we have some clients that fit, you know, outside of that.

So coaching, consulting, and training. Every year there is more coaching, which is great because it’s very fulfilling. And I like to say we help leaders who are willing to do the heavy lifting to be more effective, inspired, and inspiring leaders to achieve their organizational goals, personal goals, career goals, and to become the leaders of their dreams and, and that their followers and their peers and their partners and their bosses and their clients need them to be.

Chip Griffin: That’s great. And, and the work that you do is so important because so many folks in the the agency world, they end up in leadership positions, but without any formal leadership or management or executive training really of any kind. And this is true for owners as well as employees. And so getting that foundational knowledge, getting that guidance and mentorship that folks like you can provide, I think really is, is important and it’s, it’s key to what we’re gonna be discussing today because, in order to be a good leader or manager, you have to be able to interact with your team to help them get the most out of themselves and therefore the most for the organization.

Ken Jacobs: Yeah, I, I agree. You know, we do… You know, I, and I was a PR agency veteran for many years before launching this business. And I will tell you that in agency business, but in a lot of fields and a lot of areas, we promote people into people leadership because they’re, they’re good at the thing, right? They go from being student to practitioner, to even supervisor, maybe to manager.

 And then we promote them into leadership. Maybe they’re great with biz dev, growing new business, which is important. Maybe they’re great with clients. But that doesn’t mean that they’re gonna have inspired followers who make the choice to follow them. And, and leadership is a two part choice. Your conscious decision to lead. And their conscious decision to follow you. And just because you see people you know on an org chart in your office or on Zoom, it doesn’t mean they’re following you. So that’s, that’s a very different kind of choice that both of you need to make.

Chip Griffin: Absolutely. And, and I think part of the challenge too is that, that because our bosses often didn’t get this kind of training and support, we are modeling the behavior typically of those, you know, who oversaw us, but it may not be the right behavior that we’re modeling. And so, you know, sometimes you need to have those, those gentle nudges, those course corrections. And so folks who are open to receiving that kind of advice, and, and that kind of coaching from someone like you can be very helpful. And I, and I think this particular piece that we’re gonna focus on today is, is one of the most challenging for a lot of folks, particularly for high performers, trying to get additional performance out of their team.

When you start thinking about providing constructive feedback. It can be really frustrating for the high performers who, as you say, they get promoted not because they have management skills, but because they were good at what they did. They simply tend to expect that other people can perform as well as fast as they do, and so finding a way to be constructive in your feedback to help them get to that same level or close to it is very difficult.

Ken Jacobs: Well, it can be. I think that, you know, part of the challenge is knowing everybody’s on a different journey. Everybody with a different speed and what, you know, your leader led you. They didn’t just manage you, they led you, right? And so the tools and techniques that leader might have used review and all that…

Well, my, my boss didn’t have to manage me at all. Well, it’s like, let me talk to your boss Because I’m sure they led you and it was by design and they were very good at it. And if you didn’t realize it so much, the better. Right? But, but what you needed from your boss might be quite different from what your people need from you.

And if you’re leading three people, what person A needs might be different than what person B needs and might be different than what person C needs. Now you’re, you’re gonna show up with your core leadership style, but truly effective leaders are willing to customize or modify that style, whether I’m leading Chip or Gini or, or someone else.

Chip Griffin: And, and I think that tailoring is vital. Even more so today than maybe it was 30 or 40 years ago, I think it was still important then, but I, but I think the, the culture has become such that employees and team members are much more willing to be vocal about their desire to be managed differently and to learn differently.

And so it, it behooves us as leaders, as managers to help tailor each program based on, on what will be most effective for that individual. Because otherwise we might be tailoring it for what, what would’ve worked for us when we were in that same spot. But we all are different. I mean, some of us, you know, can, can learn by watching. Some of us learn through formal training.

Some of us, you know, do better when you’re just blunt with us and just say, this is what you need to do differently. Other people need to, to think it was their own idea. There’s all sorts of different permutations here that you need to, to explore and, and really get to understand with all of your team members.

Ken Jacobs: And I, I think this, this leads something you just said to, to one of the definitions of, of I think really effective leaders. Really effective leaders are humble, so they understand that what worked for them is irrelevant. And they understand that it takes work to lead effectively and, and you know, anyone who watches the podcast or or sees me speak or sees what I write, you know, they know that I’m a big believer in servant leadership. That you get to a point where you say, it’s no longer about just my success.

That’s what got me where I am. But what’s gonna get me where I need to go and get the organization where it needs to go is how do I lead each person into their greatest success? Success they didn’t even know they could achieve. That to me is today is all one of the hallmarks of great leadership.

Chip Griffin: So let’s assume someone’s listening to this and, and they accept the premise that we’ve now established because, because if not, you might as well tune out. Because I’m not sure the rest of it’s gonna be all that effective for you. Yeah, yeah. But, assuming that you’ve listened this far and, and can agree with the premise. If, if you’ve got team members where you want to provide them feedback, how should you be in general thinking about it?

Understanding it needs to be tailored for each individual. Yeah. But, but what are some general pieces of advice that you would offer folks in order to be constructive in their feedback?

Ken Jacobs: Yeah. Well, I’m glad you used that term because so many people think about it as constructive critique or constructive criticism.

And in my experience and in talking to leaders and in those who, who they give feedback to, unfortunately the leaders go so quickly from constructive to critique. And that’s kind of where they live and that’s where they stay. And I always say to them, well, what does that do to your person’s desire, your follower’s desire to stay in the room, to listen to what you have to say and start to either change their work output or their behavior.

And if you are feeling critiqued… You know, you’re, you’re, you’re not gonna be listening. You’ve shut them down. What’s the point of that? So that’s why I encourage them. And I, and again, I’m glad you used this term to think about constructive feedback, because to me there’s a big difference between constructive critique.

Constructive feedback is feedback that constructs, that builds. What does it build? It builds trust. It builds respect, it builds the relationship, and it builds their desire to stay in the room. Listen to your wisdom. Let’s hope and improve. So the number one thought is give up constructive critique. Don’t call it that.

Don’t think about that, but call it constructive feedback. And look at the session and many sessions, not just as a chance to discuss the work output or behavior, but a chance to build something. That is much bigger and much deeper and it requires you to get better at it. So that, that’s, that’s one thought.

Another is to acknowledge that your mindset is contagious. Your mindset is contagious. Your energy is contagious. So if where you are living when the session’s about to start are, all the things Chip does wrong, just stop there. That’s setting the wrong tone for the discussion. Because you’re dealing with an entire person.

So if Chip, and I’m gonna call on Chip, not Gini… beat beat beat because I just made her laugh if she’s listening. But we’re, we’re gonna use you as the test case. But, but you know, you bring an entire person to the workplace. If I’m only focused on that release wasn’t written well, or God, he just doesn’t get the, the, you know, active voice versus passive voice or, my God, Chip just never gets that critical third client message in there.

That’s not where I want to live. I want to be thinking about Chip in the totality and then start to think about now there are some things where I can help him succeed more. And one of them might be writing, okay, that’s what today’s session is gonna be about. But, but my entire mindset, my entire energy is I’m fortunate to have Chip on the team.

And he’s doing well in many areas. Now, let now let’s work on a few others. I think you can sense that that shift is gonna have Chip or anyone much more open to what we might discuss. So that’s sort of number one.

Number two, consistently communicate respect. Consistently communicate respect. People must feel respected to listen to your wisdom, your feedback, whatever you want to call it.

And I think it can be challenging to communicate respect when we feel, oh my God, I told Chip this three times already. Yeah, well maybe the problem is how you presented it, but you know, or Wow, what he said at that client meeting was so inappropriate. When the work is really not where it should be and when the behavior is egregious, you know, that’s when you really must consistently communicate respect.So that Chip will stay in the room with me.

Third point I’ll make here, and then we’ll maybe shift it back to you, is that we think these discussions should be me talking 90% and the person’s gonna be listening and no. Change that ratio. You need to under, I need to understand where is Chip coming from.

Does he understand he got it wrong? Does he understand he keeps repeating the same? I mean, I, I need to know where Chip is and how can I know that if I’m talking, I can’t. So focus on listening. Have a ratio of maybe 40 talking, 60 listening. Ask a lot of questions. Because when I tell Chip something, I’m not learning anything.

So this change in listening style: to question, listen deeply, question again, listen deeply and then decide what you want to share. But I, we need to encourage response from the people we’re sharing this feedback with.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, I think that that last point is perhaps the most important. It will help you in a lot of different elements of what you’re doing, not just in providing feedback to team members, but the more listening that you do, the more effective you’ll be, frankly, in even things like business development.

But you know, one of the things, high performers have a tendency to like to talk. Maybe not as much as I like to talk. But they still like to talk. And, and so, you know, and there is this, this impulse to dump out everything that, you know, when you’re trying to, in your mind, help someone to up their game or change their behavior or what have you.

But the reality is that you need to be willing to sit back and listen. But more importantly, I, I think it’s to try to invite the individual to share their perspectives because you might not be entirely correct in the feedback. Yeah. That, that you want to give. Now, there are some, there are times where it is egregious and blatant and you, and, and obviously it needs to be handled, but sometimes there may be differing opinions and, and you want to hear from that team member both what they think worked and didn’t in a particular situation or a particular piece of content or what have you.

And I always like to, to ask individuals, how would you do it differently next time, given the opportunity? Because my experience is a lot of times, they already know what needs to be done. And so I don’t need to sit there and keep talking and beat them over the head with it. Because they know. Yeah, and, and if you allow them to do that, it improves their confidence, but it also means that they’re then buying into the solution as opposed to being force fed something in their mind, even if they would’ve gotten to the same place on their own.

Ken Jacobs: Well, here’s the thing, you know, we start these conversations generally with so much talking. And you want to first find out, as I said, where they are. If I sit down with Chip, let’s talk about the last release. And Chip says, I know it wasn’t in the active voice, that the, the quote was too over the top. I used the phrase, I’m excited to, you know, the client’s excited to launch, which we don’t want to say I buried the lead, or whatever it is.

It’s like, oh, they, they, they know what they got wrong. Great. So what are you going to, what’s your plan for next time? And they say, well, I’m gonna have someone else proof it. I’m gonna have a checklist of things that I know are my watch outs to get it right. Da da da. I’m gonna go through and count. Did I include all three client men?

You know, your people can course correct and by them saying it, you can say very little. They may re, they may surprise you with how much they know they got wrong and more importantly, their plan to get it right the next time. Now, you might, they might be aware of what they got wrong, but when you say, what’s your plan to improve?

They go, I don’t know. I keep hitting a wall. I, okay, what are some of your options? Which kind of segues into the next section and maybe it should have been the first. I don’t know.

Chip Griffin: So before we do that though, I want to build, I want to build on that one particular area. Yeah. Because I, I think, you know, the other thing that we need to do is we need to accept that we may have had some responsibility in the outcome ourselves.

And so, you know, one of the things that, that I will frequently ask is, what could I have done differently? Not what you could have done differently. Mm-hmm. But, you know, mm-hmm. Because sometimes it’s, I didn’t give you enough time to do it. I didn’t give you the resources that you needed. I didn’t give you enough guidance about what the client was looking for or what my expectations were.

So we need to understand that, that when our employees don’t succeed to our expectations, sometimes, not always, but sometimes it has to do with something that we did as a precursor to it. And, and the more we accept that. And invite that into the conversation, the more we typically can help.

Ken Jacobs: Well, there’s that humility we talked about.

There’s that servant leadership. And I tell leaders, what do you do if you’re not getting the outcomes you want? Like, what’s the best tool? And my answer is a mirror. Look at yourself. How could I, and not even, what should I have done last time? I’m not a big believer in beating ourselves up over what we did wrong.

Because I always say all my clients, all my associates, all my influencers, if you will, the people who recommend me, they’re very smart people, I’m fortunate to say. But the one thing you know, they’re not time travelers. They can’t go back in time, either. The person can’t go back in time, you can’t go back in time.

So I encourage people just to focus on the what do I do next time? Yep. Because it takes that sort of self-loathing.

That’s right. That’s right. Learn from the past, but don’t relive it.

outta it. Right? Yeah. Yep. But, but, but a very important point related to the ratio of, of speaking versus listening is, is the power of an open-ended question.

If I tell Chip, Chip, you know, here’s something you really ought to do, Chip might write it down. He might be nodding his head and that’s great and I feel like I’m getting buy-in, but do I really? Possibly or probably not because. I haven’t lit up the part of the brain, which is the front, you know, that’s the part of the brain where things like passion, executive function, creativity, action, collaboration, and memory live. Okay, the front of the brain. Passion, action, creativity, executive function. Collaboration. Did I say passion and memory? That was seven. That time my, my memory’s working so well. So obviously I want to light that up if I want Chip to embrace change. Telling him does not light up that part of the brain. It is only by asking open-ended, empowering questions to which there it’s not a yes or a no answer. That’s how we light up that part of the brain. And now Chip is really using his brain power to figure out what he wants to do next. So, you know, ask, don’t tell is so powerful.

It shouldn’t come in my view. If you want change. It doesn’t come from your brain and your mouth. You’ve gotta figure out how do I get it to come from the other person’s brain and mouth? And in that open-ended, empowering questions are your best friend. And this has been backed up with MRI studies. MRI studies looking at the activity in the front of the brain when, so we, you know, we put Chip in the MRI, I’m the MRI technician.

Chip, here’s three things you gotta do next time. Alright, we’ll get a little bit of activity, but if I say, Chip, what are you, what are you gonna do next time? And we start to get Chip going and we say, Chip, why is this important to you? Oh, we’re gonna see activity. Then Chip, how will it feel if you can get your work to that place?

And it’s uh, I always say misquoting Miss Alicia Keys. This guy’s brain is on fire. And I, I attended a webinar, a coaching webinar by one of the many research scientists who talked about the MRI Studies, showed us the, the, the slides of the MRI and just seeing that visual activity. In front of the listener’s brain.

It’s really powerful. And here’s a little, you can use it in leadership, you can use it in coaching. I mean, the best leaders are coaches, aren’t they?

Chip Griffin: Absolutely. I mean, you know, I often explain to, to new managers that your job is not to assign tasks and hold people accountable and sort of all the classic comic strip management things that, that you see.

But it really is to be a coach, a mentor, an advisor. To your team members, and, and I often equate it to being like, in, in American football being a blocking back, your goal is to clear a path for your team members to have as much success as possible. It’s not to, to, you know, have them serve you in that process.

And I, I think that the open-ended questions and really getting your team members to communicate with you. Is a really effective approach, but I think a precursor to that is you’ve got to have ongoing quality communication with your team members. It can’t be simply when you’re looking to try to, to provide feedback or solve a challenge.

But that’s a, it’s a mistake, particularly in busy agencies that often happens where we don’t make the time to have these conversations with team members on a regular basis like we ought to be doing so that they feel comfortable opening up to you when you ask that open-ended question. Because if they view you as the scary boss and you ask an open-ended question, they’re gonna kind of turtle up and and not want to say anything because they’re not sure how you’re gonna accept it.

Ken Jacobs: Yeah. Well here’s the thing. You know when that happens, silence is your friend. Silence is your friend. And so if you’ve experienced that for any reason and they say, I don’t know. So, well, I think you could figure this out. Let’s just sit for a minute, let that silence work to say, I’m not answering it for you.

I’m gonna fight the urge. And, you know, it builds the leader’s ego a bit to solve the problem. But that’s not really leadership, is it? That’s not really getting people to grow to their greatest potential. So it, you know that this approach of asking, not telling takes discipline. But it’s also easier. It takes the pressure off because you don’t have to have the answers for everything, right?

You just need the questions. So you know, why is that important to you? What’s the worst that can happen? What are you two best choice? I mean, there’s all those que, if you are just intellectually curious, you are gonna have the questions. And so again, we don’t get that ego rush of, I solved it again. But you’re getting something far more powerful, which is helping that other person build their problem solving muscle.

And yes, I get it. The brain is not a muscle. I understand. We don’t have to send letters, but, you know, but, but that to me is one of the gifts of coaching when you help someone figure it out. And if you help them figure it out by coaching, by open-ended questions, you’ve given them this, this just enormous gift.

And that’s why, you know, coaching can be so fulfilling. And that’s why truly effective leading, I think, is so fulfilling because you’re helping people, you know, again, do things they didn’t know they could do that. Kim Sample’s, one of my favorite leadership experts, the head of the PR Council, and her quote is something like, I’ll mangle it a bit, but you know, it’s something like, truly effective leaders help teams and individuals do things they did not know they could do.

Just imagine, you know, how exciting that is. And, and again, it’s less pressure than your having all the answers.

Chip Griffin: So before we wrap up, I, I want to address one of the questions that I sometimes get from clients, which is, okay, Ken. Okay, Chip. You know, I, I buy into every, I buy into the premise that you sold.

I buy into the approach that you’ve suggested. But what happens when I get that, that team member and I get to this point, and they either, I can’t get them to buy in on what, what they need to work on. I can’t get them to buy in into a solution that I think will actually work. I mean, how do I deal with those?

Yeah. Yeah. Those recalcitrant edge cases where the, the, the employees, they’re still good. They, I’m, I’m not sitting here saying that they are not, they’re not worth keeping around. It’s not one of those, but, but they’re not quite seeing the light.

Ken Jacobs: Yeah. How do I do that? Yeah, so I think it goes back to something we said earlier, which is to look within and say, am I really asking?

Not telling. Am I really giving them the opportunity to engage their brain and figure it out, right? Am I fighting the urge? Because in most cases, I, you know, it starts with a question and they immediately go into, tell. No, don’t do that. You know, trust the process, it works. Stay with it. So that, that’s sort of thought one.

 Thought two is there are times that if they figured it out and you’re not sure it’ll work. You know, look, it’s, it’s, it’s PR, not ER, for the most part, it’s, we’re not doing brain surgery and for most of us, we have the space that let them try it their way. It might actually work, and many of us are not, you know, humble enough to accept that, you know, try it, let them try it their way.

They then come back, they tried it their way. Because you know they have buy-in. If they came up with it, at least they have buy. You know what’s better: trying it their way with buy-in or not quite trying it your way. Because they didn’t really have buy-in, right? So let them try it their way. Ask them what worked, ask them what gaps remain.

Ask them, well how might you figure that out? Shall we brainstorm some other ideas? So you’re still engaging them in that process. Sometimes it takes a second round, but being, I think being true to the process will work. And then, you know, sometimes, very good is good enough. Some people may not have the capacity to get to excellent, but if you can take them from average or they take themselves, let me be true to what I’m saying, if they take themselves from average to consistently very good, from good to consistently very good.

That’s a matter of your perspective of not worrying about the gap between very good and excellent and saying, well, you know, what can we achieve here if all my people were consistently very good? It’s very good. It’s pretty good.

Chip Griffin: That’s right, that’s right. You know, those are all great points, and I love that you describe it as a process because it really is, and, and I would simply add the modifier.

It’s an ongoing process. Oh, yeah. And, and so we, even when we, we provide feedback, we get them to buy into the, you know, what the challenge is and a, and a good solution that they’ve come up with. It’s still gonna take time. These are not overnight things and they will still repeat some similar mistakes in the future.

And, and so we need to accept that and just keep working on it. Keep working on it. Just like we work on ourselves.

Ken Jacobs: Yeah. Well I think it’s the classic three steps forward, one, maybe one step back, five steps forward, two steps back when we are trying to drive change individual or you know, organization wide.

Let’s accept that that process happens and be prepared for it. As a leader and a coach, be prepared. They’re gonna miss the mark a little, and then you get, again, ask a question, get them talking. Let’s talk about your work the last month versus the previous three. What are, what are you, you know, ask people how their performance is.

You might, you might be surprised at the honesty. You know, with which they’ll respond and it is far more effective than you are saying, you know, I think you’re a C. Right? You know, if they say. Well, I think I’m a B minus. Well, what do you want to be? I want to be an A. Okay. Let’s talk about that.

Chip Griffin: Right.

And, and maybe that’s a topic for another show. We can talk about the, the pros and cons of rating employees, which spoiler alert I, I think is ridiculous process. Okay. But, but anyway.

Ken Jacobs: Worth a discussion.

Chip Griffin: For folks who might want to gather more of your insights or talk to you about your expertise and how you might be able to help, where should they go, Ken?

Ken Jacobs: Yeah, two places. I’m on LinkedIn. I’m the only Ken Jacobs as far as I know, with a set of initials after my name, so that will help you find me. Or you can go to the website www.jacobscomm.com or email me [email protected] and tell me that you heard this conversation with Chip.

Chip Griffin: Excellent. And we’ll include all of those things in the show notes. So if you’re listening to us on the treadmill or in the car, no need to fall off or crash or any of those kinds of things. They’ll be, they’ll be right there for you when this is all said and done. And you’ll have nice, convenient access.

So, Ken, I’ve really appreciated this conversation and the time that you’ve taken to spend with me and my listeners, and I’m already looking forward to the next opportunity we have to talk again. So. For now, I’m gonna sign off and thank you all for listening to us and I hope that we’ve given you some useful advice in the constructive feedback that you’ll be providing to your team members in the future.

In this episode, Chip speaks with agency advisor Tim Kilroy about the challenges and strategies for running a small agency. Tim shares his extensive experience in digital marketing and agency coaching, highlighting the importance of flexibility and adaptability in leadership.

They discuss the notion of many agency owners being ‘accidental’ and the necessity of creative problem-solving and rigorous operational procedures in today’s tough economic and technological landscapes. The conversation emphasizes fostering a supportive and clear environment for agency teams, allowing for autonomy and decentralized decision-making to drive success.

Tim Kilroy is an agency growth coach with a no-BS style, a sharp strategic brain, and a heart for founders who want to build businesses they actually want to run. After years in the trenches -launching, scaling, exiting and breaking agencies, he created the WTF Agency Method to help founders unclog revenue bottlenecks, fire themselves from sales, and turn their teams into content powerhouses.

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

Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of Chats with Chip. I’m your host, Chip Griffin, the founder of SAGA, the Small Agency Growth Alliance, and I am delighted to have with me today a fellow agency advisor, Tim Kilroy. Welcome to the show, Tim.

Tim Kilroy: Thanks, Chip. Super glad to be here. And I must say that that intro was very sort of like NPR like.

Chip Griffin: Well, you know, I, I do take some inspiration from, from old fashioned talk radio, in how I do things including the microphone that I have, which is sort of a classic of the talk radio world. But yeah. So, and, and we are classics now, right? That’s, that’s why we get to be advisors.

Yeah.

Tim Kilroy: I, so it has, I, I don’t, I don’t like to think about myself as a classic, but I think that’s probably true.

It’s, you know, I definitely fit into the classic car realm. Anyways.

Chip Griffin: There you go. And, and if you can listen to classic rock on the radio and identify with it, you’re probably a classic. So,

Tim Kilroy: Often when I’m with my kids, there’ll be something that comes on, like in the grocery store, you know, the muzak and like, ah.

That was high school right there, man. That was like, there you go. Like, that was like, I remember jamming that in middle school and they’ll be like, what? Mm-hmm. Like, anyways.

Chip Griffin: Oh, well. Well, for those, for those who who don’t know you, what, what would you like to share about yourself that could perhaps introduce yourself to them?

Tim Kilroy: So, well, first of all, obviously if you are watching… devastatingly handsome. If you’re only listening, unbelievably hilarious. So those are the two things you probably ought to know. But actually I’ve, I’ve been in this, the, in the world of agencies… actually. I’ve been in the world of digital marketing since 1997. And, have been in agencies or senior leadership positions on the client side since 2001.

And I have, you know, I’ve started three agencies, crashed one so hard they had to call in FEMA. And, you know, started and exited two. And just as we discovered earlier, just about the same time you did, I stumbled into agency coaching quite accidentally and have realized that this, like me helping you figure out what the f is going on in your business – like that is, that is the best way to leverage my experience and point of view. Because whatever agency problem that you have right now, I have either had or created some version of that problem for myself. And because I’m a slow learner, I have probably done it more than once. So I have all sorts of solutions to help you figure it out.

Chip Griffin: Absolutely. As I always like to tell people, I, I can’t necessarily give you the right answer, but I can tell you a lot of the wrong ones.

Tim Kilroy: Right. Yeah. Yes.

Chip Griffin: That’s from hard won experience.

Tim Kilroy: Exactly. Exactly.

Chip Griffin: And I, I do, I do like how you, you mentioned that, that your current business, you sort of came into it accidentally and, and I, and earlier we were talking and, and you mentioned being an accidental agency owner before that.

I, I think that, that there’s a, a key theme here and, and I’m a big believer that many of the best businesses, if not most of the best businesses, were not intentionally created. Someone didn’t set and in fact, I’ve tried doing this myself where I go out and say, I wanna start a business and I’ll talk with people about different ideas and things like that.

And, and then you sort of pick one. But, but to me, the ones that that tend to be the best are the ones that you come upon out of necessity or an opportunity that’s staring you right in the face. And, and I think that’s something that it’s helpful for most agency owners to appreciate because the vast majority of agency owners are accidental.

The vast majority didn’t, didn’t wake up one morning and say, you know what? I think I’m gonna start an agency.

Tim Kilroy: Right. I would so happily put myself in the line of fire and the line of responsibility for creating ads that are supposed to generate sales on the other end of something where I don’t have full control.

Absolutely. That’s exactly what everybody wants to do. Yeah, you know, I actually think about things. Like your life is just a series of pivots. You know, you can be super intentional about your day-to-day actions, but, but over the course of your life, you know, you are constantly pivoting from one experience or one point of view to the next.

I mean, there might be a through line that makes them all consistent, but rarely is your intentionality expressed over a long period of time. And so you’re thinking, this is what I’m going to do today and tomorrow, and maybe, you know, next week I’ll do that. But by the time you get to next week, your ability to predict the circumstances is pretty poor. So you then actually, you know, then you’re, you’re forced to pivot your, you know, your way of thinking and your way of being. And, and I think, and I think that’s why those businesses that appear less intentional are sometimes more robust.

Chip Griffin: Mm-hmm. Well, and, and I think that, that this notion of pivoting is, is critical because the, the best businesses do frequently find the need to pivot. In fact, if you look at a, a lot of the, the best companies in the world, what they started out as is not what they are today.

Tim Kilroy: Yes. Slack, for instance.

Yep. Absolutely. Right. They were, they were a gaming engine and they peeled off a tool.

Chip Griffin: Yep.

Yeah. And, and it’s just, it is one of those things where I think that, that one of the challenges that, that agency owners have, at least in my experience, is understanding when and how to pivot. Because pivoting is good, but you can also do too much of it where you’re basically being, you know, carried by the latest breeze.

Yeah. And, and you have, you have no rudder control at all, or you’re so fixated on saying this is the way to do it, that you’re reluctant to pivot and so, so finding the right balance there, I think is right, is something that a lot of owners need to do.

Tim Kilroy: And if, and if you are reluctant to pivot, you are either a genius or you’re really stupid.

You know, because there sometimes there are people who are so pure in their vision, and when they turn out to be right in their vision, it’s extraordinary. Sure. But I think, but I think that those, those, sort of focused geniuses are, are very rare.

It sort of a, a sort of, you know, reminds me of, and I don’t know if this is a true thing that Thomas Edison said is like, he did not invent the light bulb.

He just found like 10,000 ways that it didn’t work, and one way that it did.

Chip Griffin: Well, whether that story is, is true or not, it sounds good. And, having started my career in, in politics, we used to always say, never let the facts get in the way of a good story. So, so we won’t do that here either. No fact checking allowed.

All right. So, you know, obviously I, I, I think, well, let me ask would you first of all agree that we are in challenging times for many agencies?

Tim Kilroy: Oh my goodness. Yeah. As we talk, I think. So I’ll tell you the, my first agency, I started in the, in the rubble of the dot com crash. My second agency, I started just seriously, weeks before the 2008 financial meltdown happened.

 So, you know, I’ve been through some challenging times in agency ownership. But I can honestly say that this particular circumstance where we are fighting macroeconomic issues, macro technological issues, and a rapidly changing social dynamic, I think is, is this could be the hardest. This really could be the most difficult time to be an agency owner that, that I have ever seen.

Chip Griffin: Well, yeah, I, I, I think part of that is right, because the, you, you’re creating challenges that are not just in the business, right? Yeah. So some of the things that you’ve enumerated in the past, those were largely business challenges. Yes. But here, owners are, and employees are facing, and clients are all facing issues, not just in the business, but in their personal lives as well, because a lot of these dynamics are directly impacting them there.

Tim Kilroy: Yeah. You know, and, and I think as I’m, as I’m, as I often say to my clients when they’re talking about macro issues, you know, like most agencies are not big enough to be directly impacted by macro issues. By the time you get to be like WPP and you’ve got a very big footprint. Yes, yes. Global macroeconomic and social issues do impact you. On the, you know, if you’re a $3 million agency, you are not really being impacted directly by macroeconomic or social issues. You’re just experiencing some of the friction. And so, so much of the way to survive these, you know, these really difficult times is by being intentional. And creative. And so both allowing you to, to like make very rational, thoughtful choices and also being open to like following a stupid crazy idea that, you know, that in the words of, of the Scooby Doo gang, you know, this might just be crazy enough to work.

And so, and I, and I really do think that, you know, that the only way to get, the only way to make it through difficult times is through rigor and experimentation. And those two things are actually, people don’t carry them around in the same bucket.

Chip Griffin: So operationally, how do you think about this when an agency owner comes to you right now and says, Tim, you know, it’s, it, it, it’s tough sledding. I’m not sure exactly what to do. How do you help them to operationalize this rigor and experimentation?

Tim Kilroy: Yeah, so, so the, so the very first thing is we, we talk about what are the connection points between the activity that your team is doing and the outcomes that your clients expect. For many, many, many agency owners, they have built SOPs and they are having their team follow SOPs, but those SOPs are not evolving at the same rate as you know, as technology or, or the, the demands, of the business, change. Because changing SOPs is hard. Like it’s really hard. And so the very first thing that we, we do that when I’m helping somebody rethink and, and sort of re-energize and reshape their workforce is to say, Hey, we’ve gotta get a better operating procedure put together, but guess what? Mr. or Ms. Agency owner, you are not the person to lead that effort because you are too far away from the work. You know, you, you were thinking about this operationally, and your team has a much better grasp on thinking about it tactically.

And so operations is like an abstract thing, tactical things or a to-do list.

And so by helping people or ceding ownership of, of process to your team is, is the most effective way to revitalize and frankly, right size your, you know, your team efforts. It does demand however, that you as an agency owner be unbelievably clear, like crystal, overly, so over explained, kind of clear about expectations.

And so the people, you know, if you’re, if you’re a, a, you know, a media buying agency, the people who run your accounts and the people who do your creative and the people who manage your budgets and your reporting, like they know how to do all this stuff. What they need is a clear, beautifully described, you know, like crystalline expression of the desired outcome of the stuff that they do.

So your job as an agency leader is to make everything super clear as, as, as Brene Brown says, clarity is kindness.

So, if you are exceptionally clear about the expectations of your team and the outcomes that you expect for your clients, you can trust your team to organize themselves. For the most part in a way that will accomplish those results. Now, if they aren’t successful in doing that, the first thing that you have to say is, do they understand what I’m trying to, what we’re trying to accomplish here? And if not, that’s on you. But if they, if they understand what you’re trying to accomplish, and then their activities are still not pushing them in the right direction.

They are probably being held back by something that is maybe, an old expectation or a way of things, way of doing things that they used to do. But you have to free them from the tactical expectations in saying, listen, you can do this in whatever way is most effective. You just have to be very, very, very clear in being able to defend yourself and your actions in saying that this particular set of actions, this process, this course, this, this course of, of direction is bringing us closer to your expressed vision, not further away.

So if, if they have built a process that is neither, that is not bringing the result closer. That’s not a process that’s effective.

And so, and if you put it that way and say, Hey, you are free to do exactly what you think is the right thing, and you can say, okay, cool. If I do these things, that brings us closer to the goal for this particular client. Then that’s a success.

The other thing that is so treacherous is that agency owners want to systematize everything so that their team does not use any of their own discretion. And the landscape for every client is slightly different. They have a different product selection, a different pricing strategy, different customer service policies, a different audience.

So the actual tactics that your team puts together is going to vary by the particular situation. That is why you need to get your team to think about, not you do thing one, thing two, thing three, thing four. In that order, you think here are the bucket of things. Here’s the collection of tools at our disposal.

At this stage in the engagement, we have to make sure that we’re assembling the tools in the right order to get us to, to get us closer to the desired end state.

And yeah, that works just so much better because everybody feels respected and valued. And there’s a real sense of ownership.

Chip Griffin: Yeah.

And that’s increasingly important with today’s workforce. I mean, if I think back to 35 years ago when I first got started, you know, it was enough to just be clear in your expectation. You know, now I think you need to, to be not just clear about, you know where you’re going, but why, and Oh, absolutely.

You have to, to make the team feel like they are part of that. Ultimately, you’re the boss. You, you are the leader. You still have to make final decisions and, and they need to understand that it’s not a democracy. But at the same time, you need to, you need to open up the tent a little bit, bring them in and help them to understand the purpose behind what they’re doing.

Tim Kilroy: Yeah. So, so, you said something, you said something relevant that it’s not a democracy.

But there has to be a democratic approach to opinions. So everybody needs to have the the permission to say what they think.

Chip Griffin: Yes.

Tim Kilroy: And that, I don’t know, like when, when I was coming up, that was not a thing.

No. Like you were told what to do and then yousaid, okay, I’ll do that. And, and you could not say, oh, you know, the result wasn’t right. ’cause the process wasn’t good. Like where you weren’t clearing your expectations. I just remember bringing stuff to one of my bosses and him looking at it like, this is crap.

Like, why? Like, what made you think that this would be the right thing? Yep. And I was like, because that’s what you said.

Chip Griffin: Right?

Tim Kilroy: But, you know, I remember, when I was growing up, my, my dad was a, well, let’s, let’s call him, he was an emotive guy to be, to be kind. And he would often say things like, you know, like, what are you stupid? Because like doing that, there’s no way it’s gonna get you where you said you were gonna go, right? Like what are you, like, how, like can’t you think? You know? Like, good job dad, way to be supportive. But, but you know, I think that is the way that management used to work.

And now management today is much more about, okay, team, like this is where we’re going, this is why we’re going there. And actually there’s a, there’s a brilliant, like a truly brilliant sort of exploration of, of the sort of modern management in Jocko Willink’s Extreme Ownership book. I dunno if you’ve read that.

Chip Griffin: I have not.

Tim Kilroy: So there’s a part about decentralized decisioning, which essentially says, Hey, your job, in order to accomplish anything, your job is to say like, here’s the really big thing that we’re trying to accomplish, like the, the big goal. Here’s today’s mission, or this month’s mission, or this year’s mission, and here’s how it connects to that really big goal and why it’s important to that really big goal.

And here are all the teams that are going to be involved in us in today’s mission or this month’s mission. Here’s what they all do. And so then everybody has a, has the full context of how their work fits into the, into not only the, the big, far away, goal, but today’s mission or this month’s mission, and they understand how the other teams are contributing to it.

And the most beautiful thing is there’s this, there’s this idea that you have autonomy to do the right thing. Whenever you see that there’s the possibility that we’re not going to accomplish the mission. And so that allows you to like have agency inside of your agency to say like, oh, you know what, like this keyword strategy, it might be right, but it’s not sufficient so I can do more.

Right? Or, or like, this thing is not relevant to that client so we can leave it be. And as long as you can be as, as long as you can sort of express your thinking about that your leadership team needs to be like completely open to trusting your discretion because you have the, you as a, as an agency worker or as agency staff, you actually have all of the context necessary to make the right decision.

And so, and so many and so many agency leaders are so afraid that their team will make the wrong decision. They never give them the skills, authority, and autonomy to make the right decision. And that’s the difference between working to succeed and preventing failure. Like there’s those, like those are not the same.

Chip Griffin: Right. And, and I think giving discretion and a degree of autonomy to the frontline particularly because as you noted, they are the people who they know best. They, they are in the trenches every day. They see exactly what’s going on, on both sides of the ball and, and, and they can help make some of those decisions.

The more context that you give them, the more information you give them. It enables those micro decisions to be more likely to be correct. Exactly. Then not. And if you withhold that information, it’s not going to. I, I do want to say that, you know, we, we were talking earlier about the, the challenging environment we’re in and, and in my experience, agency owners, agency leaders tend to become much more controlling, the more challenging the environment around them is.

So the irony is that the things that they really need to do in order to continue to succeed goes entirely against the natural instinct of almost every owner I’ve ever worked with.

Tim Kilroy: Yeah. So, and, and here’s the, here’s my, like pithy encapsulation of this. As the agency leader, your job is to not make happy clients.

That is not your job at all. Your job is to create teams and systems that create happy clients, right? So, and this is, this is the most counterintuitive thing for agency owners. Especially us accidental agency owners. When you start, you are thinking like the, like the thing that I’m supposed to do is work inside the business so it works. And that’s great if you are a freelancer or maybe you’re a freelancer with a helper. But as soon as you hire somebody with skills, your job is no longer to be the subject matter expert or the best marketer in your business. Your job, totally 100%, is to create an environment to get the very best performance out of the team that you have.

And so your job as an agency owner, believe it or not, is to run the agency, not do the stuff that the agency does. And so many people have, it’s so difficult for them to elevate above that. And, you know, part of it I think is like identity maybe. Like I know that, that, at my last agency Ad Chemics, we were doing this like nifty cool neato stuff with data enhanced, you know, and LTV enhanced sort of calculations in paid search.

And so when we started, and since this was all my idea, holy moly, I knew everything about paid search. You know, like where the comments go, where’d that go? You know, which button to push, which lever to pull? And I would’ve put my technical knowledge up against anybody. But you know, 15 clients into it, and a team, like I might be pretty nifty, but I am not nearly as smart as 15 paid search geniuses.

Mm-hmm. And so I had to pull myself out of that idea that I needed to know everything about paid search. I didn’t. Shouldn’t. Yeah. I need to know everything that paid search could do for our clients, so, so that we could help them hit their goals. Like the leverage, you pull the buttons, you push the pulls, you wrangle, not your job.

There’s people who are better at that than you are. Yeah. And also they have, generally speaking, more focused responsibilities so they can go deeper.

Chip Griffin: Well, I just, I really want to underscore what you said about, creating the, as a leader, your job is to create the environment in which your team can successfully do things for clients, where they can be successful themselves.

And, and I think part of the problem is that, that most agency owners don’t have any formal or informal management training. They don’t provide any, of, of the same to their own managers, individually. And, and the whole, the management paradigm that people think of is not really what works. And it’s not, because I talk to, to folks all the time about management and they say, well, you know, my job is to assign tasks and hold ’em accountable to meet deadlines.

No, your job is to, you’re a facilitator now. As a manager, your job is to create the environment, as you said, where, where they can be successful. You are there, I often, make it akin to being a blocking back in American football. Yeah. Right. You know, you are there to clear the path for them, figure out what obstacles are in the way, what resources they need.

If you think about it that way, as opposed to assigning and holding them accountable, you’ll be in a much stronger position to have a successful team.

Tim Kilroy: Yeah, absolutely. So, so I, although this, this, the person who said this ended up being less like this statement. After one of my agencies was acquired, I spoke to the acquiring CEO saying, wow.

Like, like it’s gotta be like pretty complicated to have all these people working for you. You know, there’s just so much to handle. And he looked at me and said, work for me? No, I work for them. Now. As it turns out, that was a giant pile of poo poo from his perspective. But it sounded good. But it’s very true, you know, as the agency leader, like your job is to make everybody else better.

Yeah. Like, that’s it. You know. You might think like it’s about big executive decisions and strategic thinking. No. It’s about thinking, okay, I got these like 15 really smart people who want to accomplish great things. Like what do I need to do to get the best out of them? What do I need to do to help them be the version of themselves that they want to be in this environment?

Chip Griffin: Well, I, I think the perspectives that you’ve shared today have, have helped facilitate that for our listeners and, and hopefully they’ll take some of those lessons away and start applying them in their own businesses. If someone would like to take advantage of, of more of your insights and advice, learn more about you and, and the resources that you provide. Tim, where should they go?

Tim Kilroy: Okay, there’s three places. So one, I spout off on LinkedIn a lot. I’m not hard to find there. And I think it’s pretty entertaining. You might not, but whatever, you know, to each his own. I, I agree. Yeah. So that’s one place where you can get, you know, get the sort of unfiltered version.

 If you’d like to hear from me a little bit less, I do have a newsletter. At www.agencyinnercircle and that also comes with the Slack group, it’s totally free. You know, if you get the newsletter, click on all the ads ’cause I have five kids. And then an offer: something that if you need help and understanding where you might be meddling a little bit too much in your team’s activities, I do have the WTF to WTF assessments.

And that’s, and by the way, that’s what the f to wow that’s fantastic. And that, you can find that at timkilroy.com/wtf-assessment and that will take you like 10 minutes to, to, to, to fill out. And you’re gonna get back sort of a comparison about like where you stand relative to profitability growth. Revenue per employee and your, and how deeply you are involved in the functional areas of your business. And it will give you a roadmap or at least a snapshot of the things that you probably want to fix in order to create bigger opportunity for yourself.

Chip Griffin: Well, that’s great, and we will include links to all of those in the show notes.

So if you’re listening to us on the treadmill, in the car, please don’t fall off the treadmill or crash your car or something like that, trying to write down these URLs. They will be in the show notes and you can just click on them right there.

Tim Kilroy: Wow, thanks. So maybe I, I will use the show.

Chip Griffin: My lawyers made me add that.

Tim Kilroy: That’s the reference for my own stuff later. That’s good.

Chip Griffin: Okay, so there we go. So on that note, Tim, thank you for, for joining me. You’ve been a great guest with lots of insights. I would encourage everyone to check out the resources that, that you mentioned, and I appreciate everybody who has listened all the way through.

And I look forward to having you all back listening to another episode very soon. Thanks for joining.

Tim Kilroy: Thanks Chip.

In this episode, Chip talks with Melissa Vela-Williamson of MVW Communications about her unique journey in public relations and the importance of content creation. Melissa shares her background, highlighting her non-traditional path into PR and her passion for using public relations for social good.

They discuss her focus on helping nonprofits and education clients, her role as a content creator, and her work as a columnist for the Public Relations Society of America. Melissa also delves into the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on her business and the strategic approaches she took to maintain client relationships and grow her firm.

They explore the significance of writing books and producing various types of content, emphasizing the value of building relationships and demonstrating thought leadership in the communications industry.

Melissa Vela-Williamson is an internationally recognized public relations strategist, author, PRSA national columnist, and podcast host. She is accredited in PR, is an elite PRSA Fellow, is certified in diversity and uses PR for social good through her boutique firm, MVW Communications.

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 Chats with Chip podcast. I’m your host, Chip Griffin, the founder of SAGA, the Small Agency Growth Alliance, and I’m delighted to have with me today Melissa Vela-Williamson of MVW Communications. Welcome to the show, Melissa.

Melissa Vela-Williamson: Hey Chip, thanks for having me. I am excited.

Chip Griffin: I am very excited to have you. We’ve had a great pre-show conversation, so I know it’s gonna be a great episode. But before we dive into the topics at hand, why don’t you just share a little bit about yourself with the listeners.

Melissa Vela-Williamson: Yeah. Thank you all for tuning in, listening in. I’m thrilled to speak with Chip today about this.

I’ve been listening to many, many episodes and shows of yours, Chip for a long time now. Just getting that mentoring advice that is so helpful to us in our entrepreneur journey. So for everyone here, I own a small boutique public relations focus firm called MVW Communications. It’s our 10th year Congratulations.

So yay. Congratulations. We made a decade congratulations. Also the longest place I’ve ever worked because I am so multi-passionate, but particularly passionate about using public relations for social good. So we try to do a lot of that in our firm, in the work that we do. Serving a lot of nonprofits, education type clients or for-profits who want to help out others. And I’m also really excited to be a content creator.

I am super passionate about writing. I have been my whole career. We’ll talk about that Chip, I know in just a minute. I do a lot of content creation as a national columnist for the Public Relations Society of America. My column’s called Cultural Strategy. So I want to integrate how people think and behave and work naturally and how we do our PR practice because that just makes good sense to me and build deep relationships with people.

And I also am an author of two public relations books. Smart Talk: Public Relations Essentials All Pros Should Know, and the latest, which is an anthology, Latinas in Public Relations: Shaping Communications, Communities and Cultures. And the reason I wrote those two books is a big part of why, we’ll, what we’ll talk about here today, Chip, which is about pushing the practice forward in the industry, inviting others in, and really empowering those who are doing the work, who are coming from all kinds of backgrounds, right?

I don’t have a traditional public relations major, so I’ve learned everything kind of the hard way. And I want to make it easier for others and really encourage them that they belong in public relations. They can do very purposeful work here, and what they’re doing today can really benefit society tomorrow.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and you really are a, a content powerhouse, and I definitely want to dive into that, but, but before we do, I, I’m, I’d like to touch on, on how you got into PR in the first place, because you have a little bit of an interesting story in that that’s not what you set out to do when you first went to school.

Melissa Vela-Williamson: Yeah, absolutely. And what I find over time is the more that I share it, the more helpful it is to others. Learning about our imperfect path into public relations seems to be very helpful. So if you’re like me, please do share your story because it matters particularly to aspiring prose students. Some who maybe have PR majors, but maybe have something in their personal background that they don’t feel really good about.

Right? Sometimes it’s things that we’re brought up into or things that happen to us that we don’t realize our lived experiences can be such an attribute to how we perform this work. And then also, you know, students who may be English majors, right, how many English majors are looking for really good jobs.

Public relations could be great for you. Those who are interested in business marketing, communications of all kinds, I mean really, just about any major, you can intersect that with PR and there’s probably a fit for it. So I didn’t realize that until later. I was a first, the first member of my family to go to university.

My mom was the first to go and get any kind of education beyond high school. She was, she went back later in her life after working 22 years as a cashier. And so it was very impressionable on me. I was about middle school age when I saw her, you know, go from the grocery store work she had been doing.

To help keep our family going and go after a certificate in dental hygiene. Completely different career and life shift. But her taking me to the library on weekends really spurred my love of reading and I kind of would grab every book I could, mostly about animals. So I thought I was gonna be a veterinarian, right.

Because that’s what kids put together is like, we could be veterinarians, lawyers, teachers, or doctors. Well, I’m really passionate about telling people about public relations to kind of open up another job role out there in, in people’s minds. But anyway, I thought I was gonna be a veterinarian, maybe. I knew I loved to read and then later on I was, I identified by a teacher going into ninth grade.

I was kind of a falling off the wagon educationally, right. I was bored in classes. I was probably gifted and talented, but I hadn’t been identified as such. And one teacher said, you know, I’m gonna put you in ninth grade honors English because you are a good writer.

And no one had ever told me that before.

And sometimes labels can be a really good fit for us. And so if you have that chance to identify something positive about someone, I, I really hope you take that chance to do so because it could change everything for them. So all of a sudden I put that hat on and said, okay, I’m a good writer. As I got in English Honors and I liked the competitive nature of my peers there and the kids behaved in class.

I went to some pretty tough schools growing up. And there was just a different vibe. And I really, really rose to that occasion. Went to the counselor’s office, said I want all honors. Those are my people. And that’s been the kind of individual ever since Chip, that I’ve been. So I took all the creative writing classes I could, became a published poet in high school.

Went into a small private university, followed some friends there because I was too scared to go to something larger and got a major in English Communication Arts, knowing, well, you know, I’m, I’m gonna try. Let’s see that veterinarian track, right? Let me not declare that major. I took a couple labs. I was like, this is gross. I can’t do this, and way too slow. And then I realized, oh, it’s not just playing with the puppy.

Chip Griffin: You’d rather dissect sentences than animals, right?

Melissa Vela-Williamson: Yeah. Yeah. And even still, I kind of, it’s funny, I have an innate gift for writing. But I can’t exactly tell you what’s wrong with your grammar. I just know it’s wrong.

Chip Griffin: Right, right, right.

Melissa Vela-Williamson: So kind of, I probably would’ve done that on the vet side too. So it’s a good thing I didn’t go that path. But I’ve been able to do a lot of fun things with animals in my career. You know, I’ve done marketing and PR for beluga whales and horses and, you know, dogs and cats who need homes and I mean, that’s really fun.

But that’s what PR has, has been for me, is a way to pull in all the things I’m passionate about as a person and find a way that was more sustainable of a career to, to pursue them. So long story short, in my university experience, it took me those four and a half years to figure out what I was gonna do for a career option, majoring in English and communication and kind of best of both worlds, right?

The literature and creativity with actual grammar and all that stuff, the technical stuff. And my last senior semester, my semester of my senior year, we had a capstone class and we all had to introduce what job we wanted and we did research on it. And so I talked about being an advertising copywriter because that’s all I could figure out what to do with my passion for writing.

You know, my, like of marketing, I’d done a marketing internship at a theme park and that was fun, but it was kind of, you know, soulless. I needed something deeper. But then a peer presented on her internship and her desire to work in public relations, and I had never really thought about PR. I had never considered it.

We had one class in my university experience and it was more historical. Right. PT Barnum and that kind of story. And I just didn’t connect with it in an applied sense. But when the student talked about her internship in public relations and how they literally had helped people missing arms and legs, learn how to water ski and empowered them in that way.

And then she showed the newspaper and her article that she had worked on a journalist with, and it was published. I was like, that sounds so cool. Like that sounds like it matters. It sounds like marketing. It sounds like writing. There’s photography in it. That was a passion of mine too. And there’s so much I can do with that.

So I thought that sounded a good way to pay off my private university loans, a little more sustainable of a career because there’s very few copywriting jobs and, you know, marketing jobs are tougher, at that time. And, public relations is, has been, you know, my passion since. So I actually took, the first job I can get, which I always tell new grads to do, is like anything near communications, just get employed.

You’ll be more desirable if you’re employed.

Chip Griffin: Right.

Melissa Vela-Williamson: So I took a small grant writing job right out of school, to just start paying off my loans, but I kept looking for public relations roles. And back then it was like the newspaper, right? And the classifieds. But, my mom had taught me, she was very resourceful and she said, look, I don’t know people who work in your industry, but I do know, talk to everyone about what you want to do.

Somebody’s gonna know somebody. And I’m so thankful she did say that because I told my spin instructor, I went through this big weightloss journey in my college years. Kind of went the opposite route, like dropped a hundred pounds versus gained the freshman 15. Right, right. Either way, that really shaped who I was and how I see things as a person.

But that experience also led me to PR because I lost weight in that spin class. And the spin instructor, I was talking to him one day and said, I really want to work in public relations. I took this little, you know, grant writing job. It’s not really for me, but you know, I don’t know anybody. And he said, well, that’s funny. My wife owns a PR firm. You should talk to her. She hires freelancers. I said, oh, okay. So he gave me her phone number and I was brave and I called her and, and she said, yeah, you know, you can moonlight for me. And I said,

Chip Griffin: great.

Melissa Vela-Williamson: What’s moonlighting?

Chip Griffin: Right?

Melissa Vela-Williamson: I always like to throw that term out there just in case someone like runs into it.

Right. I want to define things as much as I can, and so

Chip Griffin: I think these days, everybody just calls it a side hustle, I think. Right? Your side hustle, the term moonlighting has disappeared and it’s been replaced by side hustle.

Melissa Vela-Williamson: Yeah. I like to just, you know, be a little old school and vintage with it.

Chip Griffin: Absolutely.

Absolutely. I’m with you on that.

Melissa Vela-Williamson: So I was like, you know, like Uber right side. Okay. Contract work. So that’s what’s cool is like, now we have different models of doing that in our economy, but back then, you know, this is like 2002. Not really. So…

Chip Griffin: Now it’s very common. I, I know a lot of kids who come outta college, including my oldest son, who, you know, they go straight into contracting as opposed to, you know, when, when we were out there in the workforce at first, you know, that was a very unusual thing to do until you had a fair amount of experience.

Melissa Vela-Williamson: Yes. And I think it’s very valuable if we teach young people how to be freelancers how to contract because they may not find, and often I tell them, Hey, you’re not gonna find that dream job right outta college. And you may need to make your own income and you can. And of course if you have a traditional employment, you know you have a traditional job, that’s great, but what if you lose it?

Right. So learning that skill’s always valuable. So I teach my interns, my apprentices, anyone who works for me how to contract.

Because I find that so valuable for them. So it was for me, I did that on top of my full-time grant writing job. Within two months I was offered full-time employment in public relations, and I said, yes, jumped in, never looked back. But that first firm I worked at in-house public relations is what it was called at the time, was two owners and me. So it was very close to the business I have now: boutique, focused and agile, and I really value that in the work I do today.

Chip Griffin: And so, so you’ve been really charting your own personal path professionally from, from a very early stage, which, which I think is great and, and a great lesson for others to take away as well, that, you know, there’s not a, a straight line linear path that you always have to take.

Yeah. And, you know, take advantage of opportunities, look for serendipity, and follow your passions as, as much as you can. You know, as long as you’re still making a living doing it. So, you know, I, I, I think you’ve, you’ve touched on obviously that the, you know, you very early on you discovered that you were a good writer, that you had creativity.

Those are tremendous skills to have in the communications world, in the agency world, but I think that that one of the underappreciated things, and one of the things that a lot of agency owners probably don’t focus enough on because they’re so busy heads down for clients, is how they can build the reputation of their agency, build their own personal brand, demonstrate thought leadership.

And, and I obviously am a, a huge advocate of that. And you’ve lived that. You’ve demonstrated the power of it. And, and as we touched on very early on in this episode, you are a content powerhouse. So I want to touch on that, and, you know, at what point did you decide that this was something you needed to be doing?

In a substantial, meaningful way in order to grow your business. And so how did you get started with that?

Melissa Vela-Williamson: Yeah, I would say it was 2020 when the pandemic hit and it really shook up everything in everyone’s lives. It really shook mine. I had a fifth grader who went on spring break, didn’t get to go back.

I had a kindergarten boy, very active little boy, that went to spring break and couldn’t go back. And the leadership, I had to demonstrate for my clients like double that for home. Because really everyone’s like, what are we gonna do? And so thank goodness for public relations work and being able to really predict what, what might be coming next and seeing the patterns.

And I realized, hey, these rolling school dates of when they’re gonna close and when they might open, this is emotionally hitting the kids harder, and me harder than, than what I imagine. So we’re gonna say until further notice on that and then realign how we think about life. And for our clients like, I was supporting Meals on Wheels in my market area.

They were all of a sudden serving the most vulnerable client, you know, on the planet, right? A home bound senior citizen. It all of a sudden it was just tremendous pressure. And during that time, I also realized the best thing I could do is keep myself steady so that I could be a good advisor for my family and for my clients and my friends.

And so I did a lot of self work. And during that time I realized I better virtually put myself out there.

Because I can’t go to all the PRSA and the Marketing Association and the Advertising Federation and the chamber events that I was used to going. Right. Because most of our work is referrals.

Most of our work is organic in that they want to trust us and know us, which means they often would like to meet us and conversate with us. And there’s repeated touch points you need to have with an individual before they might become a client. And for me, in public relations, the most natural way is building relationship with people before they’d become a client. And I saw a direct correlation when I was not at industry events, what would happen to the business, right? What the referrals would happen. Because sometimes just me being there be like, oh yes, I’ve meant to reach out to you. I have an idea, or we have a need. Something’s coming up, an anniversary’s coming, whatnot.

And so not being top of mind because I was there in proximity, I knew it was gonna be a problem in the work that we did. So I really took that time to go okay, it’s now or never for most things, right? We had no promises of life expectancy anymore. Like it really shook me hard. I was also kind of dealing with understanding an adult onset of asthma, which was kind of a terrible time to experience that with all the messaging around lungs and covid.

So yeah, life became very real to me and I said, you know what? I’m gonna go bold or go home because there’s no promises anymore. And I need to make sure that I have enough income for my family and, and what we need here and keep this house steady. And, and I realized those steps I took also helped again, the business and the client. So, I really doubled down on content creation as of 2020 because virtually there was a way to be in the room with others without physically being in the room with them. And so making sure that I was offering more advice. I did more webinars on how to communicate during turbulent times, which is still a very popular topic today.

Yep, yep. I think 2025 feels like 2020 for me. I’ll just say that and leave that there. But those principles of what good public relations is, what good, you know, humanist is like, they still matter and help today. Mm-hmm. And so I kind of doubled down on the fundamentals and the disciplines of the craft and what really stood the test of time, what was timeless in those areas.

Because that really works during chaos. And so the content I started creating was around that. And so I launched my podcast, the Smart Talk series during that time. At the same time, there were some grants for small businesses coming out, and luckily I had all my financial books in order and reports in orders that I could really try to leverage that opportunity.

So I use those grants and opportunities like that to help fund some of those new passion projects around having this podcast where I could have these conversations of depth on public relations practice, on marketing, on culture, on how to work with people and, and really elevate them versus, you know, excluding or pushing down to make our wins happen.

And those seemed to resonate with people. And it was interesting for me, like what was hitting. And then just trying to double down on topics that I thought were important, but also seemed to resonate.

 And so a lot more of the blog post creation about, okay, look, here are the newsworthy criteria, principles, and I would add a ninth, which is like, what’s trending on social, because they’ll report it just because it’s viral.

Right. So keep that in mind for good and for bad. And you know, when I was just a little more candid and commonplace about how I describe things in our world. People seem to connect with that.

 And so I offer that for you all to think about too, is like, how do you make it simple for people to understand and, and has a little more story around it.

So that really powered that. And, during 2020, the book came to my heart because I literally went to church as a strategic risk that we took as a family because my kids were so done being at home and they were so done being alone. And they said, mom, you know, can you take us to church? I mean, when your kids ask you to take ’em to church, you should probably go to church. I’m just saying. I was like, okay, but, I’m really important to you all and my clients and I, I don’t know what this asthma’s gonna do with me. So I am gonna sit in the lobby, you can go to the kids’ church. We’re all masked up. because this was still kind of height of it in 2020. And I went and I sat in the lobby, Chip and I streamed the service.

I was getting ready, so I was streaming the music while I was waiting. I said, I’ll just be here away from all these people in the auditorium, and I’m gonna pray for guidance. I realized so quickly during that year how much each word mattered. And not only what we wrote, but what we spoke. I remember, you know, when all the different policies and the advice was coming out and it’s like exactly how you messaged it mattered so much to people. And whether they believed it or not, whether they took action or not. And I was really watching all that I said, and I would notice how terms like essential mattered. Like if I could get my clients deemed as essential, and the mayor just say they’re essential. It was like some kind of title being bestowed on someone and they were able to do business. Yep. They were able to get paid, they were able to go out. So I was like, wow, look how much words matter. I always knew they mattered. Okay. So I was actually praying for mojo and optimism and advice and the right words, and I remember saying, oh, you know, getting a little spiritual with y’all, so come with me and just said, you know, God, give me the right words so that I can help influence what should happen.

 Not really knowing what was gonna happen. And I started hearing phrases and because I had this poetry and creative writer background, like when you hear something like that, it’s like those shower moments, I take ’em down, right? Yep. I say, Ooh, this could be, I don’t know, a post or a, a press material or whatnot.

And there were some times I’d hear a line from somebody, I go, Ooh, that’s great way to say that, right? Yeah. So I started hearing these little phrases, so I just started jotting ’em down on my notes app, and after I felt kind of done, I looked and I was like… I was scrolling. I said, oh my, ugh, this is a table of contents, right?

Like what do I do? And it was like literally almost like each chapter of my first book, and I found that I wanted to explain what public relations is, what isn’t, how you could work in the field, how you should be practicing today, where it needs to go tomorrow in terms of culture and DEI principles and practice.

Some new models like it was, it was wild because the last thing I needed was a new assignment. But it changed everything. Because I answered that calling and I said, yeah, in case something happens to me, I would like to document everything that’s in my head and explain it in case my kids want to follow in the practice. In case they decide they want to do something else, but they come back to PR and marketing.

It’s all the advice I would’ve given them if I had time to sit down with them and try to say, here are, you know, the hard things and all the aha moments I had in about two decades of work on the ground. Yeah. Because again, I didn’t have the major, so I made a lot of mistakes and, and they’re fun. They stick with people, but I’d like for them to leapfrog over those as they go forward.

Chip Griffin: Sure. One of the things I I’d like to drill into is something you said a moment ago, about using the content to build relationships. And I, I think that this is, this is something that, that is also underappreciated throughout all businesses, as we think about content marketing and, and those kinds of things.

So often I hear people talk about, you know, creating lead magnets and talking about funnels and all of that kind of thing. But really in the agency world, we’re trying to build relationships with potential new clients. And that is a, it is a fundamentally different way of thinking about it as opposed to just thinking about how do I get as many eyeballs, as many email addresses, et cetera.

And so let’s talk for a minute about how you, how you’re creating this content in a way that you’re using it to build relationships. So is that something that you’re doing strategically? Is it something that you sort of discovered along the way that that’s what it was doing? So let’s talk about that relationship piece to the puzzle.

Melissa Vela-Williamson: Yeah. I think for me I realized it was helping others based on the reactions, like, and that was what I think my heart wanted. Right. And I, I really think about PR being such a helping career. And, and much like you, I’m like, if someone wants to talk with me and ask me a question. Why not? Absolutely.

Who knows where it’ll go, right? Yep. Who knows, who they’ll be in a few years where I’ll be in a few years and we can all help each other and be a part of my circle and network. And my content is a way that I could scale answering questions and giving advice and sharing a point of view, because I did realize that sometimes just Chip you and I could say the same exact phrase.

But just because of what I look like and my background, where I live geographically, my experiences, someone might hear that differently or perceive it differently. Absolutely. Than they would from you and vice versa.

And I realized that mattered and the representation also seemed to matter very much for people.

Again, I could be on this show today and there may not be a strategic intention of, there’s an avatar and you want to reach this person, or who knows who will pick this up based on your guess.

But the feedback, I would get people who would send me a message in LinkedIn if they were even brave enough to do so and they didn’t know one of us.

Right. It seemed to be from a lot of women, a lot of women like me who were Hispanic or Latina, who were kind of shyly or quietly saying, I’m so glad you said something. I’m so glad I heard from you. I’m so glad you talked about, you know, you made mistakes. You talked about that you don’t have a major. You talk about that you don’t speak Spanish, because that’s an expectation in our culture, which makes it very hard for Latinas to practice PR with as much confidence, I think, as peers sometimes, right?

Whether you should or shouldn’t speak Spanish and how much and pressure to do your work in two languages is quite incredible. And I just want to leave that there for people to think about. Which led me to book two because I kept kind of getting bubbling up for me. Yep. So sometimes a topic, a phrase, a comment, feedback will bubble up for you, keep coming up and you go, I’m noticing this a lot. Maybe I need to dig into this further or, or really research what’s behind it or, you know, what’s the challenge here? And those are my best pieces of content, whether it’s an interview or a story I told, or a webinar or a workshop. It’s what I’m actually just saying the things that people are saying back to me.

It’s like us with marketing, right? We’re like, oh my God, I love, yeah. I say that all the time. We connect to it. Yep. And I think we need to think about our PR practice that way. So I think it, I was learning by doing, and then I did more intentionally from there.

 And I try to do that way, but I will tell you.

Especially about books because a lot of people will ask me about writing books, and there’s a misconception that you write a book and that book’s gonna make you a lot of money. Well, it could, but not in the way you might think. Right?

Chip Griffin: But not directly. Almost, almost nobody, except for a handful of bestselling authors actually make money writing the books.

It’s the other doors that it opens.

Melissa Vela-Williamson: That’s right. For you. It’s the positioning, it’s the credibility. Even telling people, I was working on a book, they were like, Ooh, and all of a sudden they could hear me better.

Right? And or they followed advice of mine better, and that’s everything in our work. So I said, well, this is incredible.

Okay. So I started that first book journey for me, and then really, all books should be for us, right? Yeah. So what is your goals behind it? So using those planning skills, strategic communication, planning skills to say what are my actual goals around writing this book or starting this podcast or having a vlog or this, you know, whatever it is that takes your time as a business owner, I think that really matters.

And positioning, setting myself apart, making sure I was in the room, like I said, with people when I couldn’t be or didn’t want to be. Right. Right. I, I’m a working mother. My kids have aerials and soccer and theater and they have their own little successful lives coming, so I’m here for it and I want to be here for it.

So I think that’s part of it too, is that this work, anything you document can live beyond you. And certainly a book has such credibility around it that when I give someone it for free, like, they’ll squeal sometimes they’re like, yay. You know, and there’s nothing we can give out that way.

Chip Griffin: Yeah.

And I, I think I, I think these days there are so many tools available to everybody to create content, to build those relationships, to demonstrate thought leadership, to build personal brands, and we can all lean into whatever we’re most comfortable with. It might be video, it might be podcasts, it might be books. It might be articles. It, it can be some combination of all of those for people like you and I who are crazy enough to say, Hey, let’s just do it all. Let’s have fun.

Melissa Vela-Williamson: Let’s try see what happens.

Chip Griffin: But I, but I think the, to me, one of the, the key takeaways from this conversation is that, that there is real power in this.

And if you’re not investing in this as an agency owner, it’s something you should at the very least, take a very close look at because I think it would likely benefit your agency if you did that. For folks who, who are interested in checking out any of the content that you are producing, getting a copy of the book, listening to your podcast, checking out your articles, or maybe they just want to have a conversation with you and, and see what else they can learn as, as we’re drawing to a close here, why don’t you share a little bit about where people can find you and, and what kind of resources you have for them.

Melissa Vela-Williamson: Absolutely. Well, thanks again, Chip. This has been an honor of mine and I’d be happy to speak with anyone. My main website where you can find everything. Again, trying to take, let’s take care of our own houses, people, right? And make sure your website is your foundation of your communication story.

Absolutely. It’s mvw360.com and you’ll find my bio, what our firm does, and you know, links to articles, the books, the podcast, and I’d be delighted to connect with anyone and make them part of my community.

Chip Griffin: Fantastic. It is a, a great hub of information for all things about you and your firm. We will include that link in the show notes, so if you’re listening to us on the treadmill or in the car, don’t fall off.

Don’t crash. Just, just check out the link after the fact and, and you will be able to get all sorts of things. Melissa, it’s been really fantastic to have you on, you’ve, you’ve shared a lot of, of practical stories that people can apply to their own businesses and, and take those lessons away. So I, I really appreciate it and, and I appreciate you taking the time to talk with my listeners.

Melissa Vela-Williamson: Thank you so much. I encourage everyone to, to tell your story and help your firm and help your community by doing so.

Chip Griffin: Absolutely. And thank you everybody for listening, and I will see you all back on another episode very soon.

In this episode, Chip talks with Rachel Sales from the PR agency Enunciate about managing client communications in a chaotic world.

Rachel discusses the importance of empathy and strategy in addressing news and its impact on clients. They explore whether brand leaders should comment on current affairs, emphasizing the need for authenticity and aligning with business goals. Rachel shares a process for determining when and how clients should respond to news events.

The conversation also covers the evolving media landscape, the shift towards contributed content, LinkedIn strategies, and the importance of humanizing client messaging in turbulent times.

Rachel Sales is the Founder & CEO of Enunciate, a marketing and PR agency that specializes in creative content. At Enunciate, Rachel works with mission-driven organizations all over the world to tell their stories and amplify their impact. Before launching Enunciate, Rachel co-founded Pink Pangea, the community for women who love to travel. Rachel has a BA and an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University.  She spends her days doing exactly what she loves.

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

Chip Griffin: Welcome to another episode of the Chats with Chip podcast. I’m your host, Chip Griffin, the founder of SAGA, the Small Agency Growth Alliance, and I’m delighted to have with me Rachel Sales of Enunciate. Welcome to the show, Rachel.

Rachel Sales: Hi. Thank you.

Chip Griffin: So Rachel, you’ve got a, a, a PR agency based out of New York.

 But why don’t you, share a little bit about yourself with our listeners, and then we’ll, we’ll dive into the topic at hand today.

Rachel Sales: Sure. Thank you for having me. So Enunciate is a boutique marketing and PR agency that specifically focuses on content strategy and content creation. And we work with mission-driven organizations of many different industries all over the world to tell their stories and amplify their impact.

Chip Griffin: That is very succinct. I love it. So, today I thought we would talk about, you know, people realize I think that we are in kind of a chaotic communications environment today in a chaotic world, frankly. And so, one of the things that, that I’ve talked about on a lot of my shows is, you know, how we can navigate that as agencies from a business development perspective, but we haven’t talked about it so much from the perspective of.

How do we help our clients get through these times? And so I think that would be a good place for us to get started today. And, and thinking about the work that you’re doing with your clients and, and how do you help them to think about this chaotic environment and, and what, how does that influence the advice that you’re giving to help them get through it?

Rachel Sales: Yeah, thank you. So I will say that working in marketing and pr, our job has always been to find how our client’s story connects to the news, right? Like make it timely, make it relevant, what’s going on. They have a product they wanna push, they have partnerships they wanna share, they wanna speak to their audience, right?

If it’s not timely, it’s not gonna cut through the noise. Now we’re actually at a completely different time where we don’t even need to try in some ways, right? We don’t, the news every single day we’re finding is impacting our clients no matter what industry they’re in, right? And we have clients from FinTech to education, nonprofit.

I mean DEI, like it’s a huge fan. And just every single day what’s happening, the news impacts them. So now. There’s two issues. Number one is a human issue, which is we know that our clients are impacted by the news in a lot of different ways every single day. How do we approach them with increased empathy and acknowledge what they’re going through, what they’re experiencing.

It could be good or it could be very bad, right? And then number two, how do we create a strategy that actually defines whether they’re going to comment on the news. Weigh in on the news, acknowledge news, not acknowledge the news. So there, those are kind of like the two things that we’re dealing with every single day with every single one of our clients.

Chip Griffin: Well, let’s start with that second piece first because you know, we hear a lot that, you know, consumers want to hear brands speaking out about the issues of the day. And so there’s, there’s really this been, this drumbeat for probably the last three or four years about, how brands really need to take a more active role in the conversation.

And, and honestly, I’ve consistently pushed back against that. I, I don’t, I, I think that it’s, it’s very much situational and I think the default position should actually be, you generally don’t. Unless it’s impacting you or it’s core to your mission or something like that. But I’m, I’m curious, has that changed and, and how do you see that and how do you work with your clients on that piece of it?

Rachel Sales: So, I think there has been a bit of pushback because there were times, let’s say five years ago when every brand was kind of sharing, okay, we support this cause and then there was cause of, you know, slacktivism, right? Like you have never actually done anything for this cause and now you’re just like putting up a social media visual and saying, I support this while not actually doing anything.

So there has been a lot of pushback and we have to be really, really careful with our clients. Not to get into that, but a lot of our clients actually are leaders in different, you know, in industry leaders, different causes or things that they really care about from a business perspective and, and that they stand for.

And we have to say, okay. When is the time for them to take a stand and when is the time for them to not take, take a stance, right? Like a lot of what we’ve been finding is that there’s a lot of chaos and we wanna make sure that our clients are not just adding to that chaos and adding to the noise and kind of sharing feelings like, oh, we are so unhappy that this is happening right now, but they don’t actually have any actions to take any suggestions, et cetera. And so, so that’s something that we need to be careful about. The other point is that sometimes our clients, they have audiences that actually are, like you said, expecting them to say something, right?

Like they are leaders where they need to, like their audience needs them to say something. And we have to be careful that they’re not just saying the thing that everyone is saying. So we actually do have a process that we work through to help our clients kind of figure out like something happens in the news.

Is it time to, you know, should they actually comment on what’s going on in the world?

Chip Griffin: Can you share a little bit more about what that process is and, and how you help them think that through?

Rachel Sales: Yes. So something happens big in the news, okay? Our client says, I must say something, right? So first we say, okay, hold on one second.

Let’s, let’s first say what is the major news item in question, right? Because a lot of times something will happen that’s big, but it’s actually related to a lot of other different issues. So we wanna like get very specific. What’s the one thing that you need to comment on? You think you need to comment?

Okay. Number two, how does this news item actually relate to your work? And impact your organization, right? Because sometimes it will just be, you know, things happen in the world. They’re impacting us professionally, but also personally, right? And those might not intersect. So we need to say, does this actually impact your work and impact your audience?

Or is this just something that you feel passionate about as an individual? Number three, how will commenting on it align with your business goals? Does it have anything to do with the business goals? Will it, will it help? Will it hurt? And then we always wanna look into how are competing, or like minded organizations commenting on it, if at all.

How might their audience react or, you know, not react if they comment. And then a lot of times, you know, organizations are told, think about, you know, one persona, right? Think about your persona and think about how they will feel about your acting. But I always like to say, look, yes, you have a persona, but all of these personas are actually people, right?

They’re people and they don’t all feel the same way. So say half of your people don’t like what you say and half of them do, how will you feel? And sometimes we’ll take, you know, our clients for that whole process and they’ll still say okay, this doesn’t align my business goals, but I must say something, I still must, because I need to be authentic.

So we’ll say, okay, let’s say something in the best way possible that is in your brand voice, speak and speaks to your audience in a way that’s not going to hurt you.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, I, I, I really love that analysis that you do with them and, and particularly reminding them that, that not all of their customers or constituents think exactly the same way.

And, and I, you know, we are in an environment where a lot of us have, have blinders on and, and we see the world through a particular lens, and we surround ourselves with other people who, for the most part, probably share that same worldview. And so it’s very easy to forget, or frankly, not even realize that there are a lot of people that we depend upon for business, for other things, who may think 180 degrees opposite on it, whether it’s a political issue or an economic issue or a social issue.

And so you need to understand the risk of taking a stand. It, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it, but you need to make sure that you’re at least including that and saying, you know what, if if I lose business from this segment of of my population, I’m okay with that because I feel that strongly about it.

I think the problem is that a lot of organizations don’t do that math and then they’re surprised when there’s blowback against them for whatever position they’ve decided to take.

Rachel Sales: Yeah, a hundred percent. And I also think that sometimes we need to kind of translate for their, you know, where they are to their audience, right?

So, and the same, you know where we are. Like it could be sunny in New York, where, you know, sunny emotionally and weather-wise and where they are, they’re experiencing something devastating, right? So we need to think, okay, let’s put ourselves in their shoes. But at the same time as we’re putting ourselves in their shoes, we also need to make them put them in their audience’s shoes, right?

Like you’re feeling this way, by the way, your audience who’s maybe an entire ocean away, does not feel the way you do. Does, like it does not have the same mentality and you, you, we need to make sure that we can, you know, reach, fill that gap, bridge that gap. Yeah.

Chip Griffin: And I, and I think that that understanding

those differences is absolutely critical for agencies today in working with their clients because business and, and everything else is much more global than it ever was. And, but even within, say, the United States, there are differing views from one state to the next, one coast to the next. And, and trying to, to navigate all of that and making sure that you’re putting yourself in those shoes and understanding what those differences are.

Is really vital and, and I’ve been fortunate over the last decade or so to have done a lot of international work and, even though I always considered myself fairly global in my viewpoints, you’ll learn so much more every day as you talk to people in other places with other backgrounds and, and how they’re perceiving the exact same piece of news and information that you are because they’re getting it reported to them differently.

They have a different life experience. And, and so the more you can do as a communicator, as an agency leader to, to adapt to that, I think it’s important and you have to help your clients with that as well. Right.

Rachel Sales: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. And I think also you need to like, you know, we’re, we’re all reading like hopefully the front page news every day, right?

We’re reading a variety of sources, we’re reading. And so I think, you know, I, we’re not just reading to be informed, but we’re also reading to think like anyone we’re talking today, how is that news going to impact them? Like, for example, we were doing a PR for an orchestra, right? And some of the people that we were interviewing were in LA and that was the time of the wildfires.

So we were actually, you know, and here we are talking about an orchestra, such a nice thing and who knows what they’re going through. So I, you know, we keep reminding our team like. Just think about who are you, who are you talking to, where are they located? Before you start the conversation, make sure you are in touch with what they might be going through right now.

Acknowledge it and then see if they’re ready to move on to the conversation, right? So like for a lot of our clients, the conversation we’re actually gonna have, you know, have actually has nothing to do with what’s going in the world or even in their neighborhood. But you’re not gonna have a good conversation.

You’re not gonna connect and you’re not gonna be human unless you understand what people are going through.

Chip Griffin: So as you try to understand what people are going through it, it seems to me that it’s, it’s kind of important to, to pay attention to the news. But I talk to more and more people today, including in the agency world, who tell me, I just, I can’t even bear to put the news on anymore.

It’s, it’s all confrontational. It’s, and regardless of your world where you just like, I just can’t take it anymore. And, and so they’ll, they’ll say to me, why do you keep watching? And I always say, because in my conversations with clients, I need to understand what’s going on so that I can, you know, communicate with them based on what I know about it.

But, you know, so how do you, how do you overcome that? Are you hearing the same thing from your clients that, that they just don’t wanna pay attention to it either? And, and does that create any additional challenges or is that, is that something I’ve seen, but you haven’t yet?

Rachel Sales: No, thankfully all of my clients seem very news aware and are still reading just as much.

And, and definitely we are. I think, you know, there is a level for sure of compartmentalization that we all must practice, right? At the same time that as agency leaders, we need to put ourselves in our clients’ shoes. And a lot of times, look, the things that our clients are facing that are hard may not be the things that are hard for us, right?

Like, it’s not like everything they’re experiencing that devastating. Or great is devastating or great for us, but we need to under, we need to make sure that we understand. And same thing for us, like what might actually weight on me has nothing to do with them. So we need to be aware of what’s going on. I did just receive an, a marketing email from somebody that was like, well, I haven’t written in six months because the news has been so dire.

So I just didn’t wanna read and I, I just didn’t wanna write, I didn’t wanna say anything. I was like, you know what? I. Look, that’s, that’s where they’re coming from. But like, you have to keep going. Right? And I think, and, and it, that, that just doesn’t work. That doesn’t work for the world, doesn’t work for being human.

Doesn’t work for business, right? And for our clients who are impacted, you know, and all of them are by news that’s happening. Every single one has kept going, right? Whether they’re, you know, some, some of what I’m advising them to do is not necessarily to comment what’s going on, but to actually just keep doing and showing the amazing things that they’re doing.

Keep telling their story, keep inspiring their audiences. Keep showing like they are accomplishing what they do, what they’ve always done, no matter what the changes are. And that grows their audience so much. Or a lot of our clients are, are showing themselves to be the solution. Right. These issues are happening.

They are the solution. That’s not fake. That’s real. Right? So we’re trying to show, okay, how can we take, ’cause I, I actually really believe in like positivity and marketing like, anything you can say, maybe you can say it in a positive way instead of a negative way. I think it positivity does a lot better in the world.

So we are advising our clients. How can we share unique perspectives, share inspiration, share solutions, move the conversation forward, move the world forward, help your clients. I mean, I know that you talk about that a lot, right? Like how do you, you’re there to help the people you serve, you’re actually there to be a helpful resource.

So that’s what we’re trying to help our clients do for their customers and stakeholders.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, and I, and I wanna come back to that in a minute because I, I think that it’s, it’s so valuable that you’re encouraging them to focus on, on what their core mission is and, and their need to do that despite all of the chaos that’s happening around them.

And that you can’t lose sight of, of your ultimate goals and the things that you need to be doing. Before we do that though, I, I do wanna touch on one last piece of this, talking about the issues of the day piece for organizations. Have you noticed any trend in terms of organizations being more or less inclined to speak out.

On the one hand, you see people, you know, talking in much more powerful language than I think I, I can remember it probably in my professional career about the issues of the day. At the same time, you see a lot of reporting that organizations are pulling back from talking about some things like DEI, ESG, et cetera, that, that are you know, real lightning rods in the, the current communications environment. So have you noticed a trend with the clients that you work with? Whether they’re, they’re more or less inclined, or is it really situational?

Rachel Sales: I think there’s definitely a trend across the board. Our clients do not wanna be political.

They do not wanna be perceived as political. They are political. We’re all political people, right? We all have how, you know, what, what we feel, what we believe, but they do not want to come across as political because they, they don’t want to, to hurt their business. Right? That being said, yes, I, we have noticed that clients may be a little more reticent to speak up sometimes. And,

in some cases, we actually have needed to prod them along to say, listen, take the time to think. Take the time to think about what it is that you want to say at this time and to add value. But in some cases, their audience actually really needs to hear from them, needs to hear, you know, sometimes you actually need, humans are just this way.

Like we need our leaders. When something bad happens in the world, we actually just need our leaders to say, Hey, this is bad, I, I’m here for you. Right? Sometimes we don’t, sometimes they add to the chaos. Sometimes it actually just needs to be like an individual text message or phone call. Like, you know, something that’s not on LinkedIn or social media.

But some, but for some of our clients who are really big industry leaders and have very sizable audiences, they do need to say something. They need to say something specific, something that stands out, and they can take the time, but they can’t take too much time.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, so, so bottom line is you, you know, you need to be focused on what your audience wants or needs to hear and, and, and tailor your communications plan around that.

So let’s, let’s now pivot to the, we’ve talked a lot about, you know, how you handle the issues of the day from a, a commenting or not commenting on them standpoint. But now let’s talk about, you know, we’re, we’re trying to just communicate generally in this chaotic environment. And because there is so much attention being paid to all of the various crises and debates and all of that, you know, it, it can become harder, particularly as the, the size of the news media shrinks to communicate your messages as a, a PR agency on behalf of your clients.

So how do you work with your clients to help them, as you talked about, keep their head down and focus on their core mission and get the word out and, and cut through all of this clutter that’s around them.

Rachel Sales: I think in a lot of ways, I mean, I think we had training for this during COVID where, you know, like the first three months or maybe just like the first three weeks, everybody would be like, Hey, how are you doing?

How are you doing? Right? And then it was like, oh my God, we need to keep this wheel turning. We need to keep generating revenue. We need to just keep going. Like, this is our reality. Let’s go. So there’s, there’s the point of like, look, we need to stay in touch with the news, see what’s happening, what changes are, because the changes are not fake, right?

Government programs are closing. You know, people are getting fired. Like, things are happening. Those are gonna impact some of our clients. We need to be aware of that while still saying the world keeps turning and as long as it’s turning, we need to keep pushing our message in a way that feels sensitive. You know, we’re always thinking, okay, what just happened? You know, we, we are very careful not to schedule social media too far in advance because, and even when we do schedule it, we, we will often hit the pause button because it’s like, oh no, something happened in the news that’s going to look ridiculous if we post that right now.

Or like, we need to tweak it. So I think there’s that, there’s those two pieces of like, you know, you, you can’t take a week often. You know, something big will happen in the news. I think sometimes the organization will be inclined to be like, wait, okay, let’s just like pause marketing for a week until we get our bearings.

But it’s like, hmm, maybe pause for two days and then let’s keep going. Right? Like, we need to keep going. The world also moves fast.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. I, I, I think that’s great advice because you and I always tell people, you, you can’t turtle, you know, no matter how, how bad it is, how chaotic it is, whether it’s covid, whether it’s politics, whether it’s something else, you know, you, you need to, to keep doing what is right for your business.

You can’t worry too much about the what ifs and you really need to just, you know, buckle down and, and, and get things done, because what’s gonna happen around you is gonna, most of us can’t impact in a, in a meaningful way, the events that are taking place around us. We can contribute to that change, but we, you know, we’re not gonna be able to affect it directly ourselves.

For the most part. If you happen to be one of those listeners who can, great. Please do. You know, it’d be kind of fun. But it, for the, for most of us who are just, you know, keeping our heads down and doing our, our day-to-day jobs, we need to keep doing them and not get so wound up by what might happen if, or how is this going to, you know, how are we gonna deal with this policy if it happens, you really need to just keep moving forward. And, and so, you know, I love that that’s something that you’re focusing on with your clients.

Do you get pushback from clients on this? Are, are they, is it tough to keep them corralled and focused on doing the day-to-day? You know, do you feel like they are more distracted than they have been in the past? By everything that’s going on.

Rachel Sales: Maybe we’re really lucky, but our clients, you know, just wanna keep pushing ahead. I mean, they have companies to grow, they have revenue to increase, et cetera. So, so no, definitely like they and, and I think a lot of them know and believe that what they can do is positive for the world and positive for what they believe in and making a difference.

So while, yes, I can see that they are. It’s on their, things are on their minds and this is weighing on them. And these are things that we have to address in communications. No, everyone has kept going.

Chip Griffin: Now, I know obviously your agency provides a mix of, of PR and marketing services for clients. Have you seen that mix change as the environment has shifted?

You know, are you doing more of one thing, less of another or, or has it really kind of just been steady state?

Rachel Sales: A hundred percent. I will say that, you know, of course, everyone is who’s listening to this podcast is aware of all of the layoffs at different media agencies and shutting down and all of that.

So of course, like the, it has changed a lot. Personally, I love contributed content, especially when we’re dealing with very sensitive issues. One of our clients recently wanted to weigh in on something that was happening from a governmental change, but was worried about doing so because didn’t wanna come across political, didn’t wanna come across too aligned with the changes, didn’t wanna align their business with the changes, and then like it would, you know, have bad repercussions.

So we said, okay, you know what, let’s do a contributed article where we own the message in a non-promotional way for a leading industry paper. And it got accepted. And, you know, that was, I think, a great, a great way to get the message out, be timely, but also do it in a way that felt comfortable.

And like I said, they own the message. Another thing is, you know, we do a lot of LinkedIn strategy and content creation. I think that, I mean, everyone knows the world of PR is changing and I think that one;s media outlets can really be – one’s social media outlets can be their media outlets, right? You can get,

you can make noise, you can, you know, we see like with different partnership announcements with clients or different products, announced, like no one’s covering product announcements anymore, right? Like nobody cares. But social media cares. So you can make a huge, a huge, you know, a, a big deal of that on social media, on, you know, LinkedIn specifically, let’s say, and your customers, your stakeholders will say, wow, this company is doing amazing things.

They’re always having new product releases, new partnership announcements, right? So yes, things are moving a lot more to social media, to LinkedIn, to these kind of like thought leadership videos where you’re really getting to like sit down with the leader and hear their industry insights and, and recommendations and, and, and we love it.

We love the changes.

Chip Griffin: Would it be fair to say then, from what you’ve described, that, that it’s more important than ever to humanize your clients for their target audiences and, and really get the people behind the organizations out there and, and less so the logos?

Rachel Sales: Definitely, it’s all about the people.

They, everyone wants to know who these leaders are. They’re inspired by their stories, but they, they wanna hear their stories. But we still need to make sure what the, you know, that the business, that it, that the com you know, that the business, it makes business sense, right? Like the product, right, there’s alignment there.

Business, yeah, there’s, there’s alignment. But yes, definitely, definitely that’s, yeah, we are seeing that, that the human aspect is, is hugely important and our and our clients are game. They understand this is what it takes. And I always say like, whenever you go to a event, take videos, take, take this and just blame us.

Just blame us.

Chip Griffin: If I asked you, as we get ready to wrap up here, to pull out your crystal ball and, and look at, you know, how, how is the, the media landscape changing, how is the client landscape changing and how does that impact the work that you do on behalf of your clients over say the next 12 or 18 months?

Rachel Sales: I mean, people are flocking to LinkedIn. I don’t think that’s anything new. I think that’s gonna continue. And, you know, LinkedIn, as we know, is pushing this video. These, you know, video contents a ton. And right now the video content is actually pretty elementary. It’s really just people sitting at a table talking, you know, sharing their advice.

So I am hoping that those LinkedIn videos get a little more sophisticated, TikTok or you know, Instagram reel level. But, but we’ll see. Right now it’s really not that hard to break in.

Chip Griffin: And you’re trying to push that directly yourself. You, you’ve been working some, some really nice ones out there, so for anyone listening, you should absolutely follow Rachel on LinkedIn to, to check out some of these more creative, business oriented videos.

Rachel Sales: Thank you so much. But I think, you know, don’t, I, I always say like, don’t be afraid. You know, don’t be afraid. Let’s see, like things are changing. We don’t have control. Let’s go where things are changing and really I want these industry leaders, our clients, to get out, what really makes them stand out. Their thought leadership, what sets them apart, and, and people wanna hear from them.

Chip Griffin: I, I think that is a great note to end on. If, if someone wants to learn more about you, or what Enunciate does, where should they go?

Rachel Sales: Go on LinkedIn. You can find me at Rachel Sales and you can visit us at enunciate.xyz.

Chip Griffin: Excellent. Well, thank you very much. My guest again today has been Rachel Sales of Enunciate, and hopefully you all have gotten some good tips on, on how to navigate the chaos with your own clients.

And, I hope to have you all back here again listening to another episode very soon. Thanks for joining me.

Rachel Sales: Thank you so much.

In this episode, Chip discusses with Patrick Rogan of IgnitionHR the challenges small agency owners face in supporting stressed employees.

They delve into the impact of both work-related and external stressors on employee performance, noting the increased stress during and after COVID-19. Patrick shares strategies for addressing these issues, such as maintaining open communication, offering flexibility, and utilizing employee assistance programs.

They also discuss the balance between being supportive and maintaining business operations, emphasizing the importance of creative solutions and understanding regulatory requirements.

Patrick Rogan, SHRM-CP is the Founder and Managing Director of IgnitionHR. He has been helping senior executives in both large and small organizations meet their strategic talent needs for the past 25+ years. He specializes in developing programs that help his clients attract, align, manage, and retain top talent.

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

Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of Chats with Chip. I’m your host, Chip Griffin, the founder of SAGA, the Small Agency Growth Alliance, and I am delighted to have with me one of my most frequent guests. Patrick Rogan of IgnitionHR. Welcome to the show, Patrick.

Patrick Rogan: Hey Chip, happy to be here.

Chip Griffin: I am happy you are here because, because I wanted to talk to you about getting help.

So I, I turned to someone who can give that kind of help about how to get help. And let’s see how circular we can make that. But, before we jump into that topic, if someone has, for whatever reason, never heard you on one of my shows, or doesn’t know you otherwise, who are you and why are you here?

Patrick Rogan: Sure.

My firm is IgnitionHR. I help organizations with their people challenges, which is part of what we’re going to be talking about today. My focus is in the human resources area. I do, fractional HR leadership roles. I do spot solutions for individual problems. I do a lot of work in a policy area, all that.

Chip Griffin: And, and you work with a lot of, of agency owners, including some of my SAGA clients, which I really appreciate because you are, you’re able to help navigate all the challenging situations that, that we all inevitably come up with as, as small business employers. And, and today we’re going to talk about, I think one of the toughest things, which is how do you help employees when they need help, when they’re feeling stressed? I’m not talking about work performance so much. Work performance may be a symptom or a result of what we’re talking about here, but I’m talking about the stresses that come to employees. And some of that may be work stress, but I really particularly want to focus on stress outside the office that perhaps is, is bleeding over either into their actual performance or just their demeanor and I mean, sometimes you just know something’s wrong and you can’t put your finger right on it.

Patrick Rogan: Yeah, this is, this is the number one hot topic that I’ve been getting from my clients. It, certainly took, an uptick five years ago with COVID. And it is diminished some, but not as much as I would have anticipated. So, you know, I see it in just unusual things in the workplace that I used to not see before.

 There are anxiety related things that you’ll see manifested in the workplace, some of which are maybe the result of the workplace. More often than not, they originate outside of the workplace and there’s a lot of confusion with business leaders and agency owners in particular about what do I do about this?

And the first question I typically get is, is it just me? And the answer to that is no, it’s not just you. You know, I was looking at some, some recent data, a couple of SHRM survey, the Society of Human Resource Management, surveys out there, you know, 44 percent of US employees right now feel burned out at work.

You know, 45 percent feel emotionally drained and 51 percent at the end of the day are just like out of gas. Totally. And 84 percent of workers, by the way, believed, poorly trained managers are a factor in their work and stress. So that’s just something to keep in the back of our mind. But yeah, it’s, it’s big, it’s a, it’s a big honking challenge right now.

Chip Griffin: Well, it’s, it’s tough too because, you know, agency world is, is known as a stressful environment, right? Right. Yeah, it is. It, in large part, and we’ve, I’ve certainly talked about this on all of my shows a lot and in articles. Part of the problem is that a lot of agency owners don’t manage their businesses effectively.

They don’t price effectively. And so that means we ask our teams, including ourselves, to do a lot more in a lot less time. And so that, that just, you’re starting with a stressful environment. So if you have other factors that are contributing to that, some of which may be work related, it could be, you know, a particularly difficult client that’s not being managed well or something like that.

But a lot of it is the external things, that you allude to, and, you know, right now we’ve got, a situation where there’s a lot of stuff going on in the world, domestically, internationally, economically, and these are, are causing issues for the team members of a lot of small agencies. Whether it’s because, you know, your spouse works for an organization affected by some of the, the budget cuts that’s taking effect. Whether you know, some of the societal issues are, are concerning you. Whether you just are, you know, kind of stressed out because you see all the headlines and you don’t know what to make of it all.

There’s a lot going on that, that can be difficult. And so as a, as a small employer, it’s tough. And I, and I’ve been in this situation a lot of times over the years where I’ve had an employee with external stress and I’m not quite sure what to do with it. In part, because sometimes you’re not quite sure what that stress is.

And I’ve always wanted to be careful about prying too much into the personal lives of employees. For are all sorts of reasons that I’m sure you can elaborate on. So, so when you, when you look at the situation and you figure that as far as you can tell, it’s not work stress, it’s likely to be some kind of stress outside the office.

How do you, where do you begin?

Patrick Rogan: Yeah. So. I think it’s important to make sure you’re keeping the lines of communications open. So hopefully you’re running your agency in a way where stressful situations that are contributed from either you or how your organization is set up or how you manage your employees or not is not contributing to stress.

Hopefully it’s relieving stress and that’s, you know, the things are generally moving in the right direction. What I’m seeing a lot of now is either behaviors or changes in output or indicators that are really unusual for someone who normally is either going at a steady pace or even at a very, very, you know, aggressive pace in terms of getting things done.

All of a sudden, things change. And it’s important, I think, you know, to address that as early as possible is when you’re noticing it’s happening because particularly if it originates from outside of the organization. And there are so many, you mentioned a few, but there’s so many other reasons for stress outside of the organization, whether it’s in the family or political disruption related or, you know, environmental, whatever, you know, there’s a gazillion of them out there.

I think the earlier you can address it, the better it is, because you can at least be aware of what it is that’s causing the problem. So, for instance, I was working with an agency recently, and we had one of their high producing employees all of a sudden who was missing time from work. His productivity was down, and they, you know, quickly got on top of it and said, Hey, you know, we noticed things are a little bit different.

What’s, what’s going on? You know, or turns out one of his parents was ill, and they were like, well, you know, do you need to take some time off to deal with this? And he was like, you know, I didn’t know that was an option. They’re like, of course that’s an option. You know, it’s, you know, and they were very

upfront, they were, you know, they didn’t let it linger on. He did take some time off. He was compensated for a good chunk of that. He was able to resolve the problem. And you know, a month and a half later, when he came back, he was like 100 percent productive. I mean, it was just like a textbook example of how to deal with an outside stressor that’s respectful.

And what I like best about it is he was he didn’t need to share this with them. He did. He also shared it with others that he worked with as well as what the leadership team did to support him. So you took a, you know, a very negative situation, you know, a problem. But yet at the end of the day, he was able to take care of the problem.

He came back working gangbusters and the entire organization, it wasn’t a huge agency, everyone saw what happened. They were like, wow, this is really cool. This is why, this is why I work here. So I do think you can, you can, you can flip it around, but I think it’s important, particularly when things just don’t seem right, have a conversation. And along the lines of, Hey, listen, I noticed things aren’t like they normally are.

I noticed we missed a deadline. That’s very unusual for you. Ask a very open ended question. What’s going on? You know, and, and just see what they say. They don’t have to tell you specifically what it is, if it’s outside of work related, but asking the question and opening the door for that conversation is totally good, and the best way to do it is with an open ended question, just like that, is typically how I would approach it.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, and I think, I mean, I think honestly one of the challenges that a lot of small agency owners have is that they don’t encounter these circumstances all that often, maybe, maybe for many of them, it may be the first time that they’re encountering some, particularly when you get into the specifics of what the issue might be.

And as a small agency owner, you don’t really feel you have someone you can, you feel like you’re on an island. And, and who do you talk to about this? You don’t have a senior leadership team you can sit down and bat things around with often. You know, I, you and I worked together in a larger agency and mm-hmm

You know, if and when, and, and I did have issues with, with my team members having things going on outside the office on a number of occasions. And, and I would just walk next door to your office and say, Hey Patrick, let’s talk this one through. And, and so I think that’s part of the challenge that owners have.

So. You know, what advice do you have to them other than obviously hire someone like you or me who can say that, hey, this is how we’ve done it, right? You know, how do you go about even figuring out how to navigate these things?

Patrick Rogan: Yeah, I think that the first thing to do is to do the best you can to kind of lower the pressure.

So if you happen to be working at the same facility, I’m, I’m a big fan of going out for a cup of coffee or, you know, or, you know, lunch or, or whatever, like, like something outside of the building can be very kind of relaxing and disarming. I think, you know, scheduling some time at a good part of the day when the employee is most productive and like, maybe for some people, it’s like first thing in the morning, let’s have a chat and talk about this.

Being sure that you uncouple the organization from the, whatever the problem might be. So, like, if you’re, if the, if you’re noticing things in the workplace, like, maybe it’s production or missing deadlines or, you know, all those kind of things. Don’t focus on the missing deadlines, focus on what’s causing the missing deadline.

So what’s, what’s going on here? And then don’t talk about the deadlines anymore. Focus on well, how can, how can I support you with this? You know, in the example I gave earlier, giving some time away from work to help the employee deal with that was the perfect solution. It may not be that, you know, there are a million different ways to help.

Sometimes just having someone they can talk to, is very helpful as well, too. But I think that’s kind of like the, The, the best model that I’ve seen is find a space of time that has the least amount of stress naturally in it. Like, so you wouldn’t want to have this conversation, you know, during a, you know, performance review discussion.

Right? Right. That’s, that’s emotional enough already.

It’s a very bad time.

Let’s not throw this on top of it. So, kind of, kind of make it as neutral as possible would be my recommendation.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, you know, if you know that they’re crashing on a deadline for a client, you know, maybe then is not the time to add that extra stress.

So, hey, let’s go take an unex, you know, an unexpected half hour out to go have a cup of coffee, which in your mind is, hey, that’s a nice thing. In their mind, they’re like, how am I going to get this done? Yeah. Right. So, you need to have that situational awareness. But I, you know, I, I particularly like the fact that you suggest open ended questions here because I think, you know, one of the challenges that, that owners also have is they sit there and they see an employee who is, is suddenly not performing the way that they used to it.

And too often I think they jump to the conclusion that it’s because they’re just getting sloppy, they don’t care, that it’s, you know, and the reality is, at least in my experience, more often than not, it’s because there is some kind of stressor, whether it’s work or non work, that is impacting them. And so asking those open ended questions and not assuming that they’re simply being derelict in their duty.

Is a helpful starting point because you can then start to understand what the root cause of it is. And then frankly start by acting human. Just, just have a human reaction to whatever they tell you as opposed to the, the natural instinct, which is, well, what does this mean for me and my business? Mm hmm.

Because that’s, that’s not how you resolve a situation.

Patrick Rogan: Yeah. I’ve seen more than one such more than one occasion where, you know, there’s a stressful situation, an employee’s dealing with something. The business leader knows they’re dealing with something and they call at a very, very, very stressful point in time that they know is going on.

Someone’s passed away or something. Hey, I just have a quick question. Can you help me with this? No, they can’t. They’re dealing with something really stressful. So that’s, that’s an example. You don’t make a bad situation worse, right? You know, and obviously, If you have good processes and good policies, you’re, they’re, they’re a lot less likely to happen, but the things that you have no control over that are happening, what are things you can do to be supportive and for heaven’s sakes, please don’t make it worse.

Chip Griffin: Well, and I think, you know, a part of it is, is you all, you need to sort of adapt to the individual circumstances, right? You mentioned someone close to the employee passing away, for example. So that there, there’s a difference between things that are, are likely to be long lasting impacts versus things that are more likely to be shorter term impacts.

It’s not to say that someone passing away doesn’t have long term impacts, it absolutely does, but it tends to be more acute in the moment. As opposed to someone has got a very difficult illness that they or a family member are dealing with. Those are more likely to be long lasting. So, so is there a way you would approach them differently based on that nature of it, whether it is more short term and acute versus long term chronic Issues that need to be addressed.

Patrick Rogan: Yeah, so with the, the, I’m seeing more of the long term chronic things in the last couple of years than I, than I have in the past. So they could be emotional related. They could be, you know, someone, a personal illness, you know, that is going to have a long recovery period. It could be you know, a family member who has an illness that’s going to have a long recovery period.

I think that being open to flexibility as much as you can, can go a long, long way. So look, you know, let’s say you have a strong performer on your team and you know something’s going on. And they’re typically, you know, kicking out 50, 60 hours worth of productive work every week. But you know that for them to be able to deal with whatever this other problem is, that’s not going to be sustainable.

Like maybe they’re going to be for a period of three or four or five months, maybe you need to change that expectation. You know, I, I’ve seen, employees ask to go, Hey, can you just put me on like part time 30 hours a week and let me deal with this? And for a high performing employee. You know, most agency owners will bend over backwards to find a way.

The last thing you want to do is have to replace this person, right? So if you, if you get two thirds of them, you know, for three months versus the whole person for that three months, you know, most are going to say, heck, yeah, I would do that. But yet in this situation, lots of times what I hear is now I really need this work done now. You know, this is a critical client. This is a critical need that we have. And this is where I need that person’s focus. And I find that to be a little bit tone deaf. Because if that really is a top performing employee for heaven’s sakes, why in the world are you risking losing them because you have a client need that you’re going to value higher than their need?

I mean, all needs have to be met. But I think sometimes a little bit more flexibility and at least sensitivity to the situation is, is probably the most important thing. You know, well, let’s talk about we have a client that’s really important. Let’s think of another way, you know, we have someone who works on your team, maybe they could have a little bit, you know, kind of just be open to different creative solutions to get things done in a way that meets the needs of the employee at the same time.

Does that make sense?

Chip Griffin: It does. And I think you’re touching on, on really the, the crux of the problem in many cases, once you get past the initial communication aspects of it and things like that is, you know, how do you strike that balance? Because as a small business, you, you and as a human, you want to be flexible, but as a small business, you also don’t have the same level of resourcing that you might in a larger organization to absorb someone who is not able to perform at their fullest.

And so trying to figure out how you, how you can balance it out, I think that’s, that’s really one of the trickiest things to do. How far do you bend? And in some ways, the new work environment has taken away some of the best tools that I had in the past. When I encountered these situations because I would, I would immediately sort of on my checklist start offering remote work, flexible hours, things like that.

Everybody’s got that already. Yes. So, it’s no longer really a meaningful gesture to, to say that. And so, because I found that I was often able to offer that as a good way to sort of just at least start down the path of being human and helpful, and then we can figure out where to go from there.

But now, everybody’s already there, so you don’t have as many of those easier tools that you can deploy. So how do you make that judgment where you’ve bent as far as you can, because you still do have a business to run? And I do agree that too many are short sighted about the cost of replacing an employee, both in actual cost as well as the impact to the business.

But at some point you can only be, you know, so forgiving and so flexible until you get to a point where it’s just not tenable anymore. How do you figure out when that is?

Patrick Rogan: Yeah, it’s different for, for every agency, you know, and, and where that point is. Sometimes it’s, well, you know, in the example I gave before, they had the, they had the employee off work for a long period of time.

And they were able to find a solution to, to totally backfill them. In some cases I see, you know, take advantage of a freelancer to help. In other cases it’s, you know, have someone who’s a level or two below kind of put them in a stretch role and see what they can do. Sometimes it’s the agency owner themselves that steps in and fills the gap.

So I think the, the trick is to be creative with that, but make sure you’re aware of all of the, the tricks you have in your bag to solve that problem. Sometimes there’s a, there’s a solution out there. Maybe that you hadn’t considered. And some may be cost ineffective for a period of time. If you can live with that, I would suggest you consider it.

If you can’t live with that, then you have to figure out, you know, what’s the, what’s the best solution for you. But, in general, you know, I encourage to be as flexible as you can, particularly when you know it’s going to be temporary in nature.

Chip Griffin: Right. And I, I think that’s, that’s part of the, the calculus here, right?

I mean, the longer it’s likely to last, the harder it is to maintain a level of flexibility. And so the more you may need to, to figure out how to either have a permanent fix or, you know, go separate ways if that’s necessary. I think it’s also, this is also a good point to, to pause and say make sure that you are considering any legal or regulatory requirements that, that may be in effect for whatever circumstance presents itself. Because there are, there are things that you need to be thinking about here, you know, if you, if you allow employees to take leave, typically you have to allow them to, to come back to their role, depending on the exact nature of their leave and all of that kind of thing, but there are a lot of those things that you want to be consulting with someone like you, Patrick, or an employment attorney, or something to make sure that you’re not tripping up. And every state is different on these things, too. So, you just want to make sure that you’re not getting yourself into trouble, and honestly, it is one of the challenges when you ask those open end questions.

Sometimes you get, you do get information that now puts you in a box. Right. Because, because now it’s, it’s tripped a regulatory tripwire, if you will. So I still encourage those open ended questions, but be aware that, that you may now gain knowledge that, that means that you need to treat the situation differently from a legal perspective.

Patrick Rogan: Yes. And, you know, keep in mind that there are federal regulations and there are state regulations and sometimes there are even local county regulations that, based upon a whole number of factors, including the number of employees you have, which, you know, could be, 15 could be 20 could be 50 or could be 1, depending upon how the regulations are done.

So, yeah, I would say when you’re at the point where you think, parting ways might be the best option, make sure you have your bases covered from a, from a legal perspective.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, it’s a lot safer and, and I would generally encourage you to start asking questions of your professionals before you get to the point that you think you might have to pull the trigger because, you know, there are certain steps along the way that can make it easier if that’s where you have to go with it. And/or you can at least plan for it if you know, Hey, I can’t do this. I need to offer them their role back or I need to do this, that, or the other thing. The sooner you know that, the easier it is to plan. You don’t want to be shocked when you get to the point where you’re like, Oh, I can’t eliminate their position because of X, Y, or Z.

That becomes even more difficult to handle.

Patrick Rogan: Yeah, I hate, I hate when I get the call. Hey, I, separated this employee and I need some advice, versus I’m thinking about maybe separating with an employee and I need some advice. Like the latter is so much easier because you know, the options kind of are done once you call me after it’s done, you know, I have to unmess it up. That’s a lot harder than helping you do it the right way from the beginning.

Chip Griffin: So, you know, one of the things that in larger agencies you tend to have is an HR team that you can, you know, bring in to help and you can perhaps refer the employee to them.

Many larger businesses have employee assistance programs and things like that that can be helpful. As a small business, you’re unlikely or less likely at least to have those resources. Are there resources that, that smaller businesses can offer to employees to be helpful in these situations beyond, like, particularly if you think you’re in over your head as far as actually advising the employee beyond just working through the, the work parameters?

Patrick Rogan: Sure. There, there are definitely resources. There are organizations like mine, you know, where there are HR consultants who are available, who do a lot of work in this area and can help you navigate both the legal ramifications, as well as the organizational and motivational pieces that go along with this. Sometimes the best solution is an employment attorney, depending on how far you are along the process.

If you, if you’ve already done something and you want to make it better, you probably need to go to an attorney. If you’re thinking about doing something, go to a consultant like me, there are a billion people who do – not a billion – millions of people who do what I do. And,

Chip Griffin: I guess I was thinking more about who can help the employee.

Are there, are there, are there resources that you would give to the employee for people to talk to or should you just leave that well enough alone?

Patrick Rogan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. So one of the things you can do is you can, it depends upon how frequently you’re going to have this problem. So I have some clients who will just put in an employee assistance program, which can be, you know, typically cost next to nothing.

Usually one of your insurance providers will throw it in for free. So if you don’t have an employee assistance program, I would recommend everyone get one. Because even if you never use it, the one time you need it, if it’s there, it’s a resource. They’re open 24 hours a day. The employees can call on, they can get support.

I found them to be really, really helpful. And I’ve gotten really good feedback from employees in terms of having employee assistance program. For agencies where you’re seeing a little more, you might want to go one step beyond that. So there are also, counseling services that you can pay for.

They’re not horribly expensive. It’s all subscription based, where you have more frequent use if you need it. So those are options that you have. And then there are things, you know, you can offer, you can throw in, like, get a Calm subscription for all your employees or one of the other tools out there.

So people, if they want to work on meditation or, you know, those kinds of things, they can come in really happy too. So there’s, there are a lot of things you can do, but I think having an employee assistance tool is really good because it’s always there. If you need it. In my experiences, you know, all levels of the organization I’ve seen take advantage of that tool from an entry level employee to the most senior agency owner. All have needs from time to time and my experience is most of them provide really really good service. So those are some ideas I have there.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, I think the bottom line is that you’re not, you’re not sitting on an island alone.

There are a lot of resources for you. There are resources for your team. I guess I would, I would wrap up with, with this question. When you’re, when you’ve got an employee who’s kind of working through things, maybe there, it hasn’t risen to the level that they need to take time off, that, you know, that it’s not necessarily beneficial.

How much, how much rope, do you give them on the performance side of things? You know? So maybe it’s just that they’re, they’re just not performing at the same level. The quality of the work isn’t quite as good. It’s not, it’s not bad enough to let them go necessarily. It’s not an obvious dismissal. But it’s, it’s not where you would like to see it, you know, how long do you kind of let that fester, if you will, in, in the goal of being flexible to the individual before it becomes just problematic for your organization?

I think this is, I’ve talked with a lot of agency owners over the last couple of years about this, where they’ve, they’ve taken the approaches we’ve recommended so far, which is, you know, be human, be flexible. Be understanding. But where do you draw the line? Is there, is there, is it just totally situational or is there some guidance you could give as to how to think about that?

Patrick Rogan: So I think it is situational, right? The answer is, as always, it depends, right? Yeah, so this depends. I do think it’s important that agency owners are very careful that they’re weighing all the pieces, right? So, it is a business, right? You know, we can’t, we don’t operate at a loss. We, we have to generate revenue to pay our expenses and, you know, salaries and, and all that kind of thing.

We do have key clients that we have to keep. I think the, the trick is in the communication with the employee. So if, if you are giving some leverage, if you’re giving some space to the employee, and let’s say, let’s cut back your time a little bit. So you can deal with this situation. Well, I think it’s important to say.

All right. So I’m giving you some flexibility. Recognize that you’re doing that. Make sure they’re aware that you’re giving them that. And what I expect from you is for the time that you are working, I want you spot on, right? I need you to be, you know, everything needs to be perfect, just like it normally is that you deliver.

And if, if it isn’t perfect, then maybe we need to adjust that. Maybe, maybe that’s not a little bit too much time. We need to cut, you know, figure out what, what the route, what level is of their work that gets optimal performance. And that at least puts you in a situation where you don’t have to correct things.

You get good things, but maybe just not at the right output. That’s one. But the other thing is the economics or the economics. It’s still it still has to work. We have to take care of our clients needs. And maybe maybe you need another creative approach, you know, to solve that problem. Or maybe this just isn’t going to work out.

Just depends upon the situation. But I think keeping that communication open and recognize, make sure the employee, like when you give something, make sure the employee understands what you gave them, because that’s important, right? Sometimes it’s sort of gloss over. It was like, well, I’m doing the best I can.

Yeah, but you know, we’ve cut you down to, you know 70%. So, we’re covering the rest of that for you. Let’s make sure we’re aware of that. Does that make sense?

Chip Griffin: It does. And I think, you know, I, I think you have, you know, really underscored the fact that, that yes, you’re human, but it is also a business.

You do need to achieve results. And to me, I think one of the, one of the places where you really draw the line is on, you know, is it impacting the actual outcomes for clients or the outcome of your agency with that client? In other words, if it starts to threaten the relationship or it starts to threaten what you promised to do for that client, that’s a bigger deal than if it’s just not at the quality that someone used to do.

Or, you know, maybe they cut it a little bit closer on deadlines versus missing deadlines. I think the magnitude of the impact needs to be an important consideration here because I, I don’t think there’s any sense in getting worked up if the work is good enough still. It’s really a question of, do you need to make a fundamental change because it’s impacting the outcomes of the business?

Yep, I totally agree.

So with that, if someone would like to reach out to you for more advice on this, or maybe a particular challenge they have, or just learn more about the resources that you put out, where should they go?

Patrick Rogan: Well, it’s real easy. I’m at ignitionhr.com. You can click a button and schedule an appointment with me right on the front page.

Chip Griffin: Excellent. Well, I can, I can vouch for your Your wise counsel and ability to navigate lots of really tricky situations. You and I have dealt with some really fun ones over the years, both in our work together as well as for clients. So, with that, we will wrap up this episode. I thank everybody for listening and Patrick, I thank you for joining me yet again.

Again, my guest has been Patrick Rogan of Ignition HR.

Patrick Rogan: Thanks Chip.

In this episode, Chip chats with Lee McKnight, Jr. from RSW/US about the findings from their latest survey on agency and marketer perspectives.

They discuss key topics such as the discrepancies between agencies’ efforts to productize services versus clients’ preference for customized solutions, the increasing trend towards fixed-fee pricing over hourly billing, and the importance of staying ahead of trends to meet client expectations.

The conversation touches on the effectiveness of direct outreach and the role of AI and short-form video in modern agency practices. They also highlight the need for more meaningful client conversations and the diminishing popularity of RFPs as agencies focus on quality over quantity in their business development efforts.

Lee is the VP of Sales for RSW/US, and earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Kentucky and JD from Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham, AL.

After graduating law school, he worked for an internet healthcare start-up in Nashville, a grocery wholesaler brokerage in Cincinnati, and then to RSW/US in 2007, where he’s worked with marketing agencies of all types to help drive their new business efforts.

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

Chip Griffin: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Chats with Chip. I’m your host, Chip Griffin, the founder of SAGA, the Small Agency Growth Alliance, and I am delighted to have with me one of my favorite guests, Lima Nightmare, AKA Lee McKnight from RSW/US.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: I’m back and it’s good to be back. Chip. Thanks for having me again.

I love it. I, so I have to, I did bring a little toy, eraser sushi that I will be nibbling on throughout the show. It is important that, yeah, don’t. They literally are erasers.

Yeah, that’s probably not a good idea to be erasers.

But I did bring something.

Chip Griffin: Excellent. I mean, I can always count on you to have a prop of some kind whenever you’re on any of my shows.

So hopefully people are watching this on video. And if you’re listening to it, go back and watch the video because I mean, it’s, it’s part of the entertainment that we have. But in addition to entertainment, we’re going to get into some substantive things here. And because Lee, you and RSW are really expert in business development topics and, and you don’t just opine, you actually go out and do research. You’ve done some research recently. And so we’re going to talk about some of the findings from your latest surveys.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: Absolutely. No, and thank you. And we released this little bit of background, oh, about a month, but I think what’s interesting is interesting is how evergreen a lot of these topics are staying.

And we, we’ll, we’ll get into it, but we added a couple of new questions we found to be, you know, really interesting and, thing, you know, one of the things we talked about before we started was, well, I should finish, shouldn’t I? What we do is we survey agencies and marketers. This is one of the three survey reports we release over the year.

Where marketers are included, and it’s probably the most popular, probably not a surprise to hear, in terms of hearing both sides and where they play out, you know, in the answers to some of these questions. So, there’s, there’s the, setting the table there. I think that survey went out end of November release.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, and I think that’s, that’s really what does stand out about this, is that you are looking at both sides. The client side and the agency side, which is, which is relatively unique. I mean, folks like myself, we, you know, I do a lot of research, but I tend to focus just on the agency side. And so being able to bring both pieces of it into the equation, really, I think.

Has surfaced some, some interesting nuggets, that are worth looking at.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: Yeah, for sure. And I think we, we decided to start with some of the disconnects, which are always, it’s a fun place to start. I think, and I know one of the ones that you’d mentioned specifically wanted to talk about out of the gate is productization piece, which I’ll try to say that over and over again, it won’t happen, but.

Just to set the table there are so, 52.4 percent of agencies say they sometimes, productize their services yet, 65 percent of marketers still prefer customized services over productized solutions. So there, there’s a, there’s a gap in expectations. And I thought that that 50 percent number maybe seemed a little high.

I wanted to see what you thought, but definitely a gap.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, it, it, the number does seem perhaps a little bit high. I think, you know, part of the challenge that you run into here is definitions, right? Because you know, there are, I would argue that the vast majority of agencies have productized their services over the years.

When, when I go in and I look at the engagements that agencies have, it looks pretty similar from one client to the next, and the pricing is pretty similar from one client to the next. So effectively that is productizing. It’s not doing it in a branded way, you know, where it’s in your face. And so I think that, that some of this may come down to, is it overt productization or is it subtle productization?

Lee McKnight, Jr.: Oh, that’s great. I just wrote a post on this. I’m going to go update it. Because I hadn’t really thought about that because you’re exactly right. I mean, if you look at marketers, SEO firms, I mean, these types of firms that have bundled for lack of a better order productized services for quite a while, you know, I think it’s interesting because I had an agency principal email me, not one of our clients, but just that happens to know a great firm, but, and it’s small to midsize firm, but it said, can you get like 10 minutes?

Cause what do you, what exactly do you mean by like productized services and how would we, a creative agency, we’re not even thinking about that. So that’s very interesting. So we did have a little bit of a conversation about it and he said, I don’t, I don’t think we want to do that, you know, as a creative agency, I can see how, but it’s interesting because you’ve got a lot of consultants and, you know, folks out there saying that this is the way it’s going. This is the way professional services firms are also going, and I can see that as well, whether it’s a law firm or what have you, but, but it’s interesting how I see a little pushback too in terms of creativity and that customization and, you know, what, how are you going to do that year over year, or I should say month over month.

When clients start to wanting you to get away from your nice little bundle or, or what you, you know, how you productized it, then, then what happens? And I think we know where that tends to go.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. And look, I mean, I, I think that, you know, if you ask a client if they want something that is productized or customized, I mean, everybody’s going to say customized, right?

Sure. And, and it’s, it, it just, it feels better. It feels like you’re giving me better service. I, so I think we always need to be careful when we’re doing these things in thinking about how it’s being heard on the other end. So same thing with, I’m a big advocate of paid discovery as a first step in agency client relationships.

Yes. However. I don’t believe you should ever call it paid discovery with the client, right? Because that, that it’s just, it’s off putting. And so you need to have a different way to describe it. Same thing with productization. You know, you don’t necessarily need to say that here’s our packaged product that we’re selling you, but you do say, Hey, we have a, a standard process that we use.

It’s absolutely customized to you. But it’s like going into a restaurant and asking them to hold the pickles on the burger or something like that, right? You’ll, you’ll make adjustments. But you’re, I mean, even a creative firm, if you’re doing logo design or web design, you’ve got a process that you follow.

Every creative firm that I’ve ever worked with has a process that they follow. That is productization.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: No, I do agree with you, but I, I, what I tend to see, and especially just even lately in like writing this post, I just wrote, I’ll keep going back to that, but, but digging into it a little bit more. Is that there does seem to be this push for like, we put it again for like the over productization.

Yes. Where they are saying like, no, we have this package and we need to be doing this. And here, many agencies over the past three months or so asking me and saying, here, this is our plan. Productizing X and X. And it’s not that those, I mean, who am I to say it’s a bad idea without, I mean, I’m, we don’t, we’re just scratching the surface with them out there, but, and I’m not sure where exactly it’s coming from, but there seems to be that push for overproductizations.

Yeah, I knew it. And, yeah, I’ll be curious to see where, where that goes.

Chip Griffin: And I suspect some of it depends on what clients you’re trying to sell to, right? I mean, if you’re selling to, you know, Fortune 500, my guess is that they are going to be less receptive to the idea of an overtly productized offering.

Whereas if you’re in the SME space, that’s a lot less off putting to someone like that because, you know, that’s probably how they’re selling a lot of their stuff too these days. Well, let’s move on to, another topic. You know, one of, one of the ones that, that really jumped out at me, was the, the question of, clients paying for specific deliverables.

And, and those numbers have changed a little bit.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: So we had, 53 percent of marketers or clients now preferring paying for specific deliverables up from just 5 percent in 2016, which I thought was very interesting. It was, so it was 59 percent of agencies charged clients from deliverables instead of hours.

88 percent of clients prefer to pay for deliverables over hours. This is much more in your domain, Chip, I have to say, because we don’t, we work somewhat with clients on pricing, but, I mean, what’s your take?

Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, I, I think this is, this is the, the direction that a lot of, professional services folks are, are generally moving, right?

You know, where it’s, I mean, you know, whether you call it paying for deliverables, you just call it, you know, fixed fee or things, people are generally moving away from, hourly billing, time and materials, those kinds of approaches in part, because there are a lot of folks out there advocating value pricing, and I’m not going to go on my anti value pricing rant because I, I think that it’s just, most people don’t understand it and, and most people are implementing it incorrectly. But I think that in general, clients like to know, what am I going to get for what I’m paying for? Honestly, it’s generally good for the agency as well, because then there’s a lot more certainty on their side, and so I, I think the hourly model is, is, you know, not necessarily gone, but headed out the door and really only useful when you have truly unpredictable projects where you really something like say crisis communications, where you have absolutely no idea what the bounds of the deliverables are going to be.

Because it’s going to evolve. But if you’re, if you’re, you know, designing a logo, building a website, launching an ad campaign, all of these things are, are, are things that you can, generally speaking, put a fixed fee and tell the client what they’re getting for it.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: And it’s directly related to those tangible outputs, which makes sense.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. Now the trick is, if you’re going to do that, please don’t tell them the number of hours that it actually took to do it, because I’m seeing this one not infrequently, where someone has a fixed fee for the deliverables, but then they still report to the client on how much time it took.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: They’re being transparent, Chip.

Chip Griffin: No good comes from that. You don’t do it. That’s very true. And if you get asked for it, you just say no.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: Right. It’s in the calculations. No, but in all sincerity right now, that’s not, interesting. Okay.

Chip Griffin: So, I mean, I, I think overall on, on pricing though, I, you know, did you have other questions on pricing in there? I can’t remember it.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: Well, I mean, I have to kind of want you to get into the value base a little bit, but if that’s going to, if we’re going to go off…

Chip Griffin: I’ll go on, I’ll go on my rant. So look, here’s the thing with value pricing. Most of the time when someone says they do value pricing, they’re just doing fixed fee for deliverables.

True value pricing really requires you to be almost a business analyst and to understand the exact value that a client will receive from the work that you’re doing. But the problem is that most of the things that agencies do It’s not that easy, and the client can’t give you a square answer. I mean, how many clients can you think of who could, who could really help you pinpoint the value of a logo?

Right? Right? I mean, it just, and, and, and logos are one of the, the ones that always seem to come up in value pricing. Well, you know, it’s You know, yes, it only took me, you know, three seconds to do the swoosh for the Nike, but you know, it’s worth billions of dollars in revenue to them. The vast majority of clients can’t answer that question.

So you can sit there and poke and prod at them and say, well, what would it be worth to you if we did this or that? And, and to me, it’s not, it’s not a particularly useful way of spending your time. And, and I do agree that fixed fee is, you know, generally speaking, a better way to go, but let’s call it what it is.

It’s fixed fee. It’s not value pricing.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: Okay. No, I like the rant. Interesting. Okay, there, there’s another, disconnect that we talked about a little bit before we jumped on I wanted to get into while we’re still there, and that’s one that we talked that, you know, that, maybe not a shock, but what’s interesting to see is that we had

77 percent of agencies who are confident and staying ahead of trends. Marketer confidence dropped to 62. Now you may look at that initially and say, well, okay, and, Lee? Well, it’s dropped four years in a row and it’s risen four years in a row for, for agencies and for marketers. And I think it’s, I just, I like to bring that up while maybe it’s not as mind blowing.

It’s important for agencies to realize. And it goes back to the order taker, and we’ve talked about this before, Chip, you know, where it’s hard to do, you have to do the work. But I think if we continue to see these trends move, that’s probably going to be an issue, right?

Chip Griffin: Oh, absolutely. I mean, it’s probably Yeah, I mean, one of the, one of the most common reasons that clients give for ending an agency relationship is that they, they feel like the, the agency is no longer coming to them with fresh ideas, that they’re just going through the motions.

And, you know, I think that, you know, that really is, what’s represented in part in, in this question and, and the results. I mean, it is particularly concerning to me. It’s not surprising to me that there’s disconnect. It is particularly concerning though that that agencies seem to be deluding themselves into thinking that more and more they are in touch and clients are feeling that they are less and less in touch.

So you don’t what mean the disconnect is one thing. But the fact that it’s getting worse It is certainly a concern. And I think there are a lot of reasons why agencies may look this way to clients. One is they may actually be behind the times, right? I mean, it’s just, it’s, it’s possible because some agencies just get so busy and, you know, nose to the grindstone, just churning out stuff that they don’t invest in, professional development and R& D and, and give their time, their staff time to work on those things.

But it’s also, I think, in part, symptomatic of the fact that when agencies do bring new ideas to clients, the client often says, sure, let’s do that. But they also don’t say, and we’ll pay more for it. And so it just gets added on. So I know from a lot of the agency owners that I work with, they’re kind of, they’re, they’re a little bit timid in bringing these new ideas forward because they’re afraid that they’re going to be stuck with doing the work without getting any extra compensation.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: Oh, totally. Yeah.

Chip Griffin: And you go, it’s the same thing in an office environment, right? I mean, how many times have you, you know, heard an employee say, well, I’m not gonna suggest that to the boss ’cause he’s probably gonna tell me I have to do it.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: And it, it plays into another question that we asked and we asked, we’ve asked this for years, and that is asking agencies and marketers what they thought in terms of those trends.

What, what, you know, what’s at the top and not shockingly of course it’s AI and right behind that is short form video. Which I think, you know, as an agency, you’re going to have to get vested in both of those in some shape or form. Obviously now that could mean services, but it could also mean business development, which I strongly suggest to agencies.

I mean, I don’t think… so, a lot of them don’t have the wherewithal to be as active as you are on social and on LinkedIn. I think that that can be very hard for small, mid sized firms. But just like those, the YouTube shorts, I mean, we went from doing my 3 Takeaways videos that were three to six minutes and our views were kind of going down and, and I’m waiting for you to say, well, whose fault is that?

But, not because of the talent. I mean, the talent’s there obviously, but we really can’t see for whatever reason, and we had actually, we’re rethinking that now, like, did we just get a hundred and something episodes and maybe it’s just time for a different format, something like that. But then those YouTube shorts for an agency on their phone, which is what they want you, you know, it’s more the TikTok that’s becoming everything, kind of those more raw, personal, shorter videos.

There’s never been a better time for an agency to get in there and create some of these. And it’s, it’s, it feels kind of weird sometimes and it’s different and plus I’m old, but. I, our views skyrocketed comparatively on those shorts that we’ve done and we’re still kind of experimenting with it.

And then with AI, good lord, yeah, I mean it, I find it helpful, I, I can’t speak, I can speak a little bit to services on the agency side. But I did have one principal raving about this GPT he created has cut his proposal creation time in half. I would love to see what those look like, you know, given kind of what we know about AI so far, even though it’s evolving exponentially, I’m just throwing out a couple of those things there that I think were interesting.

Chip Griffin: Absolutely. And look, I think that that agencies ought to be using a lot of these new or at least newer tools, and platforms too, to help grow their own business. But frankly, it’s a great way to learn. And so, you know, rather than experimenting on a client with AI or short form video or those kinds of things, experiment yourself with the agency. And so if it works, it’s a twofer, right? You’ve generated business and you’ve learned how to do it so that you can now frame it more accurately to a client and go sell it to them so that hopefully they will pay you more for it. So absolutely, I mean agencies need to be getting into all of these different things and figuring out how to use them. And to your specific point I think AI is a perfect thing to help in doing a proposal production.

If you’re going to do proposals, I, and I would rather you didn’t, I’m, I’m anti proposal.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: I don’t think I knew that. Okay. Interesting. Sure. I, I can guess why, but.

Chip Griffin:  Yeah, I mean, it’s to me, it just doesn’t make any sense to, because proposals are a way for the client or the prospect just to kind of put you off and say, just send me a proposal, you know. You know, and, and there needs to be much more of a dialogue back and forth and have a meeting of the minds on what you’re going to do and roughly what it’s going to cost.

And then go ahead and once you’ve, you know, got a sort of a handshake agreement that says if this works, you know, if, if you can really do this for this price, we’ll, we’ll sign. Now, okay, go ahead and put together a statement of work, but don’t do a proposal. I, I think.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: And that’s a fair point because I, you can, yeah, I’ve seen agencies default because they kind of, either they’re not comfortable enough or savvy enough, whatever the right phraseology is, where they just default to, we’ll just send over a proposal.

Yeah. Then half the time they take two or three weeks to even send that over. Which drives me nuts. That’s a whole other episode, right? I mean, it’s like, what are you doing?

Yeah, if you’re going to do them, you got to turn them around quick.

Got to turn them around quick. And that’s also part of the problem is some of those, they can get so bespoke that you’ll be up all night turning that around quickly.

Chip Griffin: Well, and the biggest problem is that too often they’re done with very little actual information. I mean, how many proposals have you seen that an agency turns out after one or maybe two calls with a prospect? How can you put together any kind of decent proposal for a client based on that little information? You simply can’t. You’re just, you’re guessing.

And so I would rather you be having, you know, more in depth conversations with the prospect so that you can figure out, yeah, this is what we want to do, this is the direction we want to go, and here’s roughly what it’s going to cost. And then go from there and you will waste a lot less time on your side and you will waste the time of the prospects a lot less as well.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: Yeah, that’s fair. I think it’s tough to pin down those prospects sometimes to get that info that you need, but that’s nothing new.

Chip Griffin: But if you can’t pin them down when they’re looking for a solution, imagine how hard it’s going to be once they become a client. So that’s something you need to factor into your pricing too, right?

If you’re chasing them when they’ve come to you or they’ve agreed to talk to you to solve one of their problems, It ain’t going to get any better.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: That’s very true. And that’s where the frustration begins to set in. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Chip Griffin: I mean, I, I will say at least you, your, your study did show that, that RFPs seem to be less popular with agencies than in the past. So that, I mean, while I disliked the proposals, I really hate RFPs, so.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: I was gonna say, I mean, I, yeah. Different than RFPs and I figured that that’s what we were gonna say, but, you know, no, that, that was heartening. That was good. It was, fewer high volume responses and, and 24, agents, agencies just focusing on quality over quantity overall.

As RFPs become less universal with some opting out altogether and those percentages kind of keep going up. So that is really good to see. I bet that hamster wheel, I, I mean, I, again, we’ve talked about this before your higher ed or some of the other CVDs, you have to do it, you know, every three years or whatever that is.

But otherwise, I mean, that’s anytime we, our own clients, agency clients or prospects, like we are not here to chase RFPs for you because why would you ever want that? We don’t ignore them because. Some may actually be the right fit, but a shiver goes down your spine.

Chip Griffin: I mean, I think, I think that, I mean, it’s, it’s really encouraging for me to see it because a lot of these things that we’ve talked about, RFPs, you know, excessive proposal writing, that, you know, these are, are symptoms of agency leaders who want to feel like they are doing something on the business development front.

Even if they aren’t necessarily. Same thing with, you know, redesigning your website or things like that. You know, you convince yourself that these are meaningful steps that will help grow the business when really what you need to be doing is having meaningful conversations with actual people. And, and that is more likely to win you business than anything else.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: Yeah, no, a hundred percent. Yeah. Interesting that you, that you say that because another piece of it, the top four ways that marketers find agencies, you know, we ask that every year as far as business development goes and, and by the way, if we want to get back to RFPs, but, I always find it interesting.

Well, you know what? It’s not interesting because we know what the number one is. It’s referrals. No shot there and it will probably never change. And, and hey, referrals are great, but what has been steadily rising, at least over the past four years, is direct outreach. Which is kind of interesting because agencies hate to do that or they’re not good at it or all of the above, or they just legitimately don’t have time or at least make the time. But I think it’s 52 percent of agencies, I think it came in third, direct outreach.

So, you know, as a biz dev firm, it, you know, it, it is good to see. And I think that while it, I think it’s gotten progressively better. We talked about this over the last several months and a couple of quarters, breaking through now is so different than even it was five years ago in terms of like email deliverability or the thing, and I’ve certainly met ops people that do that and know much more than I do, but it’s, it’s tough.

And so I think I especially can see for small, mid sized firms, you’re not going to have the budget for a lot of these platforms and, and there’s so many shiny things as well that, that it just, I, we get the frustration. Thankfully, we have people that, you know, are then part of that, that, that test a lot of those.

I had, it’s coming out that would work, but it’s good to see agencies still committing, you know, at least more than half to it.

Chip Griffin: So, you know, either from the, the study or obviously direct outreach is, is very much in, in your wheelhouse, for RSW. Is that, are there any types of direct outreach that, that seem to be more effective?

Is it You know, is it, is it more thought leadership driven? Is it just a straight up, Hey, let’s have a conversation about how we can help you. What, what are you seeing or what is the study show as far as the kind of direct outreach that’s most effective right now?

Lee McKnight, Jr.: Good question. I think, and some of this has got to be more what we’ve, what we’ve seen.

I think that. We’ll certainly just a mass email. We personally aren’t really about that. Just give this image back too late. Comes vomiting that out, you know, and you spray and pray. I’m always been not a fan of that at all. And who is? Having said that many still try to go there, and I don’t know how they don’t get dinged and completely blocked, which they probably are. But you know, I think what still holds true and it’s not just because we do it, I mean, we see it out there is because you don’t know where these folks live, your prospects, you have to be careful about only devoting yourself to one platform and/or channel, meaning if you’re just emailing and emailing away, I’m not saying that doesn’t work, but the phone still works.

I think the key there is making sure that if you can have some thought leadership in there, you almost have to these days, and it doesn’t mean that you have this it’s not going to be your full time job. And that is actually where AI does help. I think going back for a second, there’s nothing worse than, especially on LinkedIn, taking these shortcuts where they just have the AI spit out whatever gratuitous business cliche.

And I’ve seen agency owners, owners do this and it’s like, you can tell so quickly that’s the AI and I don’t know what, what, what are you getting out of that? But I think there are ways it can inform research. It can inform messaging in a way that maybe you hadn’t thought about. Today anyway, you should not take that directly and just pop it wherever or, or get it out to a prospect.

But I’ve had, I’ve been trying to learn more just along the lines of prompts. I think it’s so much deeper that I didn’t realize even two weeks ago, I got on the sub stack and I was like, Oh my God, that’s, that’s a huge prompt that I had no idea it got that complicated for lack of a better word and I learned a lot from it actually.

And so I think we’ll see where that goes, but I think making sure with that outreach that you get more of that. It’s going to take a little bit more time, but I think for small and mid sized firms, if you’re able to really target those prospects, and this might sound like, well, coarsely, but targeting those prospects so that you could have some of that personalized outreach, ultimately get to those conversations that you’re talking about, Chip, where you are able to show them specifically, this is how we can help you and solve this business challenge because our clients are doing it. Versus the fluffy stuff and I think agencies have gotten better. But man, there’s still a lot where to your point. I mean, they all look alike in many ways. It’s gotten better. But, you know, I think alternating those platforms and alternating those touches is one of the best ways to get in the door.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, I think you, you touched on something really important there, which is to make it personalized.

And, and real personalized, not using AI to fake personalize

it, which, I mean, I’ve seen that go horribly wrong in my own inbox on a regular basis. Right? It’s not, yeah. It’s just awful. And it’s, I mean, LinkedIn is, is terrible these days. You know, it seems like every time I accept a connection request, it immediately is followed by a sales pitch.

And, and so it, it really, it frankly has made me reluctant to accept LinkedIn connections in the way that I used to in the past. I really kind of have to know who you are now before I’m accepting it. Even if you look like, you know, someone that I ought to be connected with, because I’m just tired of that, you know, poke me in the eye with a sales pitch right away. And, and you’ve got to work on building relationships and, and it’s, it’s about quality, not quantity.

I mean, as you said, spray and pray, vomiting it out. That’s not the approach.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: No, that’s interesting. Specifically to LinkedIn. I mean, I typically. It will be several weeks, minimally, and two or three touches of a part of my job is bringing agency clients on board, for every day to connect with them. Because I want them to at least have the diversity sublevel of permission, where to your point, you know, we may not have built a relationship yet, literally, but they’ve opened an email or they’ve responded to something.

It’s like, well, now that door’s open and they don’t have to, to, you know, accept it. But I most certainly then do not follow with any kind of pitch. It’s, hey, thanks. You know, it’s usually something where I’ve done a little bit of homework, and I’m bringing up something, either a newsletter I read, that they put out, or a post that they had.

To at least show them, look, I’m doing a little bit of homework here. This is not just, there’s, here’s why I’m reaching out. There’s a reason.

Chip Griffin: Well, and, and you do a lot of things like this research, which acts as a great door opener to conversations. And, and, and that is the right way to do it. And more agencies ought to be looking at those kinds of things, frankly, even doing their own research.

It, I mean, does it require work? Absolutely. But you can learn a lot from it and you can leverage it to build a new relationship.

Are you seeing more of that with agencies you’re interacting with?

I’m certainly seeing agencies doing more innovative things to try to build new connections. So that might be putting on their own events, for example, you know, that showcase both their abilities, but also makes connections with people who might be likely prospects for them.

I haven’t seen as much on the original research side, which I think is, is really an untapped opportunity. I agree. It doesn’t. You know, it doesn’t have to be a monumental piece of original research, you know, but a little bit goes a long way.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: It really does. And I feel like I’ve seen a little bit more, kinda hard to like quantify, but I feel like just because that’s what I’m doing day in and day out and interacting with either agency websites or literally with them.

But, and I will make sure and compliment them and not, not try to blow smoke, but just say that, I mean, you don’t know how, I mean, you probably do because you’re doing it, but how invaluable that can be and to your point does not have to be war and peace or the treatise that tells us all something that we never found out, but a little bit does go a long way and I think putting that into place in the key, of course, is getting it in front of your prospects and making sure that, you know, again, that the Kevin Costner build it and they will come is not a thing.

It simply hasn’t been for years. You’ve got to get it out there and that’s, that’s hard.

Chip Griffin: And you gotta do something to stand out because there is so much of this AI generated garbage that’s out there. And so, you know, doing things like original research or events or webinars or those kinds of things are things that, that can’t be replicated by AI.

And so it’s, it’s a way for you to stand out and, and really connect with the people that you’re trying to talk with. Absolutely. Well, I think that’s probably a, a good spot to, to wrap up, this, episode on. Because I, we always try to stick to roughly 30 minutes. You and I have a really hard time with that though, because we could really go on for…

Lee McKnight, Jr.: Well I make it hard for you.

But yeah.

Chip Griffin: Um, if someone is interested in having a meaningful conversation with you, accessing this research, learning more about RSW/US and all the other great things that you do, where should they go? Lee?

Lee McKnight, Jr.: So our site is the best place to start. So rswus.com and got a bunch of, all of our research is actually there.

Absolutely. All at no cost.

Chip Griffin: Fantastic. Well, as always, you have been a great guest, and I look forward to having you back again very soon.

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

And I appreciate everybody who has listened all the way through here, and I look forward to having you back, listening to another episode very soon.

Thanks, everybody.

In this episode, Chip talks with Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro about the challenges faced by solos and small agency owners in the current chaotic environment. They discuss the impact of economic, political, and societal issues on public relations and communications, emphasizing the need for adaptability in business strategies.

They highlight the importance of diversifying communication tactics beyond traditional media relations, focusing on owned and internal communications, and the value of continuous business development. The conversation also covers managing anxiety among employees, clients, and agency owners themselves, and the importance of peer support and professional community engagement.

Karen Swim is many things but clients agree that she is genuine, hard working and cares deeply about their personal and professional success. Works with clients in a variety of industries including technology, healthcare and nonprofits. President of Solo PR Pro and co-host of That Solo Life podcast.

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

Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of Chats with Chip. I’m your host Chip Griffin, the founder of SAGA, the Small Agency Growth Alliance, and I’m delighted to have with me one of my most frequent guests, a very smart individual who always has great insights for us, Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. Welcome, Karen.

Karen Swim: Thank you, Chip. It’s always great to, to be with you and, I’m going to apologize to your audience because I do have the flu, but the flu could not keep me away from doing your podcast. That’s how much. I like you.

Chip Griffin: Well, I, I, I appreciate that very much and the, the feeling is mutual and, and, I’ll remember that, if, if I catch the flu the next time I’m on your show, I’ll power right through and not even hesitate.

So, but I, I think, you know, it, it is important to have the conversation we’re going to have today because we are both talking with a lot of, of solos and small agency owners who are concerned about the current environment. And there are all sorts of things to be worried about if you’re a business owner right now.

And, and it doesn’t even matter, you know, what your political views are, those kinds of things. There are a lot of economic issues. There are the political issues that, that certainly are getting a lot of headlines right now. There are societal issues. There’s just, there’s all sorts of stuff going on.

Karen Swim: Yeah.

Chip Griffin: And so it is really a chaotic environment to be running your business in, and a lot of this is having a direct impact on public relations, communications, marketing, the specialties that we work with on a day to day basis. So I think it’ll be interesting to have a conversation about how do you cope with this chaos in the moment?

How do you, if not thrive as a business, at least survive as a business as you’re navigating your way through it? So, I’ll throw the floor open to you for thoughts that you may have.

Karen Swim: Yeah, it’s a really difficult time. And as you noted, especially for those in the communication professions, because so many of the pillars that are integral to the work that we do, we’re seeing such a chaotic landscape.

Social media platforms, there’s so much chaos. And there’s a lot of exiting from those platforms and people, you know, pushing back against them. And so if people are spreading out on more social media channels and not really being engaged anywhere, how do you use that tool now in 2025 to, to reach your, your audience, your publics?

We’re also seeing the media landscape just go through an incredible shifting. We’re seeing, you know, a lot of layoffs. We’re seeing local news go away. We’re seeing, you know, the quality of journalism change. And, you know, we are also seeing and, you know, history bears this out. This is where independent journalism rises. And they fight against what’s happening with, you know, integrity and with a mission to report the truth.

But those publications are all over the place. So how do communicators even find them? How do you find those newsletters by independent journalists? How do you pitch them? How do you use these tools with your clients? It’s, it’s a really uncertain time.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, I, I think that’s a, that’s a great point. That, that even before we get to these larger environmental issues that are impacting business, we get to the issue of the places where we typically have gone to help clients communicate are, are disappearing and or changing substantially.

And so we need to learn to adapt to that as a business, right? We can’t, we can’t simply lament the fact that that there is less traditional media and so it’s harder to get stories placed. We need to come up with a solution for our clients because they don’t want to hear us say well, you know there’s just there’s so many fewer places.

It’s so hard. They’ve got fewer reporters. They don’t have time for pitches. So, you know, yeah, I know we didn’t produce anything the last three months, but you know, that’s just that’s just the way it is. You need to come up with something that you can explain to the client, this is what we’re doing and this is how it’s having a result.

So fundamentally, that means a lot of the folks that we work with who are traditional media relations folks, they need to be rethinking that pure media relations approach and thinking more about Gini Dietrich’s PESO model, for example, and how do we Integrate additional types of communication, but even then, to your point, the social media platforms are changing. And a lot of people originally started to migrate from one platform to another.

That was maybe more hospitable to their own personal views of the world. But then people just started throwing their hands up and say, well, I’m not going anywhere. So then how do you find people? How do you, you need to find your audience, your client’s audience, wherever they are.

Karen Swim: Yeah, and it’s funny because we have, how many years have we been saying, stop pushing the lever of media relationships, as your only tool in the toolbox.

We’ve been saying this forever. Public relations is so much more, media relations is a tactic. It is not a strategy. And so I think now is the time that communicators have to really be strategic. And they have to focus on quality, not quantity, and they have to look at other tactics that they can utilize to help clients achieve what’s most important to them.

That’s still possible. And so, you know, my advice is don’t get caught up in the distractions because it’s all noise. These things are happening. It’s not going to change, but what can you do? You have to be solution oriented. You’ve got to become more business minded. What’s really important to your client and how can you achieve those objectives?

Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, it’s you can’t be an implementer who’s focused just on performing the tactics that you’ve always done. You need to be in a position where you’re saying to yourself Okay. You know, this is, this is the business goal my client is trying to achieve. How can I use all of the expertise, all of the knowledge that I have to help them achieve them?

And, and it’s something you should have been doing anyway, right? Even before these things change, right? You need to understand your clients and we always, you know, we’ll, we’ll talk about when you’re pitching new business, ask questions instead of just coming in there and talking about all the great things that you do. But it’s even more important now.

And so I guess, you know, if you are someone who is historically been a media relations specialist, either as an individual or an agency, how do you, realistically, how do you expand beyond that? Because that’s been your bread and butter. That’s what you’re, you know, and are comfortable with.

Karen Swim: Absolutely. But there’s, excuse me, so many other things that we can do.

There is, you know, I think people forget about internal communications. They forget about email marketing. Excuse me, that’s, that’s something that you own and you can control. Focus on getting people into your internal systems, into your owned channels.

Chip Griffin: Right. Yeah. I mean, if you’re able to start focusing on those things that, that you control, I think, I think owned and internal are two great places to get started because, I mean, owned is, I’m a huge fan of owned anyway, because with all of these changes taking place, having a place that you can call your own, that, that you can house your client’s content and it’s going to be there, you know, for posterity, for the future.

 That’s helpful, but it’s also something that you control so much that, particularly in the early stages of a relationship where it’s hard to get, even if you’re really good at media relations and you’ve got great connections and all that, it’s hard. And, and you can get more traction sooner by producing owned content.

So I think that’s a great place to get started.

Karen Swim: And it doesn’t mean that media relations is dead. It means that you’ve got to focus on qualitative coverage, where can you achieve coverage that really aligns and it’s really going to reach your client’s audience, and more importantly, really move the needle in a way that’s meaningful.

Chip Griffin: So you know, obviously, you know, we focused so far on on some of the the structural changes and and and changing what you do for clients, but we can’t ignore the fact that this is just a, a tough environment overall. There, you know, even before the start of 2025, there were economic questions and, and we saw over the last 18 months or so that the clients became slower to respond to proposals, slower to spend money, more risk averse.

And so I, in the past, we’ve talked about, you know, the importance of de risking engagements with clients and that sort of thing. But you know, how do you, how do you approach, let’s start with the economic side of it. And then, then we’ll get into the political and societal stuff because I think we can’t overlook that, but, but how do you approach the economic environment, as a solo or an agency to, to try to do the best you can?

Karen Swim: I think it’s really tough, but there are industries that are growing. So, I think take a look at what’s growing, what’s in demand, and think about serving those industries because your skills are transferable. So many times we lock ourselves into this box without realizing that we really can branch out.

And it may take some work. It may take teaming up with someone who is in that industry and doing it as a collaborative project or a collaborative, you know, proposal. Or, you know, working together with somebody that has expertise in that space. But you’ve got to be scrappy in this environment because not every industry is dead.

There are so many industries that are really doing well. There are companies that have cash. They’re not laying off. They have healthy environments, and so you’ve just got to look. And I think the message is get out of your comfort zone. Don’t just sit there and go, Oh, woe is me. Like, nobody is, nobody is, you know, hiring outside contractors, and nobody’s spending money, and it’s so hard, and all the – Nope.

Then you gotta sit down and do the research and dig in and figure out, okay, where are the fish at? That’s where I’m gonna cast my line.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, and I think, I think the other thing to consider is, you know, don’t necessarily throw out your existing specialty. You know, it’s really easy to get enamored with whatever the shiny new object is, whether that’s a service or an industry or whatever, and chase that because, you know, you’re just, you need the cash.

But I think even, even if you serve an industry that is struggling right now, there’s still opportunity there. You may need to adapt what services you’re pitching or who you’re pitching to. But as a solo or a small player, you have a lot more flexibility to do this. The people who have to abandon particular industries are the big players who need huge contracts in order to survive and thrive.

You don’t need that. So before you give up on whatever specialty you may have now, ask yourself if there’s a way you can adapt to the current reality.

Karen Swim: Yeah, they’ve got problems that need to be solved. So, you know, sit down and figure out, like, what’s their struggle right now, and how can public relations help them to hit their goals?

How can, what can I do, what solutions do I offer that really matter to them? You know, and I also think, you know, don’t lower your prices, but consider changing the way that you engage. So, maybe it’s not a monthly retainer. Maybe it’s a six month retainer. Maybe it’s a project. Maybe you’re doing more project work.

You know, again, get scrappy, start to think. Well, would people be more amenable to shorter engagements because they are feeling uncertain and don’t want to be locked in? And that doesn’t require you to lower your prices or take less or devalue your services. It’s just a different way of looking at the model.

Chip Griffin: And that’s a great warning. Do not lower your prices or cut your margins in order to, to win business because Too often I see that as the solution. And so someone will say, Well, I’ll just come in cheaper and I’ll be able to charge more later when things get better. Or I’ll take a loss on this early project, but then, you know, we’ll do follow on work and that’s where I’ll make it up.

You won’t. Once you are the cheap option, or cheaper option for somebody, you are never able to recover that, because that’s what they’ve come to expect to pay you.

Karen Swim: Yeah.

Chip Griffin: And so you need to, to hold firm on that, but you do, I would encourage you to look at all of your other non negotiables and ask, are they still non negotiable?

Because if you have a requirement that I’ll only do this size minimum engagement or this, this amount of time, only annual contracts, if those are things that are truly non negotiable to you, fine. Understand that that increases the risk and so maybe harder to sell in the current environment. If you’re able to back down on some of those while still doing profitable work that makes sense.

That might be something to consider.

Karen Swim: Yeah, I, I also think that we have to amp up business development. You know, we get lazy. You’ve got a roster of clients and you do the work and you know, you do business development when you need to, which has always been a bad strategy. You should be doing business development consistently, no matter how many clients you have.

Full stop. Because you’ve got to have a pipeline. And when you have a pipeline, that means some people are going to be at, you know, the point where they’re ready to pull the trigger. I think what’s happening now is we’re seeing a lot of people do business development and they’re just at top of funnel.

Well, all those people are not going to go through the funnel immediately. So it may take time, which is if you do business development all the time and continue to manage and nurture those relationships, then you’re going to move people through the pipeline. So get smart about sales. And if you feel like you know, I don’t really know much about this.

There’s so many ways that you can learn more about how to sell.

Chip Griffin: And, and I would encourage you, don’t even think about it as selling. Just think about it as having meaningful conversations with as many people as possible. It’s amazing how many good things will happen if you’re just having meaningful conversations with people.

Who either can hire you or can refer business to you. And so if you’re doing that consistently, and I always say the, the most, and I’ve learned this lesson the hard way over the years. The most important time to be doing that is when you are the busiest. Yeah. So if you find yourself overwhelmed with client work, that should be a ringing alarm bell that you need to focus on business development and networking and having these conversations because otherwise at some point, even when things are going great.

Inevitably, a client just leaves for no good reason. They have a staffing change, something specific happens to that organization, they turn out to be the next Enron or something. You know, these are all things that can happen even in good times. So you need to be focused on this.

Karen Swim: I agree. I mean, and let’s look at what’s happened in the CMOs, which is typically our client contacts.

They are not here for the long term. CMOs are, are there and they’re gone. And a lot of companies are turning to fractional CMOs and it is just like a rolling roster of different people. So we all know that if your contact changes, sometimes the new CMO comes in with alliances with another agency. So you don’t want to be at anyone else’s mercy for your business.

Chip Griffin: No, but you should be building your own relationships with people who might be going on to their next opportunity. So, I was talking with a client recently who has, there are changes taking place with one of their big clients. I said, well, make sure you find out where all of those people go, because those are all opportunities.

Yes, there’s a risk to your existing business because, you know, anytime there’s change, it threatens your contract, but there’s also opportunity because all those people go somewhere else. And if you’ve got good relationships with them, you might be able to get your tentacles in somewhere new.

Karen Swim: Yeah. I would also encourage people to network with the people that can refer you business or that are your clients.

You know, too often we’ll go to all the, you know, conferences for public relations and marketing, but we don’t go to industry things. We miss that. Why wouldn’t you go and talk directly to your audience? And as you’ve said, you know, we’ve all had that experience where we’ve met someone who was so excited about their work.

And they started a conversation with us, which made us interested. Like you said, it’s not selling. You’re not forcing something on people. You’re talking about the work that you do. Hopefully it’s work that you love and you’re good at. Why wouldn’t you want to share that? Why would you want to keep that a secret?

Chip Griffin: And I think, frankly, if you think of agency business development as sales, you’re making a mistake anyway. Because It is not, and, and I always discourage folks from picking up sales books, right? You know, how, how to do effective sales. Because the reality is you’re not really selling. You’re trying to build a meaningful relationship with someone that you can genuinely help. That there’s a good match for.

Sales is about saying, I’ve got a widget. I need to sell this widget. I need to sell this widget as quickly as I can at as high a price as possible. If that’s what you’re doing, you’re going to destroy the reputation of your agency. You’re going to be miserable in the process. So don’t do that. Just focus on getting people to say yes at the right time for the right thing for both of you.

Karen Swim: Agree. I completely agree.

Chip Griffin: Let’s take just a moment to talk about the elephant in the room, which is political and societal chaos that is enveloping us. And, you know, there are a lot of agencies that are, I mean, I talk to agency owners who have employees who have high anxiety. The owners have anxiety, but now you’ve got employees as well who have anxiety and you’re trying to figure out how to, how to address that.

You’re dealing with clients who are uncertain or maybe they’re making big changes. And obviously, in the news, as we record this, there’s been a lot of discussion around DEI programs. And there are a lot of agencies that historically have done a lot of work in the DEI space. And I’ve had some of them, our clients, and they come to me and they say, what, what should we do?

You know, is this, is this just gone and, and, and now I need to be focusing on something else? And I’ll, I’ll be interested in your take, but, but my encouragement is if that’s your specialty and your passion, stay with it. Because there are still organizations who are going to want to be focused on DEI.

What you’re doing now is you’re getting rid of the tick boxers. You’re getting rid of the people who are doing it for performative reasons, to keep stockholders happier, to get, you know, a nice press release or something like that. And that impacts, frankly, more of the big players. If I’m one of the big PR agencies, I’m worried about a DEI practice that I have. Because that’s just, that’s just layered onto something existing.

But if I’m a small agency and this is core to my work, I think there’s still a lot of opportunity there. And I, and I’m singling out DEI just because it’s gotten so much attention, but there are a lot of other things like there are industries that are falling out of favor in Washington right now, but I still think there’s huge opportunity if you’re able to harness it and use your expertise in the right way.

Karen Swim: Yeah, I mean, I never, ever will count passion out. If it’s the work that you do, as you’ve said, we’re now just weeding out the people who really didn’t have a commitment to those policies. The companies that truly are committed still exist and there’s still opportunity. I also think that there’s such a great opportunity to change the conversation.

Right now it’s about that label and that label being misused and weaponized. Part of that might be on communicators. We need to look at ourselves. Did we over index on certain things? Were we as clear as we could be on what DEI programs really meant? Did we really talk about the social impact and how that impacts all of society?

So I think it’s a great time to look at our own messaging and think of new ways that you could communicate and communicate with clarity and how you can be more inclusive in your, your communications. But I don’t think it’s dead at all. It’s important work. It always has been. I mean, that would be like saying, okay, the United States is going towards, you know, I don’t know what it’s going towards, but.

You know, activists are dead. And they’re not, you know, there are still people that are very passionate about doing the work. And if you’re one of those people keep doing the work because it’s still needed and still valued.

Chip Griffin: And I mean, as business owners, you know, we’re also human. And so, you know, and, and just about every business owner I know has political and social views of their own. There is, you know, we talked about employees having stress, but the owners have stress too. How do you manage that as a business owner so that you can continue to be productive in your day to day for your business, for your clients, even if maybe you are, either celebrating or discomfited by the news that’s around you?

Karen Swim: Chocolate, therapy,

crying breaks. I mean, just have yourself a little cry. I mean, I’m kidding, but I’m not because we’ve all been there. You know, everything is being shaken to its core and we don’t really understand. You know, I have been impacted by tariffs with people in other countries worried about the prices of US expenditures.

And so cutting back. That’s really hard when a lot of us went global to protect against the vagaries of the U. S. economy. But again, I think this is where you have to tune out the noise. And even if that means ignoring, you know, all of the information that’s being thrown at you and focus in on your business and on your well being.

Protect yourself, protect your mind and realize that as a business owner, you’ve got to be good and you cannot allow yourself to get caught up. Because, make no mistake about it, there’s a strategy to chaos. It, it may seem like there’s no strategy. There is a strategy. And it will make you take your eye off the ball.

Let’s not do that. Let’s stay focused on what’s really important and not get caught up in all of this stuff. Because it’s gonna happen anyway. Whatever’s going on, it’s happening. So how do you deal with it?

Chip Griffin: Yeah. And look, I, I think that that’s important no matter what period of time we’re in. And this is similar advice that I would have given 25 years ago after 9/11 or during the financial crisis in 08-09 or five years ago with COVID.

You need to be able to compartmentalize to a significant degree your, everything that’s going on in the world from your business. And within the business, control what you can control. If you can’t control it, you should be aware of it. I mean, I’m not encouraging you to bury your head in the sand and don’t look at news coverage for the next decade, right?

You need to be aware because there are impacts on your business. But focus on the aspects of it that you can control. Then outside of the business, you know, after you’ve completed your work week. If you want to get wrapped up in this sort of thing, either because you’re a political junkie like me, and so you’re just, there’s sort of a perverse interest in just seeing what happens. Or because you’re an activist and you want to make a difference, or you just like to doom scroll, or whatever it is, that’s fine, but that needs to be a separate compartment, and can’t take away from running of the business, because otherwise your business will suffer big time.

Karen Swim: It really will, and, and I’m seeing people spin out. And get burned out and depressed and it’s natural. I mean, there’s a lot going on. There’s a lot coming fast and furious. And to mention, we have really had some real life tragedies this year. You know, the wildfires, the floods, the school shootings, plane crashes.

So there’s, there’s enough in the world to cause anxiety. And I think we have to, you know, as you said, acknowledge those things, feel those things. Put your hand in the places where you feel like, you know, you, you can make an impact, you can support, you can help, but you have to put on your business owner hat and you have to steer the ship and steer your people.

And I think, you know, one of the things that helps me is having mentors, coaches, and a community that is a safe place to go with those natural feelings and have people to sort of level set you like, okay. You know, and, and all of us on any given day can be the one who helps level set someone else. Because you may be having a great day where you’re like, okay.

I’m rising above it and here’s what I’m doing and here’s a strategy that worked on a day that someone else needs to hear that. So don’t go it alone. This is not the time to be the lone wolf. And invest in yourself, you know, invest in development. What skills could you be adding that are going to future proof your business? Invest in business coaches and workshops. Turn to people that are experts that can help you to navigate through these times.

I mean, that’s, that’s an investment that has a huge ROI. So, again, you’re not by yourself and it may seem like, Uh, should I really be investing in things when the economy is so bad? Yes, just like we tell companies when times are hard, don’t cut marketing. Same thing.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, and I think, I really want to single out the engaging with your peers because I think that there is so much value there, but I see far too often agency owners and solos who are afraid to do that.

Because they don’t want to be vulnerable with, with those people. They view them as competitors in, in ways that frankly, I think is unhealthy because there’s plenty of business to go around. And, and the reality is that most of the people we think of as competitors don’t think of us as competitors. So, take a deep breath and, and, you know, try to find out how you can engage with them. Whether that’s informally, just because you pick up the phone or send an email and say, Hey, let’s just, let’s have coffee, let’s, let’s have a Zoom conversation, whatever, let’s catch up. Whether it’s joining a more formal community like Solo PR Pro, all of these things are really helpful to you.

And, and you want to take advantage of that because there’s, there’s a, I mean, there’s a lot that you can take from just everybody saying, yeah, we’re in the same boat. I mean, even, even if they don’t have the answer for you or the advice for you, just knowing that there are other people going through the same thing is therapeutic.

Karen Swim: That affinity is so important too, because friends and family can empathize. But unless they’re in this line of work, they don’t truly get it the way that your peers do. So why wouldn’t you utilize that resource? There’s something really powerful about sharing with people who get it, who understand the job, who understand the challenges, and can be supportive and help navigate.

I mean, even brainstorming. You know, I’ve seen this happen in Solo where people are like, okay, I, I need some ideas and you know, that groupthink produces things and inspires them, like, wow, I never thought of that. Because you can be staring at a problem and not see the solution right in front of you. So, yeah, tap into community.

Chip Griffin: And, and to that point, I will, I will harp on something that I like to rant about, which is, if someone asks to pick your brain, say yes. Yeah. I mean, You know, I see too much of this. Oh no, you know, I’m, I don’t have the time for that, or oh no, you have to pay me for my time. Look, you can’t let people take advantage of you.

And if they call up and ask to pick your brain every, every week or every month, okay, no, that’s a problem. But if someone calls up every two or three years and says, can I pick your brain, please try to say yes, because you’ll get just as much out of that as they will. And so it’s a great way to commiserate with people, to do some market research, to hear what’s going on, just take advantage of those opportunities because you know, you can get so much value out of it.

Karen Swim: Oh my gosh. I completely agree. And the person that’s asking you questions can reenergize you. You know, I had a bunch of those kinds of meetings this week in spite of being sick. That just really like lit me up and I learned things from each person and I got excited and it inspired me to think of something that I didn’t think of before.

So I agree with you. We’ve got to move away from that mindset. I think, you know, that kind of popped up with hustle culture, like… We’re not there. Let’s move past that.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, and, I mean, there’s all sorts of problems with true hustle culture, but I think that, yeah, I’m not going to go on that rant today, because I, I, we would go another half hour if I go down that rabbit hole, so.

But just

be helpful to your, your fellow communicators, whether they’re in house or solo or agency or whatever. And there will be value to come back to you. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but eventually. And that’s how you grow your business. So, well, Karen, I really appreciate you powering through and taking the time to share your insights.

If, if someone has been living under a rock and has not heard you here or anywhere else. Where can they go to find out more about you and Solo PR Pro?

Karen Swim: Go to soloprpro.com and you’ll find us. And you can look for me everywhere. Karen Swim and ask me questions. Yes, you can pick my brain. Yes, you can send me a calendar link.

Yes, I’ll meet with you. I love talking to people. So I’m on LinkedIn, I’m on Blue Sky, I am on, still on Facebook, Instagram. You know, you can find me. Reach out.

Chip Griffin: And I can attest to the fact that Karen is always very helpful and finds any way that she can be useful. So

I appreciate the time that you spent today and all that you’ve done with me and for me over the years.

So with that, that will draw to an end this episode of Chats with Chip. I’m your host, Chip Griffin, and I look forward to having you back here again very soon. Thanks Karen.

Karen Swim: Thank you.

In this episode, Chip talks with Steve Guberman of Agency Outsight about coaching agency owners through problems that they universally face.

Steve shares insights into setting realistic expectations with clients, avoiding over-servicing, and adjusting scopes and pricing appropriately.

Key topics include continuous communication, team involvement in the sales process, and the value of postmortems to learn from both successes and failures.

Additionally, they discuss the benefits of asking questions, remaining curious, and leveraging referrals and testimonials for business growth.

With over 25 years in the creative, marketing, advertising, and public relations industry, including a decade spent running and eventually selling his own successful agency, Steve Guberman now channels his expertise into coaching agency owners. As the founder of Agency Outsight, Steve helps owners unearth their challenges, define their goals, and conquer them all, enabling them to build and run the agency of their dreams.

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

Chip Griffin: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Chats with Chip. I’m your host, Chip Griffin, the founder of SAGA, the Small Agency Growth Alliance. And I am delighted to have with me today, another expert in agency land, Steve Guberman of Agency Outsight. Welcome to the show, Steve.

Steve Guberman: Thanks Chip. Great to be here. Great to see you.

Chip Griffin: It is great to have you here. I’ve been a guest on your show, enjoyed it. And now we have a chance to flip the table around so I get to, to grill you and, and put you under the microscope. No, no, we’re just going to,

Steve Guberman: I haven’t been on this side of Riverside. So it’s pretty interesting.

Chip Griffin: Turns out it looks pretty much the same from, from both ends.

Steve Guberman: No surprises here.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. But, in any case, so Steve, why don’t you, before we jump into the conversation, why don’t you just share a little bit about yourself and Agency Outsight?

Steve Guberman: Yeah, I launched Agency Outsight, right before COVID. Just timing was actually pretty darn good, but.

 I’ve been in the agency space for 25 years. I owned my own agency, have been on both sides of, you know, an acquisition, grew my agency through an acquisition, exited through a sale, spent five years with the acquiring agency and so. Been through the rigmarole of all things agency life, more on the smaller side, I’ve never been part of the holding company, you know, life or anything like that.

 And now I help agency owners try and figure out what their goals are, what their challenges are, and how they can make their agency work better for them, get more out of their agency. And I do that through one on one coaching and group coaching and some kind of curriculum based programs here and there.

 So yeah, it’s, for me, it was born out of, I never want to have employees again, and, as much as I love the deliverable and the creative work and the process there, I just kind of felt like I needed a massive shift in what I was doing and how I can be more of service in my professional life, as I am in my personal life.

And full transparency, cause I’m a pretty open book. My family had kind of just gone through a really tragic experience right before COVID. I lost my daughter, unfortunately, very suddenly. And so came through, you know, the first part of that grief process, like I can’t be accountable for a job, but I know being of service is, is very cathartic.

And how can I help other people with whatever their challenges are? And so what I know so intimately and so well is running a business and running an agency and, you know, things like that. And so it kind of found my path back to revisiting life again, through that grief process in building a business.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, it, it is, and it’s certainly something that agency owners need, right? We know that from the conversations we have, they, they don’t have a lot of knowledge around running businesses. And, and so those of us who have been through the trenches before and, and have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly, you know, I always say that, that we can share.

 The wisdom of, of our success and, and the, the lessons from our failures so that hopefully they don’t repeat the exact same ones in the exact same way that we did them.

Steve Guberman: Yeah, they can kind of sidestep some of those landmines, but maybe they’ll find their own along the way and build their own experiences to share with others.

And, and you’re right. I think most creative professionals are accidental business owners. You know, they went to school for art or marketing or design or whatever. And now I find myself running a business and I don’t have a clue how to do that. And that was my experience also. So,

Chip Griffin: yeah. And I think, I think, you know, what you brought to the table here and explaining how you came to start your current business, I think that’s applicable to a lot of other agency owners as well, because, you know, everybody’s got their story and why they got started.

And so it, it might be that they don’t want to have employees anymore. They don’t want to be an employee anymore. It might be, you know, because of a, a personal situation of some kind. But whatever it is, there’s usually a driving force. And I always find that it’s helpful to understand what the motivations of the owners are to help them make better decisions for them.

Because at the end of the day, it’s your business. And if it’s not giving you what you need, then what’s the point? There’s a lot of other ways to be stressed out in this world. Yeah. Apart from running a business that you don’t like.

Steve Guberman: Yeah. Why are you doing it? And what are you hoping to get out of it? And how do you, how do you personalize that vision?

I think so many owners kind of do these copycat goals where it’s like, Oh, I saw this video and if I’m not making 30 K MMR, you know, I’m, I’m a failure or whatever. And it’s like, yeah, you really don’t need that. And that’s not your goal. Your goal is I don’t want to work Fridays and I want to spend time with my child and my, my spouse or, you know, something like that.

Or. You know, I like playing pickleball at lunchtime. Like, how do you build a business around the life that you want? As opposed to, I saw this TikTok that said, I’ve got to make, you know, seven figures within the first year or I stink. And it’s no, get that toxic mindset, throw it away.

Chip Griffin: But just follow a simple formula, Steve.

You just watch the YouTube video and you can figure out how to get the same rollback that that guy has.

Steve Guberman: Here’s my cookie cutter format on how you can get what I’ve got. And no, that doesn’t work. No. Yeah, it doesn’t work at all. That’s a big part of what I try and lean into is throw away the copycat goals and lean into what matters for you.

And, you know, Simon Sinek talks about the why. What, why are you doing what you’re doing and what do you hope to achieve? And whether that’s like, I can only see six months down the road or I have the ability to vision that, you know, three years down the road, how do we reverse engineer that into building a business that can work for you?

You know?

Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and I think, you know, one of the things that we were talking about, before we went on air was the, the, the idea of trying to figure out how you service your clients appropriately. And a lot of this comes back to, to that overall business mindset that you have. What kind of business are you building?

What are the goals for it? Typically part of that is, is generating a profit, right? Most of us are not doing this just to, to break even. Most of us run a business because we want to make a profit. And so I think one of the, the practical things that we might talk about today is how agency owners can better set themselves up for success with clients in, in how they’re staffing them and how they’re structuring them.

How do they avoid over servicing? I mean, I, I know that every single client I talk with, you know, worries about over servicing and, and inevitably they’ve got at least one client and probably many that they are currently over servicing. And so if, if you’ve got someone coming to you with this challenge, because I think it is universal.

Sure. How do you counsel them to get through that? What are the things that they need to be thinking about in order to make sure that they are not over servicing?

Steve Guberman: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s a super common challenge. I can remember vividly when I had my agency, like, we would finish up a website, we’d do a post mortem, and be like, wow, we just lost a ton of money.

Why did we spend, you know, 30 hours building a nav system instead of using a plug in? Like, how do we optimize what we’re putting into a product or a service, still get really good results, but not spend too much time? I think it starts with like understanding what your client’s needs are and not selling them what you want them to have, but selling them on what their needs are, what the solutions to their challenges are. And then really being granular in what your, what your costs are and what your prices are.

So if I know it’s going to take me, you know, whatever, 300 hours to build this solution for them, how much is that going to cost me and how do I make sure that I’ve broken down every line item of, you know, account management, project management, web development, research, testing, et cetera. So I don’t, you know, have all these holes in the project where money’s just going out the window.

 It’s, it’s a long process, I think, to be able to refine that and know where the holes are, where I’m losing money. There’s got to be a review process at the end. And then somebody has got to be tracking it throughout the course of the retainer or the project to say, hey, we’re at 50 percent of our budget. We need to put the brakes on and throttle it back.

I do think that there are, Hmm, this might be controversial, but there, there are certainly ways and reasons to over service the account, whether it’s on the account management side and bringing that kind of, over servicing feel to a client so that they feel super taken care of.

But I think in the execution or the deliverabilities or whatever you want to call the production side of it, that can certainly be reined in big time and, and costs need to be throttled back and, you know, building profit into what we’re selling is vital. And I don’t think a lot of people do that.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, I think that’s a great point that, I mean, there, you can strategically over service.

Right. And that’s fine. The vast majority of

Or give the appearance of strategically over servicing. Yeah.

Right. Exactly. Right. You, you, you can’t say, we’re intentionally over servicing you just to kind of wow you, you know? Right. But, but it, but it has to be part of your plan to do that and usually it means that you’re making up that margin somewhere else.

 In the business or in the project or with the client or something, but it, it’s intentional. I think the, the problem is that most over servicing is very much unintentional. And that’s where you get into problems. And I, so I’d like to, to go back to the first building block that you talked about, which was selling the client what they actually need versus what you want to sell them.

And I think that this, getting the expectations aligned at the start of the agency client relationship is probably the most important thing. In fact, when I’m asked, how do I improve retention of my clients, I say it goes to even before they sign the contract. They have to be aligned on expectations. So how do you…

And clients are awful at this, in my experience, prospects, they will typically say, you know, I need a website or I need a PR campaign or, you know, and it’s very tactical oftentimes in what they come to you with. How do you tease out of them? How do you get to that root cause of the engagement that can help you to get those expectations better aligned?

Steve Guberman: I think just, we got to ask a lot more questions. Be super curious from the beginning. I, so I think that does two things. One is it really susses out what their true needs are, as opposed to them coming to the agency with, here’s my solution that I need, right? You don’t want, you, you wouldn’t go to the doctor and say, Well, maybe somebody would, but you wouldn’t want to go to the doctor and be like, here’s what’s wrong with me.

Prescribe me, you know, with this. Same scenario. So keep, keep asking questions to suss out really what their challenges are, not what their, and what their goals are, but not what the solutions that they think they need are. And so by being curious, you’re able to also talk about money, which so many creative professionals stink at, frankly.

And so, Oh, cool. I need a website. Yeah, we can do that. It’s gonna be $10,000. You have no idea what this website needs to do, what their goals are, what their – you know, is it ecommerce like a million things you need to understand before you can put a budget to it. And I think putting the cart before the horse with the budget and saying, yeah, we can do it for X amount and the client’s, Oh, but I also need it to do this and this and this. Now I can’t increase that budget cause I’ve already committed, you know, so a lot of that ties to not knowing how to manage scope, not knowing how to price scope.

Not knowing how to pull budgets out of clients. And there’s always that, you know, Oh, I don’t know what my budget is. Tell me what it’s going to cost. And so there’s the whole strategy behind how to handle that as well. But I just think being curious, continue to ask questions. I can remember going into prospect meetings and walking out and be like, Oh, we, we nailed that.

We a hundred percent have this, but we didn’t know what we had or how much it was going to cost or how long it was going to take or what we were actually selling, but the relationship was forming and it was just a really good feeling behind it. But it can’t be that one and done close. It’s got to be a lot of conversation, a lot of exploratory, how many other stakeholders need to come to the table to really talk about what does success look like and what does failure look like, frankly, and, you know, talking about all these aspects of the relationship and not just the scope work.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, I, I love asking questions. I mean, frankly, curiosity is one of the biggest assets you can have as an entrepreneur anyway, right? Yeah. So, so just having it generally, but certainly at the start of a client relationship, where you’re trying to figure out what they really need. You know, I, I mean, I think that agencies spend way too much time talking about themselves, what they know, what they can do, what they’ve done.

Yep. I mean, I, I think I’ve, you know, one of my controversial takes is that agencies should burn their creds decks. If, if there was never another cred deck ever handed out, I think that would be the best thing in the world. Because you typically end up going into, and I’ve been on both sides of agency pitches.

I’ve been in some large agency pitches where we’re sitting there, we bring in like 15, 20 people and we just talk for two hours. Like stop, ask questions, learn. And I think that does help you get to that, that better scope. But now, now that you’ve figured it out. That next step then is you have to memorialize that scope, you have to put it into something where you’re actually able to frame, you know, not boxing yourself in too much because you do want flexibility as you grow with the client to, to adapt, but, but how do you, how do you structure a scope that helps you win the business, but also puts the guardrails in place?

In such a way that you can hopefully manage that scope effectively going forward.

Steve Guberman: The win the business part I think is interesting because there shouldn’t be any surprises when I’m presenting. And I specifically say presenting as opposed to sending a proposal or scope or whatever. There shouldn’t be any surprises.

Hey client, as we talked about, this thing is going to be X dollars. It’s going to take us X amount of time to do it. The team that’s going to do it is Susan and Frank and Sherry and blah, blah, blah. And so there shouldn’t be any surprises. I think the other vital part of the winning part is don’t drag your feet on it.

Too many owners are responsible for their scopes and their, and their contracts. And when you talk to them, you’re like, Oh, I got to get this, this proposal out. It’s late. Or, you know, I’m down to the 11th hour. I’ve got to get this scope done. Get it done quicker because the longer you delay the quick, you know, that client has so many other things on their mind.

The last thing they’re doing is sitting there looking at their watch, waiting for, you know, John to deliver a proposal. So timeliness is essential in the winning factor.

Chip Griffin: Well, and the owners shouldn’t be taking on the whole scoping thing themselves anyway.

Steve Guberman: That’s another topic altogether, right?

Chip Griffin: Well, yeah, but, but, but actually I think it goes very directly to how you manage scope properly.

Yeah. Because part of the problem is that owners do a lot of the sales themselves. And I, I, I think owners fundamentally need to be involved in small agencies. They need to be involved in the sales process. So I think anyone who tells you you can pull yourself out of sales entirely as an owner. You’ve either got a really weird structure going on, which great kudos to you, or it’s just not going to work.

Right. But you need to have the people who are actually the account leads, the people who are doing the day to day work in those prospect meetings because they can, first of all, they’ll shoulder the burden of putting together the scope, but they’ll also be able to highlight where the scope is not realistic or where the pricing is not realistic.

And they’re, they’re then having ownership over it, which helps you to manage the scope later. So there’s so many benefits to having more of the team involved in the sales process.

Steve Guberman: I’ll do some of these, kind of all hands agency meetings to kind of suss out what’s going on. What are the challenges?

You know, why are, you know, why is the delivery team annoyed with the owner or the management? It’s like, well, they, they overpromised this and we got to get it done in it. And it’s like, all right, here’s a quick fix before you send something out, your team needs to be a part of that. Exactly like you’re saying, process.

Am I budgeting too little or too much for it? Am I scoping too little or too much, too much time for it? Where’s this going to fit in, in my resourcing and my production schedule? You know, we’re, we’re committing to this for Q1. Do we have the, the, the human power for it in Q1? All of that to your point is there shouldn’t be any surprises.

So if my production team is part of understanding, what is it going to take to deliver success? Can they actually get it done in the time that I’ve committed? And is the budget the right amount that we’ve committed to? So yeah, I think having, you know, whether it’s management or the actual production team, where somebody that’s part of the delivery, process in an agency part of it is essential. It, it avoids a lot of internal, I can’t believe they’re there, you know, we’ve got to get this done in five hours. We don’t have, there’s no way we can get this done in five hours. What were they thinking? You know, that kind of thought process.

And so you help avoid some disgruntled ness, but.

Chip Griffin: And if you’re going to get pushback from your team, get it before the deal is signed so you can hash it out. And maybe they’re being unreasonable. Sometimes team members are like, Oh yeah, I need 20 hours to do this. And you’re like, seriously, I mean, this is a simple thing.

Like, can we, can we re scope it ourselves so that we can get it done more timely. But, but solve that problem before it becomes a major issue with the client. So that the partner to putting together a good scope is obviously putting together the right price. Yeah. Because over servicing matters a whole lot less if you’ve got, you know, really comfortable margins.

 But most agencies don’t have particularly comfortable margins because they’re not great at pricing. So how do you get better at pricing the scope of work that you’re actually giving to the client?

Steve Guberman: That’s a good one also. So I, I think a lot of it comes down to a few aspects. One is knowing your costs.

So many agency owners don’t know what it costs to deliver something, to get something done, to turn the lights on each day. Like, what are my recurring. What’s my software stack cost me? It’s an easy fix, like, Oh, cool. Pull up my credit card statement or get my bookkeeper to run, run me a report. What is it, what is each aspect of this project or scope of work going to cost me to do?

 And then quite simply add 30, 40, whatever percentage is in that plan of what you want to profit. But knowing what things cost them and then using a system, I’m a big fan of time tracking. I’m a big fan of keeping reports. Looking back at historic data and saying, last time we did a project like this we said it was going to cost 10, but it really cost us 15 grand and we lost money on it.

How do we avoid that? Well, we can reuse some assets we built on previous projects. Cool, like that’ll save us some time. We can charge more because we obviously didn’t charge enough. So, historical data I think is vital and there are, there are more and more smarter systems like, you know, for years, you know, I use Harvest, in my agency.

I use it. I use it now. I’ve been using Harvest probably 15, 16 years and I absolutely love it. But I don’t, there are, there are other tools that are leveraging AI to be able to say, here’s what your historic data looks like and here’s how you can better scope things. And, you know, quote unquote, smart projects of scoping and budgeting of, you know, last time we did a project of this size and with these features, it cost us X.

So, owners need to know their numbers and it, it continues to surprise me slash not surprise me that so many don’t know their numbers. What does it cost to do a thing?

Chip Griffin: Yeah, and, and the time tracking is absolutely essential to that. Yeah. And I, I know that it’s sort of the, the hip thing for people to say, well, you shouldn’t, you know, don’t do timesheets in your agent.

We don’t do timesheets. Well, I mean, that’s, that’s sort of like a restaurant not knowing what their food costs are.

Steve Guberman: Exactly.

Chip Griffin: It makes no sense. The largest cost in virtually any agency is your labor costs. If you don’t know what that labor cost is for executing a project, how on earth can you price it?

And by the way, the answer is not this value pricing thing that people love to talk about. I think value pricing is the biggest scam in the world because the vast majority of people do not understand value pricing correctly. And even those who do understand it probably can’t execute it all that effectively.

So, you know, it’s not, it’s not the solution. The solution is you need to know what your costs are. Because then you at least have a floor where you know where you can’t mess up.

Steve Guberman: Yeah. And then charge accordingly. But then also hold your team, your team’s feet to the fire, whether with, with a good project manager and or a good project management system and say, cool, we’re going to break this project down internally and say, we’ve got, you know, 5 percent time for project management, 10 percent time for writing, 20 percent time for design.

Like. Yeah. And then say, Hey, you said you were going to get it done this amount of time. What’s going on that we’re missing that mark and we’re going to go over budget. The other thing I think that most agencies miss is again, what I said before, going back to a client saying, Hey, you said that your budget was 10 K and here’s what we scoped, and now you want more features. That’s going to be more money, you know, it’s akin to building a house or going to the grocery store, anytime you want to add something to the, the shopping cart or the, whatever the budget’s going to go up.

Why do agency owners have such a hard time with that? It’s, it’s mind boggling. So,

Chip Griffin: Well, I mean, I think a piece of it is the people are, they’re afraid to upset the client and afraid that they’re going to lose a revenue stream, right? I mean, I think that’s, that’s where fear is a huge driver of decision making, in any small business, but particularly in agencies where it is, you know, there’s a lot more gray area in what you’ve done, right?

It’s not, you know, we’re not delivering a specific widget. And so did I get the widget or not? And, and so there are, you know, there are some, there are qualitative aspects to it that do make it a little bit more challenging.

So let’s, let’s think about, you know, how we’re managing this scope. And, and, and I agree with pushing back on the clients, but one of the things, one of the challenges I think agencies have is figuring out what to push back on and what not to. Because, because there’s a fine line between feeling as a client, like you’re being nickeled and dimed because of every little thing. Well, that’s technically not in, but yeah, but it’s just, it’s swinging one hammer on one nail, that’s it.

But if you keep swinging hammers on nails, that adds up. So how do you, how do you as an owner and how do you talk with your team about managing this in such a way that you strike that right balance to keep you within scope, but not irritate the heck out of the client?

Steve Guberman: Yeah, I think some of it is like you’re saying, like, Hey, we’re just gonna, let’s just do it, do it quick and let’s get it done.

 In some cases, I think it’s okay to tell the client, Hey, this thing ended up being more time. We’re not going to charge you out of scope for it, but I just want to let you know in the vein of a transparent relationship that we’re trying to build long term. We’re going to kind of just take one on the chin for you and we’re going to get this thing done for you.

And I think that this is an important thing for the sake of account management and relationship building. And in other cases where it is detrimental, where it’s going to really eat into that 30, 40 percent profit that you built into it. Now we’ve got to have a conversation with the client. Where when it’s on the agency’s onus that we misscoped something, we can take more of the, you know, on the chin of it. Where the client keeps asking and asking and asking.

At some point it’s got to be like, You’re really, you know, you’re, you’re asking for far more than what we scoped for. We can do this one, whatever photo edit, but you want 50 photo edits. That’s, that’s a lot of time that we just didn’t scope for. So, you know, understanding where you can kind of let things slip a little bit verse where it’s really going to eat into the overall loss of a project and balancing client satisfaction.

Do I just want to get this done? Cause this client is one and done and they’re a pain in the butt. I never want to work with them again. Or, this can lead to, you know, a billion dollar company, you know, infiltrating three departments in the same company. I’m gonna go over and above and if we take a loss, it’s, you know, a lost leader, frankly.

So, right, just knowing what the opportunities are versus charging for every little thing, because you’re right. You don’t want to nickel and dime a client. That’s a real quick way to lose a client.

Chip Griffin: Right. Well, and I think one of the things you’ve touched on there too is, is the importance of, you know, understanding whose responsibility it was that, that something was not in the scope, right?

If, if you didn’t include it and you should have, then yeah, I think you do have to shoulder more of the burden there because you can’t expect that the client is going to know. It’s, it’s sort of like, you know, if I told you what the cost of a surgery is and I forget to include the anesthesia, okay. I mean, I, I certainly can’t, you know, cut into you without putting you under, but you know, I didn’t tell you about it.

So, you know, we got to somehow solve this without just sticking you with an extra bill, because it was on me not to tell you. But I think one of the things you can do is learn from the, if you’ve got an, an engagement where you’re constantly being out of scope and you feel like you constantly need to either waive being out of scope or talk to the client about it, that probably means you didn’t scope it effectively to begin with.

And so I think the, the last piece of, of scope management is how do you review the work that you’ve done so that you can take lessons away from it? And whether that’s a project where you evaluate at the end. Or it’s an ongoing relationship and you periodically need to review it so that you don’t get so far down the, the path that it’s hard to correct.

So how do you counsel your clients to work through that evaluation process? To learn lessons from the past and try not to repeat them.

Steve Guberman: Postmortems are vital. You can only really learn from your own mistakes or mistakes of others and, or your successes, frankly. And so not, not every postmortem is a, man, we really screwed up on this one.

It’s like, Hey, we crushed it. And so building a true process for what a postmortem looks like internally and with your client partners is vital. And you’re right, whether it’s at the end of a project. Hey, we just launched your website. Love to, you know, grab a half an hour to talk to you about what worked and what didn’t work.

Clients are more than willing, unless you really burned it down, they’re more than willing to spend time with an agency to talk about how they, how they, made them look good, what went right for them, what they can improve later, you know, again, unless you really burned it down, they don’t ever want to speak to you again, then there’s bigger problems, but by and large, they’re more than willing to.

And if you build that in from the start of the relationship, here’s how we do account management. Here’s how we do check ins. Here’s how we communicate. Here’s, you know, how we

deliver, you know, work to review. And here’s how we want feedback. And by the way, at the end of the project, we’re at various milestones. We’re going to check in with you for some feedback. I’m going to ask you six questions that we’ve pre formulized. Formulated, whoever that word might be. So yeah, project work, vital. Retainer work, even more vital. And not just, Oh, we’re up for a contract renew.

We want to check in and see how we’re doing, but like quarterly, periodically have a launch, build that relationship. Don’t talk about work during launch. Like do the things that give them the opportunity to say. Hey, Susan on your team is really dropping the ball on her deliverables, just wanted to let you know.

Don’t want to raise a big stink about it, but I know you run the, the account team, or you run the copy team, or whatever. And like, by building those candid relationships, it gives a client the ability to say, you know, something that’s on their mind. You know, and so, building in those formal, internally it can be formal, from the client’s perspective, it’s just like, Oh, that was so nice, agency so and so brought me out for lunch just to talk about my kid’s t ball game.

No, we, we wanted more than that. And it was strategic, but I do think, you know, don’t send out a jot form and say, fill out these five questions. Like have a conversation ideally in person, but with so much of the world being remote, zoom is fine too, you know, and know what you want to ask and what you strategically need to get back from the client for future success for them and for other clients.

But then also do it internally, like, ask candidly, Hey, did we scope this wrong? What could we have done better differently? Did we need more time than we scoped for? Did we not have the resources, resources for it? As an owner, I was guilty of that a lot. Over promising. Over promising on timeline. Hey guys, there’s no reason you can’t get this done before lunch on Friday.

Boss, this is going to take a hundred hours or, you know, whatever it was, like not understanding what the true needs from my team were. And so having those internal conversations. Away from the computers, go sit at a coffee shop or sit in the conference room or whatever and have a candid conversation because if it keeps happening, it’s going to lead to poor client or poor client retention, poor team retention, like just the challenges will continue to pile up.

So yeah, postmortems are vital.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, and I think, I think just like you started the process with asking questions, being curious, I think that’s how you need to end the process too. You need to, to ask those questions and be curious with the client. With your team, you need to, particularly with your team, you need to avoid coming in with judgment.

You need to, you need to really understand, well, why did it take us longer? Why did we have this particular challenge? What could we do better? As opposed to saying you went over budget by this. And so we didn’t hit our numbers and that’s going to be a problem. We need to do better the next time. No. I mean, that, that may be the net result that you end up getting to, but you need to start by asking the questions and listening, because what you think may be able to be done over lunch may really take five or 10 hours. Because particularly as we spend more time at higher levels in the business, we get disconnected from it.

We also remember how we did things and it may not be the same way that the team is able to do it. One of the reasons you become an owner is typically because you excelled. So you can do things often quicker or better than your team members, or at least that’s what you think. And so, you know, you need to be cautious of that.

So I love that we’re starting with curiosity, ending with curiosity. And it’s, it’s sort of, I mean, that’s the whole reason why I do these podcasts, right? It’s, I’m, I’m curious. I’m curious.

Steve Guberman: Yeah. I’ll throw in another, I think, tip that a lot of clients will ask, when’s the right time to ask for a referral or a testimonial?

And I think it’s on the tail end of that postmortem. So asking for a client feedback reinforces to, if, if you did a good job, preface it with that. Reinforces to them by hearing them say, you guys, your team really crushed it, your copywriter was super creative, the designs were really surprising. So it reinforces to them how good of a job you did because it’s been a six month process.

They might not spend the days thinking about how great you were at the kickoff or your initial designs and so it helps them kind of rehash the overall process. Hey, awesome. I’m so happy you, you were pleased. Hey, can you put that in a testimonial for us? Or, I saw on LinkedIn you’re connected with, you know, Joan Smith.

You think maybe you can introduce us, because now they’re, they just sang you praises. Right. Of course they’re going to introduce you to their whatever that they know. So it’s, it’s a really good time to build that into your process and workshop how do you ask for that testimonial or that referral in a positive postmortem.

Chip Griffin: And referrals are a whole other thread that we could follow. Totally. And so we’ll have to come back and have that conversation at some point because I, another one of the things that I say that’s controversial is that, People who complain about referrals as being a bad growth driver for it. I think they’re nuts.

I think referrals are your best way of growing and you just need to figure out how to do them effectively, how to get them effectively. So maybe we can talk about that another time. But I, unfortunately we are drawing to a close the amount of time that we have for today’s episode. Steve, if, if people want to learn more about you, want to get in touch, where could they go?

Steve Guberman: Look up, on LinkedIn, my whatever tag is agencycoach. I grabbed that. I was surprised you didn’t grab it before me, but, agencyoutsight.com also.

Chip Griffin: Excellent. And we will include that in the show notes as well. So, If you’re on the treadmill or in the car or something like that, and you didn’t have a chance to write it down, just click back on the show notes and you’ll be able to find that.

So Steve, it’s been great having this conversation with you. And I look forward to having you back again in the future, because I’m sure we have lots of, of things that we can discuss, lots of controversial things that we can say, and hopefully some practical tips that we can continue to dole out. So again, my guest has been Steve Guberman of Agency Outsight.

Thanks for joining us.

Steve Guberman: Thanks Chip.