Welcome to episode 112. I’m joined by Shannyn Lee, Managing Director of Win Without Pitching ®, which is widely recognised by the creative industry as one of the best quality sales training programs because it’s specifically tailored to agencies. This episode will be particularly valuable for you if your job at the agency is winning new business and you’d like to know how to do that without having to go through a costly pitch process. During our chat, Shannyn shares: the Win Without Pitching ® principles what it takes to circumnavigate a client’s pitch process the common sales challenges fac ..read more

Recently, I chatted to Tim Riesterer, Chief Strategy Officer at Corporate Visions. We discussed the importance of demonstrating to clients the results you’re achieving for them at three levels. Tim calls this the ‘triple metric’. The Triple Metric For each level you quantify the results you achieved for the client:   Level 1: Project level outcomes e.g. you delivered on time, on budget and to the brief – and document these metrics Level 2: Department level outcomes e.g. you ran a campaign to launch a product and can demonstrate the speed of product uptake Level 3: Corporate level outcomes ..read more

“People who accomplish big things did small things well” Horace Jackson Brown, author of ‘Life’s Little Instruction Book’   There are little things account managers can do well to avoid big client complaints. (The caveat to this is there will always be clients who complain regardless of how well you do your job – but that’s a topic for another day). Here are 3 common scenarios in which an account manager has to have a difficult conversation:   Overspend Agency spends more time/resources than estimated and the account manager has to inform the client the project has gone over budget ..read more

Michael Farmer, a management consultant who has studied creative agencies for 30 years, said this during our recent interview: “Account managers need to be more like Bain consultants” He was referring to the fact that clients aren’t seeing an ROI from working with agencies. His tip for account managers was to have a critical perspective on the client’s brief and ensuing scope of work and ensure it really addresses the client’s business problem. Spotting & solving client problems is an account manager’s job. I’m impressed by account managers who: Spot problems that fall out of the curren ..read more

Michael Farmer, the author of two key books in the agency industry ‘Madison Avenue Manslaughter’ and ‘Madison Avenue Makeover’, has studied creative agencies for over 30 years in his capacity as management consultant. He’s identified patterns and a worrying downward trend. Here are 3 of the trends: Scopes of work (SoWs) are increasing in volume and yet agencies fees are declining – but because agencies aren’t measuring their SoWs they don’t often realise the extent to which this is happening Agencies aren’t helping clients achieve their business outcomes, clients are paying them less and typi ..read more

Welcome to episode 110. This episode is for you if you’re an agency owner either interested in buying agencies to grow, or selling your agency at some point. It’s also enlightening if you work in an agency and you want to understand the process of mergers and acquisitions. Jonathan Baker, Practice Lead in M&A at Punctuation joins me and shares a lot of tips and insights about the buying and selling process, including: the current state of M&A and why right now might be a really good time to sell the impact of AI on the changing agency landscape and his advice for content marketing ag ..read more

Welcome to episode 109. My guest is Michael Farmer, a management consultant who has been looking at the agency business model for over 30 years. He’s identified three burning issues for creative agencies. Work is increasing in volume and yet agencies fees are declining. But because agencies aren’t measuring scopes of work, they don’t often realize the extent to which this is happening. Agencies aren’t helping clients achieve their business outcomes. Clients are paying them less and typically fire them every three years and generally treat them as order takers. AI is now putting fuel on this ..read more

I read as many reports I can about the state of agency account management and it makes for grim reading. “I sometimes feel they are more concerned with their gmail and booking meetings than with my challenge” – client lead (“The Future of Account Management” report, IPA 2020)   The feedback from clients and industry experts is relentless and often scathing about the account manager’s performance. But I think the agency business model and how account managers are set up in their roles needs an overhaul before the finger is pointed at their lack of skill/abilities. There’s often a mismatch ..read more

 Welcome to episode 108. Are you struggling to manage a remote agency team? If so, you’re going to get a lot of value from my conversation with Gustavo Razzetti, CEO of Fearless Culture and author of ‘Remote, Not Distant’. He shared some very thought-provoking insights for agency leaders and agency teams, including how remote working is only amplifying the positive and the negative aspects of your agency culture that were already present how to fix the issues how to make your remote brainstorming meetings more effective why agencies need to strike a balance between being overly protective an ..read more

I was chatting to one of my clients recently about the benefits of introducing account management in their agency for the first time. When you start an agency, typically you start with project management. As a small, agile team it makes sense for project managers to be responsible for client management. They are highly skilled in delivering your services on time and on budget. As an agency grows and more clients are acquired, it becomes unsustainable. Not because the project managers don’t have the right skills. They’re often the expert technical practitioners who can talk most proficiently ab ..read more