Welcome to Episode 78. Today's episode is for you if you're an agency owner, busy running an agency, but also facing challenge or adversity in your private life. Rebecca McIntyre-Smith is director of digital agency Primate, and founder of the Lemur Foundation. She has a remarkably touching story of tragedy, adversity and resilience. She also shares her practical tips for other agency owners. If you'd like to be a guest on Rebecca's own podcast to tell your story, then you can contact her on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccamcintyresmith/https://www.lemurfoundation.org/aboutAnd if you're listening to this at the beginning of 2023, and you want this year to be the year that you not only retain your agency accounts, but you grow your accounts, you can also connect with me on LinkedIn and let's talk about training for either you in your account management role, or a member of your team. You can also visit my website: https://www.accountmanagementskills.com/training

Welcome to Episode 77. On this episode, I chat to Dan Archer, a marketing expert for agencies. This episode is packed full of practical tips to help you with your own agency's marketing. Dan shares with me:- the biggest challenges facing agencies when it comes to marketing their services- practical and actionable advice for how to approach it- what the most successful agencies right now are doing to market themselves- and why you don't necessarily have to be the agency personality on LinkedIn. If you're not already a member of the free Agencynomics community, then go to https://agencynomics.com. See all the benefits of joining, it's absolutely free and for the value that you receive, you will not be disappointed.Growing your existing accounts is one of the most overlooked sources of new revenue. If your account managers are proactively looking for ways to help your clients reach their goals, you will grow your revenue too. So if you have one or more account managers in your team and you want to make sure that they have the skills to retain and grow their accounts, then make sure you're setting them up for success by investing in formal training. You'll find more details about my training programmes on my website https://www.account management skills.com/training. You can also book a quick call with me to talk about your specific needs. 

Welcome to Episode 76. This is part two of a two part episode about raising your account management game. If you haven't listened to part one, I'd recommend you go back and give it a listen, it's episode 74. This two part series is relevant for you if you're in a more senior account manager role, and you want to either be promoted to account director, and you need to know what you need to do to get there, and you don't understand what tasks you need to do, how you need to be behaving differently to get that promotion. You might be sitting there frustrated that you aren't being recognised by your agency. So you want to raise your profile, or you're not really sure what you can do to be more effective in your account management role.I hope you enjoy this episode. If you'd like to raise your account management game, increase your confidence with your clients, add more value to your clients and be seen more as that trusted advisor that an reactive order taker, check out the details of my Account Accelerator programme. From January 2023, we not only have a nine week programme, where I work with you to help you not only with the core training principles, but also to implement what you've learned, we also have a taster version, which is a one week format. You work with me for 3 x 90 minute sessions over one week and you also get access to my online programme. Once you've been through that programme, you can join me in my Account Academy where you can connect with other people, and you have ongoing support with me. If any of this sounds interesting for either you or a member of your team, then go over to my website www.accountmanagementskills.com/training. 

Welcome to Episode 75 with my guest Beth Sharma, Client Services Director at Hallam.  This episode is for you if you're interested in any of the following three areas:You'd like to know what the Client Services Director does in an award-winning digital marketing agency.You'd like some tips on how to get more client recommendations.What it means for the client services team if you work for a B Corp agency.After listening, check out Hallam's impressive profile on The Drum Recommends.Given the current unstable economic climate, client retention for agencies is a real top priority right now. If you'd like some training for you or a member of your client-facing team in how to manage your client relationships, so you'll be seen more as a proficient proactive advisor, rather than a reactive audit taker, check out the details of my Account Accelerator programme. You can book a quick call with me to see if it's the right fit.

Welcome to Episode 74. I get to speak to a lot of account managers who work in creative agencies. And I get a lot of questions about how they can progress their career, how they can be better at the account management role, and some of the key things that are most important when it comes to being more efficient and more effective in the role. And I sometimes get people who are frustrated that they're not progressing fast enough, that they really want to get promoted. Perhaps they're at senior account manager level, and they want to go to an account director. So this episode is for you, if you're in more of a senior account management role position in an agency, and you're looking to step up to raise your game.Listen out for part two. If you'd like help raising your account management game, then take a look at my Account Accelerator programme, where you work with me for nine weeks. I help you with the tools, strategies, and all the support you need to implement a repeatable and systematic approach to account growth for your agency. For more details, please go to my website: https://www.accountmanagementskills.com/training

Welcome to Episode 73. Are you asking your client for referrals to get more business, or does the very thought of it make you feel uncomfortable or awkward? If it does, you're definitely not alone. And you're also in for a treat because my guest, Stacey Brown Randall, will be providing guidance on how to get referrals without asking. Stacey has been helping agencies and service-based businesses for over 10 years, through her business, Building a Referable Business™, as the Award-Winning Author of Generating Business Referrals…Without Asking, and as Host of the Roadmap to Grow Your Business podcast.In this chat, she provides lots of tips, lots of reframing, and lots of different ways that you can approach the process of referrals. We all know it's cheaper and easier to get referrals rather than chasing new business, so these are some really special tips that Stacey shares.If you'd like to chat to me about account management training for you or your team, then head over to my website, https://www.accountmanagementskills.com/training and book a no-obligation call with me.

Welcome to Episode 72. This chat is packed full of tips for how to be successful in the agency account management role as you transition through the levels,  to become a Client Services team leader.Vicky Janaway joins me from The Gate agency and she shares with me:what her role entails as client relationship leadwhat it takes to be an excellent account manager and account team leadsome tips for making the transition from account manager to account directorwhy she follows the philosophy of Radical Candour when giving feedback to her teamand she also shares some great book recommendations for those who are keen to develop their own leadership skills.Finally, I’m really excited to let you know that my Account Accelerator training programme is now a year long. So not only do you get nine weeks of training and coaching with me, but you'll also get to connect with your peers who have also been through the training. And you'll continue to receive ongoing support and training from me throughout the year. The next programme starts on 18th October 2022 and you can see all the details on my website at https://www.acccountmanagementskills.com/training. You can book in a no-obligation 20 minute call with me, to see if the training is the right fit for you or your team. 

Welcome to Episode 71. I invited Ryan Lisk, Founder of Hybrid Legal, to talk about why it's important to cover yourself legally when growing an agency.We chatted about:some of the risks agencies take by not having the right contracts in placethe different legal areas agencies need to pay attention to at every stage of their growthand he also shared examples of how easily you can leave your agency business exposed when you don't cover all of the most relevant legal areas.If you have any questions or doubts that you might not have all of your legal bases covered in your agency, then please do contact Ryan via LinkedIn or his website.And as we've been talking about risk, if you want to reduce your client relationship risk, and would like to talk to me about account management training, then you can find out more on my website: https://www.accountmanagementskills.com

Welcome to Episode 70. Have you ever experienced feelings of anxiety, overwhelm, or even burnout in your agency job?  We all know that working in an agency can be fun and rewarding. But it's also really fast paced.Many account managers are juggling lots of different client relationships, multiple projects, and reacting to the inevitable unexpected fires that also need to be put out. And, let's be honest, some days, weeks, or even months can be constantly busy and feel pretty relentless.Account managers need a high level of personal resilience, and also a certain degree of resourcefulness, and being able to keep your cool when dealing with problems. I recently had some training myself to help me with my own resilience, called Quality of Mind and it was unlike any other training I'd experienced before, because it was talking about how the mind actually works. It hasn't only helped me with my resilience, it's also impacted very positively in all sorts of areas of my life. #The foundations of this training that I did were based on what's known as non-duality, the direct path. And since the training three months ago, I've been pretty riveted by this topic and I've managed to read four books and I’ve watched a couple of documentaries on YouTube. I felt like I was discovering a big secret with this training, but I've been surprised to see that it was actually just this world that I knew nothing about, and that these principles that I learned, I have already been adopted by 1000s of individuals, business leaders and organisations.I've been so impacted about what I've learned that I wanted Piers Thurston to come on and share these principles of this Quality of Mind training with you.If my chat with Piers piques your interest and you're curious to go a bit deeper, or maybe you want to ask questions to see if it might help you or your agency team, then please join us for the free Quality of Mind for Agencies mini training at 1pm on Wednesday 14th of September 2022. Follow this link to register: www.bit.ly/qualityofmind

Welcome to episode 69, with agency profitability expert, Marcel Petitpas in which we talk about the agency account manager's role in making sure projects are delivered profitably in a creative agency.https://ca.linkedin.com/in/marcelpetitpasHe shared:- the most common reasons agencies are unprofitable- some examples of where agencies can tighten up- what he's seeing the most profitable agencies doing differently- the importance of the account managers role in agency profitability- and what he thinks of value based pricing.There are lots of wonderful, useful nuggets of wisdom in this conversation and I found this discussion with him so valuable. Once you’ve listened to the podcast, don't forget to go over and see the resources that he's provided. He talks about his toolkit and also the agency pricing quadrant.Find the transcript at: https://accountmanagementskills.com/how-to-make-your-agency-more-profitable-with-marcel-petitpas/A reminder that my next Account Accelerator training programme starts on 15th September and helps anyone in a creative agency account management position, and who is responsible for the agency's forecast, to grow their existing accounts. If you'd like to learn more about the programme, go to my Training page: www.accountmanagementskills.com/training. You can book a 20 minute call with me and we can see if it might be a good fit for you or someone else in your team. At the end of the podcast recording or transcript, you’ll find out what other participants have said about going on the Accelerator programme.