Build a Better Agency Podcast

When I talk with agency owners, there’s one topic that often comes up in conversation. They say, “I wish my employees would think and act more like owners!” And my question back is, “why would they – they aren’t owners.” Think about it. As the agency owner, you run the business, and you understand clearly what’s at stake every month. You stand to win or lose something each month when you make or don’t make your adjusted gross income (AGI), and the agency’s performance has a direct impact on your success. If the agency doesn’t do well – you’re the one who does not get a paycheck. But they do. On the flip side, when the agency does very well, you reap the benefits of that windfall. You might pay out bonuses to your team but rarely do agency owners explain where the bonus came from or what was done to earn it. Without similar incentives to meet targets, why would the staff feel a sense of ownership that drives their thoughts and actions? This episode of Build a Better Agency is a solocast – and on it, I walk you through the AMI bonus programs that is designed to teach your team agency math (how we make and lose money) and create incentives so that they do start thinking and acting like an owner. Ideally, a bonus program educates your team to think like owners, helps with retaining your best people, and shares the spoils from a good year. It also eliminates the obligatory year-end bonus that is not tied to anything but the calendar. As you know, if you give away a bonus a couple years in a row – without tying it to performance metrics, it becomes an entitlement. Walk through the actual program with me on this episode and be sure to download the PDF so it’s easier to follow along. What You Will Learn on This Episode: How to incentivize employees to think like owners Why automatic raises might start to backfire Why you should divide quarterly bonus funds evenly How to tell your team the story of why you did or did not hit your AGI target How to be reasonably generous and not ridiculously generous with bonus programs How to adjust AGI goals based on what happened in the previous quarter Why a bonus program is a good retention tool How to build behavioral incentives (continuing ed, time sheets) into your bonus program Why a bonus program can replace conversations about raises Drew McLellan is the CEO at Agency Management Institute. He has also owned and operated his own agency since 1995 and is still actively running the agency today. Drew’s unique vantage point as being both an agency owner and working with 250+ small- to mid-size agencies throughout the year gives him a unique perspective on running an agency today. AMI works with agency owners by: Leading agency owner peer groups Offering workshops for owners and their leadership teams Offering AE Bootcamps Conducting individual agency owner coaching Doing on-site consulting Offering online courses in agency new business and account service Because he works with those 250+ agencies every year — Drew has the unique opportunity to see the patterns and the habits (both good and bad) that happen over and over again. He has also written two books and been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Fortune Small Business. The Wall Street Journal called his blog “One of 10 blogs every entrepreneur should read.”         Ways to contact Drew McLellan: Email: drew@agencymanagementinstitute.com LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/drewmclellan Resources: AMI bonus program document

Agencies are creative spaces. Especially as owners, we may bristle at the thought of being managed. But as your agency grows, there a definite need for systems and processes that ensure that things get done on time, on budget, and as promised. I understand that even as the owner I get managed in order to keep tasks and projects on track. As agencies grow and need more structured management of tasks and processes and eventually, a full-time project manager. I did a solocast on the role of the traffic manager, if you’d find that useful. But on this episode of Build A Better Agency, I have Timothy Johnson as my guest who is a seasoned project manager for hire and a professor of project management at Drake University. Tim also has been known to wear a pink bunny suit for reasons I may or may not be at liberty to discuss. Bunny suit aside, Tim knows a thing or two about getting down to business. We talk about the needs of project managers, agency owners, and the agency staff. Often project managers feel like the odd person out, especially in the agency world. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Project management is necessary, but it is not an evil. Tim is the perfect guest to help us really understand the ins and outs of project management, and maybe even getting a little excited about upping your PM game. Tim has successfully led many high-end projects and programs, serving as both a project management consultant as well as a business analyst consultant across the U.S. He is the author of Race Through the Forest and other project management books. Timothy believes in delivering value, completing the deliverable, seizing the accomplishment, and getting out. What You Will Learn in This Episode: Working under the triple constraints: on time, on budget, and delivered as promised Components of a S.H.A.R.P. report How Agile is so useful in scaling the management to the size of the project The communication and other skills to look for in a good project manager How creating quick wins can create buy-in around new process frameworks Why you should avoid the phrases “we need” or “we have a lack of” How to ask for project management to share stories in the interview Why agency owners need to hire people who can manage them How to define the specific requirements of what done looks like How to give project managers time to find their way in a new agency setting           Ways to Contact Tim Johnson: Race Through the Forest Book: https://amzn.to/2QNj9Yx Website: https://carpefactum.typepad.com/

Maybe things run smooth as silk at your agency. I know that’s what I hope for in mine. It’s more likely to happen on a Saturday or Sunday! One of the ways that we all try to evoke that sense of efficiency and calm is by creating processes that systemize and manage work flow. Not that many agencies do this (if anything, we are system adverse, not system advocates) you can take it too far. There’s a fine line between creativity and process. But if things can run more smoothly and free you and your team up to do more interesting things like coming up with bigger, more valuable solutions for your clients, then the payoff is worth the challenge of getting it in place. If you remember my solocast where we talked about being a wonder bread factory versus an artesian baker, that’s part of what I talked about. How much uniformity and what kinds of boundaries do you want to put around your business? There’s no right or wrong answer – just a right or wrong answer for you. That’s what I wanted to talk to Michael Koral about, because he’s lived it. Michael started out with a more traditional agency that was primarily a web dev shop with some ancillary services. Their work was very labor and people-intensive. He and his partners decided to make an interesting pivot. They decided to leverage the power of artificial intelligence, data and numbers around advertising on Facebook and Instagram – to get people the best results possible and now they run a very different kind of agency. Michael is an operations guy, with some fantastic ideas on process and automation –he naturally knows how to get more done, more simply. His company, Needls, helps businesses advertise effectively on Facebook and Instagram, so I am going to pick his brain about what they’ve learned in that arena as well.  What You Will Learn in This Episode: How the right processes and automation can help you scale your business There are lots of right ways to do things Why taking time to document and develop processes makes for a better agency What to know about Facebook advertising post-Cambridge Analytica Click vs. Reach – what you should optimize for Why you NEED to optimize for mobile Best ways to capture attention with video Between Facebook and Instagram, where people are watching longer video content Why you should put closed captioning on videos How and why to track your ads           Ways to Contact Michael Koral: Website: http://www.needls.com/ Instagram: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-koral-01bb159/

Before the ’08 recession, most agency owners couldn’t fathom the idea of remote employees, let alone working with a virtual assistant they’d likely never meet. But with sites like UpWork and elance teaching us that sometimes it makes good business sense to source work from with someone we’ve never met, the concept of working with virtual assistants has grown in popularity. In my world, on both the agency and AMI side – we’ve found it to be a very effective way to get a volume of work handled effectively and efficiently. This is definitely an ongoing topic of conversation with agency owners. How do we keep up with the needs and demands of clients in a cost-effective way, without putting quality or the client relationship at risk. For any agencies, virtual assistants are one of the answers to that question. On episode #172 of Build a Better Agency, I talk with Barbara Turley of The Virtual Hub. She recognized the need for high-quality VAs and decided to create a business around that need. We discuss the many upsides of hiring one or more VAs – like freeing up your most scarce resource: time. But we also discuss some of the pitfalls to avoid, especially around rigorous training and expectations on both the VA and the agency side. I found it to be a fascinating conversation and I hope it’s incredibly useful for you. Barbara is the founder and CEO of The Virtual Hub – a business she started by accident that exploded in the space of 12 months to become one of the leading companies that recruits, trains, and manages virtual assistants in the digital marketing and social media space for businesses who need to free up time and energy so they can go to the next level. What You Will Learn in this Episode: How to set expectations for a virtual assistant – and your agency Understanding the difference between hiring within your national borders and offshoring The right questions to ask about prior training How to share processes around tasks and check in Why you should consider a virtual assistant a permanent and integral part of your team How to integrate a virtual assistant into your team How to choose the right virtual assistant for the right tasks Your role as an agency owner as it relates to virtual assistants Which unwanted tasks you can hand off to a virtual assistant How to Contact Barb Turley: Website: https://www.thevirtualhub.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barbara-turley-b6a981a/

For most people, especially the creative types that tend to inhabit the agency world, time management is a hodgepodge of post-it notes, paper to-do lists, and several online tools – all used haphazardly and resulting in missed deadlines, meetings and a sense of being overwhelmed. I know for me time management has been a series of constant improvements. While I am 95% happy with the system I have today, I always wonder if I could get little more efficient. I remember when I was first starting out in agency life and had no sense of when to walk away from the to-do list. I felt this sense of obligation to stay until the work was done. My problem, everyone’s problem: the work is never done. So, being productive when you need to be is an agency imperative. That’s why I was looking forward to talking to Jon Denn. Jon is a creative person and has also done a ton of neuroscience research to understand that—guess what—one size does not fit all when it comes to time management tools and strategies. In this episode, I ask Jon to share insights from his research and provide some perspective. He is a huge proponent of testing or experimentation. So, you can take his basic framework—3 hours of your day broken into chunks that correspond basically with how much mental energy they require—and test it out. He suggests 90 minutes for deep thinking, but quickly acknowledges that 45 or 60 minutes might work best for you. What time of the day are you at your peak? Use that time for your deep thought projects. Here’s some good news – there’s are reasons why we work at odd hours. I don’t adhere to a strict 9-5 schedule and neither do most agency owners I know. Jon’s time management framework is at once freeing and very focusing. Jon is the Chief Thinking Officer of Drumbeat Productivity. His background includes serving as a Hotel Chain CEO. Jon ran an adaptive leadership program for 12 years, and is a publisher, entrepreneur, and has been a Vistage CEO Coach and Group Chair since 2014. What You Will Learn in this Episode: How to do small tests to understand when and where your most productive time can be focused How to take control the parts of your schedule that matter most The difference between doing meetings and idea meetings, and how to manage both Why dividing tasks into groups based on the mental energy they require is much more efficient than the traditional “buckets” of work, home, etc. How dividing time into 90-minute (deep thought), 60-minute (complex communication), and 30-minute (quick to-do) blocks is so efficient Why you shouldn’t force a fit with time management tools How to find the time management tools and processes that work for you Setting up office-wide “don’t distract me” hours, and then other times to just be social together           Ways to contact Jon Denn: Website: drumbeatproductivity.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jon-denn-20a5805/

It’s something we all dream about – retirement. Selling our agency for big bucks so we can sip Mai Tai’s on the beach. The agency’s name and reputation carrying on with another generation. Or just locking the door and calling it done. All are worthy ends for your shop. Whatever your dream is – I know that it’s very personal and important to you and I want you to achieve it. But no matter which end game appeals to you, it requires some serious planning (up to a decade before depending on your exit strategy) before you’re ready to walk out the door for the last time. And you’ll need to run your agency differently in terms of how you handle the money and make other key decisions. Bottom line – the end game is not something you can leave until the end. You’ll need to give it serious thought and as Stephen Covey has long implored us, “begin with the end in mind.” It starts with some soul searching in terms of how, ideally, you want it to play out and what is possible or at least plausible. Once you’ve figured that out – you need to put your plan into action, so everything is in place when you’re transitioning out and the agency can survive that transition. Over and over I see agency owners who started too late or didn’t do the homework to build out the details and specificity they needed in their succession plan. That’s the perfect way to limit your options or force you to stick around longer than you want. I don’t want that to happen to you. In this episode, we’ll take a close look at all of your options and the criteria for each. Hopefully, that will set you up to create a win for you, for your employees, and for potential buyers of your thriving agency. What You Will Learn in This Episode: Building your wealth while you still own your agency Succession options for agency owners Factors that affect the valuation of your agency when you go to sell Why being a generalist decreases the value of your agency The value of setting up sources of residual income outside your agency work Different options if you want to sell your agency How to have candid conversations with potential buyers of your agency Why gifting shares of your agency to employees is a bad idea Baking succession planning into partnership agreements Why you need to go slow when considering merging with another agency Drew McLellan is the CEO at Agency Management Institute. He has also owned and operated his own agency since 1995 and is still actively running the agency today. Drew’s unique vantage point as being both an agency owner and working with 250+ small- to mid-size agencies throughout the year gives him a unique perspective on running an agency today. AMI works with agency owners by: Leading agency owner peer groups Offering workshops for owners and their leadership teams Offering AE Bootcamps Conducting individual agency owner coaching Doing on-site consulting Offering online courses in agency new business and account service Because he works with those 250+ agencies every year — Drew has the unique opportunity to see the patterns and the habits (both good and bad) that happen over and over again. He has also written two books and been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Fortune Small Business. The Wall Street Journal called his blog “One of 10 blogs every entrepreneur should read.” Ways to contact Drew McLellan: Email: drew@agencymanagementinstitute.com LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/drewmclellan

On this episode, we delve into the unconscious mind and the concept of “limiting beliefs.” It’s the idea If I say to you, “I’ll meet you there in five hours” what is the first question you’re going to ask me? Right, meet you where? Finding our way without knowing the destination is impossible. But too often, that’s how we run our agencies. Both short and long-term planning often gets sidelined in the hubbub of running our agencies. We’re putting out fires. We’re solving client crises. We’re answering employees’ questions. All stuff that needs doing, but for a lot of agency owners, the urgent gets in the way of the important On episode #169, we get right into it. What does it take to create plans that inspire compliance and action? What does it take to actually follow through? Is there such a thing as work-life balance? I’ll give that answer away for free: no, there is not. (But still listen in!) That’s why I loved my conversation with Jennifer Dawn. She is a business coach for high-achieving entrepreneurs, and she’s developed some really strong tools for goal-setting and planning. Jennifer spent years working in the corporate world before taking the plunge and pursuing her passion for mentoring entrepreneurs to grow profitable, healthy, and truly exceptional businesses. Business plans don’t have to be the Mona Lisa. They don’t have to be epic works of prose. Jennifer and I agree – one page, two max, is a great length for a plan. If you’re ready to really make time for the important; if you want a plan for work and life that really serves the life you want, this is a perfect episode to dive into. There are tons of practical tips and suggestions about how to get your plans out there on paper, review regularly, and actually, follow through so you get to the defined destination of your choosing.  What You Will Learn in This Episode: How to get your business plan down to two pages or less The importance of getting an outside perspective on your business plan Why beginning with the end in mind has not gone out of style How to make your business plan a living document Breaking down your goals into tiny, manageable steps Definition of the “A” task Actionable ways to manage your work/life blend this week How to build personal and work components together into your planning How to plan your business priorities so they are in support of your life goals Three steps to achieve any goal you set           Ways to Contact Jennifer Dawn: Website: https://jenniferdawncoaching.com/ 3 Secrets to Achieve Any Goal You Set (scroll down on the homepage to access this tool): https://bestplannerever.com/

On this episode, we delve into the unconscious mind and the concept of “limiting beliefs.” It’s the idea that our unconscious mind can hold us back without us even realizing it. So, how do we stop something we’re not even conscious of? The good news is that it is possible, and while it does take hard work, the steps themselves are pretty simple. This limiting beliefs stuff may sound a little new-agey. I’m a big fan of data and looking at the facts at hand. For me, turning those limiting beliefs to unlimiting beliefs is fascinating because of the science behind it. This isn’t some magic act. My guest on episode #168 is Karen Brown, author of Unlimiting Your Beliefs. Karen is a mentor and coach who works with people to uncover what might be impeding their progress in work and life. Often, our unconscious thoughts and actions are the source of this impediment. One of the most interesting turns in the conversation for me was when Karen talked about her experience preparing to be an Ironman Triathlete. Her limiting belief had told her for 28 years that she shouldn’t even be thinking about this. She was not a good swimmer. That was a big hurdle. It was limiting. So, she unlimited her belief, telling herself out loud, “I am a good swimmer.” I asked if she suddenly became a good swimmer. As you might imagine, it took more than that. But giving herself that unlimiting belief propelled her to action. She got a swimming coach. She practiced. And soon enough, she was a good swimmer. Our conversation is a fascinating look at the unconscious (or subconscious) mind and how it works. Listen to learn more about how to uncover the unconscious limits we put on ourselves and what to do to break that pattern. Karen Brown is CEO of Velocity Leadership Consulting, a Denver-based business psychology executive and coaching company. With more than 20,000 business coaching hours under her belt, she founded Velocity Leadership Consulting in 2012, after finding her own divine potential while training for and finishing the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii. What You Will Learn in This Episode: The science behind limiting beliefs and how to retrain your brain How to make unlimiting beliefs natural and habitual Asking the right questions to uncover the limiting beliefs of your unconscious mind Why writing out your limiting beliefs is so important, and why speaking the opposite out loud is just as important How the skills used in unlimiting your beliefs in one area will have a broad positive impact personally and professionally How to counteract the most common and pernicious limiting belief: I’m not good enough Why our unconscious beliefs and our conscious goals are sometimes at cross-purposes, and what to do about it How, like most things, you’ve got to use it to lose your ability and reshape limiting beliefs One way to get yourself into the unlimiting mindset: name and write down just one of your achievements           Ways to contact Karen Brown: Website: velocityleadershipconsulting.com/build/ Book: https://amzn.to/2ypriYS

When you started your agency, it was probably pretty exciting and somehow any worries you had were squelched before they could get in the way. But as our agencies get a little more established and we get a little more comfortable, taking a risk seems scarier, doesn’t it? My guest thinks that’s a problem and he recommends that we re-acquainted with being uncomfortable. In some ways, I’d like to think my big risk-taking days are behind me. But when I go to manage my business, and in nearly every conversation I have with my AMI colleagues, I know being risk-averse is not a strategy any of us can afford. Staying relevant and successful—according to my guest—requires a level of comfort with being uncomfortable. It is a bit of bromide that the rapid pace of change is the one constant we can count on these days. How do we manage that change and thrive in the midst of it? That’s what we’re getting at in this episode. On episode #167, my guest Scott Amyx proves that he knows this topic. From a childhood of poverty in South Korea to a career at the tip of the spear in terms of understanding and embracing innovation, Scott has lived and thrived in this era of discomfort. The upshot of his research is clear: being prepared for change and meeting disruption with a strategy of embracing it and pivoting as needed is a critical skill to survival as a business owner today. Scott Amyx is the Chair & Managing Partner at Amyx Ventures and Singularity University/Smart City Accelerator Mentor and Startup Board Member. He is a TEDx speaker on disruption and success. Scott is a thought leader, speaker, author, and winner of the Cloud & DevOps World Award for Most Innovative Vendor. Scott’s book, Strive, is all about how doing the most uncomfortable things leads to success. What You Will Learn About in This Episode: How to get comfortable with being uncomfortable What you need to know about decentralized, autonomous organizations The market imperative of lifelong learning Why selling expertise and strategy is where differentiation happens How individual discomfort gets collectivized and creates tipping points for innovation Why as individuals and organizations, we need to be disrupted in order to be our optimal selves How process automation is disrupting the work of agencies as much as any other business sector Why the way we tell stories in our business needs to evolve with the tech and platforms people use to engage with stories Why the move toward a more agile, freelance workforce in your agency is likely not a short-term trend           Ways to contact Scott Amyx: Order Strive: https://amzn.to/2yqtMGh TEDx Talk: https://youtu.be/FXoqlqpWpao Website: https://scottamyx.com/

Back in my early days of agency life, there was a production or traffic manager in every agency. Their job was to make sure all of the work was in the pipeline and delivered on time and on budget. Somewhere along the way, as agencies streamlined, that position went away. But now it’s back. And it’s making a huge difference in agencies client retention and profitability. Back then, the production manager was a combination of what we might think of today as a traffic manager and somebody who negotiated with all the outside vendors like printers or other suppliers providing a service to the agency to solve a client’s problem. The production manager kept track of all the jobs the agency had open, the due dates, who within the agency was working on them — and it was all done by hand without software. Then in the middle of my career, that position sort of went away as people within agencies started tracking their own jobs using some sort of software. Computers and systems began to replace things that humans did previously. Because of the complexity of our work today, and how fast it needs to be delivered, many agencies are discovering they need more than just software. They need a dedicated person responsible for driving how the work gets done and how it gets done on a budget. This is a vital role inside an agency and I’m glad to see it’s back. Depending on the size of your agency, this position, combined with implementing the right software, might be something you want to think about as you prepare to step into 2019. But before you do, I want to share several best practices, resources to evaluate, and a month-by-month roadmap so you and your team will know what to expect and when. Quite honestly — on-boarding this new role, especially if you add in new software, will be bumpy. It will be hard on your team. You need to think about it carefully, and if you’re ready to grow, maybe it’s the next step for you. My goal for this solocast is to help smooth out the road for you as much as possible.   What you’ll learn about in this episode: Why not having a traffic manager may be holding back your agency’s growth How to decide if and when your agency is ready to hire a traffic manager and onboard the software system The day-to-day role of a traffic manager and the impact the role can have on your agency’s profitability and client retention Why the traffic manager is a full-time position, not a hybrid, and definitely not entry-level Who the traffic manager should report to within the agency and why The personality and EQ a good traffic manager must have to handle the work and the team The advantages and disadvantages of all-in-one software solutions versus standalone What you and your team can expect to happen within the agency during each month of the implementation process and how it gets worse before it gets better The role of the agency owner throughout the process What are the success metrics you and your team need to consider before deciding to go down this path Drew McLellan is the CEO at Agency Management Institute. He has also owned and operated his own agency since 1995 and is still actively running the agency today. Drew’s unique vantage point as being both an agency owner and working with 250+ small- to mid-size agencies throughout the year gives him a unique perspective on running an agency today. AMI works with agency owners by: Leading agency owner peer groups Offering workshops for owners and their leadership teams Offering AE Bootcamps Conducting individual agency owner coaching Doing on-site consulting Offering online courses in agency new business and account service Because he works with those 250+ agencies every year — Drew has the unique opportunity to see the patterns and the habits (both good and bad) that happen over and over again. He has also written two books and been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Fortune Small Business. The Wall Street Journal called his blog “One of 10 blogs every entrepreneur should read.”        Ways to contact Drew McLellan: Email: drew@agencymanagementinstitute.com LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/drewmclellan