The next time a client requests a set of “deliverables,” remember that this is not the real reason your firm was hired in the first place. You were hired to deliver business and marketing outcomes. The deliverables are just a means to that end …
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Even if you have a “strategic plan,” you may not have a strategy. Creating a comprehensive 30-slide “plan” is comparably when contrasted with the critical thinking needed to craft a bona fide strategy. A plan can be (and usually is) fairly long, whereas a good strategy is short. The counterintuitive truth about business strategy is that it’s mostly about deciding what not to do …
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In today’s unbundled marketplace, it’s essential to recognize the difference between “Upstream” and “Downstream” work not only because these two different classes of work require different talent, but also different pricing. While professional buyers will attempt to turn your service offerings into apples-to-apples comparisons, remember that the job of the seller (that’s you) is to consciously and continually identify and separate different classes of value and sell, price, and deliver them accordingly …
If it feels like you’re in an unrelenting race for new business, competing against agencies offering similar services in a similar way, there’s an easy way out: stop offering similar services. If you shake off the self-imposed shackles of “high utilization,” you give permission to your team to develop their ideas for services and products that can fill the unmet needs of clients. You can fly in the blue skies where no one else is flying …
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To thrive in a world where seemingly everyone is competition, trade the energy you put into matching competitive offerings for a more single-minded business strategy focused on differentiated, inimitable solution sets. A black box will smash a white box every time …
If you’re like most agencies and other professional firms, you’re likely missing a critical component in the model upon which you have built your business. Here's why having a cost structure is not the same as having a revenue model …
When a talented ad agency transforms the global reputation of a brand through a brilliant marketing program based on unique customer insights, that’s an example of the kind of high-value problem solving professional firms get hired for in the first place. It’s the kind of “magic” that characterizes knowledge work, creative thinking, and professional expertise …
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If your firm uses the term “full service” on its website, here are two good reasons you should stop. First, “full service” is one of the phrases that has officially joined the lexicon of expressions so overused they’ve lost their meaning. And second, because it does absolutely nothing to differentiate your firm from the thousands of others who make the same claim …
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If there's more money being If there’s more money being spent in marketing than ever before, why is average agency income (and agency profit) declining? Let’s count the ways...
If every agency in America is a “full-service, integrated marketing communications firm” (like they say they are), why do clients chronically complain about the lack of integration from their agencies? Unfortunately, just because agencies have a long list of disciplines doesn’t mean they have the discipline to make them all work together. It’s more likely they have sewn together a Frankenstein that is less, not more, than the sum of its parts …
What are the key criteria you use when looking for prospective clients? More importantly, what criteria are your key prospects using when they’re looking for you? All too often, agencies default to the same criteria almost all other (unfocused) agencies use, which is usually some combination of “Do they have money?,” “Do we like these guys?,” and “Will they let us do good work?” All fine, but this is a woefully unfocused definition of a target client …
What exactly constitutes success in context of a professional services business like an advertising agency? Should success be defined exclusively in financial terms? Is it more about reputation and recognition? This topic actually produces some heated debates in the hallways of agencies across the globe. Creatives insist that being recognized for brilliant work is by far the most important metric of success. Account types counter that while awards are good and desirable, they don’t pay the bills. Both arguments are right, of course, but determining a winner requires viewing the question through a different lens …
I once heard the ECD of one of America’s most respected agencies say, “If you get the structure right, everything else will take care of itself.” The more I think about it, the more I think he’s right.
Are you “Agency of Record” for most of your clients? Some of your clients? Any of your clients? You might have answered this question differently a few years ago, but today the vast majority of agencies today provide just a few types of service for their clients. They may have a “full service” offering but they don’t have the “full service” clients to match …
Most businesses start out with a fairly simple business model. As time goes on, they add new services and capabilities and extend out to new markets. Some of this diversification is strategic and deliberate, but most of the time companies start sprawling in ways they never intended …