Does Your Firm Have A Brand Story?

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Does Your Firm Have A Brand Story?

At the heart of every notable brand is a compelling brand story. This is the tale of how your firm got started, what its creators were trying to accomplish, and the difference you are trying to make in the world …

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Conducting an After Action Review

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Conducting an After Action Review

The U.S. Army has a policy of doing After Action Reviews (AAR), which take place after every training event. The Army has a saying they never want to build the same bridge twice. Professional knowledge firms should adopt that same practice at the end of every major assignment or client relationship. This is a particularly useful practice if your firm has a Chief Value Officer or Value Council …

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Positioning Your Firm Isn't Logical

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Positioning Your Firm Isn't Logical

Logic says your agency will grow faster by targeting the “general market.” But some of the largest and fastest-growing agency brands are squarely focused on a particular type of client, not every type of client …

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How a Sense of Purpose Creates a Sense of Freedom

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How a Sense of Purpose Creates a Sense of Freedom

Because most agency leaders want to create an environment in which ideas can flourish, they go out of their way to grant as much freedom to their staff as possible. Most of the time this takes the form of a relaxed workplace, a relaxed dress code, and relaxed personnel policies …

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Is Your Firm Risking Enough?

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Is Your Firm Risking Enough?

Agencies, like most businesses in today’s economy, are going to great lengths to avoid risk. It’s easy to assume that the least risky path is to pull in your horns and keep plowing forward with your current business model. This is essentially the strategy of “just try harder.” But marketing communications firms are at the nexus of the Great Recession and the Great Upheaval of Mass Marketing. Continuing on the traditional agency path is by far the greatest risk you could possibly take …

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Without Execution, Your Firm Doesn't Have A Strategy

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Without Execution, Your Firm Doesn't Have A Strategy

Executing your strategy isn’t just an important thing; it’s the only thing. Unless you actually put your initiatives into action, nothing will have been accomplished. Without execution, there is no strategy. And if you really analyze the agency landscape you’ll realize that the main difference between mediocre agencies and great ones is not vision, but execution …

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What Predicts Your Firm's Success?

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What Predicts Your Firm's Success?

Most of these financial reports are merely a summary of lagging indicators; they are like looking in the rear view mirror. They give you an understanding only of what has happened, but very little understanding of what is likely to happen in the months and years to come.

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Putting Skin In The Game

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Putting Skin In The Game

As long as agencies are compensated as vendors they will likely be regarded as vendors. The truth is, many agencies are in fact paid like regulated utilities, with clients telling them exactly how much they can earn and what their maximum profit margin can be. That’s far from the spirit of a “marketing partnership” …

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Why Marketers Favor a Change In Agency Compensation

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Why Marketers Favor a Change In Agency Compensation

It surprises most agency professionals to learn that many clients are intensely interested in exploring a value-based compensation arrangement with their agencies. A recent position paper from the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) states it clearly: “Traditional metrics used in today’s cost-plus compensation agreements (usually based on time) have no relationship with the external value created for the client in today’s intellectual capital economy. Therefore, pricing should instead be based on results and value created” …

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Creating A Firm of Believers

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Creating A Firm of Believers

Your purpose is the agency’s reason for being. Don’t confuse purpose with the typical weak, soggy “mission statements” that hang unnoticed in the lobbies of countless companies across America. Most mission statements are a mélange of hyperbole that is neither unique nor motivating. How motivated would you be by meaningless “mission statements” like these?

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