Productivity means profitability. One of the key ways to boost your productivity is to hone in on your systems and processes to get things done faster and more efficiently without bottlenecking your creative process.
This week, we’re chatting with Michelle LaBrosse, a systems and processes expert, about how agency owners, teams, and even clients can work together to be faster and get projects done in as little as two weeks.
Sound too good to be true? It won’t after the hour is up.
Michelle has been perfecting agency systems and processes for decades, and her methodology has become standard practice for many. Her tips and tools for boosting productivity and project efficiency will leave you wondering why you haven’t adopted these systems and processes sooner.
A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev, or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here.
What You Will Learn in This Episode:
- Breaking deliverables and projects into 2-week deadlines
- Getting everyone on the same page about what “done” means
- How having more systems and processes can aid creativity
- How to get the client on board with your process
- Getting away from overcomplicated systems and processes
- The process behind creating simple processes
- Making tools fit the workflow, not the other way around
- How agency owners and leaders can respect new systems and processes
- Owning your distraction issues that stifle productivity
Many agency owners want to see 20% growth (or more) year over year while staying profitable. This goal isn’t entirely unrealistic, but the bigger you get, the harder it is to maintain such impressive numbers if you’re not investing resources in the right things to support that growth.
For this week’s solocast, I have some homework for you to do to help you see if you’re prepared to meet your growth goals in 2024. Don’t worry; we will do it together while I walk you through how to crunch the numbers step-by-step.
If you want to follow along, grab your P&L statement and our growth goal worksheet linked below, and get ready to do some math. By the end of this episode, you’ll have a much clearer picture of where your agency is at financially and what level of growth you can support next year based on the numbers we calculate today.
For 30+ years, Drew McLellan has been in the advertising industry. He started his career at Y&R, worked in boutique-sized agencies, and then started his own (which he still owns and runs) agency in 1995. Additionally, Drew owns and leads the Agency Management Institute, which advises hundreds of small to mid-sized agencies on how to grow their agency and its profitability through agency owner peer groups, consulting, coaching, workshops and more.
A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev, or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here.
In This Episode:
- The basics of staying at 20% profit while doubling in size
- The mistakes we often make when setting end-of-year growth goals
- How to set a healthy growth goal based on your agency stats
- Why attrition affects your growth goal, and how much
- Emphasizing the role AEs play in growing clients
- What your agency needs if you plan to grow more than 15% year over year
- Which tough decisions agency owners need to make to hit growth goals
- The importance of niching down to boost growth
One of the most common questions we still receive is about how to decouple yourself from the day-to-day grind of agency life and finally get to focus on being an agency owner. Many of us became accidental entrepreneurs and owners, and now that we have teams to lead, it can be hard to stop doing the old work that got us started on this journey.
This week, Lien De Pau is giving us a roadmap for successfully decoupling ourselves from the daily grind so we can start focusing on biz dev, sales, admin, and other tasks that often get put on the back burner in favor of things that we could easily delegate or outsource.
The key to growing (and eventually selling) an agency is to get out of your own way and become irrelevant to the business. Join us to learn how to start advocating for your own success as an agency owner and get out of the daily grind holding your agency back from reaching its peak potential.
A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev, or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here.
What You Will Learn in This Episode:
- The mindset work that begins the process of removing yourself from the day-to-day
- Hiring out your weaknesses to others
- Letting go of your ego getting in the way
- The 5-step roadmap to decouple yourself from the agency
- How creative agency owners can productize their services to facilitate SOPs
- The roadblocks agency owners face when stepping away from the day-to-day
- Acting like an entrepreneur vs. an employee
- Leveling up as an entrepreneur
- How agency growth is linked to your success in the decoupling process
Shifting agency culture has been a huge point of contention for many agency owners since the beginning of the pandemic. For some, it’s brought a lot of challenges in understanding how we can work as a team while being scattered around, while others have embraced the changes and have tried to adapt the best they can.
However, it can still be challenging to fully adapt to how quickly agency life has changed in just a few years. Our guest today, Gustavo Razzetti, has one simple message for us — it’s time to accept that agency life as we know it has changed forever, and we need to figure out what that means for us and our teams.
Agency culture may never be the same, but we shouldn’t be less successful because of it. Join us in listening to our discussion about creating an effective agency culture for you and your team, whether hybrid, remote, or trying to figure out something entirely new. There is no one-size-fits-all approach, but we can at least help get the wheels spinning so you can figure out where to begin.
A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev, or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here.
What You Will Learn in This Episode:
- Why agency culture is so important today compared to in past decades
- Creating a workplace culture that makes people want to work there AND stay
- Welcoming communication and collaboration in remote or hybrid teams
- Getting a facilitator involved in agency culture shifts
- Trialing new ideas and work strategies before fully committing
- Workplace trends that are coming, and what’s here to stay
- Why the 9-5 is dead, but the 4-day work week isn’t the solution
- Flexibility goes both ways
- Helping clients overcome common remote workplace challenges
- Involving employees in problem-solving earlier in the process
- How owners and leaders can create a strong agency culture in a new modern work environment
No matter how experienced you are, everyone gets nervous before getting up in front of a room full of people to speak. The adrenaline starts pumping, and you start doubting yourself and your ideas a little bit. It’s a universal experience we’ve all felt at least once in our lives.
Michael Weiss is here to teach us that giving presentations doesn’t have to be the stressful, nerve-wracking experience we often make it out to be. When you boil it down, it’s just an exchange of ideas you’re gifting to your audience. And with enough rehearsal and understanding of your speaking style, it can be engaging and fun, too.
If you have a sales pitch, an important client presentation, or even a big presentation on stage at a conference coming up, be sure to refer back to this episode to learn professional strategies for how to deliver an informative presentation while keeping your audience engaged and interested.
A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev, or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here.
What You Will Learn in This Episode:
- Helping people recognize they’ve earned the right to be on stage
- Understanding that the audience wants you to succeed
- Why you must always rehearse before presentations, and for how long
- Getting more comfortable with rehearsing presentations
- How agency leaders can set great examples for the team with presentations
- Finding a groove when presenting with multiple speakers
- Honoring your speaking style and giving engaging presentations
- How to have brilliant and clear slide decks
- Reading the audience and keeping them engaged