How to escape the daily grind of agency ownership, with Karl Sakas

Welcome to episode 112. I’m joined by Shannyn Lee, Managing Director of Win Without Pitching ®, which is widely recognised by the creative industry as one of the best quality sales training programs because it's specifically tailored to agencies. This episode will be particularly valuable for you if your job at the agency is winning new business and you'd like to know how to do that without having to go through a costly pitch process. During our chat, Shannyn shares: - the Win Without Pitching ® principles - what it takes to circumnavigate a client's pitch process - the common sales challenges faced by agencies today - her advice for agency owners who want to stand out in the market, and lots more. Please visit the Win Without Pitching ® website (https://www.winwithoutpitching.com) to find out more about everything the company does, find which workshops are coming up. and to buy Blair Enns’ book, ‘The Win Without Pitching Manifesto’, which is practically the industry bible. You can connect with Shannyn Lee on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannyn-lee-2a32846/ If you're listening to this episode in April 2024 we are opening enrolments for our May Account Accelerator™ training for those in the agency who are responsible for existing client growth. If your job is to manage client relationships and grow your accounts, check out the details on my website: https://www.accountmanagementskills.com/account-accelerator

Welcome to episode 111. This episode will be particularly relevant for you if you're heading up the agency or you're in charge of an agency team. Alison Coward is the founder of Bracket, a consultancy that partners with ambitious, forward-thinking companies to help them build high-performing and collaborative team cultures. She is a culture strategist, workshop facilitator, coach, trainer, keynote speaker and author of “A Pocket Guide to Effective Workshops” and “Workshop Culture: a guide to building teams that thrive”. Alison shares some data backed insights, some brilliant tips and actionable strategies for high performing teams, including: - why agency teams typically end up not working well together and how to address the issues - why creating a workshop culture is a solution to better collaboration and teamwork - how to make all the meetings you have more efficient and effective - her five pillar framework for implementing a workshop culture in your agency Connect with Alison: https://linkedin.com/in/alisoncoward https://www.bracketcreative.co.uk https://www.workshopculture.co.uk https://amzn.eu/d/h4VDgST Many agency owners ask me to help their client facing team with account management. Some don't have dedicated account managers, but they still want predictable client retention and growth, a repeatable, client centric client management process as well as ultimately a competitive advantage. According to Gartner, 80% of your future profits are going to come from 20% of your existing clients. Currently, many of my programme participants are just three months in and already getting very impressive account growth results, and this is down to them being coachable and also taking action on what we're covering, with me supporting them with the implementation. So if you're in charge of a client facing team, or maybe someone in your team is responsible for account growth and could potentially benefit from upskilling and having a strategy, then check out the details of my one year Account Accelerator training and coaching programme. You can find all the details at https://www.accountmanagementskills.com

Welcome to episode 110. This episode is for you if you're an agency owner either interested in buying agencies to grow, or selling your agency at some point. It's also enlightening if you work in an agency and you want to understand the process of mergers and acquisitions. Jonathan Baker, Practice Lead in M&A at Punctuation joins me and shares a lot of tips and insights about the buying and selling process, including: - the current state of M&A and why right now might be a really good time to sell - the impact of AI on the changing agency landscape and his advice for content marketing agencies - why cultural alignment is key to a successful transaction - the criteria buyers typically use to assess an agency they might want to purchase - how concerned sellers should be about the terms of the transaction - how far you get through the transaction before bringing in a lawyer - how and when to tell your staff about the sale - why you should ask about buyer funding if you're being bought, and so much more. Jonathan has created a special webpage just for this podcast's listeners at https://www.punctuation.com/creative and through this link you can also chat to him about anything you've heard on this episode. You can also connect with on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com//in/jonathandavidbaker Many agency owners come to me for account management skills training and to help their account managers develop an entrepreneurial mindset. And ultimately, what they are looking for are three things. They want more predictable client retention and growth, which is less expensive than pitching for new business. They want to hardwire account growth into the agency's internal processes so that account growth becomes repeatable. And they're also looking for ways to future proof their agency's business and gain a competitive advantage by offering the best client value and experience. If any of this sounds of interest, we are opening enrolments later this month for my Account Accelerator programme. It's a 12 month coaching and training programme and you can find all the details on my website: https://www.accountmanagementskills.com/account-accelerator

Welcome to episode 109. My guest is Michael Farmer, a management consultant who has been looking at the agency business model for over 30 years. He's identified three burning issues for creative agencies. 1. Work is increasing in volume and yet agencies fees are declining. But because agencies aren't measuring scopes of work, they don't often realize the extent to which this is happening. 2. Agencies aren't helping clients achieve their business outcomes. Clients are paying them less and typically fire them every three years and generally treat them as order takers. 3. AI is now putting fuel on this fire and is threatening to reduce the amount of creative adaptation work that agencies do. It’s not all doom and gloom. I found this an enlightening conversation and I particularly enjoyed listening to the history of how it was before agencies priced their services by the hour. Michael talks about the problems, but he also offers solutions. I suggest you read his latest book ‘Madison Avenue Makeover’, which maps out the transformation of Huge’s business model step by step. http://linkedin.com/in/michaelfarmer If you are in an account management role or you're in charge of an agency account management team and you want to raise the value of this position, then please connect with me on LinkedIn at Jenny Plant or check out my Account Accelerator programme by visiting my website, https://www.accountmanagementskills.com.

Welcome to episode 108. Are you struggling to manage a remote agency team? If so, you're going to get a lot of value from my conversation with Gustavo Razzetti, CEO of Fearless Culture and author of ‘Remote, Not Distant’. He shared some very thought-provoking insights for agency leaders and agency teams, including • how remote working is only amplifying the positive and the negative aspects of your agency culture that were already present • how to fix the issues • how to make your remote brainstorming meetings more effective • why agencies need to strike a balance between being overly protective and having respectful friction • and how agencies celebrate individualism I'd highly recommend that you follow Gustavo on LinkedIn, go to his website where you can download some of his free resources, as well as investing in his book, ‘Remote, Not Distant’. Book Remote Not Distant: https://www.amazon.com/Remote-Not-Distant-Company-Workplace-ebook/dp/B09VXX4FN3 Blog: https://gustavorazzetti.substack.com Agency Website: https://www.fearlessculture.design Personal Website: https://gustavorazzetti.com/

Welcome to episode 107. If you’ve ever wondered if you’re pricing your services in the right way, this one is for you. Alfie Wenegieme, Managing Partner at Cactus, joins me and he shares: 1. Why agencies don’t lose pitches on price alone 2. How agencies price to ensure a healthy profit margin 3. Typical mistakes agencies make when pricing 4. And some useful tips for account managers and project managers when scoping projects If you’re listening to this episode in February 2024, I’m opening enrolments again for my Account Accelerator programme that begins on March 5th. It’s a 12 month training and coaching programme that’s specifically designed to build an entrepreneurial mindset in account management which means: • Having an effective account management and account growth process - that is understood and followed consistently by all your account managers • Having an end-to-end client growth framework (from onboarding to delivery) - so everyone knows what to do when, and you have all the templates and resources to help you implement • Having a Proactive Client Retention Strategy - so you increase the lifetime value of your ideal clients (and don’t have to keep feeding your sales pipeline) If you’d like to have a quick call with me to see if this might be a good fit for you or a member of your team, you can find all the details on my website: https://www.accountmanagementskills.com/account-accelerator

Welcome to episode 106. If you’d like to know how one agency has been using AI since 2011 to predict the future for their clients, this chat will be interesting for you. It will also be insightful if you’re curious how the agency works with their global CPG and FMCG brands. ‌Nik Pearmine, Chief Strategy Officer at Black Swan Data, and I cover a range of topics including: - his view on what it takes to be successful in account management - what he thinks is in store for the future - and whether we should be worried about AI replacing our jobs. You can get in contact with Nik via LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikolas-pearmine-138bb612/ If you’re listening to this at the beginning of 2024 and are based in the US, I wanted to let you know I’ll be running a value-packed seminar with David C Baker and Jack Skeels on 12th and 13th March in Atlanta. ‌The event is all about the account management and project management roles. I’ll be talking about the essentials of account management, how to grow an account and how account managers work with project managers. ‌David is extremely well known in the agency industry as he’s an agency advisor, the author of “The Business of Expertise” and “Secret Tradecraft of Elite Advisors” as well as co-hosting the 2Bobs podcast with Blair Enns. ‌You can find all the details and book your tickets at David’s website: https://www.punctuation.com

Welcome to episode 105, I have invited two of my most popular podcast guests back for a second time, sales trainer legends; Marcus Cauchi and Benjamin Dennehey. ‌Both have been sales trainers for years and have worked with many agencies and tech companies. They shared some golden nuggets to help you with selling your agency’s services. ‌I had to throw away the list of questions I’d prepared and let the conversation flow naturally because I wanted to capture as much of their collective sales wisdom and tips as possible. I hope you’ll enjoy the longer length of this episode and ultimately come away with some practical things you can implement in your sales process. ‌‌· An understanding of the importance of having the ability to ask superb questions during the sales conversation with a prospect. · In our chat, Marcus and Benjamin role play a conversation and hopefully you can take the principles away and model some of the language they’re using in your next sales conversation with a prospect. You can reach Marcus Cauchi on LinkedIn, via [email protected], visit his website: https://www.laughs-last.com and The Inquisitor podcast. You can reach Benjamin at https://www.uksmosthatedsalestrainer.com/ If you’d like to chat to me about selling skills for agency account managers to help you with your your existing client accounts then you can go to my website https://www.accountmanagementskills.com and find out more about how I help build an entrepreneurial mindset in account management through my training programmes.‌

Welcome to episode 104. In this episode, I talk all things agency project management with Joanne Reid, Managing Partner for delivery at Cactus. We cover: - the challenges agencies face with project management - how Joanne assesses how well an agency's project management is working - how project management differs from account management and why she recommends agencies to have both roles - the target level of annual gross profit an agency should reach before investing in both roles - her recommendations for project management tools and how to evaluate whether you have the right one for you - what skills to look for when hiring a project manager - and Jo's thoughts on future trends she's seeing in project management. Make sure you follow her on LinkedIn because she shares some really useful tips for project managers and also agency owners when it comes agency service delivery: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joanne-reid-6220744b/ If you're an agency owner or you're heading up the agency's account management team and have realised your existing clients just aren't growing, it may be time to provide the right support for your account management team to do it. I'm currently enrolling for my Account Accelerator programme that starts on 11th January 2024. It's a twelve month training and coaching programme for account managers who are responsible for account retention and growth. It's designed to build an entrepreneurial mindset and you'll come away with a proven account management and growth process, an end to end client growth framework, and a proactive client retention strategy for the agency. We already have some really self motivated senior account managers, directors and client services directors joining the programme who are often also responsible for leading a team in the agency. You can find the details of the Account Accelerator programme on my website: https://www.accountmanagementskills.com/account-accelerator

Welcome to episode 103. This episode will be particularly relevant to agency owners who want to become less hands-on in their agency and just step away from the day to day operations.  I'm chatting to Karl Sakas, an agency growth consultant in the US and author of several books, the latest of which is called Work Less and Earn More a Practical Guide for Agency Owners to help them escape the daily grind of agency ownership. Karl has spent years consulting with agency owners and leaders and, I think because he originally had an operations background, he seems to have a wonderful way of explaining useful concepts and ideas using models and frameworks which are really easy to follow.  Karl shares some practical tips, his views on agency account management and why separating the role from project management makes sense. You can reach Karl, and make use of lots of his great downloadable resources at https://sakasandcompany.com/free-resources-for-agencies/ Book link: http://worklessearnmorebook.com/ If you'd like support with upskilling your account managers, check out my Account Accelerator™ programme. It's a 12 month training and coaching programme that's specifically designed to build an entrepreneurial mindset in your account management team. https://www.accountmanagementskills.com/account-accelerator