“Finding Your Vision” Sessions: How to More Clearly See the Future for Your Agency
The importance of VISION: If you don’t know where you’re going, how will you get there?
The most successful agencies are pursuing their vision - an aspirational and measurable statement of where they want to be at some fixed point in the future. It defines what success will look like and includes a specific timetable for getting there.
For agency owners, your vision will help all your associates understand where you plan to lead the firm. This will encourage them to have confidence in you as their leader, in the stability of the business and how their careers can develop with you.
Vision creates alignment. Vision drives success. Vision matters.
Today, having a clear vision is more important than ever.
COVID-19 has caused immense turmoil and uncertainty throughout the world, especially in the marketing communications business. Agency owners have been dealing with tough internal issues such as managing a remote workforce. They (and their clients) are also facing a tsunami of digital transformation which has been far bigger, deeper and quicker than has ever been foreseen.
Now that the pandemic is finally abating (or at least one hopes), it’s time to reexamine your agency’s five-year goals. The chances are that today’s challenges, trends and competitive environment are substantially different than when you first put your plan together.
So… what’s your vision? Is it still the right one for you?
Prosper Group’s FINDING YOUR VISION sessions.
We’re working with many of our clients right now to take a fresh look at what’s here, what’s coming and the specific steps they should be taking to succeed in a world that’s so different than what we knew before.
One of the tools we’re using is our Finding Your Vision sessions. This approach:
Refocuses the agency on defining future goals.
Aligns the leadership team around those goals.
Builds consensus on the opportunities and challenges for achieving the vision.
Also facilitates agreement on how to move forward (including priorities, accountabilities, next steps and timing).
Here’s how it works.
Step 1: Diving into your business.
We begin with a kick-off call with the agency owner to understand the key issues and concerns, the relationship with (and among) the senior team and the firm’s performance to date. We then gather data from the senior team via a confidential survey, one-on-one interviews or both.
This information is then distilled into areas of agreement and also areas of disagreement for each of the agency’s growth drivers:
Mission, Vision and Values
Brand Proposition
Leadership, Talent & Organizational Structure
Business Development
Culture
Financial Management
Step 2: Presentation, discussion and achieving alignment.
We then lead the team through a group discussion of our findings for each of the areas above. Perhaps most importantly, we:
1. Work through any areas of disagreement to build consensus on how to move this thinking ahead.
2. Develop action steps for each growth driver.
The outcome.
When we’re done, you and your team will clearly understand the marketing communications world as it is today, what you need to do, how to do it and who is accountable for what.
You will have found your vision.
Don’t wait. If this sounds right for your agency, we’re ready to start at any time.
We’re here to help you prosper.
Prosper Group exists to help the owners of independent marketing communications agencies achieve their ambitions and maximize the value of their life's work.
Our team of former agency leaders and owners focus their deep experience on implementing proven proprietary methodologies across our three practices of agency performance, owner exit planning and M&A transactions in order to drive owner and agency success.
