Scale Your Agency While Attracting Great Clients, Recruiting Top Talent and Driving Higher Revenue
Are you managing your agency or is your agency managing you?
As agency owner, are you stuck in the weeds of dealing with daily details and putting out fires… or relentlessly driving your firm forward? Many owners are too busy with the small stuff to see beyond next week. You don’t have to be one of them.
The most successful agencies have learned that significant, sustained growth isn’t a happy accident. Rather, it’s the result of consistently executing a well-thought-out plan designed to attract great clients who in turn attract great talent… and great talent who then attract great clients.
Today, in Part 1 of this two-part series, we’ll share an overview of the value (actually, the necessity) and core components of strategically planning for scale. Part 2 identifies the specific steps to take for long-term success and will be coming soon.
Why you need a plan for scaling your agency.
Most importantly, having this plan will position your agency for sustained growth. You’ll have a much better chance of avoiding revenue plateaus. It will also eliminate the dangerous over-reliance on too few people for agency success.
Further, this plan will ensure quality control of the client experience as the agency grows. Continuing to deliver consistently high-quality service will be vital as ownership and senior leaders move away from day-to-day details. Your plan must ensure that the entire agency understands and is fully trained in the client service delivery process.
Your plan must also ensure quality control of the talent experience including the avoidance of unnecessary attrition, proactive management of career paths and commitment to retaining your best people at all levels.
Lastly, planning will encourage and facilitate rational financial decision making across the entire organization. This will be accomplished by focusing upon the key metrics that agency leaders understand and which drive profitability.
Scaling your agency requires a strong and thriving culture.
There are three key cultural attributes which your agency will need in order to manage growth as ownership will be increasingly relying on others for success:
Becoming a learning culture to avoid the chaos which can be created all too easily by rapid growth.
Instilling accountability throughout the firm as ownership and leaders move further and further away from day-to-day operations and details.
Having a commitment to growing talent. Growth simply requires more talent.
Your growth plan should specify how these attributes will be embedded and nurtured within the agency.
Scaling your agency also requires investment to build out staffing and expertise.
Investment in infrastructure should precede significant revenue growth. Placing too much weight on a wobbly table will eventually lead to its collapse.
The client service function may require a dedicated leader to take over for ownership in managing daily activities, training staff and developing both distinctive IP and effective processes. With continued growth, at some point client service will also require revenue stream leaders supported by a team staffing architecture and management process.
Senior leadership will also be needed to build new client revenue streams based on specific issues or industries… or expanding the agency’s capabilities in disciplines such as creative or digital.
As the agency moves into more integrated campaigns, specialty positions will be needed as well including strategists and planners, creative (copywriters, art directors and designers) and project managers. Non-client business functions such as finance, operations, business development and talent management will also need to be staffed.
How to make informed decisions for when to add staff.
Even as revenue is increasing and money is available, carefully use analysis and not emotion in filling new positions. Use productivity metrics to drive these decisions (and define what is productive at each level). Rigorously apply a staff allocation process with monthly plans and weekly adjustments.
Finally, put your strategic growth plan in writing.
A written plan is critical to scaling and accountability. It eliminates guesswork and minimizes the need for interpretation throughout the agency. A carefully constructed plan will:
Identify agency opportunities and challenges.
Define the steps the agency will take to seize those opportunities and overcome obstacles to growth.
Also define and assign responsibilities and target timelines.
Identify when transformational hires are needed.
Guide investment decisions.
Provide organizational alignment.
Your plan should also include:
The agency’s approach for codifying and institutionalizing what you do including IP, methodologies, industry knowledge and proprietary products.
How you will teach staff to ensure consistent success as the agency grows (i.e. – quality control).
Building an “Agency University” to firmly ground staff in “the agency way” and also drive the leadership pipeline.
We’re here to help you prosper.
Prosper Group exists to help the owners of independent marketing and 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.
To learn more about us, please visit our Services page
