How to Develop Your Agency’s Leadership Pipeline

Why your leadership team is so important.

As agencies grow, there will be a need to navigate various inflection points in their evolution.  With each inflection point, the owner’s role should increasingly change from driving agency growth activity to supporting it. This generally means that the owner becomes more reliant on a growing second-tier leadership team for ongoing agency success.

Eventually, each core business function of client service, business development, talent, finance/operations and specialty services will require assigned leadership with adequate resources.

Therefore, developing a system to identify and train next-generation leaders is vital to the long-term sustainability and consistent success of every marketing and communications agency. An effective leadership pipeline delivers at least eight important benefits to the firm. (These are summarized in our previous piece on this subject which can be accessed by clicking here.)

 What it takes to develop an ongoing leadership pipeline.

 To develop a strong pipeline of senior talent, there are four fundamental components which agency owners must understand and actively support:

1.     Agency inflection points and their consequences.

2.     The talent and timing of the hires needed for sustained growth.

3.     Recruiting and/or developing the required talent.

4.     Retaining talent.

In our previous mailing, we discussed inflection points. Today, we’re covering senior talent that drives growth and will outline the skills required for leading different key functions within the agency. The other two components will be the subjects of future mailings.

Function 1/Client Service Talent – The key characteristics.

These men and women have proven their ability to manage a significant book of business and a large service team. They know how to manage complex client relationships and organically grow accounts. 

Importantly, they also:

- Provide high quality and insightful strategic input as well as sophisticated content to help their clients deal with strategic challenges.

- Drive leads to the agency through their referral networks.

- Demonstrate their ability to convert meaningful new business opportunities into wins.

- Develop IP that differentiates the firm and enhances its competitiveness.

Function 2/Business Development Talent – Knowing how to win and then keep winning.

The most successful new business people share three critically important characteristics.

First, they know how to design and manage the agency’s execution of a best-of-breed sales process including:

- Ensuring consistency of excellence from pitch to pitch… and from leader to leader.

- Developing a standard pitch process and mandatory checklist including the use of research, insight development, creative sessions, concept testing and rehearsing the presentation.

- Conducting a debrief session with the prospect after every pitch whether win, lose or draw.

- Analyzing with the team what worked (or not) and applying that to the next pitch.

Second, they’re also highly effective in designing and overseeing the execution of the agency-wide marketing plan to build the reputations of:

- The agency itself.

- The results-orientation of the agency’s approach.

- Specific practices or areas of expertise.

- The senior leadership team.

 Third, they ensure that all new business materials are always current and highly impactful including:

-  Visual identity.

-  The website and all social media platforms.

-  Capabilities, bios and case studies.

-  Other collateral.

Function 3/Talent Leader Development – The leadership skills required to attract and develop the talent you’ll need to grow your agency.

A highly proactive (vs. reactive) professional, your Talent Leader will know how to make the best impression possible for the firm in order to compete for and recruit the most talented people. Specific performance expectations will always be made clear during recruitment and at regular intervals. 

For both recruitment and retention, this leader will have a thorough (and always up-to-date) understanding of compensation programs and trends, equality and fairness, cultural values and how to communicate effectively with a diverse group of people.

Proven expertise in training and upward mobility should also be part of the required skill set including:

- Onboarding.

- Sophisticated training programs (by level).

- Overseeing a mentoring program.

- Performance reviews and talent assessments.

- The career planning and promotion process.

Function 4/Operations Talent – What it takes to keep the agency running like clockwork.

Agency owners need a senior person with strong financial, legal and operational skills to keep the agency moving forward smoothly and profitably while minimizing the inevitable bumps on the road.

As a starting point, this person must have the experience and mind-set to 1) be a useful and trusted advisor to ownership, providing an objective ear and agenda-free advice and 2) also be a collaborative partner (not a hammer) to the client service leaders.

Specific financial skills include:

- Managing a sophisticated agency planning and budgeting process.

- Oversight of the client budgeting process.

- Providing timely reports and trend analysis.

- Leading the staffing architecture including the hiring triggers.

The required legal skills include responsibility for client and freelance agreements, offer letters, agreements with strategic partners and the trademarking of key IP.

Operational skills include all aspects of facility management and overhead expenses, IT strategy and providing the needed tools and resources to staff.

Function 5/Specialty Leader Talent – Keeping your agency ahead of the pack.

The first requirement here is having the ability and experience to establish (or grow) a strong specialty presence in the first place. This person will know how to develop the right products, thought leadership and capabilities… and then persuasively communicate them to current and prospective clients.

The Specialty Leader will be a great presenter who knows how to sell, contributes strategic thinking to campaigns (not just one-off tactics) and supports the client leaders on programming and budgeting.

He/she will also know how to teach:

-Training agency staff on specialty capabilities.

- Supporting senior leaders to be knowledgeable and confident about conducting initial conversations with prospects.

- Developing and institutionalizing methodologies.

- Overseeing and mentoring project managers.

Summing it all up.

As your agency grows, you will need to rely upon your senior leadership more than ever. In fact, adding top senior talent may be a prerequisite to achieving substantial growth.

Prosper Group has deep experience in helping agencies build the infrastructure required for identifying, recruiting, developing and retaining senior leadership teams. Please contact us at any time so we can learn more about your agency and goals… and discuss how we can help you reach them.

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 is comprised of former agency leaders and owners who 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 the Services page in our website www.prospergroup.net.