How to Grow Business Organically

New business gets attention. It’s obvious when you win and depending on the size, it can lead to getting press coverage. But, in a lot of cases, organic growth can have a bigger impact on the agency. Organic growth is a testament to the strength of the existing client relationship and validates their satisfaction with the agency’s performance. But getting organic business can be tricky. Below is an overview of organic growth and 10 keys to acquiring organic business:

What is organic growth?

Organic growth is any business that is added to an existing account. It can come in many different forms – adding a different line of business, a new channel (e.g., website or CRM) or department (e.g., media or production). It varies in size and effort.

10 Keys to Acquiring Organic Growth

  1. Create a Strong Foundation.

It starts with a solid foundation. If you don’t have it, the chance of growth is extremely low. The team has to be delivering strong work and have a solid client relationship to grow.

2. Share Capabilities.

Make sure clients know the full breadth and depth of the agency’s offering. In a lot of cases, clients don’t realize you have experience and capabilities outside of what you do for them. You need to be proactive and weave these additional core competencies into your day-to-day discussions with clients.

3. Share Latest Agency News.

It’s human nature to want to work with companies that are trending upwards. Companies that are doing well and are growing. Make sure to share regularly your agency news, such as client wins, new and relevant case studies, and new initiatives that the client might be interested in. A couple of ways to do this is through a monthly agency email that is specifically for clients and agency leadership check-ins with the client.

4. Understand the Client’s Entire Business.

Led by the client service team, develop a strong understanding of the client’s entire business, including outside of the business that you currently work on. What are their pain points? How is their relationship with other partners? What are their future objectives? What other service lines could use more support? The key is listening to help identify the opportunity.

5. Develop an Action Plan.

Based on what you’ve learned, develop an action plan that leverages what you’ve learned. This action plan is to include what you are trying to solve, potential solution(s), resources and effort needed, and potential timing. This is the framework that sets the stage for creating a custom solution.

From an agency standpoint, it’s helpful to challenge all client leaders to do this yearly, potentially including in annual planning.

6. Go for the Ask.

Asking for new opportunities can be awkward. Timing is critical. It helps when you are coming off something positive such as a great meeting. Must convey you have a solution to one of their problems, that it won’t interfere with the work that you are currently doing for the client and ask to be able to share your thoughts.

7. Develop Solution.

Organic growth can put your reputation at risk if you don’t develop a strong solution. It’s opening the door to other team members/resources that don’t work on the business today. Team leads must be confident that these additional resources are good, would be a great fit with this client and have the ability to continue the momentum that is already established.

Once you seed the idea and the client is open to hearing more, the next step is developing the solution. The solution should be grounded in:

  • Addressing the pain point/opportunity previously discussed.
  • Knowledge of the business as you know their business better than anyone.
  • Share the efficiencies that can be gained by acquiring more business.
  • Reassure clients it won’t hurt the existing business.

8. Share Solution.

Determine when it’s appropriate to discuss the solution with the client. This could be when you’re planning for the upcoming year. Usually, it’s best to have the existing leader of the team be the key figure in the presentation, supported by the leader of the business that is trying to be added. For example, if you are trying to grow by adding internal studio production work, you would have your client leader and the production lead be the central figures in the presentation.

9. The Journey.

Hopefully, you made a solid impression. Most likely the journey to get organic growth doesn’t end here. There are probably future steps like presentations with other clients or potentially the client deciding to create a formal pitch. The key is to continue to strengthen your solution as the client gets closer to awarding you the business.

10. Seamless Onboarding.

The onboarding process should be simpler than new business since you already know so much about the client. The leader of the business that is being added (e.g., in the example above would be the production leader) is to spearhead the onboarding process. The account leader should be kept informed of progress, help establish relationships, ensure the efficiencies are taking place, and doesn’t negatively impact the existing business.

And don’t forget to celebrate the win. Although not as glamorous as a traditional new business win, a lot of work goes into organic growth and the opportunity can be the same. So it should be celebrated the same. Good luck!

If you have any questions on organic growth or need any support, please feel free to contact brianphelps10@gmail.com

The Secret Sauce of New Business

New business is hard. It is grueling, fast-paced and most likely the odds are stacked against you. You’re going to exude a ton of effort. Depending on the size of the pitch, you are probably competing against multiple agencies, potentially the best in the business. And to make matters worse, you probably have to agree to tough terms to even be in the pitch, which could include signing off the rights to your work. It’s a harsh reality of today’s world of new business.

If you are fortunate to have clients coming directly to you in the absence of a pitch, it’s truly a great thing. Or your client roster is maxed out and don’t need more business. But for everyone else, pitching to gain new business is a necessary evil.

After competing in numerous pitches and winning several, my new business secret sauce has three components:

  • Passion: must show at every step along the journey how much you want to win. You must have max effort even on the smallest details.
  • Relationship: pitches are an artificial experience. It’s hard to build a real relationship but clients need to get a sense of what it’s like working with you – your team and the agency culture.
  • Solution: what is your unique solution that is memorable, breakthrough and addresses the main ask of the pitch.

With these core areas top of mind, below are the 10 keys to winning a pitch:

All In

This might sound pretty obvious but once you decide to enter the pitch, you have to give 100% effort if there is any chance of winning. If you continue to debate participating, then don’t bother. You won’t put the effort needed and you will lose.

Exceed Expectations at Every Stage

Pitches have several stages. The goal is to exceed client expectations at every stage. You need to leave a great indelible impression. Much too often agencies can “top out” early in the process, which pretty much dooms your chances. It’s better to be good early and awesome later. The stages to getting to winning usually goes like this:

  • Prospecting
  • Credentials
  • Written response
  • Q&A
  • Client check-in (potentially)
  • Stand up
  • Q&A
  • Follow up
  • Negotiate
  • Win & Onboard

Superior Response Team

The backbone of new business is the response team. These are team members that live, breath and sleep new business. They move fast, have a breadth of knowledge, extremely detailed oriented, include solid business writers and keep the machine on its right path. Identifying a primary team member that will oversee the pitch is also critical.

Research like Crazy

Having insights along the journey is crucial. Who are the clients? What makes them tick? What are their passion areas? Where does the brand fall compared to their competitors? The more insights you have the better as you can choose when to tap into them.

Determine Why Business is up for Review?

One component of research is to gain a great understanding of the real reason the business is up for review. You must get to the core reason, which usually falls within relationship, creative, or financials:

  • Souring of relationship with current agency
  • Previous agency perceived as too expensive
  • Struggling with the creative output
  • Client management change

Once you figure this out, you can play into it and drive home that it is actually one of your agency’s strengths.

100% focus on their Business

It’s easy to talk about yourself. It takes less time since the content is already created and some just like talking about themselves. But if you’ve made it passed the credentials stage of the pitch, clients don’t want to hear about you. They want to hear how you are going to help them.

Dynamic Pitch team

Probably the most important area is the pitch team. It makes or breaks a pitch. Having strong, qualified, knowledgeable team members who are strong presenters. One component that is overlooked sometimes is the balance of leadership and the actual team that will work on the business. The old bait and switch (having a pitch team who then never works on the business) is not viewed positively by clients. A transparent discussion should be had about every potential pitcher and discuss strengths and weaknesses to get at the strongest team.

Solution

What is the unique idea or solution, which is translated through breakthrough creative. It must be memorable, be on brand and have a clear POV. It’s good to have some variation but needs to ladder back to the primary idea or it looks like you don’t stand for anything.

Negotiate with Confidence

It’s a great sign that you have advanced to this stage. Chances are they are doing the dance with another competitor so not completely out of the woods. This is where a really good finance person is really important. You’ve spent a lot of work to get to this point. Stand confident with your proposal and negotiate to get what you think is in the best interest of your agency.

Thorough Onboarding Plan

Now the real work begins. Onboardings are awkward. They involve the incumbent agency usually and you are still getting to know the clients. Clients want to be reassured that it’s not going to be extremely painful flipping the switch to work with you. It’s usually best to acknowledge the awkwardness and dive into utilizing a proven onboarding architecture that is grounded on a proven process, speed, and thoroughness.

Lastly, try to carve out some fun. New business can lead to some of the most memorable parts of your career. And if you win, it can have a huge impact on your entire agency – from financials to agency culture. Good luck.

If you would like to know more or have any new business questions, please email: brianphelps10@gmail.com.

Agency Operations: Top 10 Keys to Success

As a follow up to the Agency Operations Overview article, below are 10 keys to success to effective agency operations:

Grounded in Efficiencies

The whole point of operations is to increase efficiencies. This is the north star. Anything that doesn’t help improve productivity and efficiencies is wasteful. Efficiencies ranges from increasing the profitability of the agency/projects, improve the speed of projects, and decreasing the overall pain of getting work done by eliminating inefficiencies and thereby improving overall agency morale.

Openness to Change

Change is hard. There can be a natural resistance to it for many reasons from just an overall preference to rely on what is been done in the past, change-averse, feelings, perceived as difficult and/or just don’t want to invest the time. But to be successful, there needs to be a full team openness to try to change/improve – from leadership to the overall agency. Without this openness, you won’t reach full potential.

Create an Operations Plan

A thorough plan is needed to tackle operations. I compare it to a business plan that’s created for starting a new business. It starts with:

  • Objectives: what are realistic measurable goals you want to achieve. It could be project speed, financially, morale, etc.
  • SWOT Analysis: do an analysis of the current state of operations – what’s working and why, what’s not, etc.
  • Financials: include a financial analysis of the investment today and budget moving forward.
  • Stakeholders: identify the key team members involved. From primary (core team) to secondary (influencers).
  • Timing: identify how long you have to accomplish.
  • Recommendations: the solutions that address the current weaknesses and threats identified in the SWOT analysis.

Don’t Over Complicate

Much too often unfortunately operations gets in the way rather than helping. For some reason there is an inherent tendency to over complicate – whether it’s to justify a person’s position, a control issue, lack of understanding of the value of operations or just the enjoyment of inflicting pain (ha), but not sure. This view is counter to improving operations.

Don’t recreate the wheel

If something has worked in the past and it’s still the best way to do it, stick with it. There is no need to solve something that doesn’t need to be solved.

Be on the Pulse

Our space changes constantly from new tools and technologies launching to new features being introduced. Continuously monitor so that you can incorporate the latest into your operations plan.

Create a Rock Star Task Force

Must be led by team members that have a true passion for wanting to help and be representative of the collective agency. The best route is having a representative from the five groups (strategy, media, account, creative and production). The more diverse the better. Identify one point person that helps organize and helps ensure progress is being made. Remember, most likely this isn’t their primary job, so need to use their time as efficiently as possible.

Have a Continuous Improvement Mindset

Everything can get better. Nothing is perfect. This approach is helpful when approaching operations. Once an operations enhancement is made, monitor it. Get feedback from those that are involved in using it on a day-to-day basis. Always be looking to improve it.

Training, Training, Training

Much too often the launch and leave mantra happens in our space. This includes operations. Once an operations foundation is established, there is a huge need to educate the expanded team on how to use it. Given the workforce is always changing, a reoccurring training program is best. Make sure to ground it in the value for them when launching new changes.

Have Fun Along the Way

Operations isn’t glamorous. It doesn’t win awards. But it can drastically help improve the overall agency – from morale to profitability. Make sure to carve out time to celebrate the wins.

If you or someone you know is looking for operations support, feel free to reach out at: brianphelps10@gmail.com.

Agency Operations: Overview

Overview: Operations is a personal passion of mine. I’m not sure if it’s due to starting in engineering before switching to marketing early in my career. Or maybe it’s due to living in the automotive capital and learning about the assembly line (patented in 1901 by Ransom Olds; first moving assembly line for the Ford Model T in 1913) at a young age. But I have always enjoyed mapping out the optimal way to do something and then working on continuously improving it. I take this mantra when framing up agency operations.

To some, agency operations sounds like a vague term and doesn’t feel like a real thing. One challenge is that it doesn’t neatly fall within one of the primary five agency departments: strategy, creative, account, media, and production. But agency operations are truly key and should be engrained within the agency culture.

Below are my thoughts on why operations matter and its key components:

Why Agency Operations:

The importance of operations continues to grow, driven by:

  • Financials: client budgets continue to decrease while having increasing expectations for efficiencies and discounts.
  • Competition: the amount of competitors continues to increase with consultants, specialized agencies and in-house agencies growing in popularity.
  • Projects: continued decrease use of the AOR model with more clients choosing to do project work and jump balls.
  • Speed: the space has always required agencies to move quickly but the growth of real-time communication it’s even more important.

What are the Benefits:

Operations should increase “efficiencies”. The value can be seen in several forms – increasing the profitability of the agency / projects, improve the speed of projects, and decreasing the overall pain of getting work done by eliminating inefficiencies and thereby improving overall agency morale.

Who is responsible for Agency Operations:

It really should be a shared responsibility across the entire agency. But without a dedicated focus of having a team oversee, it can fall through the cracks. Some agencies dedicate a separate group, usually laddering up from within production or account groups. Having a non-biased lead that is focused on what’s best for the agency will have best results.

What makes up Agency Operations:

Below is what I feel are the primary components of agency operations:

  • Processes: Documenting how the work actually gets done. This includes reviewing the existing workflows by channel and capturing the process. Once defined, collaborate and determine if there are ways to improve. Then ensure that the process is top of mind for team members and embedded into the training curriculum for the agency.
  • Tools and Technology: Analysis of each tool and technology that is being used within the agency. This is wide-ranging including internal and external tools: routing, copy edit, and communication tools to servers, team computers, and asset sharing technology. Need to evaluate if they are helping the team as much as possible, understand the competitive set to see if other options are better and stay abreast of the latest updates/new functionality of the existing tools and technology.
  • Resource Management: this area overlaps with human resources and finance and includes:
    • Organizational structure: Is the way the agency is structured preventing it to be as efficient as possible. How can it be improved?
    • Financial modeling: project analysis that reviews the volume of resources used and effectiveness.
    • Training: What is being done to help existing workforce continuously improve.
    • Analysis of existing employees: A transparent review of the current workforce through the lens of operations. Do they have an operations mindset?
  • Infrastructure: This includes the physical space of the agency – from the building itself to the employee work stations and even bathrooms.

So that’s a high level overview of operations. Next up is what are they key learnings of doing agency operations.

If you or someone you know is looking for operations support, feel free to reach out at brianphelps10@gmail.com.

Disney and Comic-Con Chicago

DISNEY+

Disney is on fire. They have owned the box office for the last couple years, with 2018 worldwide sales being $7 billion. This year sales are expected to be higher thanks to an amazing lineup featuring Captain Marvel, Avengers Endgame, Aladdin, Toy Story 4, The Lion King and later this year Frozen 2 and Star Wars IX.

Building on that momentum, on November 12, Disney+ launches, which will rock the streaming world as we know it. Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, Nat Geo and Pixar programming will now be centrally located within this streaming service. At D23 (the official Disney Fan Club and named after 1923, the year Walt Disney founded the company) the stars came out and discussed the launch. A ton of new content is coming: Star Wars spinoff the Mandalorian, Marvel She-Hulk, Marvel Moon Knight, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, WandaVision, Loki, and What If?, live action Lady and the Tramp and Obi-Wan TV series are just a few highlights. And more to come….

Comic-Con Chicago

On the heels of Disney+ convention was Comic-Con Chicago last week as well, which I had the pleasure of attending. Disney+ was a hot topic given the Marvel connection. Stars came straight from Disney23 convention like Jeff Goldblum. He’s launching a new series on Disney+ called The World According to Jeff Goldblum. Comic creators, like Mike Watson, speculated on the impact of the move to Disney and where the Marvel franchise is going coming off the Marvels EndGame. Several theorized that women heroes will become the primary focus like the Captain Marvel movie. Another hot topic was what the impact will be to Spiderman, with Sony (Spider Man rights holder) and Disney supposedly not getting along. The concern is Spiderman not being in future Marvel films. I assume money wins and they will figure out a solution.

Given that this was my first Comic-Con, I wasn’t sure what to expect. But it was actually a lot better than what I was envisioning, with the highlight being Zachary Levi, most recently the star of Shazam. He had an open ended, fan Q&A session where nothing was off limits. He touched on being typecast from the Chuck series, how he loves the Shazam role (being able to play a 14-year old kid who turns into a super hero), to his struggles in his personal life. At one point he got choked up and was very genuine. The audience appreciated his openness.

If you have debated attending a Comic-Con, I’d recommend going. Chicago is smaller than the main one in San Diego but still a ton to do – talented artists with amazing illustrations, anything and everything comic related for purchase to Q&A, trivia and meet and great of celebrities – from Rookie of the Year to WWE wrestlers, to this one having John Travolta (ha).

Some topics and stars don’t have a natural tie in to “comics” but just shows you how this comics are no longer just a niche, it has truly crossed over to mainstream. And here to stay.

Impact on our Space

The importance of Disney will only grow as they become bigger streaming content creators. If there is anyone who knows how to do content, it’s Disney so I am fully confident they will be successful. The impact to Netflix is already ongoing, losing several series that were unique to Netflix. And their stock price is trending down as of the last several months. It will be interesting to see their response as well as consumers – will people now pay for both, drop Netflix for Disney+. It will especially be interesting to watch what parents do as Disney+ is not going to have programming higher than PG-13. Also, the impact to ESPN+ and Hulu connections all being figured out as well.

As the streaming space continues to become more and more fragmented (Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and now Disney+) and still some favoring traditional cable, what is the breaking point?

Top 8 Learnings of Working Remotely

I’ve turned into a coffee drinker (if you consider hot skinny venti vanilla lattes coffee….). I never thought it would happen. But working remotely, bouncing from client to client, I find myself working out of coffee shops, mostly Starbucks, and drinking coffee.

And I’m not alone. The amount of people working remotely is higher than ever before. One major factor is the “gig economy”, defined as a labor market characterized by the prevalence of short-term contracts or freelance work as opposed to permanent jobs. Intuit predicts that by next year, 43% of the American workforce will be attributed to the gig economy.

The benefits of working out of coffee shops are high, including the noise helping be more creative, escaping day-to-day distractions being able to focus more, and the rub off effect of seeing others there working hard.

So now being a coffee aficionado and spending a lot of time at Starbucks, below are my top 8 learnings:

Store Layout

Just like types of drinks, there are a ton of different store layouts. Seems like every location is just a little different, which is a good thing. Explore to find which one you prefer best (large/small/narrow, etc.). Given the diversity, I like to rotate between different locations.

Use the App

The Starbucks app is fantastic. As a loyalty member, you get free drinks/food once you hit a certain threshold. It also helps speed up the ordering process. I haven’t attempted to use the pre-order functionality, preferring to order from a human.

Dress Warm

Even in the summer, plan to bring a sweatshirt. They kick up the air conditioner, which they say is due to helping prevent the employees from getting overheated. Be prepared.

Comfortable Seating

All about personal preference but most have several different options for what type of seat/table to work in. The key is finding one that you like as you’ll be there for awhile. Really nice are the tall bar seating along the window.

Power Up

Another key is finding a great location that is near power cords. Kind of amazing that more table locations don’t have accessibility to outlets.

Stretch

Make sure to walk around and stretch your legs. Don’t recommend longer than about four hours at one time.

No Conference Calls

Don’t be that person. If you need to take or make a call, go outside. Or go sit in your car. No one wants to hear your conference call.

People

You never know who you will run into. A lot of great people work there. Able to choose to converse with others or tune out with ear buds.

Yesterday at a local Starbucks while waiting for a client meeting to start, I looked up and someone was talking to me, saying “Yea, I’m homeless“. Not sure what to say to that, just uttered ok. Obviously down on her luck. Ended up getting a gift card that said “You’re Awesome” and then had an employee give it to her after as I left. Hopefully it helped make her day a little better.

So each day is different. Different environments. Different experiences. Enjoy!

Are You Ready for Some….AI?

Football is upon us. And if you are like me and are one of the over 40 million+ people who have a fantasy football team(s), it’s draft time. So you are probably prepping for your upcoming draft. No matter how you prepare, you’re probably tapping into AI to help aid your selections.

Artificial intelligence is now engrained in fantasy sports. An example is last year’s ESPN and IBM Watson partnership. More and more fantasy sites are following suit. From predicting boom/bust to player and weekly scoring, artificial intelligence is improving the accuracy of predictions.

AI is also used to create those weekly recaps that are customized content that reviews how your team performed that previous week. It is amazingly detailed, to the point you would think a writer creating them.

So good luck this year. And just know you are leveraging AI every week to beat your peers.

Developing a Client Portfolio Strategy

All clients are important. They should be made a priority, respected and given 100% effort to help them solve their business problem(s).

Each client is different. Maybe they’re focused on consumer communications. Or B2B. Maybe they’re looking for more strategic help or creative or having a production focus. Some have smaller budgets and some larger. Some are focused on blocking and tackling deliverables and some on winning awards. Much too often a one size fits all treatment is used by agencies. The agency solution must be customized to each client’s needs. These differences should be a consideration when building and managing an agency.

Another consideration is diversification. In today’s climate, the importance of diversifying continues to grow. With the average client relationship lengths decreasing, in-house studios growing and total budgets shrinking, having a diverse client set of clients to mitigate the risk of loss is important.

One way to view diversification is by looking at the agency client roster as a portfolio, just like the stock market. We all took an introductory finance class that talked about putting stocks into four categories:

The same approach can be used for analyzing your client roster: 

  • STARS: established clients that want/expect award-winning, breakthrough work. Ability to create great work to propel them upwards.
  • COWS: stable clients that have a large volume of work, potentially needing blocking/tackling support and where the ability to do breakthrough work is less common. They are a known brand and are of good size.
  • QUESTION MARKS: less established clients that with breakthrough work, could springboard their business to become well-known. 
  • DOGS:  hopefully you don’t have any of these but it could be a relationship that is trending the wrong way. Or there aren’t a lot of opportunities.

So to develop a client portfolio strategy:

  1. For each client, determine which bucket they fit into. Be transparent/realistic.
  2. Once done, look at how diversified your offering is as across the total agency. 
  3. Determine where there are gaps (in general, it’s good to have a few in each of the main three categories).

This strategy can help you manage your resources and agency effort, as well as when tied in with your new business strategy, help identify areas of growth.

So, what does your agency’s client portfolio look like? 

For more marketing thoughts, please see my blog at: brianphelpsconsulting.com/passion

Are you a “Specialist” or a “Hybrid”?

We have been trained to think we must be specialized in something. To focus all our energies. Because the belief is, to excel you must have a singular focus. Even at a young age. Look at athletics. Kids are told to choose a sport rather than enjoy multiple. 100% focus on baseball rather than enjoying other sports like football, tennis, and soccer. Or to specialize in one instrument rather than experiencing and enjoying a range of instruments.

The same is true in the workplace. Are you an account person or strategist? Business or creative? Art director or writer? So that the goal is you can do that function over and over again and excel at it through repetition. And thereby make more money.

Well, it’s a myth. Empirical evidence shows that “hybrids” or “generalists” (a term that itself is poor, giving the feeling you are an expert in nothing) are stronger, better for organizations, and will be more successful. They’re more creative, more agile, and able to make connections their more specialized peers can’t see. 

A great new book and one on the #1 on the New York Times Best Seller’s list dives deep into the power of hybrids, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, and details the inaccurate stereotypes. 

Taking it a step further, with AI and the power of machines, specialists will be replaced by automation, making the need to have deep generalists only continuing to increase.

We are starting to see the growth of hybrids being recognized as a positive in the advertising industry. One tangible example is the “growth” of Chief Growth Officer. Adweek recently discussed this role, as the name implies, to drive growth—but in ways that serve internal functions (build cross-functional teams) and external (keeping an eye on customer demand; what does the consumer want from us?).

As you probably can tell I am a big fan of hybrids. I’m a little biased as I consider myself a hybrid, having played different roles throughout my career – from account to operations, new business, and strategy. Knowing and excelling in a wide range of areas, in my opinion, is critical to having a successful team, especially in a leadership position. This way you understand what it takes and you should have more empathy towards the team members who do the work.

However, I’m not completely dismissing the role of specialists. I think they have value, with the key being developing a ratio/balance of hybrids and specialists for the greatest success. For example, 70% hybrid with 30% specializing in specific tasks, like SEO, etc.

From an efficiency standpoint, it’s also better having one person that is can do more topics rather than having to pay for several people.

So the questions for you is: are you a specialist or hybrid? Do you agree in the power hybrids? And what is the ratio across your team?

Check out more business thoughts at: brianphelpsconsulting.com/passion