One of my biggest challenges as a business owner has been striking the right balance of planning and doing.
Too much planning means you never get around to the tasks that move your agency forward.
Too little planning generally leads to chaos that might work for a time but often leaves your team, clients, and prospects confused — or worse.
As many of us inevitably take time this summer to do some thinking about the future, and perhaps some planning, it’s a good time to keep this vital balance in mind.
I’ll explain more from my own experiences later in this week’s newsletter, but first let’s take a look at what Jen has rounded up for us this week.
— Chip Griffin, SAGA Founder
Weekly Roundup
Below are some articles, blog posts, podcasts, and videos that we came across during the past week or so that provide useful perspective and information for PR and marketing agency owners. While we don’t necessarily endorse all of the views expressed in these links, we think they are worth your time.
— Jen Griffin, SAGA Community Manager
Latest from SAGA
- How to handle unsolicited agency acquisition emails (Agency Leadership Podcast)
Articles & Blog Posts
- Stop Trying to Differentiate Your Agency (The Sutter Company)
- What you don’t see on your competitor’s website (Sakas and Company)
- Extinction. Preventable. (RSW/US)
- The Five Moments of Need (From Wine Newbie to… Slightly Less Newbie) (Spin Sucks)
- Repeating Yourself as an Expert (Punctuation)
- Celebrate Your Independence | Why Indie Agencies Are Winning Big (Bureau of Digital)
- Stop fixing things (Anchor Advisors)
Podcast Episodes
- Why the PESO Model© Still Wins in the Age of Zero Click and Zero Share (Spin Sucks)
- Dealing With Today’s Employee (2Bobs)
- Evolving PR in a Noisy World, with Jennifer Kaplan (The Innovative Agency)
- Going from Solo Consultant to Firm Builder, with Michael Zipursky (The Agency Profit Podcast)
- Jamie Brindle – From Freelancer to Entrelancer: Building a Business That Scales (Agency Bytes)
- Is Internal Communication Failing? (For Immediate Release)
- Karl Sakas on Scaling Smart and Reclaiming Your Time (The Digital Agency Growth Podcast)
Video
AI in focus
- Creative Commons Proposes an AI Copyright Solution (For Immediate Release)
Find the right balance between planning and doing
Throughout my time as an entrepreneur I have had a tendency to veer between too much planning and too much doing.
It has been easy for me to get caught up in researching, gathering data, exploring new technologies, studying the competition, and putting together lengthy documents with detailed action plans.
At the same time, I have sometimes swung in the opposite direction and gone from ideation to implementation in mere minutes with nary a thought about how it fits into the bigger picture.
Both planning and doing have their place and the key to success is finding the right mix for your business — and that mix may change from time to time.
So how do you know if you have the right balance?
It starts by recognizing the difference between the two types of activities and taking inventory of your own time.
If you find yourself poring over data and information (industry reports, agency financials, articles, videos, etc.) and writing down ideas, plotting budgets and projections, and building lists of prospects, then you need to ask how much of this information you are actually using and putting into practice.
I’ll be honest. I have built massive target lists, detailed projections, and consumed huge volumes of information — only to leave them all gathering dust without ever getting implemented.
Your better bet is to break planning into smaller chunks. Yes, have a big picture in mind but give yourself time to flesh it out.
Start with one aspect of that vision. Research it. Plan it. Then just do it.
On the other hand, you might find yourself (like I have) getting an idea and then immediately reserving a fresh domain name, starting to build a website to support it, writing the first chapter of a book to fuel it — and then not following through because you realize (too late) that it doesn’t fit with the overall vision and direction of your business.
If that’s you, then give yourself a cooling off period. Make a few notes about the idea and the first steps for it, then step away for a few days (or at least 24 hours if you are super impatient).
If it’s still a good idea and you understand how it fits into everything else that you are doing — or is good enough that it calls for a broader change of direction — then move forward. Otherwise, keep it in the mix for future planning sessions.
The bottom line is that you can’t let yourself fall into the trap of being just a planner or just a doer. You need to be both in the right quantities at the right time.
