Have you set your team up to be as successful as possible by understanding how they can work best with you?
We can’t leave our team members guessing and assume that they know what we want.
We need to be very direct about our expectations — not just about specific performance, but by giving them a cheat sheet of the things that make you tick.
I’ll explain more a bit later in this week’s newsletter, but first let’s look at what Jen has rounded up for us.
— 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
- Turning employee departures into opportunities (Agency Leadership Podcast)
- When and how to fire a client without burning bridges (webinar replay)
- Providing your team with constructive feedback (featuring Ken Jacobs) (Chats with Chip)
Articles & Blog Posts
- How to market your agency (without derailing delivery) (Sakas and Company)
- You Might be Ready for the Agency M&A Conversation – But Is Your Business? (Legal + Creative)
- Trapped by Success (Punctuation)
- When Outreach Falls Flat: What 58% of Firms Are Struggling With (RSW/US)
- Turn Scope Creep From Dread To Bread (Bureau of Digital)
Podcast Episodes
- The Powerful Insights Learned From Going Back To School (That Solo Life)
- How to Optimize Your Digital Marketing, with Saul Marquez (The Innovative Agency)
- Jason Hennessey, Hennessey Digital – Owning a Niche and Scaling It to 8 Figures (Agency Bytes)
- There Is No Credentials Meeting (2Bobs)
- The Role of Timesheets in Agency Profitability, with Kristen Kelly (The Agency Profit Podcast)
- Remix Culture and the Scraped Internet (Working/Broken)
- New Threats to Reputation (For Immediate Release)
Video
- Lisa Colantuono on Just Ask Jody Live (The Sutter Company)
- Personal Perfectionists vs Design Duds: Creative Director Talks Design for Better Business (Owned & Earned)
AI in focus
Give your team a cheat sheet to work better with you
Employees aren’t mind readers. And when they first come to work for us, they likely know relatively little about us and how we work.
So we need to give them a cheat sheet of the basics. They need to know how you communicate best and what kind of boundaries you might have. They need to know your key requirements and pet peeves.
I’ll share some of the things that I have typically shared with employees, contractors, and other key collaborators.
When it comes to communications, I haven’t answered an unscheduled phone call in many years. Texts get lost so email is better. I’m happy to get messages at any time of day or night and will sometimes send my own at odd hours — but I don’t expect responses at odd hours.
I also always tell people that I don’t like surprises — really of any kind. But what I mean by that in a work context is that I don’t want to be surprised by some piece of information — good or bad — by someone else if you could have shared it with me first.
As a prolific content creator, I have also always encouraged team members to follow my podcasts, articles, and social posts since they often can provide a window into my thinking that might otherwise take longer to come up in a meeting.
I let my team know that I do my best to stay on top of my inbox, but that if I am an obstacle on anything because I haven’t given feedback or approval, they shouldn’t hesitate to nag or scold me so that I get it done.
Finally, I make clear that I want and expect everyone who works with me to let me know if they think I’m headed in the wrong direction or ought to make a different decision. I commit to hearing them out, with the understanding that once we agree on a path forward we will all keep rowing in that direction.
But these are just examples of my own preferences and best ways of working together. You probably have ones that aren’t on my list — or that are exactly opposite of my own.
But your team members won’t know that — and therefore won’t have the best opportunity to succeed — if you don’t share that cheat sheet with them.
