Agencies need to deal with change all the time. Clients come and go. Team members get recruited and depart. Technology transforms. Markets shift.
The pace of change on all fronts feels like it has been accelerating in recent years, and that’s a real challenge for owners, employees, and clients.
As leaders, we need to adapt to change ourselves and then help our teams and clients manage their way forward, too.
I’ll explore this idea a bit more below, but first let’s take a look at what Jen has rounded up for us this week.
— Chip Griffin, SAGA Founder
Jen’s Weekly Roundup
Here’s what caught my eye this week:
FULL AND PARTIAL DISCLOSURE — On the latest 2Bobs, Blair Enns walks David C. Baker through a six-level scale for disclosing how much AI touched a piece of writing, from fully human to fully AI-generated. A binary human-or-AI label doesn’t work with how people actually write now, and voluntary disclosure beats a watermark nobody trusts.
AI DIDN’T BREAK PESO — Gini Dietrich at Spin Sucks picks apart two competing AI-visibility surveys this week, where PR executives rank earned media as most important for AI discoverability and marketers rank paid, each group really just naming what they already buy. That’s not a disruption of the PESO Model, it’s PR pros and marketers justifying their budgets.
NEEDY LOSES THE PITCH — Brad Farris at Anchor Advisors borrows a parenting metaphor from Nick Richtsmeier’s new book to make a sales point: if your business exists to meet your own need for approval, prospects can feel it and will drag you wherever they want. On The Innovative Agency, guest Jacques Spitzer of Raindrop Agency sets client expectations before the first strategy session ever happens and treats saying no as a safeguard, not a risk. A good reminder to set boundaries before the relationship starts.
AI DOESN’T FIX BAD WRITING — David J. Ebner, president of Content Workshop, tells Steve Guberman on Agency Bytes that AI doesn’t fix bad writing, it just makes bad writing faster, so you already need to know what good looks like to catch it. His advice is to zag while everyone else chases the same AI-flavored sameness.
THE FRACTIONAL LABEL WON’T DO YOUR POSITIONING FOR YOU — Karen Swim and Michelle Kane on That Solo Life consider the fractional title for solo PR pros, bearing in mind that most of you are already undercharging. The topic forces an examination of capacity, value, and pricing, which we know has you running for the hills.
THE CHATBOT YOU BUILT COULD BE YOUR CLIENT’S NEXT LAWSUIT — Sharon Toerek at Legal + Creative flags a wave of California Invasion of Privacy Act claims targeting the chatbots, session replay tools, and tracking pixels agencies routinely install on client sites. She’s got advice for what you should and should not do if your client (or your agency) gets a demand letter or is named in a class action lawsuit.
— Jen Griffin, SAGA Community Manager
Managing change as an agency leader
Sometimes it can all feel like a bit much. Since I started advising owner-led agencies back in 2018, it seems that change has been a constant.
We’re not talking about small change either (and you can interpret “small change” in multiple ways there).
We have seen social and political upheaval. Dramatic economic swings. A global pandemic and everything it entailed. And now we face a constant barrage of questions about the impact of AI on our businesses and our lives.
It can feel hard to find the time to catch your breath, but doing so is always a good first step.
Managing change starts with yourself. It’s a bit like putting on your own oxygen mask before you help your seatmate. If you can’t process it rationally and commit to your own next steps, how will you be able to guide your team and clients?
That often means taking a little time to think about it. Impulse reactions to the latest news or trend rarely pay off.
Then you need to ask yourself the important questions, like “so what?” and “what’s the worst that could happen?”
Now you have the guardrails for your own thinking.
Start plotting a path that makes sense for your business.
Now you can start having conversations with employees, prospects, and clients to understand their own perspectives on the change that is impacting them.
Don’t assume you know how they feel or what they believe, because you will often be surprised by the reality of the situation.
Armed with this knowledge, you can start working together to plan an approach that meets all of your needs — at least as best you can.
Not all change is good for everyone. Even with the best plans, there are likely going to be people and organizations that are unable or unwilling to adapt.
You need to do your best to help them and account for those circumstances, but it can’t hold you back from making the decisions that are right for your own firm.
As this wave of change continues, take the time to stop and think. Learn as much as you can. Then confidently move forward with the first steps you’ve identified for yourself, before moving on to helping everyone else around you.
