As owners of PR and marketing agencies, we spend our days helping our clients communicate more effectively. Yet most agencies are pretty poor with their own communications.
We need to get better at communicating with our ideal clients, and we need to get better at communicating with our own teams.
The excuse that we are too busy needs to stop. The idea that sharing too much information with employees could be dangerous needs to be abandoned.
We must listen to the advice that we give our own clients if we want to achieve success as agencies.
I’ll explore this a bit more later in this week’s newsletter, but first let’s take a look at what Jen has rounded up for us.
— Chip Griffin, SAGA Founder
Upcoming Events
- Webinar: Step-by-step guide to starting a podcast for your agency (November 7)
Latest podcasts from SAGA
- Are you playing with fire as an agency owner? (Agency Leadership Podcast)
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
Articles & Blog Posts
- Marketing “Under the Influence” – A Survival Guide for Agencies (Legal + Creative)
- Fear of Focus (Anchor Advisors)
- Why To Get A Valuation Now (Punctuation)
- The Business of Social Mission (Spin Sucks)
- Decreasing New Business Director Tenure At Ad Agencies (RSW/US)
Podcast Episodes
- Why and How to Raise Your Solo PR Rates (That Solo Life)
- Jody Sutter on Unlocking the Secrets to Building a Thriving New Business Culture for Your Agency (The Digital Agency Growth Podcast)
- The Four Conversations: A New Model for Selling Expertise (2Bobs)
- Gamifying Team Building: D&D as a Team-Building Tool with Asa Goldstein (The Digital Agency Show)
- The CEO Authenticity Balancing Act (For Immediate Release)
- Exploring the Journey from Agency to Product Development, with Davey Jones (The Innovative Agency)
Videos
- Ask more questions (Agency Management Institute)
AI in Focus
- How AI In PR Is Revolutionizing How You Work (Spin Sucks)
- Transform Your Agency’s Reporting With AI-Powered Data Analysis (AgencyAnalytics)
Agencies need to get better at communications
There’s an old proverb you may be familiar with: “The cobbler’s kids have no shoes.”
Many (if not most) agencies suffer from this syndrome and believe themselves too busy to apply their expertise to their own firms.
That way of thinking holds back those agencies from growing as they should.
We need to prioritize internal and external communications if we want to get the most from our team, provide the best results for our clients, and achieve our full potential as a business.
Start by asking yourself if you are doing enough communicating (and doing it well and consistently) with employees and prospective ideal clients.
Be honest.
If you find that you are coming up short, start by identifying a couple of things that you can change immediately.
They don’t need to be the biggest and brightest ideas that you have. In fact, simpler is often better whenever you begin to execute change.
Choose something that you can do well and do consistently because those things make a bigger difference than the merits of the idea itself.
Understand that if you want to be taken seriously as a communications and marketing expert, you will be judged by your team and prospects based on what you say and do on your own behalf.
In upcoming newsletters, I’ll talk about some of the specific steps you might consider with your internal and external communications plans, but for now just start with the obvious things that you can see right in front of you.
Don’t be the cobbler.
Webinar: Step-by-step guide to starting a podcast for your agency
You may have heard that podcasting can be a useful tool to grow your agency’s business, but how do you even start?
In our upcoming webinar, Chip Griffin will explain what makes an effective agency podcast and provide clear and simple steps for getting started.
Hosting a podcast doesn’t need to be expensive or complicated, and Chip will show you just how easy it can be to get off the ground.
To register for the roundtable from 12-1 PM ET on Thursday, November 7, click here.
