Time and time again I hear from agency owners that their biggest differentiator is their team. They tout the talent and experience that they bring to the table for clients.
But are you backing this up by really treating your employees as your greatest asset?
I started thinking about this more recently in part because the latest SAGA Agency Owner Survey showed a strong majority of agencies expect to see both revenue and profits climb over the next 12 months — but barely 1 in 3 forecast a growth in the number of employees.
That might indicate that agency owners have held on to team members that they can’t truly afford while revenue has dipped, but it also could mean that team members will be asked to squeeze out more work without additional help.
In my conversations with owners, I have also noticed an uptick in frustration with team members, including amount and quality of work, desire for increasingly flexible schedules, and requests for higher pay.
With many agencies having had a tough 12-18 months, none of this is all that surprising. Financial pressure often draws a tighter focus on business cost centers — and for agencies that is almost always in the form of labor expenses.
I’ll explore this a little more later in this week’s newsletter, but first let’s get to Jen’s roundup of useful resources.
— Chip Griffin, SAGA Founder
Latest podcasts from SAGA
- Why one-size-fits-all advice doesn’t work for agencies (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
- Embracing Humor and Building Trust Through a Crisis (Spin Sucks)
- Early Onset Indifference (Punctuation)
- Best SEO Analytics Tools for Agencies (AgencyAnalytics)
- What are winning digital agencies doing differently? (Bureau of Digital)
Podcast Episodes
- The Intersection of Agency Growth and Profitability, with Melissa Morris (The Innovative Agency)
- The Client Conversations You Need to Have Now (That Solo Life)
- Sales Philosophies to Help Boost your Agency, with Taylor Welch (The Agency Profit Podcast)
- The Metaverse Lives! Just Don’t Call It The Metaverse. (For Immediate Release)
- Jon Tsourakis on Leveraging Team Dynamics and Client Relationships for Agency Success (The Digital Agency Growth Podcast)
- Gino Wickman on How 130 Days Off Boosts Business & Fulfills Your True Self (Smart Agency Masterclass)
Videos
- What’s your Minnie Pearl pillow? (Agency Management Institute)
AI in Focus
Are you treating your agency employees as your greatest asset?
When you have a precious asset, your instinct should be to take extra special care of it.
Agency owners often list their teams as their most valuable asset, yet they don’t always treat them that way.
Very little of the mistreatment is intentional and even less comes from malice of any kind.
But when I see data like that in the latest SAGA Agency Owner Survey that suggests that agencies expect to see revenue and profits increasing without any additional employee resources, it makes me pause.
Some agencies have been holding on to talent they can’t truly afford in the hope of weathering a recent downturn, but often that does employees an unintentional disservice. If things don’t turn around, it often leads to sudden and unexpected layoffs without any meaningful notice or severance to cushion the blow for an employee.
In other cases, owners may be looking to make up for their own lost income during the slower period by asking employees to go above and beyond instead of getting more help. While that might work for a short time, it generally leads to prolonged periods of low team morale.
One of the reasons that agencies have a bad reputation as employers is because many have historically balanced their books on the backs of employees. Rather than making tough decisions around pricing and scope, they have relied on employees working unpaid overtime to hit their target numbers.
Adding to the frustration is the radically changed workplace over the past four years. Employees expect flexible schedules, remote work, limited hours, and a greater voice in the work that they do.
Some businesses — including agencies — are trying to put this genie back in the bottle, but success has been very limited.
Owners need to be thinking about how to structure their teams, price their work, and set expectations for both employees and clients in a way that works.
Of course, not all employee requests or expectations are reasonable, so we need to get better at discerning which to accommodate and which to reject — as well as how to communicate effectively when we don’t see eye-to-eye.
But agencies that don’t regard their employees as their most precious asset and have clear plans to recruit and retain the best of the best will increasingly find themselves at a disadvantage — even if they continue to trumpet their teams as their best differentiator.
Control (and Maximize) Your Agency Exit
Want to sell your agency someday, exiting for the best deal possible? Our friend Karl Sakas at Sakas & Company is leading a 3-part workshop called Control (and Maximize) Your Agency Exit that can help. It takes place online in weekly 2-hour sessions that accommodate the busy schedules of agency leaders. There are also recordings available if you miss one. Use the discount code SAGAVIP to save $400 on your registration.
Agency owner growth expectations and business development insights revealed in Q3 SAGA survey
Times have been tough for many agencies over this past year, but the SAGA Agency Owner Survey suggests that many are optimistic that the worst is behind us and there is growth on the horizon.
Learn more about expectations for revenue and profit along with insights on what’s working (and what isn’t) from a business development perspective.
