The Marketing Agency Blueprint Part 16

Conduct weekly group meetings to review accounts.

Provide final approval on all phases of major projects, strategic decisions, client communications, monthly reports, campaign strategies, invoices, activity reports, and account dashboards.

Determine workflow priorities.

Construct and manage account teams.

Run weekly TimeFox reports to a.n.a.lyze group performance and update forecasts as needed.

a.s.sistant Vice President is a position for professionals who play an integral role in the agency's management and growth and who have more than five years of experience. a.s.sistant vice presidents hold client-service positions of senior consultant, and may also function as group managers or group directors.

Vice President is a position of influence for the agency's most accomplished professionals. Vice presidents are heavily involved in the strategic decisions that guide the agency, and their compensation packages are directly influenced by the agency's performance. Vice presidents may also hold senior consultant positions and function as group managers or group directors.

Account Management Account-management systems start with the right tools and processes. Time-tracking, project-management, and CRM solutions in particular play major roles in building effective systems that continually improve client services and increase loyalty.

Account Team Dashboards We maintain an account team dashboard for every campaign client. The primary purpose is to define ownership of activities for accounts with multiple team members.

The dashboards are simple Excel worksheets, but they give professionals a clear understanding of their roles as group managers, account managers, or support staff. The dashboard can be customized to include more granular-level activities, but the following items are part of every standard worksheet: Build and nurture strong client relationships.

Complete monthly account forecasts.

Deliver value and results every day.

Develop and train supporting professionals.

Engage with target audiences through social media and networking.

Maintain target client hours.

Manage workflow of supporting personnel.

Partic.i.p.ate in major strategic discussions and communications.

Pursue the ongoing training and education needed to advance yourself and the agency.

Conduct quarterly budget reviews of all campaign-based clients.

Create, review, and approve invoices.

Direct account development efforts.

Direct all account strategy and function as the primary consultant.

Manage partner-agency relationships.

Immerse yourself in your clients and their industries.

Keep Basecamp and Highrise updated with all account activity and communications.

Monitor a.n.a.lytics, Google News Alerts, Twitter lists, and social- media activity.

Maintain monthly activity reports and dashboards.

Coordinate account contracts and renewals.

Group Meetings In addition to account dashboards, we hold group meetings every Monday to set the groundwork for the week and to discuss client campaigns in detail. Groups commonly consist of 3 to 5 professionals, managing up to a dozen campaign clients. Group meetings function as breakout sessions, enabling teams to concentrate on the unique needs and goals of their client base.

All professionals must come prepared to present on behalf of the accounts they manage. These meetings are not billable (for agencies still using billable hours). They should last 15 to 30 minutes and cover topics such as: Are monthly forecasts on target?

Is account development time being invested in priority clients, or wasted on nonpriority accounts?

Are proper resources allocated to priority clients?

Are projects and campaigns on track? Are we exceeding time estimates or budgets? If so, why?

Are we underdelivering on major projects or campaigns?

Are there workflow issues? Are people taking on more than they can handle?

How are professionals utilizing downtime?

What are pros doing with professional development time?

Are there any client issues or challenges we need to address as a team?

Are clients happy?

Project Management A comprehensive project-management solution, such as Basecamp, is one of the most essential components of an agency management system. In order to effectively manage workflow and give agency leaders visibility into the entire client network, agencies should maintain every project, task, and milestone in the same platform.

Project management tools can also be used to create dedicated client portals that enable clients to track campaign milestones, monitor agency tasks and progress, share files, view communications, and submit and read messages. This level of transparency helps build confidence and trust, which lead to loyalty.

We also use utilize the Highrise CRM system to track all important notes, calls, meetings, and e-mails. This gives managers and account teams real-time access to relevant client information and activities.

Client Exercises Use nonbillable exercises to educate and train your team, which will enhance the value you deliver to clients. Give each team member the chance to complete the same a.s.signment, and then meet as a group to review them and to talk about the strengths and weaknesses of each approach.

For example, pick one new client each month. Have the account manager start the project by presenting the team with an overview of campaign activities, successes, opportunities, and challenges to date. Each professional is then given five business days (and no more than three hours) to create a 1 to 2 page doc.u.ment outlining five strategies for increasing lead volume to the select client. They are then asked to present their recommendations to the group the following week.

This type of exercise offers tremendous professional development benefits, but, more important, it has the potential to identify actionable ideas that you can take to the client.

Agency Management Agency management, as it relates to client loyalty, comes down to two things: intelligence and action. In order to take the actions necessary to retain and grow accounts, leaders have to have their finger on the pulse of the agency.

At all times, they need to know service-hour forecasts, client hours logged, capacity status, efficiency rates, and employee performance metrics. They have to be aware of opportunities and issues with core accounts and be prepared to bring new technologies and strategies to enhance the agency's value and performance.

Agency Manager As featured in Chapter 3, we use an Agency Manager dashboard (Figure 3.1) built into Microsoft Excel to view and edit monthly service-hour forecasts by client and employee. This tool enables us to balance workflow and allocate resources to the right accounts based on capacity and priority levels. We integrate TimeFox reports throughout the month to ensure that campaigns are on track with forecasts and that clients are receiving the proper levels of support.

Huddles We use brief, action-oriented meetings to start every TuesdayFriday. The daily huddles are strictly for problem identification and prioritization of that day's activities, and should last no more than 15 minutes. They start promptly at 8:15 am, and require partic.i.p.ation from all attendees. The huddle agenda includes: Identification of any trends or topics relevant to the agency and its clients. These are posted continuously on Yammer throughout the day, and then curated each morning for the huddle.

Discussion of any issues, conflicts, or challenges with accounts.

Review of employees' top three priorities for the day.

Discussion of events or meetings scheduled for the day.

Monday Morning Meeting (M3) The Monday Morning Meeting (M3) is an enhanced version of the daily huddle that, as the name indicates, occurs every Monday in place of the huddle. It starts 15 minutes later at 8:30 AM to give everyone a chance to catch up from the weekend, and it is intended to last 30 to 45 minutes. Here is a look at the M3 agenda: The good news: Focus on positive results produced for clients and the agency during the previous week.

The numbers: Brief check in on professional and agency data.

The agency: Cover what is happening internally that week-initiatives, events, milestones, news, and updates.

The project center: Run down the week's major projects by client. Also seek team input on any issues or barriers with clients.

Loyalty building: Discuss what is happening with campaign clients to retain and grow their business.

The pipeline: Who is hot in the sales pipeline? What is the conversion probability and action plan?

Priorities: Employees share their top priorities for the day, just as they do in huddle.

Change Velocity a.s.sessments It seems like new technology companies, software solutions, and mobile apps are emerging every day that have the potential to impact your agency infrastructure and client services. Tech-savvy firms are constantly reviewing and a.s.sessing these advances, and looking for opportunities to improve efficiency and performance.

It is helpful to have a standard process to ensure a.s.sessments are consistently performed with the clients' best interests in mind. Here is a format that we use internally to evaluate potential solutions: Snapshot: One or two paragraphs describing the solution or company, and why we are a.s.sessing it. Think of this as a very brief executive summary.

Strengths: Describe the value it offers, and how it may improve on our existing solutions.

Weaknesses Explain how it falls short. This may be pricing structure, feature sets, or limitations, such as seat licenses if it is a software product.

Use cases: Detail how the agency would use the solution and how it would benefit clients.

Takeaways: Outline the 35 key takeaways from the a.s.sessment.

Actions: Define next steps, a.s.sign responsibilities, and set timelines.

Sharing a.s.sessments with clients, and/or turning them into blog posts, can be a great way to create additional value, and build loyalty.

Prioritizing and Evaluating Accounts

All clients are not created equal. Although agencies need to make every client feel valued, the reality is that some accounts are far more important to the stability and success of your agency, and they need to be treated different.

These priority accounts have a greater appreciation for your services, value your people, and treat your agency as a partner, not as a vendor. They pay bills on time (or early), have realistic expectations and reasonable timelines, and commit the time and energy needed to make the relationship work.

Evaluating existing clients is similar to how you a.s.sess and qualify leads. You are looking for the clients that are the best fit for your agency and have the greatest potential to contribute to your growth. However, unlike the sales process, you have actual experiences with these clients, which introduces a whole new set of factors into the equation. Let's take a look at some of the criteria your agency can use to prioritize accounts.

Ranking Factors Our Agency Manager dashboard highlights two core factors for all clients-account status and income potential. Account status defines whether the clients are project or campaign clients and income potential establishes a 1 to 5 rating based on their forecasted annual revenue, with 1 being the highest potential accounts.

Since our Agency Manager is maintained in Microsoft Excel, this gives us the ability to sort the entire client portfolio by these two factors at any time. Although account teams are charged with retaining and growing all accounts, special attention is paid to campaign clients with high-income potential.

Agencies should be willing to invest nonbillable account-development time in these core clients. Although this can lead to below-average revenue-efficiency ratings in the short term, the lifetime-value potential dictates that you take a long-term approach to their development.

We use a simplified approach for real-time ranking, but there are many additional factors that go into valuating clients. Here is a collection of some of the more important elements to consider: Efficiency: The revenue-efficiency rate (RER) introduced in Chapter 1 measures how efficiently your agency turns one hour of service into X dollars in revenue, with X being the hourly revenue target (HRT). In the value-based pricing model, the goal is to deliver the service as close to 100 percent efficiency as possible in order to achieve your desired profits. Therefore, if your HRT is $100, you want every one hour of service to produce $100 in revenue.

Although it is great, in theory, to get paid for every minute you invest in a client, it is not reality. Whether your agency chooses to invest nonbillable time through account-development activities or has to eat time due to budget shortages, accounts are rarely 100 percent efficient, even in a traditional billable-hour model.

As you collect months, and even years, of time-tracking and billing data, you will be able to better a.n.a.lyze which accounts are the most efficient and, therefore, the most profitable. For example, you may have a client billing $100,000 per year, but if your firm is investing 2,000 hours to produce the revenue, it is very likely an anchor-an unprofitable account pulling down your agency's efficiency and productivity.

Financial stability: Build your agency around clients with strong financial health and a history of on-time payments. Accounts that are regularly 15-plus days past due can cripple your cash flow, especially if they are core clients (accounting for large percentages of your monthly revenue) and you are in an early-growth phase.

Consistent late payments are often a sign that clients are in financial trouble or that they have a blatant disregard for their service providers. Either way, it is not a good situation to be in. You have to be willing to walk away from this type of dysfunctional relationship before it is too late.

Expectations: Realistic expectations of success are key to strong client-agency partnerships. Set reachable objectives at the beginning of the engagement, and evolve them as the campaign progresses.

Leadership support: Agencies often need the freedom to experiment creatively and the time to see their strategic vision fully executed. These both require support and patience from your client's leadership team.

Synergy: The most effective and rewarding partnerships have shared values and complementary cultures. It is important that your account teams feel respected by their clients and have a pa.s.sion for seeing them succeed.

Commitment: Consider their level of commitment to the agency. How long have they been clients? Have they maintained or increased budgets over time?

Growth opportunities: The highest potential accounts have growth opportunities beyond the standard engagement. This may include chances to work with other divisions of the company, budgets for add-on projects, and the potential to consolidate agency relationships.

For example, if your firm is building a website and providing SEO support, there may be a chance to also win the content marketing and social media business, which is being led by other firms right now.

Profile and platform: If the client has a high profile and significant reach, there are ancillary benefits that come from having them on your client roster. Your agency can gain credibility and possibly enjoy access to contacts and networks you otherwise would not have.

Experience: Clients who provide opportunities to expand your knowledge and capabilities in target niche markets can be very valuable.

Innovation: Case studies are rarely made of conservative companies. Clients have to be willing to take risks, try new strategies, and give your agency some creative freedom.

The Marketing Consultant Laws

When PR 20/20 launched in November 2005, we set out on a journey to "lead and create leaders," as our mission states. My theory behind growing a wildly successful and influential firm was to hire talented, intelligent, and motivated professionals, provide them with the systems and infrastructure necessary to succeed, and then get out of their way.

We wanted to develop and retain the industry's premier marketing consultants: professionals whose services and expertise bring immeasurable value to our clients and directly contribute to the clients' growth and success.

The Marketing Consultant Laws were originally created in August 2008 and distributed as an internal doc.u.ment to give us (the consultants) direction and focus and to challenge us to become stronger and more valuable-individually and as a team.