Part 3: Positioning Your Agency for 2010 Success

One of the most important aspects of your 2010 planning should be a critical evaluation of your relationships and work for your major clients.

I grew up in Burson-Marsteller, where formal account reviews were part of the fabric of the culture that made Burson a great firm.

It doesn’t matter how small (or large) your firm is, account reviews must be an integral part of your business planning. And, what better time than now as many companies are beginning to plan and establish marketing communications and public relations budgets for 2010.

Besides, how can you create your agency’s revenue goals without having a good handle on the revenue you can expect from your current clients?

While new business is the lifeblood of all agencies, organic growth from your existing clients is the easiest new business you will ever get. Yet, too many firms are concerned more with “just doing the work” than with building the relationships and uncovering new opportunities that will add revenue to the firm.

That’s where the account review comes in.

When I work with agencies on account reviews, we go through a structured process that answers the following questions, among others:

• A critical assessment of the work you did this past year and whether you really achieved the objectives and if not, why not? Where is the agency vulnerable?

• A financial review. Did fees increase or decrease? Was the account profitable? Why?

• Key challenges the client faces now and in 2010.

• What new ideas if implemented would have the greatest impact on the client’s business?

• How do you rate your client relationships? With whom must you build relationships in 2010 and how will you go about it?

• How do the key client contacts perceive the agency? Do you need to change that perception?

• Do you have the right staffing mix?

The account review can be an important part of your success in 2010. It eliminates surprises, helps you develop new ideas for new budgets, and creates a plan to build or reinforce key relationships.

Positioning Your Agency for 2010 Success -- Part 2

As I said in Part 1, it is not too early to start your planning for 2010. In fact, it is never too early to start thinking ahead about where you want your firm to be in the next 3 months, 6 months, year, or even three years.

This is called working “on” your business, not “in” your business. So, here’s my second critical strategy for success in 2010.

Strategy 2: Revisit Your Firm’s Vision and the Strategies to Get There

Once you’ve assessed 2009 and captured critical insights, start thinking about 2010. For me the first step in business planning is to understand how next year’s plan will move the firm toward what you want your agency to become. I’m not talking about meeting financial goals (though that’s obviously a key need), but rather your vision of the firm you want to create.

When you started your firm you had a vision even if you didn’t call it that. What’s happened to that vision? Still valid? Needs to be reassessed? Already achieved it? Not possible?

Having a clear and compelling vision of the firm you want to “become” is the cornerstone of a great agency and the hallmark of great leadership. It is also a vital step in successful and meaningful business planning.

I have conducted visioning sessions and strategy sessions for more than 25 firms and I can assure you unless you have a roadmap – a guide – for where you want to end up and how you will get there, the journey will be so much harder.

“Most companies fail in their growth because they don’t have a vision,” says former Southwest Airlines CEO Howard Putnam. “When you have a vision and someone comes to you with some convoluted idea, you can hold it up to the vision and ask ‘Does it fit? Does it fly? If not, don’t bother me.’”

It worked for Southwest and scores of other major corporations – and it has worked for agencies both large and small.

Here are some criteria for a vision:

• It must be realistic, yet idealistic and cannot be achieved without “stretching”.
• It is aspirational – future-oriented. A vision is not today; it is tomorrow.
• It must be attractive to you your staff. They must want to be a part of it.
• It provides direction for the future in succinct, often competitive terms.
• Most importantly, your vision must be specific enough to become a filter for key decision-making.

Commit to making every major decision in 2010 -- staffing, resources, investments, new business, marketing, etc., -- one that propels your firm towards your vision.

Once you have the vision that excites you and your team, begin to identify the strategies over time to get there. Make it a three-year horizon. As you begin your 2010 planning, review and prioritize these strategies and build in next year’s strategies into your actual business plan.

Finally, identify the barriers to achieving those strategies, specify how you will overcome each and then commit to overcoming them in 2010.

Positioning Your Agency for 2010 Success -- Part 1

What’s the old saying – the early bird catches the worm? I think it’s true for agencies too.

Now is the time when many forward-thinking firms are beginning to start their planning for 2010. I’ve already begun to work with firms on their next year’s plan.

I am going to give you six key strategies that will guarantee you a successful 2010 (full disclosure: I cannot fix the economy but I am confident it is improving) and here’s the first.

Strategy 1: Critically Assess 2009

It is extremely important that before you start your 2010 planning you take a critical assessment of 2009. Put the economic issues aside for this. What did you learn about your agency?

Review the following:

• Time management and staff billability. Are you meeting industry benchmarks? Are you spending your time working on your business not just in your business? Where can you be morfe efficient? What did you neglect in 2009 that you won;t tolerate in 2010?

• Process improvement. Where can you improve your internal processes? What's not working well?

• Financial data. Are you getting the right reports to help you understand your P&L, running rates, monthly revenue against budget, accounts receivables, etc?

• Standards of excellence. Do you have them – both internal and external? Does your staff adhere to them? What must you do differently in 2010 to make these standards the basic fabric of your business?

• Management team. Are you satisfied with their performance? Do you need to make changes? Does the team really help you run your agency effectively? What do you need them to do differently next year?

• Staffing. Where do you need to upgrade staff? What new positions might you need to establish?

• Services. What new services, capabilities, or expertise do you need to add to keep your firm on the forefront of trends in your business or improve your offering to clients?

• Marketing and business development. How effective was your agency marketing and business development programs? What do you need to do to improve them?

Don’t drink your own Kool Aid! Look at these and other issues with a critical eye as you start to plan for a great 2010.

Threat or Opportunity? The Southwest Emerging Media Model

I read a post in ragan.com about the success of Southwest Airlines’ social media efforts. It sparked a question: is this a threat to the growing revenue potential that agencies see in social media?

SW started a blog in 2006 called “Its Nuts About Southwest” to bring customers and the airline closer together. The success of the blog broadened the company’s social media efforts and they named a Manager of Emerging Media, Paula Berg, to oversee their efforts.

But here are the paragraphs that sparked my question:

“As the blog evolved, so did the roles of Berg and her colleagues. When Berg started working on the site she was part of the company’s public relations team. Her co-manager, Brian Lusk, was a corporate editor in the company’s executive office. Soon after the airline began experimenting with Twitter and other social media tools, it moved Berg and three of her colleagues into a new Emerging Media department.

There Berg’s six-person team (two new employees joined it last November) maintains a Twitter feed, Facebook fan site, Flickr group and YouTube channel. Each tool is overseen by a single team member and geared to reach a slightly different audience. “

I wonder, is the emerging (read social) media department separate from the public relations department? It sounds that way. Could this be a trend in other corporations where conversations and connections with the consumer or end user are critical to sales and reputation? And, if so, will it require PR agencies to build new relationships not only with public relations, marketing, top management and finance, but also with social media departments who might logically hire (if they need to) social media agencies and let the PR department deal with the PR agency?

Or, does this signal another reason why it is so important for the traditional PR firm to reinvent itself, and why positioning and marketing an agency will be even more critical in the future?

Your Personal Brand vs. Your Agency Brand

Ok, we all have read countless stories on the importance of building a brand via social media channels if you are on your own – consultant, sole practitioner, entrepreneur, or the like. You know most of the popular tools. One of the most effective tools in personal brand building is your own blog.

Yet, I'm puzzled by the conflict that some agency owners have about creating a personal blog vs. creating a corporate blog under the agency name. Why the conflict? Take a look at Richard Edelman’s popular 6 A.M. blog. http://www.edelman.com/speak_up/blog/ or Peppercom’s Steve Cody’s www.repmanblog.com

Clearly these blogs contain Richard’s and Steve’s viewpoints, interviews, comments, etc. on topics of interest to business people. What they also contain are links and references to their agencies.

Agency heads complain about how difficult it is to distinguish their firm from competitors. In truth many agencies look and sound alike. So, with the possibility of a well-promoted and distributed blog as a key part of an agency’s visibility program – what’s the problem?

Here’s what I often hear: “I’m not sure what I could (should) write about.” I have rarely met a PR person who didn’t have something to say about just about everything. I think it is more about “risk.”

Putting yourself “out there” in a way that calls attention to who you are and what you have to say is uncomfortable to many who are used to being behind the scenes and letting their clients shine. In today’s highly competitive agency environment, it’s time to get over your “fear.” You have much to say – start saying it.

Thought leadership is one of the best, yet least practiced ways of creating agency reputation, recognition, and referrals – the three “R’s” that all businesses crave.

So start planning your thought leadership program now and follow that with your own blog that carries your message to the prospects you want to reach.

If Your Agency is Three Years Old or Less ...

I find that many new agencies start and exist in their “formative years” (say 2-3 years old) by operating by the “seat of their pants.” Often I’m told, “We don’t know what we don’t know.”

Typically that’s because the owners grew up (as we all did) as account people with little or no experience running a business.

Many of these firms are doing well or at least holding their own – even in the recession. However, this is a critical time for newer firms.

As we begin to pull out of the recession, more established agencies will reap the benefits of longevity, reputation, vision, and an awareness of who they are and what they do well.

Newer firms normally don’t have the luxury of brand reputation or brand recognition and often they have no clear direction or vision of the kind of firm they want to become nor of the niches in which they need to specialize. Specialization helps builds reputation, and determining where and how to specialize is one of the most difficult decisions facing a young firm.

So what do new firms need to do to remain or become competitive? Here are four tips:

1. Create a vision of the firm you want to become (to look like) over the next three years. This vision will then lead to the strategies to help you get there. But, be sure to also identify the barriers to success and how you will overcome those barriers.

2. Be brutally honest with yourselves about what you do well and for whom. Decide what your agency will focus on. It could be a functional skill (e.g., crisis communications) or it could be an industry niche (e.g., luxury goods). It’s OK to have 2-4 specialties, but not seven or eight.

3. Identify your ideal client. Where have you been really successful? Profile that ideal client (what factors made it successful?) and resist the temptation (read money) to take business that doesn’t meet your ideal client profile.

4. Build a marketing program around your wisdom and knowledge. What do you stand for? Where is your thought leadership? If you don’t know, then think long and hard. Gaining recognition in the long haul comes from your clients and the work you do. But, for newer firms, getting those great clients will come from building a reputation based on what you stand for. That’s thought leadership.

There will great opportunities for communications firms in the near future. If you are new, if you have been successful, congratulations. Now the real work starts.

When Growth Stalls -- Read About It

At the recent PRSA Counselors Academy Conference in June, I heard Steve McKee speak about what happens when a fast-growing business (his own advertising agency) stops growing.

Steve’s own company problems led to two research studies and ultimately a great business book called “When Growth Stalls”, subtitled How it Happens, Why You’re Stuck, & What to Do About it.

While external market factors – McKee calls them Market Tectonics – clearly can and affect the growth and health of a company (can anybody spell recession?), McKee’s research points out that external factors alone are rarely responsible for stalled growth.

Instead, his research identified four, what he calls, “subtle and highly destructive internal factors that conspire to keep companies down.” The four are:

• Lack of consensus among the management team
• Loss of focus
• Loss of nerve
• Marketing inconsistency

Lack of consensus among management is easy to understand. You and your partner(s) simply do not agree on direction, strategies, or actions. There is a loss of trust and maybe a loss of confidence. I have seen this almost destroy more than one agency.

Loss of focus often plagues agencies in recessions. Loss of focus does not mean not adding new services or even going after new markets. What it does mean is straying from the strength of the firm to pursue strategies or actions that distract management from what it does best.

Loss of nerve is an affliction that has plagued many a firm during this recession. McKee says that fear of taking a risk, resisting change, not investing in the business are all signs of loss of nerve. I have seen and spoken to agency heads that are almost paralyzed by economic uncertainty even though they know in their gut that things will be better. He goes on to say that loss of nerve is a common “wake-up call” but one that companies must heed to return to a growth mode.

Finally, marketing inconsistency. Pretty self-explanatory. Frankly most agencies don’t even have a real marketing plan to be inconsistent about. But, for the companies McKee researched, changing one’s marketing frequently is a sure sign of a company in trouble or looking for trouble.

There are plenty of lessons in McKee’s book for all leaders. It is well worth reading.