Hello. Doing a little spring cleaning around here and came across a bunch of "what-ifs" - idea-starters which might spark some interesting conversations at your place. If you have others you'd like to share, please send them my way.
Joe Grant
joe@joegrantconsulting.com
P.S. You're welcome to forward this to your colleagues, or they can
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Agency What Ifs
 What if at your agency:
- ...you sold more of your service time in chunks? Lots of agencies are pumping buckets of dollars to the bottom line by selling creative concepts and marketing strategy plans for flat rates of $25k, $50k or more a pop.
- ...everyone knows the 'elevator speech' about what the company does, and more importantly why you're different from every other agency? If you can't capture both your identity and unique competitive advantage in 4 or 5 words, how do you expect people to believe you're anything but a commodity?
- ...you had lunch with a local competitor? There's much to be gained from cordiality. And knowing thine enemy.
- ...instead of calling it the agency "Management Committee," it's the "Leadership Team"? Might more accurately reflect that the mission is to lead the agency forward, not just solve petty issues like whether or not hot cocoa is available in the lunchroom.
- ...during your next preliminary meeting with a new business prospect, you limit yourself to just 5 minutes of talk about how swell your place is and concentrate instead on understanding and solving - right there, on the spot - the prospect's problems?
- ...you kick off the next all-agency meeting by asking everyone to name the good things that happened during the past 30 days, and you write them down on a big 'Victory List'? The session will launch with a positive tone and everyone will feel better about themselves.
- ...you threw a pop quiz to your senior folks? Questions: 1. What have you done in the past 90 days to ratchet up your individual performance, i.e. how have you grown to meet changing market and client needs? 2. What opportunity that we're currently ignoring will you personally take charge of? 3. Which of our many priorities will have the greatest impact in the next 6 months and how will we collaboratively get it done?
- ...you listed 10 things from your last pitch that you know you can do better and then find a way to make sure you don't repeat the same mistakes? Pilots use checklists no matter how many hours they've flown so they don't screw up - you should too.
- ...you begin and stick to an email program that keeps your clients and prospects in the know? Lots of agencies do and do it well with outsourcing. See the accompanying link about the folks we use, nTarget.
- ...you put a large chart in the conference room with an inventory of all the agency problems on it? Make it your running agenda and meet regularly to solve them one at a time.
- ...you freshened up the lobby? Your entrance says a lot about your agency (see "Your Walls Do Talk" from the spring Grant's Report - if you didn't get it, drop a note and we'll send it).
- ...you sent around a handful of your clients' competitor's ads and asked everyone to write what they think the strategy was? Would it sharpen up analytical and strategic thinking. . . and make you smarter with your clients?
- ...you posted a piece of paper and had people anonymously write answers to these questions: What's the best part about working here? What do we most need to improve?
- ...you weren't afraid to call on prospects that are 'too big for us'?
- ...and what if you personally ignored fear altogether. . . and simply did what you knew was right?
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Old Time Ads |
I love reading vintage ads, especially automotive. Here's a resource full of old ads arranged by product, category, year, magazine, on every subject - you can even share a favorite by sending it as a nifty greeting 'e-card' (an interesting new business idea?). You'll enjoy Adflip.
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Keep 'em Posted |
| More and more agencies do e-mailed newsletters to clients and prospects, but the problem is getting them done inside (The Shoemaker's Kids syndrome, right?). The answer is outsourcing, and we're happy to let you know how pleased we are with our choice: nTarget. They do our Grant's Client Brief and they might be right for you. Tell 'em Joe sent you.
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Media is the Message |
Make sure your Media Department knows about Mediapost. It's jammed with links to media-related sites about planning, buying, future trends, resources of every sort plus thousands (no exaggeration) of articles that would make for a good post-grad course in media science.
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Client Brief Details |
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About Grant Consulting
Grant Consulting, formed in 1992 by Joe Grant, is a consultative resource for advertising agency principals who want to improve their
agencies. The Chicago area firm works exclusively with agency senior managers to help them discover and then reach their full
potential. Contact us at:
Grant Consulting
847-726-9898.
joe@joegrantconsulting.com
www.joegrantconsulting.com |
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