The Marketing Agency Blueprint

Choose the Right Clients Commit your talent and energy to clients who will value your contributions to their business. Learn to trust your instinct, and watch for red flags, such as unrealistic expectations and a lack of respect for your time and talent during the discovery process. Model agencies never appear desperate for new business, even if th

To create an enduring brand, you need to assemble a team of talented and intrinsically motivated employees, build partnerships with like-minded organizations, and surround your agency with clients who value your professionals and services.

Do not be afraid to ask the tough questions about your partners’ financial health.

Traditional firms—public relations (PR), advertising, search engine optimization (SEO), and web—are fighting to remain relevant by grasping for new services, such as social, mobile, and content, rather than focusing on what really matters, including pricing, technology, staffing, infrastructure, processes, and purpose.

The Marketing Agency Blueprint presents 10 rules for building tech-savvy, hybrid agencies that are more efficient, influential, and profitable than traditional firms, and, most importantly, are capable of delivering greater results and value to clients.

As I have stated numerous times, talent is your greatest asset as an agency. Your ability to attract and retain A players directly affects your client loyalty. These professionals are highly motivated, career-focused individuals. They need a system that defines titles, responsibilities, pay scales, bonus structure, performance metrics, expectations

Guide to Management: Lasting Lessons from the Best Leadership Minds of Our Time, p. 82.

Remain at the forefront of innovation and technology. As discussed in Chapter 2, marketing agencies that are immersed in technology are able to continually increase efficiency and productivity, evolve client campaigns, and make strategic connections of seemingly unrelated information.

However, in a professional service firm, sales happen at every level of the company. It is often the account executives that have the most direct client contact, and therefore, whether they are charged with it or not, they function as the agency's primary salespeople.