Profit | Agency ADvisor

The Central Nervous System of Business Communication: Can You Stay in the Conversation?

January 10, 2017 / No Comments

As boring as it sounds, money is the central nervous system in how businesses communicate. In 2017, Your Clients will understand financial implications better – shouldn’t your staff? Will you and your team be able to keep up with the conversation?

Companies are now expecting their marketing staff (your clients) to be responsible for the entire financial impact of their decisions – not just blanket guestimates. In the past, marketing has been able to make statements to the effect of “spending ‘x’ amount on advertising will bring ‘y’ amount of money back to us.” While accountability has not been a wide spread concept in the past, 2017 will be a year in which people will be held accountable for their decisions.

According to a study by Northwestern University, companies are now asking marketers to relate marketing things to what the business is trying to do. A challenge for marketers in 2017 will be knowing how to sit down with their CFO and answer financial questions and deal with the financial issues affected by marketing.

If your clients are going to be expected to understand what their financial numbers mean and be able to justify their decisions based on real dollars and cents, shouldn’t your team? I’m not saying everyone should know that debits are on the right and credits are on the left. I am suggesting that everyone provides more value to the company and to your clients if they have a basic understanding of where the numbers come from and what they mean. Additionally, this knowledge gives you the ability to understand your costs and emphasize both your value and that of your team to your business.

Here are four important questions to ask yourself:

If you bring in a new client, or grow an existing client, do you know what the incremental costs will be?
When you are selling ideas to your clients and prospects, can you explain the financial benefits for your plan – not just tell them they will reach more people with great creative execution?
Can you define your value to the company in real facts and figures?
Are you able to rationalize your need for additional resources other than making a vague statement that your staff is ‘just stretched too thin’?

If you answered “No” to just one of these questions, I highly recommend you attend a 2-Day Workshop Money and Finance for the Creative Industry. You will get the Yes answers to these questions and Much, Much More! The Workshop will be held at The Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas, NV on April 5th and 6th. You will leave with a wealth of information, real life applications of the knowledge you will gain, and a lots of ideas and concepts to share with your company. The first 10 people to register can do so at close to HALF of the normal registration fee. There are still some of these available – so be sure and register now!

I hope that I will see you in Vegas this April!

Are You Ready for 2017? Take This Quiz and Find Out!

January 3, 2017 / No Comments

I am not a superstitious person, but I did eat black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day – as I do most years (when I remember). This tradition – handed down to me from my Southern-born parents – is supposed to bring luck and prosperity.

Another tradition I practice at the beginning of each year is to reflect on where I have been and then look forward to where I want to go. Doing this allows me to establish a plan of action for reaching my goals. You can do the same for your business – just take this quick quiz and see where you have weak spots. These are the areas to work on for the next year which will prepare you for success in 2017.

1. What makes you different from the competition? I ask this question first because the answer is important. If you reply it is your creative ideas, then join the other thousands who are answering this question right now. You are in business in a Creative Industry. If your ideas are not creative, you are not in the right business. So, what makes your company different? Dig deep and find what makes you REALLY different?

2. Have you reviewed your end of year “Analytics” – also known as your Financial Statements? Think of these like the SEO analytics of your business health. Just as you would look at site statistics and trends, the new year is a time first to review how your business fared last year. Then, you can set goals for 2017. Click here if you are unsure how to understand the data these reports provide and what your financials are telling you.

3. Have you created your Sales Plan for the upcoming year? Using your analytics and financial data from last year, you should be able to plan your sales pipeline for 2017. Creating a sales plan will allow you to track your sales and compare your results against your goals and prior years.

4. Have you established your profitability goals? A simple way to calculate and set this target is to review the details of your revenue sources over the past 3 – 5 years. Then, create a budget for the upcoming year where you foresee your income should come from. Here are some of the benefits of creating budgets!

After answering these four questions, celebrate all of the “Yes” responses you gave. If you answered “No” to any of the above questions, take a few moments and expand on what you can do to make the answer yes. Sometimes, getting the unbiased and honest feedback from a professional can help with this.

Remember that a Goal without a Plan is just a Dream. Moreover, a Plan without Action will always just be a Goal.

Are you ready to take Action in 2017?

Demystifying Traffic Management Systems – Part 1

August 22, 2016 / No Comments

There’s no doubt that agency management software is mandatory in today’s Marketing/Creative Industry. No other tool will track a jobs progress, monitor employee workload, create and aggregate multiple project schedules, track budget for various projects, and safely store documents and images – all at the same time.

Agencies struggle in a pile of unopened emails and missed deadlines because they are not utilizing a traffic management system to their benefit.

I have heard many reasons why agencies do not use these systems (like Advantage and Workamajig). In this post, I will demystify just a few of these for you.

1. A traffic management system will solve all of our workflow and process problems.

You must define your process. If you do not know what your processes look like, your system will not know either. Remember, computers are only as smart as the user. They do not know what you do not tell them. Briefly, this means identifying every type of project that enters your shop and then breaking them down into phases and into detailed steps that need to be accomplished to complete the phase.

2. I do not have time to use a Traffic Management System.

If set up correctly when you begin, a traffic management system will work almost automatically. This means creating templates for every “size” of each job. These should identify all of your typical steps and time frames. By doing the heavy work initially, you are making it easier to manage projects as they come in. These templates allow you to tweak schedules for individual situations.

3. If I buy a Traffic Management Systems, it should be ready to run our projects.

There are no industry standard templates available for sale to the highest bidder. You have heard that it is about the journey and not the destination. We all get to the same result – the finished project. How we get there is what makes your agency unique and efficient. Focus on how you can do it better with your culture, clients and staff.

4. Once I set up our system with templates, I will not have to do that again.

Your templates are never finished. This is the most dynamic part of what we do – how we do it. Technology is always changing. We always find ways to become more efficient.

5. We have tried other Traffic Management Systems, and they do not fit what we do. We are different from any other agency.

Traffic Management Systems are efficiency tools: just as a socket wrench is a tool. However, if you try to use a socket wrench designed in metrics on a non-metric socket, it will not work. If you try to use a Traffic Management System designed for someone else’s workflow, it too will not work. Getting it set up for your agency in the beginning is critical to its success.

Over the past 14 years I have heard of many obstacles for utilizing traffic management systems. This is just the first of many to come where I hope to help you solve any mysteries you may have.

Feel free to share your traffic management dilemmas here and I’ll do my best to help you solve it!

Recognize the Difference between Cash Flow and Profit

September 22, 2015 / No Comments

While I know that this topic may be very basic to many of you, I recently had a lengthy discussion with an agency principle explaining the difference between Cash Flow and Profit. This got me thinking that sometime we need to revisit the fundamentals to reinforce our foundation.

Too many agency principals think that just because they are getting checks for their work they must be profitable. The fact is, they are losing money—even though they have cash in the bank.

Continue reading 'Recognize the Difference between Cash Flow and Profit'