How to Get Feedback from Your Team Feedback is an essential part of leadership. Giving feedback is essential to develop individuals and teams, and to boost their performance. However, many leaders (especially those with little leadership experience) tend to forget the importance of receiving feedback. I’ve seen this a lot with my clients. As you build and scale a creative agency, the pressure is on to ensure your people are doing their best work for your clients. That pressure often leads to a one-way street of feedback. In the short term, this serves the purpose intended: your team develops and does its best work for you. But without feedback from your team, how do you know you are … [Read more...]
Team Feedback – It’s a Fundamental Part of a Leader’s Confidence
The Practical Guide to Building Confidence as a Leader
How to Be a More Confident Leader When you own a creative agency, never underestimate the importance of self-confidence in leadership. Your business success is founded on building your confidence as a leader. You see, self-confidence is the keystone that allows your leadership to flourish. When you feel confident, the confidence levels of your team will improve. I recently read an article by Francisco Dao in Inc.com, in which he eloquently explains why confidence is the number one of leadership qualities: ‘Self-confidence is the fundamental basis from which leadership grows. Trying to teach leadership without first building confidence is like building a house on a foundation of … [Read more...]
Why Businesses Stop Growing: Common Mistakes to Avoid in Your Creative Agency
Don’t Let Your Growth Stall The process of scaling a company is not easy. Scaling your creative agency can be even more difficult. There are many common mistakes that people make when scaling their business and these can lead to stagnation of growth – or, in the most serious cases, business failure. This article outlines the mistakes that stifle growth, and which are commonly made by owners of creative agencies. We also share tips to help you avoid making the same mistakes. “Why isn’t my business growing?” One of the most common questions we encounter from business owners is why their business is not growing as they think it should. While there are many … [Read more...]
Saying No Will Put Your Business on the Road to Growth
How to Take Control of Your Business by Turning Down New Opportunities Your agency is finally growing its business, but some things feel out of control. You’re learning that entrepreneurship is a roller coaster ride. One moment you’re up, the next you’re down. The only difference between the real world of business and the fantasy world of a theme park is that you have no idea when the next trough and peak of your journey are going to hit your business. You win deals and lose them. You find the perfect person to hire, but they get ‘stolen’ by a competitor. You design the perfect marketing campaign, only to screw up your landing page so it doesn’t … [Read more...]
Why Isn’t My Business Growing? Is Fear Holding You Back from Scaling?
Are you overthinking your way to growth? You’ve got to the point where you need to scale your business to grow your business. But something is holding you back. When you first started your agency, you had nothing to lose and everything to gain. That dynamic has changed. You want to grow your business, but you have much to lose. Everything you have built your firm to be. Your income, your status, and your reputation. The thing is unless you take action to scale your agency, then you will never break free of the position you are in. Your business will rely on you. What if you are ill? What if you want to get away for a few months? How do you reap the rewards of the success you … [Read more...]
Demystifying Scale: What It Means to Scale a Business, and How to Achieve It
How to Scale Your Creative Agency for Sustainable Growth So, you want to scale your creative agency. Companies scale to add revenue to their business operations, right? I mean, you’ve heard others talking about business growth and how scaling is the path to successful customer acquisition and increasing revenues and profit. The thing is, it’s still a mystery to you. What does scale mean in business, and what do you need to do in order to scale? In this article, I introduce you to scale, and answer three questions that our clients commonly ask when we discuss scaling a small business: What is scale in business? What does scaling a business mean? What are my … [Read more...]
How to Say No to a Customer: Tips to Stay in the Helicopter
Saying No When You Need to Can Enhance Your Reputation and Revenues Saying no to a customer is not always easy, but it is necessary. When you hear a client’s requests, you need to take a step back and think about the consequences of saying yes. Start by asking yourself, how will this impact our firm? If you always accommodate every client request, you will run out of time and resources. You’ll fall out of the helicopter. You need to take a step back. You must learn how to say no to a customer without damaging the relationship. The typical day of an ‘always yes’ leader As an ‘always yes’ leader, you aren’t controlling your firm. … [Read more...]
Confidence Is Important in Leadership: How to Be a Confident Leader
What Is Self-Confidence in Business? Confidence is the foundation of success. Confidence makes you feel like you can do anything, be anyone, and achieve anything. However, so often, we are our own worst enemies. We put ourselves down and believe that we aren’t good enough for any position we want or need to fill. In this article, I answer the question, “Why do leaders need to be self-confident in business?” I also outline some strategies for building self-confidence in business (and in your life). Why is confidence important in leadership? Leaders must possess skills such as problem-solving, decisiveness, and communication. You need to be a good coach and mentor, hold … [Read more...]
The Power of Saying No and the Ability to Walk Away as a Business Leader
When You Say No to Something, You Say Yes to More As the leader of a creative agency, you are constantly bombarded with opportunities from often unexpected sources. So, you take on projects and tasks, fearful of losing out on revenue. It can be difficult to know when to say no and walk away. However, there are times when saying no is a wise decision. The power of no allows you to focus on what is most important to improve the overall health of your business. The benefits of saying no are numerous: it reduces stress, increases productivity, increases happiness, improves innovation & creativity, reduces the possibility of business owner burnout… need I go on? Benefits of saying … [Read more...]
Does Your Long To-Do List Make You Feel Like a Failure? It’s Time to Start Delegating
Simple Steps to Effective Delegation Dealing with too many tasks? Too much stress? A long to-do list is a common problem for owners of creative agencies. Your cluttered desk filled with unfinished work, inbox with thousands of unread emails, and task manager full of overdue items is taking up too much mental space! It’s distracting. Then you start to procrastinate, lose focus, your productivity drops, stress increases. You’re spiraling into business owner burnout. It's time to take back control of your work! The one thing that you can do to ensure that you have the time and energy to complete your tasks is to get on top of your to-do list. How to do this is no secret, … [Read more...]
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