Jerry Colonna coaches venture-backed CEOs, and he’s coached a boatload of them! He’s worked with the CEOs of Etsy, Foursquare, Intuit, and Soundcloud to name a few. But not just when they are big and famous; he works with many folks who are in their startup phase. On a recent podcast, he said of the CEOs he works with, I’d like you bored at four o’clock on Friday afternoon. Bored. Literally looking at your to-do list like, “I’m done.” (Jerry Colonna at 6:25 in Operator’s Manual #4) How would that feel? Does that sound crazy to you? The first time I heard him say it, I thought it was a little crazy! What is mine to do? One of the problems with running your show is that it’s … [Read more...]

Too many agency founders have drunk the 24/7 hustle culture Kool-Aid. "We're in a service business, we need to be there to serve our clients! This is what agency life is like, it's not a 9-to-5 job." You've heard it, maybe you've lived it! I'm thinking that might be why so many of you responded to my emails over the last week about how to make #agencylife into a game, one that produces great work makes good money, and that we can experience as light, easy, and fun! But before I go too much further with this I want to ask you for a favor. Who do you know that needs to hear this? Would you be willing to stop for a minute and think about the other agency and expert firm owners … [Read more...]

The messages from last week where I talked about freeing ourselves from the endless grind with no finish line and the idea of reframing our work to be light, easy, and fun brought out many encouraging replies, including this one: Hey, Brad!This morning, I reflected that 10 years ago, I was grinding, traveling, building a course with a partner in Europe (which failed to launch), hiring people, had no insight into whether we were crushing it (we weren’t) and on a path to total collapse!Today, celebrated 6 months in a new city, just completed my third week at a local CrossFit gym, don’t log on until 10 AM, try to wrap by 5 PM, and have no partners or employees… but still made a profit last … [Read more...]

… [Read more...]

According to Greek legend, Sisyphus so angered the gods that they sentenced him to the worst torture they could imagine. He will spend eternity pushing a rock up a hill -- as it reaches the pinnacle, it will roll back down again. After returning to the bottom, Sisyphus would then have to push it back up again. The funny thing is that Sisyphus called in for a coaching session with me this week! He said it would be OK if I shared part of our conversation... B: So, you're pushing a rock up the same hill every day? S: Yeah, it's pretty depressing. I never seem to get ahead. B: You must be getting pretty good at pushing rocks! S: I am; actually, I'm pushing the rock up the hill in about … [Read more...]

Over the last week, we’ve talked about how we have to price the customer, not the project. We’ve also looked at how letting the customer make trade-offs can help us close more deals and make more money. Today, we will talk about how charging more money helps us win better clients and provide us with work we enjoy more! What happens when we charge more? I had a client who did website design and digital marketing. She had one group of clients willing to pay $12K - $20K for a site build (that was their value). The sites were straightforward, but getting the content together was always a battle. The projects tended to drag on for 6 - 9 months and usually ended somewhat … [Read more...]

On Thursday we talked about what your work is worth. Though we want our work to have some intrinsic value, the truth is that the only one who can tell us the value of our work is the client. The same work could be worth very little to one client, or a whole lot to another client. This truth leads us to an uncomfortable conclusion, we can’t price projects, we have to price clients. If an agency were to say, “Our websites cost at least $15,000.” that doesn’t really tell you anything about the website they sell, but it tells you a lot about the customers they are looking for. Is that fair? But how can I sell the same work, or very similar projects, to two different customers at two … [Read more...]

I’m in an agency owner's slack channel where it's common to ask questions about how to improve and grow businesses. I enjoy popping in every few days and joining in the conversation! Last week, one question stopped me in my tracks. This agency owner asked: "If anyone is willing to share, I’d like to know the cost range for a website that is around 20 pages. We are trying to figure out if we are overpriced or underpriced. Assume that there’s new content, design, and development. Thanks!" Before you go on, I’d love to hear how YOU would answer this question! Hit reply and share your answer before you read on. The most common answer she got back was, “It depends.” Several people pointed … [Read more...]

I got a lot of feedback from my emails last week about the value of account managers, and it’s clear that there’s quite a bit of confusion about what the job of an agency Account Manager is! With a big caveat that there are a LOT of different AM job descriptions out there, here’s what I think should be included: 1. The AM represents the client within the agency. Account Managers represent the client when they aren’t in the room. So they write the brief and give feedback to the creative/developers/analysts to keep them on track. Account Managers ensure that the client’s money is being spent wisely! 2. The AM represents the agency with the client! The Account Manager watches out for … [Read more...]

Most creative agencies have two halves of their business. One side is the people who “do the thing” – they might be artists and writers, or developers, or analysts, but the value they bring is in their skills. They work the magic! On the other side, there are the Account Managers. The account managers are responsible for leading the client project in such a way that the client has confidence in the work, gets the results they bought, and the agency makes money. From one perspective, the account team is useless. They don’t work the magic; they don’t do the thing; why do we need them? Are they just babysitters? Or are they salespeople? What are they? Account Managers lead Creatives … [Read more...]