A recent poll among agency leaders nationwide showed clearly the strong fault lines running through the industry.

Leadership is not about theory. It’s about definable action a leader can take to improve their chances to grow. Today many agencies are divided almost equally into three groups. Where is your agency?

New Ad Agency Leaders

Look close, what do you see?

Breathing & Afraid

33% of US agencies recently polled consider themselves barely alive and thereby afraid to take any action. For these agencies today is an important chance to change business strategies and perhaps adopt another point of view. For the “breathing & afraid,” now is the time to develop a strategy necessity for survival – call some outside help and another point of view. Read, discover, dig in, find something new and make a change now.

Cautious & Deciding

33% of agencies are in the middle and are generally optimistic. They are deciding how to take advantage of the opportunities they see opening up. They’re cautious but want to move ahead. For these agencies, use this time to review many new management options in the areas of growth, retention, systems, and account service. For the “cautious & deciding,” now is the time to learn new tactics to start moving.

Bullish & Prospering

33% of agencies polled consider themselves very bullish about their future and the conditions they see around them. Their business plans are working well. For the “bullish & prospering,” now is the time to start tuning up what they are already doing well, enabling them to move ahead faster.

Wherever you’ve landed, implementing change in a marketing firm, ad agency, design firm, marketing department, or any creative group is not about theory.  It’s about definable action you can take today to improve your chances to grow, operate and lead. It’s time for action: shift the way you handle clients, discover new ways to inspire better performance, and get moving.

The New Ad Agency Leaders

Those agencies that are leading the charge to today’s market have redefined their functions, their structure and their processes, and just as importantly their culture. They’ve discovered new ways to achieve order-of-magnitude improvements in organizational effectiveness and personnel productivity.

Many of the new ad agency leaders we’ve worked with have implemented transformative change in:

  • Client service and satisfaction
  • Creative and strategic thinking
  • Management and staff attitudes and performance
  • Bottom line profitability

A very successful few have addressed all of them.

The future of marketing belongs to those agencies that discover how to enhance client satisfaction, client retention, client growth, and maximize profitability. They new marketing leaders have implemented new ways to reduce inefficiencies and frustrations throughout their agency. And they always create employee buy-in and commitment to their vision. They build personal and professional satisfaction, culture, throughout the agency. Only in this way can they truly prepare for the future and are able to change on a dime.

 

Image “the eyes have it” by (a)artwork