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Agency Espresso

Some hard truths

In the last few years, agency founders have had to work incredibly hard just to keep their agencies afloat.

It's been stressful and exhausting, with no appreciation from anyone.

The good news is, you made it through.

Now that we're entering calmer times (and, as I've said before, a golden age for agencies that have worked to reinvent themselves for the new marketplace), I think it's time for a hard truth:

We all had to work so hard as leaders in the last few years because we hadn't taken our leadership roles seriously enough before.

We hadn't spent time consciously designing our agencies — we just let them be shaped by whatever came up.

We hadn't built a 'sales machine' into the business to power it sustainably — we just ran on the luck of inbound leads, while they lasted.

We hadn't really nurtured our culture, honed our strategy or defined our purpose — we just ran on vibes in the good times.

And we hadn't established the rhythm of the agency, the proactive drumbeat of communications, action and accountability that creates the momentum — we just ran from one thing to another, then did the firefighting.

I could go on.

All of these things are why agencies seemed to keep riding the rollercoaster, with us just clinging on through each rise and fall.

Because we were never really in control.

In reality we survived these last few years through sheer hard work and stress, rather than having a brilliantly working business.

And think about it — in the good times, how much opportunity and margin must have been wasted by just coasting through the luck of a buoyant market?

From these hard lessons we've had in recent years, let's learn and act on it now.

Let's each design our agency as a creative project in itself.

Let's be in control of the business, and be confident and effective in that.

We need to step up to lead.

Therefore, we need to take our agency leadership time and skills seriously.

Think about this over the summer and how you can dial up your agency leadership to be ready for the autumn.

Your next amazing creative project is to design a healthy agency, that you'll love leading again.

And you're going to rock it.

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