The CEO should agree with the owners a regular rhythm for reporting to keep the owners in the loop. This could be annual, twice-yearly, or even quarterly. Choose the right rhythm for your agency, based on ownership structure and growth stage.

Obviously, if the CEO is the sole-owner it gets a bit easier — but shouldn't be abandoned under the assumption that 'I know everything already'. It's the process of thinking through reporting to an owner, and considering the information as an owner, that is valuable — even if it's just you.

An Agency Owners Briefing should at the very least be circulated before each Agency Owners Retreat.

The purpose of the briefing is to have all the key information to hand to enable productive discussion and decision making at owners retreats and meetings — all the occasions when you and others will 'wear the owner hat' for a while and look at the agency from that different perspective.

Briefing Contents

A template document is available at the bottom of this article, for you to copy/download(docx/pdf) in your own agency.

The report should be concise, with bullet points under each of the following headings: