Transcript
WEBVTT
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There's a ton of noise out there. So how do you get decision makers
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to pay attention to your brand?
Start a podcast and invite your ideal clients
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to be guests on your show.
Learn more at sweetphish MEDIACOM. You're listening
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to be tob growth, a daily
podcast for B TOB leaders. We've interviewed
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names you've probably heard before, like
Gary vanner truck and Simon Senek, but
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you've probably never heard from the majority
of our guests. That's because the bulk
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of our interviews aren't with professional speakers
and authors. Most of our guests are
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in the trenches leading sales and marketing
teams. They're implementing strategy, they're experimenting
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with tactics, they're building the fastest
growing BB companies in the world. My
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name is James Carberry. I'm the
founder of sweet fish media, a podcast
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agency for BB brands, and I'm
also one of the CO hosts of this
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show. When we're not interviewing sales
and marketing leaders, you'll hear stories from
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behind the scenes of our own business. Will share the ups and downs of
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our journey as we attempt to take
over the world. Just getting well,
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maybe let's get into the show.
Hey everybody, drew McClellan here from Agency
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Management Institute, happy to be back
hosting the agency track of B Tob Growth.
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Thanks to James and the crew at
sweet fish for inviting me to do
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this. If you are not familiar
with they didn't the Management Institute, I
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will just give you a quick introduction. So we have been around since the
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S and our job is to help
agency owners run the business of their business
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better. So our role is not
to teach agency owners how to do branding
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better or how to do PPC or
seo better. Our job is to help
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you run the back of the House
as well as you run the front of
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the House. So we talked about
things like finance and metrics and score cards
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and staffing issues and growth and new
business and all those sorts of things that
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every business owner needs to worry about. But oftentimes for most of you,
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if you are an agency owner,
you are typically accidental business owner. So
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it wasn't really your intention to own
an agency and so this may not be
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this part of the business that you
enjoy the most. So my job is
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to make it easier for you to
make money, make more money and keep
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more of the money you make.
So today what I want to talk about
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is the concept of how do you
make more money? and honestly, in
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many cases money should be coming from
a place that you don't often think of.
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So when I talked to business owners
or agency owners about bisdev or new
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business, they immediately start talking to
me about their prospect lists and their pipeline
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and all of that, and that's
all critical and super important. But actually
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the lion share of your net new
revenue should come from your existing clients.
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So let me say that again.
Most of the money that you don't have
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today but you want to have next
year should come from clients that you actually
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have today. So sixty two,
seventy percent of your net new revenue should
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come from your existing clients, and
there are a few reasons for that.
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First of all, you've already earned
their trust. They are used to sending
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you money every month or every quarter
or every time they get an invoice.
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You've already demonstrated to them how smart
you are and how good you are and
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how you're changing their business. You
are embedded in their business at some level,
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and so you have an opportunity to
see other things they could or should
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be doing that would grow their business
and all of those things add up to
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a much easier, faster sale.
However, unfortunately, in many cases you
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are a ease or not thinking that
way, that way at all. Your
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a's are thinking about taking care of
the client, making sure that the client
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is happy, building a relationship with
the clients, making sure that they are
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taking the order properly. A lot
of you will tell me, if you're
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an agency owner, that one of
your frustrations is is that you're a's are
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more order takers than they are business
builders. And so one of your responsibilities
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as a business owner is to teach
your AE's how to grow their book a
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business. And so in the a
boot camps that we teach, one of
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the things, one of the concepts
that I teach is this idea that really
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every ae is like a franchise,
z. e. So the agency is
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the franchise, or so you are
starbucks corporate, and what you've done is
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you've been trusted eachae with a set
of starbucks in a certain location and it's
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their job to run those locations well
and to grow them, to be more
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profitable, to have more revenue and
all those things. And when we start
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talking that way, you can sort
of see the a's eyes open up and
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go, oh, okay, I
totally get that. Me Just maintaining the
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starbucks and just running it exactly how
it is today is not actually what you're
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asking me to do. What you're
really asking me to do is grow the
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book of business and, sticking with
my analogy, if my starbucks really perform
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well and if they're more profitable and
if I'm selling more cups of coffee and
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more of the lemon bars than odds
are, you're going to give me more
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starbucks and I'm going to have more
opportunity. And so when I talk that
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way to the a's they sort of
get it, but the very first question
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they ask is super busy. How
in the world do I have time to
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grow my book of business? And
so that's what I want to talk about
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today, is how you can help
your aeas grow their book of business.
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So, first and foremost, an
AE cannot grow their clients if they don't
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understand how agency math works, if
they do not understand that every agency has
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a gross revenue and out of that
gross revenue comes all of your costs to
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goods, all of your hard costs, your contractors all of that and what's
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left is adjusted gross income. And
out of that adjusted gross income that's the
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money that your agency gets to keep
and that is the money that you spend
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on salaries, loaded salaries, so
salaries and benefits, overhead and profit.
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And when the a's understand that,
what they care about is your adjusted gross
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income because if they can manage their
cost of goods, if they can manage
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how much you're spending that goes right
back through the agency and out to a
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vendor, they can mitigate those costs
and they can bring more of that money
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into Agi. And if they can
manage the projects so that they're not expending
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more time and energy on the project
than you budgeted, so they're not going
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over budget, they're not over servicing
the client, then there's profit at the
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end of the day and ultimately that
is the measure of their success, is
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is their money on the bottom line
for their franchise's or for their their starbucks
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location? So first they have to
understand agency math. Then they have to
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have some data. Not only do
they have to understand it in the abstract,
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but they need to know actually what
is their book of business worth?
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What is the adjusted gross income of
the clients that they serve today. Because
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if you're asking me to grow one
of my clients or all of my clients,
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how do I know if I'm growing
them if I don't know what size
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they are now? So for most
owners this is a concept they have.
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Sir, wrap your head around that. You have to share some of your
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financials with these key employees and I'll
tell you there is no other employee.
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I'm sure you have lots of fantastic
employees, but there is no set of
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employees who has more of a direct
impact on your bottom line and how profitable
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your business is. Then your acount
exacts. So these are people who need
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to know, okay, I'm managing
three clients and combined my adjusted gross income
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is four hundredzero dollars, or whatever
it is. They need to know that
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and they need to know it down
to the clients, and then they need
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to be able to track how it's
growing over time. So a month,
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over months, they need to be
given an Agi update so that they are
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tracking the growth of their clients every
AE. A good ae should be able
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to grow their book of business by
ten percent a year. So if your
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AE is managing four hundred thousand dollars
of Agi today. A year from now
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those same clients should be worth about
four hundred and forty thousand dollars to your
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to your agency. So you should
be growing that book of business. Are
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All three clients going to grow at
the same volume? No, they may
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grow one client the Fortyzero in the
other two maybe stagnant, or one may
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cut back and take a step back. But the bottom line is it's one
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of the measurables that should tell you
whether or not an ae is doing a
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good job. And one of the
metrics and a should hold themselves accountable to
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is are they growing their book a
business by ten percent? So to do
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that they need to know what their
Agi is and they need to know how
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that is progressing. They also need
room. They need room to think,
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they need room to spend time on
site with the client, they need room
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to get smarter about the industry and
the business of the clients. So you
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know, in some cases you're an
agency that has a Nicht specialty and all
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of your clients may be in the
same vertical or industry. In other cases
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you may be more of a generalist
and if so, you're ae may be
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managing the butcher, the baker and
the candlestick maker. Well, they need
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to understand all three of those industries. They need to understand the competitive landscape,
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how technology is changing those industries.
They need to know as much about
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those industries as if they were running
a business inside that industry, because otherwise
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they can't offer up good counsel to
your clients. They also need some room
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to just think and plan, and
so one of the challenges is if you're
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a's are so overscheduled in terms of
client service that they don't have time to
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actually spend a few hours reading trade
pubs, going to a conference, getting
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on a Webinar with an industry expert, whatever it may be, that it's
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pretty hard for them to keep improving
their knowledge base and for them to keep
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growing the business. They also need
a plan, so this growth is not
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going to happen by accident, and
so one of the things that you need
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to hold them accountable for is,
again, you if I said you show
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me your new business plan, what
you're going to show me, typically in
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an agency, is a plan to
go out and find prospects and get them
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to come to your agency and be
a client. Very few agencies have a
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new business plan, which is new
business growth within an existing client. So
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every ae should have a documented,
measured plan, meaning I can say yes,
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I accomplished it or no, I
did not. So, with smart
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goals and all the things that you
bake into the work you do with clients,
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they need to have a plan for
every client of how they're going to
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grow that book of business and then
they need someone to hold them accountable to
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that. So, whether you're doing
one on ones with them, whether it's
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a director of account service, someone
needs to be looking at that plan with
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them and assessing whether or not the
plan is working and, if it's not
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working, tweaking it and, if
it is working, then pouring some gasoline
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on that fire so it can work
even better. So the other thing you're
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a's need is they need to really
understand how to grow that book of business.
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And the first thing that they need
to understand is one of the gifts
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that they have is just by the
nature of them having an outside perspective,
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they can see the clients business through
fresh eyes, through different eyes than the
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client is ever going to be able
to see it. So back in my
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agency because, as many of you
know, not only do I run AMI,
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but I still own my own agency, which will be twenty five next
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year. One of the things we
talked about in my agency all the time
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is you cannot accurately read the label
in a bottle if you're inside the bottle,
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and our clients can't see their business
accurately. They see it from that
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insider point of view and one of
the great things about agencies, and one
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of the reasons why clients higher agencies, is because they can see things from
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this outside perspective. So a's and
under need to understand that that's a gift
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that they have and they need to
lean on it and use it all the
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time. But they also need to
be a student of the clients industry.
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So, as I said before,
they need to spend time learning the industry.
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They need to understand what the trends
are, what the risks are with
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the competitive issues are how technology is
changing that. But they also need to
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do some basic blocking and tackling.
And one of the things that I think
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a's do too much of is sit
on their rear end in their and the
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office. It is as so easy
to bang out an email rather than pick
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up the phone. It is so
easy to bang out an email or text
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to client rather than get up,
get in your car and go see them
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or get on a plane and go
see them. And it's one of the
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flaws, I think, of younger
as as they don't really understand or value
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the importance of time actually spent with
a client. So I think they need
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to spend a lot more time doing
what I call firsthand observations, and that
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could be anything from going to the
clients office and job shadowing him or her
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for a day. It might be
going to the factory floor and watching how
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they make the widget that the clients
sells. It might be going on site
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where a customers using the product or
service that the clients sells. It might
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be doing a ride along with the
salespeople and hearing the conversations that they are
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having with prospects. A great way
to learn a ton about your clients just
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to hang out with them in a
trade show booth for a day or two.
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When you watch how they interact with
people who are walking up to the
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booth and you are hearing the questions
that are being asked and you're watching the
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responses, your a's are going to
get so many ideas of how they can
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help that client sell better, communicate
better, educate better and in some cases,
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and this is ideal, in some
cases the ideas they get are going
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to have nothing to do with your
agency. And there is nothing smarter than
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being helpful to a client when you
benefit at not at all, from what
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you're doing. So when you can
help a client and there's nothing in it
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for you, what that does for
the trust of that client is so huge,
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because now they know you're actually thinking
about their business because you care about
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their business, not because you want
to stick your hand in their pocket and
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get more money. So if you
actually genuinely care about their business and you're
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giving them ideas and thoughts and reflections
and that outside perspective that have nothing to
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do with the agency, then when
you do go to them and say,
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Hey, I think you need a
new video or I think you need a
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new this, something that is going
to benefit the agency because you're going to
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help them create that tool or program
or whatever it is, they don't second
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guess you. They don't wonder if
you're suggesting it because you just want more
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money or if it's really going to
be better for them, because you've already
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demonstrated that you care about their business
and you are invested in their success.
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Another great thing eight he's can do
is secret shopping, and secret shopping might
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be literally walking into the clients store
or storefront or business and asking questions or
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trying to buy something, but it
could also be, you know, interacting
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with a Chat Bot. It could
also be calling a customer service line,
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all of those things. When the
AE does those things and then reflects back
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to the client what that experience was
like, that does two things. One,
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it makes the a smarter about the
business and to it helps the client
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because you're giving them that outside perspective. But they as can't do this by
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themselves. They also need some support
from the owner, and what that looks
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like is they need your help and
support in breaking out the time and having
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permission to do these things. So, for example, let's say an AE
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wants to go spend the day at
a trade show with a client. So
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that's eight hours of builabild time that
they're not going to be spending. That
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might be a plane ticket, it
might be a hotel room, and the
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very first question they're anticipating you're going
to ask is are we billing the client
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for this and your response needs to
be no on occasion. You have to
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invest in the clients and you have
to let the AEA's invest in the clients,
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both in terms of time and sometimes
some hard costs, because otherwise the
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conversation looks very different. When the
AI says, Hey, Bob, I
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want to come to the trade show
with you and I want to spend the
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day on the floor with you,
and the first thing Bob's going to say
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is, I don't have budget for
that. When the AE says, Oh,
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don't worry about it, this is
our investment so I can learn more
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about the business and we can spend
some time together. I really just want
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to hear what people are asking and
the ways that you interact with them during
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the trade show. Bob a takes
a deep breath of relief because he knows
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doesn't have to come up with a
budget. But then the next thing that
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Bob is going to feel is gratitude, gratitude that his agency is willing to
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invest in him and his business.
So you've got to give them some latitude.
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Should every client have the same amount
of latitude? Absolutely not. So
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you've got assess which clients you think
have the greatest opportunity for growth, for
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profitability, and obviously that AE is
going to have more latitude than an ae
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for a tiny little project client.
The other things that you're a's need to
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do is they need to know how
their client is evaluated. So they should
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be saying to their clients, Hey, as we're working on the plan,
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the business plan, the marketing plan, how do you get a raised,
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how do you get a bonus,
how do you get a promotion? Because
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I want to make sure we bake
that into our planning. So let me
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give you an example. So I
have an agency client and they had this
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conversation which, by the way,
most people do not have with their clients
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and they think, oh, that's
too personal, I don't want to ask
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it, but I'll tell you,
your clients love it when you ask this
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question. How do I help you
get a raise, a promotion or a
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bonus? Who Doesn't love a vendor
or a partner who says that to them?
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But anyway, an agency who had
that conversation with their client and what
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the clients said to them surprise them, which was I get a bonus if
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I don't spend my entire marketing budget, and they said, okay, well,
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how much do we have to leave
on the table for you to get
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your bonus? And he said,
Oh, you know x number of dollars.
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So every year, and this was
five or six years ago, every
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year one of the goals of the
agency is to make sure they leave that
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amount of money inside the marketing budget
unspent so that their client gets his bonus.
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Now, do you think he loves
his agency? Do you think he
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advocates for them every time the CEO
says, Hey, is it time for
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an agency change? Of course he
does, because they're helping him get what
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he needs and wants as well.
Another thing you're easy need to do is
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they need to obviously understand the clients
overarching goals and objectives and we need to
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be really good about laddering up whatever
we're recommending to them back to those goals
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and objectives and we need to be
able to measure what we're doing back to
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those goals and objectives. So today, not being able to measure or document
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or prove the value of what we're
doing means that we are going to have
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a very short run with a client. The other thing that you're a's can
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do that will allow them to grow
their clients book of business is they can
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make their clients smarter and they get
there's a couple ways to do this.
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You have to be really careful about
this. It's a delicate dance. You
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don't ever obviously want to suggest that
your client is not as knowledgeable or a
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smart as they need to be,
but there are ways that you can help
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them fill in the gaps, because
your clients are crazy busy. They are
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running from meeting to meeting the meeting, and part of why they hire an
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agency is because they don't have the
time to delve into the things that they
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should be studying. So absolutely sending
them trend reports or competitive analysis and things
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like that. And you can soften
that blow by saying, Hey, I
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know you've probably already seen this,
but I wanted to give it to you
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so you could give your team or
you know what, I know that you
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are super familiar with the changes in
the Google Algorithm, but I wanted you
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to have this so you can explain
to the CEO in an easy way why
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we're tweaking the work that we're doing. So you can use language to soften
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the fact that you're trying to educate
them. Another great way to educate your
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clients is to help them do more
research. Before the recession, agencies did
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a ton of research and it was
one of the things that we we decided
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was a luxury when the recession came
and we really haven't brought it back to
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the same level that it should be
post recession. So helping your client budget
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for research and do research is a
great way for them to get smarter and,
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honestly, for you, and you're
aid to get smarter as well.
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Another thing that we as agency folks
have to get much more comfortable with is,
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you know it, back in the
day, when I started in the
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business, marketing and sales were always
completely different departments and typically they were the
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mortal enemy of each other. So
they were constantly throwing each other under the
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bus when things did not go well. Now today, post recession, marketing
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and sales is often the same department, is often run by the same person
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and even if it's not, they're
much more closely aligned. And so prerecession
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agencies sort of had to pick,
we had to pick sides, and we
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always, of course, pick the
marketing side because that's where our client was
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and that's where the budget was,
and so we too sort of stopped our
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thinking and our efforts on the marketing
side of the equation and we didn't cross
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over the line to sales. Today
we can't afford to do that. We've
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got to help our client own the
entire sales funnel, from I don't know
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you, from Adam, all the
way to trial and repeat purchase, which
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means we've got to be knowledgeable about
and we have to be building a marketing
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and sales plan for the entire organization. So that might be sticking your nose
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into things like making sure the sales
people have the right training, making sure
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they have the right materials, spending
more time eavesdropping on sales phone calls,
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whatever it is. We used to
stop at that dotted line when marketing turned
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into sales. We can't do that
anymore. So you're a yes. To
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get comfortable with this whole idea of
influencing sales as well as marketing. Another
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great way to generate more revenue for
the client and therefore the agency, just
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to help the clients chase lost opportunities. So, whether it's customers of theirs
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that have gone away, or maybe
it's somebody who was did a trial or
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took a sales call but never like
close the deal. Those are very warm
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prospects that often times at a surprising
amount. Honestly, I'm surprised at how
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often businesses don't pursue those opportunities.
One somebody has said no, they sort
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of forget about them. So I
think you can help clients make more sales
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with those easy, warm prospects by
helping them create programs that circle back around
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to in essence, retarget I don't
necessarily mean the digital retargeting, but retargeting
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past or what I would call close
call prospects, people who got close to
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buying but then they didn't and then
the other the other thing that you're as
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can really focus on is, you
know, a lot of businesses are really
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struggling with managing customer service today in
a digital age where we're reviews and ratings
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and comments and discussions about their business
are happening all over the web and most
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clients are absolutely overwhelmed. And how
to manage that, how to mitigate the
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bad reviews by getting more good reviews, all of those things are areas where
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you're ae can help grow the book
a business. So here's what I would
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suggest that you do. I think
you need to sit down with your AAs
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and I think you have to help
them understand hey, your job is not
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just to keep our clients happy.
Your job is to help our clients grow
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their business, which, is a
result, will grow our work with them,
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and so I need you to be
a business advisor to them. It's
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not enough to be their marketing tactics
delivery system. It is really about being
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a business advisor, about really understanding
their industry and understanding how they impact our
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agency. So I want to walk
you through agency math, I want to
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help you understand Agi and want to
show you what your book of business is
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worth, and then we should set
a goal of how you're going to grow
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that by a minimum of ten percent, and then let's work on putting together
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a plan. All of that is
absolutely within your control and, if you
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think about it, what I'm saying
to you is without one new business call,
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without one prospect, you can grow
your Agi by fifty two, sixty
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to seventy percent simply with the clients
you have, and that is time well
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spent, because you also know that
the more hooks you have into a client,
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the more value you're bringing to them. The more different things you're doing
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for them, the harder it is
for them to break up. So it's
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also retention tool. If the AE's
step up into that advisor role and they
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understand that it's their job. Really, they're all aim ad job is to
349
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retain the clients and grow that book
of business, and the best way to
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do that is to help those clients
grow their business. All of a sudden
351
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they look at their job differently,
they have different metrics to be measured by
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and your agency is more profitable.
So that's a beautiful thing for everybody.
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All right, hopefully that was helpful. If you want more information about the
354
00:26:08.539 --> 00:26:12.579
a boot camp or anything else that
am I does, head over to agency
355
00:26:12.619 --> 00:26:18.690
Management Institutecom. Happy to have you
poke around there. We have tons of
356
00:26:18.769 --> 00:26:22.049
free resources for you there. We
also do our own podcast build a better
357
00:26:22.089 --> 00:26:26.289
agency. We have a new episode
every week. So I welcome you and
358
00:26:26.369 --> 00:26:29.730
invite you to take a listen and
see if that would be helpful to you,
359
00:26:30.250 --> 00:26:34.079
and I'll be back next month to
add to this track on BB growth.
360
00:26:34.160 --> 00:26:37.000
Thanks again to the crew. They're
for inviting me to be a part
361
00:26:37.039 --> 00:26:44.480
of it and I'll talk to you
soon. Thanks we totally get it.
362
00:26:44.880 --> 00:26:48.509
We publish a ton of content on
this podcast and it can be a lot
363
00:26:48.670 --> 00:26:52.390
to keep up with. That's why
we've started the BETB growth big three,
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