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PODCAST

Agency Leadership Podcast

Chip Griffin and Gini Dietrich

The Agency Leadership Podcast provides insights for agency owners and executives. Co-hosts Chip Griffin and Gini Dietrich share practical advice and industry news relevant to PR and marketing agency leaders.

business management

All Episodes

18:14

Stop trying to keep up with the Joneses

Agency Leadership Podcast ·

2022/08/15

Agency owners love to ask what others are charging or what services they are providing. They dig into the competition for insight on their own planning. Chip and Gini argue that while competitive intelligence can be helpful, it should be one of the last steps in the process, not the first. Figure out the pricing that works for your cost structure and delivers the profit margin you want. Test it with prospects to see if it works. If it doesn't, see how you can tweak it. If it works, try increasing

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21:11

Understanding the cost of agency business development

Agency Leadership Podcast ·

2022/08/08

A recent post by a member of the Spin Sucks Community raised the topic of calculating the cost of winning new clients — and determining how to account for that expense properly. "Any thoughts on how to account for the time spent on proposals (calls and revisions) to get a job? I’m the one that has to do the work. When I’m doing that, it’s 'lost time' for me. My first thought is to see how many hours I’ve spent in the first half of the year and then see how that is accounted for in my profitability

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20:06

How to allocate your client's PESO budget

Agency Leadership Podcast ·

2022/07/27

Agencies commonly get asked how much they should spend on one tactic or another. Clients and agencies alike also ask what percentage of their budgets should be spent on each element of the PESO model. In this episode, Chip and Gini explore how agencies should approach this question, both when developing their own strategies for clients as well as for helping to guide the client on their overall communications planning.

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21:16

Measuring (and reporting) your agency's results for...

Agency Leadership Podcast ·

2022/07/19

A question recently popped up in the Spin Sucks Community for an organization looking to implement a communications measurement program for the first time. Chip and Gini took the opportunity to explore how to set up useful reporting for client work, as well has how your agency can communicate those results most effectively to your clients. Measurement isn't easy, but it doesn't need to be hard either. There are lots of great resources available. This episode will help you to build or improve your

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21:41

What value do clients believe your agency provides?

Agency Leadership Podcast ·

2022/07/12

Do you know what your clients really value from their relationship with your agency? Often we know that we are creating real value for a client, but it isn't always aligned with the value that they see. For example, clients may be looking to get something off of their own plates or relieving some logistical headache more than the actual results you produce. In other cases, they may be looking for external validation or a fresh set of eyes. The more you understand about why a prospect decides to

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19:59

Agencies and the possible Recession of 2022

Agency Leadership Podcast ·

2022/06/29

Chip and Gini put this talk off for as long as they could, but many listeners have come to them during the past few weeks asking if they believe a recession is likely and what they should do to prepare their agencies for one. The truth is that the things that you should do to prepare for a possible recession are the same things that you should be doing to run a successful agency during the good times. The only difference is that you might want to be slightly more cautious and build in just a

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22:39

Bidding wars for agency talent

Agency Leadership Podcast ·

2022/06/20

How should you handle it when one of your agency's employees — or prospective new hires — comes to you and asks you to match another offer? Or perhaps they approach you and tell you that they need to get a significant pay raise so that they aren't "forced" to go into the marketplace to try to find opportunities that pay more. In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss how to approach these requests, whether you are in a super tight talent market like we see today or even in more "normal" times.

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22:04

Should your agency hire contractors or employees?

Agency Leadership Podcast ·

2022/06/08

The conversation about hiring traditional employees or independent contractors has been a popular one in the agency community for a long time. Some advocate the flexibility of using contractors and the ability to stop working with them without incurring unemployment insurance costs. Others promote employees as a better solution because they help create a real team atmosphere and are willing to do more for success than outside contractors. In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the merits of some

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22:50

Handling clients who disagree with your agency's advice

Agency Leadership Podcast ·

2022/06/03

Sometimes clients just won't take their agency's expert advice. There's nothing inherently wrong with that — after all, we can only offer advice. But how should you handle it when they ignore your recommended course of action? When should you push back — and how should you do it? Chip and Gini explore this topic and talk about the importance of understanding the root cause of the client's objection or desire to proceed differently. With that information in hand, it becomes much easier to figure

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18:30

Sharing your agency's internal work product with clients

Agency Leadership Podcast ·

2022/05/24

Agency clients often ask for things like media lists, Photoshop files, raw research, and access to internal software tools. How much of this material should you be willing to share? How should you decide where to draw the line? In this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast, Chip and Gini pick up a question from the Spin Sucks Community to dive into this topic. They started out with some degree of disagreement, but as usual ended up more in agreement than they first thought.

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24:03

What kind of content should you create to market your...

Agency Leadership Podcast ·

2022/05/17

You know you should be creating content to help promote and position your agency, but what kind of content should you be producing? In this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast, Chip and Gini look at both the substance and delivery method to help you better understand what works — and what doesn't. As prolific content creators themselves, the co-hosts talk about some of the mistakes that they have made (and how to avoid them). They also discuss how content can be used not just to attract new

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23:02

Letting go as an agency owner

Agency Leadership Podcast ·

2022/05/10

Just because you did everything when you started your business, doesn't mean that you should keep doing it all. It's probably time for you to let go of some of the things that you have your hands in today. Letting go doesn't just free up time on your schedule to do higher value work, it also empowers your team to produce better results. It drives increased retention of both clients and staff. And it helps you create a business that you are happier with. In this episode of the Agency Leadership

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21:00

How big should my agency be?

Agency Leadership Podcast ·

2022/04/26

Chip and Gini often get asked what size is the right size for an agency. Is there a magic number for revenue or employees that works best? Of course, the answer is the same as the one that the co-hosts end every episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast with: It Depends. The truth is that there are many more important factors to consider than how much you bill or how many people you employ. Chip and Gini discuss how you should think about agency size — and why you shouldn't be looking for a secret

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21:53

When to get creative with pricing your agency's services

Agency Leadership Podcast ·

2022/04/20

Pricing experts provide lots of advice on how agencies should price their services. Some approaches promise greater profits but do come with some added risk. In this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast, Chip Griffin and Gini Dietrich discuss why you should master basic, traditional agency pricing before you advance to some of these more advanced techniques. The co-hosts explain that you need to make sure you can price for at least minimum profitability before you move on to maximizing the

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19:46

Payment terms for agency subcontractors

Agency Leadership Podcast ·

2022/04/08

It is not uncommon for agencies to hire other agencies to do work for them. Unfortunately, sometimes that comes with the lead agency telling the subcontractor that they won't be paid until the ultimate client pays. Chip recently wrote about this on LinkedIn and encouraged agencies not to accept these terms because it transfers too much risk and removes the ability of that agency to do any kind of meaningful collections work since they can't talk to the ultimate payer. Gini came into the

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24:46

The reality of selling your PR or marketing agency

Agency Leadership Podcast ·

2022/03/31

The mental image that many agency owners have when thinking about selling their agencies often differs from the reality that they experience. In this episode, Chip and Gini share some of the difficult truths that agency owners may end up confronting if they decide to sell to or merge with another agency. The co-hosts discuss why it is important to build an agency you are happy to own and treat selling as the icing on the cake rather than the primary objective. If you're looking for insight into

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24:30

Why SaaS marketing tactics probably won't grow your...

Agency Leadership Podcast ·

2022/03/21

Some agency leaders have seen what works for Saas (Software as a Service) companies and assume they should be doing the same thing to grow their own businesses. While there may be things to learn from how SaaS businesses generate leads and close new accounts, the reality is that agencies are fundamentally different businesses that usually require a different approach to business development. In this episode, Chip and Gini explain how the two types of businesses are different, but they also offer

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20:38

Does your agency need to find a niche?

Agency Leadership Podcast ·

2022/03/15

Many agency experts advocate the idea of "niching down" to accelerate business growth. In this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast, Chip and Gini explore the benefits of specializing and finding a focus. At the same time, the co-hosts emphasize that being focused doesn't necessarily mean limiting yourself to 1 or 2 industries. There are many ways to express your specialization and target a narrower set of ideal clients.

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21:16

Why do agencies lose clients?

Agency Leadership Podcast ·

2022/03/07

A recent post on Reddit questioned why clients leave their agencies, so Chip and Gini decided to tackle the topic on this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. Usually, agency-client relationships don't end for one simple reason, but rather an accumulation of factors. Some of those can be traced back to the process of winning the business, while others may develop along the way. Chip and Gini argue that agency leaders should focus their efforts on addressing the things that they can to improve

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20:44

Conversations are key to successful RFP responses

Agency Leadership Podcast ·

2022/02/23

Don't respond to an RFP unless you can have a conversation and get your questions answered. That's the simple advice from Chip Griffin and Gini Dietrich in this Agency Leadership Podcast episode. The co-hosts build on a conversation started on LinkedIn by Parry Headrick of Crackle PR who explained that his agency turned down an RFP because they couldn't get an answer to the question of how many other agencies had been invited to participate. It was a simple question and should have generated a

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