Grow, build, sell, live : a practical guide to running and building an agency and enjoying it / Richard Houghton and Crispin Manners.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Houghton, Richard, author.

Manners, Crispin, author.

Series:

PRCA practice guides.

PRCA practice guides

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Entrepreneurship.

Management.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (191 pages).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Bingley, England : Emerald Publishing, [2019]

Summary:

Agency leaders spend the majority of their time on three areas their people, clients and new business. These are all important levers for consultancy growth. But too often, agency owners forget two more essential tools for growth: attention to the numbers, and investment in their leaders.The consultancy leadership role can seem like an endless stream of fires to put out. It can leave leaders feeling as if their team, or their clients, are running their business rather than themselves. That's where this book comes in.Grow, Build, Sell, Live features practical and implementable advice and tools to address the day-to-day reality of running a successful agency. In addition to giving guidance on people, clients and new business, the book covers leadership and the numbers in detail to ensure leaders have the tools and knowledge to be in control.The content draws on proven approaches, helpful science and real-life examples to give practical recommendations to improve readers' ability to achieve the controlled growth which is essential to agency success. If you are thinking about starting your own agency; have started one and hit your first round of growing pains, or are a veteran looking for an exit, this book is for you. It will appeal to current and aspiring agency owners who want to understand and be conscious of their choices and take control of their agency.

Contents:

Front Cover

Grow, Build, Sell, Live: A Practical Guide to Running and Building An Agency and Enjoying It

Copyright Page

Contents

List of Figures

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Introduction Building a Great Agency - One Choice at a Time

I.1. Don't Forget You Matter Too

I.2. Building a Great Agency One Choice at a Time

I.3. Tools and Guidance to Put You More in Control of the Choices You Make

Chapter 1 The Dangers of Travelling Hopefully and How a Purpose Becomes a Plan

1.1. A Framework for Making Choices

1.2. Using Your Purpose to Attract the Right Talent

1.3. Attracting the Right Clients

1.4. A Combination of Personal and Corporate, Tangible and Intangible

1.5. Turning a Purpose into a Plan

1.6. Providing a Sense of Purpose with the Alignment Framework

1.7. Making the Alignment Framework Work for Every Employee

1.8. Why Is Building an Alignment Framework Worth the Effort?

1.9. Linking the Purpose to Personal Development

1.10. Connecting the Purpose to a Traditional Business Plan

1.11. Use Your Alignment Framework to Instruct Your Business Plan

Chapter 2 If You're Running a People Business, Then Make People Your Business

2.1. How Do I Attract the Right People?

2.1.1. Successful Recruitment Is a Trust Purchase

2.2. How Long Should I Expect People to Stay?

2.2.1. Don't Get Caught Out by the Churn Points or Make a Promotion a Reason to Leave

2.3. How Do I Recruit for Growth?

2.4. How Much Should I Spend on Training and Development?

2.5. This Person Just Isn't Performing Anymore, Should I Let Them Go?

Chapter 3 Culture Matters - It Will Determine How Fast You Succeed

3.1. The Ingredients of an Effective Culture

3.2. Use SCARF to Ensure You Create a Productive and Happy Environment.

3.3 Avoid unconscious bias - it can introduce unfairness without you realising it is happening

3.4. Create a coaching culture

3.5. There is no such thing as the status quo, so make sure you measure how engaged your people are on a regular basis

Chapter 4 Successful Agencies Need Good Leaders

4.1. Freedom in a Framework

4.2. Leadership vs Management

4.3. Leadership Responsibilities

4.4. People

4.5. Clients

4.6. Proposition - Being Different

4.7. New Business

4.8. Commercial Focus

4.9. Leadership Framework

4.9.1. Purpose - Vision, Mission and Values

4.9.2. Innovation

4.10. Behaviours

4.10.1. Walk the Talk

4.10.2. Motivate

4.10.3. Delegate by Coaching

4.11. Personal Leadership Plan

Chapter 5 Great Client Relationships Are Built on Respect Not Emotion

5.1. Commercial and Human

5.2. Respected Not Liked

5.3. Setting Expectations

5.4. Measurable Objectives

5.5. KPIs

5.6. Client's Shoes

5.7. Matching the Team to the Client's Behaviour

5.8. No Surprises - Using SCARF with Clients Too

5.9. Two-way Street

5.10. Tools

5.11. Added Value

5.12. Defector or Loyal Client - Map Where They Are

Chapter 6 Cobbler's Children Is Cobblers - Why Marketing Matters?

6.1. Vanilla Agencies

6.1.1. Trust

6.1.2. Talkability

6.2. A Proposition that Helps You Win the Right Kind of Clients More Easily

6.3. Sense Check that What You Develop Will Bring You the Right Clients

6.4. Campaign Development - Hope Doesn't Pay the Bills

6.5. Thought Leadership - a Platform for You to Own

6.6. Culture - Marketing from the Inside Out

6.7. Implementation Needs an Effective Process

6.8. A Database that Delivers the Right Results

6.9. Winning Awards Is Not about Vanity but Creating a Client Magnet.

6.10. Activate Partners to Extend Your Reach and to Create Warm Introductions

6.11. Just Say No to Prospects that Aren't an Ideal Fit

6.12. Resourcing - Until You Identify the Cost of Inaction, You Won't Justify the Cost of Action

6.13. Innovation Keeps Your Marketing Ahead of the Competition

Chapter 7 Making Your Innovation Choices Pay-off

7.1. When Is the Right Time to Innovate?

7.2. Is New Always Best?

7.3. Now Let's Look at When It's Right for Your Business

7.4. The Importance of Innovating to Achieve Your Purpose

7.5. The Importance of Getting the Timing Right

7.6. The Importance of Keeping Yourself Energised

7.7. Should You Focus on Innovating Services or on Innovating Internal Processes, or Both?

7.8. Why Not Innovate to Reduce Over-servicing? It Will Be Good for Your Business and Your People

7.9. Don't Underestimate the Inertia That Can Come with Your People

7.10. Unlocking the Innovative Thinking of Your People

Chapter 8 New Business - The Life Blood of All Agencies

8.1. Targets You Can Hit

8.2. Sales Policy - Where Are You Going to Look for Revenue?

8.3. Lead Bonuses Need Careful Planning and Tracking

8.4. Vanilla Agencies Find That Selling Is Harder

8.5. Creating a Pitch-ready Agency

8.6. No-budget Tenders and Other Aberrations

8.7. Pipeline Management for Both New and Current Clients

8.8. Growing Existing Clients

8.9. Client Loyalty

8.10. Summary

Chapter 9 The Money Matters - It's What Agencies Are Really About

9.1. Picking the Right Accountant

9.2. Capturing Financial Information with an Accounting Package

9.3. Keeping on Top of Core Information

9.4. Reporting Formats That Are Easy to Understand

9.5. Forecasting So You Don't Get Any Nasty Surprises

9.6. Capacity - What Is the True Revenue Capacity of Your Team

9.7. Hours Available to Sell.

9.8. Hourly Rates

9.9. Capacity Plan

9.10. Use Time sheets to Drive the Right Behaviour

9.11. Don't 'Con Yourself' with Your Client Budgeting

9.12. Over-servicing Is the Road to Financial and Emotional Ruin

9.13. Don't Become a Yes Person

9.14. Buffer

9.15. By Focusing on the Numbers, You Can Build a Great Agency - and Have Fun Doing It

Chapter 10 Make Sure the Business Is Good Enough to Sell - From Day One

10.1. AKA - How to Make Your Business Attractive to Acquirers and Yet So Good That You Don't Need to Sell It

10.2. Start by Valuing Yourself and the Value You Deliver

10.3. Build in Value by Thinking from a Buyer's Perspective

10.4. But Buyers Want More Than the Obvious

References

Chapter 1

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781787568853

1787568857

9781787568839

1787568830