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How To Run A Profitable Advertising Agency (1 of 2)

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How To Run A Profitable Advertising Agency?

Don’t Take My Word For It, Yet…

monopoly-manI’ve been working as a senior executive and owner in the advertising, digital and Internet startup worlds since the golden 1980’s. My global and regional clients and new business wins include General Mills, Harrah’s, J&J, Intel, Microsoft, Nabisco, Northwest Airlines and Nike. And, many smaller regional clients you might never have heard of unless you are on the west coast.

Over the years, I’ve made hundreds of business decisions. Some were brilliant and some were ‘learning experiences’. I’ve decided to share my top 25 business-building lessons with you. No, I am not so crazy to think that these will instantly make your agency the next 72andSunny. But, I do know that most of these lessons represent best practices that, if followed, can help make you be more successful.

The path that got me here included sixteen years at Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising Worldwide as Business Development Director North America, General Manager Minneapolis, European Director in London and Management Director in New York. After I discovered the Internet browser in 1994, I left advertising for seven years to be CEO and founder of two Internet publishing and technology startups. One was one of the first major online newspapers. The other company created technology that allowed people to have meaningful conversations with a computer – Microsoft bought the technology in 2005. If you were online in the early 2000’s you might have talked with our SmarterChild bot on instant messaging platforms. Over 20 million people did.

After my digital sojourn, I moved from New York to Oregon in 2002 to buy the advertising agency RalstonGroup. In the ten years that I ran the agency, we bought the sports marketing agency Citrus, took their name and added clients like Dr. Martens, Legalzoom, Montana Lottery, Nike’s AOR college and Major League Baseball accounts and the U.N.

I understand the advertising industry from the perspective of huge to small agencies and have sat on the client side of the table.

By the way, I now run an agency consultation business that specializes in business development. I help agencies find their positioning sweet spot and build action-oriented business development plans. I just published my second book, The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches. This book is a very detailed how-to about how to manage and create business-winning new business pitches.

My experience as a consultant and the opportunity to look under the hood of many agencies has confirmed that the following ideas can help add value to most, if not all, agencies.

I hope that by now you think that I must know what I am talking about. If so, here you go…

Here are the first 12 of my 25 key lessons I’ve learned over the years. Part two is up tomorrow.

[Read more…] about How To Run A Profitable Advertising Agency (1 of 2)

Do You Want To Win More Sales Pitches?

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Buy: The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches.

Jim BookA $14.99 purchase on Amazon gets you 251 pages of insights and advice on pitching from my 30 years at Saatchi & Saatchi, 2 Internet start ups and owning my own agency.

You’ll get smart / funny writing; 30 of the latest tips on process, content, presentation prep; 12 funny ‘pitch mistake’ cartoons; 13 interviews with well-known business and presentation experts and 16 “how-to’s’ from agency search consultants. This last one  alone is worth the price.

OK Peter, enough sales talk. What is the real reason to buy the book?

You get to smile like the famous advertising agency executive at left who has already won 9 agency sales pitches since he bought the book yesterday.

This book pays for itself. He has made over $240,000. That’s a 17,142% ROI!

Don’t forget to sign up for my updates and the freebee that will change the course of your agency…. below.

 

Agencies, Man Your Website Videos

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Where is Your Agency’s Video ‹ Advertising Week Social ClubI wrote about the power of guest posting recently. Here is my latest guest post on the Advertising Week blog. The post is all about why advertising, digital, design and PR agencies need to put their agency story up on their website using = an agency video.

The genesis of the post is based on insights gathered from my book. Virtually everyone I talked with (agency CEO’s, clients, agency search consultants) say that interpersonal agency to client chemistry is a key factor in agency selection. My point — start building chemistry with you website.

Sign up below to get my incredibly valuable weekly review. You’ll also get some free information before the book hits reality (it is in September.)

Ad Agency Videos Drive New Business

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images tvI’ve been thinking about doing a series on the best (and, maybe the worst) sales videos that ad agencies use on their websites. Agency videos work hard as a business development tool by explaining the agency positioning, skill set, history and, as an introduction to its people and personality.

Introducing the agency’s people is a very good thing because we know that interpersonal chemistry is a key factor in how clients select agencies. And, why not begin to build out chemistry when potential clients make their first visit to an agency via the website. A mega plus is that a scripted video helps agencies control what and how they talk about themselves the first time a client “meets” them.

As a kickoff, here is the agency video from JESS3. I often use JESS3 as a positive example of an agency that picked a niche and established a unique positioning to help them rapidly grow from being a small agency to having a blue chip national client base. This is the Holy Grail for many regional agencies. However, few seem to be willing to take the plunge into a specialized segment that will widen their geographic footprint.

JESS3’s niche is data visualization. From the agency’s Wikipedia page:

JESS3 was founded in 2007 by web designer Jesse Thomas its CEO, and Leslie Bradshaw former president and COO. JESS3 is a creative interactive agency specializing in producing videos and graphics to explain complex information through “visual storytelling.” The agency’s focus on data visualization worked.

By 2011, the agency listed Nike, Intel, Microsoft, NASA, MySpace, Facebook, Google, Yahoo! and Samsung as clients. Believe me, if JESS3 had been a “full-service” agency they would have been noticed by these major advertisers.

The agency website announces their focus front and center (another good thing – no hunting for the brand positioning):

At JESS3 we take complex topics and large data sets and make them accessible through beautiful visuals.

We are a creative interactive agency that specializes in the art of data visualization, adding context and meaning to the exponentially growing world of data around us.

The JESS3 Ad Agency Video

This is a high energy, personable and informative video. At 2 minutes it might be long for some some but it works for JESS3. Why?

  • The video is fast paced and not a 2 minute taking head.
  • The video immediatly introduces Jess and Leslie as likeable agency founders and positions them as leaders.
  • It nails the agency sales proposition.
  • It quickly mentions clients like Google and Nike to provide credibility.
  • The video goes past just talking about data visualization to discussing its marketing benefits.
  • The video briefly talks about how JESS3 does its magic.
  • Again, to deliver credibility, the agency talks about growing from 2 people to 30 and into 4 offices.
  • They tell us that clients consider the agency “best in class at data visualization and visual storytelling.”
  • To top it off, JESS3 says that it gets calls from clients because the agency has a focus. Focus is a good thing.
  • And…. this is just one of 51 videos that the agency has on its Vimeo channel.

OK, I’ll stop writing. Here is the video.

 

Stay tuned for more blog posts on agency videos. Oh, don’t miss any by signing up below for my weekly newsletter.