CEO

Airbnb’s CEO Brian Chesky On Remote Work

Peter · May 15, 2023 · Leave a Comment

Airbnb’s CEO Brian Chesky on Remote Work – A Very Smart Take For Advertising Agencies

I just listened to a Verge decoder interview with the rather brilliant Brian Chesky. Definitely worth a listen to hear his take on new Airbnb features and, most importantly to me and anyone in creative management, how he manages the remote work, office + work-from-home issue. Here are some key takeaways on how to think through remote work and who should or should not come into the office…

Go, Brian:

I generally think the future is flexibility. Here’s the calculation every CEO has to make: are you more productive having people physically in an office together and then constraining who you hire to a 30-mile or a 60-mile commuting radius to the office?

A lot of our software engineers or accountants, certain types of lawyers, we probably don’t need them physically in the office with everyone else. There’s certain creative functions or people on certain teams that we probably do want together physically quite a lot.

Now with regards to remote work, again, just to clarify something, we’re not purely remote, like we have really nice offices, and many people come to the office every day. We just don’t mandate people come to the office every day.

And then the question is, “Do we need them together 50 weeks a year?” And the answer for us is no.

A lot of young people are realizing they could go to another country for a month at a time or a few weeks at a time. When I was in my 20s, I never imagined living in another country for a month. But I actually do think you’re going to have a generation of people that are going to be much more mobile, that are going to potentially choose, at different points of their lives, to live in different parts of the world.

And by the way, last April, we put out our policy and said Airbnb employees can live and work anywhere. But I said, “I do not think the future is remote work. I think the future is flexible.” And I said, “We want to combine the best of Zoom with the best of being together.” We don’t want to recreate this world of Wall-E where everyone’s just staring at screens all day and no one has any interaction in the physical world.

So, but the answer, maybe the final answer to your question is this: the more organized you are, the more you can, the more flexible you can be with employees. So I always wondered, why do you need people in the office to know if they’re working? If you have everyone on a road map and you track everything every single week, then you don’t need people to be in an office to know they’re getting work done.

The value of being in the office might be human connection. The value of the office might be that if we live our lives in front of a screen, we’re going to be very lonely. The value might be that it’s hard to trust people when you never have face-to-face interaction. And the other problem with Zoom is you can’t have side, hallway conversations.

I Agree – Remote Work Is Here Forever

I also agree that flexibility is the key. I wrote extensively about this in my new book How To Build A Kick-Ass Advertising Agency. Its 27 chapters cover every aspect of how to run a kick-ass PROFITABLE advertising agency.

The Full decoder Interview Is Here

Advertising People Die Earlier. Why? Job Burnout.

Peter · August 30, 2022 · Leave a Comment

Job Burnout Kills.

Job burnout is a hot topic (no pun intended.) I’d like to start with a question before I share some data on burnout. We talk about employee burnout. Do we ever discuss owner/leader/HR job burnout? Imagine trying to figure out how to manage a remote workforce. Hybrid working? Juggling salaries for in-house and out-of-office staff? Trying to figure out if you still need that office coffee system? How to manage a growing freelance workforce?

Have you read about leadership burnout? Can you point me to any data? It is going in my next book in the burnout chapter. Yes, with solutions.

Advertising Agency Job Burnout – Since the 1950s

Job burnout is endemic in the advertising industry (see some history below). I’d even say endemic in most service industries. From the Mayo Clinic:

“Job burnout is a special type of work-related stress — a state of physical or emotional exhaustion that also involves a sense of reduced accomplishment and loss of personal identity.”

For the entire history of the advertising profession, workplace stress (today’s burnout) has been a health concern and worse largely unaddressed.

Here is a passage from Stephen Fox’s history of advertising, “The Mirror Makers”. He riffs on the 50’s burnout. 1950s!

“A survey of advertisers in 1957 found that nine out of ten ad people routinely took work home at night. “What other business has so many young men anxious to break in,” asked one adman, “and so many older men anxious to break out?”

Wait. This Is Crazy. Even More. Now 1956.

A study in 1956 by Life Extension Examiners of New York compared the health of executives in manufacturing, banking, and advertising. The ad people showed up worst in ten of eighteen categories, including high blood pressure, organic heart and prostate problems, and abnormal blood counts.

From 1949 to 1959, at a time when life expectancy for white males was 67.1 years, the average age at death in Advertising Age’s obituaries was 59.9. “It’s a killing business,” concluded Lou Wasey, seventy-one years old in 1956.

“Most of the men who have been along with me in business – they’re all dead, and they were younger than I.”

Wait for a second… I need to repeat this alarming fact…

“From 1949 to 1959, at a time when life expectancy for white males was 67.1 years, the average age at death in Advertising Age’s obituaries was 59.9.”

Good thing I sold my agency. No more Job Burnout for me.

Advertising is simply a very demanding service business that has gotten much more complex from a time perspective with the proliferation of needy 24/7 digital programs.

I’ll be frank. Other than being ready to move on to my other loves, a key reason I sold was to not have to manage a large crew of creative workers. not easy then and I think way harder today.

It is OK if you want to pass this blog post on to some buddies – for their health. I like being passed around.

Neil Patel On Advertising Agency Mistakes

Peter · September 5, 2021 · Leave a Comment

I am a regular listener of Neil Patel and Eric Siu’s The Marketing School podcast. As of today, these digital marketers and prolific audio publishers are up to 1,848 episodes (WOW!) that cover many of the tactics and strategies that have made their agencies successful.

Each daily show is delivered at wake up and is approximately 3 minutes long. Bite-sized advice. A recent episode “Mistakes That Neil and Eric Made While Growing Their Agencies” (#1842) is worth a listen (link below). Hey, maybe your agency should produce bite-sized vs. those hour-long podcasts. Like my loooong, but entertaining 40 podcast series – Advertising Stories.

Below is my take on their Neil and Eric’stake.

The podcast transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Eric Siu On Leadership and Work Habits:

“… when I first took over (the agency), one of the big mistakes that I made was taking a book too literally called “Let My People Go Surfing”. So some of you might’ve heard this story already, but it’s from the Patagonia co-founder, it’s a great book. And it talks about letting your people go surfing. He lets his people go surfing during lunch, right. Basically, it’s saying people don’t want to be micromanaged, and they don’t. And I went a little too extreme with it and I stopped showing up to the office. So I learned that it’s important, especially in the very beginning, especially when you’re trying to save something, to trust, but verify and also be there in person and be there in the trenches showing that, hey, you’re there and you have some type of vision for the company as well.”

My take. I grew up during the always be in the office days. I was usually the first in when I worked at Saatchi & Saatchi New York and London, definitely when I was the CEO of two digital startups and when I owned my own agency. It was critical that I demonstrated interest and energy – and its good news for me that I have always been a morning person. Sure I know all about the idea of work-life balance, especially when I had two offices in outdoor , fresh-air driven Oregon. But, running an advertising agency, or any business, requires real leadership and dedication. I demonstrated this dedication by showing up. Showing up is especially requiered for client focussed businesses.

Now, how to exhibit this style of leadership in a WFH environment is a bit up for grabs these days. We’ll see where this goes. That said, the last thing I’d do as a leader today is to pump out 6:35 AM emails that ask for an immediate response. That is not effective leadership.

“The other thing is I made a lot of kind of rash decisions without consulting people. And I learned that building actual relationships and building rapport with people and not coming from an arrogant perspective that just because I came from tech I thought that I kind of walked on water, which I didn’t, right. I just thought I was super amazing when really – it takes a village to build something amazing. So that’s what I would say. Don’t take things too literally, build relationships with people and make decisions that are… If they’re reversible, act on them quickly, but if they’re not reversible, you’d probably want to deliberate on them a little more.”

My take: There are a couple of points here. First, yes your agency will work better in a team environment. Even if you are the smartest or most experienced person in the room, don’t act like an ass. If you stop and listen to other people you will generally come out ahead. LOL, most of the time.

Second, it is OK to fail. But, try to do it too too fast and own up to mistakes. That said, repeted faliures are not a good thing.

Neil Patel On Client Concentration:

A Funny Advertising Agency Lawyer Story

Peter · January 19, 2021 · Leave a Comment

Yes, The Often Dreaded Three Words “Advertising Agency Lawyer” Can Be Funny

I was speaking with an advertising agency client this morning and she told me that they just got off a call with their advertising agency lawyer and it appears that the agency, for competitive reasons, has to rename one of their in-house developed tech applications. It is an important app for their clients and it also represents real smart intellectual property for the agency. OK, this stuff happens. Plus, it reminded me of a funny conversation I had about trademark infringement.

Citrus Vs. Citrus + The Advertising Agency Lawyer

About fifteen years ago my Ralston360 Portland advertising agency bought the graphic design firm Citrus. We liked their name so much we took it as our own. Citrus the advertising agency was born.

I sold Citrus the agency in 2014. A couple of weeks after the deal closed, a close where the name Citrus was dissolved, I am sitting in my room at L.A.’s The Standard Hotel and I check my voice mail. An unknown lawyer says that I have to call him immediately about a serious company issue. So, I give him a call. [Read more…] about A Funny Advertising Agency Lawyer Story

Advertising Agency Management 101

Peter · December 10, 2020 · Leave a Comment

22 Advertising Agency Management Lessons

I’ve had deep conversations with hundreds of advertising agency management leaders on how to manage and grow their agencies — full-service, specialists, digital, and PR. I am about to condense these down to 22 core lessons.

Me.

I’ve been working in the advertising, digital, and Internet startup worlds since the end of the Mad Men era. My global and regional clients and new business wins include J&J, Intel, Nabisco, Northwest Airlines, and Nike. I’ve build websites and digital programs for Microsoft, Nabisco, Honda, LegalZoom and more. I founded, invented, and ran the best read online news website and invented industry-leading marketing bots.

I’ve made hundreds of business decisions. Some were brilliant and some were “learning experiences.” I’ve decided to share my top 22 business-building and management lessons with you. No, I am not so crazy to think that these will instantly make your advertising agency the next Droga 5. But, I do know that most of these lessons represent best practices that, if followed, can help make you more successful. That means richer and happier.

Quick Advertising Agency Management History

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. I left advertising for seven years to be CEO and founder of two Internet publishing and technology startups. One, NJ.com, was a major online newspaper that was larger than the NYT for a couple of years. Microsoft bought the other company that created technology that allowed people to have meaningful ‘human’ conversations with a computer (pre-SIRI). 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 2-office agency, we bought the sports marketing agency Citrus, took their name, and added clients like Dr. Martens, Legalzoom, Montana Lottery, Nike’s college and Major League Baseball AOR accounts, university accounts, and the U.N.

I sold Citrus in 20013 and write about that sale and the other buys and sells I’ve done plus how to add value to your agency in the PDF book you can get by signing up for my newsletter or just ask me via email – peter@peterlevitan.com.

By the way, I now run an agency consultation business. Hopefully, that’s why you are here on my website. I help agencies find their positioning sweet spot and build action-oriented business development plans that create significant market differentiation and make the agencies Unignorable. 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.

22 Lessons (OK, Advice)

I offer my advertising agency management thinking as advice. There are many types of agencies and not every pearl of wisdom will work for every agency. However, there are some basics that I think you should listen to and modify accordingly. I know this because I have done planning with two-person agencies up to the holding company level.

OK – GO

Have a two-year agency business plan. You’d be surprised how many agencies do not have even a basic business plan – like knowing how they make money. My agency’s plan helped us grow the agency’s valuation through an acquisition, open a second office, pitch and add Nike AOR business (which helped us gain even more desirable clients) and develop a focused; high-energy; 24/7 new business program based on direct marketing and social media. —- Note to the 45+ crowd. The plan also acted as a framework to begin to position the agency for an eventual sale.

Create an agency brand positioning that differentiates your agency from the other 4,000 agencies out there. I know, I know, you’ve heard this one before. But, having a viable agency brand positioning is critical. More importantly, have a powerful & unignorable brand positioning — in reality, it’s really a sales proposition. One that actively attracts and stimulates interest from the right new clients. Here is the most critical thing I learned in my own agency’s positioning development process: Just trying to find yet another new way to say “digital” or “full-service” agency isn’t good enough. It’s really difficult for any agency to find a brand new way to enunciate the same old, and generally non-competitive pitch like “full-service.” Some potential clients might want full-service but find a way to say it with style. Note, I have a great example from a London agency that runs global Fortune 500 campaigns out of one office.

Maybe you should go even further. Given the rapid pace of change in our industry, it might be time to think through some agency of the future scenarios and business models that will more effectively get you to a truly distinctive and compelling sales proposition that lasts more than six months. Double-digit growth areas like mobile or video marketing might be smart places to start.

You are a business first. Control all costs. This sounds obvious, but it is critical in an increasingly low-margin service business like advertising. My metric was that every dollar I paid to someone else was a dollar I couldn’t hand to my kids.

Stare at your financial numbers – often. We, advertising people, are visual types so Citrus used dashboards as a graphical agency management tool. We had detailed monthly financial dashboards tied to our P&L, balance sheet, accounts receivables, and owner compensation (this one tended to focus our business decisions.) We also used a real-time agency SWOT assessment for all major agency decisions like mergers and acquisitions, go-no on RFP’s and to help manage existing accounts and staff.

Be concerned if any single client accounts for more than 25% of your revenues. When we added two Nike AOR assignments, I got nervous in addition to elated and accelerated our new business outreach to add other accounts. Give me a shout and I’ll tell you how we added Harrah’s Casinos during that effort.

Learn how to say no to clients and prospects that want too much free or low-cost brainpower. Your brains, ideas, and pixels are all you have to sell. Charge like a lawyer or even SEO specialists that charge like lawyers. It is time for our industry to exhibit some self-control. If you have to give too much away for free, it might be time to examine the value of what you are selling and the mindset of your client or prospect.

Also, say no to the wrong RFPs and pitches.

Think about an alternative to the notion that brainpower and creativity are all you have to sell. Take some of that brainpower to find out how to create a product or service of your own that can easily be replicated and sold over and over. Create or buy some Intellectual Property. This can be done and does not require scientists from SpaceX. Think like a “start-up” and hey, “let’s build some IP” can sound like an obvious panacea. However, there is gold in them thar hills that do not require moon landings. There are agencies teaming up with brewers to create new craft beer brands; agencies moving into valuable yet fast and cheap research and agencies like Wieden+Kennedy and RGA becoming start-up incubators. I asked W+K why they are doing this. The answer… they are investing their brains and experience to make more money in a world that Mad Men couldn’t have conceived. If you need seed money for a new venture try crowdfunding.

Think big like the kid down the street. I bet your team could build one of the more effective Kickstarter sites.

Hire only exceptional people – that’s what Google does so why not you? Do not rush to fill an open position. You will pay in the long run. You can train people but you cannot increase their IQ. Once on the team, make sure to keep all employees are firmly in the loop via scheduled agency meetings and email agency updates. It takes more than a foosball table to build a business building culture. CEO’s need to talk it up. I have always subscribed to Tom Peter’s management concept of MBWA. Look it up.

Reward only your best employees. You don’t owe anyone anything. There is no question that an exceptional employee is as valuable as two marginal people. Does this sound harsh? This approach beats not having investment capital for growth or having to go out of business because you were a bit too magnanimous.

Miscast or problem employees should be dealt with earlier than later. Gary Vaynerchuk has fired the “wrong” hires within their first two weeks.

Grow your digital assets faster. Bring on more technologists (FTE or freelance) to leapfrog even early-adopter digital agencies. Pick a growth area. It’s not too late to become the smartest TikTok agency (no one is yet.) Not even the big boys have TikTok figured out. However, it may be too late to be known as the best “social media agency” given the vast sea of social experts. One more digital point, and I know that you know this — digital agencies have a higher multiple than full-service agencies. If you want to sell in the next three years, you best add MORE valuable digital skill-sets.

Please provide exceptional client service. All AE’s must know how to think like a client in order to anticipate client needs and address any potential issues before they materialize and metastasize. Consider sending your AE’s to an AE class where they learn advertising agency management, customer care, how to intelligently upsell clients, how to retain clients, and how to charm. The worst call I could ever imagine is a client telling me that our account service sucked. It’s just too easy to fix. Fixing creativity is much harder.

Process rules. Create an agency work process that is dedicated to profitability. Manage your scope of work promises. Then stick with it. The ever-elastic creative process must be tamed. Agencies that do not manage scope of work die. If you need a work process template ask me and I’ll shoot you one. [Read more…] about Advertising Agency Management 101