EP 245: State of the Agency 2020 Pt. I with Drew McLellan

The past three months have felt like a bad sci-fi movie. As agency leaders, most of us have navigated the economic struggles right after 9/11 and the great recession of 07-08'. But nothing has come close to the economic, health, and social impacts that we've experienced recently. But we need to stay smart and fight our way out of this economic slowdown. I want to share some trends that will help you do just that.

COVID continues to be a major topic of discussion throughout the world. It is still a hot button issue as many agency leaders work to stabilize their operations. However, the pandemic has had to share the spotlight with the global conversation about racism and it's reasonable to assume these are both conversations and realities we're going to be wrestling with for the foreseeable future.

In this episode of Build a Better Agency, as I have every summer, I want to look at the trends that are impacting our industry. A couple of them have been altered by COVID but most of these are trends I was talking about in early 2020 and they're as relevant today as they were in January.

With everything going on right now, it is hard to dedicate the necessary time and mental space to focus on running your agency. The health of your agency is more important than ever before. We have to carve out of the time to protect our businesses and I am hoping that taking a look at these trends will help you do that.

A big thank you to our podcast's presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They're an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here: https://www.whitelabeliq.com/ami/

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

• Why the health of our agency is so important in the big picture
• How to tee up your agency for a great 2021
• What you can to start thriving right now
• Trends that agency leaders should be watching for in 2020-2021
• Why AMI agencies have been so much more profitable than average privately held agencies
• How our clients' needs have changed this past year
• What we can do to map out our sales funnels and increase efficiency
• How to take control of the sales cycle by being direct
• Why agency leaders have become a bottleneck for strategy
• Why we are seeing more employees buy minority stakes in their agencies