Borrowed from da web

How to have a very Successful Agency.

Here is the recipe of truth.

I often get asked for advice about building a client service agency. While sitting in a little coffee shop I decided to write some down. If you’re thinking of starting one, or in the process of growing one this might be of interest.

It’s going to be a slog. No doubt about that, and if you don’t think you’ve got it in you to be emerged 24/7 in it don’t start it or don’t continue. Yes you can run it as a lifestyle business (and I don’t blame you once you get older) but true greatness is created by ‘all in’ hard work and determination.

Be prepared to roll up your sleeves, work hard, and not really ever be 100% switched off from work. It’s not work life balance, it’s work life merge.

Focus on the work first, get this right and everything else is easier.

Your company won’t always be the right place for everyone you hire. Don’t hold people longer than you should, it’s not good for the business or for them.

Design your business around realistic costs, if you have free rent, or are only paying yourself a minimum wage as a founder, consider this when making un-retractible commitments.

As a general rule, total employee costs should be <65% revenue. All other costs <20%, leading to 15% margin.

You serve your clients. Never forget that ever. That doesn’t mean you can’t debate and disagree but they are paying you. If you don’t like that, go no further.

Be proud of running a client service agency. Be very proud.

Have empathy for your clients, there position and challenges.

If you have an idea for a different type of business or revenue generator outside of client service then treat it separately.

Bake inclusivity into your company from the outset. Your clients are diverse in nature and your workforce should reflect the world we all live in.

Be excited about having the opportunity to make your clients look good.

Appreciate clients as being the vehicle to making a measurable difference.

Build a true studio community full of passion, fire, optimism, and mutual respect, and work hard play hard.

Love the metrics, especially project profitability.

Have a point of view about life, love and industry and vocalise it.

Invest time and quality thinking into your forecast process (cash and profit), as this will influence your decision-making and give you a much better chance of avoiding volatility.

Do great work. At the end of the day this is the actual epicentre of success. Great works attracts amazing people and means people won’t mind working hard.

Care as much about the commercials as the work you produce. Fail to do that and you’ll soon come unstuck. Commercial is not a bad word. In fact it’s a very important word.

Don’t focus on alcohol. It’s not ‘culture’ juice as many proclaim (including me in the old days!), think of ways to celebrate where drinking is available (don’t exclude it) but it’s not the actual focus of the celebration. Not everyone drinks or wants to hang around in a pub.

Care as much about the processes needed to run smoothly as you do about the work and the commercials. It’s not an art project. It’s a business.

Think of budgets as an annual studio investment decision-making opportunity. Invest to grow, to change, to respond to the market, to reflect and meet shareholder requirements, but also make sure you can respond quickly to variations to budget, especially adverse ones.

Remember it’s a business. It’s not actually a real life organism with feelings (although you’ll think it is) – make decisions based on the needs of the business and not emotional desires.

Build a strong pipeline. Always have your next jobs lined up. Having more work than you can handle always beats not enough. Allows you to choose the best and a range of work; not everything will be cutting edge, not everything will be sexy, you need a balance

Do anything you can to get retained clients and regular revenue from them.

Beware the bad debtor. Some companies, either the cash-strapped ones or the complete arsehole ones, seem to have a relaxed (verging on dishonourable) approach to paying you. This is often because however diligently you manage their expectations, they always wanted more in the first place (“please can you build me something like Facebook, I’ve got 10 grand”). Look after yourself, and think hard about your credit terms. PS: sometimes it’s because you did a bad job too, so in those circumstances ask yourself if you actually deserve to get paid.

Remember most projects require the same amount of effort (Just in different ways) to win. So focus on big budgeted projects as much as possible.

Treat people with care. Don’t be a fuck. Sadly there are more successful companies where people are treated badly than well but let’s not continue that theme.

Be open to change. Nothing stays constant. I can sat with 100% certainty (ironic) that things you 100% thought at the beginning of your business building will be different to later stages.

True growth, accelerated growth (if that’s what you want) comes from riding waves. Waves are not easy to catch and even harder to find. If you find one, ride it. But remember that all waves stop waving.

Don’t take risks on clients that you sense are not right from a values point of view (as in your values) – it won’t work.

Stay hungry, you’ll only be the new kid on the block for a short while. (Thus change is constantly needed)

Stay passionate. If you’re not passionate change things and if you’re still not shut it down or hand to someone who is.

Recognise that different stages of growth require different skills sets and competencies. Don’t be tied to relationships, be tied to required skills sets.

Build up your safety reserves, and then never erode them. This means that you never have to make short-term decisions that aren’t in the best interests of the long-term prospects of the company. Stability is a massive contributor to studio sense of well-being. Ideally anywhere from 3-6months.

Differentiate yourself, what’s your Secret Sauce? How are differentiated from every other identical client service agency? It can be anything you think you can sell in but make sure you have one.

Form partnerships with bigger agencies. More often than not bigger agencies turn down smaller work because it’s not commercially viable. Perhaps you can support.

Get to know other agency Founders, (not the fucks) and share issues and more importantly share solutions.

Remember that ultimate employees want amazing work over amazing benefits. Amazing benefits without amazing work don’t keep good people for long.

Recognise that people will leave. It’s not about you, it’s about them and their goals. Celebrate people leaving and make that send off the best it could ever be. When they leave, where do they go and why; exit interviews are key.

Measure Engagement, Measure Leadership

Enter the right awards. Awards where actually winning will make a difference to the people who worked on it. Don’t do it for vanity reasons alone.

Take calculated risks. Risks you can afford to take. Those risks are is essence not risks but worth risking.

Be transparent and open to employees where necessary, but realise not everyone needs to know everything or actually cares about everything.

Create a culture where it’s ok to ask questions. Where everyone knows they can get information they want when needed.

Constantly check (of hire a chief checker) that there isn’t piss on the toilet floor. Clients won’t appreciate it.

Understand and harness the power of incredible HR. It’s not simply about hire and fire, it’s about constantly thinking about ways to support and nourish the gang.

Good BDs are fucking expensive, get over it!! They pay for themselves several times over. Never neglect feeding the machine.

Your level of repeat business is a pretty strong indicator of how good you actually are.

Recognise that to be truly well known you’ll need to create something world class. The project will always be more admired than the company.

Celebrate any win, no matter how small.

Give the biggest shit you possibly can while simultaneously not actually giving the slightest shit (this is nuanced) but what I am saying is that at the end of the day, the only true thing that matters in life is family and friends.

Enjoy the journey.

In short the simples is, do great work and treat people like humans.

I stepped away from the client service side of ustwo 8 years ago to focus on building our games company so nothing I say above should really be listened to but if I had to guess, or do it again I’d bet these make sense. As always mail me on mills@ustwo.com , I’m always looking to support, lol, or invest into new exciting opportunities as i continue to uterly adore building my (and Sinx’s) Fampany group.

I also wrote this which seemed to chime a while back How to build an Agency (people care about)

I can assure you after around 13 years you’ll go somewhat mad as you struggle to find purpose and place in the very company you will have started. Thus I also wrote this