Thread by @ArticleGroup

I wanna talk about something

It’s about how this agency has screwed up. Made mistakes. Face palmed—repeatedly! How we’ve goofed up, WTF’d, truly authored our own misfortune!

So hold on to your pantaloons people THIS IS OUR ANNUAL THREAD OF UNFORTUNATE AGENCY ERRORS

1/ First things first: this year has gone well! We’ve created great ideas. Grown our client base. Launched a non-profit! But we've also made a lot of mistakes. And during our recent leadership off-site we decided to make a list of them. There are ...*checks notes*...at least 23.

2/ Why did we make this list? Because we want to be honest w/ ourselves. We want to learn from our errors. Too many agencies sweep problems under the rug. That creates a toxic environment of overworked and under-appreciated staff, which = poor client service.

3/ Not to mention—failing to learn from your own mistakes doesn’t scale very well.

4/ Our mistakes cover every possible function! The full list is below. They’re in no particular order. We hope this list gets you to chuckle knowingly that yes, building a client services business is hard … and you’re not the only one who’s slipped on the banana peel.

5/
LEADERSHIP

(1) Inconsistent communication
We made a leadership change this year, but then forgot to consistently communicate to the agency what our strategy was. Result: confusion! Anxiety! Downturns in productivity!

Lesson: Put our people at the center of everything we do

(2) Didn’t clarify what we were selling

We didn’t rigorously define what services we sold or what our capabilities were. This led to a) an unfocused business development team; b) exasperated creative teams.

Lesson: define offerings. Align teams. Develop action plans.

(3) Let emotions override business decisions

We accepted a piece of exciting work even though a) it was an atypical project for us & b) the client wasn’t used to working with agencies. Result: high risk of under-delivering.

Lesson: don’t do that! No magical thinking!

(4) Scared of having tough conversations with clients

At least one time this year we were afraid to have a tough conversation, when that conversation would have created a better client relationship and work product.

Lesson: Put on your pants and pantsuits, be an adult

(5) Underestimated how hard it is to integrate workflows

We caused a lot of needless heartache and friction by not caring enough for the challenges of melding different working styles and needs.

Lesson: Listen to your staff, incorporate their concerns into your plan.

(6) Disagreed and committed, but didn’t revisit

Stole this from our client Amazon. We disagreed pretty well! We committed pretty well! But we didn’t revisit the decisions to incorporate the learnings.

Lesson: Building reflection moments into our leadership sessions

(7) Tore down our financial analysis without a solid plan for rebuilding

We had a loose handle on our finances. We knew we needed to improve. And so we dismantled the analysis we had, w/out a solid plan for rebuilding. We’re fortunate our financials are good!

Lesson: Slow down!

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

(8) Mixed BD and project management

BD slide into a quasi-PM role on projects. This organized the project around new business opportunities, instead of around getting the deliverables right.

Lesson: Hire more PMs. BD rolls off when new business is won.

(9) Didn’t invest heavily in growing our existing business

Didn’t devote resources to selling a) more services to existing clients and b) similar services to similar brands. Instead: devoted new business energy elsewhere. Confusing!

Lesson: Balance our new business outreach

(10) Didn’t share the right lessons from losing

Participated in pitches that were of strategic value to the company but that we didn’t have a huge chance of winning. People were left with the feeling that their hard work was done in vain.

Lesson: Over-communicate strategy

(11) Created a bad pitch process

We don’t pitch a lot. There’s no “pitch team” that specializes in jazz hands. But on at least one occasion this year we decided to compete on an open pitch, and the process was...uncoordinated.

Lesson: Plan more diligently. Staff accordingly.

(12) Created an inefficient proposal process

Our default had been to create new proposals from scratch and brainstorm that creation live, which has been frustrating to all involved.

Lesson: create proposal templates and assign a single author to each proposal.

CREATIVE

(13) Didn’t unify our creative functions

Some of our creative disciplines weren’t consolidated underneath the right creative leaders. That led at times to disparate and sometimes confusing workstreams.
Lesson: realign some roles internally

Lesson: realign roles

STRATEGY

(14) Allowed teams to use an inconsistent vocabulary

You can't assume that everyone means the same thing when they talk about what we do.

Lesson: Define terms, socialize, and monitor use

MARKETING

(15) Botched our case study process

Allowed case studies to be requested ad hoc from creative. Disruptive! So, we created a case studies creation work plan. Better!

Lesson: Assign a single leader, create priorities, take consistent action

(16) Didn’t manage our PR firm very well

Hired a talented PR firm before we had a strategy for how to use them, or knew whose role it would be to manage them.

Lesson: PR’s job: know people. Our job: feed them ideas, not to expect them to have those ideas.

(17) Didn’t effectively target potential clients w/ content

We have a popular newsletter. We have a twitter account that goes viral pretty often. But we’ve been remiss in developing content that speaks directly to the buyers of our services.

Lesson: Focus more content on BD

CONTENT STRATEGY

(18) Didn’t productize our content strategy offering

We didn’t define terms, create a product, create a pitch process and deck, generate a proposal generation process, or develop a unified staffing plan for our content strategy offering.

Lesson: do all that

(19) Didn’t educate the BD team on content strategy capabilities

This is connected to not productizing our offering. Since there was no defined product to sell, BD operated at an inefficiency.

Lesson: Create and educate

(20) Didn’t accurately count the number of ways we screwed up

In last year's article, we published it as “39 screwups…” when we only listed 37 screwups. We fixed that and enlisted a mathematician to proofread our work.

Lesson: Content people are subpar at using numerals

(21) Didn’t invest early enough in training and mentorship for junior employees

We need to put our own people first and ongoing coaching to unlock their potential—to become the best version of themselves.

Lesson: we launched a mentorship and training program

(22) Didn't listen actively enough and were often too easily distracted

Listening, REALLY listening is key to deepening our relationships with colleagues and clients, prevents misunderstanding, and forges respect and trust.

Lesson: hold each other accountable for being present

(23) Didn’t hire where we needed it most

When people had too much work on their plates, we weren't proactive in understanding their workloads and helping them out with new resources.

Lesson: Care for people! All the time!

...And here are some things we fixed from last year!

(1) Fixed our crappy meeting culture

Party poppers! Instead of allowing meetings to run wild like kudzu, we invested time to understand strategic needs and created a more sane meeting schedule.

(2) Fixed our 1-on-1 meeting process

Our head of people ops led the creation of a staff growth and mentorship program called Heads Together. It provides a framework for helping staff articulate their goals and work together with managers and mentors to achieve them.

(3) Created a staffing pipeline

We’ve been very diligent in defining roles we need to fill, consistently interviewing candidates, and keeping a full pipeline. Significant help with projects.

(4) Created an onboarding process
We now have a consistent onboarding process with guidelines and tools.

(5)Created a post-mortem process
We developed an after-action process that allows staff to communicate their experience during a project.

(6) Started raising our hand for more work at existing clients

We’ve begun to codify an approach to growing our business responsibly within some of our clients. These has led to better client relationships and more business!

(7) Began involving strategists at the beginning of projects

Didn't used to do this! Now: early and often. The strategist becomes the expert on the business. Then, if the engagement expands or we start a new project within a client, that strategist becomes even more useful.

Annyyyywaaaayyyy this thread is super long

If you want the whole monkey and circus, our CEO @kesslerandrew wrote it all down in a medium post: medium.com/article-group/…