The Teenage Years
A few weeks ago marked our thirteenth birthday as a firm. Like many 13 year olds we are starting to figure a few things out and still have lots to learn. Here are 13 things we’ve learned along the way about how to run an agency and how to do the work. Most of them we have probably learned the hard way.
13. Remain in good humour. There are quite a number of temporary calamities that tend to pop up in the management of an agency. In hindsight they are always almost too insignificant to recall. Remember, in stormy waters, that this too shall pass and it might even sound a bit exciting in the retelling. It’s been said that the best agencies take the work seriously, but don’t take themselves too seriously. That must be true.
12. Pick up the phone. Even better, pick up a sandwich. It is far too easy to misinterpret meaning, tone and intent in short, written messages than it is in a real human conversation. When struggling with a client, a supplier or a colleague, it is nearly a universal truth that you’ll get to a civil resolution quicker if you can speak to them. Over lunch, if possible.
11. Let’s get some tunes on in here. It’s nice to have some music playing in an agency. You can tell a new team member has settled in the first time they put on the music. In the early days of Berlin we loved to listen to Robyn, David Bowie and Daft Punk. Now we listen to all kinds of things, anyone is welcome to play office DJ if they like. Link up to the Sonos and turn on your playlist.
10. Be provocative. We have put out some work over the years that was really built to grab attention. When you are working on a campaign or press release like that there are bound to be a few people around the table who are uncomfortable. They see risk and they get nervous. They are almost always wrong. There will be a few times each year when we’re working on something that feels a bit scary cause we are staking out a clear position for our clients and there are bound to be haters. Push through the fear if you can, and help the client do the same. It’s nearly always worth it.
9. What’s in it for me? You can do all the audience research in the world on any product or issue you might be working on. Generally speaking when you cut down to the core, people want to know what’s in it for them. The best work answers that question for the audience.
8. Agencies are fun. Visiting the agency should be the best part of a client’s day. Try to get them to come over and look at the work together instead of having another zoom call. They’ve had a lot of zoom calls already today, probably. If you can laugh together, even better.
7. You can die of exposure. Many times someone will call for the first time and need something super cheap, really quick, and if you just do this one for the exposure there will be a great gig coming after. That is one of those “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me” situations that every agency has experienced. In general the client with no money for the first one just actually has no money. Or if they do, they don’t plan to spend it on an agency.
6. Support the team. It’s a mistake to throw one of your team members under the bus to appease an unhappy client. They will remember that when the chips were down you didn’t have their back, and then either go work someplace else where they feel safer or start refusing to make decisions so they can’t get second-guessed. If the team member really did screw up, and sometimes they will, own it as an agency, don’t make them wear it alone. They didn’t screw up, we screwed up.
5. Where my threes at? We want three things from our clients: 1. We want to be able to make a profit on their work. 2. We want a good creative opportunity. 3. We want to like them and like working with them. That’s it. Do those three things and you have our hearts forever. If you can find a 3, do whatever you can to keep them. 2’s are fine, we’ll take a 2, the world’s full of them. When you get down to a 1 you really have to ask yourself if this is worth it. And in the rare occasions you end up with a 0 it’s your own fault for not ending things already, but today’s a good time to break things off, if not sooner.
4. Good people have bad days. We have had a few days here in the past 13 years where it felt like we could not get any lower. Maybe a client took our advice and it turned out to be terrible. Or we hit send on a disastrous press release and got a call from a TV News Director to tell us we are the absolute worst at this (true story). Maybe we misjudged something or someone. Things were our fault. But each time that’s happened we have lived to fight another day. Be gentle to yourself on your worst days. You can do something dumb and not be dumb.
3. Decisions are progress. You have to make a lot of decisions when building and running a company and at least 40% of them will be wrong, probably. But you still have to make them as best you can and you can always undo a decision by making another one. It’s better to take action than to ruminate. Fortune favours the bold, and all that.
2. Hire the best people you possibly can. In professional services, which this mostly is, you have nothing but the strength, skill, ideas and leadership of the team. Build the best possible team you can afford by making a series of bets on yourself, and eventually you’ll have a group of absolute ringers at the table. And you need them, cause this is hard. Endeavour to get as many A players in the room as you can at all times. That is actually the secret to making a good agency. Now you know.
1. Don’t join the freak out. People are always freaking out about something or another. The client is mad, the thing didn’t ship, there’s a mistake on the website, we lost the pitch, whatever. And people who are in the middle of a freak out want nothing more than to have others join the freak out. My hair’s on fire, here’s a lighter! Let’s run around and shout. Well, don’t do it. RSVP “no” to the freak out. Solve the problem. Fix the issue. Call the person who’s mad. But whatever you do, don’t join the freak out. You’ll just make things worse.
Doing this for this long has been pretty great. It is hard but it’s a lot of fun. We share these 13 lessons for those starting new agencies or perhaps considering it. Don’t say we never told ya!
