Virtual versus remote

As technology has made it easier for employees to seamlessly work from home, a coffee shop, or wherever else they want, businesses are increasingly deciding to go without a physical office. The agency space, in particular, has seen a rise in the number of firms that lack a location where the full team works every…

Adversarial relationships

Too often I see agency leaders who treat relationships with clients or employees as adversarial in nature. That’s the wrong way to think of it. Both parties — agency and client or employer and employee — have some shared interests and some interests that diverge. That means that there will be some natural give and…

Focus on fit not differentiation

Many PR agencies worry about portraying themselves as different from the competition. After all, that’s how you get business, right? Often, agencies end up with “differentiation” that isn’t really all that different. (Hint: just about everyone says that the quality of their team makes them different.) Clients want results, so they’re not focused on the…

Offboarding

One of my agency clients inquired recently about best practices for setting up a proper client offboarding system. That’s a smart approach — and one that many consulting and professional services businesses overlook. In fact, I’m hard-pressed to think of many consultants I have worked with over the years as a client that have used…