Agency Leadership Podcast

The PESO Model has been guiding smart communications strategies for over a decade, but the tactical landscape underneath it keeps shifting. In the latest evolution, Gini and her team have completely revamped the PESO Model Certification to address how AI and large language models are fundamentally changing visibility in 2026. In this episode, Chip interviews Gini about the newly updated certification and what’s changed in how organizations should think about paid, earned, shared, and owned media. The conversation centers on “visibility engineering”—the intersection of owned and earned media where LLMs are scraping information and making decisions about who appears in AI-generated answers. Gini explains why owned media remains the foundation (without content on your own properties, there’s nothing to demonstrate to journalists, creators, or LLMs what you’re about), but the recommended path has shifted from owned-then-earned-or-shared to a more deliberate owned-then-earned-then-shared-then-paid sequence. This evolution reflects how AI systems verify information by comparing what’s on your website against what credible third parties say about you. They also tackle the persistent “X is dead” headlines that plague the industry—whether it’s websites, PR, or press releases. Chip and Gini push back hard on the notion that websites are becoming irrelevant, pointing out that your owned content hub becomes more valuable in an AI-driven world, not less. It’s your source of truth, the fuel for custom AI assistants, and the foundation that persists even as social platforms come and go. The conversation covers practical questions about implementing PESO in smaller agencies, whether you need to be full-service to deliver on all four pillars, and how the certification meets communicators at different experience levels—from college students to seasoned professionals. If you’ve been treating PESO as just four columns of tactics rather than an operating system for communications, this episode clarifies what you’re missing. Key takeaways Gini Dietrich: “Owned is still the foundation because without your own thought leadership, your subject matter experts, your content, all of that, there’s nothing to demonstrate to a journalist, a creator, a newsletter author, a podcast host, what you’re about and how you’re different.” Chip Griffin: “In a world where you’re able to start customizing your own versions of LLMs for your internal or external audiences, huge value exists there. So having that central repository, I think is actually of increasing value today, not decreasing.” Gini Dietrich: “We are in a zero click world. And so how does that affect the work that we’re doing? It’s really how are we helping to inform humans, search engines, and LLMs so that we’re showing up no matter if it’s a human looking, if it’s Google surfacing information or if it’s an AI surfacing information.” Chip Griffin: “Having your content in a world where you’re able to start customizing your own versions of LLMs for your internal or external audiences, huge value exists there. That would not be possible without a thousand plus articles and videos because that is the fuel for that tool.” Turn ideas into action Audit where your owned content actually lives. Open a spreadsheet and list every place you’ve published content over the past two years—your website, Medium, Substack, LinkedIn articles, guest posts, anywhere. Mark which platforms you own versus rent. This awareness exercise reveals how vulnerable your content strategy is to platform changes and algorithm shifts. Map one content piece through all four PESO pillars. Take your next webinar, speaking engagement, or major thought leadership piece and plan the full PESO path before you execute: owned content on your site summarizing key insights, pitching earned media opportunities based on those insights, creating social distribution that doesn’t just promote but educates, and identifying where paid amplification makes strategic sense. This forces you to think about PESO as an integrated operating system rather than disconnected tactics. Dive deeper into the PESO Model. Visit spinsucks.com/peso-model-certification to learn more about the newly updated certification program. Whether you’re looking to formalize your team’s approach to integrated communications or simply understand how the model has evolved for the AI era, the certification provides a structured path from foundational concepts through practical implementation. Resources For more on the PESO model, visit the Spin Sucks website Related Agencies need the PESO model now more than ever Has the PESO Model become a necessity for modern agencies? How PR agencies can use the PESO Model to improve client retention How to allocate your client's PESO budget Wake up or get left behind: AI is forcing your hand View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, I, I’ve heard that you might be involved with this thing, I think it’s called the PESO Model. Gini Dietrich: Oh, maybe. Chip Griffin: You may you use that, right? That’s, yeah. Just you found it and you said this should, this is something we should use. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Something I just found and thought we should use it. Yeah. Chip Griffin: Yeah. Yeah, no, in all fairness, you are in fact the inventor of the PESO model, which is widely used throughout the PR and communications world, and it has been evolving with the times as we all should be. And so I, I think we have some, some new news that you’ve been sharing around the PESO model. Gini Dietrich: Oh, well, according to a couple of people on the internet, it has not evolved at all because they are not able to use Google or AI to say, has the PESO model evolved since 2014? Perhaps. It has. And you know, all of last year I spent a good amount of time, especially on the blog and the Spin Sucks podcast, talking about visibility engineering, which is where owned and earned media meet because that’s where the LLMs are getting their information, right. We’re finding more and more that they’re scrubbing websites and then they’re comparing that to earned media, to the things that media not, and not just traditional media, newsletters, podcasts, things like that, that they’re saying about the brand and looking to see if they match. And if they do, then they’re appearing. You’re, you start to appear in AI answers. So I spent a good amount of time last year exploring that and understanding that and, you know, using the blog and the podcast as my sandbox to learn more about it and teach the industry about it and understand what was happening. As part of that, I said, okay, it’s time to do a big refresh of the certification. Because we did the certification in 2020 and then we did a small update to it in 2024. And this one is a completely revamped certification that shows you how exactly AI is… how exactly you’re showing up in AI answers and doing that via the PESO model. So we start with owned, we go to earned, then we use shared and paid. There’s integration and measurement and it brings it all together. So I’m actually, I said to my team, not to brag, but this is really good. It’s a really, really good course. And we hired, last March I hired a chief learning officer who has helped me build it into something that’s more effective for an adult learner. So it’s really specific to, you know, you can get the work done while you’re also a working professional. So she has done a really nice job of bringing that element into it. It has AI prompts so that you can use the PESO AI that we built to help you do the work. And it’s, it’s pretty good. I’m, I’m really proud of it. I’m really proud of the work we did. Chip Griffin: Well, I mean, it really is something that, that fuels most communication thinking in smart organizations today, whether that’s agency side, client side, that sort of thing. Now it’s not always as well understood it should be. Some people just throw the term around. A little bit willy-nilly. Yes. You know, without really thinking it through. Of course there are other people who claim that it’s also their invention, which is, you know, but we’re not gonna go down that path ’cause we’re staying positive today, Gini. Gini Dietrich: Yes, yes. We’re gonna stay positive. Positive, yes. Chip Griffin: But I think to, you know, to me, one of the things that, when I look at the PESO model, I think is, you know, it’s great because it is an overall set of principles and framework that is effectively timeless when it comes to communications. And then it’s the implementation side of it. The tactical side of it. That’s the piece that needs to evolve. The, I mean, the four letters are still the same. It’s not like you, right? Yes. The evolution has not been to change PESO to something else. Gini Dietrich: Nope. Chip Griffin: It, it’s really just saying. Okay. All of these different components, the paid, earned, shared, and owned have evolved over the last 10 or 15 years. Yeah. And so how we implement it needs to adapt to that. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. It’s very much, I mean, when we did it in 2020, it was very much like how, how you’re using content marketing really to inform your contributed content through earned and then sharing that link through, through social and then putting some money behind it to boost it. And that was, you know, that was six years ago, and it worked back then, right? It’s still, social still worked from the perspective that you could post a link and people would follow that path back to your website. Well, people don’t do that anymore. You know, we are in a zero click world. And so how do, how does that affect the work that we’re doing? So, you’re right, the paid, earned, shared, and owned doesn’t change. That model stays the same. It’s the pieces on top that, that have evolved. And so now it’s really how are we helping to inform humans, search engines, and LLMs so that we’re showing up. No matter if it’s a human looking, if it’s Google surfacing information or if it’s an AI surfacing information, we show up no matter what. And it’s really, that’s what it’s really about is how do you engineer that visibility? How do you make sure that you’re showing up in the right places at the right time to the right people? Chip Griffin: And so if you’re, if you’re thinking about leaning into the PESO model for your communications needs. You know, where should you be starting today? Is it owned? Is it social? Is it, you know, how, has it changed? If at all from that standpoint over the last decade? Gini Dietrich: Owned is still the foundation because without anything, without your own thought leadership, your subject matter experts, your content, all of that, there’s nothing to demonstrate to a journalist, a creator, a newsletter author, a podcast host, what you’re about and how you’re different. So that’s the foundation. There’s nothing do than to just create that distribution layer through shared, and there’s certainly nothing to amplify through paid. So that’s always been the foundation. There are of course exceptions if you’re selling widgets or your, you have an Amazon store or something like that, then I would probably start with paid, but that’s the exception to the rule. For the most part, most organizations need to start with owned. And we used to say that then you could go to earned or shared. Depending on your goals. Now we’re saying actually the best path for engineering that visibility is owned, then earned because you need that credibility, so the LLMs can cite that information. Then you build your distribution layer, and then you amplify your work. Chip Griffin: So I, think what I’m hearing you say is that websites are not dead despite all of these, you know, headlines that you like to see people’s, Gini Dietrich: No, they are not. Chip Griffin: The, the rise of LLM, websites are dead. You’re not even gonna need a website in five years. Gini Dietrich: No, we still need a website because otherwise the LLMs don’t have anywhere to get the information about you. Humans don’t have any, I mean, we still go to websites. We might not go, you know, a direct click like we used to, but we still go to websites to get information. So yeah, you still need a website. I hate the, such and such is dead. The PR, there’s one that PR is dead right now. Like PR is not dead. Come on. You can’t do, you’re not going to show up in AI answers if without PR. So PR is not dead. Chip Griffin: No, the X is dead has always been one of my pet peeves when it comes to, I mean, that, that really is something that, that took off during the start of the social media era. Yeah. Whether it was the press release is dead. This is dead, whatever. I mean, and, you know. Just, it’s not true. I mean, we, you know, I always used to say back 20 years ago, you know, people used to say that radio was dead. Radio is still very much around, and radio is still around in certain forms. I mean, when I’m driving around, I listen to radio. Yes. Is it terrestrial radio? No, it’s satellite radio. Gini Dietrich: Right. Chip Griffin: But guess what? It’s still radio. Gini Dietrich: It’s still radio. Yep. Chip Griffin: Right. Podcasts are effectively radio. Transmitted in a different fashion. Yep. And so, you know, I think that the people need to understand that the underlying technology may evolve, some of the tools will evolve, but Gini Dietrich: absolutely Chip Griffin: the, principles and concepts will largely remain the same. Doesn’t mean that everything stays. Yeah, certainly some things, you know, do go away, or become so small that they’re irrelevant, but you know, I think we need to be careful about those things. And, to me, with a website, to me, the other value is it still is a great place to be the central repository of all your information as all of these things change around you. I mean, if, for the last 10 or 15 years you’ve been using your website as your content hub and housing at least your most important, most valuable stuff there, it doesn’t matter whether medium or substack comes or goes. It doesn’t matter whether people move from X to LinkedIn to whatever. Yep. You still have a source of truth for your own information, which becomes even more valuable in the world of AI and LLMs. Gini Dietrich: That’s exactly right. I mean, we, have preached for years, we’ve all preached for years that you should not build an audience or content on rented land because to exactly your point, the rented land goes away. X has become something that nobody wants to hang out on. We’ve moved to LinkedIn. Lots of people have moved to Substack. So, those pieces will change. So don’t, I think that theory, philosophy stays the same. Because you have, you are building something that you own, that you control, and allows you to control that narrative and be, tell the story the way you want to, and then you rent that out to other places versus building on rented land where it will go away. Chip Griffin: Well, and I think that there are a lot of avenues that are opening up to organizations with, you know, particularly those that have more content already, but also by building it up. And I think in particular of the AI assistant I built on the SAGA website. Mm-hmm. Yep. That would not be possible without a thousand plus articles and videos and that kind of stuff because that is the fuel for that tool. Yep. And, and if I was trying to do it based off of, see what you can find that I’ve posted on LinkedIn or Twitter or things over the years, and it’s just not gonna work. And so having that in a world where you’re able to start customizing your own versions of LLMs for your internal or external audiences, huge value exists there. So having that central repository, I think is actually of increasing value today, not decreasing. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, that’s actually a really good point. I was talking to a client last week and she said that one of the goals for 2026 is they have 17 different brands. So each brand has its own chief executive. And what she has, what she wants, the comms team for each of those brands to do is build an AI agent that helps them with that CEO’s voice. And they can’t do that without content. They can’t do it without the executives’ speeches, webinars, podcasts, appearances, media relations, like they have to have all of that content, blog posts that they’ve written or articles that they’ve written for the website. They have to have that to be able to feed that and train the AI. So without it, they don’t have any, to your point, fuel that will allow them to do that. So 100% that is accurate. Chip Griffin: So as, we’re thinking about implementing PESO properly, so not just, I heard the term, it sounds cool. I made a list of four columns of each, and I just started just chucking stuff in there. Gini Dietrich: Mm-hmm. Chip Griffin: I mean, how do I go about learning it the right way? And I’m, you know, we’re not turning this into a QVC Gini Dietrich: Are you throwing me a softball? Chip Griffin: you know, show here. But at the same time, I, think it is valuable for people to understand what is out there in a more formal sense, to understand and, adopt the process for their own organization. Gini Dietrich: I mean, obviously the PESO model certification is the place to get the information because one of the, one of the things we see is exactly what you said, that people create their four columns and they say, okay, well we’ve got some content and we’re doing some media relations, and we’re throwing that on social. And all right, we’ll put some, budget behind some of our organic social, and we’ve got the PESO model. And that’s, not the PESO model, that’s a list of tactics. So what the certification does is it walks you through exactly. There’s this, a scientific layer to it. It walks you through that scientific layer that allows you to embed an operating system, that let that foundation of your work so that as things evolve and the industry changes and your business goals change, you’re able to change the tactics on top of it. We also hear, well, gosh, my, you know, my clients can’t afford to do a full PESO program, so what should I do? And in fact, they can afford it. You’re just thinking about it as this huge, overwhelming thing. And so the certification walks you through if you’re a solopreneur or a small agency, that walks you through if you’re a midsize, and it walks you through if you’re a large corporation or an enterprise organization. And I will say for small organizations, which are most of our listeners. It’s really about how do you take one piece of content and repurpose it. So let’s say that you do a webinar. How do you take that webinar and create some content around it that, from what the webinar was, not promoting it, not trying to get registrations, but saying, okay, here’s what we learned in the webinar. So we’re gonna create some how-to or thoughtful content for that. And then we’re gonna take pieces of the webinar and we’re gonna break it down for social posts. And then yeah, we’re gonna put some money behind some of it. And we’re also gonna go to some of our trade media and we’re gonna say, Hey, listen, our subject matter expert or our chief executive just did this webinar and here’s what they talked about. Are you interested in some contributed content? So it allows you to do that in a really interesting, effective way without you having to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars or have a large team. You can do it without a lot of resources. I mean I built the PESO model framework for my agency and we were not, at the time, a big agency. Mm-hmm. So that’s what it was built for, is to make it so that we could do more with less and do more with less resources and, less time and less people and less budget and all the things. So it is definitely, definitely feasible. So that’s what it teaches you how to do. Chip Griffin: So I, you know, I think one of the other concerns that, some particularly smaller agencies have when it comes to PESO is not just the, clients and their budget, but, their own capabilities and, you know, so is it realistic for a small agency to be able to, you know, deliver? We, we talk all the time about being careful about being a full service agency. Yep. But to, implement PESO, do you have to be a full service agency? Gini Dietrich: You do not. That’s the other thing that the certification walks you through is if you have the capability yourself in house. Or you yourself can do it. Then here’s how you do it. If you are building it for an external team or an external agency, here’s how you do it. If the client has a team that can do it, here’s what you’re going to do to build the strategy and the creative brief, and then you’ll hand it off. But here’s what is expected for. Here’s, what’s expected of you to deliver, and here’s what the expectation is for the output from the client team or the agency team, whatever happens to be. So it has those three paths depending on where you are. So yeah, that’s a really good point. It doesn’t the, certification expects you to, build the plan and the strategy, and then based on where you are, it meets you where you are. So if, you have a team that you can execute or that you can delegate it to, great. If your client has a team you can delegate it to great. But it meets you where you are so that you don’t have to be the expert, you don’t have to be the strategist, you don’t have to be the influencer, but you do have to build the plan and the strategic path to be able to help the team get there. Chip Griffin: Mm-hmm. Um, and I mean, let’s talk through some of the logistics around the certification. I mean, how long does it take to get certified? Is this, you know, I, do a weekend course and I’m done. Is it an ongoing process? Is it, you know, is it the equivalent of a master’s degree? I gonna spend two years with, you know, countless hours? What exactly does it look like? Gini Dietrich: It’s built to be done in eight weeks, but I will tell you that most working professionals do not do it that fast. I would say most working professionals do it between 10 and 12. Each module is, so you have the intro earned or owned, earned, shared, paid, integration, measurement, and then the operating system and how to embed that. So it’s eight modules and each module has between 6 and 12 lessons, and each lesson is like 8 to 10 minutes. So, you know, you’re looking at an hour to an hour and a half of learning of content and then you have the exercises for each lesson. So I would venture to guess it’s, you know, if you use the AI prompts effectively, that are in there, it’s between two to five hours a week probably. Chip Griffin: And, who is the certification best for? Is it someone who’s got, you know, prior experience, is this, Hey, I’m fresh outta college and I want to have this so I can use it to, you know, improve my, my job prospects. You know, what, kind of experience are they expected to have, or knowledge are they expected to have coming in? Gini Dietrich: It’s, we built it for any level of expertise. The interesting thing about it, of course, if you have more experience, it’s easier for you to grasp the concepts and implement it quickly. But we also use the certification in a hundred plus universities and the kids, the students go through it. So we find that they… It’s different for them because they have to use a fake business where you can use your own business or you can use your client’s business, right? They have to kind of create the business as they go. But it’s really fun to see what kinds of things come out of that. So it’s built for every level of expertise. It’s a different way of thinking about communications. So it’s not like you have to have 20 years of experience or only a year of experience. It’s because it’s teaching you something new. Chip Griffin: Gotcha. And is the, are the certifications only at the individual level? Are there agency certification programs? What exists in that frame? Gini Dietrich: Yeah, we’ve, that, that’s a great question that we evolved too. So it used to be, it was individual based and now we’ve built it so that you can put a team through it, you can put the whole agency through it. The certification itself goes with the individual because it comes through Syracuse University. So it is, so if you have a team member that you wanna put through it, if they leave the certification goes with them. So you cannot say that you do the PESO model anymore if they leave. So we always recommend, I mean, you know, I’m an agency owner, so I’d love to see the agency owner themselves go through it, but I also know that that’s not always doable. So, but if you want the certification to stay with your agency, that’s the way to do it. Chip Griffin: Mm-hmm. And it, you know, I guess as, we’re winding up here, you know, where do you see the, PESO model headed in, the years, you know, in front of us? I would assume it will continue to evolve. Does your crystal ball tell you anything about, you know, what that evolution will look like? Gini Dietrich: It will continue to evolve. I have not looked into my crystal ball yet because I’ve been so heads down deep into developing the content for this that I haven’t been able to forward think yet, but I’m very much looking forward to being able to go back to my regular job and, start to think about the future, but I’m not there yet. Chip Griffin: I, I, guess that’s fair. I guess asking you for the, next version before this version is even fully out in the wild may, Gini Dietrich: I’ve literally been like blinders on, heads down, creating all of this content. Chip Griffin: I had to try at least, you know, see if I could get the inside a scoop on where the industry is headed so that I can… Gini Dietrich: Ask me in a month. Chip Griffin: I can get there before everybody else, or at least before everybody else accept you. Alright. If someone, wants to learn more about the PESO model or the certification or any of that kind of stuff, where’s, the best place for them to go for that? Gini Dietrich: I feel like we just did an interview. Chip Griffin: Well, that, that was not the intent going, but it made the most sense to me. And I, you know, me, I, follow the thread wherever it feels like it goes. That’s fair. Some of these were questions I actually didn’t know the answer to, so I thought I would ask them. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Alright. spinsucks.com. There’s a PESO model certification page. I think it’s actually PESO-model-certification. Chip Griffin: You love your hyphens on that website. Gini Dietrich: I don’t know why it’s that way. That’s just what they do. Chip Griffin: Oh, well. Gini Dietrich: Ask our web firm. Chip Griffin: I’m, sure people can end up finding it. Gini Dietrich: PESO model certification. Spin sucks.com. Chip Griffin: There you go. Excellent. Well, I, think this was good information and I think we, you know, we do talk a lot about the importance of, you know, agencies continuing to adapt. Particularly in, in this age of AI. And, if we are standing still, you know, we are gonna lose our jobs to AI and the other enhancements and improvements that are out there. I think this is one of many ways that you can, make sure that you are not getting left behind and, so, certainly something that most agencies should be at the very least learning more about, if not actually directly implementing within their businesses. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Yeah, and, like I said, it has AI baked in, so if you’re still on the fence about AI, it’s a good way to dip your toes in the water. Chip Griffin: And if you’re still on the fence on AI, why? Gini Dietrich: It’s so much fun! Chip Griffin: It really is. It can be a time suck at times, but it’s, yeah. It’s also fun and, frankly useful. I mean, I think that’s the… But anyway, that when this is not an AI show, this is a PESO show. Gini Dietrich: Right. So, right, right. Chip Griffin: We, will come back and bash you on AI again in the future. Not, you, but you the listener. You the listener. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: Alright. With that we’ll wrap up this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And it depends.

David C. Baker recently published a fascinating thought experiment about what he’d do if starting an agency from scratch today—and it’s packed with provocative ideas worth serious consideration. His article offers a comprehensive blueprint covering everything from organizational structure to compensation philosophy, and much of it aligns with how Chip and Gini think about building sustainable agencies. But the most interesting conversations happen when smart people disagree, which is why this episode focuses on the handful of points where Chip and Gini see things differently. Not because Baker’s ideas are bad, but because they expose the tension between aspirational agency management and the messy realities of running a business with real budgets, real people, and real client demands. In this episode, Chip and Gini tackle mandatory one-month sabbaticals for every employee, open-book finances published on your website, 360-degree reviews, and incentive compensation structures. They dig into why ideas that sound compelling in theory often create unintended consequences in practice—like how retention-based bonuses can fuel scope creep, or why forced sabbaticals don’t actually solve the single-point-of-failure problem they’re designed to address. The conversation reveals thoughtful nuance on both sides. Gini shares her brutal experience with anonymous feedback that backfired when presented poorly. Chip explains why he sees most performance measurement systems as “performance theater” while still advocating for more financial transparency with teams. They discuss the logistical nightmares of scheduling multiple month-long absences and why backup systems for unexpected departures matter more than planned time off. Throughout, they return to a central theme: what works brilliantly at one stage of growth can be completely wrong at another. The goal isn’t to declare Baker’s ideas right or wrong, but to test assumptions and recognize that even the most well-intentioned frameworks deserve scrutiny before implementation. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “Really to deal with single points of failure, you need to be able to handle those unexpected absences, right? Someone has a family emergency, someone has a health issue. Those are the kinds of things that you wanna make sure you’ve handled.” Gini Dietrich: “When you’re constantly slacking or texting or calling while on vacation, and we don’t give you a response, it makes people angry. But what I’m trying to do is give you the time off because you deserve it and I want you to come back refreshed and ready to work.” Chip Griffin: “When you have incentive compensation, whether that is commissions or for hitting profit targets, the problem that you run into is people tend to focus on the thing that gets them the commission. It doesn’t mean that it’s good revenue. It doesn’t mean that it’s profitable.” Gini Dietrich: “I subscribe to give ongoing feedback. You get feedback consistently. And when we’re in a meeting and I see something that you did really great or I see something that could use some work, I tell you that immediately.” Turn Ideas Into Action Read Baker’s full article and identify your three favorites. Don’t just focus on the disagreements—pull out the ideas that resonate most with your vision for your agency and commit to implementing one of them this quarter. The value in thought experiments like this isn’t picking sides, but using them to clarify what you actually want to build. Spend 30 minutes reading, then schedule time to test one concept that genuinely excites you. Identify your true single points of failure. List every critical role in your agency, then honestly assess what would happen if that person disappeared tomorrow without warning. Focus on unexpected absences—not planned sabbaticals—because those expose the real vulnerabilities. For each critical role, document who could cover the basics for 1-2 weeks while you figure out a longer-term solution. This takes less than an hour and protects you better than mandatory vacation policies. Replace annual reviews with ongoing feedback. If you currently do annual or 360-degree reviews, shift to giving immediate feedback when you observe something—positive or negative. Make it a two-sentence conversation: “That client presentation was excellent because you anticipated their objections” or “When you miss that deadline without communication, it creates problems for the team.” Save annual conversations for compensation changes and goal-setting, not for dumping a year’s worth of stored-up feedback all at once. Resources David C. Baker’s article If I Started A New Firm, Now Related Starting your own agency Should you force employees to take time off? Setting your agency's PTO, vacation, and leave policies Employee compensation essentials for agencies View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, we’re going back to a place that we’ve used for inspiration before. And no, I’m not talking about Reddit this time. Oh, I’m, I’m sorry. Dear listeners, this is not one of our Reddit episodes. Gini Dietrich: I, I’m always scared of the Reddit episodes. Chip Griffin: The Reddit episodes are always, they’re interesting. We’ll leave it at that. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I saw one the other day that I was like, oh boy, okay. In the real world… Chip Griffin: Sometimes I just, I read those posts in the, in the agency subreddit, and I just, I wonder if, if they’re actual, real people posting about real stuff, because some of it just seems so insane that it just couldn’t be real. Gini Dietrich: Yes. And some of it is very junior level entitled frustrations who don’t understand how a business operates. And so some of it you’re just like, Ugh. Okay. Chip Griffin: Yep. But I mean, we were all once those people sort of a little bit Gini Dietrich: Fair, true. Chip Griffin: At one point in time. Gini Dietrich: Yes. So absolutely. Chip Griffin: But that is not what this episode is. We are going to use another source of inspiration for us that we’ve used in the past, and that is David C. Baker. And, in this case, he had a post in his newsletter recently about what he would do if he was starting his own agency today. And it’s a lengthy article that walks through all of the different choices, that he would make strategically and tactically for the business. And there’s a lot of good food for thought in there. It’s, mm-hmm. It’s probably gonna inspire a few additional episodes, down the road as we dig deeper into some of the specific topics there. But, one of the things that I did on LinkedIn was I broke out into four buckets, my perspective on it, and broke it into things that I agree with, things that I agreed to disagree with. It depends because, hey, that’s our motto here, so why not? It does depend. Yes. Yep. And then of course, food for thought. So, there are far too many points for us to cover in a reasonably length podcast episode. So. I figured why not be controversial? Let’s deal with the disagrees that I had on my list and, use that as our jumping off point. And we’ll of course include a link to the article in the show notes that you can go read the full article as well as additional context around what we’re gonna talk about today because there is a lot to, to explore here. Gini Dietrich: And I think the buckets that you, you broke it into are really good. And for the most part I agree with how you’ve compartmentalized them all. But there are some interesting ones on the agree to disagree bucket. So let’s, let’s do that. Let’s start there. Chip Griffin: Alright. Do you have, do you have one that you would like to start with or do you want me to just start calling ones out? Gini Dietrich: Let’s see. Yeah, there’s, well, yes I do. That we require one month annual sabbatical to eliminate single points of failure. Sounds lovely. I would also like a one month sabbatical every year. Chip Griffin: It’s as, as I understood the article, and it is possible, I misunderstood the intent in the article, but as I understood it, he was suggesting that every year, every employee. Gini Dietrich: Everyone. Yes. Chip Griffin: Had to take a full one month sabbatical. Gini Dietrich: Yes. That’s how I read it as well. Chip Griffin: That is, I mean, it’s a nice idea. I think it is highly impractical for most organizations. And look, I think the, stated intent here is truly a good one, which is to avoid those single points of failure, over reliance on any individual team member. Yeah. ’cause this is a giant problem for agencies, honestly, of most sizes until you get to be giant. But it is something that, that you need to be conscious of. I don’t know that you need a full one month sabbatical for every employee every year in order to get there. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, and I mean, truth be told, like if you’re designing in the agency of the future and you’re starting from scratch today, I don’t know how you do that. I mean, to your point, even in a large organization, I don’t know that how, you do that because it costs a lot of money. Not just resources and time, but it costs money to have people out. And so, you know, if you’re a, you’re an agency of three people or you’re an agency of 50 people, or you’re an agency of hundreds of people, it still costs money. And so requiring that I think is a bit too much. And also, I will say that as somebody who has an extraordinary flexible and generous paid time off plan. There are people who take advantage of those things and you have to adjust to that, unfortunately. And I just don’t think it’s realistic. I don’t think it’s something that you could actually do. I don’t think it’s something you could enforce. I think it would be extraordinarily stressful for the person and for their team, even though it might be nice in writing. I don’t think it’s, realistic in practice. Chip Griffin: Well, I, think you, I mean, you, have a number of logistical issues that come into play here in addition to everything else. And particularly because one of the other, tenants in there that I, disagreed with was, that you would require all employees to take four one week vacations. Over the course of the year. So now you’ve, essentially got all employees out for two out of 12 months. Gini Dietrich: Two outta 12 months. Yes. Chip Griffin: And, that is logistically challenging because how do you do this and make sure that you don’t have too much overlap because inevitably there are certain times where people are going to prefer to do this. I mean, absolutely. If you want to take a one month sabbatical, most people are probably gonna want to do that over the summer months. Yes. When perhaps, you know, family members have access to vacation or those sorts of things. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: Or they may want it end of year around the holidays and those kinds of things. So you, have collisions between people wanting the same time. If, they, can’t get what they want now, they may be frustrated that I gotta, you know, I have to take off a month in February. What good is that gonna do me? I mean, it’s cold, it’s snowy outside. My family can’t take the time off. My significant other won’t go. Like, Gini Dietrich: yeah, Chip Griffin: so what am I just gonna sit around in my house all day for the month. so I think there are some logistical challenges. So I guess what I, this is one of those ones where I’d say the ideal is nice. I’m not sure that it is practical to implement in the vast majority of firms. I would encourage instead that owners look and try to identify single points of failure and make sure that you have backups. Yes, yes. And frankly, those are important, whether you have someone taking a month off or a week off. And my view is that every employee should have a backup who can at least do the, minimum required for that role while they’re out. Particularly if they’re out suddenly, right? Because being able to plan for it. You’ve got a sabbatical, it’s on the calendar, six months ahead of time. You can get some stuff done early, you can push off some deadlines. There’s a lot of things you can do, but really to deal with single points of failure, you need to be able to handle those unexpected absences, right? Someone has a family emergency, someone has a health issue. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: Someone gets an opportunity to go on a game show, I don’t know, whatever it is, that takes them away suddenly. Those are the kinds of things that you wanna make sure you’ve, handled, with single points of failure. So. Nice idea. I just, I, don’t think it’s practical for most firms. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. And the other thing I’ll say on the single point of failure piece is one of the things that I experience as an agency owner quite often is that my certain members of my team will take time off, but they can’t… They can’t allow themselves to take time off. So they’re constantly checking in and they’re constantly asking for updates and they’re constantly, and so one of the things I do with them is. You know, ensure A, that you have some backup, and B, that when you’re asking for updates or you’re constantly slacking or texting or calling, that we don’t, we don’t give you a response. And, it makes people angry. But what I’m trying to do is A, give you the time off because you deserve it and, I want you to come back refreshed and ready to work. And B, well, I’ll say C. Actually there’s three, three things, B there, nothing’s going to burn down while one person is out because we have backup and we do have places where there is not a single point of entry. And lastly, it’s really demeaning to your team, like it’s demeaning. And even me as the owner sometimes I’m like, well, don’t you trust me to fall to take care of your clients while you’re gone? Like, come on, seriously. Right. That’s how it makes you feel. So I would say that it’s important from a single point of entry perspective as well to ensure that on the opposite side, that the team feels comfortable taking time off, that they don’t feel angst about taking the time off, that they can take the time off, and that the team behind them is, feels empowered and ready and trusted to do the work. Chip Griffin: Spot on. Alright, well there’s, there’s a lot on this list. So let’s move on to, to something different. How about we talk about open book finances, because this is, one that, I, will say that I disagree with an asterisk. So I, what he’s advocating in his piece is open book finances, including public disclosure of finances on the agency’s website. Gini Dietrich: Nope. Chip Griffin: So, and in general, I am not a fan of full open book either internal or external. Gini Dietrich: Nope. Chip Griffin: However, I do believe that most agency owners would be better off being more transparent than they currently are with their teams. That doesn’t mean being complete open book, but it does mean at a minimum, sharing with them more specifically the trends that are going on with the agency. You know, Even if you take actual numbers out, I like to show charts that show the directionality of revenue, the directionality of expenses. You know, so that you can kind of see those mapped up against each other so that as an employee, you start to understand more about the fundamentals of the business. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: And it starts to make you less surprised when you’re seeing growth and less surprised when you’re seeing, you know, a narrowing of the gap, say, between revenue and expenses. So therefore, profit is shrinking. I, think that there does need to be more communication about that with, as I always say, education. You can never provide numbers, whether that’s percentages or charts or actual numbers to your team without helping them to understand the economics of the business. Because otherwise you’re just giving them numbers that they will interpret however they want. But I do think the smarter you make your team about these things, the better they can help to manage project budgets, the better and more realistic they can be about compensation and bonuses. All of these things, information helps, but not in my view all the way to full open books, either internal and certainly not external. No, definitely not. I don’t see enough upside doing it external. Gini Dietrich: Definitely. I, can’t imagine doing it externally because all that does is open up the, an invitation for your clients to say, well, you don’t really need to be that profitable, so let’s, take some, let’s take a percentage off like the No, no, no, no, no. And I also think, if I read it correct, his article correctly, he was advocating for open book on everyone’s salaries too. And no, I mean, we do salary bands, but you, do not know exactly how much every person makes. That’s not, that does not contribute to any sort of morale building inside a culture. Absolutely not. Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, the only thing I will say to that is that, I, agree with you. However, the reality is that most people have a pretty good idea of what everybody else in the business except the owner is making anyway. And perhaps other select senior level people depending on, how your organization is structured. But pretty much all the juniors know what all every other junior makes. They all talk. Gini Dietrich: Well, and that’s why we have salary bands ’cause everybody pretty much makes the same Chip Griffin: right Gini Dietrich: amount. Right? Like they all make the same, but I’m still not publishing it. Chip Griffin: Exactly. And salary bands, you know, protect you. On that. And so, I mean, you could make the, case as long as you have tight salary bans. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: Disclosure actually isn’t a problem. But you know, I don’t, I think as long as you have salary bands, you don’t need that. Obviously a lot of states are in here in the US are now requiring more disclosure around salary bands and that kind of stuff. So, you know, we’re headed there as an industry one way or the other. but I do think that salary bands are probably sufficient and, we don’t need to share actual salaries with team members. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I totally agree with that. Chip Griffin: You know, that said, I will say that all of your employees think you make far more than you do. We’ve talked about this before, so there may actually be an upside for, most owners to share what their actual take home is because Gini Dietrich: that like 10 people actually make more than I do. Chip Griffin: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I know a lot of agencies where the owner is making less than team members. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: Which is wild to me, but. Gini Dietrich: There’s also the upside on that though, if, you’re profitable and you make enough money at the end of the year, you get, you get that. But yes, from a salary perspective. Chip Griffin: Right, right. Alright, how about, 360s? My, one of my pet peeves. I consider it performance theater. I think most KPIs and OKRs and all these things, I think it’s all performance theater. I think it has very little to do with what actual performance outcomes you get from your team. But, 360s, you know, they’ve been popular for a couple of decades now. I don’t understand them. You know, I’ve been in organizations that, have done them. I will confess that, that, you know, at various points in time, my own businesses have experimented with them, and most of the feedback that you get from them is borderline worthless. Because most of it falls into the category of nobody wants to say anything really bad about anything else, it’s, you know, at worst it’s lukewarm. But then of course, you always get the random ones who just, they have an ax to grind Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: And they’re gonna use the 360 Yep. As their way to grind an ax against a colleague. Yep. Or, or another department. Yep. Or whatever. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: And I, I’ve yet to see any, that actually helps to provide good feedback from the employees to the owner themselves. That’s just, I mean, you can tell people it’s anonymous. You can use an outside advisor to organize it, but people are not gonna put in writing. Even if they think it’s anonymous, any perspective about the owner, it just, it doesn’t happen in, the real world. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I agree with you. The only time I’ve, and it this happened to me, the only time I’ve seen it be effective is I, early in my agency life, business life, I hired somebody externally to do interviews. It was all anonymous, it was all verbal, nothing was recorded, and people were absolutely brutal. And the way he presented it to me made me so defensive that I couldn’t take even the kernels of feedback that I needed to hear. And there was some in there, but it was so brutal. And he, the way, and he presented it, I, in retrospect, I think he embellished some of it to make me, I, to make it like more jarring and alarming. Because he thought that that would make me wake up and pay attention. And in fact, it had the opposite effect. It was not, not good at all. And then I didn’t feel good about the people I had hired. Because it was, it was brutal. So I agree that, they’re not great. I subscribe to the give feedback, ongoing feedback. And so I don’t do annual reviews, I don’t do 360 reviews. You get feedback consistently. And when we’re in a meeting and I see something that you did really great or I see something that could use some work, I tell you that immediately. When I’m trying, when I want to coach you on something, I do that immediately and I ask my team to do the same with their team. So there’s, we have the ongoing feedback and then the annual review, quote unquote, is, Hey. We met our goals, we did really, really well. Here’s a raise, or you know what? This year was shitty and it sucked. You did your part in trying to make it better. I’m gonna give you a cost of living raise or whatever it happens to be, right? But it’s not a, here’s all the shitty things that your clients say, and here’s all the shitty things that your colleagues say and more about, I, you already know that you’re doing a great job in these areas. You already know that these are areas that need to be worked on, and we just continue to move forward. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, I’ll say from, an owner trying to get, you know, feedback and perspective from the team there. You know, you, I wouldn’t do it through a, you know, a normal 360 review process, but you know, what, you’ve described part of it, I think the, whoever you hired got it right in having, you know, very anonymous conversations with team members. And I think that bringing an outside advisor who has those kinds of conversations, nothing in writing, it’s just it, you know, it’s dialogue back and forth. I do those for my clients from time to time. I’ll be honest, I, you know, I would say it’s maybe 50/50 whether I feel like I’m truly getting candid feedback. Gini Dietrich: Sure. Chip Griffin: from the team members, because usually I don’t have any prior relationship with them, so they don’t know whether they truly can trust me or not. But you know, it’s, I mean, even 50% in most cases is enough to start, you know, pulling some common threads. But the whole, the way you use that information as an outside advisor, the way you present that. Matters a lot. And so you need to really understand how is it gonna land best with the owner that has hired you. And is that by being blunt, is that by sort of internalizing the knowledge and sometimes I’ll just use it in my ongoing conversations to try to steer things. Yes. To address some of that feedback. Sure. Without even explicitly saying, well, Gini Dietrich: yes, Chip Griffin: you know, the whole team said you’re very bad at X, Y, and Z. Gini Dietrich: Brutal. Chip Griffin: But instead, try to find other ways Yes. To, achieve the same outcome, because then the team starts to feel like it was useful to talk with me, and the owner then starts to feel good about the way the team starts to pull together and all that kind of stuff. But it, is, delicate and, I would say that, you know, the, typical 360 process where it tends to be, you know, written survey feedback form type things, I, just, I think that’s, it’s very difficult to see that working in most cases and in my own experience, it has rarely worked out, the way people would like it to. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, totally agree. Chip Griffin: All right. let’s see. We have time probably for at least one more, or maybe just one more here from the list. I don’t know if there’s something that, that jumps out at you that you would like to have, covered. Gini Dietrich: Let me look, let me look. Uh, maybe we can mush board of advisors and direct access to CEO together. Chip Griffin: Sure. Although they’re, well no, because the direct access to CEO is the CEO of the client. Gini Dietrich: Oh, oh, got it, got it, got it. Chip Griffin: So they, they are, they are separate issues. Got it. But I, mean, I think either, either board of advisors, the other one I would throw out there is a possible one is the, tying all, employee comp to have an incentive component. Oh, yeah. I, think either one of those would be good. So I’ll let you pick between board of advisors or employee comp. Gini Dietrich: Employee comp. Chip Griffin: So, this is, this is one of my pet peeves. And I’m sure that David doesn’t know this, and, if he did that… Gini Dietrich: Ha! He wrote it just because he knew it was your pet peeve. Chip Griffin: But, but his argument was that every employee should have at least some of their compensation effectively at risk as part of a, an incentive compensation plan. And I hate this idea. I hate formulaic, incentive-based compensation for virtually all employees. And I’ll be controversial here, it doesn’t really apply to most agencies, but I don’t think it should apply to most sales reps either. Because I think that when you have incentive compensation, whether that is commissions or for hitting profit targets or you know, other things, the problem that you run into is people tend to the extent that they pay attention to it at all. Right? So. You’ve got a couple of risks here. One is that you’re paying people for things they don’t even care about. Right? Right. You know, I mean, I’ve had sales reps they were gonna sell or not sell, and it had nothing to do with the commission they were getting. Gini Dietrich: Fair. Chip Griffin: Now that’s rare. Most sales reps are incented by their commission and, so they will try harder to get it, but what are they doing? They’re, focused on the thing that gets them the commission, which is the actual signature on the contract and the revenue. It doesn’t mean that it’s good revenue. It doesn’t mean that it’s profitable. It doesn’t mean that it’s a good client. It doesn’t mean you can get results for them. It doesn’t mean any of those things. And you’re now creating tension because if you have more than one sales rep, nobody wants to help each other because then they gotta split the commission. And so, but this goes beyond, you know, sales and other ways of doing incentive compensation. You still have, it’s very difficult to craft a plan. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: That doesn’t have unintended consequences. Yeah. And particularly when you’re outside of the sales realm, my experience is that most employees are not truly motivated to hit specific targets for their incentive comp. They’re either gonna do a good job or they’re not. And it has nothing to do with you saying if you hit this target, you’ll get a little bit extra. But to the extent that it is, it does have those unintended consequences because now they’re fixated on, I mean, let’s say it’s client retention. So now what if, if you’ve got a client retention target and if you have a client retention over 85%, you get a bonus. Sounds great. Right? Because we’re, retaining clients. Except that what are we doing to retain those clients? Right? Oftentimes that means we’re going to go way down the, rabbit hole of scope creep. Yep. And, we’re just gonna be giving them all sorts of freebies to keep them around. And so those are the things we need to think about. And it’s, why in general, I’m opposed to all forms of incentive comp. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, one of the things that we do do is we say you can earn up to a certain percentage of your salary in bonus. It’s the end of year bonus. And here are the, gates, like revenue, profitability, all the things. But most of it is not reliant on the individual. Most of it’s reliant on the company as a whole. And so we all have to work together to achieve those goals. And then they sort of know like, okay, well this, this is where we are, so I’m gonna make 90% of that percentage or whatever it happens to be. So they are they are clear about those kinds of things and they tend, because of that, they tend to ask… They tend to be more engaged and ask more strategic questions about work, and they’re more thoughtful about it. But to your point, we don’t reward scope creep. We don’t reward, you know, keeping a client longer than we should. Those kinds of things. Those, like, we take those pieces out. So we, do it based on, we don’t do it commission or incentive based, but we do do it based on a certain percentage of your salary if we meet certain objectives as an organization. Chip Griffin: I mean, that’s better, but I’ll be honest, I still don’t like it. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. It works for us. It’s highly motivating for us. Chip Griffin: And that’s, the thing. I mean, the, as we say at the end of every, episode, it depends. So even these things where Gini Dietrich: mm-hmm. Chip Griffin: You know, we may disagree, you know, where David has different ideas than we do, that doesn’t mean that, that none of them can work in your agency. Right. and I think that it’s, that’s a point that, that he made in a LinkedIn conversation that, that we had, recently as well. You know, some of these may be good ideas, some of them may be bad ideas. Some of them may be good ideas, but you know, wrong place, wrong time or wrong agency, wrong time. And, some of these ideas are good at different stages of the lifecycle of even your own agency. So something that works when you have two employees may not work when you have 20 or 200. Right. And so, you know, I just, I, love articles like this though, because it gives you that food for thought. It makes you think, it makes you, you know, to test your assumptions. You know that I’m a huge, advocate of curiosity generally. And so, you know, making you think about things is helpful. And so hopefully we’ve made you think just as David made us think. And, so we, appreciate that and, we hope that we’ve given you those insights here that may help you think through decisions for your own agency. And of course, you know, check out the full article for many, many more ideas beyond what we were able to cover today. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, absolutely. It was a really good, really good article. Chip Griffin: Absolutely. So thank you all for joining us. That will conclude this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich, Chip Griffin: and it depends.

No more excuses. No more waiting to see how things play out. AI has moved past the experimental phase, and if you’re still treating it like a nice-to-have rather than a fundamental shift in how your agency operates, you’re already falling behind. In this episode, Chip comes out swinging with a wake-up call for the agency community: the ground is shifting faster than most are willing to admit, and the window for meaningful adaptation is closing. Gini backs him up with examples of how AI has progressed from an intern-level tool to something that can genuinely replace mid-level work—if agencies don’t evolve what they’re selling. They dig into the practical reality of training AI tools to work like team members, not just one-off prompt machines. Chip explains how he uses different platforms for different strengths—Claude for writing, Gemini for competitive intelligence, Perplexity for research, and ChatGPT as his strategic baseline. Gini shares how her 12-year-old daughter creates entire anime worlds through conversation with AI, demonstrating the power of treating these tools as collaborators rather than search engines. The conversation covers what clients actually want to pay for in 2026 (hint: it’s not social posts and press releases), how to build AI agents trained on your specific expertise, and why the process of training AI forces valuable clarity about your business. They emphasize that this isn’t about slapping the “AI-powered” label on your services—it’s about fundamentally rethinking what value you deliver and how you deliver it. If you’ve been sitting on the sidelines waiting for the AI dust to settle, this episode is your warning: there is no settling. There’s only evolution or extinction. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “If you do not change, it will replace you. It will take away your revenue. If you keep doing the same thing that you’re doing today, it absolutely will destroy you.” Gini Dietrich: “We are no longer relying on our agencies to do the work. We are relying on agencies to teach us what’s coming ’cause we don’t have the time.” Chip Griffin: “AI is not just changing how your business operates, it’s changing how other businesses operate. It’s changing how the media operates. And so it is truly a disruptive force that we need to be thinking about.” Gini Dietrich: “When somebody says to me, oh, I just can’t get it to output what I need, I’m like, user error. You haven’t taken the time to train it.” Turn ideas into action Train one AI tool this week like you’d train an employee. Pick the platform you use most (ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini) and spend 30 minutes having an actual conversation with it about your preferences—tone, structure, what you hate (like emojis), and what outcomes you need. Feed it examples of your best work and tell it explicitly when outputs miss the mark and why. The tool won’t improve with one-shot prompts; it needs training just like a new hire. Map what clients will actually pay for in 2026. Block one hour to list every service you currently bill for, then honestly assess which ones AI can now handle at a competent level. Don’t lie to yourself—if ChatGPT can draft solid social posts or press releases after reviewing past examples, that’s table stakes now. Identify what remains valuable: strategy, teaching clients to use these tools, implementing new processes, or solving problems AI can’t touch. This clarity will drive every business decision you make this year. Test AI on something personal before rolling it to client work. If you or your team are intimidated by AI, start with meal planning, fitness routines, managing schedules, or drafting birthday card messages. Use it for something low-stakes where you can experiment with conversation-style prompting without pressure. Once you see how it responds to feedback and training in a personal context, you’ll understand how to apply the same approach to agency work. Resources LinkedIn post by Vineet Mehra that Gini references Related Agencies succeed through consistency and evolution AI myths agencies must avoid View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, you know, we started the new year off on a note where we weren’t gonna yell at our audience, but I feel like it, it’s time to yell at our audience again. I’ve taken too much time off from being Mr. Nice guy. Gini Dietrich: Okay, well this shall be interesting. I can’t wait. Chip Griffin: I, and this is, it’s partly for our audience, but it’s really for the overall agency community, particularly PR and marketing, PR and communications generally, even outside the agency world. I’m just, I’ve become kind of wound up lately because I think that the industry as a whole, and perhaps even some of our listeners are not acting swiftly enough to understand just how much the ground is shifting beneath them. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: And how much serious evolution needs to take place. Really over the next year. I mean, I don’t think, I don’t think we’re on a long-term horizon here. I think that too many have waited to change too long in many ways, and AI is now becoming sort of the, the real trigger point for it, but it’s bigger than that. I think a lot of the, the PR space in general has lagged behind a lot of what’s going on in the business community, and AI is just the fist to the face that’s, that’s gonna separate out the people who are gonna survive. Gini Dietrich: The fist to the face. Wow. All right, then. Chip Griffin: I told you I was a little wound up on this one, so, Gini Dietrich: okay. So everybody’s gonna be punched in the face. Got it. Okay. Chip Griffin: If that’s what it takes to wake up and pay attention. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, no, I, yeah, I totally agree with you. And, you know, I have been gungho on AI for going on four years now. And it’s, it’s my second love for sure. But it is time to pay attention to how it is changing things and what it’s going to do to your business, to your teams, to how you deliver work, all those things. Chip Griffin: I mean, look, a lot of the PR world has been focused in recent years on figuring out how to keep their head above water and survive, and hang on to the old ways of doing things. And this predates the explosion of AI in recent years. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: But, what the explosion of AI has done is really, it has drawn the attention of particularly clients to the issue. It has drawn the attention of employees. It, and it is still being ignored. And I think we’ve hit that point where we can no longer ignore it. I think we’re at the point with a lot of these AI tools where they are now both accessible and reliable enough that there’s no reason not to accelerate your pace of change using AI as a tool to get there. And we’ve talked about this before, and I, and I’m not changing my point of view, AI is not the end in itself. The AI is just a way to get there. So don’t mistake what I’m saying here for saying that, you know, you just need to adopt AI for the sake of AI. You still need to find problems to solve first and AI will help you on a lot of them, but you need to be finding those problems. You need to be thinking ahead to what do clients really want from you? What is going to help them to get the results they’re looking for? It can’t be about how do I use AI to make myself a little bit more efficient in what I’m currently doing. Because everything is changing. And we need to be on top of that. Gini Dietrich: I read an article on LinkedIn probably in November, and I’ll see if I can find the link to include in show notes. But it, it was from a chief marketing officer at a Fortune 10 company, and what he said was this: if I were an agency wanting to work with clients in 2026, here are five things I would do. And I can’t remember all of them, but one of them was teach organizations, teach marketing and comms teams how to use AI to be more effective. Implement your process, whatever it happens to be. Because we are no longer relying on our agencies to do the work. We are relying on agencies to teach us what’s coming ’cause we don’t have the time. And that has stuck in my head because I think that’s right. I think that. Yeah, sure, agencies will always, or big companies, will always need arm extra arms and legs to do the work, but that’s not the work that most of us want to be doing. Right? We don’t wanna be writing the social posts and the news releases. We wanna be part of the strategic conversation. We wanna be part of the of helping to move an organization forward. And if we can do that by teaching our clients how to use AI to be more effective, to be more productive, to accelerate their work, and I know everybody’s worried it’s going to replace me, it’s going to, it’s going to reduce our number, our billable hours, whatever happens to be. I think there’s a huge opportunity here for you to reframe how you’re helping clients and using AI to be able to do that. Chip Griffin: Yeah, but I would be very direct with listeners. If you do not change, it will replace you. It will take away. Gini Dietrich: That’s fair. That’s totally fair. Chip Griffin: Your revenue. Gini Dietrich: Yes, it will. I totally agree with you. Yeah. Chip Griffin: So, you know when we say that you know that AI is not gonna destroy your agency, that’s only if you evolve. Gini Dietrich: That’s fair. Chip Griffin: If you keep doing the same thing that you’re doing today, it absolutely will destroy you. I don’t care whether you’re an employee or a business or whatever, if you are an employee and you think that AI isn’t gonna take your job in a year, it is If you don’t evolve, that’s and figure out how to use it for yourself. Gini Dietrich: Yep. That’s totally fair. Chip Griffin: And we need, everybody who’s listening needs to wake up to that fact. It requires a huge mindset shift. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Because AI can write your news releases, it can write your social posts. It can do all of that stuff that Chip Griffin: not only can, Gini Dietrich: we don’t wanna do anyway, Chip Griffin: It should. Yeah. Because it has evolved enough in the last year that the quality is there now. I used to describe AI as an intern. It is moved beyond the intern stage. Yep. It is at a minimum a junior employee, and if you train it well for your organization, it can be even a mid-level employee or perhaps even in some cases more than that. But this training piece is important too, because part of the problem that a lot of people run into in my experience is they, they hop onto the AI tool and they just say, Hey, write this press release on this subject. And I look at it, oh, this is rubbish. It still requires a lot of work. You know what? It absolutely does. The same thing would happen if you hired an employee off the street who knew nothing about you and your clients, and you said, write me a press release. The result would probably be pretty similar to what the AI came up with. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: But once that employee starts writing more press releases and you start telling ’em, this is the tone of voice we use, this is the style we use, these are the facts we use. You feed more information into it. You explain your preferences. When you’re using these AI tools, you need to just be direct with it. Don’t accept the first response. Explain as you would with an employee what you want done differently. If you do that, it will tailor the outcomes. Even simple stuff. Like I’ve told them, stop showing me damn emojis. I don’t wanna see an emoji in any response because I think it’s wildly unprofessional and I hate them. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: So guess what? I don’t see them anymore. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: I’ve asked it to tighten up the spacing on it so that I can see more on a screen. It does that. And that’s even before you start telling it, you know, this is the structure of a paragraph that I like. You start feeding in information. I’ve fed in a thousand articles and transcripts and that sort of stuff into the platforms. It now can speak like me reliably to the point where I don’t know if what it’s giving me is a quote from something I’ve written before or original text that it’s come up with that just speaks so clearly in my voice. Gini Dietrich: I love that it will say, it will give, usually gives me three options. One is like strategic leadership, like C-level blurbs. That with Gini-isms or like smart, funny, witty blurbs. And then I can decide, and usually what I do is I take a combination of the three, but it has gotten to the point where if it actually calls it Gini-isms, that like it knows how I talk, it knows how I write, it knows how I coach, it does it knows all of those things. And it has created an opportunity for me to say, yeah, this probably, we probably shouldn’t have some Gini-isms in this ’cause it’s really professional. Or, we can include more because it’s more me talking to a screen or whatever happens to be. So it’s gotten to that point. It’s, when you train it, it’s very, very good. Chip Griffin: Well, and you can even tailor those recommendations. So one of the things that, that I’ve told it is it’s fine to give me multiple options, but give me your recommendation. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: And when you do that, don’t give me a whole lot of backup on the alternative. So spend your time explaining why you’re making the recommendation. That’s fine. But then, you know, if it’s, let’s say it’s a title or something like that, you know, give me three or four other options, but it, by default, it tends to explain those three or other four other options. And so now you’re dealing with like a 10 page response, Gini Dietrich: right? Chip Griffin: For what should be something pretty simple. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: So. I, part of my instructions to my tools are, don’t do that. Give me the alternatives, but just, you know, bullet point them. If I want more information, I’ll ask for it, but it allows it to work more the way that I want it to. And so we all need to do that. We also need to be looking at these tools and understanding that there’s no one size fits all solution. I have people say, well, should I, you know, should I use Claude or Chat GPT or Gemini? The answer is yes. Gini Dietrich: Yes to all of them. Chip Griffin: But they all serve different purposes. Yep. Just like you have different employees who serve different roles, these tools excel in different areas. I mean, Claude is fantastic at writing. I mean, to me, Claude is my head of writing because it can just absolutely nail it, but there’s a lot of things that it doesn’t do quite as well. Gini Dietrich: That’s right. Yep. Chip Griffin: And then I look at something like Gemini, and I love what Gemini does in terms of inferring things from research. So it’s more willing to go out on a limb, and kind of read between the lines of things that it finds to come back with, particularly for competitive intelligence or things like that. You know, deep research. Whereas Perplexity is very good for research where you really wanna make sure it’s accurate and you really wanna be able to cite all the sources, but it will not go out on a limb. So understanding what the strengths of each platform are is useful. And then there’s Chat GPT, which is sort of my, you know, my default choice for just basic stuff, strategy, et cetera. But I’ve also told it, tell me when I should go somewhere else. And so it’s good. It’ll say You should hand this off to Claude now. Gini Dietrich: I love that. Chip Griffin: Because we’ve, I’ve had an actual conversation with Chat GPT about my stack and, and what I think of it and I bounced things around and, you know, refined it. So now it knows how I want to handle certain things. And so it will stop at a certain point and say, now it’s time for you to go here. And that’s really helpful. Gini Dietrich: I love that. I do not do that. I usually move between, but I haven’t had it recommend when to move it. That’s… Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, but it could, because it won’t generally by default tell you to do that. But if you, if you explain what you have access to and what you want to use it for, it will tell you when is the right time, and sometimes I’ll pause and say, are you really the right one for this? Or should I be using one or the others? And they’ll say, no. Good point. You know, you should use this one instead for this particular task. Gini Dietrich: I love that. Chip Griffin: And it’s great. I mean, and I’ll, I’ll bring things back and forth like, so when I’m creating a piece of content, I’ll often, you know, ask more of the strategy piece from Chat GPT, because I’ve put more of the strategy stuff into there. Then I’ll go over to Claude to write it, but then I’ll bring it back for feedback. Now the next level is then to automate this with agents with n8n and those kinds of things. And, and so, you know, I’ll play with those things too. But for now, even doing it manually is a huge time saver, Gini Dietrich: huge time saver, Chip Griffin: and still ends up with really high quality content. It’s not, people talk about how AI is helping put out rubbish. And that’s because people are doing it without training. Gini Dietrich: Correct. Chip Griffin: You need to think through how you use these tools to get the results that your clients are looking for and the results that you need as a business. And this is where people are falling down, and this is where a lot more effort needs to go into it. If you want to not just survive but thrive. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I totally agree with you. And you know, it’s funny ’cause when somebody says to me, oh, I just can’t get it to output what I need, and I’m like, user error. I usually say that because that’s exactly what it is, is you haven’t taken the time to train it. I, and you have to, I, you said earlier, you talk to it like it’s an employee. I do the same thing. Talk to it through like, okay, this isn’t quite right and here’s why. Think about this, this, this, and this. We also need to consider these things. And then it goes. Oh, okay. Goes into thinking mode and then it, it outputs pretty close to, but you have to have a conversation with it. I use this example all the time, but my 12-year-old is obsessed. Obsessed with anime, and she like, no, nothing else exists in her world right now other than anime. And she has created an entirely new ecosystem of anime worlds from her favorite shows using chat GPT. I mean, it’s so good that I’ve actually considered. Finding a, a publisher to have it published as fanfiction because it’s that good. And she doesn’t type into it. She literally has a conversation with Chat. She calls it Gee. And she will say, Gee, I’m thinking about this. I want the guy to do this, and I want the girl to do this. And like she has a whole conversation and it creates this world with her that… it’s fascinating to sit and listen to how she’s using it. So it’s the same kind of thing. Have a conversation with it. You can do it via voice, you can do it, you know, by typing whatever is easiest for you. But have a conversation with it and teach it just like you would an employee. It’s gonna learn faster. It doesn’t sleep, it doesn’t need to eat. It doesn’t need to work out. It doesn’t need to take a break. It doesn’t, it’s not going to pause for meetings. You can have stuff running in the background while you’re doing something else. I mean, it’s the more time you spend training it, just like with a human being, the better it is. Chip Griffin: Yep. And I’m gonna be honest, it’s gonna be, it’s gonna be more work and stress in the short term for you. Gini Dietrich: Sure. Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, this is not, Gini Dietrich: mm-hmm. Chip Griffin: You know, this is not a quick fix. It is not. It is not something where there’s some magic formula. You’re gonna have to try to figure out what works for you and for your team. What works for your clients. And the client piece is really where you need to start with this. You need to spend some time thinking about what are your clients really hiring you for? What are they going to need you for 12, 18, 24 months down the road? Then start figuring out how these tools can help you to get there. Because there’s just, there is too much of this “Well, you know, I need to, I need to protect my billing model, and so I need to do value pricing because of AI.” That is not the answer. Although if it were, what you would discover is that, that people are valuing less what you are doing today. So if you’re truly going to follow value pricing, that doesn’t mean that you get more. It means you probably get less for a lot of these things because they realize, you know, that drafting of a press release, I actually can get that out of Claude pretty well. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Yeah. Chip Griffin: Particularly if you feed it in your last three or four years worth of press releases. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: It’ll be pretty darn good at coming up with them on their own. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: Probably candidly, in less time that it takes to communicate to your team that they want it. Gini Dietrich: Yep. 100%. Yes. Chip Griffin: Now there will still be companies that are happy to outsource it generally. Gini Dietrich: Sure. Chip Griffin: Right. That’s, that is always going to exist. But the way that they value it from a price standpoint and the other things that they want alongside of it will absolutely change. And you need to be thinking about that. Because AI is not just changing how your business operates, it’s changing how other businesses operate. It’s changing how the media operates. And so it is truly a disruptive force that we need to be thinking about as communicators and as agency folks because it, it upends a lot of what we have done, tactically at least, in recent years and over the decades. It does not upset the outcomes that are being sought after. Gini Dietrich: That’s right. Chip Griffin: From the work that we’re doing. Gini Dietrich: That’s right. Chip Griffin: And, and we lose sight of that for the tactics too often. Gini Dietrich: One of the things that I did is I built an agent, and I call it my co CEO. And as I was building it, I was going through a really rough HR time and so I used it mostly, honestly, just to vent. But it got to know me, and what’s important to me, and my voice, and what things I wanted to be human forward on, and what things I needed to stay professional on. And so I, as I was building it, it was, I was going through that process. Now I can say to it, okay, we’re thinking about doing this. So for instance, a client came to me probably midyear last year and said, Hey, we really want your team to do an audit of all of our brands and where they sit on the PESO model maturity level. And I kind of laughed and said, well, I can tell you right now, they’re all at level zero. And he was like, great, that’s good to know. What’s what takes us from zero to one, one to two, and so on up. And I thought about that for a little bit and I was like, hmm. I don’t have an answer for that. And so I went into my CO CEO and I had a conversation with it. Like, if we were gonna build a maturity model for the PESO model for an enterprise customer, what does that look like? And it probably took two weeks for me to get something that I could go back to him with and feel comfortable and confident with it. But it would’ve taken me two months to do that on my own. So, you know, it helps you think, it helps poke through holes in things. You have an AI that you’re building and I hope it’s okay for me to mention this ’cause I don’t know if it’s available yet, but I got to beta test it and it’s, I put in there that I was looking for. I said, okay, this is where, this is where the business is at the end of 2025. These are our goals for 2026. Here’s what I’d like to do in the next three to five years. Here’s like, I put in all of that information, where are the holes? And it started poking holes into things that I had never even considered. And I was like. Chip, this is really good. It’s just, it’s really, really good. So when you, when you train it, when you teach it what you’re wanting, what your voice is, what you’re trying to achieve, it is going to help you in more ways than one. It’s gonna help you think through problems. It’s gonna help you come up with solutions you didn’t consider. And like I said, it doesn’t need to sleep. So it can work in the background while you’re doing other things. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And there are a lot of these ways that we can innovate for our businesses and that particular example, it is live on the SAGA website now. It’s an AI agent called Sage. Gini Dietrich: It’s awesome and everyone should check it out. Chip Griffin: It’s trained on a huge volume of my both public and private materials that I’ve created over the last eight or nine years, and it does a remarkably good job of mimicking the advice I would give. Is it a hundred percent? One-to-one? No. Yeah, but it’s, it’s pretty darn close to the point where I’ve had a couple of clients now who have tried it and then asked me the same question they asked of Sage, and they got almost exactly the same answer. And, and so that’s how, you know, it’s, it’s working pretty well because I think, as any listener knows, I have some views that are not necessarily exactly in line with every other advisor in the agency space. And so, and in some of those cases, they were pieces of advice that you wouldn’t get if you went somewhere else. So, you know, you can tell that it’s actually using the training materials. And not simply doing a general knowledge search. But these are all things, it does take time. You’ve gotta have the material to provide to it. You need to spend the time with it, as you did in conversing and going back and forth. But the more you go back and forth, the smarter it gets. Gini Dietrich: That’s right. Chip Griffin: And the better it can help you the next time something comes along. Gini Dietrich: That’s right. Chip Griffin: And I think the other thing is that the more you use these tools, the more it forces you to think about some of these things. Because in order to get the most from them, you really have to be very clear about who is your ideal client? What are the services you provide? What is the value you deliver? And so, it’s just like a business plan. I always say that the business plan itself doesn’t really matter, but the process you go through to create it does. The process you go through to train your AI itself is beneficial and helps to get clarity. Because the clearer you are with the AI, the clearer you are with yourself by necessity. And so you need to be thinking about these things. You need to be really thinking about making much more radical change to your business over the next year or two than you probably have previously thought. You really need to be thinking about how not just technology, but client needs will force this change, otherwise you are gonna get left behind. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I totally agree. And to your point earlier, if you evolve and if you use it, and you’re better, you’re doing a better job of understanding what it is that your clients are willing to pay for, and they’re still willing to do it. They just don’t wanna pay for social posts and news releases. Chip Griffin: That’s right. I mean, there’s a huge opportunity here. There’s a giant threat, Gini Dietrich: huge opportunity, Chip Griffin: and I don’t wanna minimize that, but there’s a huge opportunity. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: But the key is you actually have to evolve and change. You can’t just play buzzword bingo. Gini Dietrich: Yes, please. Chip Griffin: Just slapping AI on top of something that you deliver that’s not gonna help you. Gini Dietrich: And it’s fun. It’s fun to test it. It’s fun to try it out. So do it. Chip Griffin: Yeah, Gini Dietrich: Do it, do it, do it. Chip Griffin: I mean, but we can’t minimize. It is scary for a lot of people too. I mean, Gini Dietrich: sure, absolutely. Yeah. Chip Griffin: But you’ve gotta, you’ve gotta embrace that fear if you wanna succeed. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I always say when I have somebody new join the team that’s scared of it, I say, all right, let’s do it. Let’s use it for something personal. So I will say that to you as well. Meal planning, fitness, hobbies. Managing your kids’ meltdowns, whatever it happens to be, just try it for something. Write a poem in a birthday card. Try it for something personal, and I guarantee you, you’ll be hooked. Chip Griffin: I had no idea we’d be getting to poems and birthday cards here today. So I think that’s the note that we’re gonna wrap up this episode on. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And it depends.

You built an agency you’re proud of. So why does your website still feature that glowing tribute to someone you wouldn’t recommend today, or explain services you stopped offering three years ago? In this episode, Chip and Gini tackle the unsexy but critical task of auditing your agency’s website content. They share practical approaches for identifying what needs updating, what deserves deletion, and how to prioritize your efforts when you’re staring down hundreds (or thousands) of outdated pages. The conversation covers everything from quick wins—like updating your homepage and key pages—to strategic decisions about high-traffic content that no longer serves your business. Gini shares her process for using tools like Screaming Frog to audit content systematically, while Chip emphasizes the importance of focusing on human users rather than chasing every algorithm change. They also dive into the balance between refreshing old content and creating new material, with specific guidance on when each approach makes sense. The episode wraps with a reminder that consistency matters more than perfection—especially when AI is increasingly using your bio and content to determine whether to recommend you. If your website is starting to feel like a liability rather than an asset, this episode offers a manageable roadmap to get it back on track without turning it into a year-long project. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “First and foremost, focus on the end user’s experience. And only after that, think about, okay, are there tweaks or additions I could make in order to help the search engines or the AI spiders or that kind of thing?” Gini Dietrich: “I would rather have accurate numbers so I know exactly what my pipeline looks like, my lead generation looks like, what my lead nurturing looks like, and be able to work it backwards.” Chip Griffin: “If you’re getting a lot of traffic to a page that either is not as relevant as it should be or not as accurate as it should be given the way the world has changed, you know, those are ones that you want to address.” Gini Dietrich: “AI notices inconsistencies. So if you are inconsistent across different websites, social media, all the places that you are online, you are not going to show up in AI answers no matter how good your content is.” Turn ideas into action Audit your homepage today. Open your website and read your homepage copy with fresh eyes—does it accurately reflect who you serve, what you do, and where your agency stands today? If not, block two hours this week to rewrite it. This is your most important page and the fastest way to stop misrepresenting your business. Check Google Analytics for your top 20 pages. Identify which pages drive the most traffic, then ask yourself if each one still serves your business or if you’re just attracting irrelevant visitors. Kill off pages that generate traffic but don’t support your current positioning—inflated vanity metrics aren’t worth the confusion. Ensure bio consistency across platforms. Compare your bio on your website, LinkedIn, and other platforms where you appear. Make them consistent (accounting for character limits) so AI can confidently present you as an option when people search for expertise in your area. Related Real talk about agency websites How to think about your agency's website View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, I’m old. Gini Dietrich: Yes, you are. Chip Griffin: But you know what else is old? Gini Dietrich: What else? Chip Griffin: Some of the content on my website. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, sure. Mine too. Yeah. Chip Griffin: It’s, it’s one of the perils of having been around for a while. Gini Dietrich: Yes, indeed. Chip Griffin: Both as a human, as a business. And so we have a lot of content out there on the website that maybe isn’t as current as we’d like it to be. Some of it I haven’t looked at in many years, so I don’t even know if it’s up to date or not. Gini Dietrich: Sure. Chip Griffin: I’m sure that many of our listeners have content on their website or maybe entire websites that are old and out of date. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: So my question to you is, how should we be thinking about this kind of, how do we deal with this problem? Or we, we can’t just spend, I mean, I, I don’t know about you, but my website’s got over a thousand different pieces of content on it. Oh yeah. Now I think most of our listeners probably don’t have websites with quite that much content on it, but some do, and even if you’ve only got a couple hundred, you know, that’s still a substantial body of content that you need to audit in some fashion. So what, what do you do about that? Gini Dietrich: You know, it’s funny, this conversation is happening right now because about a week ago, right after the holidays, I got an email from a friend that said, Hey, uh, I don’t know if you know this or not, but you have a blog post from, from 13 years ago, literally 13 years ago, praising Elon Musk. And I was like, well, let’s delete that! But like, I don’t know how she found that. She must have been searching on the site for something and found it. Right. So I think it’s important to do an audit and I did delete it. I moved it to the trash. But, I think it is important to do an audit. We have a client that said to us, we don’t think we need new content. We have plenty. And we went in and we’re like, okay, great. Let’s do an audit and see. And we audited it and they do have plenty of content, but the most recent is two and a half years old. So one of the things that we’re working on with them right now, well, twofold. One is going through the audit that we did to see what needs to stay with an update, a refresh, and what should be deleted. There are lots of, there’s lot, there’s lots of content on their site. And actually this will appeal to many of you listeners too. There’s content on their website that has some great SEO value. You know, showing up first in Google results and things like that. So you don’t wanna get rid of that content, but it probably needs a good update. It probably needs to be refreshed. It probably needs new quotes, new experts, new expertise, new statistics, whatever it happens to be. So that’s what I would do. It’s pretty easy. We use, Screaming Frog to do the audit, so it’ll, it will look at your entire website and then give you an Excel list of all of your links, and then you can go and you can tell it I want dates and topic and all that kind of stuff. And you can go through that fairly easily to say, this is old, we don’t need that. Move that to a different tab. This is good stuff. We don’t wanna lose it. And then I would compare that to what you’re keep, I would compare what you’re keeping to do a Google search. Are you show, are those links showing up in Google? And I would also ask AI. Are you showing, is AI showing that content in its answers. So you probably, I would venture to guess, like you and me, we, it would be a really big undertaking ’cause we have years and years of content. But for most agency owners, I would guess it’s probably a, I dunno… And you can use AI to help you, but it’s probably a two or three hour thing that you can split up over several weeks, right? To get it done. But 100% you should be, you should have an up update up to date website overall, and you should be updating content so that it’s refreshed, not necessarily the URL, but updating the content inside the article or the blog post or the page or whatever it happens to be. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And I, I think the advice to sort of just kind of, you know, go through a list of it is a really good starting point. Whether you use some third party tool, or frankly, if your website isn’t too huge, if you just go into WordPress and start scrolling back through the pages and posts. Mm-hmm. And just looking at the headlines, it at least, you know, things that are obviously in need of help will jump out at you. Yeah. Or you know, that you praise somebody that doesn’t make sense or whatever. And, and we have to keep in mind that, that sometimes that old content might be a year old, it might be 10 years old, right? It might still need some sort of an updating. The other thing that’s, that’s often helpful is just to go into, you know, something simple like your Google Analytics and just look at, you know, the top 20, 30, 40 pages in terms of traffic and just ask, are all of these pages the way I still want to present myself in whatever the current year is that you’re listening to us? Because, you know, that can be a really helpful way of prioritizing what you wanna address, what you wanna update. And particularly if you’re getting a lot of traffic to a page that either is not as relevant as it should be or not as accurate as it should be given the, the way the world has changed. You know, those are ones that you want to address. I, to me, one of the interesting cases is, you know what, and I’ve seen this a lot, and I, some of the organizations I’ve worked with have had this issue where you’ve got a page that gets a ton of traffic, but it’s frankly totally irrelevant to what they do today. Right. It’s still, it’s still an accurate bit of content, which is why it keeps getting traffic, you know, because it’s answering whatever question the searcher may have had, but it doesn’t really benefit the organization other than it does produce a fair amount of inbound traffic. So, to me, those are interesting cases. Trying to figure out what you do with those. And, if you talk to different SEO experts, you sometimes hear different bits of advice on this, right? Because some are like, well, you know, you, you’re still getting people clicking over to your site, and that’s a good signal for the search engines, so that’s good. The problem is if the signal is that you’re relevant for something that you really aren’t relevant for. Right. So, doesn’t really help you. My general inclination is if it’s completely irrelevant to what you do today, I would kill it off and sacrifice the traffic. But that’s, that’s my perspective on that. No, I totally agree with that. Either way you should make a conscious decision about it. Gini Dietrich: I totally agree with that because I think you’re right. If it’s not some, if it’s irrelevant, if you’re bringing irrelevant traffic to your website, your numbers are inflated. So I would rather have accurate numbers so I know exactly what my pipeline looks like, my lead generation looks like, what my lead nurturing looks like, and be able to work it backwards. Right. So I completely agree with you and like I said, I killed that article from 13 years ago. Because that’s not how I feel about that man anymore. So, yeah. At all. Chip Griffin: Yeah. Well, for, for many years on my personal blog, the highest trafficked post was one, was sort of a throwaway post I did on a camera backpack, that I got like 20 years ago. And it just, it scored, it turned out it was a popular model of the backpack, and so it got a ton of traffic from people who were considering buying it. Obviously that didn’t help me at all. Gini Dietrich: Not at all. Right. Chip Griffin: Because that, I mean, you know, I didn’t pitch camera backpacks or anything like that, you know, I didn’t sell ’em, I didn’t even have an affiliate link in or anything like that. So what, you know, what was the value of it? Pretty much nothing. You know, it felt nice to see all the spikes in traffic that it generated. Sure. Of course. But yeah. But it wasn’t particularly useful, so, and those are the kinds of things that, that many of us may, you know, maybe we just had a comment on our blog about some story of the day. And it just took off and for whatever reason still sticks around. But it’s not really what our agency is about, so doesn’t really help. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I would really look at, I mean, some of your ideas, especially if you don’t have a ton of content like we do going, just going through WordPress and looking to see. I would start with the content on your website specifically, what’s on your homepage? Does it represent who you are and what you stand for today? Does it accurately reflect where you are today? I would venture to guess the answer for most of us is no. I would start there at least with the homepage and your top three or four pages, so probably your services page, probably your about us page. Maybe a resources page, depending on, again, look at your Google Analytics. Then once you’ve done that, then I would definitely go through WordPress and go through any content that you have, podcasts, recordings, videos, blog posts, whatever it happens to be. Go through all of those and then divide and conquer and say, yeah, we’re gonna have to update these. It may take me all year, but I’m gonna do one a week and I’m gonna update one a week. And it suddenly, you’re taking small bites of the elephant and you can get it done by year’s end. Chip Griffin: I love your advice to look at the homepage and other key pages before worrying about, you know, old blog posts and that kind of thing, because many, many agencies neglect their websites. Until they decide all of a sudden, this is how I’m gonna get new business. And so then they over invest in time and money Yes. In their websites. Yes. So it, it, it does seem to be a story of extremes most of the time, but, but looking at that homepage of your website and making sure that it accurately reflects the business that you are: who you serve, what you do, and that it is very crystal clear about those things on your homepage. Very first step. Do not pass go. Do not do anything else. Just get that done first. Then I would say, look at the about page and make sure that it accurately reflects who you and your team are. Make sure that the right people are there. Make sure that your bio is accurate and up to date. Make sure that your photo is up to date and have a photo, by the way, because people like to deal with other people. Yep. And as someone who does professional headshots for people on the side, I gotta tell you, you gotta have something that’s within the last five years at least. I mean, if I put up a photo on the website of me with hair, that’s just, that’s not, that doesn’t make any sense. And yet I see plenty of people, Gini Dietrich: no, Chip Griffin: who have photos on their websites. And then I meet them and I’m like, this is not even in the ballpark. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, you’re right. The other thing I will say to that, and this is incredibly important, is that AI notices inconsistencies. So if you are inconsistent across different, the websites, social media, all the places that you are online, you are not going to show up in AI answers no matter how good your content is. So when you’re doing that audit, I would also audit your bio. Your bio that’s on the website compared to what it’s on LinkedIn compared to what it is on all the other social media platforms. If you have YouTube or a podcast platform, compare it to there. If you have a newsletter, compare it to there. Like ensure that it is the exact same bio, not, not, little changes based on the platform. I mean, you’ll have to make it smaller for Twitter than you would for LinkedIn, right? But it has to be consistent because if it’s not, AI gets confused and doesn’t know what to do, and so it just doesn’t present you as an option. So as you’re doing that audit, I would ensure that the bio, your own bio and then the bios of your key leadership or key team members are consistent across every platform on the internet, because that’s incredibly important with AI today. Chip Griffin: Yes. At the same time, what I would say to you is AI and SEO are very important. More important are the humans who actually visit your website. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: And so there’s lots of advice out there, including what we’re talking about here that will help you from an AI and SEO standpoint. However, it should never, ever, ever be at the expense of the actual user’s experience. Gini Dietrich: No, never. Right. Chip Griffin: And increasingly, I’m seeing websites that are being tailored for how they think that AI will be reading and indexing their sites. And so, for example, they shift almost entirely to a Q&A format because AI, generally speaking, loves the Q&A format in order to stock the answers that it gives to people. However, that’s not always the best user experience. Sometimes you need to present things in more of a compelling story like way. And trust me, the AI will figure it out. It may not be as great at it today. It may prefer the Q, but it’s going to improve over time. And it’s the same thing as for years, people would chase the latest algorithm change at Google. And that’s fantastic until they change it in three months or six months. Right. And so what are you gonna do? Just keep updating your website? Well, if you’re an SEO agency, you love that, right? Because. You know, you can just tell the clients, well, you know the latest version, now you gotta do this. So you remember all that work we did in January? It’s June now. I’ll do it again. We’re gonna redo all of that for you, right? I mean, it’s a great full employment act for SEO experts. However, it is not generally a good user experience, nor frankly, a particularly good use of resources. So first and foremost, focus on the end user’s experience. And only after that, think about, okay. Are there tweaks or additions I could make in order to help the search engines or the AI spiders or that kind of thing? Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I think the point you make about how Google updated updates it algorithm like real often and that you are trying to keep up is, is ludicrous, but it’s something that we’ve always been aware of and I think the strategy has not changed. If you always write, produce, not just write, but create content that’s compelling to a human. The algorithms and the AI are going to love it so that doesn’t matter. Are there things you can do to help it and AI find you? Sure you can do Q&A’s, you can do the, but that we do that stuff and this is gonna get techy, but we do that stuff on no follow sites, so it doesn’t show up in Google. It doesn’t show up in our navigation. It’s only there for the AI bots, right? So there are things that you could do for sure. But if you always put the human beings first, it’s going to work no matter what happens with AI, and no matter what happens with the algorithms. Google came out, gosh, several years ago now, and said, if you’re focused on expertise, experience, authority, and trust, those are the, those are how we’re using, that’s how we’re floating stuff to the top. So I think that’s really good advice because that is always going to A, make your content different, and B, make it valuable to humans. So if you’re always demonstrating your expertise that nobody else has and your experience that nobody else has, that will build authority and trust in both places. Chip Griffin: Well, I mean, the irony is that all of the experts will help you to chase the algorithms and the technology, but the reality is that all of the search engines and all of the AI engines, they’re all chasing the user. All they’re trying to do is try to deliver what a real person wants. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: And so it’s ironic that, that we set them aside, the humans aside to chase the technology when the technology is chasing the people. So it’s kind of a weird circle and I’ve consistently maintained for 20 plus years. If you focus on the user, you’ll get to the right place. You may not be there today. And, and it, it’s gonna ebb and flow over time as algorithms and technology changes. But chase the user because that’s how you sell your business. That’s how you find new clients and that’s how you keep people happy. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s, yes. Focus on the humans first. That’s always been the advice. That strategy has not changed. The tools change, the tactics change, the execution changes, but the strategy remains the same. Chip Griffin: So let’s say, you know, you’re, you’ve gone through this audit on your website. You’ve chucked out the things like the praise of Elon Musk that you don’t want on there anymore. You’ve gotten rid of the content that’s no longer relevant to the business that you are today. So now you’re left with some things that you could update, you know, maybe you could strengthen them. They’re not obviously wrong. They’re still pretty good. How do you decide where you want to invest your energy as far as which of these do you update? Which of those do you flesh out and make bigger deals? Because I think that’s where the real challenge comes in. You know, do you, are you better off updating old content or are you better off creating new content? Gini Dietrich: I think it depends, which is the tagline to this podcast, of course, but, it depends on a few things. One, if you, if there’s older content that you can refresh and update with minimal resources, like it’s just a five or 10 minute, gosh, this needs to change, this needs to change, and then I republish it and it’s showing up in Google results. I think it’s probably worth doing it. Obviously if it doesn’t support or reflect where you are right now, I would not worry about it. But if there are things where you have some SEO value or AI is using it to bring real humans to your website based on the questions they’re ans they’re asking and it’s accurate, then I would take a few minutes to update it. And like I said, maybe you, you create a list of things that you need to do and you just check one off a week. Right? And then I would focus my efforts on new stuff. So where are we now? What are we thinking? How are we? How have we evolved? What kinds of things are we offering to the industry? That kind of stuff. So I would first focus on the stuff that you can repurpose because it’s easier and it’s a smaller lift, and you still have the value of SEO from that perspective, and then focus on the new. But like I said, if your website in general, your homepage, your about us page are not updated, I would start there. Chip Griffin: And I think it’s important that you, as you’re looking at the old content, that you’re thinking about refreshing that, that you don’t look at it through the lens of I could make this perfect if I spent some more time on it. It really, you have to see that there’s some, that the outcome for the user, again, going back to the person on the other end, is meaningfully different because of the additional work that you’ve put in. I mean, if it’s just simply that it’s phrased better, it’s organized, neater. It’s, you know, a little bit clearer that that’s probably not enough for me. Right. But if you’re able to, you know, things have changed between then and now as far as either what’s going on in the world, what’s out there, what your knowledge is, and you can, you can make it 50% better. Okay. Now you’re talking about something that, that may be worth the investment of time and energy, but if it’s, you know, if you’re just, you know, kind of polishing. That generally isn’t gonna pay off. Gini Dietrich: Totally agree with it. Yep. Totally agree. Yeah. If it’s new, like if it’s your thinking has evolved and it supports that and you just need to polish that piece or you know, like… We are constantly evolving the PESO model. And so I’m always looking at that content to say, oh gosh, that doesn’t represent where it is anymore. Right? Do I wanna put a date on this or a year in the content so that anybody who visits it understands that this is three years old. Do I wanna delete it? Like, so I, you know, I’m constantly. Our marketing team and I are constantly looking at those kinds of things, so I totally agree. If it’s just a polish, I wouldn’t spend the time. But if it’s evolved thinking, if it’s new services, if it’s new products, if it’s new IP, if it’s, you know, those kinds of things, then I would definitely include it. Chip Griffin: Absolutely. Well, hopefully we’ve given people some good ideas so that they can take a fresh look at their website as we start the year. And figure out, you know, what they might wanna tweak, improve, get rid of, hide from, any of those things. And it, it doesn’t have to be a giant project as you suggested. No. It can be the kind of thing where you chip away at one piece of content a week or something like that and you’ll see a meaningful difference over the course of time. Gini Dietrich: Absolutely. Yep. Get it done. Get that homepage updated. Chip Griffin: So with that, we will draw this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast to a close. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich, Chip Griffin: and it does depend.

You built an agency you’re proud of. So why does your website still feature that glowing tribute to someone you wouldn’t recommend today, or explain services you stopped offering three years ago? In this episode, Chip and Gini tackle the unsexy but critical task of auditing your agency’s website content. They share practical approaches for identifying what needs updating, what deserves deletion, and how to prioritize your efforts when you’re staring down hundreds (or thousands) of outdated pages. The conversation covers everything from quick wins—like updating your homepage and key pages—to strategic decisions about high-traffic content that no longer serves your business. Gini shares her process for using tools like Screaming Frog to audit content systematically, while Chip emphasizes the importance of focusing on human users rather than chasing every algorithm change. They also dive into the balance between refreshing old content and creating new material, with specific guidance on when each approach makes sense. The episode wraps with a reminder that consistency matters more than perfection—especially when AI is increasingly using your bio and content to determine whether to recommend you. If your website is starting to feel like a liability rather than an asset, this episode offers a manageable roadmap to get it back on track without turning it into a year-long project. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “First and foremost, focus on the end user’s experience. And only after that, think about, okay, are there tweaks or additions I could make in order to help the search engines or the AI spiders or that kind of thing?” Gini Dietrich: “I would rather have accurate numbers so I know exactly what my pipeline looks like, my lead generation looks like, what my lead nurturing looks like, and be able to work it backwards.” Chip Griffin: “If you’re getting a lot of traffic to a page that either is not as relevant as it should be or not as accurate as it should be given the way the world has changed, you know, those are ones that you want to address.” Gini Dietrich: “AI notices inconsistencies. So if you are inconsistent across different websites, social media, all the places that you are online, you are not going to show up in AI answers no matter how good your content is.” Turn ideas into action Audit your homepage today. Open your website and read your homepage copy with fresh eyes—does it accurately reflect who you serve, what you do, and where your agency stands today? If not, block two hours this week to rewrite it. This is your most important page and the fastest way to stop misrepresenting your business. Check Google Analytics for your top 20 pages. Identify which pages drive the most traffic, then ask yourself if each one still serves your business or if you’re just attracting irrelevant visitors. Kill off pages that generate traffic but don’t support your current positioning—inflated vanity metrics aren’t worth the confusion. Ensure bio consistency across platforms. Compare your bio on your website, LinkedIn, and other platforms where you appear. Make them consistent (accounting for character limits) so AI can confidently present you as an option when people search for expertise in your area. Related Real talk about agency websites How to think about your agency's website View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, I’m old. Gini Dietrich: Yes, you are. Chip Griffin: But you know what else is old? Gini Dietrich: What else? Chip Griffin: Some of the content on my website. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, sure. Mine too. Yeah. Chip Griffin: It’s, it’s one of the perils of having been around for a while. Gini Dietrich: Yes, indeed. Chip Griffin: Both as a human, as a business. And so we have a lot of content out there on the website that maybe isn’t as current as we’d like it to be. Some of it I haven’t looked at in many years, so I don’t even know if it’s up to date or not. Gini Dietrich: Sure. Chip Griffin: I’m sure that many of our listeners have content on their website or maybe entire websites that are old and out of date. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: So my question to you is, how should we be thinking about this kind of, how do we deal with this problem? Or we, we can’t just spend, I mean, I, I don’t know about you, but my website’s got over a thousand different pieces of content on it. Oh yeah. Now I think most of our listeners probably don’t have websites with quite that much content on it, but some do, and even if you’ve only got a couple hundred, you know, that’s still a substantial body of content that you need to audit in some fashion. So what, what do you do about that? Gini Dietrich: You know, it’s funny, this conversation is happening right now because about a week ago, right after the holidays, I got an email from a friend that said, Hey, uh, I don’t know if you know this or not, but you have a blog post from, from 13 years ago, literally 13 years ago, praising Elon Musk. And I was like, well, let’s delete that! But like, I don’t know how she found that. She must have been searching on the site for something and found it. Right. So I think it’s important to do an audit and I did delete it. I moved it to the trash. But, I think it is important to do an audit. We have a client that said to us, we don’t think we need new content. We have plenty. And we went in and we’re like, okay, great. Let’s do an audit and see. And we audited it and they do have plenty of content, but the most recent is two and a half years old. So one of the things that we’re working on with them right now, well, twofold. One is going through the audit that we did to see what needs to stay with an update, a refresh, and what should be deleted. There are lots of, there’s lot, there’s lots of content on their site. And actually this will appeal to many of you listeners too. There’s content on their website that has some great SEO value. You know, showing up first in Google results and things like that. So you don’t wanna get rid of that content, but it probably needs a good update. It probably needs to be refreshed. It probably needs new quotes, new experts, new expertise, new statistics, whatever it happens to be. So that’s what I would do. It’s pretty easy. We use, Screaming Frog to do the audit, so it’ll, it will look at your entire website and then give you an Excel list of all of your links, and then you can go and you can tell it I want dates and topic and all that kind of stuff. And you can go through that fairly easily to say, this is old, we don’t need that. Move that to a different tab. This is good stuff. We don’t wanna lose it. And then I would compare that to what you’re keep, I would compare what you’re keeping to do a Google search. Are you show, are those links showing up in Google? And I would also ask AI. Are you showing, is AI showing that content in its answers. So you probably, I would venture to guess, like you and me, we, it would be a really big undertaking ’cause we have years and years of content. But for most agency owners, I would guess it’s probably a, I dunno… And you can use AI to help you, but it’s probably a two or three hour thing that you can split up over several weeks, right? To get it done. But 100% you should be, you should have an up update up to date website overall, and you should be updating content so that it’s refreshed, not necessarily the URL, but updating the content inside the article or the blog post or the page or whatever it happens to be. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And I, I think the advice to sort of just kind of, you know, go through a list of it is a really good starting point. Whether you use some third party tool, or frankly, if your website isn’t too huge, if you just go into WordPress and start scrolling back through the pages and posts. Mm-hmm. And just looking at the headlines, it at least, you know, things that are obviously in need of help will jump out at you. Yeah. Or you know, that you praise somebody that doesn’t make sense or whatever. And, and we have to keep in mind that, that sometimes that old content might be a year old, it might be 10 years old, right? It might still need some sort of an updating. The other thing that’s, that’s often helpful is just to go into, you know, something simple like your Google Analytics and just look at, you know, the top 20, 30, 40 pages in terms of traffic and just ask, are all of these pages the way I still want to present myself in whatever the current year is that you’re listening to us? Because, you know, that can be a really helpful way of prioritizing what you wanna address, what you wanna update. And particularly if you’re getting a lot of traffic to a page that either is not as relevant as it should be or not as accurate as it should be given the, the way the world has changed. You know, those are ones that you want to address. I, to me, one of the interesting cases is, you know what, and I’ve seen this a lot, and I, some of the organizations I’ve worked with have had this issue where you’ve got a page that gets a ton of traffic, but it’s frankly totally irrelevant to what they do today. Right. It’s still, it’s still an accurate bit of content, which is why it keeps getting traffic, you know, because it’s answering whatever question the searcher may have had, but it doesn’t really benefit the organization other than it does produce a fair amount of inbound traffic. So, to me, those are interesting cases. Trying to figure out what you do with those. And, if you talk to different SEO experts, you sometimes hear different bits of advice on this, right? Because some are like, well, you know, you, you’re still getting people clicking over to your site, and that’s a good signal for the search engines, so that’s good. The problem is if the signal is that you’re relevant for something that you really aren’t relevant for. Right. So, doesn’t really help you. My general inclination is if it’s completely irrelevant to what you do today, I would kill it off and sacrifice the traffic. But that’s, that’s my perspective on that. No, I totally agree with that. Either way you should make a conscious decision about it. Gini Dietrich: I totally agree with that because I think you’re right. If it’s not some, if it’s irrelevant, if you’re bringing irrelevant traffic to your website, your numbers are inflated. So I would rather have accurate numbers so I know exactly what my pipeline looks like, my lead generation looks like, what my lead nurturing looks like, and be able to work it backwards. Right. So I completely agree with you and like I said, I killed that article from 13 years ago. Because that’s not how I feel about that man anymore. So, yeah. At all. Chip Griffin: Yeah. Well, for, for many years on my personal blog, the highest trafficked post was one, was sort of a throwaway post I did on a camera backpack, that I got like 20 years ago. And it just, it scored, it turned out it was a popular model of the backpack, and so it got a ton of traffic from people who were considering buying it. Obviously that didn’t help me at all. Gini Dietrich: Not at all. Right. Chip Griffin: Because that, I mean, you know, I didn’t pitch camera backpacks or anything like that, you know, I didn’t sell ’em, I didn’t even have an affiliate link in or anything like that. So what, you know, what was the value of it? Pretty much nothing. You know, it felt nice to see all the spikes in traffic that it generated. Sure. Of course. But yeah. But it wasn’t particularly useful, so, and those are the kinds of things that, that many of us may, you know, maybe we just had a comment on our blog about some story of the day. And it just took off and for whatever reason still sticks around. But it’s not really what our agency is about, so doesn’t really help. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I would really look at, I mean, some of your ideas, especially if you don’t have a ton of content like we do going, just going through WordPress and looking to see. I would start with the content on your website specifically, what’s on your homepage? Does it represent who you are and what you stand for today? Does it accurately reflect where you are today? I would venture to guess the answer for most of us is no. I would start there at least with the homepage and your top three or four pages, so probably your services page, probably your about us page. Maybe a resources page, depending on, again, look at your Google Analytics. Then once you’ve done that, then I would definitely go through WordPress and go through any content that you have, podcasts, recordings, videos, blog posts, whatever it happens to be. Go through all of those and then divide and conquer and say, yeah, we’re gonna have to update these. It may take me all year, but I’m gonna do one a week and I’m gonna update one a week. And it suddenly, you’re taking small bites of the elephant and you can get it done by year’s end. Chip Griffin: I love your advice to look at the homepage and other key pages before worrying about, you know, old blog posts and that kind of thing, because many, many agencies neglect their websites. Until they decide all of a sudden, this is how I’m gonna get new business. And so then they over invest in time and money Yes. In their websites. Yes. So it, it, it does seem to be a story of extremes most of the time, but, but looking at that homepage of your website and making sure that it accurately reflects the business that you are: who you serve, what you do, and that it is very crystal clear about those things on your homepage. Very first step. Do not pass go. Do not do anything else. Just get that done first. Then I would say, look at the about page and make sure that it accurately reflects who you and your team are. Make sure that the right people are there. Make sure that your bio is accurate and up to date. Make sure that your photo is up to date and have a photo, by the way, because people like to deal with other people. Yep. And as someone who does professional headshots for people on the side, I gotta tell you, you gotta have something that’s within the last five years at least. I mean, if I put up a photo on the website of me with hair, that’s just, that’s not, that doesn’t make any sense. And yet I see plenty of people, Gini Dietrich: no, Chip Griffin: who have photos on their websites. And then I meet them and I’m like, this is not even in the ballpark. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, you’re right. The other thing I will say to that, and this is incredibly important, is that AI notices inconsistencies. So if you are inconsistent across different, the websites, social media, all the places that you are online, you are not going to show up in AI answers no matter how good your content is. So when you’re doing that audit, I would also audit your bio. Your bio that’s on the website compared to what it’s on LinkedIn compared to what it is on all the other social media platforms. If you have YouTube or a podcast platform, compare it to there. If you have a newsletter, compare it to there. Like ensure that it is the exact same bio, not, not, little changes based on the platform. I mean, you’ll have to make it smaller for Twitter than you would for LinkedIn, right? But it has to be consistent because if it’s not, AI gets confused and doesn’t know what to do, and so it just doesn’t present you as an option. So as you’re doing that audit, I would ensure that the bio, your own bio and then the bios of your key leadership or key team members are consistent across every platform on the internet, because that’s incredibly important with AI today. Chip Griffin: Yes. At the same time, what I would say to you is AI and SEO are very important. More important are the humans who actually visit your website. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: And so there’s lots of advice out there, including what we’re talking about here that will help you from an AI and SEO standpoint. However, it should never, ever, ever be at the expense of the actual user’s experience. Gini Dietrich: No, never. Right. Chip Griffin: And increasingly, I’m seeing websites that are being tailored for how they think that AI will be reading and indexing their sites. And so, for example, they shift almost entirely to a Q&A format because AI, generally speaking, loves the Q&A format in order to stock the answers that it gives to people. However, that’s not always the best user experience. Sometimes you need to present things in more of a compelling story like way. And trust me, the AI will figure it out. It may not be as great at it today. It may prefer the Q, but it’s going to improve over time. And it’s the same thing as for years, people would chase the latest algorithm change at Google. And that’s fantastic until they change it in three months or six months. Right. And so what are you gonna do? Just keep updating your website? Well, if you’re an SEO agency, you love that, right? Because. You know, you can just tell the clients, well, you know the latest version, now you gotta do this. So you remember all that work we did in January? It’s June now. I’ll do it again. We’re gonna redo all of that for you, right? I mean, it’s a great full employment act for SEO experts. However, it is not generally a good user experience, nor frankly, a particularly good use of resources. So first and foremost, focus on the end user’s experience. And only after that, think about, okay. Are there tweaks or additions I could make in order to help the search engines or the AI spiders or that kind of thing? Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I think the point you make about how Google updated updates it algorithm like real often and that you are trying to keep up is, is ludicrous, but it’s something that we’ve always been aware of and I think the strategy has not changed. If you always write, produce, not just write, but create content that’s compelling to a human. The algorithms and the AI are going to love it so that doesn’t matter. Are there things you can do to help it and AI find you? Sure you can do Q&A’s, you can do the, but that we do that stuff and this is gonna get techy, but we do that stuff on no follow sites, so it doesn’t show up in Google. It doesn’t show up in our navigation. It’s only there for the AI bots, right? So there are things that you could do for sure. But if you always put the human beings first, it’s going to work no matter what happens with AI, and no matter what happens with the algorithms. Google came out, gosh, several years ago now, and said, if you’re focused on expertise, experience, authority, and trust, those are the, those are how we’re using, that’s how we’re floating stuff to the top. So I think that’s really good advice because that is always going to A, make your content different, and B, make it valuable to humans. So if you’re always demonstrating your expertise that nobody else has and your experience that nobody else has, that will build authority and trust in both places. Chip Griffin: Well, I mean, the irony is that all of the experts will help you to chase the algorithms and the technology, but the reality is that all of the search engines and all of the AI engines, they’re all chasing the user. All they’re trying to do is try to deliver what a real person wants. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: And so it’s ironic that, that we set them aside, the humans aside to chase the technology when the technology is chasing the people. So it’s kind of a weird circle and I’ve consistently maintained for 20 plus years. If you focus on the user, you’ll get to the right place. You may not be there today. And, and it, it’s gonna ebb and flow over time as algorithms and technology changes. But chase the user because that’s how you sell your business. That’s how you find new clients and that’s how you keep people happy. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s, yes. Focus on the humans first. That’s always been the advice. That strategy has not changed. The tools change, the tactics change, the execution changes, but the strategy remains the same. Chip Griffin: So let’s say, you know, you’re, you’ve gone through this audit on your website. You’ve chucked out the things like the praise of Elon Musk that you don’t want on there anymore. You’ve gotten rid of the content that’s no longer relevant to the business that you are today. So now you’re left with some things that you could update, you know, maybe you could strengthen them. They’re not obviously wrong. They’re still pretty good. How do you decide where you want to invest your energy as far as which of these do you update? Which of those do you flesh out and make bigger deals? Because I think that’s where the real challenge comes in. You know, do you, are you better off updating old content or are you better off creating new content? Gini Dietrich: I think it depends, which is the tagline to this podcast, of course, but, it depends on a few things. One, if you, if there’s older content that you can refresh and update with minimal resources, like it’s just a five or 10 minute, gosh, this needs to change, this needs to change, and then I republish it and it’s showing up in Google results. I think it’s probably worth doing it. Obviously if it doesn’t support or reflect where you are right now, I would not worry about it. But if there are things where you have some SEO value or AI is using it to bring real humans to your website based on the questions they’re ans they’re asking and it’s accurate, then I would take a few minutes to update it. And like I said, maybe you, you create a list of things that you need to do and you just check one off a week. Right? And then I would focus my efforts on new stuff. So where are we now? What are we thinking? How are we? How have we evolved? What kinds of things are we offering to the industry? That kind of stuff. So I would first focus on the stuff that you can repurpose because it’s easier and it’s a smaller lift, and you still have the value of SEO from that perspective, and then focus on the new. But like I said, if your website in general, your homepage, your about us page are not updated, I would start there. Chip Griffin: And I think it’s important that you, as you’re looking at the old content, that you’re thinking about refreshing that, that you don’t look at it through the lens of I could make this perfect if I spent some more time on it. It really, you have to see that there’s some, that the outcome for the user, again, going back to the person on the other end, is meaningfully different because of the additional work that you’ve put in. I mean, if it’s just simply that it’s phrased better, it’s organized, neater. It’s, you know, a little bit clearer that that’s probably not enough for me. Right. But if you’re able to, you know, things have changed between then and now as far as either what’s going on in the world, what’s out there, what your knowledge is, and you can, you can make it 50% better. Okay. Now you’re talking about something that, that may be worth the investment of time and energy, but if it’s, you know, if you’re just, you know, kind of polishing. That generally isn’t gonna pay off. Gini Dietrich: Totally agree with it. Yep. Totally agree. Yeah. If it’s new, like if it’s your thinking has evolved and it supports that and you just need to polish that piece or you know, like… We are constantly evolving the PESO model. And so I’m always looking at that content to say, oh gosh, that doesn’t represent where it is anymore. Right? Do I wanna put a date on this or a year in the content so that anybody who visits it understands that this is three years old. Do I wanna delete it? Like, so I, you know, I’m constantly. Our marketing team and I are constantly looking at those kinds of things, so I totally agree. If it’s just a polish, I wouldn’t spend the time. But if it’s evolved thinking, if it’s new services, if it’s new products, if it’s new IP, if it’s, you know, those kinds of things, then I would definitely include it. Chip Griffin: Absolutely. Well, hopefully we’ve given people some good ideas so that they can take a fresh look at their website as we start the year. And figure out, you know, what they might wanna tweak, improve, get rid of, hide from, any of those things. And it, it doesn’t have to be a giant project as you suggested. No. It can be the kind of thing where you chip away at one piece of content a week or something like that and you’ll see a meaningful difference over the course of time. Gini Dietrich: Absolutely. Yep. Get it done. Get that homepage updated. Chip Griffin: So with that, we will draw this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast to a close. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich, Chip Griffin: and it does depend.

As agency owners settle into 2026, it’s easy to operate on autopilot—chasing the next tactic without reconnecting with what made the business work in the first place. In this episode, Chip and Gini make the case for looking backward before charging forward. Chip admits his first agency started because “consultant” sounded better than “unemployed.” But the real question isn’t just why you started—it’s why you decided to keep building. That motivation should be informing your strategy today. Gini shares how she once believed she wanted a large agency with hundreds of employees and global clients. When she hit 30+ people, she realized she’d built something she didn’t enjoy leading. She was buried in HR issues instead of doing the work that energized her. The Great Recession forced a reset, and she restructured the business around her strengths. Her advice: figure out what brings you joy in the business, and protect time to do more of it. Otherwise, you risk drifting into micromanagement or burnout. The episode also digs into practical growth tactics from the early days that still work. Gini recalls how she built her pipeline by developing relationships with business development leads at large agencies. When prospects came in below their fee threshold, they’d refer the work her way—a principle that remains just as relevant today. Both hosts encourage owners to revisit their “things I’d never do” list from when they started. It’s worth checking whether you’ve quietly drifted into those same patterns over time. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “Agency owners often ask me, what should I do next? And the answer is very different depending on what you’re trying to accomplish with the business.” Gini Dietrich: “We say this to clients all the time, go back to the basics. It works. And it works for your agency, too.” Chip Griffin: “You need to do what’s right for you. And so, I think that the key to that is really going back to your roots, understanding what motivated you to get started, what drove that success in the early days.” Gini Dietrich: “You want to focus on the things that you are great at, and the things that make you the happiest, and the things that are most motivating to you, because that’s how your business will grow.” Turn Ideas Into Action Write down why you started your agency and what drove your early success. Block 30 minutes to identify patterns from those early days that you could leverage again for growth or business development today. Identify one thing that energizes you most about the work—then carve out time to do more of it. Even if it’s behind the scenes (like strategic brainstorming or quarterly client reviews), injecting that spark back into your role helps prevent burnout. Make a quick list of “things I swore I’d never do” when you started. Check whether you’ve drifted into any of those patterns on inertia—and decide if it’s a learned lesson or a habit worth breaking. Related Do you remember why you started your agency? Why one-size-fits-all advice doesn't work for agencies View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I am Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, I’m thinking way, way back, way back decades now to why I started my agency. Gini Dietrich: Oooh. Decades, huh? Chip Griffin: And I can’t remember ’cause I’m too old now, so. No, Gini Dietrich: you can too remember. Chip Griffin: Well, I mean, the honest answer is that I started my first agency was because I was unemployed. And it was better to describe myself as a consultant than unemployed. Yeah. Sure. And then than accidentally started accumulating business. Yeah. But I, but I do think it, it is a helpful exercise for us to go back and, and think about why we started the businesses or, or maybe not, in some cases, like mine, because I was unemployed, is not the greatest explanation. So you know more why did I decide to, to, to build it into an actual business. Gini Dietrich: Why? To keep going. Yeah. I think that’s good, especially as we’re, we’re thinking about starting out the new year and remind ourselves, you know, of the reasons that we started this. Some of us do it because we’re, we’re unemployed. Some of us did it because we found a better, we, we think we had a better way of doing things. Some of us did it because we have a problem with authority. Some of us did it ’cause we’d make terrible employees. I mean, there are lots of different reasons, but I think reaching back into our archives in our brains and thinking about why we did it or why we, I think that you’re right, why we continue to do it is a, is a really good exercise. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, I, and, and I’ve said over and over again over the years that, that I think too many agencies operate on inertia, as opposed to any kind of a, a fundamental strategy. And so, you know, it’s very easy to say as, as I’m sure many people ask you as they do me, well, what’s the, what’s my next step? Here’s where my agency is now, what, what should I do next? And the answer is very different depending on what you’re trying to accomplish with the business. So trying to think back to those early days and what motivated you to start the business. Evaluate it because it, that may have changed, right? You, you may have started it because it served a particular need in the moment, and maybe it’s different today, but thinking about that and thinking about what you really want from the business is usually a better way to come up with strategic decisions than it is to say, well, what do other agencies like mine do when they get to this stage of growth or to this challenge? It’s, you really need to to match it up because otherwise, what’s the point of taking on all of that risk and stress of being a business owner? Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I mean, a really good example of that is I really thought I wanted to build a great big agency with hundreds of employees and, and clients around the globe and all of the, all of the things. And as I started to grow and we got to about 30 ish, 33, 32 people, I realized that’s not what I wanna do. Right. It was not enjoyable. I had built a company that I was not thriving in, that I didn’t enjoy leading. You know, I was dealing mostly with HR issues and not doing the work. And so the, the Great Recession did afford me the opportunity, unfortunately and fortunately to kind of take a step back and, and think about what kind of business do I want to have? And what kind of business do I want to lead? And while we’re back up to that same size, it’s a different structured business that allows me to focus in on the things that I do best and do the things that I enjoy versus HR ’cause that is not something I enjoy at all. Chip Griffin: I, I think I’ve yet to meet an owner who likes, enjoys doing HR or accounting or those sorts of things. Not fun. There are some who do it well. But don’t enjoy it. But I, I don’t think I’ve found any that actually enjoy doing it. So, but, but I think that, you know, as you think back to those early days and you think about what motivated you, it can often help you to figure out, you know, what is, what is that spark that you need in the business for you to either continue enjoying it for a longer period of time or bring back some of that, that joy that you had in those early days. Because I know a lot of agency owners these days are, are frustrated and, you know, trying to figure out how to change things for the better. And I think part of the way you inform yourself of that is by thinking back to those early motivations and figuring out how you can inject more of that into your business today. Gini Dietrich: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think it’s, I think it’s really important to do that. And I think there, you know, for me personally, I get really passionate and enjoy my job when I’m learning and doing new things. So artificial intelligence, of course, has been a great big thing for me because I’ve really enjoyed learning it and understanding it and implementing it into my business and then taking it to clients. You know, last month we launched the PESO operating system, AI edition, where the AI prompts you instead of you prompting it. So it will say, what are your business objectives? What are you trying to achieve? What are your audiences? What are your messaging? And then it builds a PESO program for you that’s fully integrated versus you saying I need you to act like a marketing director who can, who understands PESO and can build this and this. It’s that. So I like, those are the kinds of things that really get me excited. And building those kinds of things gets me excited and motivated. So it’s, it’s easy because I understand that about myself. It drives my team crazy ’cause they’re like, oh, she’s got something new. Or my, their favorite thing is, I had an idea. And they’re like, oh no, no, not again. But that’s what keeps me, yeah, that’s what keeps me motivated. So finding a way to understand what brings you joy in the business, I think is incredibly important. So that without exhausting your team, of course, but doing it in a way that keeps you motivated and, and not burned out. Chip Griffin: Yeah. One of the things that always used to, to drive my teams nuts was I would say, you know, over the weekend I was playing with this new thing. And, and you could just see the looks on their faces and they’re like, oh, this is a lot more work for me now. Gini Dietrich: This is gonna be fun. Yep. Chip Griffin: This is, yep. Yep. They, they never seemed to appreciate it the way that I had hoped they would when I came to them. Correct. With these, these brilliant brainstorms of mine. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: I, and I think as, as you know, founders of agencies, most of us come in with some sort of that. Idea that, that we want to be creative or strategic or those kinds of things. And as we end up in more of a management role, we have less and less opportunities to do it. So I, I think that, that rather than giving up on that dream, we need to figure out how we can sprinkle enough of that in there to keep ourselves motivated. We can’t give up the, the management piece. We can’t give up the business development piece. Many of us would like to. But the, the reality is that, unless you’ve built a fairly large agency, you just don’t have the ability to pull yourself out of that, as a solo owner. But it doesn’t mean that you have to give up on those things entirely. You can carve out a piece of time to work on that, and if you are structuring your role in such a way that you’re enjoying what you’re doing, it also means that you’re frankly less likely to be doing the, the, the bad things that founders of businesses can do, which is micromanagement and tinkering with things that you don’t really belong in because you, because you’re not occupying yourself with the things that really motivate you. And instead, you’re continuing to try to do every aspect of the business. And that’s where you start to, to run into team morale problems quite often. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. You know, I think one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned over the years is that, yes, I can do the work, and yes, I can probably do it pretty well, but is it really something that I should be focused on? And if not, is it something that I can pay an expert to do because in the long run, it’ll cost me less money, less time, less resources, all of the things. And I know as small agency owners, it’s really hard to say, gosh, I’m gonna have to spend $2000 or $3,000 a month on an expert. When in fact it might save you, you know, 15 or 20 grand on the backend. So I think you have to think about these things as investments in your business and investments in your time so that you can focus on the things that, that you are great at and the things that make you the happiest and the things that are most motivating to you, because that’s how your business will grow. Chip Griffin: Absolutely. And if, if that happens to be being creative and strategic, then, then you can, you shouldn’t be doing it day to day in all likelihood for clients. Sure. But you should find ways to do it either as part of, you know, quarterly or annual client reviews. Or internal brainstorming sessions that you’re engaging in. There’s a lot of things you can do behind the scenes to be useful and, and to, to exercise those muscles in a way that that gives you satisfaction. But doesn’t put you on the front lines so that you’re, you know, now the, the one that the, the client decides they’re gonna call every time they’ve got an issue. Because that, that ends up eating up a lot of your time in a way that probably you’re not going to enjoy. So sometimes it’s doing things behind the scenes that gets you the, the most value, or doing annual in person with the client. But they understand it’s special that you’re here, this is not. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. This is not something they can or should expect every week. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. You know, I, I know I’ve talked about this before on the podcast, but we do quarterly planning with our clients. We do a quarterly look back, and then we, you know, say, okay, based on metrics and data and all that and your priorities, here’s what we’re suggesting for quarter two or in the next quarter. And that has afforded many opportunities. A, for me to, to work in my where I’m, where I’m strong, but it also almost always gets us more money. So when you’re, when agency owners are like, oh, should I do a cost of living raise every year? Should I increase by 10 or 15% every year? That kind of goes away because you are getting new projects every quarter based on the the plan and the strategic strategy and creativity that you’re providing to the clients every quarter, because they’re like, oh gosh, yeah, we should actually do that. And some, and sometimes they’ll say, we don’t have extra budget. Can we move some things around? Which is okay, but most of the time they’ll say, you know, we, we have a little extra budget. Let’s focus on doing that. We have to launch a new website. Here’s some extra budget for that. We have to do a series of webinars to maintain our CEUs. Let’s here’s a little extra budget for that. So there are things and opportunities for you to, for lack of a better term, term upsell when you’re doing these quarterly meetings versus waiting for the annual. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and so, you know, finding a way to, to inject yourself in those things is a valuable exercise. Absolutely. From that, look back to the early days. But the other thing that that can be helpful in looking back to your early days of your agency is, you know, what helps drive your early success? Because a lot of times when we’re trying to find solutions to our current growth issues, we can find clues in some of those early days and mm-hmm. A lot of that, you know, in the early days of, of most agencies, it may be that low hanging fruit from personal networks and things like that. But there are usually other patterns that you might be able to see there that might help you to understand what are, what are the basics that you need to go back to? How do you, how do you employ some of those rather than, than focusing on, you know, all of the fancy new things that you see, you know, some, you know, genius podcast hosts talking about as far as how to grow an agency and instead say, Hey, this is what worked for me. Yep. Because you may find something that works again today. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we say this to clients all the time, but going back to the basics. It works. And it works for you too, so absolutely you should think about those kinds of things. Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, you didn’t get here by accident. Well, maybe you got, maybe it’s a little bit of an accident sometimes that happens. Maybe, yeah. Some of it. But, if you’ve had any longevity at all, even a few years of longevity as an agency owner, there are patterns that you can find usually that started in those early days. That you can lean into for understanding and rather than trying to do something wild and different, focus on the things that you know, you’ve proved can work for your business. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. One of the things, if I were to dig back into the archives, one of the things that worked extremely well for us is I had developed relationships with people who did business development at the large agencies, and what I found is that if they had an RFP or a current client or a prospect come in and say, we only have a quarter of a million dollars to spend. They’re not even gonna look at that. And so they started just referring that business to us, which is how I grew the business. Mm-hmm. So if I think about that now, how could we replicate that kind of, you know, pipeline development? It was extremely effective. And I, I gift that to all the listeners too. Like there are larger agencies in all of your cities that they have a certain threshold, and if any something comes in below that, they are happy to refer business. So there is, there is one way for you to start thinking about how am I going to, you know, keep myself motivated? How am I gonna keep my pipeline full? How am I gonna keep cash coming in? That’s one of the things that you can think about. Chip Griffin: Yeah, and thinking those things through. I mean, sometimes it’s not a one for one where you did exactly the same way you did it originally, but you take that nugget of an idea. And you know, things like, finding other people who can refer you business that’s not quite a fit for, for them, but might be for you. It’s a good reminder to be out there and having conversations with your peers. With people even that you might perceive sometimes as competitors, because there are often opportunities. In the work that I do with agencies, it’s not uncommon for some of the other consultants in the space to refer clients to me that are a better fit for my background and the kinds of agencies that I work with and vice versa. Because you know, we all have our specialties. And as an agency you have your specialties, so it is very common for many agencies to have grown this way. So certainly something to be looking at today, particularly if you’re struggling to find that new business in 2026. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I think I really love the advice of thinking back to how you got to where you are and some of the things that you did, and going back to basics a little bit, because those are the things that are going to continue to work. And to your point, maybe tweak a little bit to make a more, be more effective in ’26. Chip Griffin: I mean, it also puts you in the right mindset, I think, because if you’re thinking back to those early stages, that tends to be when many agencies have the most growth, when things are most exciting. And so if you can try to bring back even a sprinkling of that, that can be really helpful. Particularly when times are tougher, or you’re looking for the inspiration to take things to the next level or whatever challenge you may be facing today, those lessons can be extremely valuable and also motivating at the same time. Gini Dietrich: Absolutely. Yeah. I used to, I used to get mad at companies that would hire big PR firms for like brand awareness and, you know, sending news releases and they didn’t get any coverage. They didn’t get any results. And I would get, I would get angry and I would call the company and be like, you’re so stupid. I would never do that today. But I had such a, I was just so naive and passionate about what we were doing, that it didn’t bother me to call and be like, we can do this significantly better for you. And in some cases they laughed and hung up on me. And in some cases, like we became agency of record. Like we took AOR away from Fleischman Hillard one year from a big, big company with a big, big company. And it was because I made a phone call where I was like, I can’t believe that you’re spending this kind of money and getting these kinds, these lackluster results. They were like, all right, let’s listen. I don’t think I would do that today, but it worked. Chip Griffin: Right. But, thinking back to those things can help you do two things. One is to think some of the positive things that you can do or the affirmative steps, right. That you can take. But the, but sometimes looking back to, to how you got started can also be reminders not to do certain things. Gini Dietrich: Sure, sure. Chip Griffin: So, particularly if you’ve started an agency and maybe you worked at an agency previously when you started, you probably had this laundry list of things. I would never do these things as an agency. And I, I think back to my first agency and some of the agencies that I had worked with previously, you know, did a lot of what I felt was nickel and diming of you in terms of back in the day charging you for faxes and photocopies. Sure. Yes. And all sorts of little expenses. And so, you know, I was committed back then to making sure that my invoices were always clean and simple and fixed, and I just worked in the cost of all of these things. Into my total cost of doing business so that I never had to aggravate a client. Fast forward to today. If I found myself doing that, I, by looking back, I would say, wait a minute. Let me think about that. Am I, am I being true to what my vision was of the business? And if not, is that because I’ve actually learned something and it does make sense to do what I thought was wrong back then. Because I mean, you can learn and grow. There’s nothing wrong with that. Sure. Or have you just fallen into the trap because you walked around and you saw other people doing it. So you said, well, I’m gonna start charging for faxes too. And if you’re charging for faxes in 2026, by the way, Gini Dietrich: we have a problem, but Chip Griffin: we have a huge problem because, what the heck are you using that fax machine for? Let alone that you’re charging for it. And by the way, where did you find a fax machine? Because I haven’t seen a fax machine in person in a really long time, except maybe like at the back of a doctor’s office. The, you know, Gini Dietrich: the bank and the doctor’s office. Yeah, I think that’s it. Chip Griffin: Well, I haven’t, I don’t, I kind, I haven’t been inside a bank in a long time, but Gini Dietrich: yeah, Chip Griffin: everything’s, everything’s electronic now. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. There’s no need for that. Chip Griffin: But yeah, think, think back to those, those motivations that you may have had that rather than I want to do this, it was, I never want to be the kind of agency that does this. Because it, it is really so easy to fall down those rabbit holes over time without even realizing that you’re just, you’re doing the same things that, that you didn’t ever want to see when you started your business. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. And I think it’s so easy to sit on social media, and you’ll get served ads from experts who say this is the way that you should do things. And in some cases it might work. And in some cases you might be like, there’s no way. And I think it’s really easy to listen to somebody and say, yeah, but we went from $3 million in debt to making $3 million a day, like, you know, these wild claims. And then you kind of get sucked into that. I think if you’re really true to who you are and what kind of agency you want to build, that’s going to enable you to say, this just doesn’t feel right to me. I’m not, I’m just gonna… great if he’s really making $3 million a day, I need to just bypass this one. Chip Griffin: Because you need to do what’s right for you. And so, I think that the key to that is, is really going back to your roots, understanding what motivated you to get started, what drove that success in the early days. And by understanding the, the early months or years of your agency, the more that you can inform some of the decisions that you’re making going forward one way or the other. Gini Dietrich: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Think about it. It’s a good way to start ’26. Chip Griffin: Nice positive way. We, we managed to get through an episode here without beating up on our listeners. We didn’t start the year on a negative note, did we? We started positive. We did. Think about, we think about what has worked for you previously. Yes. And do more of that. Do more. So we will do more of this on a future episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. But in the meantime, I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And it depends.

As agency owners settle into 2026, it’s easy to operate on autopilot—chasing the next tactic without reconnecting with what made the business work in the first place. In this episode, Chip and Gini make the case for looking backward before charging forward. Chip admits his first agency started because “consultant” sounded better than “unemployed.” But the real question isn’t just why you started—it’s why you decided to keep building. That motivation should be informing your strategy today. Gini shares how she once believed she wanted a large agency with hundreds of employees and global clients. When she hit 30+ people, she realized she’d built something she didn’t enjoy leading. She was buried in HR issues instead of doing the work that energized her. The Great Recession forced a reset, and she restructured the business around her strengths. Her advice: figure out what brings you joy in the business, and protect time to do more of it. Otherwise, you risk drifting into micromanagement or burnout. The episode also digs into practical growth tactics from the early days that still work. Gini recalls how she built her pipeline by developing relationships with business development leads at large agencies. When prospects came in below their fee threshold, they’d refer the work her way—a principle that remains just as relevant today. Both hosts encourage owners to revisit their “things I’d never do” list from when they started. It’s worth checking whether you’ve quietly drifted into those same patterns over time. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “Agency owners often ask me, what should I do next? And the answer is very different depending on what you’re trying to accomplish with the business.” Gini Dietrich: “We say this to clients all the time, go back to the basics. It works. And it works for your agency, too.” Chip Griffin: “You need to do what’s right for you. And so, I think that the key to that is really going back to your roots, understanding what motivated you to get started, what drove that success in the early days.” Gini Dietrich: “You want to focus on the things that you are great at, and the things that make you the happiest, and the things that are most motivating to you, because that’s how your business will grow.” Turn ideas into action Write down why you started your agency and what drove your early success. Block 30 minutes to identify patterns from those early days that you could leverage again for growth or business development today. Identify one thing that energizes you most about the work—then carve out time to do more of it. Even if it’s behind the scenes (like strategic brainstorming or quarterly client reviews), injecting that spark back into your role helps prevent burnout. Make a quick list of “things I swore I’d never do” when you started. Check whether you’ve drifted into any of those patterns on inertia—and decide if it’s a learned lesson or a habit worth breaking. Related Do you remember why you started your agency? Why one-size-fits-all advice doesn't work for agencies View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I am Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, I’m thinking way, way back, way back decades now to why I started my agency. Gini Dietrich: Oooh. Decades, huh? Chip Griffin: And I can’t remember ’cause I’m too old now, so. No, Gini Dietrich: you can too remember. Chip Griffin: Well, I mean, the honest answer is that I started my first agency was because I was unemployed. And it was better to describe myself as a consultant than unemployed. Yeah. Sure. And then than accidentally started accumulating business. Yeah. But I, but I do think it, it is a helpful exercise for us to go back and, and think about why we started the businesses or, or maybe not, in some cases, like mine, because I was unemployed, is not the greatest explanation. So you know more why did I decide to, to, to build it into an actual business. Gini Dietrich: Why? To keep going. Yeah. I think that’s good, especially as we’re, we’re thinking about starting out the new year and remind ourselves, you know, of the reasons that we started this. Some of us do it because we’re, we’re unemployed. Some of us did it because we found a better, we, we think we had a better way of doing things. Some of us did it because we have a problem with authority. Some of us did it ’cause we’d make terrible employees. I mean, there are lots of different reasons, but I think reaching back into our archives in our brains and thinking about why we did it or why we, I think that you’re right, why we continue to do it is a, is a really good exercise. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, I, and, and I’ve said over and over again over the years that, that I think too many agencies operate on inertia, as opposed to any kind of a, a fundamental strategy. And so, you know, it’s very easy to say as, as I’m sure many people ask you as they do me, well, what’s the, what’s my next step? Here’s where my agency is now, what, what should I do next? And the answer is very different depending on what you’re trying to accomplish with the business. So trying to think back to those early days and what motivated you to start the business. Evaluate it because it, that may have changed, right? You, you may have started it because it served a particular need in the moment, and maybe it’s different today, but thinking about that and thinking about what you really want from the business is usually a better way to come up with strategic decisions than it is to say, well, what do other agencies like mine do when they get to this stage of growth or to this challenge? It’s, you really need to to match it up because otherwise, what’s the point of taking on all of that risk and stress of being a business owner? Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I mean, a really good example of that is I really thought I wanted to build a great big agency with hundreds of employees and, and clients around the globe and all of the, all of the things. And as I started to grow and we got to about 30 ish, 33, 32 people, I realized that’s not what I wanna do. Right. It was not enjoyable. I had built a company that I was not thriving in, that I didn’t enjoy leading. You know, I was dealing mostly with HR issues and not doing the work. And so the, the Great Recession did afford me the opportunity, unfortunately and fortunately to kind of take a step back and, and think about what kind of business do I want to have? And what kind of business do I want to lead? And while we’re back up to that same size, it’s a different structured business that allows me to focus in on the things that I do best and do the things that I enjoy versus HR ’cause that is not something I enjoy at all. Chip Griffin: I, I think I’ve yet to meet an owner who likes, enjoys doing HR or accounting or those sorts of things. Not fun. There are some who do it well. But don’t enjoy it. But I, I don’t think I’ve found any that actually enjoy doing it. So, but, but I think that, you know, as you think back to those early days and you think about what motivated you, it can often help you to figure out, you know, what is, what is that spark that you need in the business for you to either continue enjoying it for a longer period of time or bring back some of that, that joy that you had in those early days. Because I know a lot of agency owners these days are, are frustrated and, you know, trying to figure out how to change things for the better. And I think part of the way you inform yourself of that is by thinking back to those early motivations and figuring out how you can inject more of that into your business today. Gini Dietrich: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think it’s, I think it’s really important to do that. And I think there, you know, for me personally, I get really passionate and enjoy my job when I’m learning and doing new things. So artificial intelligence, of course, has been a great big thing for me because I’ve really enjoyed learning it and understanding it and implementing it into my business and then taking it to clients. You know, last month we launched the PESO operating system, AI edition, where the AI prompts you instead of you prompting it. So it will say, what are your business objectives? What are you trying to achieve? What are your audiences? What are your messaging? And then it builds a PESO program for you that’s fully integrated versus you saying I need you to act like a marketing director who can, who understands PESO and can build this and this. It’s that. So I like, those are the kinds of things that really get me excited. And building those kinds of things gets me excited and motivated. So it’s, it’s easy because I understand that about myself. It drives my team crazy ’cause they’re like, oh, she’s got something new. Or my, their favorite thing is, I had an idea. And they’re like, oh no, no, not again. But that’s what keeps me, yeah, that’s what keeps me motivated. So finding a way to understand what brings you joy in the business, I think is incredibly important. So that without exhausting your team, of course, but doing it in a way that keeps you motivated and, and not burned out. Chip Griffin: Yeah. One of the things that always used to, to drive my teams nuts was I would say, you know, over the weekend I was playing with this new thing. And, and you could just see the looks on their faces and they’re like, oh, this is a lot more work for me now. Gini Dietrich: This is gonna be fun. Yep. Chip Griffin: This is, yep. Yep. They, they never seemed to appreciate it the way that I had hoped they would when I came to them. Correct. With these, these brilliant brainstorms of mine. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: I, and I think as, as you know, founders of agencies, most of us come in with some sort of that. Idea that, that we want to be creative or strategic or those kinds of things. And as we end up in more of a management role, we have less and less opportunities to do it. So I, I think that, that rather than giving up on that dream, we need to figure out how we can sprinkle enough of that in there to keep ourselves motivated. We can’t give up the, the management piece. We can’t give up the business development piece. Many of us would like to. But the, the reality is that, unless you’ve built a fairly large agency, you just don’t have the ability to pull yourself out of that, as a solo owner. But it doesn’t mean that you have to give up on those things entirely. You can carve out a piece of time to work on that, and if you are structuring your role in such a way that you’re enjoying what you’re doing, it also means that you’re frankly less likely to be doing the, the, the bad things that founders of businesses can do, which is micromanagement and tinkering with things that you don’t really belong in because you, because you’re not occupying yourself with the things that really motivate you. And instead, you’re continuing to try to do every aspect of the business. And that’s where you start to, to run into team morale problems quite often. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. You know, I think one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned over the years is that, yes, I can do the work, and yes, I can probably do it pretty well, but is it really something that I should be focused on? And if not, is it something that I can pay an expert to do because in the long run, it’ll cost me less money, less time, less resources, all of the things. And I know as small agency owners, it’s really hard to say, gosh, I’m gonna have to spend $2000 or $3,000 a month on an expert. When in fact it might save you, you know, 15 or 20 grand on the backend. So I think you have to think about these things as investments in your business and investments in your time so that you can focus on the things that, that you are great at and the things that make you the happiest and the things that are most motivating to you, because that’s how your business will grow. Chip Griffin: Absolutely. And if, if that happens to be being creative and strategic, then, then you can, you shouldn’t be doing it day to day in all likelihood for clients. Sure. But you should find ways to do it either as part of, you know, quarterly or annual client reviews. Or internal brainstorming sessions that you’re engaging in. There’s a lot of things you can do behind the scenes to be useful and, and to, to exercise those muscles in a way that that gives you satisfaction. But doesn’t put you on the front lines so that you’re, you know, now the, the one that the, the client decides they’re gonna call every time they’ve got an issue. Because that, that ends up eating up a lot of your time in a way that probably you’re not going to enjoy. So sometimes it’s doing things behind the scenes that gets you the, the most value, or doing annual in person with the client. But they understand it’s special that you’re here, this is not. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. This is not something they can or should expect every week. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. You know, I, I know I’ve talked about this before on the podcast, but we do quarterly planning with our clients. We do a quarterly look back, and then we, you know, say, okay, based on metrics and data and all that and your priorities, here’s what we’re suggesting for quarter two or in the next quarter. And that has afforded many opportunities. A, for me to, to work in my where I’m, where I’m strong, but it also almost always gets us more money. So when you’re, when agency owners are like, oh, should I do a cost of living raise every year? Should I increase by 10 or 15% every year? That kind of goes away because you are getting new projects every quarter based on the the plan and the strategic strategy and creativity that you’re providing to the clients every quarter, because they’re like, oh gosh, yeah, we should actually do that. And some, and sometimes they’ll say, we don’t have extra budget. Can we move some things around? Which is okay, but most of the time they’ll say, you know, we, we have a little extra budget. Let’s focus on doing that. We have to launch a new website. Here’s some extra budget for that. We have to do a series of webinars to maintain our CEUs. Let’s here’s a little extra budget for that. So there are things and opportunities for you to, for lack of a better term, term upsell when you’re doing these quarterly meetings versus waiting for the annual. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and so, you know, finding a way to, to inject yourself in those things is a valuable exercise. Absolutely. From that, look back to the early days. But the other thing that that can be helpful in looking back to your early days of your agency is, you know, what helps drive your early success? Because a lot of times when we’re trying to find solutions to our current growth issues, we can find clues in some of those early days and mm-hmm. A lot of that, you know, in the early days of, of most agencies, it may be that low hanging fruit from personal networks and things like that. But there are usually other patterns that you might be able to see there that might help you to understand what are, what are the basics that you need to go back to? How do you, how do you employ some of those rather than, than focusing on, you know, all of the fancy new things that you see, you know, some, you know, genius podcast hosts talking about as far as how to grow an agency and instead say, Hey, this is what worked for me. Yep. Because you may find something that works again today. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we say this to clients all the time, but going back to the basics. It works. And it works for you too, so absolutely you should think about those kinds of things. Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, you didn’t get here by accident. Well, maybe you got, maybe it’s a little bit of an accident sometimes that happens. Maybe, yeah. Some of it. But, if you’ve had any longevity at all, even a few years of longevity as an agency owner, there are patterns that you can find usually that started in those early days. That you can lean into for understanding and rather than trying to do something wild and different, focus on the things that you know, you’ve proved can work for your business. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. One of the things, if I were to dig back into the archives, one of the things that worked extremely well for us is I had developed relationships with people who did business development at the large agencies, and what I found is that if they had an RFP or a current client or a prospect come in and say, we only have a quarter of a million dollars to spend. They’re not even gonna look at that. And so they started just referring that business to us, which is how I grew the business. Mm-hmm. So if I think about that now, how could we replicate that kind of, you know, pipeline development? It was extremely effective. And I, I gift that to all the listeners too. Like there are larger agencies in all of your cities that they have a certain threshold, and if any something comes in below that, they are happy to refer business. So there is, there is one way for you to start thinking about how am I going to, you know, keep myself motivated? How am I gonna keep my pipeline full? How am I gonna keep cash coming in? That’s one of the things that you can think about. Chip Griffin: Yeah, and thinking those things through. I mean, sometimes it’s not a one for one where you did exactly the same way you did it originally, but you take that nugget of an idea. And you know, things like, finding other people who can refer you business that’s not quite a fit for, for them, but might be for you. It’s a good reminder to be out there and having conversations with your peers. With people even that you might perceive sometimes as competitors, because there are often opportunities. In the work that I do with agencies, it’s not uncommon for some of the other consultants in the space to refer clients to me that are a better fit for my background and the kinds of agencies that I work with and vice versa. Because you know, we all have our specialties. And as an agency you have your specialties, so it is very common for many agencies to have grown this way. So certainly something to be looking at today, particularly if you’re struggling to find that new business in 2026. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I think I really love the advice of thinking back to how you got to where you are and some of the things that you did, and going back to basics a little bit, because those are the things that are going to continue to work. And to your point, maybe tweak a little bit to make a more, be more effective in ’26. Chip Griffin: I mean, it also puts you in the right mindset, I think, because if you’re thinking back to those early stages, that tends to be when many agencies have the most growth, when things are most exciting. And so if you can try to bring back even a sprinkling of that, that can be really helpful. Particularly when times are tougher, or you’re looking for the inspiration to take things to the next level or whatever challenge you may be facing today, those lessons can be extremely valuable and also motivating at the same time. Gini Dietrich: Absolutely. Yeah. I used to, I used to get mad at companies that would hire big PR firms for like brand awareness and, you know, sending news releases and they didn’t get any coverage. They didn’t get any results. And I would get, I would get angry and I would call the company and be like, you’re so stupid. I would never do that today. But I had such a, I was just so naive and passionate about what we were doing, that it didn’t bother me to call and be like, we can do this significantly better for you. And in some cases they laughed and hung up on me. And in some cases, like we became agency of record. Like we took AOR away from Fleischman Hillard one year from a big, big company with a big, big company. And it was because I made a phone call where I was like, I can’t believe that you’re spending this kind of money and getting these kinds, these lackluster results. They were like, all right, let’s listen. I don’t think I would do that today, but it worked. Chip Griffin: Right. But, thinking back to those things can help you do two things. One is to think some of the positive things that you can do or the affirmative steps, right. That you can take. But the, but sometimes looking back to, to how you got started can also be reminders not to do certain things. Gini Dietrich: Sure, sure. Chip Griffin: So, particularly if you’ve started an agency and maybe you worked at an agency previously when you started, you probably had this laundry list of things. I would never do these things as an agency. And I, I think back to my first agency and some of the agencies that I had worked with previously, you know, did a lot of what I felt was nickel and diming of you in terms of back in the day charging you for faxes and photocopies. Sure. Yes. And all sorts of little expenses. And so, you know, I was committed back then to making sure that my invoices were always clean and simple and fixed, and I just worked in the cost of all of these things. Into my total cost of doing business so that I never had to aggravate a client. Fast forward to today. If I found myself doing that, I, by looking back, I would say, wait a minute. Let me think about that. Am I, am I being true to what my vision was of the business? And if not, is that because I’ve actually learned something and it does make sense to do what I thought was wrong back then. Because I mean, you can learn and grow. There’s nothing wrong with that. Sure. Or have you just fallen into the trap because you walked around and you saw other people doing it. So you said, well, I’m gonna start charging for faxes too. And if you’re charging for faxes in 2026, by the way, Gini Dietrich: we have a problem, but Chip Griffin: we have a huge problem because, what the heck are you using that fax machine for? Let alone that you’re charging for it. And by the way, where did you find a fax machine? Because I haven’t seen a fax machine in person in a really long time, except maybe like at the back of a doctor’s office. The, you know, Gini Dietrich: the bank and the doctor’s office. Yeah, I think that’s it. Chip Griffin: Well, I haven’t, I don’t, I kind, I haven’t been inside a bank in a long time, but Gini Dietrich: yeah, Chip Griffin: everything’s, everything’s electronic now. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. There’s no need for that. Chip Griffin: But yeah, think, think back to those, those motivations that you may have had that rather than I want to do this, it was, I never want to be the kind of agency that does this. Because it, it is really so easy to fall down those rabbit holes over time without even realizing that you’re just, you’re doing the same things that, that you didn’t ever want to see when you started your business. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. And I think it’s so easy to sit on social media, and you’ll get served ads from experts who say this is the way that you should do things. And in some cases it might work. And in some cases you might be like, there’s no way. And I think it’s really easy to listen to somebody and say, yeah, but we went from $3 million in debt to making $3 million a day, like, you know, these wild claims. And then you kind of get sucked into that. I think if you’re really true to who you are and what kind of agency you want to build, that’s going to enable you to say, this just doesn’t feel right to me. I’m not, I’m just gonna… great if he’s really making $3 million a day, I need to just bypass this one. Chip Griffin: Because you need to do what’s right for you. And so, I think that the key to that is, is really going back to your roots, understanding what motivated you to get started, what drove that success in the early days. And by understanding the, the early months or years of your agency, the more that you can inform some of the decisions that you’re making going forward one way or the other. Gini Dietrich: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Think about it. It’s a good way to start ’26. Chip Griffin: Nice positive way. We, we managed to get through an episode here without beating up on our listeners. We didn’t start the year on a negative note, did we? We started positive. We did. Think about, we think about what has worked for you previously. Yes. And do more of that. Do more. So we will do more of this on a future episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. But in the meantime, I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And it depends.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the importance of strategic planning for 2026. As they near the end of 2025, they emphasize the need for agencies to set themselves apart and adapt to the evolving landscape, particularly through the effective use of AI. Despite ongoing economic challenges, they highlight the potential for AI to enhance both efficiency and strategic thinking. Chip and Gini also stress the importance of refining the ideal client profile and taking calculated risks. They share their personal experiences with using AI to assist in planning and decision-making processes, pointing out both the benefits and limitations of current AI technology. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “I do think more than ever, continuing forward on the path that you’re on for the vast majority of agencies is not a good idea. I think most agencies require at least some modest course correction and some more than that.” Gini Dietrich: “Really think about how you can set yourself apart and get in front of prospects now and in January so that you can be doing the things that will help you scale and grow and be sustainable for the future. And some of it’s not gonna be fun.” Chip Griffin: “I think really refining that ideal client profile is something that most of us ought to be taking a very close look at for 2026 in our planning process.” Gini Dietrich: “Be willing to try some things and take some risks and see what works and see what doesn’t work, and then go move on to what works and try again.” Resources The Ragan article regarding upskilling and improving AI skills Related Planning for agency growth Using the AIM-GET Framework to drive your annual planning How to involve your team in annual planning for your agency and its clients Look to your track record as you define your agency's ideal client View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, I’m, I’m flipping through the calendar here, you know, ’cause I still have a paper calendar. Of course. I mean, who doesn’t? Gini Dietrich: Of course. Right. Chip Griffin: And it looks like we’re almost to the end of 2025. Gini Dietrich: We, we are. Which is crazy. Crazy. Chip Griffin: Which, which means that 2026 is right around the corner. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Yes it is. Chip Griffin: And what do we usually do near the end of each year? Gini Dietrich: We plan for the following next year. Yeah. Chip Griffin: And, and we have an episode talking about that. So when we have no other good ideas to bring to the table, we turn to the trusted proven stuff from the past Gini Dietrich: 2026. I mean, we could talk about 2026 trends. We could talk about 2026 AI things, but I think planning for our business growth is good. Chip Griffin: Yeah. That all goes into planning, right? So, I, and, you know, I, I’m, as long as we don’t do predictions, I’m fine. I hate predictions. Gini Dietrich: Oh, shoot. Let’s do predictions next week then. Chip Griffin: No, no, no predictions. No, that’s, that drives me up a wall. Gini Dietrich: Note to self. Note to self. Chip Griffin: And I, and I know we are just, you know, probably days away from the flood of Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: Articles and Yep. And podcast episodes and videos with everybody making their predictions for the year ahead. Yep. Just stop it. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: So my prediction is we will see lots of predictions. Gini Dietrich: That is a good prediction. I think you’re probably going to be right. Chip Griffin: It seems pretty likely. Gini Dietrich: I’d bet on it in fact. Yeah. Chip Griffin: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Alright, so as we start thinking about 2026 planning, let’s look at it for through the, the lens of, of what, what we might do differently in thinking about 2026 than we typically do. Right? Because we, there’s plenty in our archive where people can go back and listen to us generally talk about planning. I’m sure we’ll touch on some of that in the next 20 minutes. I don’t wanna disappoint listeners. We, we will, you know, reach back to the things that we’ve talked about before, but I think it’s helpful to, to think about, you know, what’s, what’s different about 2026, and I think you’ve already hinted at one of the key things. Gini Dietrich: Oh, AI for sure. Yeah. I saw a really interesting post on LinkedIn from Parry Headrick who was talking about how he used to work for Shift and he was the VP of the San Francisco office, I think, and he said, you know, this was during the recession and I was… Anybody who was in business during the recession knows all of your business went away. It was not a fun time to be in business at all. And he talked about how he went to the office every single day for months on end, and he made cold calls to tech firms and he, he would say, we can do like a PR plan for you, a PR 101 like, and he said one out of every 100 calls accepted the offer. And then they went all out and created a really strategic, as much as it could be, plan for these companies. And gave it to them for free so that they had, they could generate some business. And he said that that was one of the things that kept the office going during that time and how miserable it was. Like he talked about it was boiling the frog, like it was miserable and it was not enjoyable. It’s not why he was doing that job, but they had to keep the office open. And I think that, I read that and I thought, you know, that’s really interesting as we think about 2026 because the last couple of years for agencies have been miserable. We have been slowly boiling the frog for sure. And you know, I have a lot of friends who have laid people off, some have gone out of business, some haven’t gone outta business, but don’t have any clients. Like, it has been rough. And I’m not sure that 26 is going to be much better. So I think one of the things that I will be advising people is, and, and for us too, is really think about how you can set yourself apart and get in front of prospects now and in January so that you can be doing the things that will help you scale and grow and be sustainable for the future. And some of it’s not gonna be fun. It’s not. Chip Griffin: Well, you’ve, uh, certainly taken this on a depressing turn here. Gini Dietrich: I mean, we can talk about AI too, but Chip Griffin: I mean No, I mean, we can, we can talk about how miserable and awful things are for everybody. Uh, that’s, Gini Dietrich: it’s been rough. It’s not like it hasn’t been rainbows and unicorns. It hasn’t. Chip Griffin: No, it, it has, it has not been rainbows and unicorns. But I, but I would also, I would, I would push back a bit. I, I don’t think we’re as bad as ’08 or ’09, or back in the early two thousands. I don’t think it’s, it is not as widespread as it was back then. I’m certainly in the agencies that I’m talking with, seeing a lot of agencies that are struggling, most, not catastrophically, most just kind of, you know, sort of malaise is, is the word I would use. Yeah. It’s good for it. And there are still some that are actually doing quite well and, and even growing. So that, to me, that is a little bit different than what we’ve seen in, you know, in  08 or ’09, or during the pandemic. Certainly. You know, where it was pretty much… I guess even in the pandemic, we had pockets, right? The, the digital firms did well because everybody had to transition from doing things in person to doing things electronically. But it, it’s just… so, I, I think we’re in that general period of malaise, you know, sort of in, in my mind, I’m old enough, I, I think Jimmy Carter, right? You know, you just sort of think, ehhh, you know, and, and how America of the late ’70’s was. And so there’s some of that, at least within the economy and, and certainly in, in the agency space. So I think that that part of the, the challenge here is that it is not as simple an explanation as to how you get out of it. Right. I mean, back in ’08, ’09, it’s like, okay, well the economy just has to come forward. And in this case, part of it’s the economy, but part of it is the, the shifting nature of the relationships between agencies and brands, and other organizations. And so I, I, I think that one of the reasons why some agencies are struggling is because they’re not taking a fresh look. At what they do, how they fit into that picture. And I think there needs to be a lot more creative thinking. And I think AI is a big driver of it, not necessarily in the, in the way that people think, though I don’t, I don’t see AI as taking away agency work. Mm-hmm. I see it as agencies just haven’t figured out how to capitalize on it effectively. And, I think that there is tremendous opportunity for those agencies who are willing to adapt their service offerings with and without AI. And moving forward in a way where they’ll leave behind a lot of of other agencies that are more committed to just plodding forward and doing the same old, same old, and, you know, sprinkling in a little bit of AI here and there. Gini Dietrich: I read a really interesting article a couple of weeks ago and I’ll see if I can find it so Jen can include it in the show notes. I’m sure it’s in my history somewhere, but it talked about how, you know, we’ve seen all of these layoffs at all these large companies in the last couple of months, you know, thousands and thousands of people. And they’re telling, most of these companies are telling the teams that remain. There are two things that you need to focus on: upskilling. So, you know, using AI to help improve you, you know, understanding your own professional development, taking charge of new professional development, new skills. And the other piece is really using AI to help improve your, the work that you’re doing to make you more productive. And it went on to say. If you’re an agency that can help with one of those two things, or both of those things, you’re gonna be in better shape than an agency who does new media news releases and news conferences, and you know, social media. So if you can think about how you can provide professional development or help an organization implement AI from a marketing and communications perspective, you’re gonna be a lot further ahead than those that can’t do that. So I think that goes back to really thinking about how to freshen the services that you provide in a way that keeps up with what’s happening in the world. Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, look, I think that’s absolutely a piece of it, but I think a piece of it is also figuring out, you know, how can you use AI to help you do different things that are not necessarily even explicitly AI related. Or made more efficient by AI or it, I, I think it’s just a, it’s a opportunity to take a very fresh look at how we do everything. And, and I think we need to be careful, not just us as agencies, but also on the brand side. We need to be careful about how much we believe AI itself is changing things or can change things. And, and I, I saw in the last couple of days, a video that our friend Chris Penn put out, where he talked about how you need to change your vocabulary to get the most out of the various generative AI platforms. And I don’t disagree with what he’s saying. You do need to adapt your language to those models so that you get the results you want. But, but the flip side of that is, to me, that says AI has not come nearly as far as we think because we shouldn’t have to change for AI to be responsive to us. Right. Right. True AI would be adapting to us instead. And, and so we’re not quite there yet. And, and the progress has been absolutely amazing. I’ve, every time I try out the latest version of a model, I find new things that it can do and continue to get more and more impressed. But I also have ongoing frustrations with them. In part because of this vocabulary issue, but in part because, you know, we’re still, we’re still overestimating what the, the technology can do for us today as far as allowing us to, to replace work hours, et cetera. And so I see many brands laying off marketing and communications people thinking, well, we’ll have fewer people, but AI will help them do the same amount. Nope. And AI certainly makes you more efficient, but not, not that efficient. Gini Dietrich: Not that efficient. No. And you still need somebody with a brain to prompt it and ensure that it’s not hallucinating and ensure that it’s the right information. And that it’s been edited. Like you still need humans for those things. Does it help you get a start? For sure. But you still need the human beings to do the work. And make sure that it’s accurate because what it pumps out on first try, I mean, my favorite response is meh. I just write MEH meh, and it goes, okay, lemme try again. And then I write, meh. It tries again. Finally. I’m like, okay, that’s halfway decent. Chip Griffin: Well, that, that’s better. My habit is to actually get into arguments with it, which… Really serves no good purpose, but I just, I get, I get, I get frustrated when I explicitly ask it to do something and it doesn’t, Gini Dietrich: it doesn’t, right. Chip Griffin: And I’ll be like, well, why didn’t you do what? Yeah. Oh no, you’re right. I should have done that. Yes, because I specifically for it, right? Like, please help me, Gini Dietrich: please write a thousand words and it gives you 300. And you’re like, Hmm, right. Just do what thousand words. Chip Griffin: Just do what I ask, you know? Or, you know, please make the logo smaller in this image. And it doesn’t change it. No, don’t do that to me, that’s just, it’s very frustrating. Gini Dietrich: It’s very frustrating. I agree. Chip Griffin: But I think, you know, we need to be thinking how we can leverage some of these tools to help us adapt our service offerings. And I was, I was talking with someone recently who, they had shifted a, a process from humans to AI recently. And they were running into issues because it was some data analysis that was being done and, and it turned out that the numbers were wildly different between the humans and the AI. And so the first instinct was that the AI was wrong. But in fact, upon further review, it turned out that the AI was too good. And it was being in incredibly consistent in the way that it was doing the task. Ah, whereas humans. Sure. Inevitably we get distracted, we make a mistake, we, we hit the wrong key. You know, I mean, there’s all sorts of things that can lead to this, but because the AI was more consistent and the volume of data and such being analyzed by the humans and the AI was substantial, it, it made a real difference because the AI was actually better. And so, but to me that’s an opportunity. You’ve got a short term problem that you gotta deal with that, you know, you’ve been generating these historical reports that don’t look quite right now. But there’s a real opportunity there because you can actually improve the quality of what you’re doing, along with the quantity, along with reducing the, the labor hours involved and that sort of thing. So we need to be looking at, at how we can take that and take it to the next level, not just how can we use AI to do first drafts so that we only have to edit and so therefore we save, you know, 30% of our time or something like that. There’s, we have to be thinking much, much more creatively if we’re gonna be successful going forward. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, and I mean, I’m sure I’ve shared this before, but some of the work that we’ve done in my business this year, I’m not sure we could have done it without AI in the, in two years ago, like some of the work that clients have asked us to do. I’m not sure that we would’ve been capable of doing it without AI. So it, it does have the ability to make you more efficient for sure, but it also helps you think more strategically. And to your point, like, bringing in the, the consistency piece of it so that, you know, maybe the, the way that you reported on results in the past isn’t fully accurate, but now it’s more accurate. Like those kinds of things I think it has helped immensely with, and you know, I can think of at least three situations where I’ve been in a meeting with like big, big, big, big executives and they’ve thrown something out. Do you think your team can do this? And I’ve gone, sure. And then we come back and, you know, as a team, work on it and, and prompt AI. And it’s helped us get to where we need to be. And I don’t think we could have done that on our own two years ago. For sure. Chip Griffin: So, you know, we’ve been talking a bunch about how AI is impacting our businesses, but let’s talk a minute about how AI impacts the planning process itself. And so, you know, my question to you would be, as you’re doing your own 2026 planning with your team, are you using AI to facilitate that process at all? Gini Dietrich: Some of it, I would say I have a co CEO, GPT that I built. So it sits as my Co CEO and sometimes I just vent to it. It makes me feel better, but sometimes it will say things like it will point out things that I didn’t think of. And so, you know, when we, especially right now, ’cause we’re working on cash flow projections for next year with our CFO and I’ve, I’ve put in like… Not actual numbers, but percentages to, and said like, can you help me figure out if these are our goals, what we’re going need to do? What software do we need? What team members are we gonna have to add? Like that kind of stuff. And it help, it’s helping me and our CFO think through all of those different scenarios for sure. We haven’t gotten into like the nitty gritty planning yet because our 2025 plan is rolling over into Q1 a little bit. So we’re, we’re about a quarter behind from that perspective. But, from a cashflow perspective, it’s helping a ton and it’s helped me see things that I wouldn’t have seen on my own. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And and I think that’s a, that’s a real benefit that we ought to be looking at when we’re doing the planning process is using AI, not necessarily to give us all the answers, but to help us understand what else we should be looking at. So I love using AI to, to, to give it a list of questions that I may have about something and say, what, what other questions should I be asking? What other data points should I be looking at? Or putting in some raw data and saying, okay, you know, what are the gaps here? What, what should I be looking to… What additional data should I be looking for? Or how can I analyze this in a different way? So I think in the planning process, there’s a lot of ways that we can use the AI to help us. I think we just need to be careful about using it to give us the answers and instead help it to guide the conversations for sure. Yeah. That we’re having with our teams and with our clients, because it will inevitably help us find things that we are overlooking. And maybe we would still get to it halfway through the brainstorming session or the, the strategy meeting or whatever. But if we know it in advance, you know, it helps us prepare better. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, absolutely. And I, I do think, you know, to your point about the, the data and it being consistent, I think it does look at things more holistically and how, and I mean, it will say to me, have you thought about this or have you thought about that? Or, you know. Here’s an opportunity for you. Like with the PESO model certification in universities, we had an idea of how we were going to approach it in ’26 ’cause the certification is being completely revamped because of AI. And it actually gave me a couple of ideas that I was like… Huh, I hadn’t even thought about that. So like providing curriculum and grading rubric and things like that, that helps professors that I hadn’t even, ’cause I just don’t have that kind of experience. Right. But it helps me think through some of those kinds of things. So I think you’re right. And you know, I love the idea of, of a list of questions and asking what you haven’t thought of. I’ll put in and say, you know, we’re looking to do this, this, and this, and here’s what we’re thinking. What are we missing? And it, you know, it does come back with some ideas. Sometimes it comes back with things you’ve thought about and you’ve dismissed, and sometimes it comes back with things that you’re like, Hmm, okay, let’s, let’s explore that. Chip Griffin: Yeah, and I mean it, there’s, it’s not a replacement for human judgment. You still need to look at it and say, oh, yeah, that does make sense, that it’s something we look at. But, but my experience is more often than not, it does come up with things that, you know, that given the right amount of time I would have thought of, but Sure. You know, it, it’s, it’s, it’s good to have it reinforced that, it’s good to have it, you know, bubble it up higher on my list so that, again, I, I’m not finding it out, you know, halfway through the meeting when the light bulb goes off and it’s like, oh, right, I forgot about this. We should be, we should be looking at that. Right. You know, but I, I think this is the, the planning process is, is an opportunity for you as well to be thinking about challenging your own assumptions. And, and I do think more than ever continuing forward on the path that you’re on for the vast majority of agencies is not a good idea. I think most agencies require at least some modest course correction and some more than that. And so I think that we’ve already talked about, you know, what kind of services you can deliver and those kinds of things. But I think the other thing we all ought to be looking at in 2026 is the definition of our ideal client. Because, because we do need to understand better how our clients of today are being impacted by the economy, by AI, by all of the social change that’s going on. And understanding how is that impacting who we’re targeting, how we’re targeting them, what kinds of engagements we’re, we’re trying to set up with. And so I, I think really refining that ideal client profile is something that most of us ought to be taking a very close look at for 2026 in our planning process. Gini Dietrich: One hundred percent. I could not agree more. And you know, I’m a big, big, big fan of really understanding at a macro level what’s going on so that we know how it affects our businesses. And I think that the more that you can do that and understand how everything that’s going on in the world is going to affect your agency and you know, the sustainability and stability of it, I think are, is really, really important. And being willing to try some things and take some risks and see what works and see what doesn’t work, and then go move on to what works and try again. Chip Griffin: Right. And, and you need to, to look at the data that you’ve got in front of you, not data from three to five years ago, right? But, but data from 2025. And so whether you’ve had a great 2025, a mediocre 2025, or an awful 2025, look at what the data is telling you. And look at where you’ve had success. Success in terms of where you’ve had the best results for clients, which we often overlook. We, we often look at just, you know, what we’ve been able to sell, but you need to see what is producing results for clients. You do need to understand what you’re selling, where those leads came from, and, and look at those recent trends and lean into what’s working. And again, that doesn’t matter whether you’ve had a good year or a bad year. You still wanna lean into what you know is working today because it is a, a very different environment than it was 3 years ago, 10 years ago, and and beyond. So you need to be relying on that kind of analysis if you wanna make smarter decisions in your planning process. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, absolutely. And I think you’re right, like this is different than 2008, 2009, and 2020. It’s, it’s different. So be willing to take some risk. It’s uncomfortable for sure. Chip Griffin: You and I both love risk, so we’re always gonna preach risk. Calculated risk, not just reckless risk. Gini Dietrich: Calculated risk.Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Please be calculated. Chip Griffin: Yes, have a reason for what you’re doing, and have a reason to believe that there’s a decent chance of success. Don’t just blindly walk out there and say, Hey, let’s try crossing the street now without looking and see what happens. That’s not the kind of risk we want you to take. Gini Dietrich: Please don’t do that. Please do not do that. Please, please do not do that. Chip Griffin: So with that, if you’re, if you’re listening and you’re driving or something, still pay attention ’cause we’re gonna wrap up now. Keep your eyes open. Keep your eyes open. If you, if you wanna listen to this again, wait. You, you can go back to the link. There’s resources that’ll be there. There’s the transcript there, all those things. So stay safe. Yes, yes. However you’re listening to us. And with that, that will draw to an end this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And it depends.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the importance of strategic planning for 2026. As they near the end of 2025, they emphasize the need for agencies to set themselves apart and adapt to the evolving landscape, particularly through the effective use of AI. Despite ongoing economic challenges, they highlight the potential for AI to enhance both efficiency and strategic thinking. Chip and Gini also stress the importance of refining the ideal client profile and taking calculated risks. They share their personal experiences with using AI to assist in planning and decision-making processes, pointing out both the benefits and limitations of current AI technology. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “I do think more than ever, continuing forward on the path that you’re on for the vast majority of agencies is not a good idea. I think most agencies require at least some modest course correction and some more than that.” Gini Dietrich: “Really think about how you can set yourself apart and get in front of prospects now and in January so that you can be doing the things that will help you scale and grow and be sustainable for the future. And some of it’s not gonna be fun.” Chip Griffin: “I think really refining that ideal client profile is something that most of us ought to be taking a very close look at for 2026 in our planning process.” Gini Dietrich: “Be willing to try some things and take some risks and see what works and see what doesn’t work, and then go move on to what works and try again.” Resources The Ragan article regarding upskilling and improving AI skills Related Planning for agency growth Using the AIM-GET Framework to drive your annual planning How to involve your team in annual planning for your agency and its clients Look to your track record as you define your agency's ideal client View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, I’m, I’m flipping through the calendar here, you know, ’cause I still have a paper calendar. Of course. I mean, who doesn’t? Gini Dietrich: Of course. Right. Chip Griffin: And it looks like we’re almost to the end of 2025. Gini Dietrich: We, we are. Which is crazy. Crazy. Chip Griffin: Which, which means that 2026 is right around the corner. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Yes it is. Chip Griffin: And what do we usually do near the end of each year? Gini Dietrich: We plan for the following next year. Yeah. Chip Griffin: And, and we have an episode talking about that. So when we have no other good ideas to bring to the table, we turn to the trusted proven stuff from the past Gini Dietrich: 2026. I mean, we could talk about 2026 trends. We could talk about 2026 AI things, but I think planning for our business growth is good. Chip Griffin: Yeah. That all goes into planning, right? So, I, and, you know, I, I’m, as long as we don’t do predictions, I’m fine. I hate predictions. Gini Dietrich: Oh, shoot. Let’s do predictions next week then. Chip Griffin: No, no, no predictions. No, that’s, that drives me up a wall. Gini Dietrich: Note to self. Note to self. Chip Griffin: And I, and I know we are just, you know, probably days away from the flood of Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: Articles and Yep. And podcast episodes and videos with everybody making their predictions for the year ahead. Yep. Just stop it. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: So my prediction is we will see lots of predictions. Gini Dietrich: That is a good prediction. I think you’re probably going to be right. Chip Griffin: It seems pretty likely. Gini Dietrich: I’d bet on it in fact. Yeah. Chip Griffin: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Alright, so as we start thinking about 2026 planning, let’s look at it for through the, the lens of, of what, what we might do differently in thinking about 2026 than we typically do. Right? Because we, there’s plenty in our archive where people can go back and listen to us generally talk about planning. I’m sure we’ll touch on some of that in the next 20 minutes. I don’t wanna disappoint listeners. We, we will, you know, reach back to the things that we’ve talked about before, but I think it’s helpful to, to think about, you know, what’s, what’s different about 2026, and I think you’ve already hinted at one of the key things. Gini Dietrich: Oh, AI for sure. Yeah. I saw a really interesting post on LinkedIn from Parry Headrick who was talking about how he used to work for Shift and he was the VP of the San Francisco office, I think, and he said, you know, this was during the recession and I was… Anybody who was in business during the recession knows all of your business went away. It was not a fun time to be in business at all. And he talked about how he went to the office every single day for months on end, and he made cold calls to tech firms and he, he would say, we can do like a PR plan for you, a PR 101 like, and he said one out of every 100 calls accepted the offer. And then they went all out and created a really strategic, as much as it could be, plan for these companies. And gave it to them for free so that they had, they could generate some business. And he said that that was one of the things that kept the office going during that time and how miserable it was. Like he talked about it was boiling the frog, like it was miserable and it was not enjoyable. It’s not why he was doing that job, but they had to keep the office open. And I think that, I read that and I thought, you know, that’s really interesting as we think about 2026 because the last couple of years for agencies have been miserable. We have been slowly boiling the frog for sure. And you know, I have a lot of friends who have laid people off, some have gone out of business, some haven’t gone outta business, but don’t have any clients. Like, it has been rough. And I’m not sure that 26 is going to be much better. So I think one of the things that I will be advising people is, and, and for us too, is really think about how you can set yourself apart and get in front of prospects now and in January so that you can be doing the things that will help you scale and grow and be sustainable for the future. And some of it’s not gonna be fun. It’s not. Chip Griffin: Well, you’ve, uh, certainly taken this on a depressing turn here. Gini Dietrich: I mean, we can talk about AI too, but Chip Griffin: I mean No, I mean, we can, we can talk about how miserable and awful things are for everybody. Uh, that’s, Gini Dietrich: it’s been rough. It’s not like it hasn’t been rainbows and unicorns. It hasn’t. Chip Griffin: No, it, it has, it has not been rainbows and unicorns. But I, but I would also, I would, I would push back a bit. I, I don’t think we’re as bad as ’08 or ’09, or back in the early two thousands. I don’t think it’s, it is not as widespread as it was back then. I’m certainly in the agencies that I’m talking with, seeing a lot of agencies that are struggling, most, not catastrophically, most just kind of, you know, sort of malaise is, is the word I would use. Yeah. It’s good for it. And there are still some that are actually doing quite well and, and even growing. So that, to me, that is a little bit different than what we’ve seen in, you know, in  08 or ’09, or during the pandemic. Certainly. You know, where it was pretty much… I guess even in the pandemic, we had pockets, right? The, the digital firms did well because everybody had to transition from doing things in person to doing things electronically. But it, it’s just… so, I, I think we’re in that general period of malaise, you know, sort of in, in my mind, I’m old enough, I, I think Jimmy Carter, right? You know, you just sort of think, ehhh, you know, and, and how America of the late ’70’s was. And so there’s some of that, at least within the economy and, and certainly in, in the agency space. So I think that that part of the, the challenge here is that it is not as simple an explanation as to how you get out of it. Right. I mean, back in ’08, ’09, it’s like, okay, well the economy just has to come forward. And in this case, part of it’s the economy, but part of it is the, the shifting nature of the relationships between agencies and brands, and other organizations. And so I, I, I think that one of the reasons why some agencies are struggling is because they’re not taking a fresh look. At what they do, how they fit into that picture. And I think there needs to be a lot more creative thinking. And I think AI is a big driver of it, not necessarily in the, in the way that people think, though I don’t, I don’t see AI as taking away agency work. Mm-hmm. I see it as agencies just haven’t figured out how to capitalize on it effectively. And, I think that there is tremendous opportunity for those agencies who are willing to adapt their service offerings with and without AI. And moving forward in a way where they’ll leave behind a lot of of other agencies that are more committed to just plodding forward and doing the same old, same old, and, you know, sprinkling in a little bit of AI here and there. Gini Dietrich: I read a really interesting article a couple of weeks ago and I’ll see if I can find it so Jen can include it in the show notes. I’m sure it’s in my history somewhere, but it talked about how, you know, we’ve seen all of these layoffs at all these large companies in the last couple of months, you know, thousands and thousands of people. And they’re telling, most of these companies are telling the teams that remain. There are two things that you need to focus on: upskilling. So, you know, using AI to help improve you, you know, understanding your own professional development, taking charge of new professional development, new skills. And the other piece is really using AI to help improve your, the work that you’re doing to make you more productive. And it went on to say. If you’re an agency that can help with one of those two things, or both of those things, you’re gonna be in better shape than an agency who does new media news releases and news conferences, and you know, social media. So if you can think about how you can provide professional development or help an organization implement AI from a marketing and communications perspective, you’re gonna be a lot further ahead than those that can’t do that. So I think that goes back to really thinking about how to freshen the services that you provide in a way that keeps up with what’s happening in the world. Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, look, I think that’s absolutely a piece of it, but I think a piece of it is also figuring out, you know, how can you use AI to help you do different things that are not necessarily even explicitly AI related. Or made more efficient by AI or it, I, I think it’s just a, it’s a opportunity to take a very fresh look at how we do everything. And, and I think we need to be careful, not just us as agencies, but also on the brand side. We need to be careful about how much we believe AI itself is changing things or can change things. And, and I, I saw in the last couple of days, a video that our friend Chris Penn put out, where he talked about how you need to change your vocabulary to get the most out of the various generative AI platforms. And I don’t disagree with what he’s saying. You do need to adapt your language to those models so that you get the results you want. But, but the flip side of that is, to me, that says AI has not come nearly as far as we think because we shouldn’t have to change for AI to be responsive to us. Right. Right. True AI would be adapting to us instead. And, and so we’re not quite there yet. And, and the progress has been absolutely amazing. I’ve, every time I try out the latest version of a model, I find new things that it can do and continue to get more and more impressed. But I also have ongoing frustrations with them. In part because of this vocabulary issue, but in part because, you know, we’re still, we’re still overestimating what the, the technology can do for us today as far as allowing us to, to replace work hours, et cetera. And so I see many brands laying off marketing and communications people thinking, well, we’ll have fewer people, but AI will help them do the same amount. Nope. And AI certainly makes you more efficient, but not, not that efficient. Gini Dietrich: Not that efficient. No. And you still need somebody with a brain to prompt it and ensure that it’s not hallucinating and ensure that it’s the right information. And that it’s been edited. Like you still need humans for those things. Does it help you get a start? For sure. But you still need the human beings to do the work. And make sure that it’s accurate because what it pumps out on first try, I mean, my favorite response is meh. I just write MEH meh, and it goes, okay, lemme try again. And then I write, meh. It tries again. Finally. I’m like, okay, that’s halfway decent. Chip Griffin: Well, that, that’s better. My habit is to actually get into arguments with it, which… Really serves no good purpose, but I just, I get, I get, I get frustrated when I explicitly ask it to do something and it doesn’t, Gini Dietrich: it doesn’t, right. Chip Griffin: And I’ll be like, well, why didn’t you do what? Yeah. Oh no, you’re right. I should have done that. Yes, because I specifically for it, right? Like, please help me, Gini Dietrich: please write a thousand words and it gives you 300. And you’re like, Hmm, right. Just do what thousand words. Chip Griffin: Just do what I ask, you know? Or, you know, please make the logo smaller in this image. And it doesn’t change it. No, don’t do that to me, that’s just, it’s very frustrating. Gini Dietrich: It’s very frustrating. I agree. Chip Griffin: But I think, you know, we need to be thinking how we can leverage some of these tools to help us adapt our service offerings. And I was, I was talking with someone recently who, they had shifted a, a process from humans to AI recently. And they were running into issues because it was some data analysis that was being done and, and it turned out that the numbers were wildly different between the humans and the AI. And so the first instinct was that the AI was wrong. But in fact, upon further review, it turned out that the AI was too good. And it was being in incredibly consistent in the way that it was doing the task. Ah, whereas humans. Sure. Inevitably we get distracted, we make a mistake, we, we hit the wrong key. You know, I mean, there’s all sorts of things that can lead to this, but because the AI was more consistent and the volume of data and such being analyzed by the humans and the AI was substantial, it, it made a real difference because the AI was actually better. And so, but to me that’s an opportunity. You’ve got a short term problem that you gotta deal with that, you know, you’ve been generating these historical reports that don’t look quite right now. But there’s a real opportunity there because you can actually improve the quality of what you’re doing, along with the quantity, along with reducing the, the labor hours involved and that sort of thing. So we need to be looking at, at how we can take that and take it to the next level, not just how can we use AI to do first drafts so that we only have to edit and so therefore we save, you know, 30% of our time or something like that. There’s, we have to be thinking much, much more creatively if we’re gonna be successful going forward. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, and I mean, I’m sure I’ve shared this before, but some of the work that we’ve done in my business this year, I’m not sure we could have done it without AI in the, in two years ago, like some of the work that clients have asked us to do. I’m not sure that we would’ve been capable of doing it without AI. So it, it does have the ability to make you more efficient for sure, but it also helps you think more strategically. And to your point, like, bringing in the, the consistency piece of it so that, you know, maybe the, the way that you reported on results in the past isn’t fully accurate, but now it’s more accurate. Like those kinds of things I think it has helped immensely with, and you know, I can think of at least three situations where I’ve been in a meeting with like big, big, big, big executives and they’ve thrown something out. Do you think your team can do this? And I’ve gone, sure. And then we come back and, you know, as a team, work on it and, and prompt AI. And it’s helped us get to where we need to be. And I don’t think we could have done that on our own two years ago. For sure. Chip Griffin: So, you know, we’ve been talking a bunch about how AI is impacting our businesses, but let’s talk a minute about how AI impacts the planning process itself. And so, you know, my question to you would be, as you’re doing your own 2026 planning with your team, are you using AI to facilitate that process at all? Gini Dietrich: Some of it, I would say I have a co CEO, GPT that I built. So it sits as my Co CEO and sometimes I just vent to it. It makes me feel better, but sometimes it will say things like it will point out things that I didn’t think of. And so, you know, when we, especially right now, ’cause we’re working on cash flow projections for next year with our CFO and I’ve, I’ve put in like… Not actual numbers, but percentages to, and said like, can you help me figure out if these are our goals, what we’re going need to do? What software do we need? What team members are we gonna have to add? Like that kind of stuff. And it help, it’s helping me and our CFO think through all of those different scenarios for sure. We haven’t gotten into like the nitty gritty planning yet because our 2025 plan is rolling over into Q1 a little bit. So we’re, we’re about a quarter behind from that perspective. But, from a cashflow perspective, it’s helping a ton and it’s helped me see things that I wouldn’t have seen on my own. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And and I think that’s a, that’s a real benefit that we ought to be looking at when we’re doing the planning process is using AI, not necessarily to give us all the answers, but to help us understand what else we should be looking at. So I love using AI to, to, to give it a list of questions that I may have about something and say, what, what other questions should I be asking? What other data points should I be looking at? Or putting in some raw data and saying, okay, you know, what are the gaps here? What, what should I be looking to… What additional data should I be looking for? Or how can I analyze this in a different way? So I think in the planning process, there’s a lot of ways that we can use the AI to help us. I think we just need to be careful about using it to give us the answers and instead help it to guide the conversations for sure. Yeah. That we’re having with our teams and with our clients, because it will inevitably help us find things that we are overlooking. And maybe we would still get to it halfway through the brainstorming session or the, the strategy meeting or whatever. But if we know it in advance, you know, it helps us prepare better. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, absolutely. And I, I do think, you know, to your point about the, the data and it being consistent, I think it does look at things more holistically and how, and I mean, it will say to me, have you thought about this or have you thought about that? Or, you know. Here’s an opportunity for you. Like with the PESO model certification in universities, we had an idea of how we were going to approach it in ’26 ’cause the certification is being completely revamped because of AI. And it actually gave me a couple of ideas that I was like… Huh, I hadn’t even thought about that. So like providing curriculum and grading rubric and things like that, that helps professors that I hadn’t even, ’cause I just don’t have that kind of experience. Right. But it helps me think through some of those kinds of things. So I think you’re right. And you know, I love the idea of, of a list of questions and asking what you haven’t thought of. I’ll put in and say, you know, we’re looking to do this, this, and this, and here’s what we’re thinking. What are we missing? And it, you know, it does come back with some ideas. Sometimes it comes back with things you’ve thought about and you’ve dismissed, and sometimes it comes back with things that you’re like, Hmm, okay, let’s, let’s explore that. Chip Griffin: Yeah, and I mean it, there’s, it’s not a replacement for human judgment. You still need to look at it and say, oh, yeah, that does make sense, that it’s something we look at. But, but my experience is more often than not, it does come up with things that, you know, that given the right amount of time I would have thought of, but Sure. You know, it, it’s, it’s, it’s good to have it reinforced that, it’s good to have it, you know, bubble it up higher on my list so that, again, I, I’m not finding it out, you know, halfway through the meeting when the light bulb goes off and it’s like, oh, right, I forgot about this. We should be, we should be looking at that. Right. You know, but I, I think this is the, the planning process is, is an opportunity for you as well to be thinking about challenging your own assumptions. And, and I do think more than ever continuing forward on the path that you’re on for the vast majority of agencies is not a good idea. I think most agencies require at least some modest course correction and some more than that. And so I think that we’ve already talked about, you know, what kind of services you can deliver and those kinds of things. But I think the other thing we all ought to be looking at in 2026 is the definition of our ideal client. Because, because we do need to understand better how our clients of today are being impacted by the economy, by AI, by all of the social change that’s going on. And understanding how is that impacting who we’re targeting, how we’re targeting them, what kinds of engagements we’re, we’re trying to set up with. And so I, I think really refining that ideal client profile is something that most of us ought to be taking a very close look at for 2026 in our planning process. Gini Dietrich: One hundred percent. I could not agree more. And you know, I’m a big, big, big fan of really understanding at a macro level what’s going on so that we know how it affects our businesses. And I think that the more that you can do that and understand how everything that’s going on in the world is going to affect your agency and you know, the sustainability and stability of it, I think are, is really, really important. And being willing to try some things and take some risks and see what works and see what doesn’t work, and then go move on to what works and try again. Chip Griffin: Right. And, and you need to, to look at the data that you’ve got in front of you, not data from three to five years ago, right? But, but data from 2025. And so whether you’ve had a great 2025, a mediocre 2025, or an awful 2025, look at what the data is telling you. And look at where you’ve had success. Success in terms of where you’ve had the best results for clients, which we often overlook. We, we often look at just, you know, what we’ve been able to sell, but you need to see what is producing results for clients. You do need to understand what you’re selling, where those leads came from, and, and look at those recent trends and lean into what’s working. And again, that doesn’t matter whether you’ve had a good year or a bad year. You still wanna lean into what you know is working today because it is a, a very different environment than it was 3 years ago, 10 years ago, and and beyond. So you need to be relying on that kind of analysis if you wanna make smarter decisions in your planning process. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, absolutely. And I think you’re right, like this is different than 2008, 2009, and 2020. It’s, it’s different. So be willing to take some risk. It’s uncomfortable for sure. Chip Griffin: You and I both love risk, so we’re always gonna preach risk. Calculated risk, not just reckless risk. Gini Dietrich: Calculated risk.Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Please be calculated. Chip Griffin: Yes, have a reason for what you’re doing, and have a reason to believe that there’s a decent chance of success. Don’t just blindly walk out there and say, Hey, let’s try crossing the street now without looking and see what happens. That’s not the kind of risk we want you to take. Gini Dietrich: Please don’t do that. Please do not do that. Please, please do not do that. Chip Griffin: So with that, if you’re, if you’re listening and you’re driving or something, still pay attention ’cause we’re gonna wrap up now. Keep your eyes open. Keep your eyes open. If you, if you wanna listen to this again, wait. You, you can go back to the link. There’s resources that’ll be there. There’s the transcript there, all those things. So stay safe. Yes, yes. However you’re listening to us. And with that, that will draw to an end this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And it depends.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the complexities of hiring in growing agencies. They highlight the challenges of finding skilled, reliable employees who align with agency values. Sharing personal experiences, Gini explains the pitfalls of hasty hiring and the benefits of thorough vetting and cultural fit. They stress the importance of a structured hiring process, including clear job roles, career paths, and appropriate compensation. They also underscore the value of meaningful interviews, proper candidate evaluations, and treating the hiring process as the start of a long-term relationship. Lastly, Chip and Gini emphasize learning from past mistakes to improve hiring effectiveness and employee retention. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “When we talk about retaining employees, it goes back to how the interviews went.” Gini Dietrich: “You’re gonna be working with this person eight hours a day. You should have a real meaningful conversation with them. Don’t ask if you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?” Chip Griffin: “If you’re going to have members of your team interviewing, you need to make sure that you’re educating them on how to do it well. And how to do it without causing problems.” Gini Dietrich: “They say, hire slowly and fire fast for a reason, because you have to be really meticulous about who you hire. So that they do last. So they are a culture fit, so they don’t miss deadlines, so that they are getting the work done that you need done.” Related How to onboard new agency employees Get over your fear of hiring employees Hiring the best employees for your agency How to hire agency employees Setting honest expectations for your agency employees from the start Focus on agency employee retention View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, a few weeks ago, I think I fired you. Today, you’re hired, Gini Dietrich: You keep playing with my emotions. I don’t know how to do this anymore. I’m fired. I don’t get paid. Now you’re rehiring me. I don’t know what to do. Chip Griffin: Yeah, it’s difficult. Anyway. It is what it is. But no, we are gonna talk about hiring today because we are, you know, we can’t just talk about all the bad things. So, we’ll, we’ll spend some time talking about something that is overall more positive. Because if we’re hiring, hopefully that means that we are growing, or at least we have the need for additional resources, even if it’s replacing someone who has left. But it is something that is very challenging, so it can create its own problems along the way if you don’t do it right. So this is, something that comes from one of our favorite topic inspiration sources. Reddit. I know it’s a place that you live and breathe. Gini Dietrich: And by favorite, we’re using quotes “favorite”, scares the crap outta me. But ok. Chip Griffin: You are on Reddit all day every day. Just kind of combing around to see what conversations you can jump into. But this is one that was on there, probably a while ago honestly, it’s in our topic document. We didn’t date it, so I, I can’t tell you how long ago it was, but, what it says is, hiring the right people is harder than it looks. Finding skilled, reliable people who align with your values is a challenge. Early on, I rushed hires and paid for it in missed deadlines and miscommunication. Now I take more time to vet people and focus on cultural fit as much as skills. So I thought it would be helpful for us to have a conversation around how we approach the hiring process. How do we find the right fits? How do we vet those fits? And how do we frankly think about going from hiring them to, to beginning to on onboard them. We’re not gonna talk about the full onboarding process, but just sort of, you know, that, that evolution of saying, Hey, I need this role. Where do we go from there? Gini Dietrich: Yeah, it’s, it’s funny you say that this is our topic today. ’cause just the other day I was thinking about some of the very early hires I made that didn’t work out. And all of the mistakes I made in, in hiring them. And I will say that one of the biggest mistakes that I make is I meet somebody online who has the right skillset from a paper perspective, resume perspective, and I just hire them. I’m like, oh yeah, you, you look like you can do the job. And we may have a conversation, but there’s no, like, thought about it. There’s no interviewing for skills. It’s more just like a, a conversation to see if we, we might be able to work together. And every time I have done that, it has not worked out. So earlier this year I hired a chief learning officer to help with like certification and, you know, all the professional development things we do on the PESO model front. And about three or four months in, we both realized that, that that while she can do that job and she’s great at that job, she would be more valuable as a chief operating officer. So we switched her over. And let me tell you, being professionalized on the hiring front is phenomenal. I mean, she has set up interview guides, so like if you are an assistant account executive, and this would be somebody that you report to maybe two or three levels up, and we’re having you interview, you have a set of questions. If you’re the direct report, you have a set of questions. So we, like, she’s created all this. She’s created salary bands and like, you know, a career path for everybody where from where they start and she’s done, she’s done it in such a way that it isn’t bloat, but it’s just kind of professionalized the way that we do things. And you don’t have to hire a chief operating officer to do this, like I know you, you like to talk. Patrick is your go-to person from an HR perspective, someone like Patrick can help create these things so that you can professionalize it because as they say, hire slowly and fire fast. That quote is there for a reason, because you have to be really meticulous about who you hire. So that they do last. So they are a culture fit, so they don’t miss deadlines so that they are getting the, the work done that you need done and you’re not being, like, I have been in, in the last 20 years of just hiring people I like. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and I, I mean, I think that, you know, you’ve touched on some important things here and, and you do have to have some sort of a process in place. It doesn’t need to turn you do into a bureaucratic circus, Gini Dietrich: You do, right. Chip Griffin: But at the same time, you need to have a process. And, and it really, to me, starts with being clear about what it is that you need. And who it is that you’re trying to hire. And, and too often when we’re trying to hire, it’s either because someone has left or because we’ve got a new client. And so our, our mindset is we need to get someone in here quick because we’ve gotta relieve this pain and this pressure. But that often leads to some of those bad decisions because you’re not really evaluating. Not even just the individual, but the role. Mm-hmm. And you need to think through, you know, what do you actually need at any given point in time? And it’s one of the reasons why I am a very strong advocate of only hiring, particularly in small agencies, only hiring one person at a time, one role at a time. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Yes. Chip Griffin: Because every time you add someone new to the mix, it changes a little bit what you think you might need in the next one. And if you hire two people simultaneously, it increases the odds that you don’t actually have the right mix of talent on board. So you’ve gotta be crystal clear with yourself about what you’re looking for, but to your point, you also need to have a process in place that helps to understand what are our salary bands, what are our titles? How does this fit in? What is their growth path? Because those are questions you will get during the interview process. And if you’re not clear about those things going in, you will either overpay or underpay or assign the wrong title. Or frankly, get the wrong person because you’re not thinking about it in the big picture. So put the thought process in upfront, and that is the, to me, the first step in making sure that you make as good a decision as possible. Accepting that frankly, a lot of hiring decisions are gonna be wrong. Right? Even of course, even, even the, of course, even the best organizations, of course with the, with robust HR teams and, and talent evaluation, they still have a lot of misfires, so you can’t beat yourself up over those. But you’ve gotta increase your odds by having the right thought process and structural process in place. Gini Dietrich: One of the things that, you know, early on I would do when I didn’t have a team who could interview people, I would ask my business coach, or I would ask, you know, friends that were in the industry, other agency owners, if they would participate in some interviewing, just to kind of get me out of the Gosh, I really like this person. I think we’ll work well together. And, rather than, gosh, I really like this person and I think they can do the job right. So just having different outside perspective helped me when I didn’t have a team that could also do the interviewing. So I think, you know, doing that kind of stuff too helps. And I also think that, you know, I, one of the biggest mistakes, and you touched on this that I’ve made, is not having that career path or clear career path. Because people come to work and even though you’re an entrepreneur and you’re the agency owner, and you kind of know in your head how things work, they need to know that because this is their career that you’re talking about. So they need to know that if I wanna be promoted in 6 months, or 12 months or 18 months or whatever it happens to be, these are the things that I need to achieve so that they’re working towards something, not waiting for the annual review and saying, am I up for a promotion? What does that look like? Do I get a raise? Like, so having those kinds of things I think is incredibly important upfront so that you know, this is what we expect, this is how you’ll get to the next step, and you can be very clear about that. Chip Griffin: Yeah, because it, it is a question that you absolutely will get. I’ve done a lot of interviews over the years. I continue to, to do interviews for clients, and I can tell you that you get a lot of those kinds of questions where people want to understand what their career path is. The other one they ask a lot is, what does a typical day look like? Gini Dietrich: Mm-hmm. Chip Griffin: You’ve gotta have the answers for those questions as best you can, and, and you need to be honest with them where you don’t know. So don’t, don’t, you know, blow smoke and, and Gini Dietrich: Right. Chip Griffin: You know, give them an answer if you don’t have one. If, if the honest answer is, I don’t know. Tell them that, but then also explain how you think about it or how you would go about it, or the kinds of things that, that might be included so that you can paint some kind of a picture there. Because it’s, it is important for people to evaluate it. And frankly, we look at these things as, as evaluating the talent for us. But they’re also evaluating us. Gini Dietrich: Absolutely. Chip Griffin: And, and so you also need to make sure that in the process you’re giving them plenty of time to ask questions. In fact, I usually start by letting them ask questions for two reasons. One is because it helps them to get the information that they need to evaluate it. But second, you learn as much from the questions they ask as anything else. And to me, a red flag is when they have no questions at all. Gini Dietrich: No questions. Yeah. Chip Griffin: Because if they have no questions at all, it probably means they did no research. They’re probably not all that interested. They’re just trying to get a job of some kind. It doesn’t, it doesn’t mean necessarily that they’re a bad fit. Some people just freeze up because they’re, you know, that’s, that’s not a traditional approach to interviews. To start by saying, what questions do you have of me? Right. By the way, introduce yourself first. Talk a little bit about the business and the role. I mean, don’t just, you know, say hello. What questions do you have? Gini Dietrich: Hello. What do you have? What questions can I answer? Chip Griffin: But, but honestly, I, I almost always will ask people what questions they have before I ask my first question. We just do the intros and then start with that, because you learn from that. And it, it also helps them get onto a more comfortable spot. And so you can steer the, the conversation, I think, more effectively that way. Gini Dietrich: One of my biggest pet peeves is, you know, now that we have a, a team who does the interviews, if the candidate gets to me, that means they’re one of the finalists, right? And I will say, what questions do you have of me? And they will say, and this happens more often than not. Well, I kind of already asked my all my other question, my questions from everybody else. So ask them again. Right? Make sure you get the same answer like. Right. Yeah, because that will, as I know we’re not talking, we’re not talking to candidates right now, but that will tell you as much if there’s, the answers are different than anything else. So that is also a red flag. Which brings me to, we actually created a list of red flags, and we’re going through the A process right now ’cause we’re hiring and our HR director is doing pre-screens, phone screens, and one of the red flags is Are you able to work with within bureaucracy and lots of change and indecisiveness and you know. And one, one of the people that’s interviewing said, I just don’t like bureaucracy. I don’t like lots of change. I don’t like indecisiveness, I’m not. And she was like, no, like, because we have our list of red flags. So it’s, it’s an easy way also to sort of get yourself out of the, gosh, I really like this person. I’d like to work with them. If you have that list of red flags that you will allow you to objectively say, probably not the right fit for this job. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and the more that you do of this, the more easily you can come up with those things that just, that it, they’re the indication that this may not be the best fit. Yeah. And I always encourage probing just to make sure that, and I prefer to think of ’em as orange flags rather than red flags most of the time. Because most of the time it’s more the accumulation of those things than, than a single one that Gini Dietrich: fair, fair, Chip Griffin: that says, okay, no, this isn’t the right fit. But I also like to probe. And so, you know, in an example like that, I might say, well, well why does that bother you? Why is that a problem? And just kind of see, Gini Dietrich: yeah. Chip Griffin: You know, what their, what their root thinking is, because I mean, chances are it’s not gonna change anything, but it’s always interesting to find out why. I think the other thing, and, and you touched on this in, in, you know, having a, a, an interview guide and all of that, if you’re going to have members of your team interviewing, you need to make sure that you’re educating them on how to do it well. And how to do it without causing problems. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: And I think I’ve shared this on the podcast before. Yes. But I have seen so many egregious questions in interviews Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: Over the years that create substantial legal and regulatory issues. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: Please, please, please train your juniors. Frankly, some of you probably need some training yourselves. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: On how to do this, Gini Dietrich: I was just gonna say yes. Yes. Chip Griffin: In a way that’s not causing problems. Yes. Because the, I mean, the questions that I’ve seen asked in interviews are just off the charts and, and, and so blatantly inappropriate. Gini Dietrich: Do you have some examples? Chip Griffin: Focus on, and, and, and the other thing is focus on questions that, that actually might reveal something that’s useful to you. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: You are not, this is not Google. You’re not out there trying to ask, you know, weird mind game questions. Ask straightforward questions. I, I mean, ’cause the other thing Gini Dietrich: if you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be? Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, in addition to the inappropriate questions, you just get these dumb ones, right? Where someone, someone read an article and they’re like, oh, you learn so much if you ask, what kind of tree would you be? Really, you just look crazy as an interviewer. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: You’ll look like you’ve lost your mind. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: Just don’t do it. Have a real conversation. Treat them like a professional. Treat them with respect. Treat them like you would a prospect. Don’t sit there and, and try to play gotcha games. It’s not a quiz show. It’s not. If you want to go on a quiz show and, and you wanna run your own quiz show, fine. Do that. Your interview subjects, that’s not what it’s for. Don’t ask them in Google Analytics, where do you go to do this? Come on, seriously, just knock it off. Gini Dietrich: That’s funny. Chip Griffin: And if you’re gonna, if you’re gonna try to apply tests to people, you gotta pay them. Gini Dietrich: I totally 100% agree with that. Chip Griffin: But you can’t, Gini Dietrich: yes. Chip Griffin: You can’t say, I need you to write a plan for me. Gini Dietrich: No. Chip Griffin: Or write a press release or something like that. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Particularly if it’s for an actual client you have Correct. And you might actually use it. That’s just wrong. That’s, and I see that way too often. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: Where someone says, well, I need to evaluate you. I need you to, to do this. On the technical side, I’ve seen people ask to be written to write all sorts of code. Why? Gini Dietrich: Bad idea. I, you know what, actually Reddit is full of, of those like, so I’m interviewing for this job and they asked me to put together a 12 month plan complete with deck and strategy and blah, blah, blah. Is that normal? And I’m always like, no? Chip Griffin: No, Gini Dietrich: don’t do it. I understand the hiring market is tough right now, but no. Chip Griffin: It’s just bizarre. I mean, honestly, I, I would be suspicious of anybody who could put together that kind of a plan based on, you know, 10 minutes of conversation. Gini Dietrich: Right, right, right. Chip Griffin: I mean, and that’s the other thing. You have to be realistic about what kinds of answers you can get from people in these short windows of time. And so it really is… it’s not necessarily about whether you like them, but it’s, it’s trying to get to understand how they think, how they approach things. You can get those big picture senses off of these conversations, but the, the more granular you get with your question, the less likely it is to be a reliable indicator. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: And, and you need to, to again, treat it like a real conversation. So to the extent you have interview guides. Please use them. Just look through them and, and use it as, as a, a general format for the questions you might ask. Please do not do as, as. When I used to advise members of Congress and I prepared questions for them for hearings. Some of them would sit there and ask question one, question two, question three. They wouldn’t even listen to what the, the answer was from the witness at the hearing. They wouldn’t listen to what their colleagues had asked. So I, there were any number of situations where a member would read my question. The member previous to them had asked the exact same question, but they weren’t bothering to listen. Or they asked question one, and they move immediately to question number two, even though the person actually answered question number two as part of their response to question number one. Use your brain. Have a meaningful conversation. Do not walk through your, these are the 10 questions I always ask on interviews and just march through them Gini Dietrich: right Chip Griffin: in forced order. That doesn’t make any sense. You, you need to, to have a real meaningful conversation with someone if you wanna evaluate them properly. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. You’re gonna be working with this person eight hours a day. You should have a real meaningful conversation with them. This, that’s ludicrous. Chip Griffin: Alright, so you, so we’ve, we’ve figured out what we need. We’ve done the interviews. So now how do we pick, we, you know, we’ve got, I mean, let’s say we’ve got a couple of finalists. They’re both in our view, viable finalists. They’re, they’re, they both could do the job. What do you weigh most heavily when you’re evaluating one versus the other? How, how do you make that difficult decision? Gini Dietrich: I’m the wrong person to ask that question ’cause it is based on whether or not I like you and that’s probably not the right response. Chip Griffin: I mean the, there has to be an element of that, particularly in a small agency. Right. You know, you Yeah. If you just, if if you, if you don’t get the right vibe off of someone and you’re like, ah, this just doesn’t… listen to yourself. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: Right. If, if you don’t enjoy having the conversations with that person during the interview process, Gini Dietrich: it’s not gonna get better. Chip Griffin: And maybe you say, well, but they’re, they have all the skills. They have all the connections. They know what they’re doing. Oh, it’d make my life so easy. Listen to yourself there. And that doesn’t mean that you have to have that, you know, you need to hire people that you want to go out and have a beer with after work or something like that. But, you know, you’ve gotta feel like, I could talk to this person Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: An hour or two a day and I, I wouldn’t lose my mind. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: Don’t ever say they’ve got so much talent. I’m gonna ignore that. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Never, because I, the way I think about it is, and the same thing with clients, I would say it will, it gets to the point that I’m gonna end up canceling meetings with this person or with this client. If the answer is yes, then it’s not the right fit. Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, and, and the flip side is true too. Going to your point very early in this conversation, if you, if you are enjoying your conversation with that person, don’t overlook the fact that they don’t actually have the skills Yeah. That match up. Mm-hmm. Or, you know, they are under, it will bite you, underqualified or overqualified for the role. They still need to be a fit for the role. No matter how much you enjoy uhhuh your conversations with them or how smart you think they are, Uhhuh, that they may be a good fit for your organization at some point in some role, but it may not be the one you’re hiring for now. Mm-hmm. So make sure that you’re clear with yourself and don’t talk yourself into something. I, I see this a lot where people will get through the hiring process and they find someone that they really like and they’re like, well, they’re not really a fit for this role, but I could see them doing this or that. It’s okay to be flexible, but make sure that whatever this or that is, is really something you need. And you’re not talking yourself into an additional expenditure or putting yourself in a position where, yes, you’ve got that person, but now you still have to hire for this other role. You, you may make things more difficult for yourself in that. So make sure that you’re always going back to what did you say you needed? And if we’re deviating from that, why? And is it, is it a sound business case for making that decision? Gini Dietrich: Yeah, absolutely. Learn from me. Don’t make those mistakes. It costs a lot of time, a lot of money, and a lot of angst. It burns, some bridges. Learn from me. Chip Griffin: And, and also throughout the interview process, and I think we’ve talked about this on the, the show in the past before start thinking about those interview conversations, the hiring conversation where you’re making the offer. Think about all of those as part of the onboarding process. Because it really is a seamless transition or should be a seamless transition into the onboarding and ultimately retention. I mean, when, when we talk about retaining employees, it goes back to how the interviews went. Absolutely. The questions you asked, the way you handled yourself, all of that impacts things that will happen 6, 12, 18 months down the road or even more. Yeah. And so you need to be mindful of that and thinking about how would this person perceive the questions we ask, the process we follow, are we frankly canceling a lot of times on them during the interview process. You need to treat them with respect, if you want to be treated with respect, if you want to build a lasting relationship. So think about all of that at every step of the hiring process, from that first interview, to the last interview, to the offer, et cetera. Gini Dietrich: Absolutely, yes. It’s very, very, very important for you to be organized and prepared. Hire slowly. Those will be the things that save you from a hiring perspective. And like I said, learn from me and don’t always hire just people you like. Chip Griffin: There you go. But don’t hire people you dislike either. Gini Dietrich: So well, sure. But they also have to have the skills to do a good job. Chip Griffin: All right, well I guess with that, we’ll let you keep your job for now, so Gini Dietrich: Well thanks. Thanks. I appreciate it. Chip Griffin: On that note, we will draw this episode to a close. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich, Chip Griffin: and it depends.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the complexities of hiring in growing agencies. They highlight the challenges of finding skilled, reliable employees who align with agency values. Sharing personal experiences, Gini explains the pitfalls of hasty hiring and the benefits of thorough vetting and cultural fit. They stress the importance of a structured hiring process, including clear job roles, career paths, and appropriate compensation. They also underscore the value of meaningful interviews, proper candidate evaluations, and treating the hiring process as the start of a long-term relationship. Lastly, Chip and Gini emphasize learning from past mistakes to improve hiring effectiveness and employee retention. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “When we talk about retaining employees, it goes back to how the interviews went.” Gini Dietrich: “You’re gonna be working with this person eight hours a day. You should have a real meaningful conversation with them. Don’t ask if you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?” Chip Griffin: “If you’re going to have members of your team interviewing, you need to make sure that you’re educating them on how to do it well. And how to do it without causing problems.” Gini Dietrich: “They say, hire slowly and fire fast for a reason, because you have to be really meticulous about who you hire. So that they do last. So they are a culture fit, so they don’t miss deadlines, so that they are getting the work done that you need done.” Related How to onboard new agency employees Get over your fear of hiring employees Hiring the best employees for your agency How to hire agency employees Setting honest expectations for your agency employees from the start Focus on agency employee retention View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, a few weeks ago, I think I fired you. Today, you’re hired, Gini Dietrich: You keep playing with my emotions. I don’t know how to do this anymore. I’m fired. I don’t get paid. Now you’re rehiring me. I don’t know what to do. Chip Griffin: Yeah, it’s difficult. Anyway. It is what it is. But no, we are gonna talk about hiring today because we are, you know, we can’t just talk about all the bad things. So, we’ll, we’ll spend some time talking about something that is overall more positive. Because if we’re hiring, hopefully that means that we are growing, or at least we have the need for additional resources, even if it’s replacing someone who has left. But it is something that is very challenging, so it can create its own problems along the way if you don’t do it right. So this is, something that comes from one of our favorite topic inspiration sources. Reddit. I know it’s a place that you live and breathe. Gini Dietrich: And by favorite, we’re using quotes “favorite”, scares the crap outta me. But ok. Chip Griffin: You are on Reddit all day every day. Just kind of combing around to see what conversations you can jump into. But this is one that was on there, probably a while ago honestly, it’s in our topic document. We didn’t date it, so I, I can’t tell you how long ago it was, but, what it says is, hiring the right people is harder than it looks. Finding skilled, reliable people who align with your values is a challenge. Early on, I rushed hires and paid for it in missed deadlines and miscommunication. Now I take more time to vet people and focus on cultural fit as much as skills. So I thought it would be helpful for us to have a conversation around how we approach the hiring process. How do we find the right fits? How do we vet those fits? And how do we frankly think about going from hiring them to, to beginning to on onboard them. We’re not gonna talk about the full onboarding process, but just sort of, you know, that, that evolution of saying, Hey, I need this role. Where do we go from there? Gini Dietrich: Yeah, it’s, it’s funny you say that this is our topic today. ’cause just the other day I was thinking about some of the very early hires I made that didn’t work out. And all of the mistakes I made in, in hiring them. And I will say that one of the biggest mistakes that I make is I meet somebody online who has the right skillset from a paper perspective, resume perspective, and I just hire them. I’m like, oh yeah, you, you look like you can do the job. And we may have a conversation, but there’s no, like, thought about it. There’s no interviewing for skills. It’s more just like a, a conversation to see if we, we might be able to work together. And every time I have done that, it has not worked out. So earlier this year I hired a chief learning officer to help with like certification and, you know, all the professional development things we do on the PESO model front. And about three or four months in, we both realized that, that that while she can do that job and she’s great at that job, she would be more valuable as a chief operating officer. So we switched her over. And let me tell you, being professionalized on the hiring front is phenomenal. I mean, she has set up interview guides, so like if you are an assistant account executive, and this would be somebody that you report to maybe two or three levels up, and we’re having you interview, you have a set of questions. If you’re the direct report, you have a set of questions. So we, like, she’s created all this. She’s created salary bands and like, you know, a career path for everybody where from where they start and she’s done, she’s done it in such a way that it isn’t bloat, but it’s just kind of professionalized the way that we do things. And you don’t have to hire a chief operating officer to do this, like I know you, you like to talk. Patrick is your go-to person from an HR perspective, someone like Patrick can help create these things so that you can professionalize it because as they say, hire slowly and fire fast. That quote is there for a reason, because you have to be really meticulous about who you hire. So that they do last. So they are a culture fit, so they don’t miss deadlines so that they are getting the, the work done that you need done and you’re not being, like, I have been in, in the last 20 years of just hiring people I like. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and I, I mean, I think that, you know, you’ve touched on some important things here and, and you do have to have some sort of a process in place. It doesn’t need to turn you do into a bureaucratic circus, Gini Dietrich: You do, right. Chip Griffin: But at the same time, you need to have a process. And, and it really, to me, starts with being clear about what it is that you need. And who it is that you’re trying to hire. And, and too often when we’re trying to hire, it’s either because someone has left or because we’ve got a new client. And so our, our mindset is we need to get someone in here quick because we’ve gotta relieve this pain and this pressure. But that often leads to some of those bad decisions because you’re not really evaluating. Not even just the individual, but the role. Mm-hmm. And you need to think through, you know, what do you actually need at any given point in time? And it’s one of the reasons why I am a very strong advocate of only hiring, particularly in small agencies, only hiring one person at a time, one role at a time. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Yes. Chip Griffin: Because every time you add someone new to the mix, it changes a little bit what you think you might need in the next one. And if you hire two people simultaneously, it increases the odds that you don’t actually have the right mix of talent on board. So you’ve gotta be crystal clear with yourself about what you’re looking for, but to your point, you also need to have a process in place that helps to understand what are our salary bands, what are our titles? How does this fit in? What is their growth path? Because those are questions you will get during the interview process. And if you’re not clear about those things going in, you will either overpay or underpay or assign the wrong title. Or frankly, get the wrong person because you’re not thinking about it in the big picture. So put the thought process in upfront, and that is the, to me, the first step in making sure that you make as good a decision as possible. Accepting that frankly, a lot of hiring decisions are gonna be wrong. Right? Even of course, even, even the, of course, even the best organizations, of course with the, with robust HR teams and, and talent evaluation, they still have a lot of misfires, so you can’t beat yourself up over those. But you’ve gotta increase your odds by having the right thought process and structural process in place. Gini Dietrich: One of the things that, you know, early on I would do when I didn’t have a team who could interview people, I would ask my business coach, or I would ask, you know, friends that were in the industry, other agency owners, if they would participate in some interviewing, just to kind of get me out of the Gosh, I really like this person. I think we’ll work well together. And, rather than, gosh, I really like this person and I think they can do the job right. So just having different outside perspective helped me when I didn’t have a team that could also do the interviewing. So I think, you know, doing that kind of stuff too helps. And I also think that, you know, I, one of the biggest mistakes, and you touched on this that I’ve made, is not having that career path or clear career path. Because people come to work and even though you’re an entrepreneur and you’re the agency owner, and you kind of know in your head how things work, they need to know that because this is their career that you’re talking about. So they need to know that if I wanna be promoted in 6 months, or 12 months or 18 months or whatever it happens to be, these are the things that I need to achieve so that they’re working towards something, not waiting for the annual review and saying, am I up for a promotion? What does that look like? Do I get a raise? Like, so having those kinds of things I think is incredibly important upfront so that you know, this is what we expect, this is how you’ll get to the next step, and you can be very clear about that. Chip Griffin: Yeah, because it, it is a question that you absolutely will get. I’ve done a lot of interviews over the years. I continue to, to do interviews for clients, and I can tell you that you get a lot of those kinds of questions where people want to understand what their career path is. The other one they ask a lot is, what does a typical day look like? Gini Dietrich: Mm-hmm. Chip Griffin: You’ve gotta have the answers for those questions as best you can, and, and you need to be honest with them where you don’t know. So don’t, don’t, you know, blow smoke and, and Gini Dietrich: Right. Chip Griffin: You know, give them an answer if you don’t have one. If, if the honest answer is, I don’t know. Tell them that, but then also explain how you think about it or how you would go about it, or the kinds of things that, that might be included so that you can paint some kind of a picture there. Because it’s, it is important for people to evaluate it. And frankly, we look at these things as, as evaluating the talent for us. But they’re also evaluating us. Gini Dietrich: Absolutely. Chip Griffin: And, and so you also need to make sure that in the process you’re giving them plenty of time to ask questions. In fact, I usually start by letting them ask questions for two reasons. One is because it helps them to get the information that they need to evaluate it. But second, you learn as much from the questions they ask as anything else. And to me, a red flag is when they have no questions at all. Gini Dietrich: No questions. Yeah. Chip Griffin: Because if they have no questions at all, it probably means they did no research. They’re probably not all that interested. They’re just trying to get a job of some kind. It doesn’t, it doesn’t mean necessarily that they’re a bad fit. Some people just freeze up because they’re, you know, that’s, that’s not a traditional approach to interviews. To start by saying, what questions do you have of me? Right. By the way, introduce yourself first. Talk a little bit about the business and the role. I mean, don’t just, you know, say hello. What questions do you have? Gini Dietrich: Hello. What do you have? What questions can I answer? Chip Griffin: But, but honestly, I, I almost always will ask people what questions they have before I ask my first question. We just do the intros and then start with that, because you learn from that. And it, it also helps them get onto a more comfortable spot. And so you can steer the, the conversation, I think, more effectively that way. Gini Dietrich: One of my biggest pet peeves is, you know, now that we have a, a team who does the interviews, if the candidate gets to me, that means they’re one of the finalists, right? And I will say, what questions do you have of me? And they will say, and this happens more often than not. Well, I kind of already asked my all my other question, my questions from everybody else. So ask them again. Right? Make sure you get the same answer like. Right. Yeah, because that will, as I know we’re not talking, we’re not talking to candidates right now, but that will tell you as much if there’s, the answers are different than anything else. So that is also a red flag. Which brings me to, we actually created a list of red flags, and we’re going through the A process right now ’cause we’re hiring and our HR director is doing pre-screens, phone screens, and one of the red flags is Are you able to work with within bureaucracy and lots of change and indecisiveness and you know. And one, one of the people that’s interviewing said, I just don’t like bureaucracy. I don’t like lots of change. I don’t like indecisiveness, I’m not. And she was like, no, like, because we have our list of red flags. So it’s, it’s an easy way also to sort of get yourself out of the, gosh, I really like this person. I’d like to work with them. If you have that list of red flags that you will allow you to objectively say, probably not the right fit for this job. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and the more that you do of this, the more easily you can come up with those things that just, that it, they’re the indication that this may not be the best fit. Yeah. And I always encourage probing just to make sure that, and I prefer to think of ’em as orange flags rather than red flags most of the time. Because most of the time it’s more the accumulation of those things than, than a single one that Gini Dietrich: fair, fair, Chip Griffin: that says, okay, no, this isn’t the right fit. But I also like to probe. And so, you know, in an example like that, I might say, well, well why does that bother you? Why is that a problem? And just kind of see, Gini Dietrich: yeah. Chip Griffin: You know, what their, what their root thinking is, because I mean, chances are it’s not gonna change anything, but it’s always interesting to find out why. I think the other thing, and, and you touched on this in, in, you know, having a, a, an interview guide and all of that, if you’re going to have members of your team interviewing, you need to make sure that you’re educating them on how to do it well. And how to do it without causing problems. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: And I think I’ve shared this on the podcast before. Yes. But I have seen so many egregious questions in interviews Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: Over the years that create substantial legal and regulatory issues. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: Please, please, please train your juniors. Frankly, some of you probably need some training yourselves. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: On how to do this, Gini Dietrich: I was just gonna say yes. Yes. Chip Griffin: In a way that’s not causing problems. Yes. Because the, I mean, the questions that I’ve seen asked in interviews are just off the charts and, and, and so blatantly inappropriate. Gini Dietrich: Do you have some examples? Chip Griffin: Focus on, and, and, and the other thing is focus on questions that, that actually might reveal something that’s useful to you. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: You are not, this is not Google. You’re not out there trying to ask, you know, weird mind game questions. Ask straightforward questions. I, I mean, ’cause the other thing Gini Dietrich: if you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be? Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, in addition to the inappropriate questions, you just get these dumb ones, right? Where someone, someone read an article and they’re like, oh, you learn so much if you ask, what kind of tree would you be? Really, you just look crazy as an interviewer. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: You’ll look like you’ve lost your mind. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: Just don’t do it. Have a real conversation. Treat them like a professional. Treat them with respect. Treat them like you would a prospect. Don’t sit there and, and try to play gotcha games. It’s not a quiz show. It’s not. If you want to go on a quiz show and, and you wanna run your own quiz show, fine. Do that. Your interview subjects, that’s not what it’s for. Don’t ask them in Google Analytics, where do you go to do this? Come on, seriously, just knock it off. Gini Dietrich: That’s funny. Chip Griffin: And if you’re gonna, if you’re gonna try to apply tests to people, you gotta pay them. Gini Dietrich: I totally 100% agree with that. Chip Griffin: But you can’t, Gini Dietrich: yes. Chip Griffin: You can’t say, I need you to write a plan for me. Gini Dietrich: No. Chip Griffin: Or write a press release or something like that. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Particularly if it’s for an actual client you have Correct. And you might actually use it. That’s just wrong. That’s, and I see that way too often. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: Where someone says, well, I need to evaluate you. I need you to, to do this. On the technical side, I’ve seen people ask to be written to write all sorts of code. Why? Gini Dietrich: Bad idea. I, you know what, actually Reddit is full of, of those like, so I’m interviewing for this job and they asked me to put together a 12 month plan complete with deck and strategy and blah, blah, blah. Is that normal? And I’m always like, no? Chip Griffin: No, Gini Dietrich: don’t do it. I understand the hiring market is tough right now, but no. Chip Griffin: It’s just bizarre. I mean, honestly, I, I would be suspicious of anybody who could put together that kind of a plan based on, you know, 10 minutes of conversation. Gini Dietrich: Right, right, right. Chip Griffin: I mean, and that’s the other thing. You have to be realistic about what kinds of answers you can get from people in these short windows of time. And so it really is… it’s not necessarily about whether you like them, but it’s, it’s trying to get to understand how they think, how they approach things. You can get those big picture senses off of these conversations, but the, the more granular you get with your question, the less likely it is to be a reliable indicator. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: And, and you need to, to again, treat it like a real conversation. So to the extent you have interview guides. Please use them. Just look through them and, and use it as, as a, a general format for the questions you might ask. Please do not do as, as. When I used to advise members of Congress and I prepared questions for them for hearings. Some of them would sit there and ask question one, question two, question three. They wouldn’t even listen to what the, the answer was from the witness at the hearing. They wouldn’t listen to what their colleagues had asked. So I, there were any number of situations where a member would read my question. The member previous to them had asked the exact same question, but they weren’t bothering to listen. Or they asked question one, and they move immediately to question number two, even though the person actually answered question number two as part of their response to question number one. Use your brain. Have a meaningful conversation. Do not walk through your, these are the 10 questions I always ask on interviews and just march through them Gini Dietrich: right Chip Griffin: in forced order. That doesn’t make any sense. You, you need to, to have a real meaningful conversation with someone if you wanna evaluate them properly. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. You’re gonna be working with this person eight hours a day. You should have a real meaningful conversation with them. This, that’s ludicrous. Chip Griffin: Alright, so you, so we’ve, we’ve figured out what we need. We’ve done the interviews. So now how do we pick, we, you know, we’ve got, I mean, let’s say we’ve got a couple of finalists. They’re both in our view, viable finalists. They’re, they’re, they both could do the job. What do you weigh most heavily when you’re evaluating one versus the other? How, how do you make that difficult decision? Gini Dietrich: I’m the wrong person to ask that question ’cause it is based on whether or not I like you and that’s probably not the right response. Chip Griffin: I mean the, there has to be an element of that, particularly in a small agency. Right. You know, you Yeah. If you just, if if you, if you don’t get the right vibe off of someone and you’re like, ah, this just doesn’t… listen to yourself. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: Right. If, if you don’t enjoy having the conversations with that person during the interview process, Gini Dietrich: it’s not gonna get better. Chip Griffin: And maybe you say, well, but they’re, they have all the skills. They have all the connections. They know what they’re doing. Oh, it’d make my life so easy. Listen to yourself there. And that doesn’t mean that you have to have that, you know, you need to hire people that you want to go out and have a beer with after work or something like that. But, you know, you’ve gotta feel like, I could talk to this person Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: An hour or two a day and I, I wouldn’t lose my mind. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: Don’t ever say they’ve got so much talent. I’m gonna ignore that. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Never, because I, the way I think about it is, and the same thing with clients, I would say it will, it gets to the point that I’m gonna end up canceling meetings with this person or with this client. If the answer is yes, then it’s not the right fit. Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, and, and the flip side is true too. Going to your point very early in this conversation, if you, if you are enjoying your conversation with that person, don’t overlook the fact that they don’t actually have the skills Yeah. That match up. Mm-hmm. Or, you know, they are under, it will bite you, underqualified or overqualified for the role. They still need to be a fit for the role. No matter how much you enjoy uhhuh your conversations with them or how smart you think they are, Uhhuh, that they may be a good fit for your organization at some point in some role, but it may not be the one you’re hiring for now. Mm-hmm. So make sure that you’re clear with yourself and don’t talk yourself into something. I, I see this a lot where people will get through the hiring process and they find someone that they really like and they’re like, well, they’re not really a fit for this role, but I could see them doing this or that. It’s okay to be flexible, but make sure that whatever this or that is, is really something you need. And you’re not talking yourself into an additional expenditure or putting yourself in a position where, yes, you’ve got that person, but now you still have to hire for this other role. You, you may make things more difficult for yourself in that. So make sure that you’re always going back to what did you say you needed? And if we’re deviating from that, why? And is it, is it a sound business case for making that decision? Gini Dietrich: Yeah, absolutely. Learn from me. Don’t make those mistakes. It costs a lot of time, a lot of money, and a lot of angst. It burns, some bridges. Learn from me. Chip Griffin: And, and also throughout the interview process, and I think we’ve talked about this on the, the show in the past before start thinking about those interview conversations, the hiring conversation where you’re making the offer. Think about all of those as part of the onboarding process. Because it really is a seamless transition or should be a seamless transition into the onboarding and ultimately retention. I mean, when, when we talk about retaining employees, it goes back to how the interviews went. Absolutely. The questions you asked, the way you handled yourself, all of that impacts things that will happen 6, 12, 18 months down the road or even more. Yeah. And so you need to be mindful of that and thinking about how would this person perceive the questions we ask, the process we follow, are we frankly canceling a lot of times on them during the interview process. You need to treat them with respect, if you want to be treated with respect, if you want to build a lasting relationship. So think about all of that at every step of the hiring process, from that first interview, to the last interview, to the offer, et cetera. Gini Dietrich: Absolutely, yes. It’s very, very, very important for you to be organized and prepared. Hire slowly. Those will be the things that save you from a hiring perspective. And like I said, learn from me and don’t always hire just people you like. Chip Griffin: There you go. But don’t hire people you dislike either. Gini Dietrich: So well, sure. But they also have to have the skills to do a good job. Chip Griffin: All right, well I guess with that, we’ll let you keep your job for now, so Gini Dietrich: Well thanks. Thanks. I appreciate it. Chip Griffin: On that note, we will draw this episode to a close. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich, Chip Griffin: and it depends.

In this episode, Chip and Gini tackle the difficult subject of firing an underperforming and problematic employee. They discuss a real-life scenario where an employee with a bad attitude refuses to do their work, causing frustration among team members. They advise against prolonging the inevitable firing decision, suggesting that acting swiftly can alleviate overall team stress. Both hosts share insights on why Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs) are largely ineffective, stressing the need for proper documentation and the guidance of an HR advisor during termination processes. Additionally, they highlight the importance of showing proactive steps to the remaining team to mitigate the workload burden and maintain morale. The episode emphasizes the critical role of leadership in making tough decisions for the greater good of the team and the business. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “When it comes to firing, I am much more a fan of just ripping that bandaid off and being done with it.” Gini Dietrich: “I’ve never seen a PIP work. It’s essentially a 30 day notice.” Chip Griffin: “Usually by the time that you’re even thinking about firing someone, you probably passed the point where you should have done it already.” Gini Dietrich: “Every single agency owner should have a bench of contractors that they have relationships with, that they’ve worked with before, that they can bring on and off the bench when necessary.” Related Building your agency's bench ALP 22: How to fire agency employees Why Performance Improvement Plans don't work View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini… Gini Dietrich: I’m so excited Chip Griffin: you’re fired. Gini Dietrich: I knew you were going to fire me. Chip Griffin: Maybe not, because if I fire you, then I have to just talk all by myself, so that might be too much work for me. So maybe I’ll put you on a PIP instead and we’ll just think about it and then we’ll come back and figure out if it makes sense. No, I don’t know about that either. I just don’t know what to do. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Hmm. Well. I guess you could find a replacement. Do you have a replacement? Chip Griffin: I don’t, Gini Dietrich: well start there. Chip Griffin: I don’t know that anybody else would, would wanna put up with having to do this with me every week, so that could be a problem. Gini Dietrich: Truth be told, it is kind of fun, so people would be missing out, but I don’t wanna be fired. Chip Griffin: Okay. Well. I’m fine. I won’t fire you. You’re unfired. Gini Dietrich:  Okay, great. Woohoo. Chip Griffin: So we are gonna talk about firing, but I, it’s not about firing either one of us, it’s about firing employees. And I guess I’ll let you set this one up, but it, it’s a, a question that showed up in an online forum about an underperforming employee. I think that’s fair to say. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: And an owner trying to figure out what to do about it. Gini Dietrich: I mean, yeah. The, the gist of it is that there’s an over an underperforming employee, with a terrible attitude who refuses to do work. She gives it back to her manager regularly. She doesn’t share information. She hoards stuff. But my friend was like this is a problem. She needs to be fired, but we don’t have an immediate replacement and it will put her work on others. And I was like, okay. She’s already, other people are already doing her work, especially if she’s giving it back to her manager. Other people are already doing her work. And the, the way I look about the, at these kinds of things is the team is already frustrated by the time it gets to you. The team is super frustrated with this human being. They don’t wanna do their work anymore. They’re tired of, of standing out for them. They’re tired of helping out. And so they’re looking to you to be the leader. They’re looking to you to make the tough decision. And when you waffle like this, they lose respect and trust in you because you’re not able to make that decision. So trust me when I say that, they would much rather you fire them and take the extra work than to keep going in this manner. Chip Griffin: Yeah, and I, I mean, I’m, as we say at the end of every episode, it depends, you know, I, I think there are things you need to, to think about here. And there have certainly been occasions where I’ve held on to employees until I had a replacement because I, I needed the bandwidth, right? Sure. But there’s a difference in what you’re describing here or what your friend describes where I, I think of this as a diseased employee, if you will. Yes. Right. Because they, they have a bad attitude, which in almost all cases affects the rest of the team. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: And so it’s not that they’re just not as productive as they could be, but still get along well and, you know, kind of try their best. We’ve all had team members, I’m sure over the years that fall into that category where you’d like to replace them, but they’re not, they’re not doing harm. They’re just not, they’re not living up to the potential that you would like to see. Those are cases where I think it can make sense to, to make sure you have a replacement lined up before you take action. Sure. But in a case like this where you have someone who is actively contributing in a negative way to the business. I’m, I am much more a fan of just rip that bandaid off and be done with it. Because to your point, your team is already looking at you and saying, why aren’t you doing something about this? Gini Dietrich: That’s right. Yep. They are. And I think if you, you can’t do this from an HR perspective, but if you polled your team and said, what do you think? They’d all be like we don’t know why she’s still here. Like, come on. Chip Griffin: Yeah. Please do not treat this like Survivor. Do not take a vote of the team. Right. As to whether someone stays or goes. That’s that is Gini Dietrich: it’s a bad idea. Chip Griffin: It is derelict of duty. It may well be illegal or at least problematic. Just, no, don’t do that. Gini Dietrich: But if you did, they would all vote her off the island. Chip Griffin: Yes. More often than not, when you terminate an employee, the other team members that you have will be like, oh, finally. Gini Dietrich: Finally. Yeah. I also think you’re right that when you have somebody who’s negatively affecting the organization, they, you know, it’s the bad apple, but spoils the whole lot, right? So then they start to influence how other people feel. Correct. And maybe someone was feeling a little burned out, or maybe somebody was annoyed about something. Well, now they’re listening to this person go on and on and on all day long. And they start, that little annoyance becomes something bigger and all of a sudden you have a bigger cultural issue on your hands than just one terrible employee that you should just rip the bandaid off and get rid of. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, it doesn’t make it any more pleasant that, you know, to go through it, but it’s, it’s important and it will help your business overall. One of the other questions that I believe was asked in this particular scenario was, should there be a PIP? Please don’t do PIPs. Unless, unless your HR advisor tells you you need to do a PIP in order to lay the proper groundwork for whatever the particular scenario is, please don’t do them. Don’t, or let, let me put it this way, don’t do a PIP anticipating that it’s going to have any impact. Gini Dietrich: Yes,  it’s essentially, a 30 day notice. Chip Griffin: Because I can think of maybe one scenario over the course of my career work, a PIP actually worked to turn an employee around. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Yeah. It’s essentially a 30 day notice. It’s like we’re giving you 30 days. You’re not going to be employed here anymore, is essentially what it’s, I agree with you. I’ve never seen it work. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And so if, if you’re doing it for HR protection, fine, go for it. You should absolutely. Anytime you’re looking at terminating an employee, you should always talk with an HR advisor, employment attorney, whoever it is that you work with, just to make sure that there’s not something that you’re overlooking, that there’s some possible claim there that you need to address carefully and make sure that you dot your T or dot your I’s cross your T’s, Gini Dietrich: dot your T’s. Cross your i’s Chip Griffin: dot your T’s too. I mean, you know, whatever it takes. So you absolutely wanna make sure that you’re, you’re doing those things correctly and appropriately for the rules and regulations that apply in that particular scenario. But if you are doing it because you think it’s gonna work, a PIP will not work. Gini Dietrich: Yep. 100%. I’ve literally never seen it work. You’re exactly right. So I, and I agree. You know, we have an HR leader on our team, and she, she has us do PIPs, but it, it is too just, she’s super, super risk averse and super conservative. So it’s, you know, very much to protect the business. And I’ll say that she has gotten me in a good practice of documenting everything, which as a business owner I was not very good at before. But she has definitely gotten me. So even if you don’t have, even if you’re not gonna do a PIP, I think it’s really important to document, document, you know, conversations that you’ve had where you’ve provided critical feedback or, you know, things like that. Just document, because those are the kinds of things that’ll save you in the long run, especially from a risk perspective. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, and look, I mean, ultimately you do want to give people a fair chance and, you know, I, on occasion I have run across owners who are a little bit too quick to pull the trigger on getting rid of an employee. Very rare. Gini Dietrich: I was gonna say really? Chip Griffin: Very, very rare. But, but by too quick I typically mean someone who is in their first few weeks still. Gini Dietrich: Oh yeah. Chip Griffin: Right. That, that is when, take a pause. I mean, to me, if, if you’re, if you’re going to part ways with someone that you’ve just brought on, there has to be a really good reason. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: Like, it, it can’t be just that they haven’t quite met your expectations. I mean, it has to be that there is something dramatic in their, usually in their behavior. I’ve, I’ve certainly had some where in their first 60 or 90 days, I’ve, I’ve parted company, but it was, I think in every situation it was because of their behavior and attitude, not because of performance. Right? Because performance, honestly, unless someone has completely misrepresented themselves and you’ve done a very, very poor job of vetting them in advance, most of the time, you shouldn’t be seeing that dramatic a difference in those first couple of months that you are truly surprised by it. And there still should be room to improve with them. So. But behaviorally, yes. Fine. Then that’s a, that’s a good termination cause for the early stages of employment. But otherwise, most of the time I see owners wait too long to terminate. Gini Dietrich: Always, always. Chip Griffin: And, and usually by the time that you’re even thinking about it, you probably passed the point where you should have done it already. Gini Dietrich: Yes. I have been guilty of that myself. I have to tell this story because it goes, it fits along with the firing somebody within the first 60 to 90 days, I have a really, really, really close friend who hired somebody, you know, they’re, they’re remote, um, hired them without, you know, meeting in person. They did Zoom calls, but the person would never turn on their camera, and the person starts and goes through onboarding and everything. And the first like three weeks, they’re like this person doesn’t seem to be able to do this job that we’ve hired them to do, and they keep digging and digging. What they learned is that the person that they interviewed was this person’s friend who had the experience, and this guy wanted the job. So he had his friend interview for the job. They offered the job thinking that they were, oh yeah. So this person started, and I mean, I think that’s called catfishing. But that’s what happened to them. So Chip Griffin: That’s called fraud, is what it’s called. Gini Dietrich: It’s called fraud. Uh, yeah. So they like it. They did fire that person in the first three weeks. But to your point, there are situations like that that you would do it. But you’re right. Like most of the time people are in their honeymoon stage for the first six months at least. Chip Griffin: I mean, they’re in their honeymoon stage and/or, you know, if I’ve got issues with performance in the early stage, I need to ask myself, am I, am I giving them the support they need, the training they need, the guidance they need, Gini Dietrich: right? Yes. Chip Griffin: Because, to miss that badly in a hiring process is somewhat unlikely. It’s not impossible, but you know, more often than not, it takes a while before you really get to that point and you’re like, no, this really is not a good fit, but you, you shouldn’t wait too long. And you shouldn’t drag it out. If you can find a replacement beforehand, whether that’s a contractor who can help fill the gap or something like that, I absolutely encourage that because you don’t want the rest of the team to feel burdened by the termination. But if they’re a bad apple, like the one that we described in this scenario where they are, you know, actively harming things and not simply not living up to their potential, you’re better off, even if everybody else has to pick up extra workload for the short term to part company and move on. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Yes. Because I think everybody, like people are, are understanding for the most part. Right. And if they’re already feeling this, then relieving them of that stress is more important than them taking on some extra work. And they’re probably already taking the work on, so it’s not gonna be that much different for them, except that they don’t have this extra stress of this negative person around all the time. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And in some ways, I mean these, these are, these are easier situations to deal with with the team because if someone does have this kind of a pervasive bad attitude, it will not come at all as a surprise to their coworkers when they’re terminated. Yeah. There are times where if it’s simply for underperformance, if someone isn’t closely enough working with that individual to notice the underperformance, that they might be surprised by it, and that can be more alarming to the team. So, you know, those are scenarios where you have to be more direct with your messaging. In this case, it sounds like everybody would completely understand exactly why this individual was let go. Yeah. And so it solves some of that issue. Yes, yes. Now, the important thing, anytime you terminate somebody, particularly if there’s going to be a workload issue, you have to immediately be able to show your team proactive steps that you’re working to address it. Because they, they may be willing to step up in the short term to help fill the void. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: But they’re not gonna do that forever. And if it looks like you are dragging your feet and just trying to, you know, maybe pad your profit margins by waiting, or even if that’s not your intent, if that’s the appearance that can be problematic. Yep. So usually what I want to do, if I don’t have any kind of a replacement lined up, or a contractor who can help, I want to be clear, here are the steps we’re taking. Here’s how we’re gonna try to fill this as soon as reasonably possible. Being clear that I’m not just gonna hire someone for the sake of hiring somebody, but I’m actively moving forward because I don’t want you to be shouldering more of the burden for longer than you have to. Gini Dietrich: And, and you brought up a good point, which I think is having contractors pinch hit. Because every single agency owner should have a bench of contractors that they can, that they have relationships with, that they’ve worked with before, that they can bring in and off, on and off the bench when necessary. And this is a good reason to bring a contractor off the bench to be able to help you in, in the interim. If it’s 90 days, if it’s six months, however long it takes, because that will show your team exactly to your point that you’ve done something to help mitigate the workload and their risk, while also giving you all time to interview and hire the right person. Chip Griffin: And you also need to be looking at the workload that you’re providing to your team. Are there things you can do to relieve the burden of what you’re asking them to do for a period of time? Maybe that means that there are internal projects that you’ve been working on that you want to hit pause on for a few weeks. Gini Dietrich: Sure. Chip Griffin: So that, so that you’re not contributing to that overwhelm that they potentially feel. So, you know, be mindful of those things and, and think about how can you make it as good as possible for them given the difficult circumstances they may be facing if they’re having to pick up this extra work in the short term. Gini Dietrich: And like I said, always, always, always think about it from the perspective of, am I doing myself, as the leader a, a big injustice because I’m not making this decision? And I think that makes it a little bit easier. Chip Griffin: Yep. I mean, bottom line is if, if you have decided that it’s time to, to move on from a particular employee, figure out how to do it as quickly as possible, there is no good reason to drag it out. Gini Dietrich: 100%. Yes. And every time you do it, you, you take, it’s just like this big weight and you’re like, oh, why didn’t I do this sooner? Yep. Every time. Every time. Chip Griffin: Yep. So with that, I guess we’ll ask why didn’t we end this episode even sooner? Gini Dietrich: Oh boy. Chip Griffin: No. Oh well, so that will draw to an end this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And it depends.

In this episode, Chip and Gini tackle the difficult subject of firing an underperforming and problematic employee.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the growing concerns surrounding AI in the agency world.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the growing concerns surrounding AI in the agency world. They highlight the irrational fears and cyclical nature of technological disruptions, drawing comparisons to social media and content marketing trends of the past. The hosts argue against the notion that agencies should discount services due to AI efficiencies, emphasizing that AI should be seen as a tool to enhance productivity and strategic value rather than a cost-cutting measure. They stress that agencies should focus on delivering more value and maintaining regular client communication instead of simply protecting existing revenue. The discussion also touches on the importance of transparency in AI use without oversharing minute details. Finally, they underscore the benefit of quarterly planning to align agency efforts with client business goals, thus fostering stronger client relationships and ensuring mutual success. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “Take ourselves out of the mindset that the AI is coming in and so we need to protect what we have. Instead, we should be thinking about how can we elevate, how can we produce more and better results for our clients?” Gini Dietrich: “Just because you’re faster at some mundane, laborious task does not mean that you should reduce your fees.” Chip Griffin: “Getting into the nitty gritty of your AI usage is sort of like explaining to a client whether you’re using a landline or a mobile phone to reach out to reporters. It doesn’t matter.” Gini Dietrich: “The strategy stays the same. The best practices stay the same. The tools have changed and the tools continue to change.” Related AI should be your agency's friend, not foe Agencies succeed through consistency and evolution Setting AI policies for your agency View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I am Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini I, I think that AI is making people crazy. They’re losing their minds and acting irrationally. Gini Dietrich: Yes, yes. I completely agree. Some of the stuff I see online, I’m like, you guys, Chip Griffin: take a deep breath. Gini Dietrich: Breath, everyone. Take a deep breath. Stop clutching your pearls. It’s okay. Chip Griffin: Well, maybe the AI really has become sentinent and – sentient – and the, the robot overlords are doing this intentionally to make us go crazy and eat each other alive. Gini Dietrich: Maybe, maybe. Although this happened with social media, it happened with content marketing. It happened with blogging. Here we are with AI. Everybody’s freaking out. Like, this is cyclical. Everyone’s gonna calm down. It will be okay. Chip Griffin: I don’t know if they’ll calm down, but eventually they’ll, they’ll come to the realization that perhaps it isn’t what they thought it, it was, and that it is, it is important. It is useful. It is valuable. It is not something that upends absolutely everything we do every moment of the day and we need to orbit around it. I mean, it just, it really does remind me of those early days of social media where, you know, you’d see these, these articles and posts about, oh my God, CEOs, they need to be blogging and they need to be blogging every day. And I don’t care how big your company is, the CEO needs to write those blog posts themselves. Ghost writing is an evil thing and we shall not do it. And if we do have it ghost written, we must disclose on that blog post or article that this was ghost written and not actually written by the CEO. Because we all believe that CEOs write their own darn stuff. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Yes. That’s why I say it’s all cyclical. Everyone calmed down. It’s going to be okay. That said, I happened upon the LinkedIn post by a second connection, who’s a chief marketing officer, and it essentially said, I’m trying to figure out how to manage my agencies who are using AI and how to ask what kind of discount and how to ask for a discount, because I know they’re using AI. and I was just like, there is no discount because you’re, they’re using AI. They’re able to focus on other things because of that, and they’re able to be more strategic in some areas because of it, but they, they should not be giving you a discount, just like the surgeon doesn’t give you a discount. Because the imaging is faster. You shouldn’t like the same. You’re not. Just because you’re faster at some mundane, laborious task does not mean that you should reduce your fees ever. Drives me freaking nuts. Chip Griffin: Yep. And I would absolutely agree with that, with the asterisk that if, for example, you are being hired to do writing and the AI does all the writing and you don’t edit and you don’t do anything else, and so you know you’re spending 10 minutes on it instead of 10 hours. You absolutely should be either figuring out how you can do more for the client, correct. Or you should be reducing your rates. Yes. Because it is, you know, I love all the talk about, you know, value-based pricing, which we talk about all the time, and certainly there are a lot of people who say, well, it doesn’t matter if I use AI to do it. They’re getting the same value out of it. Well, they are and they aren’t because they could do the work themselves if they wanted to in less time with less cost. And so. You’re not really creating that value anymore if the AI is doing it totally on its own and it doesn’t have anything to do with the prompts that you’re writing or, or the management of the whole process. And all of those things do take time, by the way. Mm-hmm. So we shouldn’t, we shouldn’t forget about that. Right. Particularly when we’re thinking about our own agencies and how we can be more efficient, the time it takes to manage the AI matters. We’ve talked about this recently. You cannot allow those things to, to be forgotten about. And so all of that does go into it. But the, I mean the comments on this post were just other worldly and there was another AI post recently as well that I saw and, and I mean, so we’ve got people out there who are like… CMOs want agencies to reduce their fees because they’re using AI. We’ve got a whole discussion around, well, we need to be transparent and tell every possible use of AI that we have and be really clear about it with our clients. This is how we’re using it exactly. And this is, and, and people say you can’t do hourly billing anymore because of AI, and so you must go to value-based pricing. And I mean, just all of this stuff. Take a breath, folks. Take Gini Dietrich: Yes. It’s a breath. Okay. Chip Griffin: Again, it is a tool, it is a valuable tool, but it is a tool. Gini Dietrich: That’s right. Chip Griffin: And it doesn’t mean that you just throw everything out and start over on either side of the agency client relationship. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Yeah, that’s absolutely right. I, I say this all the time, you know, like in other podcasts that I’m being interviewed on or webinars, whatever, the strategy stays the same. The best practices stay the same. The tools have changed and the tools continue to change. The tools have changed dramatically in the last 15 years. Use the tools to make you more effective and more productive. But like I said, the surgeon is still going to charge you what they charge you for brain surgery. Regardless of how fast the imaging is, regardless of how fast you get your MRI results back, like the, it doesn’t matter. Your expertise is over here in the surgeon bucket, not in the imaging bucket. So remember that. Like the, the stuff that you can do just because you’re faster at creating drafts or you’re faster at predicting outcomes or you’re faster at results reporting does not mean that the real value in what you provide in strategy, the creativity, the innovation, the ideas, all of that is what they’re paying for. They’re not paying for the output over here. Chip Griffin: And we need to take ourselves out of the mindset that, that the AI is coming in and so we need to protect what we have. Instead, we should be thinking about how can we elevate, how can we produce more and better results for our clients? How can we be more effective, not just how do we protect our piece of the pie? Keep doing things the way we always have. If you wanna keep doing things the way you always have, yes, you will suffer in this new environment. Absolutely. You absolutely have to grow and adapt and figure out how this helps you. But that’s no different than, as we’ve said before, you know back 30 years ago when we shifted from faxes to emails. Right, right. That made you more efficient in being able to communicate with other people. Yes. You didn’t have to be on the phone. You didn’t have to send a fax. Yes. Or a telegram or any of these kinds of things. And yes, I’m old enough to have received telegrams, so in fact, when I worked on Capitol Hill, we would get a delivery of telegrams on a regular basis. Gini Dietrich: For real? Chip Griffin: For real. For real. It was still a way. In the early 1990s, that was still a way that people communicated with Congress. They would send telegrams to express their opinions. Gini Dietrich: All right. Chip Griffin: You know, I don’t know why, but Gini Dietrich: I hate you. Stop. Please vote differently. Stop. Chip Griffin: I mean, the thing is, today if you, if you mention a telegram, people are like, what is that? They don’t. Gini Dietrich: Right. Right. Chip Griffin: They don’t, they, they, they’ve never even heard of it, you know? Yeah. Fax machine, they can at least maybe kind of halfway visualize. Yeah. I was watching a conversation on TV and there were some young people and, and someone mentioned a modem and, and that was completely beyond anybody. They didn’t have the concept of having to actually dial up to access the internet. Gini Dietrich: Right, right. Chip Griffin: Things like that. But, but I’ll ask before we continue to date ourselves by talking about all of this old technology, we need to think about how to use this new technology in order to improve what we are doing. And it is not simply about, you know, running around and, and telling people what brand of shampoo you use, because that’s how you wanna be transparent to your clients. They may ask you how you’re using AI and you might wanna have a general conversation about it. Gini Dietrich: Absolutely, yes. Chip Griffin: But for God’s sake, you do not need to be sending them an email and saying, by the way, I used AI to proofread this, or I used AI to create the first draft of this. Those are not things, unless there is some specific requirement in your contract, and please do not agree to those. But if there is a specific requirement in the contract or if there’s some special circumstance with the kind of work that’s being done. There’s always the exceptions to the rule, but 99% of you should not feel compelled to do it, and in general shouldn’t do so in detail if asked, because that’s just like telling them what kind of shampoo you use. It just doesn’t matter. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. You know, Sharon Toerek at Legal + Creative has a really good AI toolkit. I can’t remember how much it costs, but for it’s, it’s affordable for agency owners to download it and then understand like, what, and you can pick and choose like. What paragraphs or information you should include in your master standard agreement, what you might wanna include in your statements of work, but it’s, again, it’s not like we use it forever to draft this blog post. It’s really general, like we use AI. We, we use green and yellow information from our clients. We never use critical, confidential, red information ever. You know, it’s general kinds of things that you can insert into those, that documentation to help be transparent that you are using AI, and I think today people are, that’s not a surprise, like everybody’s using it. Right? But not having to, to be really specific about what kind of shampoo you’re using. Chip Griffin: Right. And, and you have to be really careful about this because you have to think about how does this stand up over time? Because you don’t wanna be going and, and having to revise your master services agreement, right? So, so, you know, my general advice as a non-lawyer is that you should put as little as possible to tick the boxes in there. So that you have the flexibility to adjust and adapt and do things differently over time. Because the reality is AI is baked into almost all of the software that we use now. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Yep. Chip Griffin: In one form or another. Yep. Sometimes it’s pretty much just lip service, but a lot of times it’s more substantive. And so, you know, are we now in the business that we’re gonna have to try to disclose every little, you know, we, we use Lightroom to go edit a photo that we’re putting on the website and, and we use it to remove a piece of garbage in the background. Well, that’s technically AI that did that. Do we feel like we need to now go and, and report to the client that we used AI to remove a trash can that was in the background of the environmental portrait that we took, that we’re gonna put on their website? I don’t think so. Gini Dietrich: Right? I don’t think they care. And neither should we. No. And like MuckRack or you know, one of the other media databases, if you use it, there’s AI baked into that. Do you have to say, well, I use a media database and the AI helps me do like that, that’s ridiculous. Should you be transparent about saying you use AI? Of course, but I think to your point, you don’t have to get into the nitty gritty. Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, and, and I think that that saying you use AI is fine, but, you know, getting into the nitty gritty is sort of like explaining to a client, whether you’re using a landline or a mobile phone to reach out to reporters. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. They’re technically different technologies. They, they, the signals get there in very different ways. I could imagine there’s probably some weird client out there who’d rather you didn’t use a cell phone ’cause they don’t want to go on up into the atmosphere and they just want it on the, the hard line, the wires, whatever. It doesn’t matter. So you don’t need to get to that level of detail again. No. You not in, in, in special circumstances, which most of them don’t apply to most of you. Gini Dietrich: Right, right, right, right. Yeah. So I would visit Legal + Creative website and, and look at that AI toolkit. Of course, have a conversation with Sharon if you need something more. Because she’s, she, they work exclusively with, with agencies and are great on that, since you and I are not attorneys. But I do wanna go back to the values based, hourly based, retainer kind of idea that, okay, so if, let’s say for shits and giggles. We, we have a client that’s $5,000 a month, and in the past we would use all of that budget on, you know, executing their webinar, taking the transcript, and creating social assets and blog assets. You know, putting some money behind page to amplify it to get more registrations there. Well, now AI can do most of that, right? Does that mean that we should reduce our retainer or does it mean that there’s probably other things that we could focus on to help that organization’s growth and use the extra retainer for that? Those kinds of things. I think that’s the conversation that you should be having internally and with your clients is, yeah, it’s made us more productive. You know, this list of stuff over here that we haven’t been able to get to because we haven’t had time. Let’s start. Check, check. Checking these off the list. Chip Griffin: I mean, the vast majority of agencies don’t have any shortage of ideas for things that they could Right. Implement with their clients. And, and most clients don’t have any shortage of things that they would like to see their agency do. Right. So, so rather than simply trying to protect what you have and, and doing the bare minimum to fulfill the existing checklist, find ways that you can continue to enhance and improve. And, and I think you mentioned webinars and, and webinars and podcasts are a great example because 10 or 15 years ago, you had to, it took a lot of work and you kind of did the bare minimum to get those things edited, produced, distributed. Nowadays because of AI and, and AI even before, you know, the current AI fad, things like automated transcription that came in mm-hmm. Within the last decade, which now gets classified as AI, didn’t get classified as AI when it was first done. But you know, that’s an argument for another day about how we define things. If you’re able to now produce transcripts, now it’s pretty standard for webinars and podcasts to have a transcript available. Gini Dietrich: Right. Chip Griffin: 15 years ago, you had to pay someone to do it. And so That’s right. It was not the kind of thing that was done routinely and, and now we can produce those kinds of things. We can edit things a lot more easily. The platform that we use for this podcast. It uses AI to do automatic camera switching. For those of you who watch the video, it cleans up the audio so that, you know, we can’t hear all the background noises in our various offices. And, and those are all great things and improve the quality of the product that we’re putting out for you, but also that you can put out for your clients. Focus on those things. Elevate the game. It’s not just about kind of doing the bare minimum. If you do that, absolutely, you’re gonna run into problems, Gini Dietrich: of course, Chip Griffin: but find those other opportunities and say to your clients, you know, here’s something else we can do for you. Here’s a way we can get better results from what we’re already doing. Whether that’s by adding a transcript to it or being faster to get something published, or having the time to go pursue a third webinar or some other brand new idea that you weren’t able to do. That’s how you continue to demonstrate value to your clients, and that’s how you continue to not just protect revenue, but actually grow it. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. And you know, and I’m sure listeners know too, that I’m a big fan of quarterly planning. So instead of doing a big annual plan, you meet with your clients every quarter. You talk about what worked, what didn’t, and what, what things you should focus on for the next quarter. Not only does it help you stay aligned with the business goals more effectively, but it also, in most cases, get, gets you more revenue or more retainer because they’re like, oh, we gotta focus on this. And yeah, they were great results from that. And you’re not having those conversations once a year. You’re having them four times a year. Right. So a big, big fan from that perspective. But I think what that allows you to do from an AI perspective is say, Hey, listen, we’re able to save 25% of our time, and I know this, this, and this, have been on the priority list that have, that keep moving down because of, you know, all these other things. Of these three, what can we bring up to the forefront for the next quarter? And you start to have those conversations where you’re part of the business planning and the business continuity. And the business workflow so that you know, you don’t have the… it happens more effectively and you don’t have to have the, gosh, we’re out of scope, or we overbuilt, we over serviced last year. It’s a, a continuous conversation that happens all between all of you and there’s no conflicts in it, and it’s really strategic and, and clients begin to see you more as, you know, someone they can count on without asking you to reduce your fees because you’re using AI. Chip Griffin: And that ongoing conversation is, is so important. It’s so critical. And one of the things that really bothered me about one of these LinkedIn threads was, was really a very much an an us versus them kind of thing. Yeah. Whether you are on the client side or the agency side, the agencies are looking to protect revenue. The clients are looking to cut costs. Have actual mutual conversations with each other and figure out how you can work together. And I’m not gonna use the word partners because I don’t like that word. Gini Dietrich: I know, I, I avoided it too, because I know you don’t. Chip Griffin: As I have said repeatedly on this show, you are not partners with your clients. You do not share in the risks and rewards. You have similar things. You can be aligned, you can work together. In any case, figure out those ways to work together. If either side of this relationship is viewing it as us versus them. I need to maximize my revenue. I need to maximize my profit, or I need to keep my costs as low as possible. I need to get as much from the agency as possible. That’s not a healthy relationship. No. And that is not gonna lead to the same kind of success where one, where you have regular ongoing conversations and quarterly planning or semi-annual planning, or even annual planning, which a lot of agencies don’t do with their clients ’cause they just charge forward Gini Dietrich: fair Chip Griffin: on autopilot. Yep. And hope that they don’t get noticed and that the revenue keeps coming in the door. So true. I mean, that’s, that’s reality. Yes. I mean, a, a lot of agencies just sort of take that head down attitude because, you know, as, as soon as you poke your head up above the fence line. You know. Yes, there’s the possibility that you can increase the size of your relationship or build or, or strengthen the, the quality of the relationship with your client. But there are also risks involved with that because you’re drawing attention to yourself, and particularly in larger organizations, it can be kind of easy to skate. So sure, I do understand there’s a risk to it, but if you’re having those conversations, you’re more likely to build that strong relationship with more of your clients, which will lead to better results. Even if occasionally putting your head up above the fence line causes a problem. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. And you know when you, when your client is going into meetings with the CFO and they’re saying, we’ve gotta cut X amount of dollars. This agency is a big piece of that. The client stands up for you and stands up for that because they can’t do their job without you. And they know that because of the ongoing relationship and, and that you’ve been building and the ongoing planning that you’ve been doing with them. If you’re just keeping your head down and hoping they don’t notice you year, year after year, it’s gonna be a lot harder for them to stick up for you. Chip Griffin: Absolutely. I mean, and, and I think this is sort of a, a common theme for how I view AI and everything that I do, which is that you’ve gotta have that intersection of the technology from the AI, but the, the human, yes. Not just expertise, but the, the ability to, to engage with other humans. Yes. If you put the best of both of those together, that’s where you will achieve the best results for both sides of the agency client relationship. And ultimately that should be what we’re looking for, right? Right. That if, if you are truly in it to be long-term successful, you want it to work for both sides. And it shouldn’t be one of these things where we’re having constant fights about transparency or pricing or these kinds of things because you know, we’re just looking out for our own self-interests. If you align yourselves well, you will get good things coming to you Gini Dietrich: every time, every single time. So do that Chip Griffin: 99% of the time. Let’s, let’s, let’s admit that, alright, fine. There are times most of the time where you do everything right, everything you know, you, and it just doesn’t work out. Gini Dietrich: Fair. Chip Griffin: That’s life. Gini Dietrich: That’s fair. That is life. Yeah. So I agree Chip Griffin: that’s life. And that’s this podcast Gini Dietrich: 99% of the time. And that’s this podcast. Chip Griffin: So we’ve completed 99% of this podcast with the final 1%. We will sign off. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And it depends.

Chip and Gini discuss the authentic motivations and realities behind agency mission statements and values.

In this episode, inspired by a newsletter from David C. Baker, Chip and Gini discuss the authentic motivations and realities behind agency mission statements and values. They emphasize that many agencies publish values that are either not reflective of their true operations or are overly broad and similar to others. The hosts stress the importance of being honest about the core purpose of a business and aligning public statements with actual behavior. They argue that values should stem from the owner’s true beliefs and actions rather than aspirational ideals. They also caution against spending too much time wordsmithing values for marketing purposes, as clients are more interested in results. The conversation touches on the impact of leadership behavior on agency culture and the pitfalls of misrepresenting agency values. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “The reality is for most agency owners, your mission is to make money for yourself as the owner, to give yourself flexibility to do what you want, when you want. And all of the other things are side benefits of it. You are not running a not-for-profit.” Gini Dietrich: “It’s okay for you to make money. It’s okay for you to be profitable.” Chip Griffin: “Your values are not something that you establish. They’re something that come from your behavior and the behavior of your team and the activities and the clients that you take on.” Gini Dietrich: “You can’t say it because that’s what you want or that’s what you aspire to. You have to be living it.” Resources David C. Baker’s article We're Better than this Value Washing Related Be an agency leader that people want to work for View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And, you know, I wanna talk about the, the mission of this podcast and Okay. What we’re trying to achieve. Gini Dietrich: Okay. Our values, talk about values Chip Griffin: and all of the values that I hold, hold dear that I’m sure you do as well. Mm-hmm. That, that we want to embrace. Mm-hmm. As podcast hosts and purely doing this entirely out of the goodness of our hearts for our community, there’s no marketing benefit to us. There’s no thought leadership benefit. It’s all about you, the listener, and how much free stuff we can give you. Gini Dietrich: I mean, some of it is, but yes, we do get value from it. Chip Griffin: I mean the, the reality is I probably would just come on and talk anyway, even if I wasn’t doing what I’m doing for a business. ’cause it’s just fun. Gini Dietrich: It’s fun. I agree. Chip Griffin: But the reality is, I mean, you, you gotta have some real motivation behind it and it, and for this podcast, it’s marketing our respective brands, both personal and business, and sharing our insights. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: As an agency you also have mission, values, and purpose. Gini Dietrich: Mm-hmm. Chip Griffin: But I can pretty much guarantee you that it’s not aligned with what you’re publishing and sharing with prospects, putting on your website, including in your proposals and all this kind of stuff. And this, this discussion is inspired by an article in David c Baker’s newsletter where he talked about value washing and, and he touched on a, a bit of this, you know, agencies and, and how they present their values. But I want to go further than that because I’m particularly cantankerous today. And I just, I, I kind of get sick to my stomach when I see these, you know, missions and value statements and all that kind of stuff that agencies just love to put out there. Because the reality is for most agency owners, your mission is to make money for yourself as the owner, to give yourself flexibility to do what you want, when you want, from a time commitment standpoint. And all of the other things are side benefits of it. You are not running a not-for-profit. Unless you are a nepo baby with a trust fund, you’re not sitting there purely doing good for others. You have to do good for yourself too. But I gotta tell you, I have yet to see a mission statement for an agency that says anything about that. Gini Dietrich: I’ll share mine ’cause it does. Chip Griffin: Do you publish it publicly though? Gini Dietrich: No, I was gonna say now it’s not public, it’s not on the website, but like internally, everybody, especially on the leadership team, they know exactly what we’re driving toward. They know exactly, and it is not, I mean sure like ethical PR and cri, like doing good from a reputation standpoint and those things for sure. But our mission is to become the best and biggest consulting firm that implements PESO. Well, truth be told, the only one, ’cause nobody else can do it, right? Because we own the copyright. But that, that is our mission. Like that’s what we’re working to achieve. And so, and, and we wanna work with the best and the brightest organizations in the world to do that. That’s our mission. Is it published on our website? Absolutely not. Do our, does our internal team know? Yes. Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, look, I, I think the problem is that we need to start by being honest with ourselves as agency leaders about why we exist and what we’re doing. And it’s fine to want to do some of the nice stuff as part of it. Gini Dietrich: Absolutely. Yes. Chip Griffin: But, but it has to start with an acknowledgement of what the core purpose of the business is. And when you start pretending that it’s that that’s not what it is, that’s where I start to have an issue. And then we start looking at what’s actually said publicly by most agencies about their mission and purpose and all of that. And most of it is so broad, so vanilla, so similar to what everybody else is saying, that it, it’s, it doesn’t really serve a purpose. And I know I’ve, I’ve been part of, of agency conversations where there are, are deep, thoughtful, ongoing conversations about mission, values and purpose. Why? Why? And none of that means that you shouldn’t, you shouldn’t have, you know, a general ambition, an ethical framework, all of those kinds of things. Sure. Yes. But you don’t need to burn a lot of time on it. Gini Dietrich: No. Chip Griffin: And you don’t need to work on wordsmithing it to share with prospects, because I’m gonna let you in on a little secret, your prospects don’t care. Gini Dietrich: They don’t care. Chip Griffin: They are not hiring you because of all of these things that you say, they, they don’t really care. They care about the results you’re getting and how much it costs them. Gini Dietrich: That’s right. Chip Griffin: That’s the only two things they care about. Gini Dietrich: Yes. I just had this very conversation Chip Griffin: and as side benefit that you’re decent to work with. Gini Dietrich: Sure. Of course. That they like that you have chemistry and they like working with you. Yeah. Like they wanna show up, be able to show up to meetings with you and humans like other humans, you know? Right, right. I just had this very conversation with a client because she was stressing about her clients and some changes, and I was like, listen, they don’t care. They don’t care. As long as the work gets done, they’re still getting the same results or better. They don’t care. So. Let’s, I, I understand you’re worried about it. I understand you’re stress, but let’s put that stress somewhere else because this bucket, they don’t care about. As long as you communicate it, the work still gets done. They’re still getting the results that they expect. You’re fine. Let’s put the stress somewhere else. So, as an aside, but I agree with you, like, most of us go into business for ourselves because we know there’s a better way to do it and we wanna make more money. And for me, I have a problem with authority. So. And there may be others that, that feel that as well. Chip Griffin: I think, I think a lot of, of business owners and entrepreneurs are unemployable for that very reason. Gini Dietrich: Correct. Yes. So that that’s why we own businesses and there’s nothing wrong with that. For now, we live in a capitalist country where you can actually make money and it’s okay. It’s okay for you to make money. It’s okay for you to be profitable. It’s okay. Chip Griffin: And, and I mean, profit itself is not a dirty word. Gini Dietrich: No, it’s a great word. I love it. Chip Griffin: There’s a fair argument to be had about is there, is there a point where the profit is too much? Where the compensation is too much? That it, it, it’s a, it’s a worthy debate to have at some point, but I can guarantee you that 99.999999999% of small agency owners don’t need to worry about that. Gini Dietrich: And don’t have enough profit, Chip Griffin: probably a hundred percent, but I’m just being holding open the possibility that there’s just some small agency out there that you know is, is really just rolling in it. Gini Dietrich: And I will add that you probably 99.9999999999% of agencies don’t make enough profit. 5% profit is not enough. Break even is not enough. 10% is not enough. Chip Griffin: Well, particularly when that profit doesn’t even include the owner’s compensation. But that’s an argument that, Gini Dietrich: right. Chip Griffin: That we’ve had ad nauseum on, on this show and that I have ad nauseum with clients as well who, who like to count the profit while paying themselves zero zero. Right. And your profit margin, that does not count. That does not count. But I mean, you know, I, I think we also need to be mindful of the fact that a lot of the, the missions, values, and purpose kind of things that I see out there do not conform to how the agency even operates. So not only are you starting from a point where you’re not acknowledging what your real objectives are, but what you do say may not reflect the reality. And it’s this, this goes along with, you know, when I get asked by agency owners, you know, how do I create an agency culture of X, Y, or Z? What do I need to do to establish this culture? And, and my first piece of advice is always, well, that’s what you need to do first, right? You need to actually be echoing what you’re saying. You need, it needs to reflect what you’re doing, how you behave personally, and that establishes the culture. You don’t say that we have a culture of X, Y, or Z. You don’t say that we have these values and then assume that they just, you know, take root. Your values come about because of what you and your team are actually currently doing internally and externally. Right. It needs to reflect what it is. You can say you want to change it for the future, but it should never be, your value statement should never be an ambition. It should be an accurate reflection of what the reality is. And if you don’t like that reflection of reality, Gini Dietrich: right, then you have to make, Chip Griffin: figure out what you need to change. Gini Dietrich: Right, right. I’m sure I’ve told this story before, but I… As I mentioned, I have a problem with authority and sometimes that includes clients, not often, but occasionally. And we had a client who we loved their marketing team. We loved their chief marketing officer. She’s great. She and I are still friends. She actually lives down the street. Their CEO though was not a good guy. And I remember him coming to a meeting with us unexpected. He, he was not expected to be there, and he shows up to this meeting because he’s mad that the website copy doesn’t reflect the culture that he wants. And I had this conversation with him about it. He’s like, well, I want to like demonstrate that we do rooftops for Cubs games on Friday afternoons and we have a beer cart and like all of these things. And I was like, but do you do that? And he’s like, well, no, I expect them to work 12 hours a day. We don’t do that. And I was like, well, we can’t say that and then not have you with that. And he, I, we actually ended up parting ways with that client be because of this. Because he would not, I mean, he got very aggressive and unprofessional with me about it, but I wouldn’t step down either because I was like, no, like you can’t, you can’t say. And he kept saying, but then we’ll get the brightest and the best that come in and wanna work here. And I was like, yeah. And then they’ll leave because all the things you promised them aren’t true. And he just, we, he and I could not, and we were butting heads big time. But I think you’re right. Like you can’t. You have to live the culture that you want to demonstrate, that you wanna talk about, that you wanna publicly put on your website before you can actually do those things. And if you, you’re absolutely right too, that if, if you want to have a culture where you do rooftops for Cubs games every Friday afternoon or when they’re in town, or you have a beer cart or wherever it happens to be, great. Do those things first and then you can start to talk about it. Chip Griffin: And, and I would also, I would go so far as to say that in a lot of agencies when I look at their published list of values or whatever, that a lot of times, not all the time, but a lot of times those are actually some of their biggest weaknesses. So when I see an agency that talks about how they value their team members, to your point, there’s a better than even chance that they’ve got some team morale issues. And they’re trying to spin it for themselves and make them feel like, you know, we, we are actually valuing it, but they’re not doing the things that they need to do in order to actually achieve that. Gini Dietrich: Right. Chip Griffin: Another pet peeve of mine and, and all, I, I would say this one is more often than not, when I see an agency’s website talk about the importance of ethics, that is almost always a red flag for me. Because I think the vast majority of the time that I’ve seen anything about ethical behavior, there’s a, a really, really strong chance that there is some variety of unethical behavior taking place. Gini Dietrich: I agree. Yes, I agree with you. Chip Griffin: And it’s definitely in the category of me thinks you doth protest too much. Gini Dietrich: Correct. Yes. I absolutely think you’re right. Yeah. I have a theory about that, which I will not share here, but yes, I agree with you. That’s, that is definitely what’s happening. Yeah. It’s kind of like when you read job descriptions and it says things like, energetic employee candidates that don’t mind long hours. Like, you know, and you start to read between the lines where it’s like, we want 22 year olds who we can’t afford to pay and we expect to work 12 hours a day. And like, those are the things to read between the lines. Right? Yeah. Those are the kinds of things that you, that I, I think people are getting really smart too in these days where, especially Gen Z, they’re like, yeah, I’m, I’m not putting up with that. I understand what you’re trying to say. And so I, I think, you know, just when, and we’re from my perspective as a communicator and I from, that’s the lens I look at things like if you’re going to communicate something, you have to absolutely live it. You can’t say it because that’s what you want or that’s what you aspire to. You have to be living it. Chip Griffin: And you’ve just given me a great idea for a future episode, it would be fun to just take a blind list of job descriptions, job listings. Gini Dietrich: Oh, we should totally do that. Chip Griffin: in the agency world and, and translate for people what what is actually being said there, because it’s sort of like real estate listings. You know, when it, when it says cozy, it means super tiny. Gini Dietrich: Right? Chip Griffin: When it says lots of potential, it means it would fail every code inspection possible. And, and there are a lot of those kinds of things that I do see in agency job descriptions that, that immediately tell you, this is a sweatshop. Yep. You, you are, this is gonna be a miserable place, or Gini Dietrich: we really don’t value our employees. Chip Griffin: Right. Or, or, you know, your role here is to sit down, shut up, and do exactly what you’re told. Yep. And there are a lot of things in job descriptions that often make it pretty clear what’s really going on. And it’s usually because they ran some past employee into the ground and they said, well, the way we’re gonna solve this is we’re just gonna tell them what they need to do upfront. And they don’t ever look in the mirror to see if their management style, if their behavior as, as leaders, as owners, as whatever contributed to it. And so, your values are not something that you establish. They’re something that, that come from your behavior and the behavior of your team and the activities and the clients that you take on, right? And, and you can’t be putting things out there that don’t reflect reality because people figure it out and it just makes it worse. So if you say that, you know, you’re looking for a diverse workforce and you don’t actually have one, that’s a problem. And I think David C. Baker specifically, I forget whether it was the same newsletter or a different one, where he singled out agencies that talk about a diverse workforce, but then you look and they, they have diversity in some ways, but not others. Gini Dietrich: It’s all, it’s all white young women. Chip Griffin: They all think alike. And, and, and that’s not, that’s not what you are actually, you, you’re saying something that doesn’t reflect reality. And so you need to understand why that is and whether perhaps you should make a different claim. Perhaps it’s not something that you want to actually make a claim about anymore. Perhaps you need to change your behavior so that it, you know, more closely mirrors it what there are things that you need to do. But the, the bottom line for me is just that so much of this is rubbish out there and so much of it doesn’t reflect reality. And so much of it is a wish that is, is not rooted in what is actually going on. And if we do not understand what our actual mission, values, and purpose are as a business, we have no business making public claims that don’t back that up. Gini Dietrich: Right. Absolutely. And I think that you, you started to make this point, but I think it’s incredibly important for us as agency owners to understand that the values are derived from us personally, because we are the ones who are driving all of that. So if you are, if you are living things that you believe are important, that’s going to come across whether or not you put it in writing, right? So. I think that’s, I think it’s really important for us to remember that. And if your values, if you’re trying to create a value for the agency that you may not mirror or don’t agree with, it’s not gonna work. It’s just not going to work. So really understand that until you get to a certain size, and I would say it’s big, like it’s not 20 employees. It’s big lots and lots and lots of employees. Your values are derived from you personally. And that’s what you have. If you’re going to be thinking about this and you’re going to be publishing values and you’re going to say to your team, these are our values, really look inward to understand what your values are and what you stand for, because that’s what’s going to drive the, the business as well. Chip Griffin: And again, it’s what you actually stand for, not what you wish or hope, Gini Dietrich: right. Chip Griffin: That you stood for. Gini Dietrich: Right. Chip Griffin: And, and I think that’s where we often get lost. Because we wanna sit down and we wanna put down a list of values of, of things that we aspire to. But that is very different from what, what we’re actually doing now in most cases. Yep. There, there are times where we’ve already reached all our aspirations. Fine. Okay. If, if that’s you, kudos to you. You’re not, you don’t need to listen anymore of this episode. If you are like most of us, where you have aspirations that are beyond where you are at today, you need to understand where you’re at today first. Yes. And you need to acknowledge that and work from that basis. And, and to your point, it all does start with the owner. Yep. I would say. Even in the largest independently owned agencies. So we’ll take the holding companies out of it, but Yep. But if you found the largest independently owned, no matter how many hundreds of employees they may have, it still is derived from the owner themselves. And the reason for that is because what you model for your behavior, your direct reports will then model to their direct reports. That’s right. And so on. That’s right. And so if you are a micromanager, there’s a better than even chance that your own managers are gonna be micromanagers because it’s what they see. It’s what they believe is expected of them. Yep. And particularly in the agency world, in the small agency world where most managers don’t have any real experience before their current management role that you’ve given them, they will absolutely mirror your behavior. So if you yell at them, they’ll yell at their team members. If you’re inspiring, they’re more likely to be inspiring. Yep. You’ve got to be looking in the mirror more often and, and understanding that and not putting out all of this stuff that just, you know, reads like traditional marketing speak about your own business. Because nobody cares at all, but nobody cares, particularly if it’s not accurate. Gini Dietrich: You know what I will challenge everyone to do and it won’t take you very long, but take all of the URLs for the websites of the agencies that you admire and, and then your own, and throw them into AI, your AI tool choice, and ask it to create a chart of what the values are. And what they, what, which, what, what each agency says they deliver. And have the AI create a chart so you can see side by side comparisons. And I will guarantee you, to your point Chip, it’ll guarantee you that nobody is different. You can take that then and go, oh, geez, okay, now we get, we have some work to do, but really let’s not focus on our values, our mission, and our our vision statements for the website. Let’s focus on our true differentiators. it’s not results driven and ethical. And yes, because those things, we all do those things. What makes you truly different? Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and they’ll all tell you by the way that their teams are their differentiator. Yes. Because that’s Gini Dietrich: mm-hmm. Chip Griffin: Every agency loves to say that, but. It’s not possible. Gini Dietrich: Results driven. Team. Yep. Our people. Yep. They all our team. Yep. That, that’s exactly what they’ll all say. Chip Griffin: Our, it’s all about our people. Gini Dietrich: Okay. Do the work I wanna see. And then sending your results. Chip Griffin: Please do. And maybe, maybe then we could have an episode where we walk through some of that and find out that they’re all exactly the same. Gini Dietrich: They’re all exactly the same Chip Griffin: that everybody has submitted to us. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: But yeah, in any case, I think that’s probably enough beating up on people today. We do this a lot now, maybe we need to be a little bit, we do, yeah. Kinder and gentler to the agency community. Gini Dietrich: It’s okay, Chip Griffin: but you know some someone’s gotta speak truth to it. Gini Dietrich: That’s right. Chip Griffin: And that’s what we do. So on that note, we’ll wrap this episode up. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And it depends.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss a Reddit post about an agency leader going MIA and the repercussions for the team.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss a Reddit post about an agency leader going MIA and the repercussions for the team. They elaborate on the importance of communication, perception, and flexibility for agency owners. The conversation includes personal anecdotes from both hosts, highlighting the need for frequent touchpoints, setting clear expectations, and maintaining a balance between taking personal time and being present for the team. They also stress the significance of transparency during challenging times and the benefits of empowering employees to reduce bottlenecks. Key takeaways Gini Dietrich: “As an owner, I think that you absolutely should be taking time to do things that you’re passionate about. But not at the expense of the business, or of your employees.” Chip Griffin: “If it’s industry events that are causing you to be absent, make sure that the team understands why and how that fits into the bigger picture.” Gini Dietrich: “If you’re consistently having weekly one-to-one meetings, if you’re consistently communicating with them, these things will be mitigated just by the mere fact that you’re talking to your team.” Chip Griffin: “And just as important as talking with your team, you’ve got to listen to them.” Related Weekly 1:1 meetings make a big difference for your agency Building trust and letting your team shine View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. What is happening? Chip Griffin: That effect really only works if you’re watching this. Gini Dietrich: I don’t know what just happened. Chip Griffin: I, I slid off screen. I went MIA. Gini Dietrich: Oh my gosh. So I don’t even, that was, that was, I think, the best, the best intro we’ve ever had. You just left the screen. And even though I knew what the topic was, I was like, what is happening right now? Chip Griffin: So it’s just, it’s my way of encouraging listeners to become viewers because. It just, it completely loses the impact of, if you only listened to that portion of it. I, I don’t know how much impact you have, but from watching it either, but, you know, at least it’s, at least you understand what’s going on. Gini Dietrich: He literally just left the screen. Chip Griffin: I left the screen. But no, we are, we are, we were inspired by a Reddit post and we haven’t gone to the Reddit well for quite some time. Gini Dietrich: We haven’t, no. Yeah. Chip Griffin: So we decided to go back to Reddit and see what people were talking about. And so there is a relatively recent thread there where an agency employee says the principle of their firm has gone completely MIA, leaving them to do all of the work and feeling abandoned by the owner. That seems like a worthy topic to be discussing. Gini Dietrich: I feel like the answer is don’t. Don’t do that. Don’t ghost your business or your employees. Chip Griffin: Don’t ghost your business. And here we go, we’re done. Thanks for listening. Gini Dietrich: The end. Don’t do that. Chip Griffin: No, but I, I think it’s, it is, as owners, we sometimes overlook how our actions can be perceived by those who work for us. So it’s, it’s not necessarily being completely MIA, which obviously we would discourage. But your general availability, for example, can play into your team’s perceptions or your client’s perceptions of what your business is like. Absolutely, and we all, we certainly encourage owners to take all of the, the freedom that comes with being a business owner, don’t just take on all of the risk and stress. And so you need to have flexibility. And you shouldn’t feel compelled to, to necessarily, you know, work 9 to 5 every day exactly. You should absolutely build some flexibility in to what you do because that is honestly one of the perks of being an owner. and absolutely, increasingly a perk of being an employee these days. But, you know, that’s a conversation for a separate day. You know, so, but we also have to be mindful of how this can be perceived, particularly by our team members, but also our clients. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I think you, you’re absolutely right, like taking advantage of the flexibility that you can build in for yourself is one of those things. And I think there are lots of agency owners who do things like maybe they’re giving back to the industry by teaching, or perhaps they’re volunteering for PRSA or IABC or one of those, right? Or, you know, doing something like that that may be tangentially related to what we do, but not taking, taking you away from the business. And I think that those are things are good. I think that you absolutely, those are things that you’re passionate about, that you should absolutely be doing those things. But not at the expense of the business or, or of your employees. Because if, if your employees are feeling like they’re running the agency and they can’t get you to make decisions or to have one-to-ones or be present, that’s a problem. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And look, I mean, this is something that I have struggled with a lot over the years. Not because I just go off and sit in the mountains and, you know, hike and relax and all that kind of stuff. It’s, it’s because I’ve often been running more than one business. Mm-hmm. And so, inevitably one of them will typically get busier than another. And so those involved in the ones that are less busy at the moment may feel abandoned at times, by me. And so I, it’s something I’ve had to be particularly aware of and making sure that, that I’m safeguarding against being too absent from a particular business. Sometimes you’ve got a business in, in my case, I would’ve, businesses that were running really well and smoothly and the team was executing and so I didn’t feel like I needed to be there. But the perception can be very different from the team side, right? Where they feel like, well, why are you ignoring us? Right? And the answer might be, because you’re doing such a great job, I don’t really need, I don’t need, yeah. To be there and I’m not adding the value. But unless you’re communicating that to them, they don’t know that. So I think there’s, there’s two things you need to be mindful of here. One is the perception, and two is your communication strategy around what you’re doing. If it’s industry events and things like that that are causing you to be absent, make sure that the team understands why and how that fits into the, the bigger picture. Because that makes it easier for them to understand and less likely for them to think, oh, well, Chip’s just on another junket. Here he goes, you know, he, he’s off to San Diego or Miami and you know, it’s the middle of the winter. Of course he is. Why not? And, and, those are things that are, that are important to factor in because it can have a meaningful impact on your team’s performance. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when I was on book tour both times, I was absent from the business every week. I mean, one, I think 2014 I traveled 50 weeks out of the year. So it was extremely hard for me to be on book tour and speaking and business development while also running the business. And my employees. I am fairly confident, felt the, felt the brunt of that. And I don’t think I probably handled it the best way either. I probably shouldn’t have taken on that much travel. It helped the business grow significantly for sure, because I was also doing business development as part of it, but they definitely felt abandoned in that they were running the agency in my absence. And that I was just off traveling the world and having a great time and Right. That was their perception. Right. So I think you do, I think communicating that is right and there are certain things that you still have to do. Like I should have, continued with one-to-ones. And because I was traveling and I was speaking and all that, I just sort of let those slide. I should have continued with all team meetings at least biweekly, if not weekly. So I, I let those things slide because I was traveling and I was exhausted and you know, in many cases I was around the world and so time zones were, were crappy too. But I think that’s right. I think that’s the right approach is that you still have to do certain things. If, if you’re quote unquote, abandoning your agency because you’re doing something else that may or may not be helpful for the agency, or be because you want you, you’re taking advantage of flexibility, which is fine too. Communicate that, but also continue sort of the process things like one-to-one, right, so that people feel like you’re still involved. Chip Griffin: Yeah. I think that’s key is, is putting in that bit of additional effort to show some sense of normalcy to the rest of the team when you’re, you’re doing those kinds of things. And you know, I suspect that if, if we talked to the owner of, of this person’s agency, they probably wouldn’t describe themselves as MIA. They would probably describe themselves as busy with a variety of different things, some of which may be beneficial to the agency directly or indirectly or, or what have you. Or, or they may say, as I did, You’ve got this, I don’t need to be there. Mm-hmm. But making sure that you have those regular touch points with your team can certainly help. I think the other thing to keep in mind is that, and we’ve talked about this before, is that you do have to lead by example. And that means also understanding how the example you are setting is received by your team. So for example, if part of your perception of being MIA is that, that you disappear a couple afternoons a week for your kids’ sporting events. If you are not enabling your team to do that, maybe not with the same frequency, but at least periodically. That can lead to a real disconnect because why is it okay for you and not for me? And look, there, there are certainly things that are okay for the owner to do and not for employees to do. Yes, yes. But the more of those things that happen, the more frequently with which they happen, the larger the gap is between what you can do and what your team can do, the more it tends to underscore things. And, and so you do need to be mindful of that perception because your team will often magnify things beyond what you even realize. And that can then lead to morale issues and, and other things that, that can crop up. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I think that’s right. You know, I, am most productive really early in the morning. My brain is really fresh and works really well creatively in the morning. So I get up and I work early in the morning just on the, like, the stuff that takes thinking and deep thought, deep work kinds of things. Then I, you know, do the kid thing and I get school off, get ’em off to school and all that, and then I come home and I work out. So. I am at my desk really early, but then not again until 9:30 or 10. And for a while there people didn’t think that was fair. And I was like, okay, well I’ll see you at 4:30 in the morning then. Right, right, right. But what I discovered that after I got over my smart assness. Is that really giving them the opportunity to do those things throughout the day. As long as their work gets done and they’re meeting deadlines and you know, all of the things that matter, and clients aren’t requesting their time, then that’s fine. So I have one person who leaves at 1:50 every day. He goes to the gym at 2, he’s back by 3:15. Okay. That’s totally fine, because he’s doing his job, he’s getting his work done. So giving them the same level of flexibility that you feel comfortable with, I think is an important thing to be able to do as well, because then they don’t feel like you’re getting all this, these advantages and they’re not. Chip Griffin: Right. And I, and I think that it’s important to, to factor these things even more during tough times for your agency. So, you know, if, if the, the business is struggling and so you’ve, you know, maybe you’ve cut back on resources in order to, to save expense. And so maybe you’re asking your team to do a little bit more. That’s the wrong time for you to be perceived to be doing a bit less. Gini Dietrich: Right, right. Chip Griffin: Or, or immediately after layoffs. You know, you show up with a brand new Ferrari or something like that, Gini Dietrich: perhaps Chip Griffin: a bit tone deaf. And, and again, it, it doesn’t necessarily mean that, you know, if you’ve gone through tough times, or are going through tough times as an agency that. That you, you know, you have to, you know, appear to be a pauper. That is not, that is not what I’m telling you. However, you do need to, to understand what the perception will be if you all of a sudden go on a two week vacation to the Alps while you’re taking away resources from your team and making them work, you know, 50, 60 hours a week just to make ends meet within the business. And, and those are not the kinds of things that you wanna do because it does make it appear as if you have abandoned, not necessarily the business, but at least the team members. And that is not how you get the best performance. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I think the tone deafness and the, the perception piece of this is extraordinarily important. So I, we have a client who about two years ago had to lay off… It was about 35% of their team. And right before they did it, their CEO went on a three week European cruise, all around Europe was gone for three weeks and then he came home and did this. And I remember saying to him, this is a bad idea. Let’s either do it before you go. Or let’s wait a month or six weeks after you get back, like right after you get back is a bad idea. He did not listen, he did it as soon as he got back. He didn’t wanna do it before and he couldn’t wait, and so he did it as soon as he got back and there was one person who, let’s just say rightfully so threw that in his face when he let him go, and then they ended up suing. And I don’t know, it’s, you know, I don’t know if that that person will win that, that suit lawsuit, but you’re still having to go through the process of being sued and, you know, having to provide documentation and things like that. And, you know, he could still take the vacation, he could still take the three week cruise. Sure. Right. But the, the timing of it is what was a problem. And so I think we have to really think about that. I think we have to think about, you know, what kind of car we drive and, you know, if people know what kind of home we live in. And, you know, certainly we have those advantages because we own the company. But at the same time, there are things that people perceive, rightly or wrongly about how you’re running the business and how they’re being treated when, when they have that kind of information about you. Chip Griffin: Right. And it’s, it’s not about, you know, living your, your life differently necessarily, right? Because of these things. It’s, it’s, it’s the awareness of them, right? And trying to figure out, you know, how to, how to either communicate around it or make other decisions that, that don’t make it worse at least. And, and preferably even mitigate it to some degree. And, and this is obviously not the topic for today’s show, but you know, whenever you’ve got bad news for your team, don’t sit on it. Gini Dietrich: Right. Chip Griffin: I mean, you, you, you’ve gotta get it out there because people will find out, and, and the sooner that people have bad news, the easier it is for them to make a course correction because of it. And, and the more that you sit on it, if you know that you’re going to have to lay somebody off, just get it done right. Just get it done Gini Dietrich: right. Chip Griffin: Anytime you’ve got bad news, it, it, it stresses you out. It stresses them out. If they find out that you knew it a month ago, two months ago and didn’t tell them so. Just rip that bandaid off and, and move ahead with it. But again, not, not really the topic for today’s conversation, but I, I feel remiss if I don’t make that point. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I think you’re right. I mean, it’s, it goes to your point earlier, right? Which is communicate, communicate, communicate, communicate. And if you’re having consistent touch bases, you know, you and I both, both believe in weekly one-to-ones. If you’re consistently doing that, if you’re consistently communicating with them, these things will be mitigated just by the fact, the mere fact that you’re talking to your team. So ensure that you’re doing those things even while you’re doing some of the other things that you might be passionate about or, you know. Have, are enjoying the flexibility with, because that’s the right thing. You know, some people to your point, want to be at their kids’ events and you know, school is not made for working parents. So sometimes that means 2:45 to 5 is they’re gone. Right. You also don’t see them working late into the night or early in the morning because you’re not at your desk at that time. So you have to understand there are things that, that those owners are going to do to, to quote unquote, make up the time where maybe our employees don’t see that. So communicate, just talk to them, tell them what’s going on. Chip Griffin: Yep. Yeah. And, and it’s, you know, just as important it’s to, to talk with ’em. You’ve got to listen to them. Right? Right. Because again, to my point that this owner probably would not describe themselves as MIA, you need to be, you know, tuned into your team so that you can pick up on perhaps that’s the perception. So if, if you finding that they’re saying, Hey, you know, I, I’m not getting the answers I need, or I’m not getting the information I need, or when do you think you might actually be around for this? Or, you know, kind of listen to some of those things and particularly the tone of some of those things and, and key into them so that you can spot some of these issues before they really become major problems for you to deal with. Because if, if you can sense from these conversations and through the listening that there are things that need to be addressed, you can take care of it a lot easier now than you can six months down the road when it reaches a boiling point. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s, that’s the exact correct thing to do. And you know, I think if your employees are feeling like they’ve been ghosted or abandoned, that’s, that is definitely a you issue. And that needs to be solved pretty fast. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And you, and you’ve gotta encourage the team to open up to you as much as possible. Sure. I mean, you do sign the paycheck, so you’ve gotta be realistic about how much candid feedback and such you’ll get. But one of the things that, that I have always encouraged my team members to do is to, to feel free to beat me about the head and shoulders if I’m not getting them what they need in a timely enough fashion. And do I believe that they will consistently do that? No. The vast majority of the employees I’ve had haven’t done that consistently, but they know it’s an option to them, so they do tap into that. As and when needed. I’ve had a handful of employees who are actually really good about it, and by really good, I mean, really kind of annoying about it because like the minute I was a minute late in getting them the feedback that I had promised, I, you know, get the, the knock on my, my office door. Hey, you know, I, I need this. But frankly, that was helpful, right? It, it, at least it was, it was direct. It got them what they needed and, and so you need to be listening for those cues so that you can spot them and, and hopefully try to improve your own behavior in that going forward. Whether that’s by setting different expectations of the timeliness with which you can get to it because you’re traveling, because you’ve got these other commitments or whatever. Or simply by, you know, being a little bit quicker to turn those things around. Gini Dietrich: Yes. That is one of the most, I think that’s one of the most challenging things is that piece of it is being the bottleneck on, on certain kinds of things. So. Figuring out ways to communicate that effectively. And sometimes you promise something, like, I could promise something to you by Wednesday, but I don’t know, based on what my schedule is right at this moment. Right, right. But there’s gonna be client things that come up. There are gonna be HR issues that come up that I am not at all expecting, and all of a sudden my whole week is thrown into chaos where there’s no physically possible way I can now get it to you by Wednesday because of all this other stuff and some of that I can’t communicate to the employee. Right? Right. So I just have to say like, some things came up. I’m really sorry. Can I get an extra 48 hours? Or whatever it happens to be. Right? So I think those are the kinds of conversations we have to be really understanding about, because the perception is that you’re just ignoring them and you’re sitting at your desk drinking wine and painting your toenails. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I stopped painting my toenails a few years ago. But anyway, so, you know, but I think that along those lines, I think it’s, it’s important for you, excuse me, to, to be clear about what you actually need to be a bottleneck on. And so sometimes this can be a useful exercise to say, do I really need to, to review and approve this? Do I really need to edit this? If not, maybe that’s something that you can pass off. And so maybe the way that you solve some of those things is by passing it along and saying, you’ve got the authority to handle this now. I completely trust you on this. I don’t need to see this. You take it, you run with it. And, and I’ve often used those situations where I’m becoming an increasing bottleneck to try to figure out how do we change the process. So that I’m not. Either by involving me at a different stage or just taking me out of it altogether. Yep. Because, and that’s particularly true when I would find things where I was consistently just saying, yep, this is good. Yep, this is good. And, and I, and I didn’t feel the need any longer to keep going through that. And so you need to find those things, but also communicate why you are taking yourself outta that process. Because if you just take yourself out of it. That’s where you look like you’re going MIA. Right? If you say, look, I completely trust your judgment you’re doing, I don’t need to see this and you should usually include the caveat unless you want me to look at something, right? Because sometimes someone just feels more confident about, maybe there’s something they’re putting out and they just, they want your set of eyes on it. They just, they want that perspective. Sure. Don’t discourage them from doing that, but let them know that on a routine basis, that’s not necessary. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I think that’s really important too. So I think there are a few good takeaways from this, that this is not necessarily the, the topic of the day, but you know, breaking up that bottleneck, ensuring that your team is, is you’re consistently running the business from like a process perspective. I think that’s really smart. Communicating effectively is really smart. There was one other that you said our top, the podcast wasn’t about that I thought was really good. Shoot. Chip Griffin: Well, the beauty is people have the recording you, you can just hit rewind, go backwards. They can look at the transcript that Jen puts up on the website. I do that sometimes as well just to see what I said. Right. Figure, figure out, you know, so I’m consistent ish in my advice that I give. So, but in any case. Hopefully you have some, some things that you can use as tools so that you’re not perceived as MIA or if you have to be MIA. How to communicate more effectively and work with your team on it. And lots of bonus tips in here as well, because we just can’t help ourselves and we’ll follow whatever path we might find we do over the course of the conversation, at least after I come back on camera and on work so that I can participate. So with that, I’m gonna go, I guess I’m not MIA because you know that we’re wrapping up and so it will make sense when I leave at the end of this. But I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And it depends.

In this episode, Chip and Gini address a listener’s question about the opportunities for growing an agency through outbound sales. They discuss the challenges of outbound sales, particularly in a small agency environment, and highlight the importance of building relationships and a strong brand. Both suggest that agency owners focus on networking and proactive relationship-building rather than traditional cold calling. They emphasize a multi-faceted approach to business development that includes content marketing, warm introductions, and maintaining an active online presence. Ultimately, they advocate for a shift in mindset from outbound sales to relationship cultivation to achieve sustainable agency growth. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “It’s sort of the dream that you can just go hire somebody and they’ll bring prospects in and as the owner, you’ll close them. But I cannot think of a single situation that I’ve seen that work for a small agency.” Gini Dietrich: “When you run a small agency, you are the salesperson.” Chip Griffin: “I think far too often we don’t do enough as agency leaders to share our viewpoints using the various platforms that we have. That’s a huge missed opportunity because that is how you set yourself apart from others.” Gini Dietrich: “Instead of it being about outbound sales, which I think is scary to a lot of us, think about it as networking and building relationships and being top of mind.” Related Content, consistency, and conversions for agency biz dev (featuring Lee McKnight Jr.) Business development mistakes agencies make and how to solve them (featuring Jody Sutter) Getting agency business development right (featuring Dan Englander) Business development for agency owners who hate sales View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, today we have a question from a listener that we thought we would answer. Gini Dietrich: Woohoo listener questions. I love it. Chip Griffin: We like it when people listen to us and we like it when people ask us questions, so Gini Dietrich: that is true. Chip Griffin: We’ll cater to that today. Gini Dietrich: Shall I read said question? Chip Griffin: You shall read, said question. Gini Dietrich: Maybe I’ve just missed it when you’re covering this in your podcast, but what opportunity do you see for growing an agency through outbound sales? When I’ve listened to your podcast, I get the impression that you’re more in line of thinking that in the agency world, it’s more about becoming known and then they will contact you when they have a need. It’s super good question. Chip Griffin: First of all, I appreciate the very dramatic reading of that question. Welcome that you just gave us. Gini Dietrich: You’re welcome. Thank you. I practiced. Chip Griffin: You practiced. Gini Dietrich: Practiced. I did. Chip Griffin: In your head, because we just saw that question a short time ago. Gini Dietrich: I read it out loud once before this. Chip Griffin: You did, you read it out loud one time and I said that sounds like a good question to address and so we shall. So outbound sales, what do we think about that, Gini? Gini Dietrich: Well, I will say. In my experience, it is challenging to do that. I’ve hired, and maybe, maybe we should separate this into two pieces, which is hiring people to do outbound sales for your agency versus you. And then whether or not it works. But I’ll say it, it is challenging and I have found that it’s… That you have to be top of mind and you have to build a brand, and you have to build relationships, and you have to network so that when there is a need, they come to you first, right? Because not everybody’s going to have a need. All the time, every month or every week to hire an agency. So I have found that inbound marketing and you know, all of the things that you’re doing to build your brand and network and, and be top of mind are the things that work the best. That’s not to say outbound sales doesn’t help with that, but it is more challenging I think for what we do for a living than just, you know, other businesses that can hire sales teams that just make cold calls. Chip Griffin: Yeah, and I, I think that that part of this, as you suggest, does come down to, to how we’re defining what outbound sales is, because there’s what outbound sales is, there’s who is doing it. I, I think the, the either outsourced outbound sales or the hired outbound salesperson. I, I really haven’t ever seen that work in a small agency environment. It’s sort of the dream that you can just go hire somebody and they’ll, you know, they’ll, they’ll bring people in and you’ll just, as the owner, you’ll close them. But I, I, I cannot think of a single situation that I’ve seen that work in for a small agency. I’m sure it has. So, I’m, I’m, and I’m sure that, that some listener is gonna say, well, it worked for me. Great. It, there are certainly those cases, but it is, it is uncommon that you can have someone else who’s doing your sales and it is all outbound and it actually has results. So let’s, let’s dismiss that piece of it. But you as the owner, I think there is a role for outbound sales, depending on how you describe it. Gini Dietrich: Right. Chip Griffin: And, and to me it’s less about outbound sales and it’s more about outbound building of new relationships. Mm-hmm. And I think that there is absolutely a case to be made for you to be proactively trying to generate relationships. With new people as opposed to just waiting for them to come to you based off of the content that you’re putting out on social or your blog or your email or that kind of thing. But to me it’s, it’s not, I don’t think of that necessarily as sales in the purest sense, because to me, I think when you talk about outbound sales, that really is trying to go to someone and try to, to generate the need for a conversation around sales. And that shouldn’t be what it is because that is rarely to your point, the case because timing isn’t right many of the times. Gini Dietrich: Right. Yeah, I think, I think you’re right. I think it depends. Like if you told me I had to sit down and make cold calls to our target audience, it, it would just never happen. I would never do that. That’s considered outbound sales. Like I have a niece. Sure. That’s what she does. She works for an agency. A large, large agency and they have in-house sales reps that call. Constantly. That’s what they do. That’s what she does, and she’s fairly successful at it. But that is not, never, never anything that I would do myself, right? Just because I’m not comfortable with it and it’s never the structure that I would place inside my agency. So that is what I would consider outbound sales. I don’t consider networking and building relationships and ensuring that we are top of mind when they’re ready to make a decision or when they’re ready to hire outbound sales, even though, I guess technically it is. I would consider that more networking and relationship building, right? So I think you’re right that you have to define what that means, but all of those things have to happen. And when you run a small agency, you are the salesperson. Yes. Whether or not you have somebody helping you, you are, you are the salesperson, and my CFO says this to me all the time. He’s like, your job, you have two things to do. Build the brand. Direct the revenue. Build the brand, direct the revenue, build the brand, direct the revenue. And I’m always like, so anytime I go to do something, he’s like, is that building the brand or directing revenue? And if it’s neither of those two things, I have to delegate it. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And I mean that’s a, that is a reasonable viewpoint to have. Mm-hmm. And I think that… I mean, look, I think cold calling is for, even for large agencies, I wouldn’t generally encourage it, but I suppose at some point you’re large enough that you can just throw dollars at it and it doesn’t even matter. Right. And you know, you’ve got enough of a brand reputation to begin with that, you know, perhaps that will shake some things loose. But you know, anytime you’re doing outbound, I would always prefer it to be more targeted than traditional cold calling. You know, not just getting a list out of some list broker and just working from top to bottom. Instead, you, you wanna reach out with personalized outreach to folks and, and leverage that. And I think if you’re doing that kind of outbound and it’s, and it’s designed to build new relationships either for people who can refer a business to you or who might become a client at some point. I think that’s a, a useful portion of your business development mix. I don’t think it should simply be throw content out there and wait for the phone to ring, because that can work. But, you know, doing more to fuel it yourself is beneficial. I, it, to me, that’s just not, that is not classic outbound sales in the way that most people would think of it. And if you went and hired someone to do outbound sales for you, they would likely be thinking of it. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, that’s absolutely right. Yeah, I think it’s, if you can be thinking about how do I build relationships. How do I get introductions, warm introductions to people that I want to meet? How do I nurture those leads through content and through speaking engagements and webinars and things like that? And how do I stay top of mind? That’s from an agency perspective, I think those are the right things to focus on. Chip Griffin: Yeah, and to the extent you’re doing any kind of outbound, whether it’s outbound sales, outbound networking, whatever you wanna call it, it is helpful to have a visible online footprint to refer back to. Gini Dietrich: Yes it is mm-hmm. Chip Griffin: So that when someone googles you to look you up or clicks a link, they, they not only see who you are and understand a bit about your background, but they also understand your perspectives. And I think far too often we, we don’t do enough as agency leaders, generally speaking, to share our viewpoints using the various platforms that we have. That’s a huge missed opportunity because that is how you set yourself apart from others. That is how you demonstrate your expertise before you even have the first meaningful conversation with a prospect and, and they start to get to know you that way. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, absolutely. I think, yes. I mean, it is wonderful when somebody calls and says. We, you know, we’ve been reading your blog or we’ve, we found your article, or we follow your LinkedIn newsletter, or whatever it happens to be. It’s wonderful when those things happen, but you can’t predict it. And I think that’s the hardest thing about growing an agency is that you can’t predict growth if you’re solely reliant on referrals. So you have to be more proactive about it so that you can say, okay, like we, we set very aggressive goals every year and usually it’s a revenue number, but it’s also a number of new clients. And then we kind of, we break that down, right? So I know exactly who I need to be talking to, who I need warm introductions to, what kinds of meetings I need to be having, what kinds of content I should be sending or creating to stay top of mind with those people. And that’s how you begin to predict your growth a little bit versus just waiting for the phone to ring, which I’ll admit was the way I grew my agency in the beginning. Right? And it was very slow growth. Like that’s, we would wait and sometimes some years were great because the phone rang many times and some years were terrible because the phone didn’t ring at all. And that’s a really hard way to grow an agency. So you have to be proactive in reaching out and getting in front of your target audiences. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and even with those things, it is often very difficult to predict your growth as a small agency, right? Yeah. Yes, yes. I mean, because as a small agency, you know, a deal here, a deal there makes a giant difference in what your year looks like. Yep. And so, and, and you just simply, you’re not doing enough volume that you can absorb that, you know, one or two deal difference. That’s, that’s even if you’re run, executing everything absolutely properly and, and doing all the outreach and tracking your pipeline and staying in touch with people and all of that. So the more that you do, the more likely you are to be able to obtain those goals that you’re trying to, to achieve. And so you need to be thinking about. What is the mix of things that will help get you there? And I think that’s, that’s ultimately the message. The takeaway that I would encourage people to have is don’t rely on any one tactic. Don’t rely just on outbound. Don’t rely just on content. Don’t rely just on referrals. It’s having that mix of things that will tend to stabilize those peaks and valleys that we’re all so familiar with in the small agency world. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. And I think you also need to include things. I’ve, I’ve mentioned this a couple of times, but warm introductions. Mm-hmm. So look at people that you want to meet and then who you know in common, and I mean, my team and I do this every week. We go through and we say, okay, who do we know in common? And then we split it up just to ask them for introductions. Sometimes it works, sometimes people are like, ah, I didn’t really, I don’t really know that person. I’m just connected with them on LinkedIn, which is fine, right? But if you, if they know them well enough. And you have a good enough relationship with the person you’re asking, they’re almost always going to make a warm introduction for you. And it’s just, you know, having a 15 minute conversation just to understand what their pain points are, if they have an agency, whether or not they’re happy, like those kinds of things will help you determine how you’re going to nurture those leads until they’re ready to make a decision. And those are the kinds of things you should be focusing on. And I guess that could be considered outbound sales. Chip Griffin: Sure, but I, but I think that, that taking away the pressure of trying to make the sale in that conversation or, or even Gini Dietrich: Yeah, yeah. Chip Griffin: You know, open the deal conversation, if you will. I, I think taking that pressure away helps you, it helps them and, and if you’re going about things saying, Hey, this is just someone I want to get to know. It might turn into business directly or indirectly. But either way, it’s someone that I’m, I’m interested in getting to know more, getting their perspective. It can be good market intelligence, just having these conversations. Yep. And so if, if you go into it that way, you’re more likely to meet success than if you’re sitting there saying, oh, this was a failure. Because they’re not looking for an agency right now. They’re happy with their current agency or they just don’t use agencies or whatever. That’s, you know, you still can get a lot of value out of that discussion, short of them immediately going into your proper pipeline. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. And I would, when you have those quick introductory meetings, listen for things that you can use later. So I had a call last week that I’m really excited about. It’s probably not gonna come to fruition until quarter two of next year. But during that conversation, she told me three or four things, pain points that they have, where I’m like, okay, that’s good to know. So now I have that in my CRM and every few weeks she’s gonna get an article from me, a book from me, a podcast to listen to, you know, things like that. Just, you know, hey, thinking about you, I know this was a, this was a challenge for you. Here’s how somebody solved it. Like that kind of stuff. It works incredibly well. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and I think you hit the nail on the head there by, you know, talking about getting information, asking questions. We say this all the time, but don’t go into these trying to sell yourself. No, don’t go into it trying to talk as much about all the great stuff you do and all the great ideas you have. You want to go into these conversations, particularly with someone who doesn’t know you particularly well and, and they haven’t even come to you looking for your service. Ask them questions. You can show that you’re smart by asking questions. You don’t have to do it by talking every about what your actual expertise is. Yes, and the more that you ask questions and the more information that you gather, the more likely you are to be able to walk away from that with value, regardless of whether or not they turn into a potential deal. Gini Dietrich: I always laugh when I go to a meeting like that and all I do is ask questions, and at the end or later they say, gosh, that meeting was so good. It was so productive. You’re so smart. And I, and I laugh because literally all I did was ask questions. That’s all I did. But when you ask questions, you get them thinking about things they may not have been thinking about or different solutions that they may not have considered, and now they think you’re really smart. Because you’ve brought that to the forefront of their minds. So you should absolutely spend the time in those introductory meetings just asking questions because they will think you’re far smarter that way than if you pontificate or talk about all the great things that you’re doing and bore the crap out of them. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and, I mean, I, what I love hearing is, you know, I, I had never really thought of it that way before. Let me think before I give you an answer. Yep, yep. Right. Because, because that, that truly does mean that you’ve caused them to think about things in a different way. And, and that is the strongest way to make an impression on somebody. Because if, if you go in and you ask the same seven questions that every other agency asks, every other sales person asks, that doesn’t really, you know, the silly questions like, well, what, how much would it be worth to you if I was able to improve your email open rate by 10%? Who cares? Gini Dietrich: Not worth anything! Chip Griffin: Who cares? Gini Dietrich: Right. Chip Griffin: I mean, I just, that, that kind of, those kinds of questions just drive me bonkers. And so if it’s a, if it’s a question that comes from your actual curiosity, Gini Dietrich: yes. Chip Griffin: Those are good ones. Yes. If it’s a question that comes from some list that you got from chat GPT or some sales advisor or anything like that, chuck it. Get rid of it. Yes, yes. Use your own curiosity. Yes. Leverage what you want to know, because that makes for a more natural conversation, but it also tends to show the expertise that you actually have. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, and one of the things I like to do is, you know. They’ll say something like, oh gosh. One of the, one of the challenges we have is that, lemme think of something real quick. Um, I’m on the comms team and our marketing team handles shared and paid. And so I really believe in the PESO model, but I don’t have, I only control earned and owned. And. So I’ll ask a bunch of questions that lead them to the idea that they could actually work with their marketing brethren then not work in their silos, right? But they come to that conclusion on their own, right? And then I’ll say, you know, when we, when we worked with a client on that kind of problem, here’s some things that we considered. And then they go, oh, and they start to see themselves working with you in just by the way you’ve presented that. Yes. So it’s a different way of approaching it, but it works incredibly well. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean if you, if you treat people like you would treat a client. And generally speaking, for the most part, I don’t think most of us are just sitting there yapping at our clients, you know, for the full 30 minutes that we’re meeting with them, just telling them how great we are and, and you know, what they need to do and all that. We have much more of a back and forth. And so I think if we think of whatever kind of outbound communications that we’re doing, whether you wanna call it sales or networking or whatever, the more that you treat it like you’re having an actual client conversation, the more useful and productive they will be. In helping you to get to your eventual goal. But you have to set aside this idea that this is all about immediate revenue. And, and unfortunately when we hear about outbound sales, it’s, you know, we’re always thinking about, well, how can we, how can we shake that money tree and, and get some deals going? And, and we often think about doing these things when we’re most desperate. Right. When we’re looking and, and we see, okay, we had a big client go away. We need to, we need to replace them. And we’ve talked about the fallacy of, of that idea that you can just replace a big client when they go away. But you need to be thinking about these things in a, in a much longer time horizon. More of a relationship building mindset. And if you do that, inbound works, outbound works, a hybrid works, they all can be part of the puzzle solving device. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, absolutely. And I think. It if you think about it a little bit differently and shift your mindset around it a little bit. So instead of it being about outbound sales, which I think is scary to a lot of us, it’s scary to me. You think about it as networking and building relationships and being top of mind, being there when they’re ready to make a decision. It’s less scary, I think, because that’s what we do, right? We are relationship builders. So think about it from that perspective. It’s just a different audience. And if you can do that, if you can shift your mindset around that, I find, I think you’ll find much more success than if you’re thinking about it from an outbound sales perspective. Chip Griffin: Absolutely. So on that note, I would, I would like to thank our listener for making an outbound inquiry of us for our perspectives on this. That was a little tortured, but what, what’s new? I was trying to think of some way to, to circle it back. But anyway. Gini Dietrich: Thank you. And we always appreciate listener questions. Chip Griffin: Always appreciate listener questions because it, it helps us to really speak to the things that that matter most to you. And hopefully that’s what we’re doing here as much as possible. Giving you practical advice and, and our thoughts and, you know, take it for what it’s worth. Sometimes it’s useful, sometimes, eh. But all the perspective helps you. That’s the same thing with the outbound conversations you’re having. Have as many as you can, get those different perspectives and then figure out what works for you. So on that note, I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich Chip Griffin: and it depends.

In this episode, Chip and Gini address a listener's question about the opportunities for growing an agency through outbound sales.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the impact of AI on small agencies, focusing on the high expectations and possible disappointments it poses. They reference a recent article from The Atlantic, which highlights a study showing that AI can sometimes decrease efficiency. They caution against overhauling business models based solely on AI’s current capabilities, stressing that while AI can assist with tasks and improve efficiency, it cannot fully replace human judgment and creativity. The conversation extends to the challenges of integrating AI without sacrificing the development of new talent and ensuring that the evolving role of AI adds value rather than causing disruption. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “It’s not about AI being either the panacea or evil, it’s that we may be adjusting our models too much too quickly.” Gini Dietrich: “AI is great for some things but it cannot replace human beings yet.” Chip Griffin: “It is incredibly likely that all of the providers of AI are going to start ratcheting up the prices. And so what looks today like a huge cost savings likely may not be in just a few short years.” Gini Dietrich: “How do we bring new college graduates into the workforce, and what are we teaching them?” Resources Just How Bad Would an AI Bubble Be? (The Atlantic) Related Should AI upend your agency business model today? Using AI the right way for agency biz dev CWC 10: Neville Hobson on AI and machine learning in PR View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I am Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, I think, you know, I think AI is gonna solve all of my problems. We’ve said this before, but I, I really, I’m gonna change my whole business model around it. Gini Dietrich: I think you should fire everybody. You could fire me as your co-host. AI can just do it for you. Chip Griffin: You know, I mean, I wonder if the AI would talk back less. Gini Dietrich: Probably, although if I program it, I’ll program it for you so that it, it talks back a sufficient amount. Chip Griffin: Excellent, excellent. Just, just what I need. Gini Dietrich: You’re welcome. Chip Griffin: Oh, at least, you know, maybe, maybe the AI wouldn’t yawn at me like you did just before we started recording, so Gini Dietrich: I shouldn’t even be tired either. I got nine hours of sleep last night. I don’t know what my problem is, Chip Griffin: I assume you were expressing your boredom with me. Gini Dietrich: No. Prior to the start of the show. No. Chip Griffin: I mean, usually it takes a couple minutes for most of our listeners to get that bored with me. So Gini Dietrich: no, I’m not bored with you. Chip Griffin: Okay. Gini Dietrich: Just sleepy. Chip Griffin: Just sleepy. Well, I’m with you on that. Alright. But we are gonna talk about AI and in particular, there was a good article in the Atlantic recently, that is consistent with some of the things that I’ve been saying and talking with clients and, and I think it’s, it’s helpful to think about. And that is whether or not there is an AI bubble and what it means. And it’s not, in my view, it’s not so much about a macro AI bubble, sort of like we think about, you know, the, the internet bubble in the early 2000s and, and I think there is certainly some of that, but that’s really more about investing in some of the businesses and infrastructure and that kind of thing. But I think for small agencies, there is the potential for an AI bubble that comes about because we all get too focused on either what kind of threat AI is or what kind of opportunity AI is. And we’ve said before on this, we’ve talked about AI a lot, so I, I was a little reluctant to come back to it, but I think that thinking about it in in these terms may be helpful. Because it’s not, it’s not about AI being either the panacea or evil, it’s that we may be adjusting our models too much too quickly because some of these things may not quite be there. And in particular, the Atlantic had a great example and it was from a study that was done with some software developers. And the software developers were given AI to help them do their jobs. And the purpose of the study was to try to figure out was it a 20% efficiency improvement, 40%, 60%, what was it? And ultimately what they discovered was it was actually, it decreased their efficiency. Gini Dietrich: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Chip Griffin: Because part of the challenge with AI, and I, I’m sure many of us have seen this, is when it works well, God, it works great. It just, and, and we’re impressed and we’re, we sit there and say, that’s amazing. But we, we don’t factor in the times it doesn’t work and the times we have to argue with it and fight. Right? And so if, if we’re go, and I, I mean I do this a lot with, I mean, maybe it shows something about me that I argue with the computer. I was trying out Gamma recently, which is a, a service that lets you build PowerPoint decks effectively. And I threw something in, just kind of randomly grabbed an outline, threw it in, and it actually did a really nice job of creating the first thing that I sent to it. And I’m like, that’s great. I’m like, okay, well can you make these modifications to it? And it just wouldn’t do it. It just, it, it kept, you know, I, I said, can we put, you know, my logo at the bottom of the slide, you know, in the footer. And so it puts it in, it’s like a quarter of the screen. I’m like, no, no. I said, can you make it smaller, Gini Dietrich: same size, just move it. Chip Griffin: And it’s like, great, that’s a great idea. Let’s make it smaller. And it gives it to me the exact same size. Oh. And it makes it completely unusable because obviously you don’t really want your company logo to take up a quarter of the slide. That’s just dumb. So I, I think we need to, to think about all of the effort that we’re putting into AI and factor that in when we’re thinking about our own efficiencies, because I’m afraid that some people may be changing their models too much, changing their pricing too much. Because they’re looking at the successful implementation of AI and not factoring in all of the challenges along the way. At least as it exists in September of 2025. Gini Dietrich: Gartner has their hype cycle, right? And so it looks at things from that perspective. And, you know, we get really excited. We’re human beings. We get really excited. There’s something. Coming. There’s like all this like, oh, that’s scary. We’re not gonna do anything. Then we get really excited about it. Then it dips down and then it comes back up before it’s like scalable and, and something that we use. The internet was one, email was one, social media was another, those kinds of things. Right. Well, in the hype cycle, AI is now in the trough of disappointment. So it’s in that section of the cycle where it’s like, oh. Maybe this isn’t gonna work so well. And you have companies like Salesforce who just laid off 30,000 people. Because they think AI is going to replace those human beings. And what they’re going to find in the trough of disappointment is that that’s not the case. And I think that we have to think about that. As you know, we’re certainly, I’m not laying off 30,000 people. You’re not laying off 30,000 people. I would imagine most of our listeners are not laying off 30,000 people. But you have to think about it from that kind of perspective of AI is great for some things. It cannot replace human beings yet. So when you think about how you’re using it, those are the kinds of things you have to consider. One of the things I say to my team all the time, I, I’ll get something from a team member and I’ll be like, did you use AI for this? And my favorite is when they’re like, oh, just to outline. I’m like, really? ’cause on the third page, the sixth bullet point, it’s definitely AI. And I know that because you didn’t, it’s, it’s talking to you, right? And you didn’t edit it. So it can’t replace people yet. And I think though, that’s what I continue to tell my team is you can absolutely use it, but you have to use your brain and you have to edit the work that you’re getting because as a first draft, it’s crap. It’s not good. So we have to like take all of this with a grain of salt and make sure that we’re using it effectively. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and I think that, you know, part of the challenge is if, if we say, okay, well because of this we can now, you know, churn out social or blog posts or graphics or whatever that much faster and all that and, we’re building our models, we’re building our staffing models around it. We’re building our pricing models around it. It becomes a problem. Yeah. Yep. When we realize that it’s not quite as efficient, it’s still good. It’s still helpful. We still ought to be using it and some of this stuff will continue to get better. Most of it will continue to get better, and so at some point it will get there. It’s sort of like during that, that first wave of the internet bubble in the early 2000s, there were plenty of businesses that came out, got a lot of attention, and then failed miserably only to see 10 or 15 years later an almost identical business come up and blossom because now it was time for it. The technology was there, the market was there, and so, so some of these things, it’s not that they’re not a good idea, it’s just that they’re not quite fully baked yet. And as, as particularly as small businesses, we need to be careful about how heavily we lean into some of these things without understanding what the risk of that is and, and understanding whether it is truly everything that we believe it is in our, in our happiest moment. And, and, you know, with the troughs of disappointment and the, the peak, I forget what the, what the peak is called, but you know, the ups and downs, we’re all gonna feel those. But, but when we’re building business models and strategies for our agencies, we need to think about that in a little bit more of a level line as opposed to to riding the waves or the dips too much because that’s where we start to make bad decisions. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, and I think we, you see this on the, on the web all the time, right? You have people who jump onto the next wave, hoping that they’re gonna get that upswing of popularity, success, whatever it happens to be before it goes down. And then you have, you see ’em jump on the next one and the next one and the next one. First of all, that’s a crappy way to live. Like, ugh. The constant like yin and yang and ups and downs and no agency owner should live like that. But secondly, you have to really think about what are we strategically trying to do? And I will tell you, I, I mean, I’m sure it’s clear, but I love AI. I love it. I think it has made me more efficient, it’s made me more productive. You know what it’s done more than anything? It’s allowed me to stop procrastinating. Because when I have something really challenging, I tend, in the past, I tend to procrastinate it, put it off. It’s a big project. It’s, I know it’s gonna take me time to get started, and so I, I put it off. I put it off. I put it off. I’m also highly deadline driven, so if you tell me it’s due in 12 hours, it’ll get done. If you tell me it’s due in four weeks. I’ll do it the last 12 hours. Right. So that’s just how I, my personality. So what it has done is it has allowed me to say, okay, this is a huge project. I’m, I’m gonna take 15 minutes just to outline the steps so that I can get it done more effectively. I don’t procrastinate anymore because that allows me to at least get it into my workflow and get things accomplished. That’s where it’s made me most, most efficient. So I think we have to think about those kinds of things, like how are we bringing it into our workflow to make us more productive and make us more efficient, but not replace the thinking or the creativity. Chip Griffin: Right. And I think the other thing that we need to keep in mind is that in uses like that, where it’s acting as our assistant, I think has a lot more utility, a lot more staying power. Mm-hmm. And will just continue to improve as, as we learn how to use the technology more effectively. And as the technology continues to evolve, I think the bigger challenge comes for agencies when they see this as something that can help them do things at scale. Yes. Right. So it’s not, it’s not assisting an individual, making them more effective, efficient, et cetera. But instead it is using it, as some companies are, to replace large numbers of human beings. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: And I think that’s, it’s a risk for multiple reasons. One is the, you know, whether or not it is truly as good as you think it is and, and can do things without that level of supervision, intervention, et cetera, that we’re doing when we’re using it as an assistant. But we also need to keep in mind that as we all get sucked into this, it is incredibly likely, if not certain, that all of the providers of AI are going to start ratcheting up the prices. Sure. And so what looks today like a huge cost savings likely may not be. In just a few short years. And we’ve seen this before, we saw this in the early days of internet ads, for example, search ads. It used to be that you could, you could buy ads on, on Google search super cheap. Now, not so much. And it didn’t take all that long before it got to a place where it was so costly that it was starting to, to become much more similar to other advertising media. Right. And so you, you need to keep in mind that it may not ever get fully to the price of, you know, the, the same productivity of a full-time equivalent, cost the same in the end, but it’s gonna be a lot more than it is today. So if, if you see it today as an 80% savings, it may only be a 40% savings when all is said and done. And is that still okay? Would you still have uprooted your whole business model for that or not? And I can’t answer that for you, right? But I think you need to think those things through, before you invest too heavily. What’s that? Gini Dietrich: It depends. Chip Griffin: It depends. Everything depends. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I think you’re absolutely right. Like it’s just, you know what, there’s been a conversation both in a private Facebook group I’m in and in the Spin Sucks community of late, of how people are not hiring new college graduates anymore because it kind of does replace them. Like it does replace the research, the media list development, the initial pitches, things like that that you would have, you know, an intern or a young prof, a brand spanking new young professional do. So how do we, how do we continue that? But then how do we hire young professionals? ’cause we can’t not hire a brand new college graduate. Right. How do we bring them into the workforce and what are we, how are we teaching them? Are we teaching them to become AI prompt engineers? Are we teaching them to become better editors? Like what are we teaching them to do? Because AI can do a lot of that really basic stuff that an intern would would normally do. Chip Griffin: Absolutely. And, and I think that that, that becomes then a, an even bigger challenge for small agencies because small agencies have always struggled with the idea, do we hire seasoned professionals who are more expensive? Or do we hire more junior people who we can use more cost effectively? And this does tend to skew it more in, in terms of let’s, you know, let’s hire those more seasoned, more expensive people and we’ll rely on the AI for all the lower level stuff. But that may be a challenging business model to truly make work, in part because now you’ve got senior people who then have to, to manage in a much more hands-on way with the AI. A lot of that more basic stuff. And I would argue that it might be more worth looking at can you use the AI to improve the, the quality and output of more junior people, right? If, if you’re, if they’ve, if the junior people have an assistant, could they accelerate their own growth more quickly? And I don’t have the answer to whether that’s true or not, but it’s something that I would be interested in looking at if I were trying to scale up a small business as opposed to saying, okay, all the grunt work will be done by AI and we’ll hire just senior people, because that’s a very difficult business model to price correctly. Gini Dietrich: I also think it’s dangerous. I think it’s dangerous to hire as, as a senior professional, I think it’s dangerous to hire only, you know, seasoned professionals because you now you’re losing out on, you know, creativity, youth, you know, like all of the, the sort of like rosy colored glasses kinds of things that help a business grow. I think that’s, I think that’s really dangerous as well. You need, you need a balance. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And you wanna develop future leaders for your own. Yep. Business. You know, obviously it, you know, I don’t necessarily buy into the notion that we need to do it for the good of the PR and marketing community and, you know, we gotta give them opportunities because otherwise we won’t have them in the future. It, it really does need to be more selfish for your own business. But you can develop them within your own business so that you know, over the next, you know, four to six years, they become that seasoned professional who learns your way of doing things as an agency and can contribute in a more meaningful way to your own business. Gini Dietrich: I think it’s, I, like I said, I think it’s dangerous to, to rely on that. And to come full circle, it’s dangerous to rely on AI to replace human beings because that’s just, while it’s tempting, it’s just not where we are yet. Chip Griffin: No, I mean, look, I think there are, there are certain things that can be replaced by AI. So I’m not, I’m not sticking my head in the sand and saying, don’t, you know, don’t reduce any headcount. I, I think for most small agencies, probably AI is not gonna enable you to reduce headcount. It’s, it’s difficult for me to, you know, all the agencies that I’ve advised and looked at over the years, it’s hard to think of very many who could actually save even one FTE on the backs of what AI can do for them today. Yep, yep. It certainly, it certainly can make them more efficient. It certainly can open additional doors, could free up some time. But I, I have a very difficult time seeing any where it’s a one for one replacement. But there are certainly other industries, other kinds of business where it absolutely can help to reduce the headcount, but maybe not completely replace all of the headcount in a particular function area. Gini Dietrich: Well, to come back to the Atlantic article that you mentioned at the start, you know, it showed that it wasn’t, and you would think, you would think that AI would be really good at a developer’s job. At creating, you know, being able to do that because it’s not, there’s no creativity to it, right? And so you would think it would be really great at that. And it found that it wasn’t. It found that they were actually spending more time directing the AI and getting the information, getting the right kinds of things out of the AI that they needed than to just do it themselves. So you, we have to be really careful here and, and like I said, I’m a huge, huge fan. I love it. But it’s also not replacing any humans from my perspective. Chip Griffin: And look, I mean it ultimately, even though the, the models are very good at doing the coding for programmers, it’s also, it’s a double-edged sword because for an op-ed or something, 80% is probably good enough. For code? 80% isn’t good enough. You gotta get to a hundred percent because any bugs in there are gonna be a problem. Gini Dietrich: Yes, you do. Chip Griffin: And, and as someone who has written computer code before, I can tell you that, you know, even 98% ain’t all that good because you still need that other 2% and you’ll be chasing that, you know forever if you can’t figure out exactly where it is. So. You know, there are, there is a difference in the kinds of work that it’s doing. So in some ways it was a good test of it because it’s an area where it’s strong. On the other hand, I would also argue it may not be the best because there is very little margin for error in coding because you still have to get to a, a fixed result at the end, from the logic that you’ve put into place. Whereas in a written piece or a graphics piece, that’s good enough. Yeah. You’re, that crosses the threshold. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. 80% is good enough. That’s exactly right. Chip Griffin: And look, I, I mean, I think if we get to 80% good enough on this show, that’s probably, that’s probably sufficient. I mean, Gini Dietrich: I need to buy one of those sound machines so I can do like clapping and things for you. Yeah, I need that. Chip Griffin: There you go. So, I mean, let’s face it, some weeks for us, 50% is probably good enough. So, yep. Before, before we drop down below that 50% mark, though, I think we’ll, we’ll draw this episode to a conclusion. This has been the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And it depends.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the impact of AI on small agencies, focusing on the high expectations and possible disappointments it poses.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss how to handle situations when the problems affecting an agency's client relationship stem from external contacts.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss how to handle situations when the problems affecting an agency’s client relationship stem from external contacts like procurement, IT, or the sales team. They emphasize treating client contacts as allies and not enemies, and provide strategies to navigate bureaucratic hurdles and internal politics. The discussion covers creative problem-solving techniques such as using MSAs, having biweekly calls with VPs of Sales, and understanding cultural differences. The importance of having a collaborative approach and pre-building relationships to effectively manage challenges is also highlighted. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “Treat your client contact as an ally, not the enemy.” Gini Dietrich: “We have several clients who have procurement done in another country, and English is not their first language. And so we find that some of the barriers to success are not because of the things that we assume.” Chip Griffin: “When you run up against an obstacle, try to figure out is there a creative way that we can get from here to there?” Gini Dietrich: “We always ask what the threshold is for financial amounts because there’s usually an amount of money that your client contact can approve without it going to procurement or to their boss or whatever happens to be.” Related How agencies should handle procurement and legal How to onboard new agency clients Getting agency-client contracts done right View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, I’ve got this, this invisible guy over here, and he’s telling me what we need to do for this show today. And, and we have to follow it to the letter if we wanna record. Gini Dietrich: Oh, who is it? Chip Griffin: I dunno, but if someone, someone is telling me that we need to, to record an episode about what to do when your problem isn’t the client contact for your agency, but it’s someone else, someone off screen who’s telling them what they have to do and it’s causing problems for your relationship. Gini Dietrich: Oh, someone like procurement or IT? Chip Griffin: Someone like procurement. Mm-hmm. IT, the sales team. Gini Dietrich: Mm-hmm. Chip Griffin: The CEO. Gini Dietrich: Mm-hmm. Chip Griffin: All sorts of people who may not be involved in any of the day-to-day work that our client contacts are doing, but they are just involved enough that they can cause trouble. Gini Dietrich: Mm-hmm. Kind of like me having to tell a client’s VP of sales the other day that we’re not their local Kinkos. Chip Griffin: Yes. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I actually used those words. Chip Griffin: I mean, to be fair, FedEx Kinko’s now, so you’re, you’re dating yourself, but Gini Dietrich: I, fair, yes, you’re right. But also it got the point across. Chip Griffin: Yes, it got the point across, but, but did it resolve the situation or did they just say Gini Dietrich: It did resolve the situation. Okay, good. Good. I think it made him mad, but he understood that we’re not here to just print the brochures for him. Chip Griffin: Yeah. No, that is, that is not the role of an agency. But no, a lot of times we do have these, these pressures or our, or really it’s our client contacts who feel the immediate pressure, right? They get, they get told by procurement that they have to, to find a way to cut the budget with their agency. They get told by IT that, you know, you can’t do this with email or that with your website or those kinds of things, or there are all these extra hoops to jump through and there’s no budget to pay for all those extra hoops or, I mean, just any number of different things that, that we see as agencies that we have to find some way to deal with. And it’s tough because when it’s our client contact, we can at least have a direct conversation. But when it’s someone who is, who is literally off screen, for most of us, since we’re doing these conversations typically by Zoom these days. Someone offscreen meddling is a lot harder to deal with. So, so what is your advice to an agency owner who says, look, I’ve, I’ve got these challenges and, and my client contact agrees with me, but, but how can I help them to get this across the goal line the way we need to? Gini Dietrich: Yeah, it depends on what it is for sure. I mean, we’ve had the situation where procurement, of course, has wanted us to reduce fees. So then it’s a conversation with the client contact to say, Hey, listen, this is what they’re asking us for. That means we’re gonna have to take this, this, and this out of this scope of work. Typically the client contact can influence that and go down and talk to procurement or send an email or do a support ticket or whatever it happens to be, to be able to influence that. And sometimes they can even elevate it or escalate it above to their supervisor or their supervisor’s supervisor. It just depends. But that’s usually where, usually where we start is saying If we do this, this is what it, this is how it will affect the work that we’re going to do together. And this is what you can expect. And typically they’ll, they’ll go to bat for you. So I would start there for sure. Chip Griffin: Right. I mean, I think that that fundamentally what you’re describing is, is treating your client contact as an ally, not the enemy. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: And, and it is tough because sometimes when we, when we hear these things, it’s, it’s often, you know, we often put ourselves in the position of wanting to shoot the messenger because that’s who we’re, we’re talking to our client contact on a daily basis. And when they tell us, you know, these are the rules or these are the things we need to do, you know, we, we can get frustrated with them, but we need to remember. Most of the time or many of the times, it’s not them. They, they have the same view we do. And so we need to try to figure out how we can work together to overcome their internal obstacle. And it, and it does mean that, you know, we may need to make some compromises ourself. We may need to, to invest a little bit more time and energy into helping things done. And some of that may be uncompensated time. If needed in order to, to try to, to clear these hurdles. But they are necessary hurdles to clear. Otherwise we may not be able to achieve the results or we may have to, to eliminate some of our profit margin or any number of different problems that we may run into if we’re not willing to invest in the short term in overcoming those difficulties. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. And I would say most of the time people are pretty reasonable. You can, you can say, and usually your client contact is gonna be like, Ugh, this is so frustrating. I can’t have you reduce the scope, right? Because we need to do these things and I’m held accountable to those results. And so, you know, so it, so the…It, it rolls downhill for sure. So usually they will go to bat for you and we’ve had a couple of examples where they’ve had to go to their supervisor and say, Hey, I need you to help me push this through. But for the most part, I think you’re right. If you can use your client contact as the ally, you can usually get things done the way you need it to, to be done. Chip Griffin: And I think the other thing we need to do is, is remind ourselves that, that these unseen actors are by and large, not bad people either. They’re just, they’re, they’re doing their job in the way that they think is best. So, so even procurement, and we all love to dump on procurement. Fairly in my view, because a lot of them are looking just at the numbers and not really, Gini Dietrich: it’s a little challenging. Yeah, yeah. Chip Griffin: So, but, but we need to remember that, that they are people. And so, you know, our first instinct as, as we usually advise on this show, is to treat other people like humans. And, and if you can, try to relate to them. If you can try to, I mean, one of the things I always advise is try to get them in the conversation. Don’t, don’t play a game of telephone because a game of telephone is hard to win. You, you can’t because you know, now you’re just trying to coach up your client contact on, on what they need to say. But you’re not part of the conversation. You’re not, you’re not sure if, if something is getting lost in translation in either direction, frankly. Right, right. And so you really want to try to get to a place where you can get in the same room with whoever, whatever that external force is that’s causing difficulty for your relationship. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, for sure. And I, I think that’s really good advice. I think it’s sometimes I have the tendency to wanna go directly to the source, and you also have to be careful that, that may, from a political standpoint, may not be the right thing. So again, start with your client contact. Say, Hey, I’m happy to help you with this. Or, you know, wanna schedule a Teams call for all three of us, whatever happens to be, but… I’ve also gotten in trouble for going straight directly to the source to say, Hey, like how can we do this? So I would say, bring your client contact in as much as you can until they say, I’m happy for you to take this on, or let me schedule a call, or whatever happens to be. Chip Griffin: Right. Or, or, I mean, I would say just the, the flip side to that is if you get all of you in a room, and I agree, that’s where you should start. If you read that room and there’s some friction between your internal contact and whoever you’re really trying to deal with, then I would try to extract your client contact sooner rather than later. Yes, absolutely. Yes, because sometimes there’s internal politics going on or just personality differences or whatever, and so sometimes you can actually accomplish more if you, if you politely move on from having your client contact in those. It, you really have to, it’s a case by case situation. Sometimes it’s better to have them there so they can see what’s happening and they can either intervene or translate or at least you know, know what’s going on so that they can’t say, well, I don’t understand why you’re not doing this well, ’cause, you know, so and so in procurement told us we couldn’t, or so and so in sales is pushing in this direction. You know, you, you want to try to, to figure out what works in that particular situation. But certainly sometimes taking someone out the room who is part of the, the challenge can be helpful. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. And you said the word translation. I think it, we have several clients who, procurement is done in another country, and so English is not their first language, and so we find that some of the, the barriers to success are because of that and not because of the other things that we assume it is. So we always try to bring in somebody who can translate between us and them. Even if they speak English, you know, English not being their first language, and certainly not the u US culture that we have. You, it’s always good to have somebody in the room or on the, on the teams call that can help kind of finagle those things for you, especially if you don’t speak, you know, the language. And many of, many of the languages aren’t, that we face are not even like Spanish, French. They’re like Arabic, right. Or Chinese. And really, I dunno. Chip Griffin: Well, and, and sometimes it’s not just the language, it’s the culture as well. That Right. That can impact. Right, because there are, yep. There are certain cultures where it, it may be that, that, you know, they will always demand more than what they actually expect. ’cause they’re expecting to, to have pushback and negotiation. There are others where people will just say this, this is what we need. Let’s figure out how to get there. And, and having someone internally who can help you to understand, you know, what are they really asking for? What, what, you know, is this, is this a take it or leave it kind of thing? Or is there room to negotiate, either on, on price or activity or whatever to, to get to a, a happy place. And, and without that knowledge, that can be shared oftentimes by your client contact, it’s not just that you know, that you’re literally speaking different languages. It might be that, that there’s a lot in the, the culture that is different as well, that you need to, to grasp in order to get success. Gini Dietrich: You raised such a good point because there are some cultures who expect negotiation, like that’s just part of their culture. So having that understanding I think is really smart. Because that will help you too, because if they’re expecting you to negotiate, don’t be scared of that. Like go into it to negotiate. It’s kind of fun. Chip Griffin: Right, right. And, and there are, I mean, there are, there are opportunities to negotiate. There are, you know, knowing the motivations of the people. Sometimes you’re dealing with a department that are, you know, absolute rule followers, right. You know, if you, if you, if you talk with most IT professionals for example, they’re like, well, our policy says this and, and there’s no real easy wiggle room there. But sometimes you can have a rational conversation with them if you try to find alternatives. And instead of saying, well, we have to do that. Well, well, what if we tried this instead? Is there some other… Is there some other path that that might get us? Mm-hmm. To the same result? Mm-hmm. Or try to help them to understand why this really isn’t the risk that you think it is. I mean, I’ve, I’ve done in the past a lot of negotiations with defense contractors and those sorts of things, and they often have a whole litany of security procedures that you need to, to follow and that kind of stuff, and, and then, you know, you sometimes sit with them and say, well, look here, we’re not dealing with any sensitive information here. Right. This is all. This is all public media information. There’s nothing here that, that needs that level of protection. So is there, perhaps, you know, can we perhaps reach some accommodation? Or sometimes procurement will say, you need to carry an insurance policy for, you know, vehicular accidents. And I’m like, well, why? Like, I’m, I’m never gonna be driving for this contract. So that doesn’t really make any sense. And, and oftentimes that’s like construction firms, right? Where, you know, most of their vendors have some sort of a, a physical presence or something like that. And so you need to, to be able to have those rational conversations and say, okay, I understand this is your policy, but, but let’s talk through how might this actually apply to us and our situation. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I think that’s really smart. And one of the things that we’ve started doing is, especially with the, the big, big companies is becoming part of their network. So anything that we do, any information that we share goes through their network. We all have email addresses that are our client, that have our, that end in our client’s, URL. We have access to their teams environment, you know, so we, we, for all intents and purposes, are part of their organization just for distributing information and nothing can come to our side, because they’re worried about IT and security. Right? And another thing is, is that we’ve, we always ask what the threshold is for financial amounts because there’s usually an amount of money that your client contact can approve without it going to procurement or to their boss or whatever happens to be. So we always find out what that is and see if we can work within those constraints. And sometimes we split up scope of work so that it falls underneath that threshold so that our client contact is the one who gets to approve it and it doesn’t have to go through all these other hoops and and hurdles. Chip Griffin: Right. And a lot of time it is also yet another argument for what we generally advocate for here, which is having a master services agreement plus individual statements of work. Yep, yep. So a lot of these things get dealt with just once when you do that master services agreement. That’s right. And now you’ve got a lot more potential wiggle room to deal with issues later on. Because you’re not having to, to introduce as many people for renewals and all of that kind of stuff. And, and it’s, it’s why I’m such a big supporter of the evergreen MSA with, and just hang off individual SOWs as needed. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Yes. I totally agree with that. We have one master of services agreement and we alphabetize our SOWs and I think we’re on AO right now for the year. So yeah, that, you know, that just tells you like how we’re able to do that without having to go through that whole rigamarole every single time. I mean, if we had to do that for all of those… I wouldn’t be able to get my day job done. Chip Griffin: Right. Well, and and your your point about, you know, understanding, you know, what are some of the thresholds internally for things, it’s really helpful for you to, to do some of that creative problem solving with your client contact. And when you run up against an obstacle, or something like that, you know, trying to figure out is there a creative way that we can get from here to there? Yep. Yep. And that might be by becoming part of their email system. It might be by have coming under a financial threshold. It might be by doing something through some affiliated organization. You know, maybe, maybe you become a subcontractor to someone else who’s already dealt with a lot of that kind of stuff. And you know, there’s a lot of different options that that can help you. To solve these issues. It won’t solve every one of them. Sometimes you have to deal with them head on, but if you can find ways to creatively get around those obstacles, that can be really helpful. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I know that a lot of the big companies have usually an agency of record and will the, the AOR can bring in smaller agencies under their umbrella so that you don’t have to deal with those kinds of things. So if that, you know, I would ask that question. Does it make more sense for us to come under the AOR? And in most cases, the agency of record is set up to, to handle that so that. You know, it makes, it makes it easier for the client to hire the teams that they want without the teams having to do all the insurance and all of the vehicular accident insurance and things that you really don’t need, but it prevents you from having to do that kind of stuff. So that’s another question you could ask is, is there an AOR that we could umbrella underneath. Chip Griffin: Right. So we, we’ve talked mostly about policy driven or financially driven obstacles from outside, but there are other, there are more strategic obstacles that can arise as well, or even tactical ones. And that typically comes from other business units. Particularly sales teams or senior executives who are not necessarily directly involved in your day-to-day work. And, and those can be sometimes a little bit trickier to deal with because you’re not dealing, I mean, there, there’s some benefit to dealing with black and white policy, right? Because now you can figure out, okay, how do we, how do we deal with these? Mm-hmm. When you’ve got a sales team saying, well, you’re not, this is not accomplishing enough, or this is not generating the right kinds of leads, or whatever it may be. That can sometimes be a little bit more challenging argument because it does, it often becomes a little bit more subjective. It often becomes a little bit more, you know, based on opinion as to, to what the best path forward is. And so that can be a challenging one to deal with because, you know, now you’re, you’re dealing with things that are not as, as clear cut and you can just reach a simple resolution. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I mean, I am a big believer in the account lead, having a relationship with the sales lead. In some cases that might be the agency owner. You know, I have a really good relationship with at least three VP of sales for our clients, and I have biweekly calls with those guys to make sure that we’re on the same page, we’re doing the right things. I also have a relationship with one where I can tell ’em we’re not their Kinkos and we’re not here to print brochures. But I, I’m a strong believer in that. And I know we also talked last week about my process of doing quarterly assessments, and I think both of those things help in those kinds of relationships because now you have that ongoing relationship with sales. Who can, who you can say, let’s test this, or let’s test that. Or you know, you were in our quarterly assessment and we agreed to these things. Do you wanna keep going or do you wanna move to focus on that? And I will say that in some cases, especially, you know, if you’re working with a mid-sized company, the sales leader is constantly being, you know pressured to do more sales. And sometimes they’ll come and say, I just got my sales number increased by 20% and I need your help to do that. And I understand that it wasn’t part of our quarterly assessment. What can you do to help? So, you know, having those relationships and those on ongoing conversations I think helps a ton. Chip Griffin: And I, I think a lot of the same advice that we offered earlier in this conversation applies. Treat them as human. Don’t view them as the enemy, and instead say, okay, you know, I, I understand your challenge. How do we get there? And too often I see in organizations it’s, I think it’s fairly common for marketing to blame sales. Sales to blame marketing and sales and marketing both blame product or client service or whomever. Sure. May be in that particular organization and, and none of that is helpful because you are all on the same team ultimately. And so you need to try to find ways to work together and figure out, okay, how can we get the best possible outcome? Yes. And if it’s simply marketing saying, well, sales isn’t doing a good job of closing. Or sales saying, you’re not giving me enough good quality leads, that’s not helpful. Have a conversation, figure out, you know, why is it not achieving the results that, that you want or that executives want? Are, are those results even possible? If so, how do we get there? Is it changing our ideal client profile? Is it changing some of our tactics? Is it investing differently? There’s a lot of ways that you can get there, but it needs to be done collaboratively. And so in those cases, I strongly encourage you to work with your client contact to bring those other parties into the room and have a candid conversation. Yeah, yeah. And talk through what’s possible and honestly what isn’t. I mean, sometimes there are unrealistic views of what can be done. You know? Oh, let’s, you know, let’s double our leads next month. Okay. Well. How are we gonna do that? Mm-hmm. You know, you don’t just wave a magic wand say, okay, we’re gonna Gini Dietrich: Right. Woo, double your leads. Woo. Chip Griffin: We’re gonna, we’re gonna send you twice as many SQLs next month as last month. Or all of a sudden we’re gonna get, you know three times the earned media coverage. So sometimes it is just you really have to educate. This is not possible to do this on this timescale and instead talk about what is possible on that short timescale and what it would take to get to some of those more ambitious numbers. But you can only do that if you are having a real conversation in the room or if you’re talking with your client contact and saying, what do you need from us? How can we help you to have this conversation? Because sometimes they, they can’t or won’t bring the agency directly into the conversation. That’s your ideal. But you may just need to try to coach up, educate and provide resources to your client contact so that they can carry the water forward. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. You know what, last week we talked about. Not doing proposals for free and not giving away all your ideas and, and creating a sort of discovery phase in your process so that you’re getting paid for your ideas. And I think that’s part of this is part of that, which is as you’re doing your discovery and having conversations. It’s not just with the CEO and the CFO and the CO, like bring in the sales team, bring in the IT team, bring in members from those other customer service, the other teams that are gonna help you do your job. And not only that, but understand the culture and the organization better. Start to build those relationships in the beginning so that when these things happen, and they inevitably do happen, that you have those relationships already built and can have those really have really good, robust collaborative conversations. Chip Griffin: Right. I mean, that, that’s a, that’s a great point is to, to make sure that those relationships are not the kind of thing that you only think about when you’ve got these challenges arising. Yeah. They, they need to be pre stocked, if you will. I, I will say that, that I had a mild moment of panic when you said last week we talked about, and I’m like… I can’t remember what we talked about last week. Thank you. So thank you for elaborating on that. So I was not Gini Dietrich: So you may remember. You’re welcome. Chip Griffin: And I, and I realized that last week in our universe for this is only like four days ago, Gini Dietrich: Two days ago. Yes. Chip Griffin: Because of some scheduling anomalies. But yeah, my, my elderly brain was not able to remember that. Gini Dietrich: I think it’s ’cause you’re overly tired. Chip Griffin: Uh, that’s possible. It happens. Yeah. Plus I’m old, so there’s that too. On that note, I think, before I forget what we’re actually talking about here today, we’ll just draw this episode to a close. I think we’ve offered some useful tips that hopefully will help you to navigate some of these difficult challenges. And, and meanwhile, I’m gonna go talk to the invisible man and see if I did a good enough job that, that we can continue this show moving forward. Gini Dietrich: Maybe we’ll get a raise. Ask for a raise too, please. Chip Griffin: I mean, I just, I just, I don’t, I don’t want him to cancel the show, that’s all because I, I do enjoy recording this, even if I can’t remember what we talked about. So on that note, I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich, Chip Griffin: and it depends.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the common practice of providing free proposals and baseline ideas to clients. They argue that professional service providers should charge for these services as doing so adds value and ensures a thorough diagnosis before providing solutions. They share personal experiences and compare the situation to doctors who would never prescribe treatment without proper tests. They emphasize the importance of understanding a client’s business through a paid discovery phase and making adjustments along the way to deliver effective results. Additionally, they discuss the risks of providing overly detailed plans in early stages, the benefits of quarterly assessments, and the importance of maintaining clear communication and trust with clients. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “You should not be in a position of having one phone call with a client or prospect and saying, yep, know what that problem is. Here’s how we’ll fix that, and here’s what it costs.” Gini Dietrich: “Quarterly planning helps build trust because it allows the client to be involved in the planning decisions and discussions and measurement to understand what’s working and what’s not.” Chip Griffin: “If you ever feel that you are in a position where your expertise is either not valued or you don’t feel comfortable delivering it, then you are in the wrong relationship and need to look elsewhere.” Gini Dietrich: “We have to create a prescription exactly for you and your business so that we can have success. And we can’t do that without spending 30 or 60 days with you and getting to know and understand your business.” Related What if agencies abandoned proposals and posted transparent pricing? The pros and cons of RFP's for agencies Understanding the cost of agency business development Common mistakes agencies make when pursuing new business View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: Gini, you got me all wound up for today’s topic. And so I’m sort of frothing at the mouth here. And, I’m gonna try to control myself, but I, I’m not trying to do a funny opening ’cause I just got too amped up in the leadup. Gini Dietrich: Oh, okay, well good. Chip Griffin: And I was afraid, I was afraid of what I might say. Gini Dietrich: I like amped up Chip. That’s good. That’s good. Yeah. Chip Griffin: I’m trying, I’m trying to dial it down to keep it at a level where we don’t get kicked off of any of the platforms we’re on and my hate mail is limited to a minimum and all of that kind of stuff. Gini Dietrich: That doesn’t happen. Chip Griffin: No, that’s true. I don’t, I don’t get that. No. But Gini Dietrich: yeah, Chip Griffin: I’m surprised. I mean, I, I would think with some of the things that you and I say on this show, we would get some people who are like, I cannot believe you said that. Gini Dietrich: Maybe we do, and they just don’t report it to us. To the podcast platform. Chip Griffin: That’s true. Or maybe they include it one of the inane podcast pitches that we get that I just hit delete without actually reading. Gini Dietrich: Jeez Louise. It’s so bad. My favorite is when they pitch the FIR network and Shel Holtz forwards emails to the two of us and he is like, oh, here’s another prize. Chip Griffin: Yep. I mean, I can tell, I can tell most of them when they’re, when they’re really poorly targeted, because those usually come into my iCloud email address. Gini Dietrich: Oh, interesting. Chip Griffin: Which is what I’ve registered the podcast with for Apple Podcasts. Gini Dietrich: Got it. Chip Griffin: And, but it’s literally the only email I ever get on that account, so. Huh. So I know as soon as it comes in that they have not done any research because that email address is not published anywhere. I don’t use it for anything. Gini Dietrich: So how would they get it? Through one of the systems or through one of the platforms? Chip Griffin: I think so. It’s probably in the metadata somewhere. Yeah. Who knows? But Gini Dietrich: fascinating. Chip Griffin: Yeah. Yeah. Not, not a lot of smart podcast pitchers out there, unfortunately. Gini Dietrich: Well, unfortunately there’s not a lot of smart pitchers generally just based on my inbox and based on some of the private communities I’m in. Chip Griffin: Well, I mean, yes, and, and I do get, because of my various blogs and because I used to to have a political newsletter, I get an an insane number of actual pitches for people who think that I am proper media. Gini Dietrich: Right. Chip Griffin: But, but they are wildly, poorly targeted. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Yeah. Chip Griffin: And I’m tempted to say, look, I, I haven’t done food and beverage reporting for 15 years now, so… I still get a lot of political pitches. Gini Dietrich: Do you? Chip Griffin: I have not had a political newsletter since 2015. Wow. So stop. Just stop. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I get a lot of Chicago area stuff, which is fine, because I’m like, oh, well that’s cool, but I’ve literally never covered Chicago. Chip Griffin: Correct. Oh yeah. I get, I get all the New Hampshire stuff and like, oh, so and so got a grant. I don’t care. I mean, that’s Okay. Gini Dietrich: Great. Awesome. Chip Griffin: Thank you. Congratulations to them. But I don’t know what I’m gonna do with this information, so, right. Maybe go get a different list. Anyway. Alright, well now that we’ve ranted about things that have nothing to do, that have nothing to do Gini Dietrich: with, right, Chip Griffin: with, with our actual topic, what are we going to rant about today? Gini? Gini Dietrich: There was an interesting conversation in one of the groups I belong to, and it was essentially this. Have you considered charging for your proposal and baseline ideas? Most professional service providers charge to assess the situation. After all these years, we still provide the outline of an actual plan and sometimes a campaign concept absolutely free of charge. Stop doing that. The discovery part of our process generally takes time. Yes. And then the proposal is written and fine tuned, and then there’s a presentation. We do close two out of three engagements we pursue. Still, I can’t imagine a CPA or a law firm doing this kind of work. Why do we? Well, we shouldn’t. Let’s not do that. Chip Griffin: Yeah. So it is incredibly common for agencies to try to provide fairly robust plans as part of proposals, or worse as part of RFP processes. Gini Dietrich: Right. Chip Griffin: There is way too much detail included in almost all of these. And I’ll be honest, my issue is not that you’re doing it for free, not that you’re not charging for it. It’s that you’re being stupid. Because you are submitting a prescription for how to solve a problem before you really have much information. We’ve said time and time again that as part of the sales process, you have maybe a couple of hours of conversation with a prospect. That is not nearly enough time to really understand what the right approach to solving that problem is. You may know in broad brush strokes what is likely to be the case, but you don’t know enough to put together a detailed plan. So whether you’re paid for it or not, stop doing that. Gini Dietrich: Yes, please. I 100% agree with this. We stopped doing it many years ago, but I love your analogy on this, so I’m gonna let you take it because it works perfectly here. Chip Griffin: So this is, putting together a detailed proposal that includes the outline of a plan would be pretty much the same as if you walked into your doctor’s office and said, Hey, doc, I’m not feeling well today. And the doctor looks at you once and says, you know what? I’ve got the prescription for you. And they immediately write you a prescription or schedule a surgery or something like that. They can’t do that because they don’t have enough information. Right. Even when, based on their experience, they have a pretty good idea what it is. They still order tests, they do blood work. They, they do other tests. They take x-rays, whatever it may be, to confirm that what they suspect is actually what they need to treat you for. That’s right. You need to view your clients and prospects the same way. You should not be in a position of having one phone call with a client or prospect and saying, yep, know what that is. Here’s how we’ll fix that, and here’s what it costs. Gini Dietrich: And I think saying to the prospect if they’re expecting a plan or you know, detail like that, I think it’s really important for us to say, Like, we just don’t know yet. We need to, we need to know your business. Like we can, we can do some discovery and learn about you. What’s online for sure, but that’s not enough. We have to actually dig into your business and understand how the business is run. Do we have experience in your industry? Of course we do. Do we know kind of the approach we might take? Of course we do, but we have to create a prescription to write exactly for you and your business so that we can have success. And we can’t do that without spending, you know, 30 or 60 days with you and, and getting to understand, getting to know and understand your business. Chip Griffin: Right. So if we don’t think that you should be putting together these detailed plans as part of your proposals, what should you do instead? Gini Dietrich: I mean, probably, gosh, 10 years ago we started doing sort of, we have sort of a three phased approach. And the first phase is for lack of a better term, discovery. So the client is paying us to learn their business, understand their business, talk to their stakeholders, talk to their employees, talk to people that are important to them. Talk to customers, talk to former customers, do all of that work to really understand what the pain points are. And through that, we also do some things, which I would call quick wins or low hanging fruit, right? Because the client doesn’t always wanna pay for quote unquote strategy. So there are some things you can do immediately. We’ll do an audit. We’ll look at, you know, because we always do the PESO model, we look to see what’s, if they’re doing a full, If they’re doing paid, earn, shared, and owned, what’s missing, what’s not if it’s fully integrated. So we can do that as, as we go along as well. And we can do some quick wins in terms of like, oh, you know, Halloween’s coming up. Let’s do some social, some themed social media for that. You know, so give them some tangible things while we’re doing the discovery and learning the business that are easy, right? And not dependent on a strategy. Make them feel like we’re, we’re making progress, but getting the information that we need. And then once we go from that, we craft the plan, which is the second phase. They’re paying for that, and then we start to execute. So it’s sort of that three phase. And what we have found is it’s a lot easier for a prospect to swallow a three phase plan because what they’re, in their minds, they’re thinking, okay, well if this first phase doesn’t work out, first of all, it’s not terribly expensive, and if it doesn’t work out, then we don’t have to do the second and third phases. We can just take it and, and do it ourselves. Right? So they, whether or not they’re in love with you, they, that’s just human nature, what they’re thinking. And what we have found is that because they don’t feel like they’ve been roped into an annual contract where there may or may not get results. They’re, they’ve been roped into discovery or strategy building, or however you wanna call it, whatever you wanna call it, and they’re, they always, always spend more money. On the execution than they would if we went right to execution in the beginning. Always. They always do. Mm-hmm. Because they see the value and they understand now how you’re, you’ve become a partner in their business versus just, this is what we do for everybody else, so we’re gonna do it for you. Chip Griffin: Well, and, and as we’ve said before, it also gives you an opportunity to make sure that you are pricing that work correctly. That’s because now you, it’s a good relationship. Now you have more information. Yep. Including how the client is to work with. Absolutely. And how responsive they are to your information requests or approvals or feedback or all of the things that make a big difference in your profit margins as an agency in your ability to deliver effective results for them. I think the, the bottom line is that one way or another, it’s not so much that you need to get paid for it, but that it needs to be part of your process. Mm-hmm. That you do an actual diagnosis while engaged with the client and not prior to. Right. Because it, you simply can’t do it in the amount of time and with the amount of resources that you have available from the client before you’re actually working with them. And whether you do that in a formally staged process or you simply sell audits or some form of paid discovery as a standalone. You know, door opener kind of activity. Or as some of my clients do, you simply say, look, for the first month of our retainer, we are going to be focused on building a plan. Sure. And that is, that is the focus for the first 30 or 60 days. Yep. And you’re setting that expectation and it will refine the specifics as we move along. And that may require us to adjust, to come back to you and say, we need to adjust this retainer up or down based on what we find and what the, the best approach is. And if you do this effectively, you’re not only coming up with a, a better solution for the client, but you’re building trust with them for the reasons that you outline. yes. Because they are now looking at you as the expert who is trying to spend their money more effectively. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: The challenge, however, of course, is that most clients say they want to plan, but they don’t like the planning process. Gini Dietrich: That is right. Yes. Chip Griffin: And because for a few reasons, the, the top of the reason is because they, they want to see results immediately. Yes. And so I think your suggestion that you find low hanging fruit that you can deliver prior to the formulation of the proper strategy. Because there are things, there are little things that we almost certainly no going into an engagement will need to be done regardless of what the diagnosis is. And so why not throw some of those into the mix for those first 30 or 60 days in order to, to start showing some progress. But that is wildly different from starting down the path of a three month project that only at the end shows a result. And maybe by the time you get halfway through, you realize, well, this doesn’t make any sense. This is not what they actually need. Right? We can’t actually get the results that we want from it. So you need to really be thinking about these things in, in the process of, of planning effectively. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Okay. So let’s assume everybody is on board with that. Then I, I would think the next argument is, well, the way I’ve always done this, I’ve, you know, I get 70 per, I close 70% or 75% of my prospects. I don’t wanna lose that. So what’s, what’s our argument there? Chip Griffin: So, I mean, my argument there is, is, first of all, I, I believe that it is unlikely that the reason why you are closing that percentage is because you are taking so many wild stabs in the dark, right? Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: It is entirely probable, in fact, that they would’ve gone with you whether you had that level of detail or not. Now. If you switch to our proposed approach and all of a sudden you see your close rate plummeting, okay, now you need to take a look at what you’ve changed and, and is there a different way to go about it. However, I think it is extremely unlikely. Yeah. That you would find switching to us would have that kind of a dramatic impact on your close rate. I think the other thing to to look at is for the business that you have won, do you feel like that, that you have properly diagnosed in all of these cases in that initial plan? Gini Dietrich: Mm-hmm. Chip Griffin: Because if you find that, as I think is likely, there would be adjustments that you would’ve made along the way had you had more information. Mm-hmm. That may have also helped you adapt your pricing so that you’re more profitable. Gini Dietrich: Mm-hmm. Chip Griffin: Well, those are all arguments that even if you won the business, it was not the right way to win it. Right. And so you would’ve been better off winning it in a different way, at a different price with a different scope or what have you. So you need to look at the big picture. And finally, you also need to look at what are the costs of the ones that you create. Right? And don’t go anywhere. Yeah. Because we all, I mean, particularly when I, when I talk to people about RFPs, people, they, they talk about the, the one big RFP that they want and they say, well, I can’t give up RFPs ’cause we got this one back in, you know, 2017. And it, you know, it, it’s really, it’s been the, the driver for our business for the last eight years and blah, blah, blah. Okay, cool. But how many RFPs did you lose along the way? Right? And once you factor in the cost of responding to all of those, did it still make sense? And so you need to be looking at that and not just the two out of three that you’ve won. Honestly, if you’re winning two out of three, I would probably, you know, look at whether you’re talking to enough people, because you could probably grow even faster if you had a slightly lower Gini Dietrich: right. Yes. Chip Griffin: Close rate. Oh, it, it does depend a little bit on when you’re creating these, because, you know, we, I would say the vast majority of agencies create proposals way too early. And so, you know, they’re, they’re not taking it as far along in the process, but if you’re at least holding back until it’s almost a done deal, well then two outta three is probably a reasonable close rate. But if it’s these are all of your serious conversations, you’re not having enough. Gini Dietrich: I totally agree with that. And I was gonna say, I would 100% agree with you and would venture to guess that if you have more conversations, you will get a higher close rate. Using our process. Because there’s no risk to the client. I mean, they might be out a little a, a few bucks, you know, but they were gonna spend the money anyway. And you both learn if it’s a great relationship for you. So I actually think your close rate would be higher if you use this process and talk to more prospects. Chip Griffin: It, it certainly ought to be. Yeah. You know, obviously there’s, there’s nuances to every agency’s target audience and, and their appetite for, you know, for doing things and whether they want to be more reckless or not. You know, if you’re dealing with startups, they’re probably less inclined to, you know, to pay for some kind of planning process. Right. Because startups are notorious for wanting to just roll the dice and see what happens, right? Gini Dietrich: Right. Chip Griffin: It’s not necessarily the right approach, but it is the mentality that a lot of tech startups historically have had. And so you need to, you know, to be conscious of that. But I would say the vast majority of prospects that, that listeners are going after, will be open to this, particularly if you’re positioning it in a way that explains to ’em that you’re trying to make sure that you’re not wasting their time and money. Gini Dietrich: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Chip Griffin: Because at the end of the day, the reason why people tend to be leery of hiring agencies is because they’re worried about throwing money away. Because maybe they had bad experiences with past agencies that they feel like we paid them a lot of money and we didn’t see any results. And part of that may be because that agency gave them a proposal and a solution without information. And so, and then, then of course, you know, as, as we are, you know, we have a contract in place, we have a plan, we feel obligated to march forward on the path that we’ve given the client. Right? And so that’s the other thing I would say is even if you go through this and you do a 30 day plan or something like that, with the planning process rather with the client. Don’t feel like six months later you can’t go back and say, Hey, look, we have even more information now. We need to course correct. We need to pivot. Yes. It creates a risk because now you’re talking with the client and admitting that your diagnosis may have been either off base or not as full as it should have been or whatever, but you’re putting yourself in a position where you can actually get the results that the client is looking for. Right. And so to me, it’s worth the risk of pivoting even somewhere down the road in the relationship. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, and I know we’ve talked about this before, but one of the things that we implemented during the pandemic was quarterly assessments. So that we’re looking at the plan every quarter to to understand, okay, what worked, what didn’t work? What do we need to tweak? You know, we’re constantly doing that. And yeah, of, of course it’s risky because you are admitting that some things didn’t work. But what it does is creates even more trust because the client looks at you and goes, oh, well, they’re not just feeding me full of baloney. They’re actually being honest about what worked and what didn’t, and they’re willing to pivot and make change so that the things that aren’t working, either we’re getting rid of and not doing, or we’re tweaking it to make it more effective. So I think you build even more trust when you create that kind of cadence that allows the client to be involved in the planning decisions and planning discussions and measurement too, to understand what’s working and what’s not. Chip Griffin: Yeah, and, and you know, this is, people know that I, I like weird analogies. I think if they’ve listened to this show at all. And, and you know, if you, if you think about it, you know, if you’re in an Uber and you’re, you know that you’re going on the shortest route to the location you’re trying to get to, and it’s the, the route that you, you have endorsed and say, yeah, that’s, that’s the way we should go. We should go the West Side Highway or whatever. If the road is flooded in front of you, Gini Dietrich: right. Chip Griffin: You don’t want your Uber driver just to keep driving straight into the flood? Nope. You want them to go off and go around it? Yeah. Even though that technically takes longer because you know what? You’re not gonna drown in the flood. You should be the same way with your clients and say, Hey, look, I, I see we’ve got bad weather ahead. Gini Dietrich: I love that. Let’s, or traffic, let’s go around it. We have bad traffic ahead. Chip Griffin: Traffic, anything, right? Yes. You’ve got to, you’ve got to use judgment here. Yes. Love that. You are being paid as an expert to use your judgment at all steps of the process. And if you ever feel that you are in a position where your expertise is either not valued or you don’t feel comfortable delivering it, then you are in the wrong relationship and need to look elsewhere. Gini Dietrich: Absolutely. Yes. And that is a different discussion for a different time, but Chip Griffin: it is, Gini Dietrich: we ha I have a client right now who’s, I’m like, red flags. Let’s, let’s address the red flags. Chip Griffin: Ah, red flags. Well, maybe we’ll talk about red flags again sometime soon because I think it’s been a while since we’ve ranted about red flags. But I think we’ll draw this rant to a close before we go too far off the rails, but I think I, I think I controlled myself pretty well I think. Gini Dietrich: You did. You did. Chip Griffin: I think I got, I think I got most of the bad energy out before we hit record. Gini Dietrich: I didn’t even think it was bad energy. Chip Griffin: So that I could have a more modest rant. Gini Dietrich: You did. You did very well. Thank you. You did very well. You’re welcome. Chip Griffin: Thank you. I’ll pat myself on the head there for that. So on that note, we will draw this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast to a close. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich Chip Griffin: and it depends.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the common practice of providing free proposals and baseline ideas to clients.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss how agency owners should handle employees with physical and mental health concerns. They cover the increased openness around mental health and self-care, sharing personal experiences and business challenges. They highlight the importance of individualized management approaches, legal considerations, and quick professional advice. The hosts also emphasize compassionate handling of employee health issues, the need for flexible scheduling, and the impact on small businesses. Gini shares insights on providing support for team members and owners, such as disability insurance, to cover long-term absences. They conclude by underlining the importance of empathetic leadership and offering flexibility. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “You have to learn how to manage each employee individually. Because there’s no one-size-fits-all management technique.” Gini Dietrich: “Now we, and especially the younger generations, do a nice job of being really open about the things that we are dealing with and how our employers can help.” Chip Griffin: “As an owner, you get to pick: you can either keep working with that individual and work with them in the way that suits them best, or you can do it your way, and either lose the employee or lose their productivity.” Gini Dietrich: “Just be an empathetic human being because we all go through things, we all have personal things we have to deal with.” Related How to support your team in times of stress (featuring Patrick Rogan) Managing small agency employees to maximize performance Building an agency culture where everyone can take time off Agencies need to adapt to effectively manage Gen Z employees How to make conversations with your agency employees less difficult (featuring Allyns Melendez) View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, I, I, I think I might have broken my foot. I we’re not gonna be able to record today. I gotta go see the doctor and find out Gini Dietrich: because you broke your foot. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And I just, I got frustrated, you know, you know, in our past conversation that we were having, and I just kicked something and I, I think that it’s maybe broken. So I’m, I’m in remarkably little pain though, apparently, because I’m still smiling. Gini Dietrich: It’s like two, three weeks later. Yeah. And you’re, Chip Griffin: yeah. Gini Dietrich: And you’re, yeah. Here, right. Chip Griffin: But no, in, in all seriousness, , we are going to talk today about how agency owners should handle it when they have employees who have physical health concerns, mental health concerns. They might be one-offs, they might be ongoing. And this is something that a, a lot of the, the owners that I’ve been talking with this year seem to have… At least they feel like they have more instances of this that they have to deal with. I suspect that’s not the case. It’s just recency bias, on things. But I can certainly tell you that over the years I’ve had a lot of these issues, to deal with, with team members. And it’s run the whole spectrum. It’s been everything from, you know, extreme mental health issues to extreme health issues, and you know, you gotta try to figure out how to navigate those and, and as an owner. Particularly in a small business of any kind, that can be a real difficulty. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I, and I would say, I mean, I feel like it’s more prevalent now as well, and come, some of that could be recency bias, but I also think we’re much more open, especially on the mental health side of things about that and about self-care and ensuring that you’re going to a therapist and things like that. And the first time this actually hit my business was about five years ago when our younger employees would say things like, oh, I can’t make that meeting. I’m, I have a, an appointment with my therapist. And I’d be like…. During the day? Okay. And I remember at the time, and it was during the pandemic, so everything was kind of a shit show, but I remember at the time thinking, really, you’re making appointments with your therapist during the day? And now I’m to a point where I’m like, okay, if that’s what you need to do. And that’s when they, you can get in and go. But, I do think that some of it is because we, especially the younger generations, do a really nice job of being really open about these are the things that I’m dealing with. These are the things that I’m working on, and here’s how you as my employer can help. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I think that’s a, that’s a great point. And, and it’s also, I think there’s a broader awareness of these yes issues, particularly on the mental health side, but I think on both the mental and physical health side, people are much more open about these things than they were when we were coming up. In the workforce. Gini Dietrich: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Chip Griffin: You know, when, when I was first starting out, you know, you, most people, if they were seeing a therapist would never admit to it. Most wouldn’t even indicate, they might say they were going to the doctor, but usually that meant job interview. Right. And if they were actually going to the doctor, they probably didn’t even mention it. And, and instead they found some other way to work it into the schedule. So, yes. So I think part of it is that, that, you know, particularly for agency owners who are, you know, more of our generation. It’s just that people never talked about this before. So you hear people talking about it. That didn’t mean that those challenges didn’t exist before, but you weren’t certain about it. You, you’d be sitting there kind of guessing. And I certainly had a number of those 20 years ago where I’d have an employee was clearly having something going on, but it wasn’t really clear what. You know, I, I think it is helpful now because with employees being more open, at least you know what you’re dealing with. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: And you’re not guessing wrong where someone’s just kind of, you know, disappearing for stretches of time and, and you’re not sure why. I had one who I thought had a, a very serious health issue of some kind, and it turned out to be a, a personal relationship issue, that was being dealt with. Wildly different things. Right. And, and causes me to, to have wildly different concerns. Correct. But back then you didn’t talk about them. Gini Dietrich: Not at all. Yeah. You didn’t talk about it at all. And I think you’re right that you sort of had to guess. And I’ll say that, you know, in the last five years I’ve done a lot of work myself as a business owner to understand how to support different types of both mental and physical health challenges so that I can be, be a better employer. But it’s been a learning curve. And it’s been a lot of coaching that I’ve had to get on my own to understand like, if you have a person who’s dealing with this, this is the, and you know, I think the big ones are ADHD, right? How, how do you deal with somebody in the workforce who has ADHD or ADD? How do you deal with somebody who is on the spectrum? You know, how do you, how do you handle other types of, of mental health issues like, bipolar or things like that. So I’ve spent a lot of time as an, as an employer understanding how to manage and lead those types of the, the people who have those types of things. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And I would throw anxiety into the mix is a, is a big one. Yep. Depression, that, that rears its head in the professional world. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: And, and so I, I think a lot of this goes back to things we’ve talked about in the past. You know, where you have to, to learn how to manage each employee individually. Mm-hmm. ’cause they not every there’s no one size fits all management technique. Certainly there are some general principles that you can follow, but you really do have to customize the plan to the individual and what they respond to. Because some of them, if you, if you raise any kind of constructive feedback, they may freak out, right? Yep. And just be like, oh, I, I can’t, I can’t handle that. And so you may have to, to find ways to, to gently tread into that territory. And I’ve had owners say, well, I don’t want to, I just need to be able to tell them what I need. Okay. That’s what you need. And, and if, if that works for you, that’s great, but if it doesn’t… If it doesn’t get what you want from that team member, who cares whether it’s the way that you want to do it or not, right? You get to pick, you can either keep working with that individual and, and work with them in the way that suits them best, or you can do it your way and, and either lose the employee or lose their productivity. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I think one of the things that we’ve always done really well is, you know, personality tests, especially when somebody starts, give them a personality test so you understand sort of where they fit in the bigger scheme. And I think adding in this other piece of it is really important now so that you understand not just the personality, but how, how they deal with things. And if there’s anything that’s gonna cause them to, you know, we, we had, I had an employee for a while who, if you gave her direct feedback, she would spiral. And, and even if it was like, We just, I want you to be thinking about this or want you, like it wasn’t cons, it wasn’t criticism, it was just feedback. She would completely spiral and she couldn’t function, so I had to find different ways to provide feedback that she was able to accept it and not spiral into this mound of depression where she couldn’t function. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and, and I, I think that, you know, we all need to, to remember that there are, there are different layers to this as well that we need to be thinking about. Yes. Because certainly there’s, there’s the practical of, you know, how do you get the most from your team members and, and get the results that you need for your clients and for your business. But there’s also legal and regulatory issues that often crop into this. That we need to be aware of and sensitive to. So, yep. You know, one of the things that I always say is, you know, particularly if, if you’re having a really difficult time with someone and there is some health component of some sort, whether it’s physical or mental, or otherwise. It behooves you to get some professional advice from an HR consultant. Yes. An employment lawyer. Yes. Someone who can help you navigate those things because things that, that you think might be obvious and reasonable and common sense just might not be. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: And, those are the kinds of things that can get you into a lot of trouble. Mm-hmm. Particularly in 2025. Mm-hmm. So really pay attention to that sort of thing. Gini Dietrich: Yes, indeed. Yeah, I mean I think that’s really sound advice is to really understand and you know, you have Patrick on every once in a while and he’s great for just bouncing those kinds of ideas off of, to be able to understand like. What should we be thinking about? How should we handle this? Help me create some structure around this. Create a policy around it. And then it’s something that if you have a team, if you have people who are leading or managing other people, they have to understand that too. So it’s not just the training that sort of the states require, like, you know, the state of Illinois requires sexual harassment training and mental health training, and there’s one other. I can’t remember what it’s called, but it, the state of Illinois requires that of everybody who’s working in Illinois. So it’s on top of those things too that you need to talk to an HR professional about what kinds of things that you, that you and your leaders need to go through so that they’re cognizant of what, what things they’re doing that might affect the people that they’re leading. Chip Griffin: Right. And, and there’s a difference between long-term health issues and short-term health issues and Right. And how you handle ’em. And a lot of it frankly, starts with my first advice always when, when dealing with employees with challenges is say, look, start by being human. Right. So, so accept that particularly, particularly for short-term acute things. Give people space. Give people time. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: And, and it is if, if there are going to be prolonged repeated absences, that’s something that you need to deal with differently than someone has, has either themselves had a health crisis or in some cases it might be a family member has had or is having a health crisis. If it’s short term, just do your best to roll with it because that’s the human compassionate thing to do and that will come back and benefit you over time. If it’s going to be months or years long that, that this is gonna go on for, now you need to try to figure out how to find some common ground with that team member that is, you know, certainly within the law and the rules that you have to follow, but also that makes sense for the business. And these are not always easy, particularly for small businesses, because for us, if we have someone who is, you know, either out completely or you know, partially absent for a few weeks, that’s a much bigger deal than it is for a thousand person business. Gini Dietrich: Right, right. Chip Griffin: And, and I’ve certainly, I think I’ve shared on, on the show before how in the past I’ve had numerous occasions where I’ve had people, particularly, who had to take extended maternity leaves for various reasons. That can be really difficult because certainly as an, as an employer, I wanted to bring the person back. Legally, I have to be able to, in most cases, bring that person back. But somehow I need to get that work covered. Right. And it’s not the same as having someone gone for a week or two. We can just ask everybody else to step up and put in some overtime. Right. Right. And yet, small businesses generally are not able to, to bring in temporary help in the same way that a larger employer might say, Hey, bring you in. You’ll work three or four months on this, and then you know, we’ll find another account for you to work on, or something like that, right? So it is much more challenging, but you’ve gotta try to find the best way forward that that really serves your interest as a business, while also respecting the individual and their needs. Gini Dietrich: I think that also brings up a good point about the agency owner themselves, because in the last couple of years I’ve had four, four friends diagnosed with breast cancer, four, and they all run businesses. And when I went through it with my first girlfriend, you know, we kind of set the structure of here’s how you’ll manage it inside the agency. Here’s what you’ll ask your team to do. She actually brought in a consultant to run the agency for her for about nine months while she was going through treatment. And then here’s how you communicate it to clients. And she, and she didn’t lose any clients because of the way she handled it and ensured that everything was covered. And so I went through that with her, and then I had my next girlfriend call and say. I’ve just been diagnosed with breast cancer and I said, I have the template. So I’ve been able to help all four go through the process of understanding that you probably are going to have to hire somebody to help you run the agency, or maybe you have somebody internally that can step up to that, right? But there is going to be somebody that needs to take your, fill your, your shoes, so to speak. There’s a way that you communicate that to your employees. There’s a way that you can consistently communicate with your employees so they always know what’s going on. ’cause it’s scary for employees. They think they’re gonna lose their job. At the same time that they’re scared for you. Right. And then how do you communicate that with clients? For the most part, most clients are pretty cool about it. They don’t, they, their only concern is, is the work going to continue to be done and done well? And you know, and if you’ve set up your agency the way that Chip and I have talked about over the years, which is where it’s not solely the reliant on you, then it’s not, it’s less scary for the, for the clients. But again, consistently communicating, helping them understand what the process is, and then just keeping them updated because they’re gonna wanna know. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and I mean we always say this, but it’s, it’s true that, that most clients are far more understanding of challenges that arise, whether it’s our own health issues and employees health issues. Right. Employee turnover, mistakes. What employee clients are generally far more understanding and accepting than we give them credit for. Absolutely. And that’s because there are, there are the select few who are not, and, and those are the ones that tend to stick in our memories, Uhhuh. And so we, we, we tend to, to overthink that and, and believe that, that more clients are like that. And the reality is that the vast majority are not. The vast majority are human beings who understand that stuff happens. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Yeah. And in fact in all those four relationships, there was only one client out of all four that was a jerk about it. And I gently suggested that maybe they shouldn’t be a client. Yeah. And I don’t think they are today. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and I mean, I, I think that, that as an owner, if you go through these sorts of things, that also helps you have a better template in your own mind for how to work with team members. Who have issues. even if it’s not a one-to-one, you know, may, maybe you’ve been through, you know, a heart issue or a health, a cancer issue, or a mental health issue, that whatever it is, those all help you in dealing with it. Doesn’t, doesn’t mean you can’t, if you’ve been perfectly pristine, healthy for your entire life. It doesn’t mean you can’t deal with those things, but those are, you should take lessons from your own experiences and try to think through, you know, what challenges did you have? Yep. And, and how would you have wanted to be treated? Yeah. Because that will often serve as a good roadmap for you in how to work with your team and to, to show that understanding while still realizing that, that there is still a job that needs to be done in some fashion. And, and so I think a lot of it is to the extent that you can. Get an understanding from the employee what, what it means professionally. You don’t, you don’t want to, and you probably shouldn’t ask a lot of questions about whatever the actual underlying issue or issues might be. All you need to know is what does it mean for me as the employer? What does it mean for your availability? How can we help you to make sure that we’re covering things, that we’re planning appropriately? Maybe we can shift your schedule in some fashion, and we do have to accept that, you know, you to the point that you made earlier on in this episode about, you know, someone going off to see a therapist during the workday. The reality is, and my wife and I were talking about this recently, there are a lot of professionals out there who don’t maintain schedules that are particularly friendly. Gini Dietrich: Right. Chip Griffin: To the workforce. Gini Dietrich: That is true. Yes. Chip Griffin: And, and we were talking about the specific example of like dentists, right? How many dentists are open on weekends? Gini Dietrich: None. Chip Griffin: Very, very few. Yes. If I was ever a dentist, I’d be open on the weekends. Right? Because guess what? That’s more convenient mm-hmm. For a lot of people. Gini Dietrich: And evenings, yes. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And evenings. Mm-hmm. And it’s sort of like, you know, you, you drive people, people complain about, you know how Main Street America, the shops are disappearing. Well, part of that is because if you go to a lot of Main Streets in America on a Saturday or Sunday, they’re all closed. And I get that, that owners want to have normal weekends. Gini Dietrich: Yes, yes. Chip Griffin: But guess what? That’s, that’s when your customers typically can come. Gini Dietrich: Correct. Chip Griffin: Depending on, you know, who your target audience is, right? It’s the same thing, you know, we were, people I think know that I have a side business of, of doing photography. And we’re working on, you know, this is the peak season right now for senior portraits and that sort of thing, and we had a parent who said to, to Jen, who does the bookings for it. She said she offered up some weekend dates. Oh, Chip does these on the weekends? Well, yeah. But there are a lot of photographers who don’t, who won’t? They wanna work Monday through Friday. Gini Dietrich: Well, then they need a different job. Chip Griffin: I get that impulse. But you know what, that’s a much more difficult time to get, you know, students and families or whomever together. And there are, there are genres of photography that, that don’t require that, right? If you wanna do professional headshots and those kinds of things, those are much easier to do during the week. You’re not gonna get someone, you know, who wants their headshot typically on the weekend. Happens occasionally, but it’s, it’s much more common to do that during the work week. But when you’re talking about more personal ones. You’ve got to set up your business around when your customers want you. With employees, you need to start thinking about, you know, how can, can you accommodate the fact that most of the, the business world apparently doesn’t think the same way that you or I might. Yeah. And so if the only time that there’s availability to go to the doctor is during the week, you need to make that available to your team members and not make them feel guilty about having to take some time off during the week to do those things. No, that’s, that’s just because we’re all working much more flexible schedules today, whether, whether we as employers like it or not. Gini Dietrich: Right. That’s exactly right. One of the things I, you brought up maternity leave earlier. And I think that that’s a really good lesson for most business, for most agency owners, because there will be a time where you have to give parental leave. And the first time it happened to me, I remember freaking out because we needed to hire somebody to fill that role ’cause she was going to be out for at least three months. But I also couldn’t afford to be paying for both, and so I invested in long and short-term disability for all our employees so that when things come up, they have they, and so they, they can have it on their own, of course, but we also did it through the business so that when things came up. I had that ability to pay them while they were off on whatever leave they needed, but also have the budget to be able to hire somebody temporary to fill that role. So that was one of the big saving graces for me, is having, providing that, investing in that insurance for my team. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and look, I mean, a, a lot of things have improved in, in recent years in handling these kinds of short term coverage situations because, you know, we’re, we’re not in an environment where the short term replacement has to show up in the office. You know, 20 years ago when you were doing this, you, you wouldn’t really dream of having a replacement who worked remotely in most cases. Now, you certainly can. And there’s a lot more people who are open to taking those kinds of short term engagements than there were a couple of decades ago. So you, you certainly do have a lot more flexibility to cover them. You do have the cost issue, right, because you, you know, you can’t double pay. And obviously a lot of small businesses simply don’t pay for parental leave. Which, look, if you, if you’re not in a position to be able to do that, I, I’m not gonna fault you for that. Right. If you’re able to, to put together something where you can offer disability insurance, that would cover during parental leave situations, that’s fantastic and you should certainly be looking into that. But either way, you have a lot more options today to fill those gaps, and you shouldn’t hesitate to do that when you know it’s going to be a fairly well-defined prolonged absence. Absolutely. Because that, that makes things easier on everybody, on your team. And, and I can tell you from experience asking everybody to step up for months on end, that’s just, that’s not sustainable. It’s not sustainable. Even if they say, of course I’m willing to help out, you know, Sally or Joe or whoever it is. Yeah. They, they’re gonna end up resenting them to some degree, you know, by, by week 11 or 12. Gini Dietrich: Oh yeah, for sure. And you will too, because everybody’s gonna be burned out and exhausted. Absolutely. Right. Chip Griffin: Right. And, and we have to, I mean, we have to keep that in mind too, that, you know, there are, that, that people are feeling more burned out at times, and we need to understand why that is. And I, I think in some cases it, it may be, this won’t be popular, but I, I, I think that some people have been coddled, in their lives. And so they’re not used to having to, to work hard for a full 40, right? That does happen not nearly as often as most owners think, though. Most often when you have an employee who is feeling burned out, it’s ’cause you’re asking them to work way more than 40 hours a week. Yes. On a regular basis. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Yes. Chip Griffin: And so you need to understand the difference. Because look, if, if someone is saying they’re burned out and they’re only working, you know, 20, 25 hours a week and they’re, you know, kind of coasting the rest of the way and that’s the actual fact, not just what you think in your head, but what they’re reporting on time sheets. Because you are doing time tracking. Right. Right. If that’s the case, that the solution there is very different because you need to understand where that feeling of burnout is coming from. Whereas if they’re working 50 to 60 hours a week on a regular basis. You darn well know where that feeling of burnout is coming from. Gini Dietrich: Right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You just have to pay attention. I think you’re right. You raised the point earlier that you can’t really ask, but if they’re sharing information about their physical or mental health, you can definitely use that to help you understand how to better lead and to give them this, the resources they need to be successful. And just be an empathetic human being because we all go through things, we all have personal things we have to deal with. We all have to go to the doctor’s office, all of us. So just be empathetic to the things that you, we all have to do. And I think you’re right too, that if you provide the flexibility to be able to do that, you create much better loyalty than you would if you said, Nope, you have to do it after 6:00 PM. Chip Griffin: Absolutely. Well, hopefully we’ve made owners feel a little bit better about these kinds of situations and understand they’re not alone and there are options and there is a path forward when you have to deal with these things for a team member. I, I know that it’s, it’s already made my foot feel better, so I don’t think I need to go to the doctor after all. I think, I think maybe it’s not broken. Maybe that was just in my head. Gini Dietrich: Nice full circle there. Chip Griffin: See, sometimes I even remember what my opening was so I don’t have to wait for the transcript to find out. Gini Dietrich: Oh, love it. Chip Griffin: On that note, we will draw this episode to a close. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And it depends.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss how agency owners should handle employees with physical and mental health concerns.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss how to manage situations where clients want to terminate contracts early.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss how to manage situations where clients want to terminate contracts early. Gini emphasizes the importance of having a strong contract with clear termination clauses, which can serve as leverage in negotiations. They share experiences and strategies for recovering outstanding invoices, including offering concessions and being flexible with payment arrangements. The duo also cautions against aggressive tactics like public shaming for non-payment and stresses the importance of maintaining professionalism to avoid burning bridges. They conclude with practical advice on managing accounts receivable and resolving disputes amicably. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “If you look at a contract as a tool rather than a rigid roadmap, I think that’s the most helpful way to think of legal agreements in the agency client context.” Gini Dietrich: “Overall, you don’t want to burn the bridge with clients.” Chip Griffin: “What you really have to do is figure out how can you get the best possible outcome at this point?” Gini Dietrich: “Keep in mind that these are people who are going to refer business to you.” Related Getting agency-client contracts done right How to protect yourself from an unexpected client breakup How to do client collections right and get paid faster 6 reasons why your agency needs client contracts The basics of agency-client contracts from a business perspective View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, we have one of your favorite topics today, but it’s one that, that we haven’t visited in a while, so it’s, it’s probably worth revisiting. Okay. And, and, and that is, how do you handle it when you have a client who wants to end their contract early? Gini Dietrich: Well. As we all know, I am a stickler for the details when it comes to this, and we have very specific language in our contracts. Our attorney helped me create something beautiful that is a 90 day termination clause. Almost never does somebody sign 90 days. They use, it’s usually a negotiation point, right? It’s, we get it to 30 or 60, whatever. I use it for negotiation. Sometimes the client signs the full 90 day contract. I have had a situation where a client called me at the end of the month and said, we are terminating the contract as of today. And I said, great. There are two outstanding invoices, and by the way, you have a 90 day termination clause. And they came back and said, and I said, but if you’ll pay the the outstanding invoices by the 15th of the month, then I will happily waive the 90 day termination clause because I know you’re, it’s cashflow and I know you’re having a tough time right now. They came back and said, no, that I’m not being a good partner. Chip Griffin: So to clarify, they don’t want to pay for services already rendered? Gini Dietrich: Correct. Chip Griffin: That seems unreasonable under any circumstances. Gini Dietrich: I agree. Chip Griffin: So I think that from my observations of having had these conversations with you now for what, seven or eight years now on this show, you’re being particularly reasonable. Especially for me. Yes. That’s what I’m saying. You, you personally are being particularly reasonable Uhhuh, because usually you are much more hardcore than I am Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: On these things. Yes. I think that’s fair to say it is. But what you’ve described is. Is something that I would typically offer to a client. Settle your debts and we can just part ways amicably. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: And you are also, I think, the only agency owner I know of who has ever sued a client. I’m sure there are others out there, but I don’t know them personally. Gini Dietrich: It’s the principal. Chip Griffin: Yeah. Yes. We, we know that you, that you thrive on making the point. Gini Dietrich: I do. Chip Griffin: So, so it’s Gini Dietrich: Fair is fair. Chip Griffin: So you’re clearly. Going soft. Gini Dietrich: I’m, I’ve, I’m getting older. I’m, I’m getting older, and I understand that this is not worth pursuing. I would like our past due invoices to be paid, and I will happily waive the 90 day clause. If, however, you don’t pay us by the middle of the month, then I’m not waiving the clause on the contract you signed. Chip Griffin: Right. So let’s, I mean, let’s extrapolate or not extrapolate, let’s, let’s step back and look at this at a higher level rather than your particular individual case. We can use that as an example. Sure. But I think that, that there are a few key points that come out of this that could help other owners. And, and I think the first one is the way that you are using the contract as a tool to get leverage to get a solution that you’re happy with, right? It’s not that you’re abiding by the contract. Right down to the last crossed T and the last dotted I, you are willing to make concessions, right? But by having a strong contract, it gives you the leverage in that negotiation to be able to trade something, the unpaid invoices for the lengthy notification period. Or not lengthy, but the the 90 day notification period. Gini Dietrich: Right, right. Yeah. I think that’s right. And I think having that leverage helps And you, you have, you have to find ways to be able to have that leverage. Like, you know, web forms won’t deliver a website until you’ve paid their last invoice. Same thing. Like what do some things, if a client’s not gonna give you any notice and they did not give us any notice, they called us on the last day of the month. If they’re not going to give you any notice, then what is your leverage to be able to get the invoices paid, in a timely manner? And you know, if they’re saying, well, we can’t pay for 60 or 90 days, or they’re saying We’re not gonna pay it all. There’s things that you need to have. So I think your point about having a contract that has that language in it that they have signed and agreed to, gives you some of that leverage. Withholding work product gives you some leverage. So there are some things that you can do, but you have to have that all set up. You know, you always talk about sort of the prenup. What happens if you get divorced from a client, right? What are the things that are gonna protect you in that, that situation? Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and I think if you, if you look at a contract as a tool rather than a rigid roadmap, I, I think that’s, that’s the most helpful way to think of, of legal agreements, at least in the agency client context. There are obviously other places where it is that rigid roadmap and Sure. And you’re not gonna do anything about it. I mean, you try having a negotiation with, I don’t know, your car lender, you know, it’s probably not gonna happen. They’re probably just gonna sit there and say, you know, you signed the 27 page agreement. Gini Dietrich: Right. Chip Griffin: Pay up. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: So, so you know, but in, in an agency client relationship, the, the contract is that tool to help resolve the challenge in some sort of a reasonable way. And I, and I do think that it is particularly unreasonable when clients call at the end of, of a time period and say, we’re ending immediately. I mean, that’s just – Regardless of what your contract says, that’s just it. It’s bad behavior. Yep. And, and I don’t appreciate seeing it. And it tells me a lot about either the individual or the organization or sometimes both. Yep. And, and so certainly not something you ever wanna see. Having a contract can help you find a resolution to that. Although, I will say at the same time, when you have people who engage in that kind of behavior, it sometimes ends up being a lost cause candidly. Because if, if someone is willing to do that, then they may have no issue at all just leaving invoices unpaid, and then your only recourse is to sue, which you can do. Sure. You’ve proved that. Yes. And, and yet most of the time it will cost you more time and money than you actually recover. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, for sure. Yes, I have. I have learned, I have grown. I have, and sometimes there are situations where I’m okay spending the money to prove my point. Chip Griffin: Well, and, and sometimes, and there are other options. You can sometimes turn, turn these over to collections groups who will take a percentage of whatever they are able to recover, you know, that. And they, they just turn into the obnoxious collections agent and just Yep, keep calling. You know, that’s not something I’ve ever pursued, but I know some, some owners who have gone down that route, with mixed success. So. You know that there are things that you can do, but generally speaking, your best bet in my experience is to try to work something out in as Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: As friendly a way as possible. Yeah. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: But it’s, it’s also a good reminder to, to stay on top of your accounts receivable. In your case, two months is, is not terrible. There are plenty of cases where I’ve worked with agencies who have much larger debts owed to them by clients. Yes. And, and what I always tell folks is, you know, whatever you have for outstanding invoices, you have to assume you’ll never get paid. Because there’s just, you know, particularly once they cancel, now you’ve got no leverage left, right? Because what are you gonna, the only thing you have at that point is a lawsuit. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: That’s not particularly helpful Gini Dietrich: right Chip Griffin: Now I have seen a lot of suggestions in places like candidly, the Spin Sucks community, where people have suggested. Some creative, Gini Dietrich: very creative, Chip Griffin: but I think very impudent Gini Dietrich: correct Chip Griffin: ideas. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: For how you deal with deadbeat clients. Gini Dietrich: Yes, yes. Chip Griffin: For example, I think one suggestion I saw, I forget whether this was Spin Sucks or somewhere else, was basically taking out a billboard in a community attacking a company for not paying. Others have suggested putting them on blast and just posting all over social media like you see people do when they’re upset about some treatment by the airline or something like that. Gini Dietrich: Yes, yes. Chip Griffin: These are bad ideas folks. Gini Dietrich: They’re bad ideas. Actually, I just saw somebody put a company on, on blast on social media because they weren’t paying their bills, and I was like, well, that’s one approach. Chip Griffin: I, I mean, the thing is you have to look at this through the lens of the recipient. I mean, you’re, you’re escalating dramatically with them once you go public, right? With something like that. And so now you know, you think you’re putting pressure on them, but the exact opposite may be true. You may be stiffening their spine to say, You know, I didn’t like working with these people anyway, and if they’re gonna behave like this, right? Because keep in mind we sit there and, and, and we look at a client who is canceling with little or no notice, not paying bills. We look at them as the bad guy. But oftentimes if you talk to them, that’s not how they see it. Sure. And, and so, and they may think in their mind, well, geez, this agency didn’t live up to their promises. They didn’t do what they could, or they don’t understand and appreciate our financial troubles that, you know, and, and we just, we don’t have it. We can’t pay it. It is what it is. And, and so, so they don’t think that, and so you going on the, the attack publicly right now just makes them think. Even better of themselves and worse of you and, and takes you further away from resolution rather than closer. I mean, certainly in some cases it might work, but I, but I would argue more often than not, it’s probably not going to. But the other thing you have to think of is how are other people perceiving this? Right. Prospective clients. Yeah. Who might be inclined to work with you. Yeah. If they’re looking at this, they’re saying, geez, you know, if it doesn’t go right with them, this is how they treat their clients? Yeah. I don’t, I don’t know that I wanna work with them. Yeah. So, so you gotta be really careful with these kinds of, of tactics because scorched earth usually burns both sides. Gini Dietrich: Absolutely. And I, I mean, there’s something to be said for not burning a bridge, you know, and sure, certainly there, there may be instances here and there over the years that you, it’s okay to burn the bridge, but overall you don’t wanna burn the bridge. And, you know, I, I think that that’s the case. As I’ve grown and matured, that’s one of the things that I’ve learned is, yeah, could I prove, could I sue them and prove my point? Sure, absolutely. Is it worth it? Probably not. Chip Griffin: No. And, and so, so what you really have to do is figure out, you know, how, how can you get the best possible outcome at this point? And so, you know, in your case, trying to trade the outstanding invoices, you know, for waiving the notice period is, you know, probably the, the first and most obvious thing that you can do. But I would also say in these cases, try to collect as much as you can, however you can. Yeah. So, so sometimes what you might do is you might say, well if, if you can pay one of the invoices by this date and the other by a later date, you know, that will then, so ’cause that sometimes can encourage that first payment to come in or break it up. Mm-hmm. You know, break it up into four monthly installments even though it’s two months worth of there. There’s a lot of different creative things that you can do so that you are mitigating your exposure and, and collecting at least some of it. And I think one of the mistakes that, that I’ve seen people make in circumstances like these is it becomes all or nothing. Yeah. And so the, the focus is purely on getting the total amount owed. And, and I would strongly encourage you to try to, if, if you certainly start there, but if you can’t get that right away, then try to figure out how can you, you know, start carving out at least some of that past debt for two reasons. One is it does reduce how much you’re out at the end of the day. But the second is it starts to, to build the expectation in the client that they will continue to pay up, right? And so, so getting that first payment across often will help you get to the later ones. Maybe not to all of them, but at least to subsequent ones. And so, you know, you want to think creatively about this and, and not cut off your nose to spite your face because you just, you wanted it all. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. And I, I would say to that end too, that many of us have, interest clauses in our contracts. I never hold clients to that either. Like if I, if I can split it up into four payments or, you know, five payments, whatever it happens to be and get and not charge interest for them being late, like, but I get the money eventually. I that, I’m fine with that. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean the, to me, the interest clause is, is really just another lever for you to use. I certainly know agencies who do charge the interest. In some cases I know them, that they, they’ll start it like on day one of being late. I, you know that that’s not. My approach to it. I, I think that, that you, you can lead to clients feeling like they’re being nickled and dimed for things like that. Sure. Yeah. But the other thing frankly is that there is, a fair bit of, of research out there that suggests that things like interest in late fees and all of that actually encourages late payment. Sure. Yeah. Before the be, you know, there was a, I remember there was one particular study of a daycare. And the, the daycare was frustrated that parents kept, you know, showing up after five o’clock or whatever to pick up their kids. I remember the staff had to wait around and so they started instituting a late fee, and rather than fixing it, it actually made it worse. Yes. Because then people started saying, well, okay, I’ll pay the extra 50 bucks. Right. You know, so that I don’t have to show up until like seven. Yes. Yes. And, and so what they, because, so sometimes those kinds of, of penalties actually serve as permission to engage in bad behavior. So, so something to, to keep in mind when you’re using things like that is that, that you may not have the expected consequence of things like that. So you, you wanna think those things through, but I, I encourage you to have the interest fee provision in there because it is something that you can say, it does give you that leverage. You gets paid in 10 days, then we’ll waive it or something like that. Yep. And so you, you, you always want to try to appear, even with the most difficult client, it is in your best interest, no pun intended, to, to appear to be as accommodating and as helpful as possible. Because your goal, when you think about it, is to extract yourself from this relationship with as little damage to your business as possible. That’s right. And generally escalating, and, you know, you know, putting up your fists and sparring is not the way to get there. Gini Dietrich: No, absolutely not. And like I said, if you, if, if you can avoid burning a bridge because you’re right. These cl, these, these are people who are going to refer business to you. And I always say, I always say this about employees. You always remember an employee by the way they left, not with by all the great work that they did while they worked with you. Yep, sure. And if they behave, if they left badly, that’s how you remember them. And it’s the same thing with clients. If you leave the relationship poorly or you leave with a bad taste in their mouth, or you put them on blasts publicly. They’re not going to refer business to you, and they’re going to remember that you treated them badly from their perspective when you left. So I think those are the kinds of things that we have to think about as we, as we deal with clients who don’t follow their agreement that they made with you. Chip Griffin: Right. And, and I, and I do think that it is important to try to, to end relationships in such a way that you leave the door open to future possibilities. Sure. At the same time as you’re seeking to resolve these kinds of issues. I wouldn’t put too much stock in that because the vast majority of clients who have ever left any of my businesses over the years, will say things like, oh, well, we’ll be back when, you know, and, and that may be time certain, it may be when their business turns around, it may be, you know, whatever. The vast majority never come back, and I don’t believe that’s because, you know, my businesses are all lousy and they were just, you know, making stuff up to make me feel good. I, I think in the moment most people actually believe this, but… Things change for them. Life moves on. Sure. And, and yes. And so maybe it just doesn’t feel like a fit later on. Right. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Right. And I don’t blame them for that, but I do, I do encourage owners not to say, well, they said they’ll come back in three or six months, so you know, I’m gonna cut ’em a real sweetheart deal. You wanna be careful about that. Make a decision that assumes that you would still be okay with it if they never come back. I mean, I, I always think that most business decisions. If you, if you look at them through the, the worst case possibility, you’ll make better decisions. And that’s true of, you know, whether it’s resolving something with a client. Pitching new business to a client, selling your agency at some point down the road, always assume that you only get the bare minimum out of it. Yeah. And ask yourself if you are okay with the bare minimum. If you’re only happy with it because there’s some icing on the cake that you think is coming later, then you probably shouldn’t go down that path. Gini Dietrich: No, totally agree with you. It’s, you know, counting your chickens before their hatch. Don’t do that. Don’t ever, ever do that. Chip Griffin: Nope. Nope. Kill a chicken and eat it. Sorry, PETA. Gini Dietrich: On that note, Chip Griffin: I think, I think probably on that note before we go farther off the rails, we will draw this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast to a close. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich, Chip Griffin: and it depends.

In this episode, Chip and Gini explore the impact of AI on client expectations. They discuss how AI is perceived to speed up work, leading clients to have unrealistic expectations regarding turnaround times and pricing. The duo emphasizes the need for agencies to set realistic boundaries and manage expectations from the outset. They share stories about AI’s inconsistency, particularly in generating imagery and written content, and stress the importance of educating clients on the limitations and potential of AI. Ultimately, they advocate for leveraging AI’s efficiencies while maintaining transparency and setting clear guidelines with clients to avoid morale and operational issues within your agency. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “The advice that we always give that as soon as you spot unrealistic expectations, you need to call them out and adjust them, that becomes even more important now.” Gini Dietrich: “You can’t just input a prompt and expect that you’re going to get an output and then send it over to the client. That’s not how it works.” Chip Griffin: “Nothing has changed with AI. We still need to focus on education and expectations with our clients no matter what tools or technology we’re using.” Gini Dietrich: “Sometimes you might over deliver, getting things done sooner or things like that. But those should be like delight and surprise kinds of experiences, not an all the time kind of thing.” Related Setting expectations for agency clients What does ChatGPT and generative AI mean for PR agencies? View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini I, I used some AI and so we’re gonna conclude this podcast in just about a minute because we’ll get to all the key points that quickly because of the technology. Gini Dietrich: The instant output, are we getting? Chip Griffin: An instant output. Instant amazing, instant results. Amazing. And we can move on with our day. Gini Dietrich: Okay. But before we get to that Chip Griffin: mm-hmm. Gini Dietrich: Happy belated birthday. Chip Griffin: Thank you. I appreciate it. Gini Dietrich: You’re welcome. I didn’t get to wish you happy birthday last week because the coffee shop and the satellite office and the wifi, blah, blah, blah. So happy belated. Chip Griffin: Thank you. It is, it is nice to have you back in your home office so that we don’t, Gini Dietrich: it’s very nice to be back. Chip Griffin: We, we don’t have to, to figure out all the technical issues every week. Yes. And, and figure out can we record, can we not record? Yes. Yes. But I think, I think we only had two weeks where we couldn’t make it work, so Yeah, you’re right. That’s not, that’s not too bad given the challenges of recording in a coffee shop environment. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Summer school is over. Yay. Chip Griffin: Well, there you go. Alright. We are gonna talk about AI and we are gonna talk about AI making us faster, but perhaps the bigger problem is clients and prospects thinking that it would make us even faster. Than fast. Gini Dietrich: Mm-hmm. Chip Griffin: And so it does tend to lead to unrealistic expectations about how much you can do, how fast you can do it, and of course what that means for pricing. And so these are all challenges that agencies are facing and, and we’re all excited about the technology around us and how we can leverage it. But, but how do we manage those expectations effectively with clients and, and how do we integrate it effectively with what we’re doing so that, that it adds to the, the results and, and doesn’t just give us a giant headache. Gini Dietrich: Part of the reason I like this topic for today is at six o’clock this morning, I saw a client in a Google Doc, a shared Google Doc making some changes, and then at 7:30 he emailed and said, have you updated it yet? And I was like… Chip Griffin: yep. Gini Dietrich: Uh, Chip Griffin: nope. Gini Dietrich: No. Nope. It’s not, not even 8:00 AM yet on a Monday. Let’s thanks for playing. Let’s settle down. Yep. So that’s part of the reason I like this topic is because I think that that’s exactly what’s happening, happening is everyone’s like, oh, well you can do it faster. So I expect it in minutes instead of hours or even days. Which may be the case in some, some things, but not the case in all. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And look, I mean, agencies are, are used to unrealistic client expectations. Fair. It’s something that that agencies have, have mm-hmm. Been dealing with for decades, certainly as long as I’ve been in the business and, and it is always something that you have to be mindful of. But I think to your point, AI is making it so that people think that all of these things can be done even faster than they really can. Or that AI alone can solve problems and create content or edit content, and there is no need for any human touch. And so that means in their minds that this can be truly instantaneous. But the reality is that AI still requires a level of management, a level of review. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: And, and is, it is a tool to help us get there, but it, it’s not gonna take over and do its thing on its own. So, you know, a client can’t expect that you get things just as fast as you might from chat GPT when you ask a question. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. It’s not, it’s not that, I mean, everybody knows this. That’s not the case at all. Christopher Barger, who’s on my team, has a really good article coming out in a couple of weeks about how he used AI for his fantasy baseball draft. And part of the reason he did that, which he explains in the article, is that he wasn’t using AI at all and I was trying to encourage him to use it and said, Why don’t you see what it would tell you for your baseball draft? Just to like, get an idea of how to use it and what kinds of things. And one of the things he says in the article that he learned is that the, the output is only as good as what you give it. It’s only as good as what you’re training it with. So because, and because it’s a little bit delayed, you know, he was, he was getting information from it, from players that played two years ago instead of more current players. And so I think we, for tend to forget those things that the AI has to be trained, it has to be trained over time. It still has a delay. It still hallucinates. So no, you can’t just input a prompt and expect that you’re going to get an output and then send it over to the client. That’s just not how it works. And it’s unrealistic for them to think that. Chip Griffin: Yes, but as, as we know, you know, clients aren’t necessarily always grounded in reality, when it comes to expectations, and so, so honestly, it, it’s our job as, as agency leaders to help educate them. And to help them to understand what the technology can and cannot do, what is or is not unreasonable to expect of us and our teams. And so I think now more than ever, the advice that we always give that that as soon as you spot unrealistic expectations, you need to call them out and adjust them. I think that becomes even more important now. Absolutely. Because otherwise you’ll really put yourself in a difficult position if they assume that it’s quick and easy and cheap to do all of these things that they want you to do. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I remember, gosh, just a year ago, maybe even shorter than that, where agency owners were freaking out because they were afraid they were going to lose retainer budgets. Or have them shrink in size because clients are saying, well, you’re now using AI. It shouldn’t cost this much. I think that that concern has eased a little bit because clients understand that maybe they’re getting more for their retainer dollars, which is great. I think we all, all like to be able to do that for our clients. But I do think there is this idea that now we’ve gone from Oh, well, you can use AI for your job, so we shouldn’t, you shouldn’t charge me as much to, oh, you can use AI for your job and deliver all of these extra things today in the next 30 seconds or 30 minutes versus a week from now. And you’re right, you should be setting the expectation that it still takes time. We have other clients, even though we don’t like to let our clients know we have other clients, we do have other clients. There are fires that pop up. Clients have crises, clients have issues, like there are things you still have to deal with, with or without AI. So setting those expectations and realistic expectations is the right thing to do. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and I mean certainly clients don’t like to hear that there are other clients. Right. But, but I think that makes it even more important for us to be clear from the get go that yeah, we do have other clients and, and that’s a good thing. Yeah. And, and part of the problem comes because agencies try to deceive people in the prospect process. Not necessarily out of any malicious intent, but, but we often try to, particularly as small agencies, we try to make clients think that we are bigger than we are. Gini Dietrich: Mm mm-hmm. Chip Griffin: We always try to make people feel like, you know, they are the only client that matters. Mm-hmm. Which in that moment, in that phone call ought to be true. Yes. You shouldn’t be thinking about or responding to emails to other clients while you’re dealing with, with another or a prospect. But, you can’t make them think that they are your, your only priority forever in the future. Because that’s, that’s just unrealistic. Right? And, and so we need to work to educate clients about these things and, and not try to allow them to believe that we are bigger, that we are, that they are, you know, the A number one client always and forever that you know, we can turn things around, licketysplit. We always wanna make sure that we understand what it really takes to get the job done and share that in a transparent way with the prospect, because otherwise it becomes a real battle to try to, to walk that back six months down the line when they’re like, well, I don’t understand. Why is it taking you so long? Taking me so long, I, I did it within like six hours. I, you know, I mean. Gini Dietrich: Right? I stayed up till 9:30 last night working on this for you. What do you mean? Yeah. Right. Chip Griffin: And yeah. But, but a lot of that comes because we didn’t correct the expectations soon enough. And, and as we’ve talked about before, oftentimes very early in the relationship. We will respond lickety split, and at 7:30 at night and all of that kind of stuff because, you know, we want to make a good impression. And, and the AI may in fact allow us to do that at times in a more, you know, in a faster, shorter labor timeframe. But if we, if we do that constantly, you know, we’re gonna be constantly chasing ourselves and, and working crazy hours. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: And it will destroy our morale. It’ll destroy team morale. And, and it will only continue to feed itself to the point where at some point, even if you are doing all those things, you’re still not gonna meet the expectations that the client has. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think this is, this goes to any sort of unrealistic expectation that the client has. And to your point earlier, most clients do have unrealistic expectations. It’s setting your boundaries and setting the expectations, and setting the realistic expectations upfront. Because when you do that, it’s a lot less painful six months from now. It’s a lot less painful a year from now because you’re not having to have those conversations and everybody’s excited with new clients. Everybody wants to put their best foot forward, of course, but set those boundaries upfront to say, this is what you can expect. Realistically. Sometimes you might over deliver in, in the case of getting things done sooner or things like that. But those should be like delight and surprise kinds of experiences, not an all the, all the time kind of thing. Chip Griffin: Right. Now. At the same time, I, I think we need to be careful that we don’t, the pendulum doesn’t swing too far in the opposite direction as it sometimes does. Yes. And we have to understand that AI and, and other related technology. absolutely will allow us to turn some things around faster and with less work. And so we, we shouldn’t pretend that it doesn’t simply to protect ourselves or to protect our profit margins. We need to, you know, we need to, we don’t need to run to the client and say, oh, by the way, you know, we can, we can now edit these pieces in, you know, a quarter of the time because, you know, the AI gets us there faster or whatever, but, you know, we, we can’t just sit there and sit on it. For a couple of extra days just to, to, to make the client think that it’s taking longer than it is. Gini Dietrich: Oh, no, please don’t do that. Geez. Chip Griffin: Right. So, you know, we need to, if, if we are able to become more efficient and more productive with these things, we should figure out how to leverage that increased efficiency and productivity. We shouldn’t just try to, to hide it and harvest it for our own benefit. Because Gini Dietrich: That’s a really great point. Chip Griffin: Because if we want them to believe us when we say it’s not really going to speed it up as much as you think. Then, we have to be honest when it does, because otherwise we’re not credible. Right? Right. Because everybody knows that there are places and there are things that AI and related technology will help us do better, more efficient, cheaper, whatever. Take advantage of that. Be honest about it. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I, yeah, please do Chip Griffin: Fight the battle’s worth fighting, Gini Dietrich: please. Yes, please don’t do that. Chip Griffin: But, but I mean, but I see it a lot and I, and I’ve seen that advice given too, right? You know, that, you know it, that, you know, we, we need to, we need to protect, our revenue. And so if it, if it’s gonna take half the time, we need to keep charging this the same amount. Well, if it’s gonna take you half the time to do it. I, I would be looking for how I can leverage that to do something else and produce even better results. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: For the client. I wouldn’t just be saying, no, I, I know it, it only takes half the time for me to do this work, but I’m gonna keep charging you the same. Yeah. Because that may work for you in the short term, but it does not work in the long term. Gini Dietrich: It does not work. No, it does not. I know I’ve said this before, but we, we’ve always, since I was a young whipper snapper. I had a boss who called it the popcorn list. So it was the list of things that you wish you could get to that aren’t strategically like they don’t matter from a strategic standpoint, but they’re things that, that could be done. Maybe it’s like reoptimizing the website or changing content on certain pages or developing a new piece of lead magnet or something like things that you would like to get to but maybe haven’t been able to. Have that list so that now that you are more efficient because of AI, you can go to those things because that’s the surprise and delight thing I mentioned earlier. The things that you can do for the client that you weren’t able to before because of time, resources, or, budget resource constraints. Now you can do it because you have, have some of that time and budget available. Absolutely. They will be so happy with you doing those kinds of things. Chip Griffin: Absolutely. And so why, why not surprise and delight them? But there also is a piece of education here, right? Because a lot of times clients expect because they’ve seen particular examples. Either maybe someone on their team showed them something that that AI was able to do, or they’ve seen someone post about it on LinkedIn or something like that. We need to help educate them about what the limits of AI are for the specific things that we’re doing for them. And I think one of the, the challenges that a lot of clients have is they will see something that’s just amazing that AI has done and helped produce. At the same time, my experience is a lot of the generative AI is fairly inconsistent in the quality of the output. Whether that’s written or visual or audio or whatever. And so part of it is to help them to understand, sure. You know, we can have, for your website, we can have all of the images generated by AI. Some of them may be great, some of them may not. Gini Dietrich: Right. Chip Griffin: And, and there may be a lot less consistency across them than if we had a human designer doing it. Now I expect that will continue to improve over time. But we need to help our clients understand what some of the trade offs are, if we are going to rely more on these things to turn things around more quickly. And so there may be a lack of consistency in writing style and things like that. There may be a lack of consistency in the visual imagery. Sometimes it may not even be usable, and so it might actually take longer. Yeah, I’ve certainly seen a number of examples in working with clients where they used AI for I don’t mean to keep beating on imagery, but imagery seems to be one of the places where it is the most inconsistent. Yeah. And sometimes you’ll look at something and be like, this is fantastic. I’m so excited about this. And then you’ll work on something similar and you’ll go through seven or eight iterations and it’s just all rubbish. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: And you’re like, I can’t use any of this. Gini Dietrich: Any, yeah. Chip Griffin: And then maybe you finally get something that’s decent, but it, it doesn’t look anything like the other one. So now you don’t have brand consistency. Across the, the different elements that you’re using. So you really need to, to help your clients to understand where are their limits, where can it help and, and why it is that, that you’re telling them it’s not going to shave off as much time as, as they might think. Gini Dietrich: I’m laughing as you’re talking about this because we had a client maybe three or four months ago who decided that the positioning, key messages, vision and mission work that we did along with the new, with their web development firm for their new website was not adequate because it hadn’t been run through AI. It actually had, but okay. And so he redid it. And he sent it over and the team lead for that client called me and it was probably like seven or eight o’clock on a a weeknight. And he was so angry and he’s like, I’m gonna send this to you. I need you to look at it. And so I looked at it and the AI didn’t even spell the company name wrong. He didn’t like check anything. It talked about a mission for some other company that wasn’t their mission. And the two of us were like, what? And so I called the CEO and I was like, dude. Really? And he goes, oh, I’m embarrassed. I didn’t even look at it. Yeah. I was like, come on. Like, geez. Yeah. So, yes, and, and in images to your point, especially if there’s text, that text is never correct. Ever. Yeah. Ever. So please, like, you’re right, it could actually take more time in the long run. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And I mean, and, and there are these services out there that say, oh, you know, we’ll build a PowerPoint deck with the AI. You just kind of tell it what you need. And, and I’ve tried some of them and, and some of them occasionally come up with something that’s, that’s, you know, pretty good, decent. And some of them are just awful and they look like a two year-old put them together. Gini Dietrich: Right? Yes. Chip Griffin: And, and so it’s, to me, one of the biggest challenges is, is that lack of consistency. Or the, the flip side is sometimes excessive consistency. Right? Particularly when it comes to text. And you know, lack of, even though you may tell the AI to, to think critically, it often doesn’t. And, and so it will end up just saying, oh, you’re so brilliant. You’re so smart. This is, you’re right on. I’m so glad you suggested this. I’m like, well, but what, where’s the contrary point of view? And I’ve seen some people with, you know, some prompts that they claim helps the AI to, to be a little bit more constructively critical. And maybe, but, but it, it does seem to generally love its operator in most cases. It does. Yes, it does. And so you have to be careful about mm-hmm. What that can mean, particularly if you’re using it to edit things or, or those kinds of things because it might, it might not steer you down the right path. And so again, you need to help your clients understand Absolutely. We can use AI to short circuit some of these things, but, but just know that it sometimes it’s gonna help and sometimes it’s not. So sometimes we may need a little extra time, so we’re gonna build that cushion into our schedules so that if the AI doesn’t come through, in the way that we would like it to, we still have room to clean up after it as necessary with humans. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Yeah. I, I think that setting realistic expectations, setting your boundaries, and being very clear about what that all means is, is the right approach. And that doesn’t change, right? It doesn’t change. If we have AI, it doesn’t change. If we have whatever’s next is to come. We always need to set realistic expectations and then, and then hold to it. Like if you say we don’t answer emails after 5:00 PM don’t answer emails after 5:00 PM. Chip Griffin: Right. Yeah. And, and I think, I think that is, to me, the point I would underscore is nothing has really changed, right? With AI. Everything has changed with AI and yet nothing has changed. Yes, right. We still need to focus on education and expectations with our clients no matter what tools or technology we’re using. And if we do that we’ll, we will be in a better position. And obviously that will be an ongoing process. It’s not like we just do that when we sell the contract, we have to continuously educate. Right. And measure expectations. Yes. And adjust expectations. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: As circumstances warrant. Gini Dietrich: Yes, indeed. Chip Griffin: So with that, clearly the AI didn’t help us enough. We didn’t finish everything here in one minute. Gini Dietrich: Shoot. Oh, well. Chip Griffin: But hopefully you enjoyed the journey in listening to us and we shared a few points that you might actually appreciate, might even help your business. You just never know. Gini Dietrich: Maybe. Hopefully. Chip Griffin: And if not, feel free to stick this into AI and see what it comes up with. Gini Dietrich: Now I’m kind of tempted. Chip Griffin: Yeah, there you go. So on that note, I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And it depends.

Chip and Gini discuss how AI is perceived to speed up work, leading clients to have unrealistic expectations regarding turnaround times and pricing.

In this episode, Chip and Gini focus on the issue of employees over-servicing clients. They discuss the reasons behind over-servicing, including fear of client dissatisfaction and insufficient initial project scopes. The hosts emphasize the importance of educating employees on the long-term negative impacts, both on agency profitability and client relationships. They advocate for involving employees in strategic planning and scoping processes to ensure accurate budgeting and foster accountability. Chip and Gini also highlight the benefits of regular communication and collaboration with team members to prevent recurring problems and enhance overall agency efficiency. Key takeaways Gini Dietrich: “Even though your employees think that they’re helping a client, in the long run it’s more upsetting to the client to find out that you’ve been over-servicing all this time.” Chip Griffin: “We need to be collaborating so that our team feels empowered. Because the more empowered they are, the more likely they are to produce the results that we want and our clients need.” Gini Dietrich: “Because they’re over-servicing, working more hours than they should, they’re not able to get to other clients that they should be working on.” Chip Griffin: “We need to listen to our team and accept that we might actually be wrong. It might be in our minds over-servicing because we were budgeting a certain amount of time, but maybe our time budget was wrong.” Related Hidden overservicing by agency employees The difference between over-delivering and over-servicing agency clients How agency owners can avoid scope creep (featuring Steve Guberman) View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, I don’t really have a, a cute opening to this one, so I’m just gonna dive right in, which I don’t, I don’t know, I just, in, in the 10 seconds that I had waiting to, you know, to start, I come up with, come up with anything that, okay. That was even halfway lame or useful or anything. So it is what it is. We’re gonna talk about over servicing, but not the way we’ve talked about it before. Because we’ve talked about over-servicing in terms of how big a deal it can be to the profitability of your agency. We’ve talked about how to identify over servicing. We’ve talked about how to, how important it is to show your employees when they’re over servicing. But we’re gonna talk today about how do you solve that with employees who understand that they’re over-servicing, maybe they understand that it’s a problem, but they continue to do it anyway. And it, it’s not out of malice. They’re not doing it because they want, you know, you to suffer from a profitability standpoint as an agency. They’re doing it because, as I think I’ve shared previously in my earliest role in an agency, I would overservice a client because I knew that they were gonna be unhappy with me if I didn’t do it. And, and so I didn’t want to be yelled at by the client. Mm-hmm. Other people might over-service because they’re afraid that if they don’t do something today, it’s just gonna cause more work for them in the future. And so in their minds, they’re making a rational decision for their own situation. But it may not be right for the business. So how do you handle that? I mean, other than just firing the employee who refuses to stop over-servicing? Because that’s, that’s not a great solution in most cases. No. Sometimes I, I imagine it might get there, but, but that’s what we’re gonna talk about. How do we, what strategies do we have for dealing with those employees who are over-servicing despite our best efforts? Gini Dietrich: I’m sure I’ve shared this story before, but I’m gonna repeat it for those who have not heard it. Um, I had an employee who was doing exactly that and was over-servicing and it was a really tiny client. It wasn’t a huge client. I think she really enjoyed working with the client and wanted to do more work for her, just because she enjoyed the work. She enjoyed the client. She didn’t want to have to tell the client no. And after, I think she was here probably six or seven years after she resigned, the client said to us, well, this person used to do this, this, this, and this. And we were like it’s not in the scope. She’s like, but she did it. And so we had to kind of back, I backpedal to say like, I understand that she did it. She was over-servicing. We’re really sorry, but we have to get this in line with the scope. If you want to change the scope or you want to add budget, we can do that. But like we can’t continue to do $20,000 worth of work for 5,000 a month, which is essentially what it was. And the client ended up, ended up leaving because of it. You know, to this day, I’m reminded that even though you think that your, your employees think that they’re helping a client in the long run, it’s more upsetting to them to find out that you’ve been over-servicing all this time. And they’re not, they, they’re not paying for those things. So I think it’s, it’s a double edged sword a little bit from that perspective of it’s not just that they’re you know, spending $15,000 more a month in time than the client is paying. But also on the client side, it’s really upsetting for them to discover that that’s been going on, especially when you, you have to have the conversation to scale things back. Chip Griffin: Right. And, and I think that, that if they understand the long-term damage they might be doing to the client relationship, that might help them to better understand it. So like a lot of things, you know, a good first step is more education and, helping the team members understand the consequences of that action beyond just it’s eating into our profitability. Right. Because I, I mean, I think that that’s the, that’s the most obvious thing that, that employees will Oh, sure. It’s, it’s eating into our profits, but we’re still doing the right thing. We’re still right. We’re still helping them out. And, and unfortunately it, it takes away the opportunity for the agency to solve things in a different way with the client. That’s right. If the solution is simply to continue over-servicing. And so, you know, it might be that you have to work with that team member rather than just saying, stop over-servicing. It’s, okay. Why are we over-servicing and how can we go about solving that problem. Because the over-servicing in, in many cases, particularly if it’s the, that you’re afraid the client will be unhappy. The real problem is not the over-servicing, the real problem is meeting expectations. You know, changing the scope of work. There are a lot of things that you can do to address it apart from just saying, Hey, stop doing that. Gini Dietrich: That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. One of the things that we started doing, I think in, during the pandemic, I think it was during 2020, is we moved from annual planning and annual contracts to quarterly. And what that’s allowed us to do is get on top of the over servicing because we, we all, I mean we certainly, you know, set goals and KPIs and all that for a year, but then we break them down by quarter and we say, okay, with the client. These are the goals. These are the things that we’re going to do to achieve those goals. These are the kinds of results we expect. And then we get, we get to work. And in the next quarter we’re able to say, these are the things we worked on. These are the extra things that we’re doing because the teams are over servicing. These are the results. These are the things that we didn’t, that didn’t work as well as we thought they would. So we’d like to tweak. And you have that ongoing conversation with them. So that they are part of the decision to say, oh, I see if we do this and this, we’re gonna have to either scale back on this or we’re gonna have to add budget. And there it’s an ongoing conversation so it becomes less conflict ridden. So it doesn’t, it doesn’t feel like we’re having to go to the client and say, you know, if you add that we’re gonna have to scale back or, and, and it doesn’t make the team feel like they should just do the work because there’s this ongoing conversation where they’re part of it all of the time, and that has really helped us scale back on over servicing. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and I think, you know, just as you want to avoid that, you know, creating those points of conflict with the client, I think that that owners, managers should be trying to avoid those points of conflict with the employee as well. And so it’s not simply about saying, Hey, stop over-servicing and instead you want to make them part of the solution. And so, you know, my suggestion is, as I often suggest with these problems. Ask them what they would do about it. Love it. Ask them, how could we scope this better in the future so that we make sure that we’re incorporating all of this work that we actually need to do in order to produce the results that the client is expecting. What could we change with our pricing? What other changes could we make internally in order to get there? Because if, if you start making them part of the solution as opposed to simply saying, stop doing that, right? You might have a better chance. Not always, but you might have a better chance of getting a successful outcome. So, try to make it less confrontational with the team member and try to involve them in the problem solving more than you probably are. Gini Dietrich: And I also think there’s something to be said for, you know, they probably, because they’re over-servicing, are working more hours than they should. They’re not able to get to other clients that they should be working on. They’re at capacity. So I think that’s an education around that too, to demonstrate, you know, if, if you’re literally spending $15,000 more a month with this client, think about what that might look like if you shifted that time and that budget allocation to this client or this client. Like let’s talk about what that might look like. So they start to understand from a business perspective what the implications are, the consequences are of them making these decisions. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and I think also helping them to understand that it, you know, over-servicing is not a victimless crime. It is not, it is not merely the, the agency’s bottom line and, and some, you know, mysterious profit margin that’s, that’s being impacted. It’s the impact on your colleagues. And, you know, you can sit there and say, okay, well, you know, I’m helping improve my own situation because I’m, I’m doing it today so that I don’t get forced to do it tomorrow on a crisis basis or something like that. But think about what that means for your coworkers, because if you’re working with multiple people on a project and they come to expect over servicing from you, they’re gonna expect it from the others on the account. Or as, as you advance and, and maybe you become a supervisor. And, and you’ve got other people working for you now, now you’ve, you’ve burdened them with having to do this and meet those expectations of over-servicing as well. So, I think it’s really helpful in many cases to help the team members understand that it’s, it’s not just about, you know, what it means for them, it’s the impact that it can have on their coworkers as well, because that may make them more sympathetic to solving the problem because it’s no longer just, you know, that the profit margin isn’t what it should be. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, because the profit margin, I think you’re right, is so vague and I think most people think that the profit margin means that the owner gets all that money and I don’t get anything of it. So what does it matter to me if… Right? They don’t understand that. Chip Griffin: Right. And, and the employees always think that the, the owner is making a ton of money anyway. Always. So, I mean, it doesn’t matter what you’re actually making, I can guarantee you they think you’re making more than you are. Gini Dietrich: They think you’re making millions of dollars for sure. Yeah, so I think it’s, it’s the ongoing education, it’s the coaching, it’s the mentoring, it’s helping them understand, I love the putting them in the shoes of their colleagues because I think that helps give them some empathy that they may not, may not be thinking about. Helping them understand, you know, all of these things have consequences. And so what does that look like? So it’s constantly coaching, it’s constantly educating, it’s constantly talking about talking them through, and I love the idea of bringing them into the solution. So what would you do? Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and I think at, at the same time, we also need to listen to them and, and accept that we might actually be wrong. And it, it might be in our minds over-servicing ’cause we were budgeting a certain amount of time, but maybe our time budget was wrong. So yes, maybe they’re over-servicing against the budget, but not against the expectations that we set with the client when they signed on. And so it’s, it’s really important to look at that and say, okay. Could we actually meet those expectations that we agreed to at the beginning with fewer hours? Or is it just that we thought it could be done in 10 hours a month and it really does actually take 20 to do it? In which case my view is we kind of gotta eat that as the agency. Gini Dietrich: We gotta eat that. I totally agree with that. Chip Griffin: If, if we estimated wrong that’s not on the client. Yep. And we can’t tell them that’s over-servicing. It’s that we just estimated wrong. We budgeted wrong. And you know, we learn and hopefully don’t do that again. Gini Dietrich: And that my friends, is why it’s so important to track your time. Because now you know for the next time that it actually takes 20 hours and so you can budget effectively the next time. But that’s, that’s a really great reason for tracking time right there, if for no other reason. Yeah, and to be able to budget appropriately. Chip Griffin: Right, and consistently reviewing that so that you can learn from it, so that you can estimate better. So that you can price better. So that you can scope better. So that you can set expectations better. And, and I, you know, one of the things that always concerns me is when I see this as an ongoing issue with an agency, right? Because that suggests that, that perhaps lessons are not being learned, or at least they’re not being addressed in the proper way. Correct. Look, I, I accept that, that there will be over-servicing on, on an account. I just want to make sure that we’re not doing it the exact same way with the exact same kind of client and the exact same kind of project again. We need to address those kinds of things so that we’re, we’re making some kind of meaningful difference until we do get it right. So I think it’s, it is important that we’re taking lessons away from everything we do, but particularly in the area of over-servicing. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, and I think that so many of us, and I’ve made this mistake, I’m sure you’ve made this mistake. We go to work with a new client and they say, we have $3,000 a month to spend, but we want to have, we want to do this, this, this, and this. And in order to get the business, we say, okay, when we know it’s probably gonna be double or triple what they ha, what they’ve budgeted. And instead of saying, we can do this and this out of your priority list for that amount, we just say, okay, and then we’re stuck in this cycle of over-servicing, not being profitable, all, all the things. Right? So that’s, that’s a, it’s not directly, directly with the employees, but I think that’s part of the reason we over-service is because we tend to want to win the business and just say okay to things we shouldn’t say okay to. Chip Griffin: That, and I think the other thing, and we’ve talked about this many times previously as well, it’s because we don’t involve our team members Yes. In that scoping and pricing process. Gini Dietrich: Yes, yes. Chip Griffin: And so what we end up doing is we, we hand off to them a finished product of scope and price and an estimated time that it should take to get it done. And if they were not part of that process, then first of all, we might have overlooked things. We might have overestimated how productive someone can be. We might have underestimated the amount of time it takes someone who is not as expert as we are, not as experienced as we are to do it. But more importantly, by involving the employee in that process, it makes it harder for them to claim that you didn’t scope it correctly to begin with because they were engaged in it. And hopefully that means they’ve bought into it. And so they can’t really say, well, I, I don’t know why you would’ve told them that we can do this because it takes way more than two hours to do a press release or whatever. Gini Dietrich: Right, right. Chip Griffin: Because if they’re helping with it, they should have pointed it out before, and if not then, then they shoulder some of that responsibility, as well. Gini Dietrich: And it gives them the opportunity to know the client from the beginning versus being told what to do. They’re part of the strategic process. They’re part of the creative thinking, they’re part of the entire process, and they’re more brought in from the beginning. I mean, I made that mistake a lot when I was starting, when I started my agency, because new business is not billable, right? And it’s un billable work. And so I, I thought I was protecting them by giving them all the billable hours, all the billable time. But in fact, what I was doing was they weren’t bought into the process. They didn’t like the ideas, they didn’t like the approach, and there was no creativity from them. And so it was just like they did, just did mediocre work. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean we, look, we’ve gotta be collaborative with our employees and that doesn’t mean it’s gotta be, you know, all one of these kumbaya things. We’re all hugging and, you know, this is all great and, you know, and we can have, you know, ignorance just so we can be happy. We, we need to be collaborating in order to get better results. We need to be collaborating so that our team does feel empowered. Because the more empowered they are, the more likely they are to produce the results that we want and our clients need. And so it needs to be approached from that standpoint as opposed to the old fashioned command and control. And, and if you are, if you are still of that management mindset that you know, was popular in the past… you need to change. You just, you can’t do that. You need to have that much more collaborative arrangement. Understanding that you still are the boss. I’m not taking that away from you. I’m not taking the final decision making authority away from you, but you still need to engage your team more in the problem solving, in the budgeting, in the estimation, in, in all of the different things that you do. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I mean, I’m sure I’ve told this story before too, but you know, during the great recession when I had to let everybody go because we lost all my clients. I’ll never forget this as long as I live, one of the employees came up to me later and said, you know, if you had asked us for help, we probably could have helped you find some solutions. And I’ll never forget that because I didn’t involve them. I didn’t, I didn’t want to scare them. I didn’t want them to, you know, have several months of, like, worrying that they were gonna lose their jobs. I decided myself that it was better to just rip off the bandaid and that was not the right decision. And I take that comment from her into all of these things where I involve everybody as much as I can. There’s, you know, there’s some things that you, you can’t talk to your employees about. Right? But as much as I can, I’m as transparent as I can be. I give as much information as I can, and I ask for their counsel and their support in making decisions for all these reasons. Because they’re, they’re more bought in. Because they don’t over service. Because they have more loyalty. Like all, all of the reasons. Chip Griffin: So bottom line is, you know, hope is not lost. If you have team members who continue to over-service even after it’s been pointed out, you just need to make sure that you’re doing more communication, more listening, more education, and hopefully those things will, will add up over time to get you to where you want to be. It’s not gonna be an overnight solution. You’re not gonna be able to just go in and say, Hey, stop and expect that it’s gonna happen. But you know, if you work at it, you can have success with this. Gini Dietrich: For sure. Yes, you can. Chip Griffin: So I think with that we will, we will draw this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast to a close. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And it depends.

In this episode, Chip and Gini focus on the issue of employees over-servicing clients.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the importance of having a clear vision for where an agency is headed while also acknowledging the need for strong operational skills. They explore different types of agency owners, from visionaries to those who excel in operational management, and emphasize the necessity of balancing these roles within a team. The duo highlights the importance of complementing one’s weaknesses by hiring the right people, whether it involves bringing in operational expertise or visionary ideas. They also share personal anecdotes and practical advice on maintaining this balance for the long-term success of an agency. Key takeaways Gini Dietrich: “You can’t be a visionary and an operations person, that’s pretty rare. So how do you bring in somebody to help you where you’re weak?” Chip Griffin: “Clients care about what’s the work you can do for me? What are the results it’s going to produce and how much does it cost?” Gini Dietrich: “I don’t think that you have to be a visionary as long as you have somebody who’s on your team, who’s willing to be out there, and who’s willing to be the face of the company.” Chip Griffin: “You’ve got to really balance the two in order to have success.” Related How agency leaders should handle big ideas View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, I’m having a vision. I see something. Gini Dietrich: What do you see? Dead people? Chip Griffin: No, I’m not that harsh today. No, I, that was not the greatest introduction probably, but you know, hey, that’s par for the course. But what we’re gonna talk about today is when you do or don’t have a vision for where your agency is headed and your vision for what you can do and all of that. And I think there are different kinds of agency owners, some who have a vision or idea, big ideas, that kind of thing. And, and others who are a little bit more, let’s say, workmanlike. And, you know, they can execute really well and, you know, they want to keep growing, but they don’t consider themselves a, a big picture, visionary type. And, and both can be successful, but I think there are things that both kinds of owners need to be aware of and thinking about. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I totally agree. And you know, I think we, I think there’s so much focus just generally on you need to be visionary. You need to be strategic. You need to think about, you know, where the, the business is going. And there’s something to be said for people who are operationally focused. I am not one of them, and that’s, it’s not my strong suit and I really wish that I had some of those skills because I think I, I would’ve grown my business a lot faster and a lot less expensively than I have if I had that skill set. So I think there’s something to be said for people who like know how to manage their business financially, know how to manage their balance, their balance sheet, know how to like run it like a tight ship versus people like me who are like, oh, what if we tried this? And there’s no process, there’s no standard operating procedure. I imagine I’m really hard to work for because of that. Chip Griffin: I, I would imagine. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But, but you, you are sort of, I mean, you are a, a visionary owner almost in the extreme, right. You, you created a whole new way of doing marketing and PR that the rest of the industry is following. Yeah. So, I mean, you can’t be much more of a visionary than that. And, but that said. Not every agency owner is that, nor do you actually need that, Gini Dietrich: nor should they be, Chip Griffin: in order to be successful, everybody has to kind of find their lane and figure out how to be successful. And, and to your point, you also recognize where your weaknesses are and that is on the operational side. And so I think, you know, regardless of what kind of owner you are, you need to try to augment that. And fill in the gaps that are left by your weaknesses. So you would obviously need people on your team who are much stronger on the operational side of things. If you are an owner who is a really good manager and, and business builder and those kinds of things, you may need someone who has at least enough vision for the, the client’s needs. Maybe not, you know, huge vision for, you know, where the industry is headed or something like that, but who can at least, you know, supplement the, you know, what you have for expertise. With a little bit more of that, you know, pushing the envelope on vision. So you’ve gotta really balance it in order to have success. Gini Dietrich: Right. I, before we started, we hit record on this. We were talking about how like in, in your businesses, you, you had somebody who was sort of the out there talking to people, salesperson, and then you are back in behind the scenes doing the work. I think you need that give and take a little bit because. Not, not everybody has the same, you can’t be a visionary and an operations person. It’s pretty rare, right? So how do you bring in somebody to help you where you’re, you’re, you’re weak. And I don’t necessarily know that it has to be a partner, a business partner. You know, I think I can think of lots of organizations. MarketingProfs is one, one where Ann Handley is the, the visionary. She’s the one out there. She’s the face, she’s the one building the brand and all that. But she’s not an owner. Of MarketingProfs. So, you know, thinking about those kinds of people who can supplement where you’re weak is a real, is a really smart thing to do. And to your point, I don’t think that you have to be a visionary as long as you have somebody who’s on your team, who’s willing to be out there, and who’s willing to be the face of the company. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, I, I would agree. It absolutely does not have to be another owner. In fact, there’s, there’s benefits to it not being someone who has an ownership stake in the business because it, it gives you a little bit more flexibility, right? You can, yep. You can, it, it can work, work really well as it did for me with one of my businesses years ago where we did have that sort of, that balance in the partnership and, and how we approach things. But you know, I also, you know, later in my career, I sort of became the non-operational person and the, the person out there pushing the envelope. And, and I’ve had, you know, people who worked for me who were sort of, you know, in fact one of ’em described it as, as he was sort of the rubber band that kind of kept pulling me back so that I didn’t get too far, off center, if you will, with some of my ideas. I love it. And, and, I think that rubber band is actually a great analogy. Right. Gini Dietrich: That’s a great analogy. Chip Griffin: You know, you kind of, you, you wanna stretch a little bit in both directions, right? If you str- you know, stretch operationally. Then that helps you from a profitability standpoint and you know, and results standpoint because you can kind of be more repeatable in the results you’re producing. On the other hand, you want someone who’s pushing the envelope on figuring out, you know. Where are we headed? You know? Mm-hmm. What does AI mean for us? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. How is the, how is the world of PR and marketing changing and, and how can we apply new ideas and fresh thinking to that? So, so having both of those, but making sure that neither one gets too far away from the other. So that rubber band is really a great example because at some point’s that rubber band starts to pull you back in. That’s great. And if you push too hard, you snap the rubber brand and that’s not helpful. Gini Dietrich: Yep. That’s a really great analogy and a really great way of thinking about it. This reminds me of, when I left Fleischman Hillard, after doing PR for many years, I went to an ad agency to build their PR department. And I had, it was me and one other guy, and he was my boss. So he was like the PR director and, it was our job to build the PR department for this ad agency. And he and I would sit in meetings and he would come up with all of these great ideas for the client. He’d be like, and we can do this, and we can do this. And he would get to the point where he’d be saying great ideas. I mean, phenomenal ideas. He was a great idea person, but nothing that we could execute ’cause we didn’t have the resources, we didn’t have the capacity, we didn’t have the budgets, all that kinda stuff. So I would literally kick him under the table to make him that I was his rubber band. I was bringing him back to make him like, oh, that’s not something we could do. It’s to, to sort of bring him back and we would position ourselves at, in a conference room table and a, at a conference room table in a client’s office so that I had the ability to kick him. Where the client wouldn’t know that, so that I could bring him back to reality a little bit, because he would say stuff that we just couldn’t do. And then when we’d go back to the office and I’d be like, dude, we can’t do that. So, right. So I was his rubber band a little bit. So I, you know, there are, there ways that I think you can think about it to help you understand like… you can have a great idea person, but you also have to, to fill in, like within these parameters. Don’t come up with these great ideas that are gonna cost the client $20 million when you have a budget of 500,000. Right? So it was that kind of stuff. So I love that rubber band analogy. Because you can start, start to think about, all right, let’s pull in either direction to make it work. Chip Griffin: Yeah. See, I, I wish I had thought of the, the kicking approach with my business partner years ago because that, that would’ve been helpful. Because we had a lot of those same kinds of meetings, you know, where he would be saying all these, you know, lovely things that, that we’d be able to do. And, and I’m just looking at ’em like, are you crazy? Why are you’re out of your mind promising these. Things, right. Gini Dietrich: Uhhuh Chip Griffin: And, and it got to be sort of a, a joke because he would almost kind of look at me and, and not quite wink, but there was the twinkle in his eye a after he was finished talking, that he knew what he had done. And so afterwards I’d be like, why the bleep did you promise all those things and that timeline and all that, we can’t do that. He said, you’ll figure it out. And unfortunately, most of the time I did. You did. Sure. So, you know, victim of your own success sometimes uhhuh on that. But I, I think the other, the other thing to to remember is that you, you don’t have to be in one lane for your entire career. Just as I was the more operational person at that point. Over the years, I have become much more of the, the stretchy part of the rubber band, you know, on the visionary side. And over the course of our careers, we will evolve. And the things that we enjoy doing, I mean, I know a number of agency owners who love the, the planning and implementation and, you know, having the forecasts and, you know, pulling everything together and, and all that. I mean, that is a very different kind of owner than someone perhaps like you who’s out there and like saying, let’s, let’s just completely rewire the whole industry. Forget it. Let’s just throw out, you know, a hundred years of thinking and we’re gonna do something totally different. And it worked for you, so you can’t question it. But, it it is something where, you know, we will all have things that we, that are of interest to us today that maybe 20 years from now we’ll think differently. Gini Dietrich: Absolutely. I mean, I think about it from this perspective too, like when social media became available for businesses. We all spent time on it, right? And we were all trying to figure out like, what’s the strategy? How do we use it? How do we help it grow our businesses? How does it help us build our brands? Now you could not pay me enough money to sit on social media all day. Like that’s just, I’ve grown out of that and now I understand how to use it and right? And I need to pay somebody to do that work. So it’s the same kind of thing. You may very well, 10 years ago have been really good at one thing and now you’ve grown into something else, and that’s totally normal, right? That’s what you should be doing. So don’t beat yourself up. And the other thing on, on the visionary standpoint is if you don’t feel like you’re, you’re a visionary person, I, I like for you to sort of look at your business and go, what do we do really well? And what do we do that’s different? And when we’re talking to prospects, what do they say is the most annoying thing about their previous agency and how do we fix that? And when we talk to clients, what do they say that that we do really well? Or what do they compliment us on all the time? That’s not necessarily visionary from the perspective of I’m changing the entire industry, but it’s visionary from the perspective of I’m taking what we do really well and pushing our clients’ businesses forward in a way that other agencies can’t do that. So you don’t have to be like, Oh my gosh. Let’s look at how this whole industry operates and change it. But, but really look at it from the perspective of how do we do what we do and how do we do it so that we’re helping our clients as businesses succeed? That’s, that’s visionary and I think that’s a really easy way to sort of stair step into what we’re talking about here. Chip Griffin: Absolutely. And, I think that some agency owners worry that they don’t have enough of the the big idea vision and that they need to have that in order to win business from clients. And I, I think the reality is that most of you don’t need to be thinking that big in order to win a strong amount of business, Gini Dietrich: right. Chip Griffin: For your agency. And so, you know, you need to be, and, and we go to, I mean, I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of, of agency websites or marketing materials where they, they try to make it sound like they’re, they’re doing something entirely new. And in fact they’re basically doing the same thing as everybody else. They just are trying to frame it in, you know, some magical way. And, and I don’t think you need to do that because ultimately that’s not what clients care about. Clients care about what are the, what’s the work you can do for me? What are the results it’s gonna produce and how much does it cost? Apart from that, they don’t really care that, I mean, even, I would imagine for many of your clients, they don’t care that you invented the PESO model. They just care about what you’re proposing to do for them. And is it producing results that help grow their own businesses? Gini Dietrich: That’s right. And the other other thing I’d add to that is whether or not you, they will enjoy coming to meetings with you because if they don’t like you and there’s no chemistry, and they stop coming to meetings, the relationship will sour. So I would add that to it, but that’s what they care about. They care about results. They care about how much it costs, and they care about whether or not they’re going to enjoy coming to meetings with you. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean that, you know, it, it, there really is something to be said for personal chemistry when it comes to the, the agency client relationship. And most of the time when I see relationships fail, there’s probably, there’s a problem with the, the personal chemistry of the individuals on both sides of the table. When they thrive, usually there’s a good match. Doesn’t mean that you can’t have success when there is some tension. It doesn’t mean that you can’t fail when everybody’s still happy with each other and kind of seeing things the same way. Sure. You know, I, particularly in the deciding moments, it really is about that more so than anything else. And if you, I mean, let’s think about it. We don’t wanna work with people that we don’t enjoy being with. Right. It would take you, you have to, none of us do. If you dislike the person that you’re talking with, you have to cross a much larger hurdle in order for yourself to, to say, yes, I’ll, I’ll go ahead and, and I’ll enter into this business arrangement with them. So, you know, we should give into that, right? Mm-hmm. We, we shouldn’t try to fight that. And if we’ve got, if we don’t have the right fit, move on, go find someone else. But that we’ve now ventured into a whole nother topic that, that perhaps would be worth looking at as well. But it, but it’s a little apart from the vision except to the fact that there are some clients who do wanna, you know, talk with someone who they think is a visionary. But the vast majority, vast majority just care about the specifics of what you’re gonna do for them and, and they don’t really care that you can come into a meeting and, you know, sound all highfalutin with your ideas. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I think that, I think the clients respect somebody who can come up with new and interesting ideas that would help build the business and, and move things forward. But exactly to your point. Can they do the work? That’s what they care about. Can, can you actually execute on the work and, and deliver the results that you, you’re saying you can. That’s what they care about. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And those ideas don’t have to be visionary. I mean, frankly, the, the work that I do with SAGA with agency owners. 99.9% of it is not visionary or original or anything like that. But I have ideas based on, you know, the things I’ve experienced, the things that I’ve observed, and so, you know, they’re, they’re relatively simple, but they’re ideas that can help individual owners in the moment with the challenges and opportunities that they have. That is not being a visionary. That is just sharing the knowledge and expertise and wisdom that you have as someone who has been there, done that. And that’s how we are with our clients as an agency. And so that, that doesn’t require grandiose visions. It only requires that you have insights and that you can listen to what the client is telling you, and that you can feed into that with those ideas that you’ve come up with along the way and the things that you’ve seen work or not work. Gini Dietrich: And the client may view it as visionary because it’s not something they’ve tried before. Sure. Or they’ve done before. So it’s, yeah. It may not feel that way to you, but to the client is like, Ooh, that’s fantastic. We haven’t even thought about that. Chip Griffin: Right. And, we see this today with, with a lot of agencies as they’re looking at AI and, and they’re thinking, you know, instead of thinking about how can they use AI to help with their daily blocking and tackling, they’re like, we need to create our own AI models and do all these fancy things. And, and look, there’s a, there’s a role for agencies that can do that and can do it well. And, and I’m sure there are agencies that will succeed because they build a lot of these things internally to serve their clients’ needs. Sure. But the vast majority of agencies don’t need to do that to be successful. And so, you know, if you’ve got the, the skillset, if you’ve got the, the bandwidth to work on these things, if, if you’re actually seeing results from it, that’s fine, but don’t feel obligated to come up with some really innovative use of AI for your clients and the, the work that you’re doing. Focus instead initially on the basics. How can it help me do the, the day-to-day tasks that, that the team and I need to do and we can do them better slash more efficiently and, and put ourselves in a better position to produce results for clients. And if you start thinking about those things that way, instead of thinking, geez, you know, we really have to have that, that huge idea, that big vision, I think most of you will succeed to a greater extent than if you overinvest in trying to find that, that huge game changing idea. Gini Dietrich: 100%. And if you’re trying, if you’re investing in trying to find that game changing innovative idea, and it, it’s not coming in. It’s not coming in, it’s not coming. You’re not getting any, getting any work done. If instead you focus on what you’re saying, which is using it to make your, make your team more efficient, finding new ways to do things, all of that, you’re getting work done. You’re getting, you’re having results, you’re making progress versus, and that’s what clients care about versus trying to come up with you know, something 18 or 24 months from now that may or may not be effective. Chip Griffin: Spot on. Well, I, I think we’ve covered, you know, this topic as well as we can. So my, my vision is for more successful agencies because they’ve listened to us. Gini Dietrich: That’s right. That’s what I see. I like it. I see that. Chip Griffin: So on that note, we will draw this episode of the Agency Leadership podcast to a close. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And it depends.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the importance of having a clear vision for where an agency is headed while also acknowledging the need for strong operational skills.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the frequent occurrence of receiving offers to buy agencies and how to handle these communications.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the frequent occurrence of receiving offers to buy agencies and how to handle these communications. They share their own experiences of receiving such emails, including the prevalence of fraudulent or unserious offers. Gini describes her method of vetting these emails, such as examining URLs and LinkedIn profiles, and emphasizes the importance of legitimate connections within the industry. Chip provides further insights into the credibility of business brokers and the typical behaviors to watch out for. Both caution against making emotional decisions and underscore the necessity of due diligence, patient decision-making, and listening to one's gut feelings. They conclude by highlighting the importance of proper advice and support for making sound decisions in the agency selling process. Key takeaways Gini Dietrich: “Just like you would hire people, you really should be looking for organizations that have experience in your industry and have a reputation already.” Chip Griffin: “If someone is legitimately reaching out to you for this kind of thing, it should be a very personalized email.” Gini Dietrich: “Just like you do when you’re selling or buying a home, you would never give the real estate agent money up front because you want them invested in getting you the very best price for your home.” Chip Griffin: “There are some really, really well regarded M&A firms that deal specifically with this space. I don’t know any of them that do cold outreach to drum up business.” Related Choosing the right exit strategy as an agency owner How to get ready to sell your agency Things to know before you consider selling your agency Are you thinking about selling your agency? Agency M&A basics View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to their episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, I’ve got a buyer for your agency. I’d like to have a conversation about it. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Okay. Chip Griffin: This is, this is an email that, that a lot of us get. Frankly, I’ve gotten it for all my business agencies, oh my gosh, software companies, everything. That steady flow. It’s, it’s sort of like, I dunno about you, but these days I get a steady stream of, of emails, trying to sell me janitorial services. I don’t really understand Gini Dietrich: janitorial services? Chip Griffin: Yeah. I don’t understand it because I don’t have any actual offices, so. Gini Dietrich: Right. What are they gonna janitor? Chip Griffin: So who knows? But in any case, it is very common for agency owners to receive emails from someone who says that they either have a buyer for their agency they’re interested in, in buying the agency. They have some, some potential opportunities to explore all these kinds of things. And, and I think that it would be helpful for us to have a conversation around this so that, that we can share our experiences and hopefully people can have some perspective on these when they come in. When should you reply? When shouldn’t you, how should you handle those conversations if you do decide to proceed with them? Because it, it certainly… Most agency owners I know have at least explored the idea in their own minds of selling someday. Sure, sure. And so it can be very appealing, particularly if it hits you on the right day when you have just that right level of frustration with clients or employees or whatever to say, ah, okay. Gini Dietrich: Alright. Yeah, yeah. Let’s do this. Chip Griffin: So what, what do you do when you get one of these emails? And I’m assuming that you get a lot of them. Gini Dietrich: I get so many. I usually just delete them. Every once in a while I’ll take the email address and just look up the website. And I would say a good majority of them are emailing from fake accounts. So the websites that they’re quote unquote emailing from don’t even exist. So I get a lot of 404s or that is for sale on Go Daddy or whatever it happens to be. A lot of them, and I’ve seen this in practice on the lead generation side where, you know, a lead gen company will say to you, oh, we can get you, and we’ve talked about this 15 to 20 qualified conversations every month. And what they do is they mirror your email platform and your, like spinsucks.com for us. They mirror it in a different platform for better software, for lack of a better term. And it’s not actually coming from spinsucks.com. It’s not actually coming from your URL, but it, it’s coming from this fake duplicate mirrored URL, right? So that when that happens, you can tell that it’s a lead generation company, that they’re just trying to, you know, mass emails to see who, who they can, that they can catch. So I always take the URL and I or the email, and I look at the URL and I look, I put it in to see, and I would say eight times out of 10 it’s a, it’s a URL that doesn’t exist. So then I just delete those. For the ones that look interesting, I’ll actually look the company up to see like, have they done other agencies? Are they legit? And I would say eight times out of 10, they’re not legit. So you kind of just, if you’re, if it hits you at the right time, just do your due diligence. You can find out pretty quickly if they’re legit or not. You know, there are probably five or six companies in the agency space that do really nice job with mergers and acquisitions and just like you would hire people, hire you based on your trust and how people feel about you and your reputations. I would say the same thing with our businesses, that we really should be looking for organizations that have experience in our industry and have a reputation already. Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, I think, I think all of those are good points. You know, certainly, like you, I’ve deleted most of the ones that I’ve seen over the years because they just, they don’t feel right. And I, and I would say if someone is, is legitimately reaching out to you for this kind of thing, it should be a very personalized email. If there’s no indication that they know anything at all about you. Probably a good reason to just hit delete. Yep. Because at, at that point it is probably just, you know, trying to see if the account’s alive or, you know, just some intern trying to, you know, generate leads for a business broker that’s trying to get you to pay a retainer or something like that. So, yep. So, so I think that’s a great reminder, to not worry, not think too much about them unless it, it really grabs your attention for some reason. If it does, I agree with you. Start by trying to find out whatever you can. That means looking up the domain of the email address. The other thing I will frequently do is put the person’s name until LinkedIn, and see, because if, if it doesn’t come up associated with that company assuming that the website is alive. You know, that tells me that, that they’re probably not legit. They’re probably, they’re an outsourced sales rep, and so therefore not a serious person for me to be having a conversation with. Sometimes you’ll do it and it turns out they are an intern. And it just says, intern on it. Okay, well, I’m not having a conversation with an intern about selling my business. If they’re really interested, they can find someone more senior to reach out to me. But let’s let, let’s assume that we clear these hurdles. Let’s assume we haven’t deleted it. We Google ’em, they look more or less legit. Let’s start with, they’re from a business brokerage kind of organization. I usually try to find out if they are focused on the agency space or if they are generic. There are a lot of business brokerages out there. You go to their website and they show 75 different industries that they quote unquote, specialize in. Manufacturing is very different from being a PR agency. Gini Dietrich: Right. Chip Griffin: The way you sell those businesses is wildly different. Gini Dietrich: Wildly different. Chip Griffin: Yes. Can one firm rep both? Yes. Is it likely to be the best experience? Not so much. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. You know, I will say this, that it’s flattering of course, to have people reach out to say that they’re interested in purchasing your business or rolling you up into a larger agency umbrella model or something like that. It’s flattering. And there are days, of course, that you feel like you don’t wanna do this anymore, and that would be nice. When I have sat on boards where we have sold the organization and I’ve done this many times. We’re always the ones that reach out first, and we have a short list of brokers that we would work with. And we base it on, you know, certainly the relationships that I’ve made over the years, because I’ve done this several times, and the relationships that the co-founder or founder has, and then the relationships that the other board members have, we do it based on that, and then we let the brokers come back to us with proposals. So just like a client would come to you and say, this is what we’re looking for, and you would write a proposal and come back to them. It’s the same kind of, I would say, business development way. So responding to somebody who’s emailing you is probably almost never going to work because to your point earlier, it’s usually the, if it’s, if they’re legit, it’s usually these business brokers who are gonna charge you 15, 20, a hundred grand to go find someone to buy, to buy your agency. They don’t usually have somebody in mind, and they don’t usually have somebody who has said to them, look at these agencies. We’re considering buying. Usually it’s just we’re trying to generate leads. Chip Griffin: Right. And, and as you said before, there are some, you know, really, really well regarded M&A firms that deal specifically with this space. Yeah. Yep. I don’t know any of them that do cold outreach to drum up business. You know, certainly they, they will work their relationships to build their own networks. If they are representing someone who is looking to do some acquisitions, they will reach out. But generally. At least in my experience, they don’t do so completely cold. They look for an introduction or the email itself will be very clear that they’ve done their homework in advance, right? And so if, if it’s something outside of that, that’s where you need to be really careful. And, and one of the first questions to ask when you’re talking, if you do decide to proceed, Hey, let’s just see what happens. Let’s, I mean there, there is some value in just having some of these conversations periodically just to see who’s on the other end, to see whether Chip and Gini are telling you the truth. To see what it’s like to be talking about the idea, because it’s low risk, right? So, sure, yeah. There’s some value in periodically having these conversations as long as they don’t consume you. But one of the first questions to ask in those cases is, you know, what is your fee structure like? Because if it is all about upfront payment, then chances are you’re just being sold to. If it is, it’s a percentage of the deal. Then there may be something more to that. It’s, I mean, it’s still, you know, sometimes they just wanna have a large roster of people that, that they can claim to be repping and that helps them sell to other people. But nevertheless, if, if you’re being asked for cash upfront, that’s when you wanna be the most cautious, obviously. Gini Dietrich: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I would never. Just like you do with a, when, when you’re selling or buying a home, you would never give the real estate agent money up front because you want them invested in getting you the very best price for your home, right? So it’s the same kind of thing, like you would never invest that money up front because they’re then, they’re not invested in getting you the very best valuation and sell price. So please be cautious if they’re asking you for an upfront, upfront retainer. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, and, and I would say that specifically applies to cold outreach. If you are dealing with an established M&A person in that space, a fixed fee can actually be a good option to consider, at least because there are pros and cons to working on a commission basis. Yeah, sure. When you’re, when you’re being repped in a sale. But, but if it’s someone’s just reaching out to you and, and they jump in with, that’s their first option, that is a, a red flag, certainly that you wanna be careful of. But let, so let’s assume that, that maybe it’s not a broker who’s reached out, maybe it’s another agency or it’s, it’s one of these what seem to be now proliferating smaller agency holding company type things. So, so there is some legitimacy to it, but, but they’re reaching out. How do you handle those? Because that’s, that’s a little bit different than the broker who’s clearly trying to sell you. These people may have an interest. But I think it can be sometimes hard to gauge are they just hitting everybody that they can find, to find the few that maybe meet their criteria? Or do they have genuine interest? Because how you handle it on your end is gonna be different in each case. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I don’t know about that, simply because I haven’t been down that road, but, you know, my probably what I would, what I would personally do is see who that agency, who the agency founders or leaders have… Where we have mutual connections because I’m fairly well connected in this industry. So I would want to see if I have friends who also know them. If I don’t, it’s probably not something I’m gonna follow up with. If I do have mutual connections, then I would say like, Hey, I see you’re connected to this agency or to this leader at this agency. What can you tell me? And either they’ll, they would be like, meh, not really a thing. Or actually, yeah, this is. This is real, and they wanted specifically to reach out to you so you can get a lot of information with your similar connections. And that’s probably how I would approach it, but I’ve never actually gone through that path, so I would have to think about it a little bit more. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I, I, I mean, I, I have advised a number of agencies who have gone down this path, so, you know, what I can tell you is that, you know, I, I think it’s my mindset is it, it’s almost always worth a phone call to see. You know, just to listen. And I think that’s the key. The, you know, if you look at it, they appear to be legit. They know the space, they know you a little bit, at least. Have the call. Limit it to like 30 minutes and focus on listening. Don’t, if, if they come in with an interrogation and they just wanna know what are your numbers and all that kind of stuff. Gini Dietrich: No, no. Chip Griffin: Pump. Pump the brakes. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: I mean, I think we all guard on our numbers too much. Like there’s some, you know, sacred formula, they’re not, but it, it tells me something if they just want to pepper me with questions. Because maybe they’re just doing market research or something like that. Mm-hmm. And, and what I want to do is figure out, you know… why did you reach out? What is your vision, what, you know, how does this work? You know, if you’re, if you’re trying to roll up agencies or you invest in a bunch of agencies, tell me more about that process so that you can learn and, and basically put them in the position of selling you on continuing the conversation. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, absolutely. Chip Griffin: Rather than you selling them on being interested in you. And I know that can be hard, particularly if you’ve ever been interested in selling your business. You kind of wanna make it all sound as good as possible and that sort of thing. But I, I would try to get that information out of them first, and then I would do, as you say. Start working your network to try to figure out who knows them, you know, who have they acquired before, those kinds of things. Because that will tell you a lot and, and certainly you can learn a lot from talking with anyone who’s already part of that network or been through those conversations who can say, oh yeah, this was a good thing, or no, this didn’t quite work out the way I had hoped. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I mean, work your connections just like you do anything else. This isn’t any different than, you know, how you would do your own business development, how you would do your own hiring. You know, we always ask for references, but then we look to see if we know anybody else who’s connected with the people that we’re hiring. Like, that’s how we do our hiring. So don’t treat it any differently just because you’re excited about the idea of selling your agency. Chip Griffin: Right. And I, I think that’s, that’s advice that, that works throughout the process. Even, even if it appears to be a serious inquiry. You want to continue with it. Always be cautious about how enthusiastic you become about the idea of selling because it will cause you to do things and make decisions that aren’t smart. And, and so you need to be thinking about how you’re communicating. First of all, make sure that you’re never fluffing anything up in those early conversations because the truth will always come out. Gini Dietrich: They will find out. Chip Griffin: So, so if you’re, yes, if they say, you know, we’re, you know, we’re looking for $2 million plus a year agencies, and you are not a $2 million plus a year agency, please don’t pretend that you are. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Just tell them you’re not. Right. Just tell, tell them you’re not because they’ll find out. Chip Griffin: They’ll find out and don’t, don’t say, well, you know, I’m at one five, so rounding up. No, that’s two. No, no. I mean, just in that case, just be honest, we’re not quite there. We’re at one five. Right? Yeah. And, and if that’s still good enough for them, you know, maybe two million was sort of an arbitrary number. Maybe they want to continue, but if not, they’re going to find out eventually. And so anytime you’re in these kinds of conversations with potential acquirers, it’s better to get the stuff out there. And if you’ve got some, you know, not necessarily dirty laundry, but you know, some warts that you, that you’ve been, you know covering up, just share it. Like if, if 80% of your revenue is from one client, be upfront about that so they don’t find that out and waste a lot of your time and theirs because that’s gonna sour the relationship. And maybe somewhere down the road, something could have worked out, but they’ll remember, oh no Chip’s the guy who, you know, led me on and then we couldn’t do a deal because you know, he had 80% of his revenue tied up in one client. Gini Dietrich: Absolutely. I’ll say that like I said, I’ve done this several times with other organizations having served on their boards. And the one big mistake that I have seen organizations make, and you’re gonna laugh at this, but it’s it’s true, is wanting to close something by the end of the year, which on paper, in theory, sounds great. You’re done at the end of the year. You go into the holidays and you’re done. What really happens is that you work all the way through the holidays. To get it done by the end of the year. And it’s a miserable experience for you and everybody involved. And I have seen it happen where people are like, okay, but we’ll be done by the end of the year, and it’s just this year and we’ll be, like it won’t happen again. And what happens instead is your family’s upset, your spouse is upset, your partners are upset, your kids are upset. And so you start to make decisions based on emotion instead of ration, you know, logical, rational decisions. And, so I always caution like if you wanna have something closed by the end of the year, you really should have it closed by Thanksgiving in November. And if you can’t do that, then be okay with pushing it into the the new year, because I promise you, you’re gonna make decisions that you will regret later because you’re trying to get it wrapped up and still enjoy your holidays. Chip Griffin: Well, and not only that, but, but a lot of times I’ve seen it where it doesn’t even succeed and it ends up closing on like January 3rd, in which case you put all that effort in for nothing. Because you’ve still, you know, ticked over into the next calendar year. Yep. So all of the paperwork that you thought you were gonna be able to not have to deal with, you still have to deal with. Gini Dietrich: Still have to do. Chip Griffin: Yep. And can I just tell you that in the whole scheme of things, if you’re selling your business, the added paperwork of, of closing on February 1 versus December 31, who cares? Correct. Is it gonna cost you a little more, you have to sign some more documents? You bet. Sure it is. There are remarkably few instances for privately held businesses where that matters at all. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: And so totally agree. You need to close, you need to, to try to move things along, but they need to close on the timetable that is right for you and right for the acquirer. Anything artificial that comes into the mix is likely to lead to bad decisions and therefore bad outcomes. Gini Dietrich: That’s right. Yep. And I’ve seen that, I’ve seen that multiple times. So I only leave that as if you’re selling your agency and that is something you should be thinking about. That is one of the biggest mistakes I see companies make. Chip Griffin: You, you are absolutely a hundred percent correct and, and I would say, I mean emotion at all stages of the process is not helpful. Right. I mean, it’s, and it’s difficult, right? It’s, it’s, it’s your baby, it’s your business, you’ve built it, you know, a lot of blood, sweat, tears, toil, all that kind of stuff. Yes. And it’s, it is really tough to take yourself out of it. And, and this goes in a lot of different directions because sellers will often be pretty blunt about the flaws that they see in the business, in part because it helps to drive the price down, but in part because they’re helping, they want to try to educate you about why maybe the offer isn’t as you know, robust as you thought it might be. And I will tell you, most agency owners have a sense of evaluation for their business that is wildly out of whack with what the market is actually willing to pay. And part of that is because they look at articles talking about other industries and what those businesses sell for. Part of it is because, as we’ve talked about here many times before, agency P and Ls are in awful shape and do not fairly represent what the actual profit of the business is. So if you apply a multiple on the wrong profit number, you’re gonna get the wrong valuation. So there’s a lot of these things and, and if you take those negative things that come through in the process. Too much to heart, that’s going to cause you to, to walk away from something that maybe is really a good deal when you look at it less emotionally. Yep. At the same time, that emotion, that excitement, can cause you to, to rush things along, make decisions that are bad. Frankly, I can tell you in my case, I’ve had instances where I was so enthusiastic about a deal, thought it was gonna close. I made bad decisions about the business, and then the deal didn’t close. Oh. Look at that now. Now I’ve gotta try to undo some of those things that I, you know, some of those decisions that I made that were bad one, and sometimes they’re not. You can’t fix them, even if it’s only been a few months, sometimes you’re like, yeah, I can’t undo that decision and so I’m stuck with it and it can have lasting damage. So you, you’ve really got to be thinking about all of those things and trying to think as analytically as possible, which is why it is helpful if you have an advisor who can help you through this process. Gini Dietrich: Yes, someone who can help you. Chip Griffin: Certainly you can go alone in selling, whether it’s a lawyer, an accountant, or an M and A advisor or something like that who can help guide you through can be extraordinarily helpful in walking you back from the highs and lows that lead to bad decisions. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. And the last thing I’ll leave you with is this, obey your gut because if something feels off, it probably is. A couple of years ago I got really, really close, like almost down to the wire of selling my business. And it was a lot of money. It was really hard to walk away from. But something felt off about the leadership and come to find out my gut was right. And every, almost every week I look at something they’ve done and think man, I dodged a bullet. So obey your gut because it will never steer you wrong. Chip Griffin: That is, I think, the best point to end this on. So that is what we will do. That will bring this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast to a close. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich, Chip Griffin: and it depends.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the challenges of dealing with team members who may not be enthusiastic about the clients or the work your agency is doing. They cover whether agency owners should be concerned if their employees dislike the job, the consequences of ignoring such issues, and the importance of alignment between client work and employee satisfaction. They also emphasize the need for transparency in the hiring process and preparing employees for potential pivots or shifts in the agency’s focus. Gini shares her personal experience with pivoting towards the PESO model, and both hosts advise on involving team members early in the process to avoid misunderstandings and to gather valuable feedback. The episode underscores common themes such as the significance of communication, transparency, and knowing your financials in successful agency management. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “When you are at the interview stage with a perspective hire, you need to be brutally honest with them. Because they’re going to find out the truth very quickly.” Gini Dietrich: “You have to be willing to say, this is where we’re going. Are you on board? And sometimes they’re going to say no.” Chip Griffin: “You want to be communicating to your team that it’s more of an evolution than a revolution in the business.” Gini Dietrich: “Bringing your team into those conversations earlier rather than later is really smart, because they may have some valuable feedback or insight that you didn’t think about.” Related Should your agency pivot to a new focus amid economic shifts? The value of getting satisfaction from client work How transparent should agency owners be? View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, I hate everything we talk about on this show. I hate recording it. I hate the subjects. I don’t hate the listeners. That would just be mean. So I won’t say that. And I won’t say that I hate you, but Gini Dietrich: Well, first you wanna quit, then you wanna be paid. Now you hate everything. Geez. Chip Griffin: I am just, I am full of gripes and complaints. Gini Dietrich: Sounds like an employee. Chip Griffin: Or a child or a toddler or whatever, but you know, the Gini Dietrich: both, Chip Griffin: it is what it is. No, but we are going to talk about what happens when you have clients that your team members aren’t in love with. They don’t necessarily like the work that you’re bringing in the door, whether that’s because they don’t like what the client stands for, they don’t like the kind of work that you’re doing for them. There’s lots of reasons that employees might not be thrilled with your client base. And so I guess we start with should we even be concerned about that? Gini Dietrich: Well, yes, because if you have employees who don’t like the work that you do, that’s a problem. Especially if it’s not gonna change and you’re gonna continue to do that kind of work. You need to have employees who enjoy the work that you do and enjoy the clients that you’re servicing. Now it’s a different story if the client’s, if one client’s a jerk. But if it’s, I don’t like the industry or I don’t like doing media relations, or I don’t like doing social media, or I am burnt out on doing community management, that’s a different story. Chip Griffin: But I think, I mean, I’m sure you’ve talked with agency owners as, as I have, who are of the mindset that, you know, I’m, I’m signing their paychecks and they just need to suck it up and, and do the work for whoever we’re able to, to get. I mean, particularly, you know, right now it’s, it’s tough times and, and so if, if I can win a client, I don’t particularly care if they enjoy it or not. It’s what pays them. So they, they need to do it. Gini Dietrich: Hmm. Well that’s, that’s an approach. Chip Griffin: It, it’s not, I mean, honestly it’s not an uncommon approach in the agency world. It’s, it’s one of the many challenges that, that the agency industry has as a whole historically. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I, I mean, and I think that I probably had that attitude back in the day as well, but I don’t think that it’s the right approach because that’s what’s gonna cause burnout. It’s what’s gonna cause churn. It’s what’s going to cause, you know, people badmouthing you on Glassdoor or to their, their peers, that you have to find a way to either hire different people or find a way to marry the work that you’re doing with the, the team that you have. Chip Griffin: Well, and I, I think that the, the hiring point is, is really something to emphasize here because part of the problem in, in my experience is that too often agencies are not candid with prospective hires about the kind of work they will be doing and who they will be doing it for. And particularly when an agency knows that they have either challenging clients or challenging work, challenging objectives. They often have a tendency to try to sugarcoat that a bit during the hiring process because they’re looking to get people in the door to help. But my encouragement is, is always when you are in that stage of interviewing a, a prospective hire, you need to be brutally honest with them. Not, not in a way that scares them off, but they have to clearly understand what they’re getting into. Because they’re going to find out, they’re going to find out very quickly. Once they show up. Gini Dietrich: They are going to find out. Chip Griffin: And there’s really no benefit to convincing them to come in the door and, and then only then realize that, that this is not the right fit for them. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, and I think for you too, finding out that they’re not the right fit for you because like I said, if there, if you are a media relations heavy agency and the person either doesn’t have that skillset, has gotten more senior than being, than wanting to do to do that every day or just doesn’t enjoy it, it’s gonna be a problem. So you absolutely should be honest about it. About 80% or 85% of your day is going to be pitching media. Let them make that decision because neither one of you are gonna be happy. They’re gonna be unhappy that 85% of their job is pitching media and you’re gonna be unhappy that they don’t wanna do that. So you may as well just be honest from the start. Chip Griffin: Well, and I, and I think, I mean, you know, as, as important as that is, it’s also the easier problem to solve, right? Because if, if, you know, there, there are going to be issues sharing that upfront, making sure people understand what the expectations for the role are, what they’re going to be doing. But I think another piece of this problem emerges when an agency feels the need to pivot. Either because it is a challenging economic time and so you’re taking in whatever work that you can reasonably win, or because you’ve made a strategic decision to take the, the agency in a different direction that perhaps some or all of your team may not see eye to eye with you on. And I think that is the tougher one, because now you’ve got people who you may have set the right expectations coming in, but now it’s, it’s changing. And so, you know, how do you handle those situations? Because now you’ve got people who they may be just as disgruntled as if they had come in fresh without knowledge. But it was not something that you could head off because you’ve made this decision for whatever strategic reason you think is right for the business. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I mean, I’ve had that experience. When we started to switch the business from media relations heavy to more of a PESO model framework, I, I said to my team, this is the direction that we’re going. We’re gonna be adding in these other layers. I’d like to know from you what makes sense for you, where you have some interest, where you’d like to transition, and about half my team quit. Not, they were like, we don’t see this as the future. We don’t see that this is where things are going and we’re gonna go find another job. Two of those people came back later and said they were wrong, and I was right, but, and that made me feel good. But, it was interesting because I, Chip Griffin: I bet that made you feel really good. Gini Dietrich: I was like, I know. but it, it really, Chip Griffin: I told you so I told you so. Gini Dietrich: It was a really hard conversation because they didn’t believe that communications PR was going to be anything more than media relations ever. And so they went to find media relations heavy jobs instead of evolving with us. And it, that was tough because there were a couple of people that I really wanted to keep and they both said, Nope, we’re outta here. And so you have to be willing to, to give that up too, I think to be able to say, this is where we’re going. Are you on board? And sometimes they’re gonna say no. Chip Griffin: Is there, since you’ve been through that experience, is there anything in hindsight you would have done differently as far as either how you communicated it or, you know, how you prepared them for it or any of those kinds of things? Gini Dietrich: I don’t think I would do anything differently. I think it’s different than during the great recession when I was keeping my blinders on and not paying attention to what was going on, and I had to lay people off to, to what them felt like overnight. And I didn’t bring them into the conversation or, or help them or have them help me with that. Which in retrospect I would’ve done differently. But because I had that experience, I was very open. I said, you know, I just published this book. It talks about this model. We have to lead by example. This is what we’re gonna be doing. So and so, I think you’d be really great at content and so and so, you’d be really great at social and so and so, you’d be really great and, about half of ’em were like, yeah, we just don’t see it. Good luck. But I did, I brought them into the conversation. I, you know, helped to, to extol their strengths. I complimented them. I boosted their egos. I let them think about it. You know, I didn’t say like, make a decision now. I let a couple of them try the job and a couple of ’em were like, no, this is not for me. So I don’t, I wouldn’t, I don’t think I’d necessarily do anything differently in retrospect. Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, you know, sometimes you just have to do what’s right for the business and accept that the, the chips will fall. So to speak, where they may. Yep. And you know, I, I had an experience at one point where I was, I was merging two of my businesses together. One of them had a very heavy public affairs crisis component. And so you can imagine that some of the clients that come along with that kind of work are a little bit polarizing. Yep. And so, so some of the team members in the other business who had not been exposed to that before, were uncomfortable with some of the people who would now be on the, the client roster. And so, you know, one of the things that, and, and one in particular had a very strong negative reaction to it. And, and I, you know, my approach at the time, and I, I think it turned out to be the right one, was to, to give that individual and other individuals the space to, you know, be uncomfortable with it for a bit and to share with me their concerns and that sort of thing. And then talk it through and, and what does it really mean? And, and in, in the cases of the, the people who were uncomfortable, they were never gonna be working on those accounts anyway. Gini Dietrich: Interesting. Chip Griffin: So, so it was really more about the business than about their role. And so as, as they got comfortable with that, we were able to, to push past it. You know, there, there are obviously times where you’re asking someone to change what they’re doing, to your point of if they’re gonna have to all of a sudden do more or less media relations, well that’s a big change to them personally. Right. So I, I think. When it’s a concern about the business as a whole, you know, give them the space to, to express their concerns and that sort of thing, but then reassure them that it’s not going to change their role. If it is going to change their role, now you have a, a more direct problem that you have to cha to deal with and try to figure out can you move them around. Do they just need to come along or move along or, you know, how do you, how do you handle those things? And I, I think it is often a case by case situation, but it’s certainly not an uncommon one for agencies to have to deal with. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I totally agree. And I think, you know, to your point, it’s, it’s case by case. It’s definitely, you have to really think about what’s best for the business, and figure out, you know, which employees go or stay or evolve or change or whatever happens to be. But if, if the case is that your business is pivoting, then that’s, that’s something you’re gonna have to consider as you do it for sure. Chip Griffin: Yeah, and you should, you should be considering it before you decide to make that pivot, right? I think that’s, that’s also key to this, right? You don’t, you don’t figure out how to handle it after you’ve decided to pivot and, and so it’s another argument for involving your team in some of these conversations so that you can spot potential issues and you may decide to move ahead anyway. You may decide to, to go to a particular industry or change your service offerings despite the fact that team members have concerns, hesitations, outright objections. But if, if you are doing it without their input, you might be surprised. And, and not in a good way. And that’s not helpful. So you really wanted to pull them into it so that you can make an informed choice to move ahead despite the potential problems you may have with your team, not only discovering them later. Gini Dietrich: I think there’s also a layer of most people don’t like change. And so when you broach it with your team at first, there’s gonna be a lot of pushback. Don’t take that first conversation as the end all be all, because do, do exactly what you were saying earlier. It may just be that they need to get comfortable with the idea and let them mull it over for a little bit. And continue to have the conversation because eventually, they’re gonna go one of two ways. They’re gonna continue to push back and be like, this is not for me. Or they’re gonna be like, oh yeah, I can totally see this. All right, let’s go. But that first conversation, I would venture to guess you’ll probably get a lot more pushback than you anticipate because people don’t like change. Chip Griffin: Right. Absolutely. And I think that’s why when we’re communicating with our team, we need to do it in such a way where we’re communicating that it’s more of an evolution than a revolution in the business. But I think too often our instinct is because in our minds, we, we’ve made a big decision. Gini Dietrich: We’ve already done it. Chip Griffin: We communicate using revolutionary terms. Yeah. When the reality is, even if we decide to pivot, it’s not likely to be an overnight change to everybody on the team. It’s, it’s likely to be gradual changes for most people. And so there’s time for them to adapt. There’s time to shift things up yourself as, as a business and so. Be careful about speaking as if things are sudden, right. When they’re not really, because you’ll scare people in ways that aren’t helpful. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I mean, yes, you will absolutely scare them and they will, they will react that way at first, regardless of how, definitely, if it’s, if you’re positioning it as we’re just ripping the bandaid off and going, but even if it’s an evolution, they’re still gonna be scared and they’re still gonna wonder what it means and am I gonna lose my job? And those are all of the things that happened first. So you have to, it has to be part of an ongoing conversation. Hey, let’s try doing… Like, for us, it was very much, let’s figure out what this blogging thing is and introduce it to our business first, and then let’s take a client that’s willing to take a little bit of risk and start it with them. And so it was more of an evolution of how those things were being incorporated into our day-to-day work versus, all right, this is what we’re doing. Are you in or out? So it’s it you, you have to think really strategically about it. And it’s not an overnight thing. It’s a multi-month, if not multi-year process. Chip Griffin: Absolutely. And, and I think it’s, it’s important too to be as transparent as possible with those team members about what, what you see the future being, right? So sometimes it, it might be I need you to shift up your role, but it’s, it’s a temporary thing. I, I don’t see this as permanent. Maybe it’s because we added this new client that needs a lot more of this work, but my longer term plan is to add additional staff so that you can kind of go back to the role that you were at and we’ll have someone else, but I need you to, to pinch hit on it for now, if you will, and talk about what you see as a, a potential timeline. Be honest with them that, that you don’t have a crystal ball that tells you exactly when certain things are gonna happen in the future. But I think it’s important to communicate is this a permanent change in your role? Is this a temporary change? If so, how long does that appear to be? If you’re bringing on a client is an experiment to see if this new industry is a good one to serve. That’s right. Or a new service offering. Is it one you’re just testing? And so use that kind of language and set those expectations. So if in your mind you’re just trying to figure it out, be honest. Don’t… you know, people understand that, that you don’t have certainty. And, and if you pretend that you do when you don’t, you’re probably gonna scare more people than if you are just honest with them about the uncertainty of the future that’s inherent. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Yeah. And to going back to what you asked earlier about if there’s anything I would do differently, I do think that bringing your team into those conversations earlier rather than later is really smart. Because I think we all tend to be like, well, I’m not certain yet, or I haven’t kind of figured it out yet, or I need it to be fully baked. And I don’t think that’s the case. I think that we need to trust our, our teams to be grownups that the grownups that they are, and they also may have some valuable feedback or insight that you didn’t think about. So I think the sooner you can start to have those conversations, the better. Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, you don’t wanna have aimless conversations that make them sit, you know, go back and talk with their, their coworkers and say, God, Chip has no clue what he’s doing. He is, that’s right. He is dazed and confused and we need to do something about this. But, you do want to bring them in because to your point, they do have useful perspectives. They’ll ask questions that will at least make you think even if, even if they don’t have good advice. Those questions will help you to figure out things that you should be considering, either in terms of how you communicate it or how you structure it, or what your final decision is. And so as, as long as you can you know, be confident in the uncertainty. I think you’ll be in a strong position. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s just communicating, being transparent. Being authentic, and kind of figuring out what those steps are to get you where you need to go. Chip Griffin: So basically we’ve circled back to the consistent themes that we have, solutions to almost everything. Communication, transparency. Know your financials, collaboration. Know your financials. Yeah. So there you go. On that note, so before we start running around in circles, then I think it’s probably a good time to wrap this episode up and, and hopefully we’ve made you think about, you know, your next pivot, your next staff meeting and how you perceive the, the feedback that you get from your team and, and how you think about your hiring process and all that kind of stuff. So on that note, I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich, Chip Griffin: and it depends.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the challenges of dealing with team members who may not be enthusiastic about the clients or the work your agency is doing.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss how agency owners should handle situations when an employee resigns.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss how agency owners should handle situations when an employee resigns. They explore the emotional reactions owners might have, the importance of maintaining professionalism, and the need to gather more information from the departing employee. They emphasize the value of a cooling-off period to devise a rational plan and the potential for restructuring the team. Chip and Gini also talk about seeking feedback from remaining team members to ensure a smooth transition and mitigate the risk of more employees leaving. They stress seeing an employee’s resignation as an opportunity to learn and improve the business. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “Try to extract as much information from that departing employee as possible because even if it doesn’t change that individual’s situation, it may help you to be a better employer or learn from the experience in another way.” Gini Dietrich: “It’s good to get some more information and understand where they’re coming from before you freak out internally. Chip Griffin: “Don’t try to talk them out of it. Even if they agree to stay, it’s only a matter of time before they come back to their original decision, which is to move on.” Gini Dietrich: “Use it as an opportunity to look at how to restructure things so that it’s better for your business overall.” Related The value of employee exit interviews for agencies When clients want to poach agency employees View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: Gini, I quit. Gini Dietrich: No, you can’t quit. No. Chip Griffin: You’d have to hit the record button yourself. Gini Dietrich: All by myself. That’s not fun. I already do one by myself. I don’t wanna do this one by myself. You can’t quit. Sorry. Can’t quit. Chip Griffin: Okay. All right. Well, I guess I won’t then. Gini Dietrich: Okay, thanks. That was easy. A lot easier than if an employee quits. Chip Griffin: Lot. Well, lot easier because you know, I mean, if I quit and the show goes away, eh, you know, it is what it is. Gini Dietrich: No, it’s terrible. Chip Griffin: I’m sure many, many of you, one of you, someone might be disappointed occasionally. anyway. So we, we are gonna talk about what to do when an employee comes to you and says. I quit. Oh, they usually don’t say it quite that way. I mean, oh, it’s not like in the, you know, TV or the movies where someone comes in and yells, I quit. Gini Dietrich: Well, I quit a job that way once. Chip Griffin: I’ve, I’ve certainly had ones I wanted to quit that way, and Gini Dietrich: I did. And then he yelled back, you can’t quit. You’re fired. And I said, you can’t fire me. I already quit. Chip Griffin: I mean, I did, I very frequently, I think probably just about every job I ever had after I gave my notice, I would, I would walk around for the remainder of my time saying, what are you gonna do? Fire me? right. So I, I’m, I’m sure those final two weeks were incredibly annoying for my bosses, but it is what it is. It’s funny. But you know, it is one of those things where at, at some point or another everyone who owns an agency and has employees, they’re gonna have employees come to them and, and let them know that they’re giving their notice because they’re moving on to something different. Yep. And you know, I, I think many times, and, and for the sake of this episode, we’re gonna assume this is an employee that you actually think is, you know, doing a decent job and all that. Not someone where you’re like, oh, thank God I thought I was gonna have to fire them, but because I’ve had those too. Sure. For sure. I’ve had the ones where I’m like, oh yeah, no, this person’s gotta go. And then they come in and they quit and I’m like, oh, that’s too bad. Gini Dietrich: That’s too bad. Chip Griffin: Oh, I’m so sorry to see you go. Mm-hmm. How fast can you leave? Gini Dietrich: We’ll just go ahead and you, today can be your last day. We’ll go ahead and pay your two weeks. No worries. Yeah. Chip Griffin: Yeah. Yeah, just feel free. You weren’t doing anything anyway, so it’s fine. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: But let’s assume that you have an employee that you would’ve preferred stay with you. They come to you and they give their notice. It’s natural, I think for us to have that, that reaction of being hurt, right? Mm-hmm. I mean, many owners take this personally, like, sure, this is a, this is an affront to me. I’ve done something wrong. You know, you’re breaking up with me, blah, blah, blah. And then, then your mind starts to wander to, oh my God, what am I gonna do? We’ve gotta, we’ve gotta cover all your work. How am I gonna figure that plan out? And the next two weeks, assuming the employee gave two weeks. So when, obviously those are not helpful things. They’re natural, but they’re not helpful. So when someone comes to you and says, Gini, I’m, I’m leaving for a new opportunity in two weeks, how do you handle that? Gini Dietrich: I actually try to learn more because there are some cases where an employee might use that to get something that they want, out of you, and they may try be trying to play you against the new employer. Or it may be like I had a rockstar employee early, early in my agency life. She was, she was so good and she resigned and I did my informational interview just to like find out more and get more context. And she said, well, I’m going to Chanel. And I was like, well, shit man. I can’t compete with that. Good luck. That’s awesome. Good for you. Like, but I do, I try to get more context and more information, to understand what’s behind it because in some cases it might very well be that something happened that you don’t know about, that just they’ve hung onto and haven’t been able to get talked out of it or whatever it happens to be. And it may be very well be that you can talk them into staying. Most of the time that’s not the case. Just because usually if somebody’s made up their mind, it’s not gonna be a good situation if you talk them into staying, and they won’t stay for very much longer anyway. But I think it’s good to get some more information and understand where they’re coming from before you freak out. Chip Griffin: I, I would take away the, before you freak out. I don’t, I don’t think, Gini Dietrich: yeah. I mean internally, internally, internally. Chip Griffin: But, but I, yeah, I mean, I agree with you. I think getting information is good. I think in general, your, your first reaction, at least outwardly, even if it’s not inward is that you need to be positive and supportive for sure of the individual. because regardless of, of why they’re deciding to do it, it doesn’t really serve any purpose for you to gripe and complain and be like, I can’t believe you’re doing this to me. And I mean, all the things that we’ve seen bad bosses do in the past. You know, you, you need to, to take that mindset and demonstrate that mindset to the individual that you are here to support them. You appreciate the work that they have been doing for you. You wish them the best and you want to try to make this for a smooth transition. Now you should absolutely try to get information. You’ll have to decide case by case, whether you try to do that in that initial conversation. Yep, yep. Often it’s better to sort of just let it, let the dust settle a little bit and, and then get it later. But you should absolutely try to extract as much information from that departing employee as possible because even if it doesn’t change that individual’s situation, it may help you to be a better employer or structure things differently or, or learn from the experience in another way. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I think, you know, for parents who have gone through the tween or teenage years there, this is a, it’s provides really good foundation for you as you do this with employees because it teaches you how to keep the feelings internal and not freak out externally and really like, you know, do do a little bit of interviewing and echo back what you’ve heard and understand what they’re, they’re telling you so that you can take that feedback, even if it’s negative and, and apply it to the business. You know, there may be things that you didn’t know were happening. I had a situation which to this day this person left five years ago. But to this day, I will still have people say to me, oh, well, you know, we didn’t really like working with so and so. And I’m like, why did anyone tell me? Why am I learning this about this five years later? And it’s because I didn’t do the appropriate sort of interviewing and understanding, not just of the person who left, but of my team who was still here to understand like what that working relationship was. And so I think it’s a really good opportunity for you to understand. There probably are some changes that you can make internally if you’re willing to hear them and be open to the feedback. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And you know, to your, your previous point, you know, sometimes the employee is trying to play you off against the new employer. Yep. You know. Maybe they, they want you to try to talk them into staying. You know, I, I think that you need to be incredibly cautious about that. As you said, it, it doesn’t usually work out when you talk someone in to staying, even if they’re coming into it with that as in their mind as a possibility that you might do that and they might be open to it. So, you know, if you are ever in that position where you talk someone in to staying, you counter offer or something like that, which I generally don’t advise generally. Yep. If someone has come to you and, and said. You know, giving you their notice. Let it happen. Yep. Don’t, don’t try to talk them out of it. You know, maybe try to talk them into an extra week or two if you need, you know, if, if there’s a major project or something that would really benefit, not just did you’d like a little extra time, but there’s some concrete reason why a little bit longer might be helpful. I’m open to that. But you, you really counter offering, convincing someone to stay. That’s a short term fix. Yep. Even when someone comes to you and says, you know, Hey, you know, I need an extra 10 K so I don’t go take this other offer. It’s, it’s not gonna last very long. Because once people start interviewing, they’ve started to check out. That’s right. Yep. And the, the grass is always greener. They start to see the potential, they get excited about it, and even if they agree to stay, it’s only a matter of time before they come back to their original decision, which is to move on. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I’ve had situations too where – And this has, this happens quite often where somebody will leave and then say, but I’m available for freelancing. And you’re like, are you though? Like, so you know, if you’re starting a new job. So one of the things I always say is, thank you. Why don’t you give it 90 days at the new job? And if you still have room for, if you still have capacity for freelancing, let me know because we’d love to be able to work with you in some capacity. Great. Almost never do you hear back from that person. It’s because it’s sort of that, I think they use that as a like soft landing kind of thing, where it’s like, oh, I don’t wanna hurt your feelings, but I’m gonna go do this new job. And, and we all know that somebody’s leaving to do a new job and the first few months are chaotic and they don’t, they just don’t have time. And it’s gonna, and then you’ve put yourself in a position to rely on them when you can’t rely on them. So I would say in those situations as well, like if it’s somebody you do wanna keep around, great, let’s give it 90 days and see how you’re doing and let’s connect then, because almost never is it going to work out that way either. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I, I think that’s great advice. And I, I mean, I think the both the offer of, of those kinds of arrangements and the acceptance of those kinds of arrangements have increased in recent years as more people are working remotely. So it’s frankly easier. Yep. For employees to some degree to double dip. And we’ve seen these, you know, stories of people who actually have two full-time jobs and, you know, juggle ’em in such a way that, you know, the employer never really notices or neither employer really notices. Which, you know, I, I’m not a fan of that. And, and you do have to be careful if, if you are taking freelance from someone who’s gone and taken another full-time job, you know, you don’t want to be in a position where you are not getting what you need. Their new employer isn’t. But if they find out, they’ll blame you. I mean, it just, it, it’s, yep. There are circumstances where it can work, but you just need to be really careful with those kinds of arrangements because they often don’t end well if they do actually happen. So the cooling off period, I think is great advice. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. And they may very well have an NDA or something that says they can’t work for another agency or they can’t moonlight and they don’t, they haven’t really gone through down that road yet. So I think the cooling off period is, is a great way to handle that. Like, let’s just take 90 days and see where we are. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And I, I mean, I think, you know, speaking of cooling off periods, I, I think it’s useful for you after you’ve gotten this notice to take a cooling off period before you decide what to do. Yes. It, it doesn’t need to be 90 days. You probably need to figure out how to 24 hours have that much capacity that you can be without a good employee for 90 days before you even come up with a plan, but, you know, give it at least 90 minutes. You know, don’t, yes. Don’t, don’t jump to conclusions. And, and as soon as that employee has, you know, hung up on the zoom call with you, whatever, you’re now like scrambling and asking, who do you know who can do this? You know, take, take a little bit of time and, and think about it because, as painful as a good employee leaving can be, it’s also an opportunity. That’s right. Because it’s an opportunity to think about how your team is structured, what kind of needs you really have today, because chances are your needs are different today than they were when you hired that individual. You’ve started to shape it around that individual. Because maybe they’ve been with you for 2, 3, 4 years and, and so now you have a chance to start at least in that portion of your business with a clean slate. And you should never ever give up those opportunities. As, as Rahm Emanuel once said, never fail to take advantage of a good crisis. And, and this is a crisis you can advantage of and figure out, you know, how do you wanna do things differently going forward. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I think that’s really good advice as well because it, it absolutely is an opportunity. And, my husband just had somebody, a really good employee, in his business just resigned and he was kind of bummed about it. But it, but then he came around, he is like, actually, you know, we could do this, this, and this now that they’re gone. Because it gives us the opportunity to kind of spread our wings a little bit. And so you absolutely have an opportunity. So giving yourself a cooling off period is also a good idea. Chip Griffin: Well, it also, it, it allows you to, to not, even if you don’t wanna change things dramatically, it just allows you to make a more rational decision to go ahead in a similar fashion to what you have been doing because you’re, you’re not doing it based on that immediate emotion of frustration. You’re doing it because you thought about it and considered it, and, and frankly, going back to your point of getting information from the individual. I will often ask their advice. I don’t necessarily always take it, right, but, you know, particularly if it’s, if it’s a good employee, I’ll say, you know, so, you know, what do you think we should do with this role going forward? Should we be looking for someone just like, and, and if you’ve got a really good employee, they often have some insights for you. And, and they’ll say things that may not truly shape what you’re hiring, but you’ll learn from it. Because if they say, well, you know, really, probably a third of my job was, was beneath me, so you probably don’t need some, you know. That’s a good way to understand. Well, that’s probably one of the driving factors, even if they haven’t identified it for why they left, because they were being asked to do things that they felt were below their level. Yep. You know, or perhaps they might say, you really need two people because there’s so much work to do, and then you know that, you know that one of the unsaid things there is that you’ve overworked them. Yeah. And, and that may have impacted their morale. So, Gini Dietrich: absolutely. Chip Griffin: You know, asking for their advice. And, and frankly, it also just helps them feel better about themselves as they’re going out the door. Yeah. In many cases, because, you know, now you’ve put them up on a pedestal as an expert. Of course this only works if you’ve been asking generally for their input all along. Sure. Because it’s the first time you ask this. They’re like, then they’ll say, what? So now, because I mean, I, I’ve certainly seen this where the, the employee is leaving. Like, now you want to know what I think? now? you’ve ignored me for the last four years and now you want to know? So be careful about that. Make sure you’re having these regular one-on-ones where you get input from them on a regular basis. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Though the, you have two things that everybody should do no matter what, and one-on-ones is one of them, which I completely agree with. They have to happen. Chip Griffin: Have to. Must. A hundred percent. Because, because then you shouldn’t be all that surprised when someone comes in and gives notice. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you will, you be surprised in the moment? for sure. Sure. In most cases. But you know, when you think about it, you’ll be like, yep, no, I kind of, I kind of saw that one coming. You know, there are strange instances where it’s not because, you know, they just got headhunted or something like that, but most of the time Sure, yep. Our employees aren’t getting poached by a headhunter. Most of the time it’s because they were actively looking for an opportunity. And so, you know, there are, there are typically signs of that. They’re a little bit harder to notice today than they were when everybody was in the office, you know? And all of a sudden someone’s got, you know, all these strange middle of the day appointments where they’re just like wearing a suit. I gotta go to the DMV. Like, but you just did that two months ago, right? Gini Dietrich: Right. And you’re wearing a suit. Why are you wearing a suit? Chip Griffin: Yeah. That’s awfully dressy for the DMV. I don’t, I don’t know about that. I don’t think they really care what you look like for your driver’s license photo, but maybe I’m wrong. So, but it is a little bit harder with people not physically connected to you, but you, there’ll still be signs for sure. If you’re having, having regular communication and open communication with your team members. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I think it’s, I do, I agree with you. I think it’s a really good opportunity for you to learn more, be open to feedback, you know, make sure that you are not being defensive so that you have some, you take some time to, to cool off so that you can have that open, open conversation. But use it as an opportunity to look at how to restructure things so that it’s better for your business overall. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and beyond getting advice from that individual, get advice from the rest of your team. Right? Because if you think about it, yes, you’re impacted by this employee’s departure, but so is every other team number, so is everyone else. Yeah. In a small agency. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: And so first of all, you want to be able to signal to them. That you understand that it’s gonna be a short term challenge. And, and so anytime I had an employee leave by their choice or by mine, I always brought the team together and the surviving members, if you will, and say, okay, look, I, I know we’re gonna have some challenges. We’re, you know, it’s gonna take a little bit to fill the gap. We wanna figure out how to do it smartly. We’re not gonna rush into anything we want a good fit. So, you know, I’m gonna solicit your advice, but first just know I’m aware of this and, and I know I’m gonna be asking more of you over the coming weeks. But rest assured that, you know, we’re not just gonna let this fester. We’re, you know, we’re gonna be actively moving forward, but I wanna talk with each of you and understand what do you think we should be looking for in this role, or that sort of thing. And, and you’ll often get some really good insights from them. Not necessarily just about that position, but again, how they’re perceiving the business Yep. And how satisfied they are. Yep. Anytime you have employees leave of their choice, you wanna be careful that it doesn’t become infectious, because sometimes you will see some, you know, a, a good employee leaves and so now other people start to say, oh, should I be thinking about this too? A and so you want to be able to spot anything that might be encouraging that kind of thinking so that you can nip it in the bud before it becomes a major issue for you. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. It’s, it’s. Yes, absolutely. Mm-hmm. Yep. Chip Griffin: But, but bottom line is don’t panic. Don’t panic. People quit. You quit your job, I’m sure at some point. Gini Dietrich: That’s right. In a blaze of glory. Chip Griffin: Almost none of you who are owners got there without ever quitting a job. Gini Dietrich: That’s right. Chip Griffin: So, you know, you know that there are legitimate reasons why people do it. Don’t get upset about it. See it as an opportunity to both learn and to reshape your business and reorganize your team. And if you do that, then it’s a lot easier to to stomach when they happen. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and again, it’s just like parenting tweens and teenagers. There have been instances, I’m sure, for all of us where you’ve had to take a cooling off period. Before you had a conversation with them after something they’ve done. Same thing. Take a cooling off period, think it through rationally, and be open to feedback. Chip Griffin: Just as I’m sure you’ll take a cooling off period to figure out what you’re gonna do with the show next week. Since I have now quit. You and Jen can figure it out. Gini Dietrich: And we will. Chip Griffin: Probably, we’ll probably see the listeners triple because I’m gone. But it is what it is, what are you gonna do? So with that, we will draw this episode to a close and I, I guess I’ll come back next week after all. Gini Dietrich: Okay, thanks. Thanks, thanks. Chip Griffin: I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich Chip Griffin: and it depends.

In this episode, Chip and Gini highlight the challenges and potential pitfalls of over-relying on AI for content creation in PR and marketing.

In this episode, Chip and Gini highlight the challenges and potential pitfalls of over-relying on AI for content creation in PR and marketing. They discuss instances of AI-generated content gone wrong, such as the fake book list published by the Chicago Sun-Times and poorly crafted AI-generated pitches. The hosts emphasize the importance of human oversight, individuality, and storytelling in maintaining quality and building relationships with the audience. They also delve into Google’s EEAT guidelines and how PR professionals can leverage their expertise to stand out in search rankings. Finally, they discuss practical ways to efficiently use AI while ensuring the content remains authentic and relatable. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “As we start to try to create mountains of content using AI, we start losing individual perspective, personality, those kinds of things that can help set us apart as agencies and can help set our clients apart.” Gini Dietrich: “Let AI help you draft it and then add in your experience and expertise. That’s where you’ll win every time.” Chip Griffin: “If we’re just churning stuff out because we think that’s the only way to win the future battle of AI search, we’re mistaken.” Gini Dietrich: “AI is absolutely a huge, huge help. It still needs to be fact checked, it still needs oversight.” Related What does ChatGPT and generative AI mean for PR agencies? Is AI writing an agency's friend or foe? Setting AI policies for your agency View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, I think I’m just gonna use some AI to spew out all, all sorts of spam for these episodes so that we just, we’re not even part of it anymore. We’re just gonna contribute to this atmosphere of junk content that’s proliferating these days. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I read. As we’re recording this, the Chicago Sun Times got in trouble for publishing a summer reading list made up of real authors, but fake books. And their excuse was, we hired a freelancer to create this. So I was like, oh, that’s akin to saying the intern messed up. You still, especially as a newspaper, have to verify that it’s accurate. So yeah, the list was of books, was all made up. Books that AI had generated for them and they didn’t check it. And then other newspapers picked it up and ran it too. So there’s something to be said for AI’s great for some things, but it still needs human oversight. Chip Griffin: It, it not only needs human oversight, but I think that, you know, one of the things that, that we lose as we start to try to create mountains of content using AI is we start losing individual perspective, personality, those kinds of things that can help set us apart as agencies and can help set our clients apart. Because if, if we’re totally dependent upon AI, obviously hallucinations continue to be an issue, right? And, and yes, and can absolutely cause problems. There are, you know, legitimate fears over inadvertent plagiarism on the part of AI and those sorts of things. And those are all important. But I, I think, I think so much more important is that you start to lose the voice of the agency, the voice of the client if you rely too heavily on AI. And, and I think everybody listens to us, knows that we are fans of the use of AI, right? Yes. In the work that we do, and we should find ways to leverage it in order to be more efficient and all of those kinds of things. And, and, but that’s not saying that you should just contribute to this mountain of content that people are committed to putting out right now, whether it’s on LinkedIn, right? And we see all this AI generated garbage on LinkedIn. Although, yes, just for the record, all these people who post these dumb things about if you have an em dash, it’s AI generated. That is hooey. Gini Dietrich: I agree because I use them. Chip Griffin: I have used em dashes forever Gini Dietrich: Forever, right? I use it too. Chip Griffin: I have not once ever used AI to produce even a portion of my LinkedIn content because it’s not… I use AI for all sorts of stuff. My LinkedIn content is not a place where I feel like I need to do, I feel like I can write, you know, a five or six paragraph post all on my own, thanks. Gini Dietrich: All by yourself? Chip Griffin: All by myself. Gini Dietrich: Well, at the same time that this is happening, and I completely agree with you, that AI can make us more efficient, but I think that we’re overusing it. Is the Wall Street Journal published an articles say that called Will AI Empower the PR industry or Create Endless Use of Spam, which is always awesome to read. But it goes on to say that a pitch for March stood out from the flood of usual emails from PR agencies that had an unusual subject line. It was, you care more about Tesla than a cancer killing thousands. The email went on to scold US-based reporters for giving priority to Tesla earnings news and celebrity gossip over the work of a German firm that develops tests for cancer. And then, and then. It rattled off statistics about increasing cancer rates and stated quote, this isn’t a future problem. It’s happening right now, but you wouldn’t know because you’ve been covering crap that doesn’t matter. Do better. All written by AI. Now, if you are using AI to craft your pitches and make you more efficient, that’s fine. If you’re using AI to help you personalize to the person you’re pitching, that’s fine, but for the love of God, like have some oversight. Do you really think do better at, in an email scolding reporter is a good idea? Chip Griffin: I mean, there may be a time and place for that kind of messaging, but I would want that to be incredibly deliberate and, and not put that in the hands of computers to figure out when to do that. Right. And, and in general, I would, I would advise against it, but I mean, I could probably see if, if you had a relationship with a reporter, maybe you would take a similar tone. Maybe not identical, but you know, you might. You know, there, there are certainly reporters I’ve known over the years that I could be pretty blunt with, and, and I have in the past said to them, I don’t know why you would write about that particular story that you Gini Dietrich: that’s, that’s like a one-on-one thing, right? Correct. That’s not a pitch that you send to all reporters. Chip Griffin: No. Yes. Well, I, I also don’t believe in sending. Gini Dietrich: Fair, Chip Griffin: broad-based pitches I believe in, Gini Dietrich: yes, Chip Griffin: one-on-one pitching. And I know that that is not a popular thing amongst many in the PR community, Gini Dietrich: but it’s far more effective. Chip Griffin: It is. It is far more effective. It does require more effort. Gini Dietrich: It does. Chip Griffin: But I, I think that, that you owe it to yourselves and to your clients. To do it that way instead of building these large lists and just blasting stuff out. I think that was certainly true 20 years ago. I believe it’s even more true. Absolutely. Today. Gini Dietrich: Absolutely. Yes. Absolutely. Chip Griffin: And I would rather send a targeted pitch to three people. Yep. Than an untargeted pitch to 3000. Gini Dietrich: Because if you send a targeted pitch to three people, you’ll probably get three responses and maybe even two or three placements. If you send it to 3000, guess what? The Wall Street Journal does an article about how much the PR industry sucks and we’re contributing to the sea of spam. That’s awesome. Awesome. Chip Griffin: Well, and I, I think, you know, part of the, the challenge is that agencies and clients are hearing from the gurus that, you know, in order to be relevant to AI, we need to be churning out more and more content, right? To help train the algorithms and all of that sort of thing. And so, so the solution that people see is, okay, well if we’re gonna have to create this much content, we’re gonna have to use AI to do it. Which first of all, creates this ridiculous cycle where AI is essentially feeding itself, Gini Dietrich: right? Yes. Chip Griffin: I mean, you know. Mm-hmm. And, and then, I mean, basically that’s sort of like intellectual inbreeding. And you know, who knows what you end up with as a result of those genetic mutations, Gini Dietrich: right? Chip Griffin: But you know, more importantly, I think that Gini Dietrich: intellectual inbreeding. Chip Griffin: I think that, that we, if nobody else has used that, I’m taking that one. That’s amazing. You know, so, so we need to be thinking about how we’re putting things out there that AI can consume that really represents who we are, how we think, and, and do the same for our clients, because that’s where we’re gonna have the most power and influence. It’s not by putting out stuff that’s the same as everybody else. It’s just a different byline. And, and I think that this is getting lost. And, and if we, if we’re just churning stuff out because we think that’s the only way to win the, the future battle of, of AI search. We’re mistaken. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, 100%. So two-ish, two and a half years ago, Google came out and, and elaborated on their EEAT, which is is experience. Experience, expertise, authority, and trust. And what it essentially said was, if you can demonstrate experience and expertise in your content, that builds authority and demonstrates trust, we’re gonna rank you in search, right? So you’re gonna go up higher in search results. Then on May 21st, they published an article or a blog post that essentially said, this is how we’re training our generative AI. So if you are not demonstrating your organization’s experience and expertise, you are not going to rank. You’re not gonna show up in generative AI search, which is where, what’s now at the top of search rankings, right? Or on the search page. So first of all, from a communications perspective, this makes me happy because this is what comms pros should be doing any way, regardless of the tools that are available or anything, it’s, we’re building reputation, we’re building trust, we’re building authority, we’re building credibility, and we’re doing through that, through our storytelling. So it gives us a leg up, it gives us, it gives pr pros a leg up for sure. But you can use AI to generate a draft of, of copy for sure. It’s where you add your experience and expertise that’s going to help. It’s the stories that you can tell about your subject matter experts, your employees, your organization. It’s the case studies, it’s the testimonials. It’s the pieces that you can, that you should pull in that make it, make the content different than anybody else. Because now that signals not only to the human beings that are consuming it, but to the Google algorithms, to the search algorithms, and to generative search as well. That this, you have something different than anybody else. And experience and expertise will always be different than your competition. So it gives you a competitive advantage every single time. Let AI help you draft it and then add in your experience and expertise. That’s where you’ll win every time. Chip Griffin: Yeah, and, I think we also need to remember that for most of us in the content that we’re creating, either for ourselves or for clients, we would be better off not focusing on search algorithms and keywords. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Right. Correct. Chip Griffin: And, and how to, to convince the AI to incorporate our stuff and instead think about are we putting out quality content? That’s right. That really speaks to our target audience. I think even more importantly, are we creating content that helps us build a relationship with our target audience. Because I, I think that one of the things that we are learning here is that as, as good as we might be at tricking AI into capturing our content or in the past, you know, convincing the algorithms or whatever. At the end of the day, it’s having that tight network of people that we real, that are fans of our content and what we’re putting out that can help us to grow our businesses and can help our clients to grow. Now there are exceptions, and if you’re a huge global brand, you know a lot of that advice doesn’t really apply in the same way because you’re just trying to reach so many people. But the, the vast majority of us, for ourselves and for the clients we work with have a much tighter target. And so if we’re thinking about how we can build those relationships with our content, I mean, think about this. If, if you are listening to us, we are building a relationship with you, even if this is the first time you’ve listened to this podcast. Have we used AI to help us with topics in the past? Sure. Absolutely. Yeah, it absolutely helps inform what we do. We have, we’ve used AI to generate a whole list of potential topics. Today’s was not one of them, but it certainly could be, and you know that it makes sense. But we’re creating the content, we’re offering our own opinions. We’re doing it in our own voices, and it allows us to build a relationship with you, the listener. You need to be thinking about how you can do the same with your written content, your audio content, your video content. If you do that, you will win no matter what happens. No matter how AI changes, no matter how the search engines change. And, and I’ve always said, if you focus on the algorithms, you’re gonna have to constantly change everything you’re doing. It’s like playing whack-a-mole. But if you focus on creating that good content for your target audience in a relationship building way, you will win no matter what. Gini Dietrich: So this reminds me of when I started speaking, probably in 2008 ish. I had a really good friend who’s who, who spent most of his career doing keynote speeches. So that that was his career, speaking. And he said to me, when you speak, you want to tell stories in a way that will allow the listener or the attendee to put themselves in the client’s shoes. So when you talk about like the PESO model, for instance, which didn’t exist back then, but let’s just use that as an example. If you talk about the PESO model, for instance, you talk about it from the perspective of when we worked with a client, they, they were, they thought they were using the PESO model, but what we found is they just were using tactics from each media type. And when we worked with them, we demonstrated the value of integration and creating the multiplier effect. And you demonstrate your expertise through those client stories because now the person listening goes, oh gosh, we have that same challenge. I bet I, I should call her and see if she, her agency can help. And so I started doing this and he was right, of course, because you know, now people go, oh, we have that same challenge. I bet she can help. Same thing with your content. If you’re doing that and you’re telling the stories and you’re helping people see how you’ve helped other organizations that are like the organization that you’re talking about, suddenly they see themselves in that same space and go, oh, they can help me with this. They’ve done it before. And not only does it do that, but it also trains the LLMs and the algorithms to understand that this is your core expertise. And you can do this for clients too, but this is your core expertise. Now we’re gonna push them up in search rankings, so focus on the humans first. Demonstrate that expertise and experience that you have through your storytelling, and you’ll win on search as well. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and that idea of making your content relatable to your target audience, it’s really hard, at least for today, for the AI to do for you. It may well come in the future, and, and it is getting better, particularly if you use the same platform for a lot of your content because the memory is getting better. And so if you provide it with, you know, it gives you a draft, you give it the final draft. It will remember that. And so it, it has gotten, in my experience, pretty good at recapturing some of the stuff that you said three or four months ago. Right. And bringing it back in. That will help over time. But it’s really hard for it to, you know, out of whole cloth to, to come up with relatable content that really speaks to your audience based on your experiences with clients or your own experiences yourself, because it has no way of knowing that. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Yeah. So one of the, Chip Griffin: I mean, unless you are already a public figure who has shared everything about your life. Its unlikely that it’s going to know all those details and even then there’s probably stuff, you know that, that you could share that that’s not out there, even if you are, you know, president of the United States or CEO of a Fortune 10 company or something like that. Gini Dietrich: Absolutely. One of the things that we do is we, we will, we throw in case studies and testimonials and things into the project knowledge center so it it knows and I’ll say, Hey, can you find me a case study on X that will help me tell this, and then it just reminds me, you’ve got this or this, or you can talk to that. Another thing that we’ve done is for a client, we did, we do a quarterly NPS survey for them. And part of that NPS survey, our open-ended comments, we export that into a CSV file, throw that into their GPT that we created for them and have it build the testimonials and case studies from that for us. And so it takes, you’re right, it, it starts to learn and it takes all of the information that you’ve done, but still it needs the human oversight. Like you can’t just be like, it’s still gonna hallucinate, it’s still gonna make, I remember a couple weeks ago it was like, here’s a case study for you. And I’m like, that never happened, that sounds like a great case study, but we literally never did that. So you still have to review it. You still have to make sure that it’s telling, it’s not fibbing that it’s telling the truth. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and I mean, there are ways that you can, as we’ve talked about in the past, where you can leverage the AI to make things easier for you. Examples, like you gave, I, I love using it for summarizing other things Yep. That, that I’ve done. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: Even then, though, to your point, you gotta review it because,for example, if I ask AI to summarize this episode, I guarantee because we go off on different little tangents, right? It, it will not craft that summary in the, the exact right way. And, and I’ve seen it on some of the episodes we’ve done and the, the AI summary is just way off base because. Particularly ’cause we start with usually a tangent of some kind, because I’m trying to be witty Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: And failing and, you know, it, it, it causes it to think that that’s actually a key point when in fact it has nothing to do with anything whatsoever. Just, Gini Dietrich: yeah. I, I think it definitely needs oversight. The, I think let the Chicago Sun Times be your example. Let this pitch of where they sent it to thousands of reporters telling them to do better. Let that be your example of it absolutely can make you more efficient. It absolutely is a huge, huge help. It still needs to be fact checked, it still needs oversight. It still needs to be approved. Chip Griffin: And if you’re gonna be in an arms race, at least build missiles that work. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: There you go. What food for thought Gini Dietrich: That is definitely food for thought. Chip Griffin: On that note, I think we’ll draw this episode to a close before we really confuse the AI. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich, Chip Griffin: and it depends.

Chip and Gini discuss the common scenario where clients give last-minute requests and share strategies for becoming part of the planning process earlier.

In this episode, Chip and Gini delve into the challenge of agencies being brought in late on client projects. They discuss the common scenario where clients give last-minute requests and share strategies for becoming part of the planning process earlier. Key recommendations include integrating into internal communications, attending more meetings, and maintaining a mindset of curiosity to stay updated. They also cover how to handle situations when timely inclusion isn’t possible, such as negotiating new timelines or additional costs for urgent work. The conversation emphasizes the importance of proactive client communication to prevent unrealistic expectations and to potentially increase scope and revenue. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “We need to find more proactive ways as agencies to get ourselves into the conversation much sooner.” Gini Dietrich: “Nobody wants to be in more meetings, but it actually helps.” Chip Griffin: “We all need to understand that our clients aren’t thinking about us every day in all likelihood.” Gini Dietrich: “You can negotiate some of it to say, listen, we’re happy to help you with this, but we just can’t do it in five days. We can do it in 10.” Related What to do when clients don't get your agency what it needs to succeed Getting the client's perspective on agency relationships How to make agency team meetings more productive View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini today, you know, I think we need to figure out how I can learn what’s going on on this podcast a little bit sooner. I, I feel like I only learned at the very last second what our topics are gonna be, and I just, I need to get plugged in sooner. Gini Dietrich: Okay. Nothing. I I got nothing. You got nothing. We went last week from you having nothing to I got nothing. Chip Griffin: We we’re, it turns out our openings now are just play stump the co-host. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Right. Chip Griffin: So, well how about, how about instead of that, Gini Dietrich: learn how we get plugged in sooner to the discussion that we have as soon as we, just five minutes before we decide to record, but Okay. Chip Griffin: Yeah. Well, I, and in fairness, this, this is a challenge that a lot of agencies have with their clients where they’re asked to do something at the last possible second. Right. And they then need to try to figure out how to make it work. Yes. Surprise. We’re having a product announcement tomorrow. Oh really? I didn’t even know you were working on a new product, let alone that it was launching tomorrow. These are real world situations. They’re ones I’ve experienced, I’m sure you’ve experienced and just about every listener has experienced Yeah. It is not good. It’s an uncomfortable feeling. No, it’s not good. And you can’t usually just say to the client, yeah, no, sorry, we, we can’t do that on 24 hours notice. I, I mean, you can’t, you can try, but they’re, they’re not, they’re, it’s not gonna go over well. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It’s, I would say this is, especially from a pr perspective, this is a really typical thing because for some reason nobody thinks to say, oh gosh, we should have communications in the room. When we’re planning all of this stuff. Instead they say, Hey, by the way, we’re gonna launch a new round of funding next week. Can you get the media relations piece set up? And you’re like, it’s not, I can’t in a week. Oh, and by the way, every board member has to approve the news release before it goes out. In a week? And then it never does. You get it, it never goes out in a week because that’s just not enough time. And so I think it’s a really good conversation to have because we do have to figure out how to become part of the conversation at the beginning instead of at the end. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And it’s, it’s something that came up in the Spin Sucks community recently. And you know, it, it is certainly, I think, It particularly impacts pr. but I, I’ve seen it impact just about every kind of agency. I’ve seen it happen with digital firms. Who are asked to put together a landing page on a moment’s notice for something that they didn’t even know was, was being developed or planned or anything like that. You know, there are plenty of times where ad firms are asked to spin up a, a digital ad campaign on a moment’s notice. You know, the, these are, these are things that are generally better done when they’ve got some lead time and some, yeah, some planning abilities. Yeah. And so, you know, unfortunately you can complain to the client all you want, you need to bring us in sooner. But at the end of the day, I think we need to find more proactive ways as agencies to get ourselves into the conversation much sooner. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. So a couple of things that have worked really well for us. One is that, I mean, obvious, this, this might be obvious, but if you’re doing executive or thought leadership communications with the CEO. That’s part of the conversation that you have as you’re developing content to say, what’s new? What’s upcoming? What are you working on? What can we be thinking about? So that’s just part of your ongoing conversation. If you’re not doing that, we have one client where we’re not doing that kind of work, but he, the CEO has a weekly email that he sends, and I just ask for us all to be put on the email. And so he, so it go, there’s one that goes to his board. And so we get those emails as well as a blind copy. And then there’s one that goes to the whole team, to the whole office, and we’re included on that too. So I can see, okay, from a board perspective, this is what’s coming, this is what they’re working on, this is what to expect for the next quarter. And then with the team one, we can see what they’re starting to communicate internally so that we can kind of see far further out. And then it’s my responsibility to give him a call and say, okay. Based on what I’m reading, this is, it looks like you’re working on, can we talk about this? So that’s a, that’s been a really good way for us to get sort of in the, the know before that stuff happens. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I think, I think, you know, getting yourself embedded with those internal communications so that you are getting copies of pretty much, you know, anything that you can get your hands on: weekly reports, internal emails, that kind of stuff. And, and so to the extent that you hear about things like that. Make sure to just ask, Hey, can we get added to that distribution so that we see it? I think the other key thing is the, this element of curiosity that you suggest. so that if you’re having a thought leadership conversation with a CEO or someone like that. Just ask what’s going on. Yep. Be curious. Do that in your conversations with your regular day-to-day contact. What else is going on? Yep. What are you working on? Just, Gini Dietrich: yep. Chip Griffin: Don’t, don’t try to, and I know a lot of agencies wanna just kind of stay within their lane and, and feel like geez, you know, I, I don’t wanna muck things up by going off into other territory. No. You, you wanna learn as much as possible about what’s going on, even if it doesn’t directly impact you today, because it may impact you tomorrow. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, absolutely. And, and it’s, I think it’s just a nice way, the curiosity is a great way of putting it. It is just a really nice way to kind of, you know, we talked last week about how we get our employees to think strategically, but also how to get you up to that level too, of, oh, okay, well if you’re working on this, that means this and this, and this might be coming. if you’re working with much larger clients where you don’t have access to the CEO and maybe you have access to the marketing team or the comms team or whatever happens to be, it’s continuing to ask that question. But also as you’re helping with results and reports and things like that, you can start to say, okay, what are we working on for the next quarter? If there are quarterly assessment meetings, how do you get involved in those kinds of things? So it’s really positioning yourself Where those conversations are being had so that you can be part of that part of it as well. My team is very good at saying, can I be invited to that meeting? Like, yeah, sometimes. I mean, it’s, sometimes they say yes, and sometimes they say no. Chip Griffin: Yeah. You, you’ve got to get yourself into as many internal meetings as possible. Yeah. Particularly recurring ones. Yes. Those, those are often, they’re, they are sometimes the most boring, but they are often the most valuable to be in, because that’s where you make sure that you’re not getting blindsided because inevitably things that that will impact you either come up directly or you can read between the lines and see that there’s something there for you. And it’s, it’s not just so that you don’t get blindsided, it also can help you to spot opportunities, right. That perhaps the client wasn’t thinking of themselves. So, you know, I’m a huge fan and I know people complain about meetings all the time. Geez, I have too many meetings. And so there are plenty of agencies who say, I, you know, we don’t have time for any more meetings. We don’t want to be in their internal conversations ’cause only 2% of it is actually relevant to us. You know what, get past that. I agree. You need, you need to be in those. Yep. Now you need to price correctly so that you’re accounting for the time that you’ll spend doing it. So, you know, if you’ve only budgeted five hours total a month for a client, don’t go spend an extra 10 hours in client in, meetings that you, you’re gonna have to figure out how to price yourself better so that you have that. But it’s, it’s so valuable being in these meetings for all of the reasons that we’ve discussed previously, but it’s also, it’s helpful just in strengthening the relationship Yep. And, and making sure that you, you know, you don’t suffer from out of sight, out of mind, which is a huge problem for many agencies, particularly if you’re working in a very focused area. And, and so put yourself in a place where you get to be seen and you get to hear what is going on. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, it’s absolutely critical. I think, you know, when I worked at Fleischman Hillard, one of the things that was really important to them, and sort of I’ve carried this through my, through my own culture as well, is that you spent a lot, we spent a lot of time with the direct client. So, you know, from my case at, at this point in my career, my quote unquote direct client was the sales rep who was out in the fields. ’cause I did a lot of ag pr who was out in the fields working with the farmers. Do you know how much I learned being out in the field with farmers? I spent an entire summer doing that. I learned about weeds, I learned about pests. I learned about how, you know things, weather, all the things that they had to think about and how the products that I was helping to support affected all of that. And it just gives you a different level of understanding and gives you a different access because then the client says, oh shoot. Gini needs to know about this. And you know, they call or text immediately. If you’re not part of the culture and part of the ongoing conversations, they’re not even gonna think about it. And I think that it’s really up to us to be able to sort of just insert ourselves into those conversations. Chip Griffin: Yeah, absolutely. I think the other thing is, and I know you’re a huge of, you know, doing quarterly planning. Yep. I, if you are doing more proactive planning, whether it’s quarterly or some other basis with your clients, that will help too, because you’re then forcing the conversation over what is coming. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: And so they may have not thought to, to proactively let you know, but because you’re driving the process, they’ll say, oh, right, you know, we, we’ve been talking about this new product launch that we’ve got, or we’ve got this event that we’re gonna be participating in, in the coming quarter. Those are the kinds of things that you wanna make sure that, that you are doing as well, so that you are, you know, not just part of the conversation, but you’re creating the conversation. Gini Dietrich: That’s exactly right. I love that. And that’s, that’s part of the reason I love the quarterly meetings. We have many clients, even at the enterprise level who do quarterly assessments and they force their teams to think, to review the, the quarter in the past and then think about what’s coming. And when you’re part of that conversation, you can start to see it through your lens and say, okay. If we’re, if you’re gonna be doing this, this, and this, then we need to be included to do, to be able to help you do these things. But I think you’re exactly right. You have to price for that. You have to make sure that it’s part of your process. And yeah, nobody wants to be in more meetings, but it actually helps. Chip Griffin: Yeah, it’s, I mean, it, it, it really helps on a lot of different levels. But now let’s take a moment to, to look at what happens when you don’t get brought in in time. You know, we, we can talk all we want about how to get yourself into the process earlier, but sometimes it doesn’t happen. And so I think it’s, it’s as important to think about how do you handle those circumstances because it, I don’t think most of the time it can be, sorry, we can’t do that. Right. Sometimes it might have to be that. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: Yeah. But, but that has to be the absolute last resort. Gini Dietrich: Well, I think it depends on what it is. Like. Chip Griffin: Sure, Gini Dietrich: there have been things for sure that you, that we’ve been like, we just, that it’s impossible for us to do it in that, in that amount of time. Like there’s just, it’s just not humanly possible. It’s not possible because of external factors. Whatever happens to be. So we will negotiate, I would say like the timing of it. Right? Well, if you want it next week, here’s what’s really feasible. We would’ve liked to have six months, but can we do it in three? Probably. So, you know, negotiating that. One of the things that we also started thinking about just a couple of years ago is, I don’t, we don’t call it this in the contract, but in the contract there’s sort of emergency finance funding essentially. So if you, if you are not bringing us in and you want something turned around that quickly is gonna cost you more. And some people, some of our clients exercise that option to pay more for it if to get it done in time. So I think you do have a lot of options. Obviously it’s not good for anybody’s stress or burnout or anything like that, especially if it happens all the time. But you can negotiate some of it to say, listen, we’re happy to help you with this, but we just can’t do it in five days. We can do it in 10. Right? And here’s why. Chip Griffin: Well, I think a, key is to let the client know what is possible, right? Right. So rather, rather than leading what you with what you can’t do, lead with what you can do. And that may not be the, you know, the, the full expectation that they have. It may not be everything they want, but, but you’re at least, you know, you’re starting with a positive. About what can be done, and say, okay, this is what we could do in five days, but if, if we were able to push it, and some things can’t be pushed, right? I mean, if it’s a, an event that’s taking place, sure there’s no ability to push it. But if it’s an announcement and you can say, Hey, if we had another week, here are the extra things that we could do with that additional week’s time. And so I think, you know, you always want to, to approach these kinds of circumstances with a client with that, that helpfulness mindset with an idea towards thinking about what’s possible rather than what’s not. Gini Dietrich: And I also think it’s important to have that conversation because I think too often we’ll say, yeah, sure, no problem. And we get it done, but it’s at the, at our expense, right? It’s at the expense of us or our team, or our time, or whatever happens to be. And because we do that, that’s the expectation for the next time. Correct. So it’s really important to have that conversation and set the expectation up front so that the next time this doesn’t happen and you start to train them, that they need to bring you in sooner. Chip Griffin: Right. Well, and, and I think the, the next time is a key part of this as well, right? You get through that moment, but then you need to have a, a conversation with the client about how could we, how could we have avoided this? Yep. You know, this, this fire drill that we had to go through, how could we make sure that next time there is the appropriate time and, and that might be, you know, the time where they say, oh, well, you know, if you were in this meeting with us, you would’ve seen it coming. And so they might surface things that would be helpful to you, whether those are those internal communications things or meetings that we talked about previously. But you want to have that conversation. Don’t, don’t do that, you know, in the heat of the moment. Gini Dietrich: Right, right, right. Yep. Chip Griffin: Do that, you know, once you’ve gotten past the obstacle, you know, now you can have a much more reasonable conversation with somebody without them feeling like you’re accusing them or, you know, trying to, you know, CYA about the, the outcome or something like that. You want to just have that conversation once you’ve already done as best you can with the circumstances at hand, but figure out how to do better next time. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s, you know, I mean this goes, I said this last week, but this goes down to just a few, couple of things, right? It’s, it’s running your business more effectively from a financial perspective, understanding what things cost and how long they take to, to get things done. Making sure that you’re protected from a contract perspective. And have your one-to-ones. Yep. And that means client one-to-ones too, not just employees. Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, so much of this goes down to the client communication side of things, and it’s, it’s because agencies have a, a tendency to hunker down and, and not talk about things that, that they don’t already know about because they’re afraid that, that, that scope creep is gonna happen because we’re having these conversations. Gini Dietrich: Right, Chip Griffin: right. So, geez, if I, if I try to talk to them about more things or I try to show up in more meetings, it’s just gonna mean more work for me without extra money. Well, that only happens if you allow it to. That’s right. And, and you need, I would rather be aware of all those things that are out there. I would rather the client is asking me to do more, and then we can figure out how to handle it. Don’t just do it and, and eat the cost, but, but don’t be afraid of those conversations because it could easily allow you to strengthen the relationship or even expand the relationship, so that you can make more money and more profit from that client. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Yes. And that’s, that’s another reason I love the quarterly meeting, because that allows you to say, here’s what, here’s what worked last quarter. Here’s what we’ve been working on. Here are the results. Here’s what we’d like to do for next quarter. And then you have this conversation with the client who says, oh, well, well, we’re gonna do this. And you go, great. We can either replace this with that or we need a, a scope increase, and, and nine times outta 10 they say, oh, let’s throw some more money at it and get it done. Like, it gives you a really good opportunity not to just stay ahead of what they’re working on so that you can get your job done, but also increase your scope as well. Chip Griffin: Right. And, and, and, and finally, I would just say I, I think we all need to understand that our clients aren’t thinking about us every day in all likelihood. Gini Dietrich: Unfortunately not. Chip Griffin: And, and so, you know, we need to avoid that immediate knee-jerk reaction we have when these things happen to say, I can’t believe they left me out of this. They, oh, you know, they set us up for failure. No, they didn’t. They just, it just didn’t even occur to them. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: Would it be nice if it did? Of course, of course. But we can’t, we can’t allow that to impact our thought process or how we go about things. We need to, we need to do what we can to be part of the conversation, but still accept that these things will happen because you’re not sitting next to them at the desk or on their, you know, internal Slack talking to them all day, every day, like their coworkers are. So Gini Dietrich: That’s exactly right. Chip Griffin: It’s a balancing act. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Absolutely. Get yourself into the internal conversations where you can, if they have Slack or Teams, get in there, make sure that you’re having the right kinds of meetings so that you are part of the conversation. And of course, budget for it so that you’re not over servicing, but those are the ways that you can get, get the information you need ahead of time. Chip Griffin: Excellent. I think that is a great place to end this episode. So with that, I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich Chip Griffin: and it depends.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss whether or not employees can be encouraged to be “more strategic”. They explore the definition of being strategic, frequently misunderstood expectations, and the challenges of fostering strategic thinking among team members. Gini shares her personal experiences and frustrations from her early career, emphasizing the importance of proper coaching and mentoring. Chip and Gini conclude that agency owners should define their expectations clearly, consider the individual capabilities of their employees, and re-evaluate their own workload to potentially take on more strategic responsibilities themselves. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “Anytime you’re providing feedback to an employee, be as specific as possible, both in terms of what your expectations are and what you want them to really work on.” Gini Dietrich: “The only constructive criticism I received on every review was you need to be more strategic. Which is fine, it was true, but nobody told me what that meant.” Chip Griffin: “When I’m coaching people on hiring, my advice is try to find people who are generally good at problem solving, as opposed to someone who has the specific experience that you’re looking for.” Gini Dietrich: “Do you have the room to be strategic? Probably not. Most of us that run agencies don’t. So if you don’t have the time or the space, your team certainly doesn’t.” Related Professional development for agency owners and employees (featuring Mike Rhodes) The role of your team in selling agency services How to get your team the mentorship they need View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, I don’t even remember what we’re talking about today, so I remember that, I remember that you were driving the topic though, so, so, so in the 30 seconds since we end Gini Dietrich: Segue, we’re going to talk about whether or not employees can be strategic. Chip Griffin: Ah, there we go. We should also talk about whether hosts can actually pay attention to their own shows. Do I still have any memory left? Apparently not, but we’re just, it just shows how real we are on this podcast because, Gini Dietrich: but also, to be fair, it was like five minutes ago. Then we had another conversation and now, so I’ll give you a little bit of benefit of it out there. Chip Griffin: Well, thank you. I I, I do, I do appreciate that. But you know, we’re just, we’re just showing you how real we are on this show because most hosts would say, you know what, we’re gonna rerecord this open so that we don’t look dumb. No, I am, I am pleased to look dumb. Absolutely. I should not pleased, but I, I don’t care if I look dumb. I mean, it’s, you know, we all are dumb sometimes, and this is one of those times for me, so Gini Dietrich: I cannot wait for the clip from Jen that says, I am pleased to look dumb. That’s gonna be perfect. Chip Griffin: You’re welcome. Thank you. The two of you can really enjoy that and I’m sure we will. I’ll see it show up up in my texts at some point. Gini Dietrich: Yep. And it’ll show up on social media. It’s fine. Sure. Chip Griffin: There you go. Whatever. I’m fine with that. Gini Dietrich: Ah, I’m pleased to look dumb. Chip Griffin: So can employees be strategic? Gini Dietrich: Maybe? Chip Griffin: It depends? Gini Dietrich: Actually, you know, I was thinking about this because, Drew McClellan did a video on it and I watched it and I was like, this is an interesting topic. And I was making the bed the other day and I was thinking about how when I was in my twenties, I used to get really good reviews. And the only negative thing, or the only thing constructive criticism thing on every review was you need to be more strategic. Which is fine. It was true, but nobody told me what that meant. It just, and, and the reason it kept coming up in my reviews is because I was like, okay, I need to be more strategic, but how do I do that? And no one would teach me or walk me through it or, you know, try to help in any sense of the fashion. So. When I think about this, I do think employees can be more strategic. I think it’s up to us as the agency owners to define what that means and how to coach them through that. I do think it’s a skill that needs to be coached and mentored and taught and all of those things. And some people have it and some people don’t. But I do think there, you know, for people like me who are like, okay, I’d love to be more strategic. I don’t wanna have that on my review every quarter. How do I do that? I would’ve loved if somebody had taught me how to do that. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, I, I think you’re, you’re spot on here with the, the, this idea that the definition matters. And, and I, I think oftentimes when I hear an agency owner say, geez, I, I wish I could help my employees be more strategic, to me, they’re really saying one of two things. Which really neither one of which has a whole lot to do with strategy. Yeah. One is, why can’t they just run this account without me? Why do they need so much handholding? Right? Yep. And the second is, why can’t they do more to generate revenue, either organic growth of existing accounts or come up with ideas for new business that we can get. And so to me, what, whenever I hear that that’s, that’s immediate, well, immediately what I think it’s either one of those two things, neither one of which is necessarily tied to strategy in the purest sense. Gini Dietrich: Right, right. Yeah, you’re absolutely right. And usually it, it’s usually why can’t they help come up with really good ideas for organic growth or why can’t they help in new business, like generate help make rain. And it, it typically is not, they’re not strategic. It’s, and, and I think in our industry, especially the communications industry overall, we tend not to be strategic because we’re so tactically focused, just in general as an industry. And so understanding what being strategic really means and understanding what you’re actually asking is, I think, key here. And if it’s really, I want them to help me grow the business, that’s a different conversation. Chip Griffin: Absolutely. And, and you know, a lot of these things are things that you can, you can provide the environment for employees who are already inclined to be strategic, to be more strategic. I think it’s very hard to get someone who is, who is just a pure worker bee tactician to, to, to shift out of that mode. And so you have to understand what you’re working with as a manager. And, and if you’ve got somebody who really, they just, they kind of wanna punch the clock, get things done, they do it well, but they, you know, they, they operate within, you know, clear guardrails. That’s not the kind of person that you’re gonna generally be able to get to suddenly become strategic, that’s right. If you’ve got someone who’s got maybe some good strategic instincts, you can, you can foster that by mentoring, by coaching, but more importantly, by giving them the space to do it. Because I think one of the reasons why a lot of employees who are, are able to be strategic, aren’t is because they’re, they don’t have enough time or space to get it done. And, and if you are overloading your team members with day-to-day stuff, they don’t have the room, whether it’s operationally or business development wise. Yep. To be more strategic. So you’ve got to, to think about are you creating the environment in which they can thrive in that way. Gini Dietrich: It’s so funny you say that because I have a really, really good friend who runs a company, not an agency. They’re probably about, I’d say 18 to $20 million in revenue. They hired a director of marketing three years ago. And he came to me probably late last year and said, Hey, I’m really having trouble with my marketing person and I don’t know why. Could you help me evaluate her? Like it is always kind of a like cautionary thing because you don’t want somebody to come in and be like let’s spend some time together so I can evaluate whether or not you’re doing your job right. So, I carefully walked into it and I spent six months with her, probably once a week, like helping her understand what the goals are and trying to like coach her along and everything. And what it came down to is she’s fantastic if you tell her exactly what to do. She will do it. She will do it on time. She will do a good job. She’ll find the right resources to be able to get it done, but she cannot, she doesn’t have the ability to think beyond that. And so when I went back to him after six months and I said that exact thing, and he was like, well, I need somebody to be strategic. And I was like, okay, then you need to hire somebody above her who will be that person. And he’s like, I need her to be that person. And so he, we go back and forth and back and forth and finally I was like, dude, like, she just doesn’t have the capability. And I think that goes exactly to your point, that some people have it and some people don’t. And it’s okay if they don’t because we need the people to do the work too, right? We need people who wouldn’t ask to do something. They do it, they do it well, they, you know, do it on time and all those things. We need those people. It’s a different skillset than somebody who’s strategic. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And I think anytime we’re thinking about employees and, and how we can, you know, mold them and shape them more to our needs, we need to, to have a reality check. Over, you know, what we’re asking. If it’s that they don’t have a particular skillset, you can generally train a skillset. If it’s something, if it’s more of a, a way of, of thinking, or something like that, those are much harder. And so, absolutely. You know, one of the things that I’ve always said when I’m trying to hire people is, or coaching people on hiring, is try to find people who are generally good at problem solving and things like that, as opposed to someone who has the specific experience that you’re looking for. Because I, I have a very difficult time teaching someone how to be a problem solver. Sort of the mental process you go through to take a challenge and then figure out what to do with it. But if you know, let, let’s take, when I used to hire computer programmers. I didn’t really care whether they knew the specific computer program language that I needed them to use. I cared whether they knew the process because all programming languages are the same, generally speaking as far as how you thinking about how you think about them. It’s just the syntax that is different, right? It’s like if I want, I want someone who’s a good writer. I don’t necessarily need them to writing experience in a particular industry, right? Most of the time, right? Because I can teach them what they need to know for the industry. I can’t teach them in any reasonable way to be a better writer. Gini Dietrich: Right. That’s right. Yeah, that’s absolutely right. And I, I think, you know, so being honest with yourself about what, what you mean when you say I want somebody to be more strategic and what that looks like. Another really good example I have is that I have a, a good friend who runs an agency and last week she DMed me on Slack and was like, Hey, listen, I’m having trouble with a teammate who says that she wants to be involved in business development, but she’s not getting there. And I was like, I was asking her some questions to kind of try to uncover what was going on and what we came to the realization is that her team member was talking about business development in the way that you and I complain about all the time, where we get these emails that are like, if, if you spend 15 minutes with us, we can schedule 550 conversations with you, with prospects. Okay. That’s not business development. But they were using the same verbiage. Yep. Meaning totally different things. And this young woman who’s on her team has that experience of working for a digital firm that their job was to generate leads like that. Right. My friend who runs an agency is looking at it the way we look at it from a business development perspective of we really only need three clients, so we probably have to approach 10. Right prospects. So when it came out of it that, that was the difference in the conversation. She went, ohhh. So it’s, it’s really digging in deep with your team to figure out, maybe you’re using the same language and you’re meaning something different. Or maybe you have expectations and they think they understand what they are, but that it’s, you’re kind of missing the, you’re two ships. Right passing in the night. So it’s really about understanding what it is that you really mean. Do I need them to be strategic? Do I want them to focus on business development? Do I want them to do, be better in in client meetings? What is it that, I mean when I say be more strategic? And then really dig deep with them because you might be saying the things that you are, and they’re misinterpreting it because they’re, the lens that they’re looking at it through is different than yours. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and this is, I mean, this is important anytime you’re providing feedback to an employee. You need to be as specific as possible, both in terms of what your expectations are and what you want them to really work on. So if I say to somebody, I want you to be more strategic, or I want you to communicate more effectively, or I want you to pay better attention to detail, what does that mean? Yeah. Be, be specific What? What are the specific things that you think I could or should be doing better or more of, or what have you? And frankly, a lot of the time that’s gonna require you to think about what you actually want from them. That’s right. And what you need from them. But then putting it into words with them, breaks it down into the component parts so that they have something clear that they can work on. They can say, yeah, that’s just not gonna happen. Like, you know, if, if your idea of being strategic is that you’re making cold calls because you really mean business development, they may just say, yeah, that’s just not, that’s not me. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Right. Chip Griffin: But if you, if you start breaking them and, and, and it really does, I mean, I think so much of it is just turning the spotlight on yourself and figuring out what you’re trying to get from them. Because usually when you’re asking for something like that, it means that you’re trying to get something off of your own plate. So what specifically are you trying to get off of your own plate? Because that’s, that’s where you can start to see real progress. It’s where your team doesn’t feel frustrated by these, you know, vague requests that you’re making of them. And it also helps you to figure out is it really realistic? Right? You know, if this is what I’m asking for. Can I really ask them to do that in with their current workload? Do I need to change their workload to get there? Do I need to change their priorities in some fashion so that it gets done first versus other things that I prioritize less? Whatever it may be. You need to be crystal clear about that in your own mind and then convey that to the employee. Gini Dietrich: To this day, I still don’t know what my boss meant when she told me every quarter that I needed to be strategic. ’cause she didn’t, she never outlined that for me. And I asked questions and I tried to get help. I still, to this day, I have no idea what she meant by that. Chip Griffin: Well, I mean, clearly you’re, you’re just not very good at strategy, Gini. I mean, you know. Gini Dietrich: Back then I wasn’t. I am today, but back then I for sure wasn’t, Chip Griffin: I mean, if only you had like a model or a framework that you could use to guide you. Gini Dietrich: Demonstrate. Yeah. Guide, build. Yeah. You know, Chip, I think that we’re gonna start losing listeners because every conversation we have, we give people work to do. We, you actually have to work at this. Chip Griffin: Well, yeah. Yeah. But I mean, this is not the place to come if you don’t want to do work. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. You have to do work. Yeah. There’s all sorts of things you have to do. I’m really sorry. Understand your financials. Chip Griffin: But it’s a pretty, it’s a pretty small and simple list and, and so many of them it is, as I think I said on the last episode or maybe the one before that, a lot of them just come back to a couple of key things, a couple of key tools and processes that sort of, all of these other issues either orbit around or can be solved by. And, so it’s, it’s really not as complicated as it seems. But if you’re, if you are not good at communicating what you need and starting by understanding what you need, you’re never gonna get it, whether it’s strategy or anything else. Gini Dietrich: Right? That’s right. Yeah. It really is about setting expectations, but also understanding that if the words that you’re using don’t mean the same thing to your team, that has to change too. But you, and you have to figure that out. Like it took an outside person for my friend to, to go, wait a second, I, I see what’s happening. And she didn’t see the forest for the trees at all. So sometimes you may have to phone in a friend and be like something’s not right here. Can you help me kind of diagnose what’s going on? I mean, you and I could serve in, in that, that role, but certainly you have friends that are in the industry as well that could serve in that role. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, any, anytime you can get a fresh perspective on things, and you’re able to, you know, to, to take that different look at, at how things are being done. And, and I think bring, particularly bringing in someone from the outside, whether it’s, you know, a friend, a trusted advisor, or an actual consultant, whatever, I, I think those are helpful because a lot of times employees will be more open with those individuals. Yeah. Especially over time. Yeah. And, and will, you know share this is why I’m not able to do this. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: Because a lot of times it is that, you know, the resources just aren’t there, particularly time. And you know, I think that, you know, while there are a lot of things that employees can and probably should do to be more efficient with the, their expenditure of time, there is still a finite amount of it. And, and I, Gini Dietrich: unfortunately, yes. Chip Griffin: I very rarely see owners or even middle managers who say, yeah, you know, I, I want my team doing less of these things. It’s always more, and, and the less is usually something silly, like I want them to waste less time. Okay, well what does that even mean? So, you know, if you’re, if you’re only gonna be adding things to someone’s plate and you’re never taking anything away, it becomes really hard to get the results that you’re looking for, whether that’s strategic, tactical, operational, internal, administrative, whatever. Gini Dietrich: I mean, look at your own plate. Do you have the room to be strategic? Do you have the time to do some deep work? Do you have space to be able to think? Probably not. I mean, most of us that run agencies don’t. So if you don’t have the time or the space, they certainly don’t. So you have to kind of figure out how to re-jigger things so that you can get what you need and they can get, get it done for you. Chip Griffin: Yeah, and that’s a great point. I mean, that it, it, it also is a reminder that if what we’re looking for is our employees to be more strategic, is that really the best solution or should we be trying to get them to take something else off of our plate that’s easier for them to accomplish so that we have that time. Good point. And space to be strategic. Yep. Because I, I think we will all probably accept that, that in general, agency owners are likely to be more strategic, no matter how you define it than employees. Certainly we all care a whole lot more about the outcome of those strategies than any employee ever does. Yeah. And so if we can, if we can move less valuable stuff off of our plate and we can fill that strategic role more effectively, that’s often a better solution than trying to force someone who is not inclined to be strategic, isn’t trained to be strategic, doesn’t have the strategic bone in their body, you know, take it on yourself, but just get other stuff off of your plate so you can do that. Absolutely. So with that, we will get this podcast off of your plate so that you can then move on to being strategic, defining your own goals or, you know, doing whatever other assignments we’ve given you. Yep. On, on this and other episodes. So I will not apologize for giving you more homework. I’m sorry. Gini Dietrich: Nor will I, Chip Griffin: I’m, I’m sorry for not being sorry, you know, anyway, but yeah. Alright, on that note, I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich Chip Griffin: and it depends.

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss whether or not employees can be encouraged to be "more strategic".

In this episode, Chip and Gini delve into the topic of scope creep in agencies.

In this episode, Chip and Gini delve into the topic of scope creep in agencies. They discuss the bell curve of profitability and the importance of setting clear expectations from the first client conversation. They highlight strategies like dividing projects into 90-day scopes to regularly reassess goals and deliverables. The duo emphasizes the significance of internal communication, developing a culture of transparency, and ensuring team members understand project scope and costs. They also stress the need to build flexibility and cushion into initial pricing to manage minor scope changes and avoid financial strain. Finally, they agree on mastering financial understanding and regular one-on-one meetings for smoother agency operation. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “As agency leaders, we need to be thinking about scope from the very first conversation that we’re having with a prospect.” Gini Dietrich: “Scope creep comes into play when we don’t price projects based on actual numbers.” Chip Griffin: “Scope creep tends to happen because you’re not communicating well with the client, but just as importantly, you’re not communicating well with your own team.” Gini Dietrich: “When your team is involved from the beginning versus after the contract was signed, scope creep will become less of an issue.” Resources How to stop scope creep before it starts Related How agency owners can avoid scope creep (featuring Steve Guberman) Hidden overservicing by agency employees How agencies can avoid scope creep with client projects (featuring Ben Aston) View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I am Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, you know, I think we should expand the scope of this podcast. I think we should start covering economic issues and engineering, and I don’t know, while we’re at it, why don’t we do the arts? Gini Dietrich: Let’s do some politics. I, I’d like to do some politics. Chip Griffin: Oh, definitely politics. Yeah. Yeah. I think that would be smart. I think that’s really smart. A good expansion of the scope of this. Gini Dietrich: Absolutely. Yes. Chip Griffin: But, but we’re still gonna do it in, in just about 20 minutes a week. We’ll choose the topic, we’ll pay ourselves exactly the same amount. Gini Dietrich: Yes, absolutely. I, I’m okay with that. Chip Griffin: Okay, Gini Dietrich: cool. Let’s do it. Cool. Chip Griffin: Well, so that obviously is a joke. We’re not doing any of those things. Gini Dietrich: No. Chip Griffin: Although it might make it easier to come up with topics ’cause some weeks we struggle to figure out what to talk about and if we were covering everything, or maybe that would make it even harder. Gini Dietrich: Although we could just record our pre-conversation and be done with it. Chip Griffin: Yeah, we’d probably get in a lot of trouble though, so let’s, let’s not do that. Okay. Can we, can we just agree we’re not. Gini Dietrich: I’d have to tone down my swearing too. Chip Griffin: We’re not hitting record before we hit record, so that … not serving any purposes at all. Gini Dietrich: Nope, I agree. No, not good. Chip Griffin: Alright, well how about we talk about scope creep when it comes to agencies rather than this podcast. Gini Dietrich: I like it. I like it. And you just did a webinar on this, so tell us all. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, look, it, scope creep is, is something that I think just about every agency experiences at one point or another. I think I’ve talked in the past about my theory of the, the bell curve of profitability for agency clients where you tend to be less profitable in the beginning because you’re getting up to speed and then you start to figure it out and you get efficient and you don’t have to ask so many questions to get things done well. And then over time, that’s when the scope creep comes in and starts driving down your profitability. And, and I think that part of the problem is that as agency leaders, we need to be thinking about scope from the very first conversation that we’re having with a prospect. And so many of the problems that we talk about on this show go back to the first conversation with an employee or a client or something like that. And so we need to set the expectations correctly from the very beginning because if we don’t, we have no hope of staying within scope over time. But then we also have to set the expectations correctly in the actual documents we’re signing. Gini Dietrich: Right. Chip Griffin: So it’s a balancing act because you don’t want to be so specific in the agreement that you’re, you’re constraining yourself from being able to be creative or you’re forcing yourself to do certain things or meet certain objectives that six months later will no longer make any sense. So you got to have some flexibility in there. At the same time, you’ve got to put guardrails in. Gini Dietrich: Absolutely. Chip Griffin: And you develop these by learning from your past engagements. If you do that, then you can set up the protections that you need in order to be able to have reasonable or rational conversations with your clients when scope creep occurs. Gini Dietrich: And I think we’ve had this conversation before too, in that we tend to build our scope before we really get into the client’s business. Especially when it’s a brand new client right. After you, if you, you’re doing scope after a year or something, it’s a little bit easier, but when it’s with a, with a brand new client, you just don’t know. You don’t know what their culture is like. You don’t know what access you’re gonna have. And we, we have a list of things like you have to give us access to analytics and the CRM and you know, blah, blah, blah. All your marketing automation, all the kinds of stuff, right? And we tend to add to that list based on what we’ve learned from other clients. But even still, you still don’t know exactly what you’re getting into. And so building a scope of work for an entire year, like I think most of us do, is really challenging. So one of the things that we started to do is say, okay, for the first 90 days this is what we’re going to do. We got to set you up. We’re got to do systems all like all this stuff. We’re gonna get some results. These are kind the, these are the tangible deliverables you’ll get in the first 90 days. After that, we’re gonna take a look at things and say, okay, what are the objectives? Where are our benchmarks? What were we able to accomplish in the first 90 days? And move from there. And we do that every quarter. So we’re really only writing a scope for, for three months at a time. It’s a pain in the butt from a paperwork standpoint. But it prevents the scope creep because we’re able to have that quarterly conversation to say, this worked, this didn’t, we still need this. We weren’t able to get that. Like, these are the kinds of things that we need to be able to do to move this, the your business forward and it, and it’s less confrontational, so you don’t have to call and say, so we’re running out of hours. Like, you just, you don’t have to have that conversation because you’re, it’s a consistent, ongoing thing that’s part of the work that you’re doing with your clients. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and communication like that is absolutely critical to staying within scope. And it’s the, the communications breakdowns happen at multiple levels, for sure in the worst cases of scope creep. And it, it tends to be because you’re not communicating well with the client, but just as importantly, you’re not communicating well with your own team. Yep. Far too often, the actual employees who are responsible for the day-to-day work have no idea what the scope is that you’ve committed to. Gini Dietrich: Right. Chip Griffin: And they need to know that. Gini Dietrich: They need to know. Yes. Chip Griffin: Because are, are they, are they still likely to veer outside of scope on occasion to, to keep a client happy? Yep. A hundred percent. Yep. I mean, we, we just have to accept that, that that employees are in a difficult spot. And I know that in the past when I was a junior agency employee and I had the client asking for one thing and a boss telling me that I, I, you know, had to stay within a certain parameter of hours or scope or whatever. I was between a rock and a hard place, right? Because I knew someone was going to yell at me. Yep. And so. The instinct is to try to find some way through, which usually ends up in at least some degree of overservicing. So that will still happen. But what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to make sure that they know that they’re overservicing, because that will curb it to some degree or another. And when you hide things from your team, they don’t have the information that they need, the awareness that they need in order to help you make better decisions. Gini Dietrich: I remember, this was a long time ago, but you know, in the early days of my agency, I remember an employee pulling me aside and saying, it’s great that you’re going to these new business meetings and you are, you know, writing the proposals and you’re saving us from all of that work. But once we transition to doing the work, like we don’t, we don’t have the same knowledge that you have. And so the clients are getting frustrated. We’re getting frustrated. And I was like, oh. And in my mind, I really was saving them from all that like, it’s administrative tedious work. Right. But what it was in, when in fact, and sure, it’s, it’s still tedious and they didn’t enjoy the actual proposal writing and stuff like that, but because they were, they began to become, become involved from the beginning. They understood what it is that we’ve promised, what we’ve said that we can do, and, and, and to what extent that costs. Right. So it became, that became less of an issue too when I involved them from the beginning versus after the contract was signed. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And you have to make sure that you’re creating a culture that they will share with you when the client is asking for things. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: They’re out of scope, even if they may agree to it in the moment because it only takes five minutes. They still need to keep you in the loop. And if you are not getting the awareness yourself as the leader for what kind of scope creep was going on, you can’t make a rational decision that’s right about how much to allow. Because I’m not gonna tell you, you shouldn’t allow any scope creep. Because if every time the client asks for something out of scope, you call ’em up and say, we’re not doing this, or you have to pay more, or something like that. Right? You are going to destroy that relationship. Yes, absolutely. Yes. So you cannot be that kind of of agency. You need to accept that there is going to be some and and, but you need to be aware of it. You need to deal with it sooner rather than later when you’ve crossed that line of into something where it is too much. Because if you don’t call it out when it’s happening, if you don’t deal with it when it’s small, it becomes really hard to deal with once you’ve got a huge accumulation of it that’s built over 6, 9, 12 months or more. And so you’ve got to be in a position where you’re just addressing it as soon as you possibly can so that you can get things back on track. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I mean, a really good example of that that just literally just happened here is a client asked three of my team members to be at their onsite in June for three days, you know, with travel and all that. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We’re not budgeted for that. Like, we’re not scoped for that at all. We, there’s no travel, there’s no in person anything. And that’s expensive. It’s really expensive to have three people in one place for three days. Yep. So, you know, luckily I, I think I’ve created a culture that it did come up and I was like, okay, great that they want you there, but we’ve got to get a new scope of work or add on to, do an addendum to our, to our contract because that we just, if, if we take that out of our current budget, we can’t do the work. And like my team, I didn’t even realize it, it was just part of the conversation that we’re having as a, as a team update. And they were like, oh. So you like to, to your point, you have to build a culture that people are comfortable sharing that with you and saying, you know, the, this, the client’s really excited to have us there. How do we make that happen? Yeah. It’s like new scope of work, friends. Chip Griffin: Right? And, and at the same time, in order to deal with sort of the, the less expensive scope creep that can occur, you know, so that you’re not making your client feel nickeled and dimed, you’ve got to build that into your original pricing. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: And so too often just to win the business, I’ve seen agencies kind of whittle that pricing down to the bare minimum just to, to give what’s being asked for. But you have to assume that there’s going to be out of scope requests because I don’t think I’ve ever had an engagement as an agency where the client didn’t ask for at least a little something out of scope. And we have to stop putting ourselves in this position where we think that the client is doing it for nefarious purposes. They’re trying to get something for nothing. No, frankly, most of the time the person we’re dealing with on the client side doesn’t even know what was agreed to themselves in the beginning. So they may be completely clueless and, and oftentimes my experience has been when you tell them, oh, that’s not within scope of it, oh, I had no idea. I’m sorry I didn’t, I didn’t mean to ask you to do something that, right. I thought it was quick and easy and was in scope and was fine. But, but make sure that you’re building some sort of a cushion into your price so that you can allow those little things. Sort of like if you’re renovating your house or something like that, you want to build in a cushion so that when you want to move an outlet or something, you move the damn outlet. Right. And you don’t have to worry about, oh my God, that’s gonna be another 500 bucks to do that. Just plan ahead that these things are going to happen and you’ll be in a much better position to figure out what’s the real scope creep, like travel expenses that you need to deal with. Because anytime it’s an out-of-pocket scope creep, that’s a real, it’s real. There’s a difference between a little extra time, which is bad. Yes. But direct out of pocket expenses, that’s much worse. Gini Dietrich: Not happening. Not happening. Not happening. You said something moving an outlet. Shoot. I lost it. Chip Griffin: I just distracted you by taking it off topic. Gini Dietrich: It’ll come back to me. Chip Griffin: Well, fortunately, you know, we’ve, we’ve, we’ve built in a little cushion here in time, so we’ve got little bit of time that we can, where we can back to it. When it, when, when it, it re registers in your mind. You know, I think the other thing that we have to do is we have to create a culture of trust with the client so that they are open to us coming to them with these conversations. And so some of that’s on the personal level. Some, you know, that that means that, that as, as agency leaders and owners, we need to make sure we’re maintaining relationship with the client even as we’re having other people run the day to day piece of it. Because generally speaking, when it comes to something like scope creep, that almost always ends up being a more senior conversation at some point. If you don’t nip it immediately by the person on the other end saying, oh, I didn’t realize it was in scope, let’s just forget about it. Let’s move on. When they, when it’s something they really want or and or need and want to push forward, it’s probably gonna be more senior conversation. So you want to make sure that you’ve established that relationship of trust. But part of that too comes in those early expectations. And, and one of the things that, that I have always said to my clients, in consulting engagements of any kind is, look, you know, here’s the price that we’re agreeing on. But if at any point I feel like it’s not working for me, or you feel like it’s not working for you, let’s come to each other and we’ll figure out what to do. Do we need to adjust scope? Do we need to adjust price? But I like to set that expectation before anything is signed. And frankly, it’s another reason why I don’t like true ironclad long-term contracts, because frankly, I want the flexibility on my side. Gini Dietrich: Absolutely. Yeah. Chip Griffin: To go back and renegotiate when necessary. Yep. And, and I would rather that flexibility than the misguided unquote certainty of a long-term contract. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I totally agree with you. What were some of the questions and topics that came up during the webinar that you just did? Chip Griffin: So, I mean, the questions are, are typically around the logistics of this, right? Mm-hmm. You know, how do I, how do I specifically have this conversation? How do I increase the, the price on someone who’s, you know, really budget sensitive even when I know that what they’re asking for is something that we ought to do. And I think these are things that, that we’ve touched on a lot in the past, particularly when it comes to raising prices on existing clients, right? Because that’s, that’s the guide that I look to when it, it comes to scope creep. You, you have basically two choices. You can swap something out and so we don’t do this, but we do what you’ve just asked for instead. Yep. So we, we, you know, it’s a net wash on, on the actual cost. Or we are gonna have to charge you more. But that’s because you see as the client, the additional value coming to you in exchange for whatever additional pay that you’re getting. I, I think that we, we can’t be in a position where we think about scope creep solely in terms of we need to charge you more for this. Frankly, more often than not we can just, you know, rearrange what we’re already doing for a client. Absolutely. Particularly if it’s scope creep that’s happening over time. Because chances are, if it’s come into the relationship a year or two down the road, there’s something that we were doing originally that we’re still doing. We could probably just shed that and it would, you know, come out in the wash. Yeah. So, you know, I, a lot of the questions really come down to those logistics of how do you actually have those conversations? How do you figure out how to price it? Those sorts of things. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. One of my favorite things, approaches is, yeah, yeah, absolutely. We can do this. We’ve been doing this, this, and this. What, what do you want to replace it with? I think we could probably replace it with this and just make a recommendation. And sometimes the client will say, no, I want to keep doing that. What will it cost to add that on? And other times they’re like, yeah, I, let’s take your recommendation and replace it. So it’s not technically scope creep because you’re just, you’re moving, to your point, you’re moving things around. Chip Griffin: Right. And, and we also shouldn’t assume that the answer is going to be no. Gini Dietrich: Right? Chip Griffin: Because I can’t tell you how many times I’ve assumed that, that if I say this is, this will cost this extra, someone will say, uh, no, I’m gonna, I’m gonna pass on that. The reality is that, that people say yes to these upcharges all the time. Yep. In some of the photography that I do on the side, I’ve been shocked at that. The people who will pay exorbitant travel fees for me on what is a relatively low cost project to begin with. In some cases, you know, the travel cost may double the total cost of the engagement, and they’re like, oh, that’s fine. I’m like, okay, Gini Dietrich: okay, Chip Griffin: okay. I mean, I figured it was gonna scare you away and I wouldn’t have to do this cruddy thing that I wasn’t interested in, but apparently not. Gini Dietrich: Okay. You know what’s interesting about the last few episodes we’ve done is much of the things that we’re talking about really come down to understanding your financials and getting that straight. And I think if you have that foundation, a lot of this stuff goes away, right? Because you know how much things cost, you know what your profitability needs to be, and you know where things stand. And if you have that really strong foundation, and I’m not saying you necessarily have to do it. But you do have to find an accountant who can help you create these kinds of things. Once you understand that all of this stuff gets easier, prospecting gets easier, pricing gets easier, price increases get easier, scope creep gets easier, all of it gets easier. I think too many of us, myself included in the past have just focused on, well, I think it’ll cost this and let’s just throw it in there. And that’s where the scope creep comes into play is when we don’t do it based on actual numbers. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, look, the two, the two best solutions are the two best solutions that I recommend for almost every operating problem within an agency. The first is regular without fail weekly one-on-ones with all direct reports. Yep. Because that’s your line of communication internally, so that you even aware that something, something’s up that, that you need to pay attention to. And the second is project budgeting. Because if you’re, if you’re doing the time tracking that’s required for project budgeting and you’re looking at your numbers, you’ll understand when and where you need to draw the line on scope creep. And so almost every single internal operations problem I’ve ever encountered in an agency can be, if not completely solved, heavily mitigated by those two things. Gini Dietrich: Totally agree. Absolutely. Yes. Chip Griffin: And the vast majority of agencies aren’t doing either. Gini Dietrich: That’s correct. Because it’s time and uncomfortable and things that you don’t want to focus on. That’s absolutely right. Chip Griffin: But both are actually really easy to do and don’t take all that much time. And if you just invested in them, it would make a monumental difference. Yes. In the outcomes. And frankly, it even bleeds over onto the, the business development side because it helps you to figure out what kinds of clients you want to get, how to price them effectively, and maybe even bubbles up some ideas of who to specifically target if you’re doing those one-on-ones well. Gini Dietrich: Yes, absolutely one-on-ones. Do your project budgeting, so many things will be solved. So many problems will be solved. Chip Griffin: And on the client side, communications, same thing. I mean, you know, we are in the business of communications and yet we are generally very bad at communicating Gini Dietrich: very bad, very bad. Chip Griffin: With clients, with team members. Yes, with prospects. The only thing we’re good at is advising others on their communications, but, but we need to, to focus on our own shoes a little bit as the cobbler. Gini Dietrich: We do, yes. As the cobbler needs to do. 100%. Chip Griffin: So any final words on scope creep or should we try to contain the scope of this podcast? Gini Dietrich: I think we should try to contain the scope of this episode. Chip Griffin: Okay. Well on that note then, I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich Chip Griffin: and it depends.