How do you instil a culture of profitability at your agency?

Jeremy Taylor, Operations Director at OST Marketing, noticed that his team would often strive to over-deliver rather than work within the client’s budget. 

More junior staff members would find it hard to work within the pre-set hourly bounds allocated for different tasks – often because they wanted to do a great job.

But this over-servicing was causing headaches. It created a cycle where expectations would have to be constantly reset.

“Just getting staff to really look at the detail of, ‘What is this client paying us for? How does that translate in terms of hours for the service? And how does that translate in terms of hours for me?’ has been hard,” says Jeremy.

“I started to wonder – how do you make it so it’s just ingrained?”

So, Jeremy got to work.

• He encouraged a mindset of strategic overservicing, where extra work is planned and intentional, rather than allowing unplanned overservicing to crop up, which could hit the agency’s profitability.

• He introduced tools to enhance forecasting and capacity planning – like a calculator tool to bring consistency to the quoting process.

• To stop overservicing recurring, Jeremy created a culture where people would proactively manage client expectations right from the start – being upfront about what could be achieved within the stipulated budget to avoid scope creep and maintain a great working relationship.

If you’re feeling the constant pressure to do more for your clients, even at the expense of your agency’s resources, join this session and hear from Jeremy and other agency folk about how to do a great job for your clients without draining your team’s energy or your agency’s profits.