HIVE MIND: “How Can I Encourage My Team’s Growth Mindset?”

Wed 6 Apr 2022 11:00 am UK Time
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• It can be difficult to think of growth when you’re at the beck and call of a client’s orders.
• So, how can you instil this mindset in your team?
• Steve Renshaw, co-founder of Ratio Partners, is calling on the Agency Hackers hive mind to help solve this problem.

Steve and his co-founder Mario have noticed a lot of missed opportunities since getting more involved with their clients’ accounts.

How do you get your account team focused on growth – rather than just taking orders?

This is a dilemma posed by Steve Renshaw, co-founder of Ratio Partners.

“Last year we started getting more involved in the accounts and we found there were actually a lot of opportunities we were missing,” says Steve. “Where we’ve since been able to deliver quite a lot of growth is by going to clients and giving them insights, rather than working to a roadmap.”

For Steve and co-founder Mario, the question is: what kind of account-facing team should they have, that will deliver that strategic growth?

A big problem for Steve is the growth pipeline within the business. 

While he and Mario will go and schmooze clients, gear up strategy sessions and get to know what their clients really want, when this gets back to the team to follow up, things ‘grind along’ until one of them gets involved.

“If I was going to a client tomorrow, I’d make sure we had loads of data and insights behind us about how the website and channels are performing, make some recommendations on how they can improve things,” says Steve. “They’d usually say yes, and then we’d hand it over… and then it sort of ends up proceeding, but sometimes I’ve just sat there for months until we have a look at it again.”

“I guess it’s partly because of our size – we don’t have account managers across all clients – and it’s partly because we’re probably the most experienced people in the business,” he adds. “But we want to step away from that, as it’s sucking up so much time were not actually concentrating on growing the business elsewhere and focusing on sales.”

As agency leaders, you can’t do everything. Come along and share how you’ve managed to encourage a growth mindset in your team – or if you’re trying to resolve the same puzzle.