The Agency Advisory

An end of year round-up which has been a pleasure putting to bed. Perhaps because it’s the end of the year, I’ve leant into topics that are most likely to be front of mind among agency leaders at this time of year – namely facing up to challenging conversations and what traits are found in good leadership. I’ve added to it with one of the topics that seems to be on most agency leader’s lips looking ahead to 2025 which is how to stand out from the crowd and how to embrace AI. Add to these some hard home truths from a M&A guru and a recommendation for holiday listening and you have the final edition of The Agency Advisory of 2024.

It's been a pleasure to launch and publish this weekly newsletter. After 43 consecutive editions, I’m going to take a well-earned break until the new year with the 44th issue scheduled to publish on Monday January 6th.

Thank you as always to the many lovely, smart individuals who share their opinions and content on LinkedIn. Without this community, The Agency Advisory would not exist.

?I wish everyone a very merry holiday season and a prosperous New Year. See you in 2025

How to face up to those challenging end of year employee conversations

We’ve all had them – the end of year review conversation with our teams where individuals often come to the table with a different view on performance to that of your own. Expectations are often high but coming at the end of a challenging year for so many agencies, finding a shared outcome is more difficult than ever. Manish Kapur ’s LI article is therefore a well-timed and helpful guide to managing these delicate conversations. In it, he provides advice on what to focus on, on how to prepare, and how to position the conversation. And he goes further by explaining a role matrix – a framework that is intended to help employees see what’s expected, what gaps they must bridge and what steps to take. Overall, it’s an excellent article with actionable insights.

Read Manish’s article here:

Leaders should choose kindness over niceness

When approaching those difficult conversations, how many of us have fallen into the trap of being nice and avoided the difficult elements of the annual review. As always. Helen Bevan has shared excellent advice and a graphic that explains why as leaders, we should always choose kindness over niceness. As she states: “kindness is about caring enough to push people to greatness, even when it’s uncomfortable.” She concludes by saying it’s a harder path but better in the long run. In my experience, too many of us shy away from that path and it only leads to problems in the long run.

Find out about the kindness path via Helen’s post and graphic:

Don’t lead alone – the seven traits of exceptional leaders

Continuing the leadership theme, Helene Guillaume Pabis shared a useful carousel and post explaining the traits of exceptional leaders who build high performing teams. As this is surely every leader’s ambition, the carousel is worth a peruse. In it, Helene lists out the traits by stating that good leaders need to be psychological safety builders, context providers, reliance advocates, progress celebrators, future leader developers, work life champions, and innovation catalysts. If you were to score yourself against each of these, can you confidently say you demonstrate these traits? If not, perhaps Helene’s post will spark reflection and change.

Those seven traits are explained here:

Introducing the 3 dials method for building your agency’s positioning

It’s been a while since I shared a post from Florian M. Heinrichs so I’m delighted to showcase his post which contains practical pointers for consultancy differentiation. More and more of my work is helping agencies to stand out from the crowd so Florian’s generosity in sharing his expertise is appreciated. In this post, he defies the 3 dials of differentiation as being specificity, precision and soul. He goes on to explain how to turn up the dial and posits that while there’s no one size fits all situations, the 3 dials approach is a practical method to facilitating strategy discussions with agencies that need to push the envelope when it comes to differentiation.

Check out the detail on specificity, precision and soul here:

‘Ramblings’ about the independent agency sector from a M&A specialist

It’s always interesting to hear what the M&A community is saying – particularly coming at the end of a difficult year. Hence why I am including this post from Spencer Gallagher who states that the UK agency sector is experiencing significant upheaval, with over 75 agencies closing in the past 18 months - the worst period since the DotCom crash. In his view, the market is oversaturated, requiring consolidation through mergers and acquisitions. Key challenges include unsustainable headcount (wage-to-GP ratios should be below 63%), inadequate pricing strategies, and slow adaptation to emerging tech demands like AI and automation. While not the most positive appraisal of the year, Spencer speaks the hard truth and provides some food for thought on how to survive in 2025.

Gulp – read Spencer’s views on 2024 here:

Advice on how to answer those difficult procurement questions about AI

Have you been asked yet by procurement to reduce your fees because AI makes you faster? If not, I can confidently guarantee you will. And that’s why I’m grateful for Brian Kessman ’s post which provides an effective paybook to answer this potentially tricky question. The post contains answers to several different procurement question scenarios but concludes with the wise advice which I will take away. And this is: “The moment you start reducing fees is the moment you communicate that you've been overcharging. Instead, demonstrate how AI enables you to deliver more value, not just faster deliverables.”?

Check out all of Brian’s wise words in his playbook post here:

A library of AI literature from the big consulting firms

Thank you to Akshay Taneja for curating a list of 16 white papers from the likes of 普华永道 , 科尔尼 , 贝恩公司 , 波士顿谘询公司 , 麦肯锡 amongst others. The list highlights what the big consulting firms are saying about AI in 2025. It’s a useful reference source.

Access the library of links here:

Using AI as an engine for innovation

If the above list of white papers inspires you to act on AI, then Andrew Bruce Smith ’s latest blog will turbo charge it. In it, ABS asked ChatGPT’s newly upgraded 01 reasoning engine to recommend a framework to help PR firms re-engineer their operations. His post contains the output from the query which ABS then splits down into five ‘chapters’, each providing insight into how AI can transform a PR firm into a “superhuman-scale communications engine”. His advice is clear. Firstly, deploy AI where it truly excels, secondly integrate it where human expertise amplifies value, and thirdly deploy it where consequences are acceptable, and value is clear. ABS goes on to say that agencies must be selective and cautious in the use of AI and that it is important to continually update your AI playbook. If you don’t already follow ABS and you are serious about AI in your agency, then you need to sign up to his posts and perhaps contact him about training.

Read how to transform your PR agency using AI here:

Holiday listening: Focus on the fun stuff podcast

Any Spotify podcast title that starts: ‘Lord Sugar’s PR Guru…..” will grab my attention because it means that Andrew Bloch is once again sharing his wisdom with the world. This podcast with Emma Mills therefore is a good one to bookmark – perhaps to enjoy over the festive season.

Here’s that Spotify link:

If you like what you have read in this newsletter, please do repost it to your network, comment on one or other of the topics that have been covered, and if you don't do so already, follow me for more shared posts on matters relating to agency management and comms in general.

https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/andyjhwest/

Many thanks.

Andy