How having a great team can help you have a great agency [Part 2]

In part one of "How having a great team can help you have a great agency" the focus was on building out your vision and presenting it to your team and then creating a competency map scoring the skills of each person in the agency. If you have executed those steps you are now ready for [Part 2].

Did you miss the first part on how having a great team can help you have a great agency?

Create a recruitment plan for the agency

Where are your gaps, what specialists do you need and what are the career aspirations of the people in your current team? Some people will want to move into management roles. You can set a training plan to match their goals and measure how they are progressing every quarter.

Others on your team may wish to be experts in a certain field, like data analyst. Again, you can set certifications and courses for them to complete each quarter, where they can either create projects for your own agency or your clients while allowing you to assess performance.

Have an “always hiring” approach to your agency: Build a bench of people, by asking candidates to send in their resume and and short video about why they would like to join your team.

People Analyzer & GWC

Discuss with each team member how they feel they are aligned with your core values. Do they get it, want it and have capacity to complete their role to the best of their capabilities? This is an exercise you can learn more about by reading the book “Traction”. It is important that you have the right people in the right seats and with the right attitude in your agency.

Want to get your agency financials straight?

Give everyone a reason

I often hear about agencies struggling to get their staff to track time. This is mainly due to a couple of factors: The tool you have implemented is not easy to use and perhaps requires manual updates. However, the main reason people don’t track time is because they are not personally motivated to do so. How can you get them personally motivated? Well it is simple - incentives.

You have shared your vision and the financial goals the agency needs to hit in order to be successful, with your team - the revenue and the profit. You can set targets, like wanting to achieve profits 2% over your main goal - so if 20% is your goal, then 22% is your stretch goal.

By explaining to your team how you measure profitability, they will be able to see that if you track their time you can measure your profits.

You can also set other numbers for your team, like customer happiness score for account managers.

Sit down with each team member and explain how their role contributes to the profitability of the business. If you wish, you can set extra bonus targets for them to achieve. Perhaps one person on your team is saving for a house - then they will be motivated by a lump sum at the end of the year. Another person might love to travel, so you can give them flight vouchers if they achieve their targets.

Find out how Penguin Strategies got to where they are now with team management.

Apart from individual incentives it is also a good idea to have a team number - with a shared target,people are more likely to help each other. For example if you hit 23% (3% over your target), then you will take the company employees and their partners away for a weekend (you can make part of this a training update/or meeting :).

Now you have a team who is committed to each other and their own accountability. They are motivated to track time and help you be a profitable business - all year around.