Yep, you read that correctly. You need to fire yourself from your agency.
Put on your best ‘Sir Alan’ face, point at yourself in the mirror with an arrogant sneer and say those immortal words: ‘You’re fired!’
But why?
Well, you’re a lot more use to your business when you’re managing, developing and leading it than you are when you’re working on the day-to-day running of the agency.
Read on and we’ll tell you how being a full-time MD, and not a creative worker, will work wonders for the business.
Working ON the business, not IN the business
You want your agency to grow, don’t you? And you know that the only effective way to do this is to make your business scalable.
But to build a scalable business model, you need to fire yourself from working in the business. It’ll feel tough to do – this business is your baby, after all, and you’re the one who’s built it up over time into the success that is now.
Be brave, though. Don’t think of it as redundancy; think of it as a change of roles.
By moving away from the creative work, you’ve got time to focus on all those business development activities that you never get around to. Move the responsibility for the creative delivery element of the business to other members of the team.
And by doing that you can focus on working ON rather than IN the business
Plan your development
So, you’ve done it. You’ve fired yourself from working IN the business and you’re sat at your desk wondering what the hell to do now.
Where do you start in your new role as a full-time MD?
It begins with planning the development of the business. And a large part of this is about outlining the job roles in the team and detailing the specific responsibilities of each role and each sub-team.
- What does each person in the team do?
- Where is there overlap and wastage?
- Which people have management or people responsibilities?
- What are people’s key skillsets? How do these roles and sub-teams fit together to deliver your creative offering?
- How much of the creative process and delivery has been systemised?
- How many of the key processes and tasks sit with you?
That last question is the really important one. Write down all of the things that you are currently doing that you shouldn’t be. Then identify the best person in the team to do those things in future.
To paraphrase the late, great Roy Castle, ‘Delegation’s what you need!’
Free up your time
Imagine the big sigh of relief once you’ve delegated all those key tasks to the rest of the team. Can you feel the stress just melting away from you? Nice, eh!
And with all those internal tasks passed to more suitable people, you’ve now got a LOT more time available. That, really, is the key benefit here. Running a business – any business, whether it’s a creative agency or a catering company – take a whole lot of time and tightly focused attention.
The benefit of firing yourself from an internal role is that you free up time to work on the business and execute your plan. And you can commit yourself to this 100%, rather than trying to wear two different hats at the same time (unless you fancy clinging on to that ‘Johnny Two Hats’ nickname).
Welcome to your new role
So, congratulations on your new role as full-time MD!
You’re now properly in the driving seat of the agency tour bus, not sitting in the back with the rest of the team wondering why you’re not picking up speed.
You’ve got time to:
- Focus on business development activities.
- Follow up leads and targets more effectively.
- Meet more clients face-to-face and build on relationships.
- Think more strategically about your future. Build a practical, workable business plan.
- Search for, interview and hire new creative talent.
- Broaden your network and go to more events and conferences.
To cut a long story short, you’ve got time and you’ve got focus.
And that’s going to really push the agency forward with you in complete control of its destiny.
