Industry Perspective
AGENCY FORUM 2022
Presented by Bill Callison President
Recently we were fortunate to attend an outstanding forum about the current state and future of events and projects as seen through client and agency eyes and experiences. This was an outstanding experience with far too many great points, ideas and truths to cover here.
There were three great points however, that resonated with us directly as a production agency and we wanted to share these with you.
Changes taking place in our business.
There have been and continues to be a huge turnover in our industry. Client teams have changed, production agencies have changed, and the technology around the projects and events we produce has changed. There are more changes and advances coming and being able to stay up with these will be critical to successful growth.
But what if your clients, old and new, aren’t fully aware of how you as an agency have changed? Now is the time to take stock of your successes and capabilities and reach out to your clients by sharing new and exciting offerings, new personnel, and more alignment with how they need to be supported. Don’t assume your clients are keeping up with what you’re doing unless you share it with them.
We all have our strengths, usually our clients are aware of these, and it is the reason why they stay with us as production partners. Most agencies have amazing ideas and amazing people coming up with them and implementing them. Some feature high end technical knowledge and how best to integrate with the highly creative teams they work with.
Maybe the difference your agency brings is how your clients feel when they’re working with your teams. The goal of all agencies should be to build trust and confidence in the collaborative manner they partner with their agency. Do your clients consider you a strategic partner or an execution partner? If you’re an execution partner, do you have what it takes to be a strategic partner? These are some of the most important questions you should ask yourself as an agency partner.
Lean into
your differentiators.
Great teams make for great organizations.
How we do things on the inside determines what we are capable of. In other words, happy internal teams make for better external experiences. And if our clients’ experiences with us are good ones we can find ourselves growing as an organization.
Growth through great internal teams allows for cognitive friction & productive disagreement which can be very helpful in continuing to foster success. A team open to ideas and small, incremental changes can do great things internally and externally.
It can be a bit daunting to take a full day or even two, away from the crush of incoming emails, messages, and meetings for any reason. But consider giving yourself and your team permission to continue to grow personally and professionally at least a couple times a year. Big industry events and gatherings are terrific and have their place, but sometimes the smaller doses go down little easier and end up having the most impactful results.
