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Interested in becoming a project manager? Currently a project manager and want a gut check on how crazy and chaotic your work life should actually be? Let’s tackle the big questions about project management jobs with no-nonsense straightforward answers.   What...

  So you want to be an agency account manager? First off, no, you probably don’t. But let’s just say you do. There are 17 things you should know first.

  Every agency person out there has war stories from their dealings with clients. And mind you, all those clients have the same stories about their experiences with agencies. These conflicts happen so often they almost seem inevitable. Almost. Here’s the bridge both the agency and client need to cross to have a successful relationship.

  Working at a marketing agency is tough. It’s demanding. It’s stressful. It’s time consuming. But it’s also one of the most creative and fun places you can wind up … if you can figure out how to thrive there. Part of thriving in agency life is learning how to work productively with your co-workers. […]

Image credit:Photo by Benjamin Suter from Pexels These are the small touches. The things someone had to really think about for them to even exist. It’s the attention to detail that luxury brands and high end restaurants excel at.

  Growing a marketing agency is hard work. It requires a number of elements to come together and push it forward. Here are two critical things that an agency cannot grow without.

  Here’s a secret that weeds out the best agencies from the hacks. This is going to be a tough one for a lot of agencies out there to agree with. Ready?

  Marketing agencies use production meetings to balance the flow of client work against the available capacity on their production team to fulfill the work. Over the last two years I’ve been lucky enough to participate in an evolving production meeting structure experiment at a growing agency. Here’s the story of trying out five different […]

  In Malcom Gladwell’s book Outliers, he states that “the typical plane crash involves seven consecutive human errors.” It turns out real life plane crashes are not that cut and dry. Instead, plane crashes are much more likely to be the result of an accumulation of minor errors. This got me thinking about how projects […]

It sucks when things aren’t clear. Right? Whenever there’s ambiguity around anything (like directions, expectations, rules, responsibilities, goals, etc.,) it causes stress. And stress is a real problem that can hamstring a business. It will cost you people, and hurt your processes. So it’s worth repeating: ambiguity causes stress and can damage your business. Here’s […]

We’ve all been there. Your spouse gives you the silent treatment. Your coworker leaves you hanging on a project so you look bad. The deflective of response “you’re being too sensitive, I was just kidding.” But they weren’t, you know they weren’t. Passive aggressive behavior can actually take on some surprising forms. This post will […]

Mission statements are dead. Those dull paragraphs, filled with vague aspirations of “to help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential”* are a way of the past. Today’s customers simply do not have the time or will to care about lofty and overly general objectives. We don’t have the attention to focus […]

  Ingredient Branding is a marketing strategy where a component or an ingredient of a product or service is pulled into the spotlight and given it’s own identity. Everyone is familiar with the now famous “Intel Inside”, and it’s corresponding success. But why does it work?

Are you struggling to keep up with the demands of your job as an account manager? Do you find yourself constantly getting sidetracked by interruptions and unable to focus on your goals? If so, it's time to have a plan. In this blog post, we'll discuss several...