CEO and Founder of Sosemo, an award-winning digital marketing agency that specializes in search marketing and paid social media marketing.
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At agencies, the employees are the product. Showing up and working hard every day isn’t necessarily a recipe for success on its own. Technology is used but typically takes a backseat to good old human intellect. However, humans are imperfect beings. Succeeding at an agency centers around managing human imperfections and helping others to understand, focus and learn.
Here are a few tips to help employees stand out and succeed while working at an agency:
Manage meetings.
People are social creatures. Consequently, it’s easy for meetings to fall off the rails and turn into nonproductive social gatherings. Without guardrails, people can easily become scatterbrained (for lack of a better term) by default. Getting things done is an accomplishment, and knowing how to effectively manage meetings is one of the most useful tools for achieving this.
If your role involves managing meetings, here are a few tips:
• Add an agenda to the meeting invite.
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• Limit opening banter to two-to-three minutes.
• State the objective at the start of the meeting.
• Take detailed notes.
• Summarize next steps at the end of the meeting.
• Send a follow-up email to document next steps.
If you are able to organize and participate in meetings effectively, you’ll be able to start making things happen. It won’t be long before colleagues start looking at you as a leader who gets things done.
Be diplomatic.
A common challenge at an agency (or any business) is being able to state your opinion or preferred direction without offending or alienating others. People can have different reactions to the same directive, which often makes this easier said than done.
There are a number of strategies that experienced businesspeople deploy to navigate this:
• Smile and project a happy, upbeat tone.
• Avoid using absolute phrases such as “must have.”
• Try your best not to interrupt others.
• Use less demanding phrases such as “I feel like.”
• Always acknowledge others’ points as valid.
• If you disagree with someone, start with a nonconfrontational statement after acknowledging their point, such as “just to play devil’s advocate.”
Utilizing these strategies will most certainly make your life easier.
Another tip to help navigate office politics is to put yourself in others’ shoes and consider what they would think of your comments before making them. If you are able to navigate relationships in this way, it’ll be more likely that you’ll be well liked, respected and gain more support for your ideas.
Listen well and repeat yourself.
The Marketing Rule of 7 states that a prospect needs to hear the advertiser’s message at least seven times before they’ll take action. While this is a common marketing concept, in practice, it may extend beyond marketing. In other words, human beings may need to hear or see something seven times, on average, before it truly sinks in.
While this may be a common flaw among mere mortals, you can strive to be an exception to the rule by listening well, recording meetings and taking notes. Nothing can be more frustrating for clients or colleagues than having to repeat themselves multiple times because their requests fall on deaf ears. When all else fails, try closing your eyes and listening intently.
On the flip side, you can also acknowledge this flaw in humans and learn to repeat yourself with multiple touch points within meetings, follow-up emails, status reports and deliverables. You’ll be effective at getting things done if you do.
Tell a story.
Including statements about how data increased or decreased is not telling a story. All presentations and deliverables should include a cohesive, logical and succinct story that clients and colleagues can follow and understand easily.
The core elements of a story are characters, setting, plot, conflict and resolution. Storytelling should be considered a simplified version of this that answers the questions: “what?” (character, setting, plot), “why?” (conflict) and “how?” (resolution). What, why and how can also be interpreted as the background, impact and next steps, or observations, opportunities and recommendations. Additionally, headers can be included for better organization.
Help others make decisions.
Clients and more senior co-workers typically prefer to have control over making decisions. However, they don’t want to be sucked into a whirlwind of thoughts and opinions. If you can organize pros and cons or benefits and drawbacks, and provide recommendations, you can help others make decisions swiftly, and they will love you for it.
You don’t always need to map out the benefits and drawbacks for your clients and co-workers to review, but you should always back up a recommendation with your rationale.
Innovate.
Talking heads are common at agencies. Team members are frequently angling to talk over one another and be seen as thought leaders. The problem with this approach is that most are simply regurgitating what they have read or heard elsewhere. Few people truly innovate.
True innovation stems from a unique methodology, approach or philosophy. However, to innovate, you typically have to be hands-on as a doer. The challenge is that doers are usually more junior team members who are less skilled when it comes to verbalizing their innovations, while senior team members are often too far removed from the work to innovate. Therefore, senior members can either roll up their sleeves on occasion in an attempt to innovate, or they can partner closely with talented doers to assist. When you have something unique to say, you don’t need an angle to talk over colleagues.
Conclusion
Navigating office politics, effectively communicating and learning how to get things done within an agency often takes years to master. Furthermore, not everyone is cut out for agency life as human dynamics within such a people-rich environment can create challenges, to say the least. However, if you remain mindful of these tips, you’ll be ahead of the game and well on your way to being successful in one of the most rewarding and encouraging work environments.
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Author: Larry Gurreri, Forbes Councils Member
