Getting your agency ready to grow again in just 90 days.
I created The 90-Day Agency Reboot to help jump-start agencies which have been struggling or simply running in place for too long. As a two-time advertising agency CEO, I have the knowledge and in-depth experience to help you evaluate every area of your agency... fix whatever needs fixing... and get you back on the path to winning and profitable growth in just ninety days.
The 90-Day Agency Reboot is offered in two stages:
- Stage 1: What I believe must be done in order to get your agency growing again.
- Stage 2/Important but optional: What also should be done to maximize your agency’s potential and long-term success.
Stage 1 (Must Be Done) includes:
Stage 2 (Should be done) includes:
Deliverables: Online PowerPoint presentation of major findings and specific recommendations for moving forward. (I will e-mail this to you after the presentation.)
(NOTE: If you prefer, we can present the findings and recommendations in person which could facilitate deeper discussion and more quickly establish internal direction for executing next steps.)
Please contact Mark Johnson at any time for additional details and pricing.
THIS IS THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OF AGENCY PROBLEM SOLVER/MARK JOHNSON AND IS NOT TO BE USED, COPIED OR OTHERWISE DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN CONSENT OF MARK JOHNSON.
The 90-Day Agency Reboot is offered in two stages:
- Stage 1: What I believe must be done in order to get your agency growing again.
- Stage 2/Important but optional: What also should be done to maximize your agency’s potential and long-term success.
Stage 1 (Must Be Done) includes:
- Establish benchmark/context via short and confidential online survey among the agency's staff to determine the unfiltered truth of how they really feel about the agency today (including leadership, culture, capabilities, addressing the sudden growth of AI, personal role and the future). (NOTE: Ideally, a similar survey would be conducted among selected clients.)
- In-depth one-on-one discussions with ownership and 3-4 members of senior team (75 minutes each).
- Based on this input, clearly define the agency’s goals and challenges to growth.
- High priority areas to be assessed: Agency’s brand positioning and rationale, differentiation vs. competition (including IP), mission, vision, working environment/culture/morale, leadership, client/agency relationships, effects of AI to date and plan for the future, website, new business performance (strategic approach, plan and results).
- Financial health/review: Performance for current year and previous two years including gross income, EBITDA, profitability (including impact of AI and opportunities to offset), distribution of gross income and profitability by client (and also tenure), employee costs, overhead, receivables aging, true cost of providing service, systems and controls (e.g. -- adhering to carefully developed and client-approved estimates and scopes-of-work), timely tracking of employee time and utilization, services which might no longer be necessary to provide to clients, other areas for reducing costs, setting departmental goals/incentives and achieving buy-in, finance-related staffing/expertise and outside resources. (NOTE: This financial review will be conducted by the former CFO of Chiat/Day North America who is also a licensed CPA.)
- Provide the roadmap for building a more effective approach to new business development which will 1) clearly differentiate the agency, 2) identify best prospects (based on that differentiation), 3) strengthen its perception as a strategic leader rather than simply being an executional provider, 4) construct bigger and better databases for marketing outreach, 5) reach target prospects relentlessly with fresh category-specific insights, 6) enhance the agency's website to be more new business-friendly overall (including stronger SEO) while also clearly demonstrating its differentiation/areas of expertise and 7) guide development and delivery of winning presentations. (As a related but separate service, we also offer The New Business Audit which takes a much deeper dive into this critically important area. For details, click on New Business Audit in the navigation bar at the top of this page.)
Stage 2 (Should be done) includes:
- Other important areas to assess: Staffing, structure, internal communication and collaboration, systems/processes/efficiency, resources available, services provided and quality (account management, creative/digital/social, media management, research, data and more), level of strategic thinking (including creative strategies) and bringing new insights to clients.
- Help ownership evaluate which services and areas of the agency to invest in... and which ones to outsource or not provide at all.
- Establish an approach for improving any toxic client/agency relationships.
- Evaluate agency's Intellectual Property, how it's being applied and opportunities for expanding it.
- Identify opportunities for providing more value (and differentiation) at higher pricing to clients by transforming current processes into proprietary offerings. (For example: The agency's unique five-step process for identifying more distinctive and forward-thinking product/service development opportunities for clients.)
- Help ownership to communicate effectively with employees throughout The 90-Day Agency Reboot to secure their buy-in, re-energize them and start building a more successful agency as a team.
Deliverables: Online PowerPoint presentation of major findings and specific recommendations for moving forward. (I will e-mail this to you after the presentation.)
(NOTE: If you prefer, we can present the findings and recommendations in person which could facilitate deeper discussion and more quickly establish internal direction for executing next steps.)
Please contact Mark Johnson at any time for additional details and pricing.
THIS IS THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OF AGENCY PROBLEM SOLVER/MARK JOHNSON AND IS NOT TO BE USED, COPIED OR OTHERWISE DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN CONSENT OF MARK JOHNSON.