In today’s world, dominated by AI, texting, and endless Teams chats, it feels like actually talking to someone on the phone has become an ancient practice. But here’s my take: nothing quite replaces the value of a real conversation—outside of in-person collaboration. Yet, somehow, picking up the phone has become the exception rather than the rule.
There’s a noticeable reluctance, even an avoidance, of making phone calls. Call me old-fashioned, but I believe something important gets lost when we only communicate through a screen. You can’t fully capture tone, inflection, or intent in a text—not to mention the nuances of human emotion that simply don’t translate through the tap of a keyboard (emojis only get you so far, right?). I’d much rather have a focused 10-minute conversation that ends with clear next steps than spend time piecing together a 500-word essay through texts or emails.
A recent CNN article shed light on the growing epidemic of loneliness, especially among younger generations. No, I’m not saying phone calls will cure all, but they can help bridge the gap. There’s something comforting about hearing someone’s voice, about making that personal connection—even if it’s just over the phone.
So, next time you’re about to type out a long message or email, take a second and ask yourself: Would a quick phone call be more productive? Would it be more meaningful? Chances are, the answer is yes.
New business gets attention. It’s obvious when you win and depending on the size, it can lead to getting press coverage. But, in a lot of cases, organic growth can have a bigger impact on the agency. Organic growth is a testament to the strength of the existing client relationship and validates their satisfaction with the agency’s performance. But getting organic business can be tricky. Below is an overview of organic growth and 10 keys to acquiring organic business:
What is organic growth?
Organic growth is any business that is added to an existing account. It can come in many different forms – adding a different line of business, a new channel (e.g., website or CRM) or department (e.g., media or production). It varies in size and effort.
10 Keys to Acquiring Organic Growth
Create a Strong Foundation.
It starts with a solid foundation. If you don’t have it, the chance of growth is extremely low. The team has to be delivering strong work and have a solid client relationship to grow.
2. Share Capabilities.
Make sure clients know the full breadth and depth of the agency’s offering. In a lot of cases, clients don’t realize you have experience and capabilities outside of what you do for them. You need to be proactive and weave these additional core competencies into your day-to-day discussions with clients.
3. Share Latest Agency News.
It’s human nature to want to work with companies that are trending upwards. Companies that are doing well and are growing. Make sure to share regularly your agency news, such as client wins, new and relevant case studies, and new initiatives that the client might be interested in. A couple of ways to do this is through a monthly agency email that is specifically for clients and agency leadership check-ins with the client.
4. Understand the Client’s Entire Business.
Led by the client service team, develop a strong understanding of the client’s entire business, including outside of the business that you currently work on. What are their pain points? How is their relationship with other partners? What are their future objectives? What other service lines could use more support? The key is listening to help identify the opportunity.
5. Develop an Action Plan.
Based on what you’ve learned, develop an action plan that leverages what you’ve learned. This action plan is to include what you are trying to solve, potential solution(s), resources and effort needed, and potential timing. This is the framework that sets the stage for creating a custom solution.
From an agency standpoint, it’s helpful to challenge all client leaders to do this yearly, potentially including in annual planning.
6. Go for the Ask.
Asking for new opportunities can be awkward. Timing is critical. It helps when you are coming off something positive such as a great meeting. Must convey you have a solution to one of their problems, that it won’t interfere with the work that you are currently doing for the client and ask to be able to share your thoughts.
7. Develop Solution.
Organic growth can put your reputation at risk if you don’t develop a strong solution. It’s opening the door to other team members/resources that don’t work on the business today. Team leads must be confident that these additional resources are good, would be a great fit with this client and have the ability to continue the momentum that is already established.
Once you seed the idea and the client is open to hearing more, the next step is developing the solution. The solution should be grounded in:
Addressing the pain point/opportunity previously discussed.
Knowledge of the business as you know their business better than anyone.
Share the efficiencies that can be gained by acquiring more business.
Reassure clients it won’t hurt the existing business.
8. Share Solution.
Determine when it’s appropriate to discuss the solution with the client. This could be when you’re planning for the upcoming year. Usually, it’s best to have the existing leader of the team be the key figure in the presentation, supported by the leader of the business that is trying to be added. For example, if you are trying to grow by adding internal studio production work, you would have your client leader and the production lead be the central figures in the presentation.
9. The Journey.
Hopefully, you made a solid impression. Most likely the journey to get organic growth doesn’t end here. There are probably future steps like presentations with other clients or potentially the client deciding to create a formal pitch. The key is to continue to strengthen your solution as the client gets closer to awarding you the business.
10. Seamless Onboarding.
The onboarding process should be simpler than new business since you already know so much about the client. The leader of the business that is being added (e.g., in the example above would be the production leader) is to spearhead the onboarding process. The account leader should be kept informed of progress, help establish relationships, ensure the efficiencies are taking place, and doesn’t negatively impact the existing business.
And don’t forget to celebrate the win. Although not as glamorous as a traditional new business win, a lot of work goes into organic growth and the opportunity can be the same. So it should be celebrated the same. Good luck!
If you have any questions on organic growth or need any support, please feel free to contact brianphelps10@gmail.com
During my career working on numerous accounts, I’ve had the pleasure of being around some of the best account leaders in the business. Based on this experience, I feel account management secret sauce has three key components:
Relationship: building strong relationship foundations – internally within the agency, partners and clients, is key to long-term success.
Creative Excellence: helping shepherd the creative process to ensure creative is as strong as possible throughout the development process – from helping make sure the brief is grounded in client insights, to answering questions, to selling in the core ideas and concepts, to bringing it to life.
Passion: having the drive and never settling approach built within your DNA.
With these core components top of mind, below are the 10 keys to account management:
Invest in Client’s Business.
Invest in truly understanding the client’s business. Everything from reporting structure, key stakeholders, their industry, product portfolio to their stock price. How are they positioned against their competitors? Is their collective business doing well? Make sure you sign up for news feeds to help stay on the pulse of their business.
From an individual client standpoint, get to know what they like and don’t both professionally and personally. What are their “hot buttons”? What type of creative do they like? Do they like sports? Ask to follow on social. Especially the lead clients, you are going to spend a lot of time together. It’s always good to have a professional friendship.
Identify the “Win”.
Need to analyze how do you win on each given account. Is it an account that could be a creative showcase? Does it have the ability to grow? Is it a profitability play? This insight will help in guiding the agency and team towards the win. And it can help ensure that the agency isn’t trying to accomplish something that isn’t possible.
Find the “Why”.
In a lot of cases, people go right to the solution, including clients. Some feel it’s being helpful or could be because it’s perceived as the faster route. But the key is to get to the core reason why something is being asked. For example, if there are requested changes, find the why are clients asking for the change in addition to what the actual change is. Dig deeper and figure out why it’s asked, and then come back with solutions that tackle it.
Listen.
Stay on the pulse of what is going on within the account. From a client perspective, how happy are they with the agency’s performance? Are they working well with the collective team? Is it taking one round to nail a concept or multiple and is there a growing frustration with having a lot of rounds of feedback. Directly ask for continuous client feedback to eliminate vagueness, which can only slow down the account. And then act accordingly.
From an internal perspective, how happy is the team? Are they learning and growing? Are they challenged, too much or too little? Are they enjoying working on the account? Is there enough resources or too many (which can have the same negative effect as too little). Listen and then act accordingly (nothing worse for an employee having to say the same thing over and over without something being done about it..)
Easy to Buy.
Leverage the insights, experience, and history that you have about the business and clients and aid the team in making it easy for clients to buy the ideas. Predict what the response will be and create preemptive logic that addresses client concerns even before they ask. This demonstrates that you are prepared and understand their business.
Lean In.
Titles in the grand scheme don’t matter. Be available to help in any way possible. Be there to quickly answer questions. If the team needs lunch because they have been sequestered trying to solve a challenge, go get lunch. Go above and beyond to support the team.
The Art of “No”.
It’s hard to push back. To say no. It’s really easy to say “yes”. To take orders and pass them along. But that’s not what strong account management is about. There is an art to saying no. Give clients alternate solutions that help address their original ask that you can’t deliver on.
Wear Multiple Hats.
Account managers wear multiple hats. From helping create briefs, manage projects, developing strong presentations, developing spreadsheets, reviewing routers and selling in ideas. The key is being comfortable going quickly from one task to another, depending on the urgency and importance.
Build Equity.
Just like in equity in houses, building equity with clients happens over time. The more you invest, usually the bigger the return. Think of it as if you had equity poker chips. Those chips are for you to use at your discretion to manage the business. Once you have equity built up you exchange this equity for asks – maybe it’s discussing a new business opportunity or discussing something you know will be a tough conversation. You leverage this equity. It’s precious so choose when to use it wisely.
Collaborate.
A big key is collaborating across the business, including with partners. This is made harder when those “partners” are competitors that you could come across when pitching other businesses. Be open-minded and know they too are trying to do good work as well. You have to remember to always do what’s in the best interest of the clients and their business.
Lastly, try to carve out moments for fun. Account management is hard and sometimes under-appreciated. It’s a vital role in developing great work for clients. Good luck.
If you would like to know more or have any account management questions, please email: brianphelps10@gmail.com.
New business is hard. It is grueling, fast-paced and most likely the odds are stacked against you. You’re going to exude a ton of effort. Depending on the size of the pitch, you are probably competing against multiple agencies, potentially the best in the business. And to make matters worse, you probably have to agree to tough terms to even be in the pitch, which could include signing off the rights to your work. It’s a harsh reality of today’s world of new business.
If you are fortunate to have clients coming directly to you in the absence of a pitch, it’s truly a great thing. Or your client roster is maxed out and don’t need more business. But for everyone else, pitching to gain new business is a necessary evil.
After competing in numerous pitches and winning several, my new business secret sauce has three components:
Passion: must show at every step along the journey how much you want to win. You must have max effort even on the smallest details.
Relationship: pitches are an artificial experience. It’s hard to build a real relationship but clients need to get a sense of what it’s like working with you – your team and the agency culture.
Solution: what is your unique solution that is memorable, breakthrough and addresses the main ask of the pitch.
With these core areas top of mind, below are the 10 keys to winning a pitch:
All In
This might sound pretty obvious but once you decide to enter the pitch, you have to give 100% effort if there is any chance of winning. If you continue to debate participating, then don’t bother. You won’t put the effort needed and you will lose.
Exceed Expectations at Every Stage
Pitches have several stages. The goal is to exceed client expectations at every stage. You need to leave a great indelible impression. Much too often agencies can “top out” early in the process, which pretty much dooms your chances. It’s better to be good early and awesome later. The stages to getting to winning usually goes like this:
Prospecting
Credentials
Written response
Q&A
Client check-in (potentially)
Stand up
Q&A
Follow up
Negotiate
Win & Onboard
Superior Response Team
The backbone of new business is the response team. These are team members that live, breath and sleep new business. They move fast, have a breadth of knowledge, extremely detailed oriented, include solid business writers and keep the machine on its right path. Identifying a primary team member that will oversee the pitch is also critical.
Research like Crazy
Having insights along the journey is crucial. Who are the clients? What makes them tick? What are their passion areas? Where does the brand fall compared to their competitors? The more insights you have the better as you can choose when to tap into them.
Determine Why Business is up for Review?
One component of research is to gain a great understanding of the real reason the business is up for review. You must get to the core reason, which usually falls within relationship, creative, or financials:
Souring of relationship with current agency
Previous agency perceived as too expensive
Struggling with the creative output
Client management change
Once you figure this out, you can play into it and drive home that it is actually one of your agency’s strengths.
100% focus on their Business
It’s easy to talk about yourself. It takes less time since the content is already created and some just like talking about themselves. But if you’ve made it passed the credentials stage of the pitch, clients don’t want to hear about you. They want to hear how you are going to help them.
Dynamic Pitch team
Probably the most important area is the pitch team. It makes or breaks a pitch. Having strong, qualified, knowledgeable team members who are strong presenters. One component that is overlooked sometimes is the balance of leadership and the actual team that will work on the business. The old bait and switch (having a pitch team who then never works on the business) is not viewed positively by clients. A transparent discussion should be had about every potential pitcher and discuss strengths and weaknesses to get at the strongest team.
Solution
What is the unique idea or solution, which is translated through breakthrough creative. It must be memorable, be on brand and have a clear POV. It’s good to have some variation but needs to ladder back to the primary idea or it looks like you don’t stand for anything.
Negotiate with Confidence
It’s a great sign that you have advanced to this stage. Chances are they are doing the dance with another competitor so not completely out of the woods. This is where a really good finance person is really important. You’ve spent a lot of work to get to this point. Stand confident with your proposal and negotiate to get what you think is in the best interest of your agency.
Thorough Onboarding Plan
Now the real work begins. Onboardings are awkward. They involve the incumbent agency usually and you are still getting to know the clients. Clients want to be reassured that it’s not going to be extremely painful flipping the switch to work with you. It’s usually best to acknowledge the awkwardness and dive into utilizing a proven onboarding architecture that is grounded on a proven process, speed, and thoroughness.
Lastly, try to carve out some fun. New business can lead to some of the most memorable parts of your career. And if you win, it can have a huge impact on your entire agency – from financials to agency culture. Good luck.
If you would like to know more or have any new business questions, please email: brianphelps10@gmail.com.
The whole point of operations is to increase efficiencies. This is the north star. Anything that doesn’t help improve productivity and efficiencies is wasteful. Efficiencies ranges from increasing the profitability of the agency/projects, improve the speed of projects, and decreasing the overall pain of getting work done by eliminating inefficiencies and thereby improving overall agency morale.
Openness to Change
Change is hard. There can be a natural resistance to it for many reasons from just an overall preference to rely on what is been done in the past, change-averse, feelings, perceived as difficult and/or just don’t want to invest the time. But to be successful, there needs to be a full team openness to try to change/improve – from leadership to the overall agency. Without this openness, you won’t reach full potential.
Create an Operations Plan
A thorough plan is needed to tackle operations. I compare it to a business plan that’s created for starting a new business. It starts with:
Objectives: what are realistic measurable goals you want to achieve. It could be project speed, financially, morale, etc.
SWOTAnalysis: do an analysis of the current state of operations – what’s working and why, what’s not, etc.
Financials: include a financial analysis of the investment today and budget moving forward.
Stakeholders: identify the key team members involved. From primary (core team) to secondary (influencers).
Timing: identify how long you have to accomplish.
Recommendations: the solutions that address the current weaknesses and threats identified in the SWOT analysis.
Don’t Over Complicate
Much too often unfortunately operations gets in the way rather than helping. For some reason there is an inherent tendency to over complicate – whether it’s to justify a person’s position, a control issue, lack of understanding of the value of operations or just the enjoyment of inflicting pain (ha), but not sure. This view is counter to improving operations.
Don’t recreate the wheel
If something has worked in the past and it’s still the best way to do it, stick with it. There is no need to solve something that doesn’t need to be solved.
Be on the Pulse
Our space changes constantly from new tools and technologies launching to new features being introduced. Continuously monitor so that you can incorporate the latest into your operations plan.
Create a Rock Star Task Force
Must be led by team members that have a true passion for wanting to help and be representative of the collective agency. The best route is having a representative from the five groups (strategy, media, account, creative and production). The more diverse the better. Identify one point person that helps organize and helps ensure progress is being made. Remember, most likely this isn’t their primary job, so need to use their time as efficiently as possible.
Have a Continuous Improvement Mindset
Everything can get better. Nothing is perfect. This approach is helpful when approaching operations. Once an operations enhancement is made, monitor it. Get feedback from those that are involved in using it on a day-to-day basis. Always be looking to improve it.
Training, Training, Training
Much too often the launch and leave mantra happens in our space. This includes operations. Once an operations foundation is established, there is a huge need to educate the expanded team on how to use it. Given the workforce is always changing, a reoccurring training program is best. Make sure to ground it in the value for them when launching new changes.
Have Fun Along the Way
Operations isn’t glamorous. It doesn’t win awards. But it can drastically help improve the overall agency – from morale to profitability. Make sure to carve out time to celebrate the wins.
If you or someone you know is looking for operations support, feel free to reach out at: brianphelps10@gmail.com.
Overview: Operations is a personal passion of mine. I’m not sure if it’s due to starting in engineering before switching to marketing early in my career. Or maybe it’s due to living in the automotive capital and learning about the assembly line (patented in 1901 by Ransom Olds; first moving assembly line for the Ford Model T in 1913) at a young age. But I have always enjoyed mapping out the optimal way to do something and then working on continuously improving it. I take this mantra when framing up agency operations.
To some, agency operations sounds like a vague term and doesn’t feel like a real thing. One challenge is that it doesn’t neatly fall within one of the primary five agency departments: strategy, creative, account, media, and production. But agency operations are truly key and should be engrained within the agency culture.
Below are my thoughts on why operations matter and its key components:
Why Agency Operations:
The importance of operations continues to grow, driven by:
Financials: client budgets continue to decrease while having increasing expectations for efficiencies and discounts.
Competition: the amount of competitors continues to increase with consultants, specialized agencies and in-house agencies growing in popularity.
Projects: continued decrease use of the AOR model with more clients choosing to do project work and jump balls.
Speed: the space has always required agencies to move quickly but the growth of real-time communication it’s even more important.
What are the Benefits:
Operations should increase “efficiencies”. The value can be seen in several forms – increasing the profitability of the agency / projects, improve the speed of projects, and decreasing the overall pain of getting work done by eliminating inefficiencies and thereby improving overall agency morale.
Who is responsible for Agency Operations:
It really should be a shared responsibility across the entire agency. But without a dedicated focus of having a team oversee, it can fall through the cracks. Some agencies dedicate a separate group, usually laddering up from within production or account groups. Having a non-biased lead that is focused on what’s best for the agency will have best results.
What makes up Agency Operations:
Below is what I feel are the primary components of agency operations:
Processes: Documenting how the work actually gets done. This includes reviewing the existing workflows by channel and capturing the process. Once defined, collaborate and determine if there are ways to improve. Then ensure that the process is top of mind for team members and embedded into the training curriculum for the agency.
Tools and Technology: Analysis of each tool and technology that is being used within the agency. This is wide-ranging including internal and external tools: routing, copy edit, and communication tools to servers, team computers, and asset sharing technology. Need to evaluate if they are helping the team as much as possible, understand the competitive set to see if other options are better and stay abreast of the latest updates/new functionality of the existing tools and technology.
Resource Management: this area overlaps with human resources and finance and includes:
Organizational structure: Is the way the agency is structured preventing it to be as efficient as possible. How can it be improved?
Financial modeling: project analysis that reviews the volume of resources used and effectiveness.
Training: What is being done to help existing workforce continuously improve.
Analysis of existing employees: A transparent review of the current workforce through the lens of operations. Do they have an operations mindset?
Infrastructure: This includes the physical space of the agency – from the building itself to the employee work stations and even bathrooms.
So that’s a high level overview of operations. Next up is what are they key learnings of doing agency operations.
If you or someone you know is looking for operations support, feel free to reach out at brianphelps10@gmail.com.
All clients are important. They should be made a priority, respected and given 100% effort to help them solve their business problem(s).
Each client is different. Maybe they’re focused on consumer communications. Or B2B. Maybe they’re looking for more strategic help or creative or having a production focus. Some have smaller budgets and some larger. Some are focused on blocking and tackling deliverables and some on winning awards. Much too often a one size fits all treatment is used by agencies. The agency solution must be customized to each client’s needs. These differences should be a consideration when building and managing an agency.
Another consideration is diversification. In today’s climate, the importance of diversifying continues to grow. With the average client relationship lengths decreasing, in-house studios growing and total budgets shrinking, having a diverse client set of clients to mitigate the risk of loss is important.
One way to view diversification is by looking at the agency client roster as a portfolio, just like the stock market. We all took an introductory finance class that talked about putting stocks into four categories:
RISING STARS: High market share in a growth market
QUESTION MARKS: Low market share in a growth market
DOGS: Low market share in a slowing market
CASH COWS: High market share in a slowing market
The same approach can be used for analyzing your client roster:
STARS: established clients that want/expect award-winning, breakthrough work. Ability to create great work to propel them upwards.
COWS: stable clients that have a large volume of work, potentially needing blocking/tackling support and where the ability to do breakthrough work is less common. They are a known brand and are of good size.
QUESTION MARKS: less established clients that with breakthrough work, could springboard their business to become well-known.
DOGS: hopefully you don’t have any of these but it could be a relationship that is trending the wrong way. Or there aren’t a lot of opportunities.
So to develop a client portfolio strategy:
For each client, determine which bucket they fit into. Be transparent/realistic.
Once done, look at how diversified your offering is as across the total agency.
Determine where there are gaps (in general, it’s good to have a few in each of the main three categories).
This strategy can help you manage your resources and agency effort, as well as when tied in with your new business strategy, help identify areas of growth.
So, what does your agency’s client portfolio look like?
We have been trained to think we must be specialized in something. To focus all our energies. Because the belief is, to excel you must have a singular focus. Even at a young age. Look at athletics. Kids are told to choose a sport rather than enjoy multiple. 100% focus on baseball rather than enjoying other sports like football, tennis, and soccer. Or to specialize in one instrument rather than experiencing and enjoying a range of instruments.
The same is true in the workplace. Are you an account person or strategist? Business or creative? Art director or writer? So that the goal is you can do that function over and over again and excel at it through repetition. And thereby make more money.
Well, it’s a myth. Empirical evidence shows that “hybrids” or “generalists” (a term that itself is poor, giving the feeling you are an expert in nothing) are stronger, better for organizations, and will be more successful. They’re more creative, more agile, and able to make connections their more specialized peers can’t see.
Taking it a step further, with AI and the power of machines, specialists will be replaced by automation, making the need to have deep generalists only continuing to increase.
We are starting to see the growth of hybrids being recognized as a positive in the advertising industry. One tangible example is the “growth” of Chief Growth Officer. Adweek recently discussed this role, as the name implies, to drive growth—but in ways that serve internal functions (build cross-functional teams) and external (keeping an eye on customer demand; what does the consumer want from us?).
As you probably can tell I am a big fan of hybrids. I’m a little biased as I consider myself a hybrid, having played different roles throughout my career – from account to operations, new business, and strategy. Knowing and excelling in a wide range of areas, in my opinion, is critical to having a successful team, especially in a leadership position. This way you understand what it takes and you should have more empathy towards the team members who do the work.
However, I’m not completely dismissing the role of specialists. I think they have value, with the key being developing a ratio/balance of hybrids and specialists for the greatest success. For example, 70% hybrid with 30% specializing in specific tasks, like SEO, etc.
From an efficiency standpoint, it’s also better having one person that is can do more topics rather than having to pay for several people.
So the questions for you is: are you a specialist or hybrid? Do you agree in the power hybrids? And what is the ratio across your team?
Starting this journey a few months ago has been a roller coaster – fun, challenging, had its up and downs and a little scary. I’ve enjoyed the flexibility and the ability to carve out my own path. In this short amount of time, I’ve learned a lot on this journey, including:
Crazy hard.
I have always been impressed and admired those who have had the courage, confidence, and determination to go out on their own. Especially those whose hard work pays off and can create something successful and impactful.
Unlike large organizations, it’s all on you to create success. Given this, it’s a ton of work. The amount of foundational work at the point of creating is high. and includes LLC creation, tax info, branding, templates, and platforms like your site, etc.
Three paths.
A key is being able to multitask – juggling building a brand, working on initial client business, and prospecting for new business to continue to grow. Each one is critically important. If fortunate, you have to do in parallel.
It’s always important to have each touchpoint be strong but crucial when starting out. Each one is setting a tone for things to come.
People business.
I have always had the opinion that relationships matter. Your network. Understanding who is great already so you know who to leverage when you need help. And you’ll need help.
But I’ve never really invested the time for connections as much as I should have. Networking, conferences, etc. Something that I’ve learned matters and focused on doing in the future.
Smile more.
Studies show the power of smiling. People want to interact and spend time with people that smile. Yea. Ha. I’m a pretty even keel person and don’t show emotions. This serves as a nice reminder to pump up the energy and emotions.
Continuously learning.
Starting something brand new there are a ton of unknowns. Leverage online tools, networks, and LinkedIn to continuously learn.
Not a ton of fun, but having a financial game plan is crucial. Work with an account and financial advisor that you trust to make sure the foundation is strong. Also, make sure you have contracts with those that you pull in. I’ve learned this one the hard way.
The small things.
Don’t let being “busy” be an excuse to not do the little things. The term busy is I think a trap. It’s an out to not do things you should do. Send a note back to someone who reaches out of the blue. Go to coffee with an old acquaintance. Reply to an email, even if just a couple of words. Help someone that could use it. Carve out time to make these things happen. I was pretty bad at this.
Templates
Don’t reinvent the wheel. Leverage the templates/content sources that are out there that you can customize. And wow, are there a ton. Test them out and see what you like best. Then document which ones you like. Here are a few of my favorites:
Envato: templates for designing everything from presentations in keynote to designing communications.
Unsplash: stock photography that you don’t have image issues and is free.
Are you a Tiger or a Roger?
There’s a great book called Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. Everyone knows Tiger Woods’ story. Child golf prodigy when most kids are learning how to talk and walk. But did you know that arguably the greatest tennis player that ever lived grew up playing multiple sports, focusing much later on tennis?
Most think the best route in life is to specialize in something. This book contradicts this opinion and outlines why being a generalist/hybrid is a better path. So the question is, which one are you? I’ve figured out that I’m a hybrid.
Determined.
So it’s early. Still learning and enjoying the journey. The key is staying determined and focused. For those out there doing the same, congrats and best of luck.
We’ve all seen TED Talks. There’s a lot of them. But I recommend taking less than 18 minutes to watch the founder of Chobani Hamdi Ulukaya’s talk on leadership.
CEOs play an instrumental role in business. They set the tone for the ship. The term Anti-CEO is, in my opinion, is a little drastic but his story and points are compelling.
Grounded in the American dream, he created a billion dollar company by starting with an abandoned yogurt factory, and led by four key principles: Grattitude, Community, Responsibility & Accountability:
Grattitude:
Businesses should take care of their employees first. Not the balance sheet or shareholders.
Community:
Ask what you can do for your community rather than what your community can do for you.
Responsibility:
Businesses must take a side in politics. Touchy topic in today’s climate. But agree that businesses can have a huge impact on our world.
Accountability:
CEO reports to the community. Everyone is empowered to make change. And consumers should reward those businesses that are doing it right.
His recap is spot on:
Right with people.
Right with community.
Right with product.
You will be more profitable. More innovative. More passionate people and you will have a community that supports you.
Already a fan of the product, knowing who is at the wheel and their story, will remind me which yogurt I should grab next time at the store.
Brian Phelps 