Agency Leadership Podcast Chip Griffin and Gini Dietrich

It must be nice to own an agency because then you’re earning the big bucks, right?







Many agency employees complain that clients pay so much more than they are making, so the owner must be reaping a huge profit.







It makes it easy to think that setting out on your own and working for clients directly is the right answer.







In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the realities of quitting your job to start your own agency, emphasizing the importance of understanding the costs of owning a business, and how as an owner it’s up to you to communicate transparently to your team how revenue is not the same as profit.







Key takeaways









* Chip Griffin: “Revenue does not equal what’s in your pocket.”







* Gini Dietrich: “In most cases, your agency owner boss is not making any money.”







* Chip Griffin: “Too often, it’s not so much that the employees feel that they’re being underpaid. It’s that they feel like they are not being respected sufficiently.”







* Gini Dietrich: “It used to really bother me that I would train interns to have them go work for other agencies. And then I realized that if we treated young professionals well, we were going to see that benefit us in the long run.”









Related









* What to think about when starting your agency







* ALP 1: Starting your own agency











View Transcript

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.







Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin







Gini Dietrich: and I’m Gini Dietrich.







Chip Griffin: And Gini, you know, today I think that, that I’m going to just, I’m going to ditch you on this podcast. I’m going to go it on my own. I’m going to, because I can make so much more money. I can take all of the money that we’re currently getting for this podcast and I can take it all for myself.







Yes, you can. That’s how it works, right?







Gini Dietrich: Totally. How it works is exactly how it works. We, we saw a, conversation on Threads of all places, about a young professional who said my salary was 52, 500 at a creative agency. I asked for a raise due to my higher performance. Management said, we’ll think about it.







I left the job, started my own creative business. I made 56, 000 in the next six months. There’s often more risk staying where people don’t respect you, he says. What’s amazing about this conversation, though, are the comments, because, you know, you’re, you’re not supposed to read the comments, but. They’re pretty amazing on this one.







Chip Griffin: The comments were absolutely fabulous on this.







Gini Dietrich: Yeah.







Chip Griffin: And the original poster, you know, got into the back and forth of some of them as well. Which doesn’t always happen. Sometimes the original poster just sits back and lets the comments fly. Yeah. But in this case, they decided to engage. And look, I mean, this is probably true of some of our listeners, right?







Maybe they,

Hiring seasoned professionals sounds like it will solve a lot of headaches you have as an agency owner. But will it?







In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the importance of balancing senior and junior hires in agencies, highlighting the pros and cons of primarily staffing with senior level talent.







They emphasize the need for clear expectations, relevant experience, and the importance of understanding what each hire truly needs to do before you commit to senior level hires.







Key takeaways









* Chip Griffin: “Part of the challenge is because it’s expensive, it means that you also need to be expensive to your clients. So if you’re going to staff with high level, high priced people, that’s okay. As long as you can command the appropriate rates.”







* Gini Dietrich: “When you have senior level employees, not only do you have to pay them what they would command anywhere else, but you have to pay yourself the same or more than they’re getting.”







* Chip Griffin: “If you can’t let go, please, please do not waste your money on a senior hire because the last thing you want is a senior hire that you don’t even allow to work at a senior level because you felt compelled to micromanage them.”







* Gini Dietrich: “It’s going to evolve, it’s going to change, as you grow, as your business matures, so be okay with that fluidity.”









Related









* Questions solo PR pros must ask before hiring first employee







* ALP 34: How to help junior agency employees grow







* Be smart about titles at your agency











View Transcript

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.







Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin.







Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich.







Chip Griffin: Gini, I think we need to go out and hire some senior citizens. They’ll just, they’ll do this podcast for us.







Gini Dietrich: Okay.







Chip Griffin: I would say right after this, but we don’t do that, that little Diddy music here anymore because we just have it before anyway, but no, not senior citizens, but we are, we are going to talk about seniors.







And that’s senior hires and whether you’re professional, whether you should hire and staff your agency with primarily senior level talent. And I know this is something that’s very popular amongst some small agencies, particularly as they’re getting started. Maybe they’re getting started with a couple of partners with real experience.







And so they’re, you know, it’s all senior on that basis. It might be that as you hire, you want to hire people who are like you or closer to you and experience so that you can offer that same, that same level of service to your clients by having people who have that level of experience. And there are certainly some pros to that, but there are also some significant cons that you need to think of before you have an agency that is staffed almost entirely by seniors or completely by seniors.

Chip and Gini discuss recent updates from the federal government affecting agency owners, including a ban on non-compete agreements and changes to salary thresholds for overtime exempt employees.







It emphasizes the importance of compliance, working with professional advisors, and making necessary adjustments to HR policies.







Key takeaways









* Gini Dietrich: “You can be a good business owner and a good human being without saying, I don’t want you working for anybody that would compete with us in any shape or fashion within a certain mile radius.”







* Chip Griffin: “Every agency should be working with an HR advisor of some kind.”







* Gini Dietrich: “There’s all sorts of opportunity here for you to look at and say, maybe this is the time for us to shift how we do our work so that we can comply to the new rules, but also build a better workplace for everybody.”







* Chip Griffin: “You need to price to pay for talent. And again, like most things, a lot of the agencies’ problems that I see come back to pricing and communication.”









Related









* How the FTC’s ban on non-competes impacts PR and marketing agencies







* How should agencies prepare for new overtime rules?







* How to think about HR risks in your agency







* Chaos is not a virtue for agencies











View Transcript

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.







Chip Griffin: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin







Gini Dietrich: and I’m Gini Dietrich.







Chip Griffin: Gini, it seems like the federal government here in the US has been very busy giving us to talk about and focus on in the agency community over the last week or so, as we record this. And so we’ve got some updates that…







it’s a little on the drier side for everybody. You know, anytime you get to talk about federal regulations, I know everybody just gets really excited on the other end. It’s like, Oh yes, an episode on regulatory compliance, but it is important and it does, both of these things will affect, I would venture to say just about every listener to this podcast.







So it is worth spending some time listening to us and then thinking about what you need to do for your own agency going forward.







Gini Dietrich: Well, I will give full credit to you because last week you sent me an email about the non competes And said this would probably be a good topic and you wrote a great blog post on SAGA about it.







And then a couple of days later you sent me the, overtime same thing. And I was like, oh, thank you. I feel very well educated now. So thanks for doing all my work.







Chip Griffin: That is my role is to provide you with the research that you need.

You trust your team, right? In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the importance of agency owners letting go of micromanaging, trusting their team, and focusing on building a scalable business. They emphasize the need for owners to delegate tasks and avoid being bottlenecks.







They also touch on the challenges and benefits of transitioning from being deeply involved in all aspects of the business to taking on a more strategic role. The conversation underscores the significance of balancing involvement while ensuring clients feel supported and valued.







Key takeaways









* Gini Dietrich: “As agency owners, we think that clients expect us, expect our process, and we don’t want to admit that the people that we’ve hired can be better at our job than we are. And so we should let them do their jobs.”







* Chip Griffin: “It’s not logically consistent to be growing a scalable business where you are still in the weeds with every client.”







* Gini Dietrich: “Put yourself in their shoes. If you were a senior level person at an agency and your boss, the agency owner, wanted to review everything that you produced, at your level of experience, how frustrating would that be?”







* Chip Griffin: “You can’t say, well, yes, of course I trust my team, and then demonstrate that you don’t by doing things like insisting on reading every piece of content that goes out to a client or sitting in on every conversation with a client.”









Related









* Letting go as an agency owner







* Micromanage your way to agency failure







* Managing Gen Z agency employees (and anyone else with less experience than you)







* Managing employees in a small agency (webinar)











View Transcript

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.







Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin.







Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich.







Chip Griffin: And Gini, you know, sometimes I feel like we’re not really successful in communicating essential messages to listeners and one topic seems to be something that we cover annually, right around this time, as we discovered just before we started recording this as we were discussing our topics and we said, have we talked about that before?







And, and it turns out we did. We’ve discussed this in May of 2023 in May in 2022, and probably other times as well, but…







May have 21.







Yeah, probably. So this is, this is an annual reminder to agency owners today.







Gini Dietrich: So actually I had breakfast with Martin Waxman, a couple of days ago and he was in town for the Reagan conference.







And he said to me, I’ve been thinking a lot about running an agency. He owned, he ran an agency for a while and then he sold to another agency where he was partners with somebody. And then he ended up leaving that agency.

Chip and Gini discuss the intricacies of fractional leadership roles within clients.







They share their experiences and provide advice on managing relationships, setting clear boundaries, handling administrative tasks, and positioning yourself accurately in these roles.







Key takeaways









* Chip Griffin: “Fractional roles tend to work best when there’s a fractional amount of work to be done.”







* Gini Dietrich: “If there’s more than one decision maker, you have to ensure that all decision makers are on board with whatever you’ve negotiated in your contract.”







* Chip Griffin: “You get some of the best aspects of being an employee without all of the baggage that comes with it.”







* Gini Dietrich: “It’s a weird position to be in, to create a role and mentor and coach and train a team and then interview to find your replacement.”









Related









* When your agency is an extension of the client’s team











View Transcript

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.







Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin.







Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich.







Chip Griffin: And Gini, I think we’re only going to have part of me today. Just a fraction. Oh boy. I guess if you’re, if you’re in listener land and not watching this video, that didn’t, that didn’t, but I, I went partially off camera while still trying to stay in relative proximity to the microphone.







So you could still hear me.







Gini Dietrich: So yeah, and I rolled my eyes, so there you go.







Chip Griffin: But no, I thought that, that there was a good conversation in the Spin Sucks community talking about, going in as a, a fractional leader, within an agent or within a client rather. And so I thought that’s something that would be worthwhile discussing, particularly because it’s something that you’ve done yourself in the not too distant past.







And so can speak to your personal experience on it. And, and I’ve done similar things as well. So, perhaps we can share some unique experiences along those lines.







Gini Dietrich: Yeah. The, the gist of the conversation in the community was, I’ve been working with a company. And I use my team to help support the PR needs.







Now the company is, is thinking about hiring an employee and would like me to direct that employee, based on, or, you know, manage them essentially. and it was, it was an interesting conversation for sure. Also, to your point, I do have that experience where I’ve, in many cases have become either the marketing director or chief marketing officer or chief communications officer for a client and directing their teams You know hiring, firing, all that kind of stuff there are some things to Consider and we again we are not attorneys or accountants. But there are things to consider from that perspective because if you are audited and you have somebody a fractional person you know, leading your team and hiring and firing and making those, those types of decisions.







And that’s what they also do for their own business. There is some, you could get into some trouble from that perspective, but we’ve had really good luck with it. You know,

Start-up clients may not have the funds to pay you, but still need service, so why not consider receiving equity as payment?







In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the potential pitfalls of that approach. They caution against exotic payment schemes such as equity or pay for performance, emphasizing the risks and complexities involved.







They also highlight the importance of legal and tax considerations when entering into equity deals.







Key takeaways









* Chip Griffin: “There is often a real desire for people with businesses that don’t have a lot of money to try to come up with really exotic payment schemes, whether that’s equity, whether that’s pay for performance, however they’re able to postpone or delay giving up cash to you.”







* Gini Dietrich: “Something like 95 percent of startups fail. So why would you take that risk?”







* Chip Griffin: “Anyone who is willing to give up a portion of the ownership in their business to you has to be, by definition, relatively desperate.”







* Gini Dietrich: “I couldn’t take the risk of potentially never getting paid because I was not in control of whether or not they were going to sell this new product.”









Related









* ALP 14: Non-traditional agency revenue streams







* 9 ways to price your agency’s services











View Transcript

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.







Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin.







Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich.







Chip Griffin: And Gini, you know, I think we need to, I think we need to do an equity deal with somebody for this podcast. I think that’s really… that’s really the way we can make some money.







Gini Dietrich: Absolutely. Zero of zero is a really good idea.







Chip Griffin: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, why not? I mean, it is something that a lot of, agencies encounter from time to time where you’ll be talking particularly with a startup or something like that. And they say, Hey, you know, wouldn’t it be great if you could do some PR work for us and we will pay you in equity.







We’ll give you shares of the business or we’ll give you options or something like that, that allows you to benefit from the upside because you’re coming with us from the ground floor, and we want to reward that kind of faith in what we’re building.







Gini Dietrich: Just a few months ago, I had a prospect say to me, We really want to work with you.







We really believe in your process. We really have a great chemistry with you and your team. Would you be willing to postpone payment until after we sell our first customer from the work that you do? And I was like, no, no. And I mean, he pushed me really hard. He’s like, okay, well what if we did this? What if? I was like, listen, I have a team, I have payroll to make.







They have other clients. If we can’t figure out some sort of way to do this, where you’re paying us for our work, then it’s not going to work. And it didn’t work. We had to walk away. because there’s, I can’t make payroll.