Mastering Client Staffing for Small Agency Success

Agency Leadership Podcast

In this episode, Chip and Gini tackle the challenges of staffing, particularly in response to landing a large contract.

They discuss a Reddit user’s question about managing a $2 million account and emphasize the importance of involving key team members throughout the business development process, rather than afterward.

The hosts advocate for a tiered approach to staffing, employing a mix of high, medium, and low experience levels, and leveraging contractors to manage workload peaks. They also highlight the risks of rapid, large-scale hiring and suggest regular networking and preemptive interviewing to maintain a robust pipeline of candidates.

Key takeaways

• Chip Griffin: “I know it’s appealing, but you’re going to generally be in a better position if you are incrementally growing as opposed to doubling in revenue overnight off of one contract.”
• Gini Dietrich: “We hire contractors pretty consistently. And part of the reason I do that is to figure out if they’d be great full time employees.”
• Chip Griffin: “On these large projects, if you have very senior talent doing very low level work, it really upsets your margins. And frankly, it’s demoralizing to those team members because they probably don’t want to be doing those things.”
• Gini Dietrich: “You’re putting your team way behind by not bringing them through the process. So I would say on both the client and the agency side, it’s a really big disadvantage not to involve your team from the start.”

Related

• Planning for agency growth
• Should your agency hire contractors or employees?

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 got to figure out how we’re going to staff this show. I mean, you know, it’s just, I’m really struggling with how we should set it up appropriately.

Gini Dietrich: Sure. We have Jen. She’s awesome.

Chip Griffin: She is.

Gini Dietrich: She needs some help, maybe.

Chip Griffin: Not even going there.

Gini Dietrich: Let’s get her an assistant.

Chip Griffin: Oh, yeah, that, that would really help the economics of this show. Let’s see.

Zero revenue times one minus, no, no, still not a good idea. So, alas, we will be talking about staffing today and how to staff accounts appropriately, but not this account, not this podcast.

Gini Dietrich: No. So I was looking for content topic ideas and I went to Reddit. I would just like to say that I, Gini Dietrich, was on Reddit looking for ideas.

Chip Griffin: Voluntarily.

Gini Dietrich: Voluntarily.

Chip Griffin: You were not under duress. I did not say,

Gini Dietrich: Nobody had to force me.

Chip Griffin: You should go there and look. You did it on your own.

Nope.

Gini Dietrich: I did it all by myself. And I didn’t get scared. And I didn’t get worried, and I actually made it out alive. And I found a couple of good topic ideas. So one that I found was how to properly staff accounts. And this is actually really interesting because the person said they, she, they, I don’t know if it’s a he or she, sorry.

They are an account manager. And they said, too often we sell a contract and then scramble to allocate resources fast enough to meet the client’s expectations. Right, we’ve all experienced this. As an account director, I see this play out first hand with demanding clients and it’s exhausting. Yes. And they say, now we have a new opportunity to generate 2 million in annual revenue with one large company.

Awesome. Leadership has approached me to be the primary relationship manager for this account and while I’m confident I can handle it, it’s only possible with the right team in place. The work includes, and then they list all of the work that’s included, which is a lot. And they’re trying to figure out how to properly staff this, not only to do what’s best for the client, but to sell it into the leadership of the agency to say, I can do this, but this is the team I’m going to need to resource to be able to do it.

And so that is the question, is how do we properly staff for these things? If you win a big contract like this and you don’t have the current team to be able to resource it, what are you going to do? And so that is our topic for today. Thank you, Reddit.

Chip Griffin: Thank you, Reddit. And there is all sorts of things to chew on here.

Yeah. I think I’d like to start with this individual being approached to be the relationship manager, apparently after the business has been won. Right. And so to me, there’s where the agency has made its first mistake because whoever is going to be managing the relationship ought to be, and really must be, involved throughout the business development process.

Because you don’t want to be in a situation, no matter how big your agency is, and I suspect that from what I’m reading here, that this is, you know, not a small agency. At least if you’re taking on a 2 million contract, I would hope that you are not a very small agency, which we’ll, we’ll touch on as well.

So, if you’re going to be the relationship manager, you need to have been involved from the get go. And so my first advice is turn back the clock and make sure that whoever is running the account is involved so that they can understand they can be on the same page with the prospect. The expectations are aligned. But also that individual now has the time to start thinking in advance about how it might be staffed and what resources might be needed.

Because honestly, if you’re only trying to figure this out after the business has been won, it’s a much bigger challenge. And it doesn’t mean that we don’t have those problems, but you need to have at least a notebook sketch of what your plan is before you sign the contract.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, and I, you know, one of the things that I’ve learned over the years is that when, I always saw it as my job to be the rainmaker and the closer and all that kind of stuff.

So I would go to the meetings and we would have the conversations and we, I would get all of the input, and I would build the relationship. And then I would say, okay, well, so and so is going to be your day to day. Well, a couple of things. Number one, on the client side, they’re expecting me at this point because I’ve been the one through the whole process.

Right. And so then they’re disappointed, or maybe even will say, well, no, we’re not going to do this if it’s not you. So I didn’t have the opportunity to say, this is what it costs to have me. And this is what it costs to have my team that you’ve met. Right. So I can up, price up my services. And then on the agency side, the person that you’re putting in charge or the team that you’re putting in charge is already behind the eight ball because they don’t, they don’t know what you’re doing.

They don’t know what conversations have been had. They don’t know what you’ve promised. I had a boss back in my agency days when I was working for somebody, who was so smart. But we would sit in new business meetings and he would promise the earth, the moon, the stars, rainbows and everything. And I would literally kick him under the table when he would say things because he was promising things we knew we couldn’t, I knew we couldn’t deliver.

Or that we couldn’t do it in the amount of time or for what he was, the cost, right? So, not to say that I do that or that other agency owners do that, but you’re missing the opportunity for your team to go, well, wait a second, what about this? And how do we handle this? And how are we going to resource this?

So you’re get, you’re putting them way behind by not bringing them through the process. So I would say on both sides, it’s a really big disadvantage.

Chip Griffin: Well, you’re putting them way behind and you’re also, it’s one of the reasons why agencies end up pricing incorrectly. Because you haven’t involved the members of your team who are going to be executing on the work.

So you’re sitting there using your own estimates on the amount of time it’s going to take and the amount of people. Yes. And if you start involving your team, who is actually going to be involved early on, they can tell you this is going to take this much time. They can help you with deadlines and say, well, no, that’s not realistic.

And look, you can push back because it’s absolutely true that employees will typically overestimate the amount of time that something’s going to take and overestimate the deadlines to protect themselves, right? That, it’s just, it’s human nature. So, so I’ve got no problem with you pushing back, but it should be an internal dialogue that you’re having with them before the deal is done, before the price is set, so that you can figure those things out and hash out those differences then.

Because that also helps them have buy in to the final solution. And if you are then in a position where you’re coming in, they’ve never heard anything about this client until you meet with them and you say, okay, here’s what we’re doing. Here’s what we’ve promised. Here’s the deadline. They’re going to push back immediately.

So you now have a problem with the client. You’ve got a problem internally. You’re, you’re creating so many problems by not involving people early on in the process.

Gini Dietrich: And when they’re sitting in the meetings with you and going through the process, they’re hearing the same things that you do. So you don’t have to take the time to educate them and digitize your notes and ensure that they’re, they are on the same page, like all of that stuff.

All that stuff happens naturally because they’ve been in the meetings too. So it saves you time and angst and frustration as well by having them in the meetings.

Chip Griffin: And, and I think, you know, one of the things that, I mean, let’s assume that you have involved your team. So we, you know, we’ve now cleared that hurdle and, and unlike in this situation, you’re not actually getting it dumped on you after the contract is signed, you’ve actually been thinking about it, you do need to, particularly on these large projects, you need to be thinking about how you’re going to staff it appropriately.

When you’re very small and you’ve only got one person on an account, you kind of, you, you’re stuck with what you’ve got, but when you start dealing with these larger projects where there are multiple team members, you need to have a blend of high, medium, and low experience levels, cost levels, all that kind of thing.

Because on these large projects, if you have very senior talent doing very low level work, it really upsets your margins. And frankly, it’s demoralizing to those team members because they probably don’t want to be doing those things. That’s not, that’s not what they expect after 10, 20 years of experience or more.

And so you want to be thinking about how do you blend these things correctly and not just throw bodies at it. Not say, well, you know, in order to maintain this level, we always need to have our top people in the room. Cause I’ve been on large client accounts where you put like 15 people in the room for every client meeting. And it can get really, and if you look around the room and you say, Here’s what the cost is of this meeting.

It can blow your mind at times. And so you really need to think about how you’re staffing it appropriately to get the client what they expect, but also doing it within your budget. And you’ve got to keep track of that over time so that you don’t just keep throwing these really senior bodies into a really low level.

Gini Dietrich: Which goes to something that we talk about all the time, which is track your time, so that you know exactly how much it costs. And to your point earlier, as agency owners, we tend to underestimate how much time something will take and how much it will cost. And our team tends to overestimate how much time it will take.

So if you track your time, you, you solve all of those issues. You know exactly how much time it takes. You know exactly how much it costs. You know exactly how much it costs to have all those people in the room. And so I think when we’re saying, you know, don’t just, just dump a new client on a relationship manager or account director, it doesn’t mean you have to have 10 people in the room that are going to service the account, but you do have to have the main point of contact.

You do have to have their day to day contact. So it doesn’t cost you as much to have that person in the room and yourself in the room as it would to have eight or 10 people in the room. So think about it from those perspectives as well.

Chip Griffin: Right. And I, I think whoever you are designating as that day to day manager, you have to empower them.

Yes. And so you need to be, you need to, you know, give them some general bounds and you need to talk with them about what the budget for the project is, but you need to rely on them to tell you what resources they need. Absolutely have a discussion around it and make sure that you’re on board with it, but you can’t be in a position where you’re telling them exactly what they’re going to get and how it’s going to be done.

Because that makes it harder for them to do their jobs. And frankly, it makes them less likely to go along with the decisions because they’ll feel like it’s just being dictated to them from above. You really want to have that kind of collaborative work with your team members and really let them feel like they have a say in what’s going to happen with their own day to day.

Gini Dietrich: Which I think in this, this Reddit example is a good example of that. So first they, it sounds like they didn’t do the right thing in inviting this person to the pitch and going through that process, but they have done the right thing in letting this person dictate this is what we need. These are the resources.

This is the team I’m going to to build. Now whether or not they said to this person, tell us what you need, or this person is just saying, I’m gonna go meet with them and this is what we’re what I’m gonna do. That’s it. I don’t know. But this person is at least taking the step to say, okay, I’m gonna think this through.

If I’m gonna be this, the relationship manager on this huge account. Here are the things I think I need, and going to leadership to sell that in.

Chip Griffin: Well, and that’s a good indicator that this individual may be actually well positioned to do this kind of work because whether they’ve been asked to or not, they’re thinking about these questions and, and, you know, these issues that need to be tackled.

And so if you’re in a position where you’re being asked to do these things, maybe you’re an employee listening to us. Or maybe you’re just, you’re the agency owner, but you’re thinking about the project work that you’re doing on behalf of a client. Coming to the table with clear questions and clear ideas is really helpful in demonstrating that you’re ready for the task ahead of you.

And it also helps you to make sure that you are more likely to succeed because you’re not going into that just, you know, kind of wandering around aimless saying, Oh my God, what’s going to happen next? I mean, Reddit may or may not be the best place to come and get this advice, but at least they’re looking for advice from somewhere.

Gini Dietrich: Right. Although I will say some of the advice they got is actually not bad. You know, sometimes we read these and we’re like, Oh no! But some, some of the advice that they got was, is not too, too bad. In fact, some, one person even said, so here’s what you should think about if leadership pushes back. Because, you know, as agency leaders, we may say, Oh, you, we need, you say you need to hire 10 people to resource this.

Good luck, Friend. So the person, I think, has to be prepared for that. And as an agency leader, you have to be, be prepared to listen and to understand, you know, honestly, truly, if, if somebody came to you and said, we’re going to need eight to 10 people to, to service this account for 2 million bucks, that’s probably accurate.

But are you prepared to hire eight to 10 more people and onboard them quickly? And right. So there, I think you have to think about those things too. Do you have a pipeline full of candidates that you could rely on? Do you have a bench full of contractors that you could rely on? Like, those are things that you have to think about as you grow your business, no matter what.

You know, I think one of the things my husband does really, really well is he’s constantly interviewing people. Constantly. And, and he’s really honest with them to say, hey, we don’t have a position right now, but I like to keep my pipeline full of really smart candidates. And he does this, I bet he interviews five to ten people a week.

And he’s just constantly, you know, and then he’ll say, okay, this person would be great for this. I don’t, we didn’t really like that person, but he like has a pipeline full of candidates. That when something happens big, they’re ready to go. And I think that’s a really good lesson for all of us. You don’t have to interview just when you’re hiring.

You can, you know, find contractors that you have on the bench that you can pull in when you need something. You can find candidates who… and you may lose out on them because they found another job, but you still have built that relationship and started to say, okay, these are the types of strengths and weaknesses that I’m looking for.

And this person fit that really well. So keep those pipelines full, both contractors and potential employees, because that’s going to help you in situations like this as well.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, that’s, it’s helpful if you, if you’re at a size that you’re happy with and you’re not really looking to grow dramatically, you’re just looking to, to try to keep it, you know, stable.

Yep. But it’s even more important if you are looking to grow. You absolutely have to be in there and, and trying to find these candidates for potential jobs that you don’t have yet. One thing I will say in this particular case is, you know, when, when you’re looking at a 2 million contract, that’s very different depending on what your current size is.

So if it’s a 2 million contract and you’re a three to 5 million agency versus a 2 million contract and you’re a 200 million agency. And obviously we don’t have that information from this particular question, but if it is something where it is the largest contract your agency has ever had, or it is substantially larger than anything you currently have, first of all, you need to be very careful about taking on that kind of business because it looks really attractive.

It can be really exciting, but if you don’t have the experience in managing it, and if it’s going to cause you to have to do a lot of hiring all at once, that can be a real problem and you can damage your reputation by taking on business that looks really good because of all the commas in it. But it’s, it’s not very good at the end of the day because you’re not able to deliver on the expectations that the client has.

So make sure that you’re right sizing those things. And if it is a big lift for you, make sure in that case that you have a much clearer plan about how you’re going to get things done. And it’s probably a tiered plan. It’s probably, I’m going to use contractors in the short term. They’ll help with X, Y, and Z, and that’ll kind of get us over the first 90 days.

And then we can start bringing people on from that point. Because you’re not going to be able to, I mean, even if you’ve got a good pipeline, you’re not bringing people on tomorrow. You know, if employees take, even if you’ve got a great pipeline, like your husband does that, that hire is, is almost certainly not going to be able to start work tomorrow.

And so you, you need to have that kind of a lead time. And even if they could start tomorrow, you’re not going to throw them or you shouldn’t throw them right into, you know, your largest client account right off the bat.

Gini Dietrich: No, absolutely not.

Chip Griffin: You need to have an opportunity to work with them and get them up to speed and acclimated and all that kind of thing.

So you’re talking at a minimum weeks and more likely months before someone is really a contributor to a project. And so you need to be thinking about those things. And triaging as best you can the work that needs to be done today versus what you can accomplish three months from now.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I really like that tiered approach because I think you can think about it instead of saying, okay, well, it’s a 2 million account.

I’m going to divide that by 12, and we’re going to do that amount of work every month. Like, you don’t have to think about it that way. A few weeks ago, we talked about VIP breakout sessions where you might charge, let’s say you charge 30, 000 for something like that. So you do that piece of it first and get that income in the door, but you can do it with your existing team.

And then you, that gives you, you know, 30 or 45 days to find the right people because now you’re building the actual plan. You know, what kind of skillsets you’re going to need, what kind of skillset you have already. that you can bring in and you, you can, it gives you time to sort of move things around and figure out.

So I really like the tiered plan approach of you saying, okay, here’s phase one and this is what the deliverable is. Phase two is this, phase three is this and so on so that you can start to build the team appropriately and onboard appropriately so that you have the time to get the, your new people to the point that they can go on to your largest account.

Chip Griffin: And I think you always want to be careful about rapid hiring of a large number of people. And the smaller you are, the smaller that number needs to be in order to define it as large.

Gini Dietrich: Sounds terrible.

Chip Griffin: In general. I don’t like you hiring more than one person at a time.

Gini Dietrich: At a time, right.

Chip Griffin: Because as, as I always say, as soon as you add that new person, it changes the dynamic of the entire team.

Yep. And so if you’re in a position where you’re bringing on two or three new people at once, or six or seven or eight people all at once. Then you, you’ve got a weird dynamic here, the odds of success for all of them goes down. You almost certainly will have some real flame outs in that group just because they don’t mesh with each other or you staffed wrong. Because I mean, look, we’re hiring people off of, you know, what, maybe two hours worth of conversations and a little bit of email.

We’re not hiring off of absolute knowledge over how they work with people, what their real skill set is. How long does it take them to execute on tasks? And so you could end up easily where you’re in a position where you’re, you’re overstaffed in one area and understaffed in another, because you guessed wrong about what their, their ability to bring talent to the table would be.

You don’t want to be there. You want to do this at a reasonable, rational pace, which again, is an argument for not trying to get these contracts that are wildly disproportionate to your current size. I know it’s appealing, but you’re going to generally be in a better position if you are incrementally growing as opposed to doubling in revenue overnight off of one contract.

Gini Dietrich: And one of the things I really like to do at that point is we hire contractors pretty consistently. And part of the reason I do that is to figure out if they’d be great full time employees. So, you know, we may hire somebody because we need expertise in content development. And I’ll bring in three or four freelancers to do that work just to see what their strengths are, how they work, how they communicate, whether or not they get along with the rest of the team.

It’s a good sort of runway for me to understand is this person, would this person be a great full time hire or not? And in some cases the answer is no. Some cases they’re going to be a great freelancer forever. And in some cases it’s like, yeah, let’s snap, snap this person up as fast as we can because they’re a great fit.

They’re a great culture fit. They do all the things that we need them to do without having to train them and let’s, let’s snatch them up as, as fast as we can. In some cases, they may want to continue freelancing. And so that’s a different conversation, right? But I do like to keep my contractor base full from, from that perspective, because you can try people out and say, okay, does this fit our culture?

Does this fit our team? And it doesn’t cost you the same as it would if they, if you hire them and they don’t work out.

Chip Griffin: I think that’s a great way to end this episode. We’ve solved all of your staffing problems, our staffing problems. It’s also

Gini Dietrich: I still have stabbing problems, but

Chip Griffin: Well, we’re not going to solve that on this episode, so maybe next episode, who knows?

Gini Dietrich: Who knows?

Chip Griffin: With that, that will draw to an end this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast.

I’m Chip Griffin.

Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich.

Chip Griffin: And it depends.