Critical questions to ask when conducting strategic planning for the agency.

Agencies are usually so busy planning for their clients they don’t take the time to plan for themselves. Leading the senior staff of the agency in a process of self-reflection and goal-setting is one of the most important jobs of an agency leader.

Here are the questions every agency should consider when planning for the future.

Product

1. Do we have the clients that want what we do best?
2. Are we providing clients with our best work in all our disciplines?
3. Do we have the right business partners and strategic alliances?
4. Are we doing a good job of integrating agency departments and services?
5. Are we providing proactive ideas to our clients?
6. Are we meeting our clients’ growing needs for non-advertising marketing services?
7. Do we have the functions and capabilities we need to successfully take the agency into the future?
8. Do we have proprietary methods and approaches that add value to our agency brand?
9. Do we have an interactive, team-oriented creative and strategic development process?
10. Are we providing clients with consumer insights through disciplines like account planning?
11. Are we providing measurement and accountability to our clients?

People

1. Do we have the right people with the right skills?
2. Do we have them in the right assignments?
3. Do we have the right organizational structure?
4. Do we do a good job of keeping employees informed and involved?
5. Are we doing a good job of recognizing and rewarding employees who perform well?
6. Have we clearly defined roles and responsibilities for all employees?
7. How can we do a better job of attracting, selecting, and keeping the best people in the business?
8. Do we have a good training and professional development program?
9. Do our people feel vested in the financial success of the agency?

Promotion

1. Do our promotional materials do a good job of portraying we who are?
2. Do we have an organized and consistent new business program?
3. Are we doing a good job of aggressively promoting and publicizing the agency?
4. Do we have the right relationships with agency search consultants?
5. Do we have a clearly defined set of criteria for new clients based on what the agency does best?
6. Do we stand out in new business pitches by making the most of our point of difference?

Process

1. Do we do a good job of proactively managing workload and workflow?
2. Are we providing our people with adequate decision-making information (financial and other)?
3. Should we consider establishing project man-agement as its own discipline (separate from account management)?
4. Do we need to update rates, billing practices, or compensation systems to better reflect our agency brand?
5. Should we consider a system to separate the production of work from the production of ideas – and charge differently for each?

Place

1. How can we make our offices a better reflec-tion of our desired agency brand?
2. Are we providing an environment in which our people can do their best work?
3. Do our people have the right resources to go their jobs effectively?
4. What do we need to do to our offices to make a different first impression?
5. Are we making optimum use of technology in order to process our work and serve our clients?

Profit

1. Are our clients profitable?
2. Are our people productive and billable?
3. Are we overstaffed (or understaffed) for the work we have?
4. Are we being adequately compensated and reimbursed for our services and expenses?
5. How can we do a better job of capturing lost sources of income and minimizing write-offs?
6. Are we providing our managers with adequate financial information?

Innovating for the Future

An effective agency strategic planning ses-sion will also include a hard look at how well the agency is prepared to meet not just the needs of the clients you have now, but the ones you’re likely to get in the future. Find out by asking the following questions:

• How can we get involved with other points of contact of our client’s brand?
• How can we get involved with media and mes-sage outlets that transcend traditional mass media?
• How can we get involved in helping to build the brand among internal audiences as well as external audiences?
• Could we outsource more services that fall outside our core competencies to other busi-ness partners?
• What do need to change to achieve true neu-trality in our recommendations to clients?
• How can we flatten or collapse our organiza-tional structure to provide better client access to our best people?
• How can we remove the disincentives for work-ing collaboratively (competing profit centers, department head bonuses, etc.)?
• How can we change roles or titles to better reflect what we really do?
• What can we do to promote ourselves in way that violates the expected and goes outside the norms of agency self-promotion?
• How can we eradicate agency hyperbole in the way we describe ourselves?
• Which agency processes create the most value for clients and how can we invest more in them?
• How could we radically streamline our critical processes to deliver the same benefits to cli-ents?
• What can we do to remove the parts of our processes that cause client frustration?
• How can we change our pricing structure or billing practices to dramatically improve agency profitability or cash flow?
• How can we derive more income from our most valuable product – our intellectual property?
• How can technology help us create a competi-tive point of difference?

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