Seminar One: Principles of Value-Based Compensation

A rapidly-evolving digital marketplace and unrelenting pressure on agency effectiveness, efficiency and accountability are leading marketing service executives to reassess traditional business practices.

Agency leaders need to rethink how their agency adds value. Industry executives are wrestling with strategies for differentiating their firm’s service offering. Thought leaders are crafting mechanisms for linking agency value creation to client business performance and agency compensation. “Principles of Value-Based Compensation” will help your agency executive team learn foundational principles that will help you change your business paradigm so that you can create more value and capture that value through value pricing.

Who should attend

This seminar is for agency executives and management teams that have heard about value based compensation but do not fully understand the fundamental theory, principles and advantages of value pricing.

Seminar Two: Advanced Practices of Value-Based Compensation

Marketers endorse an expanded dialog on scope of value and many leading advertisers express a high level of interest in aligning economic interests with key marketing services providers.  “Advanced Practices of Value-Based Compensation” will help agency executives determine how to assess a broader range of pricing options, establish value-based pricing and learn new value pricing strategies that have succeeded in the marketplace.

Who should attend

This advanced seminar is for agencies that endorse the theory of value-based compensation but have had difficulty in testing or expanding their agency’s implementation of value pricing.

Seminar One: Principles of Value-Based Compensation

Part I – Changing the Paradigm About Agency Compensation

1. Not just a change in process, but a change in thinking
2. Agencies as “regulated utilities”
3. How compensation affects the major issues in agency-client relationships
4. The spiral effect of fast and cheap
5. The chronic disadvantages of cost-based pricing
6. The challenges of executing increasingly complex marketing solutions while clients are trying to reduce costs
7. Why the current client-driven system is not in the client’s best interests

Part II – The Economics of Value in Agency-Client Relationships

1. What business agencies are really in, and what clients really buy
2. The value curve
3. Improving agency profitability by improving your pricing instead of just cutting your costs
4. Trading a focus on internal measures and costs for a focus on external measures and value

Part III - How Agencies Create Value

1. Why agencies are ultimately a client’s most important business partnership
2. The financial impact of agency contributions
3. Agency value and the perils of short-term thinking
4. Selling your value instead of your costs
5. All profit is derived from risk

Part IV – The Principles of Value Pricing

1. The value proposition
2. Dealing with the economic buyer
3. Discussing value instead of cost
4. Selecting the profit-optimizing price for each engagement or service
5. Issues to consider in responding to Request for Proposals (RFPs)
6. Dealing with client price psychology and how to overcome pricing objections

Part V – Creating Value Through Relevant Differentiation

1. Why agencies aren’t commodities
2. Applying the argument for positioning to your own firm
3. Creating more value by doing what you do best
4. Recasting the notion of commodity services
5. Charging the most for the things you’re most likely to give away
   

Seminar Two: Advanced Practices of
Value-Based Compensation

Part I - The Value Pricing Continuum

1. From simple to sophisticated
2. Not every client is a prospect for an outcome-based agreement

Part II – Creativity in Compensation

1. Applying agency creativity to agency business
2. Separating the value of ideation and execution
3. Pricing individual services based on value instead of cost
4. Tiered and bundled pricing
5. Creating new sources of agency revenue
6. Developing and marketing your own intellectual capital

Part III - Scope of Value Before Scope of Work

1. Preparing for a value-based compensation meeting
2. Tools for clarifying scope of value
3. Constructing outcome-based agreements
4. Measuring what matters
5. Identifying the drivers of brand success

Part IV – The Measures that Matter

1. Correlation is not the same as causation
2. Diagnostic insight vs. predictive foresight
3. Moving beyond Key Performance Indicators to Key Predictive Indicators
4. The power of price-related metrics

Part V - Setting a Value-Based Price

1. The factors that influence a value-based price
2. The difference between short- and long-term value.
3. Putting skin in the game: why risk is an essential element of value-based agreements

Part VI – Developing Outcome-Based Compensation Agreements

1. Not every client is a prospect for an outcome-based agreement
2. Simple but not too simple: the need for a balanced value scorecard
3. Control vs. influence
4. Transparency of data and information, not transparency of costs and profits
5. The concept of the value score

Part VII – Success Stories from the Real World

• Examples of true value-based agreements from successful agencies
  

November 11 - 12, 2008 / Chicago / Mid-America Club

Early-Bird Registration Deadline: October 10, 2008
Registration Deadline: November 5, 2008

Venue:

Both seminars will be held:
The Mid-America Club,
200 E. Randolph Drive, Chicago, IL. 60601
312.861.1100 / www.midamclub.com

Nearby hotels for overnight accommodations include:

Fairmont Chicago: www.fairmont.com/chicago
Hyatt Regency Chicago: www.ChicagoRegency.Hyatt.com
Swissotel Chicago: www.swissotelchicago.com

 

	Regular Tuition (By November 5, 2008)	Early Registration Tuition (By October 10, 2008)
Days one and two	$1,400	$1,200
Day one only	$800	$700
Day two only	$800	$700

Click here to register.

Unconditional guarantee.  If you aren’t completely satisfied that you’ve received the value of the tuition from the seminar, you may cancel at any time and receive a refund not only for uncompleted courses, but also for any completed courses as well.  Cancellations must be made at least 15 days prior to the event so that we may coordinate with the venue.

For questions on how to register, please contact Desmond Williams at dwilliams@ignitiongroup.com

Tim Williams is founder of Ignition, a consultancy devoted to helping marketing organizations create and capture more value. As a recognized thought leader in the advertising and marketing business, he is a frequent speaker and presenter for organizations such as the American Association of Advertising Agencies, Association of National Advertisers, American Advertising Federation, and agency and business networks throughout North America and Europe.

He is the author of the book, “Take a Stand for Your Brand” currently ranked by Amazon as one of the top ten books on brand building. His management series booklet “Defining the Agency Brand,” published by the American Association of Advertising Agencies, is considered to be standard for agency brand development. Tim is also a Senior Fellow of the VeraSage Institute, a think tank devoted to transforming the way professional service firms price and value their services. As an adviser in this area, he has worked with major agencies, agency holding companies, Fortune 500 companies, and national and international associations.

Tim is a regular contributor to leading trade and business publications, including Advertising Age, Adweek, Admap, and Communications Arts. He also authors “Creating Value,” a quarterly publication dedicated to changing the paradigm of how agencies provide value to their clients.

Before forming Ignition, Tim was president of nationally-ranked R&R Partners (creators of the “What happens here, stays here” campaign for Las Vegas) and was also co-founder of his own firm, now known as Richter 7. He spent his early career in New York and Houston working at multi-national agencies including Ogilvy & Mather and Marsteller. The agencies under Tim’s leadership have earned recognition in top national and international competitions including The One Show, the Communications Arts Advertising and Design Annuals, the Clio Awards, the Cannes Film Festival, and the National Addy’s.

Ron Baker is one of the world’s thought leaders in the area of pricing professional services. He is the founder of VeraSage Institute, a think tank dedicated to teaching value-based pricing to professionals around the world.

As a frequent speaker at events and conferences, and a consultant to professional service firms on implementing value-based pricing, his work takes him around the world. He has authored a number of courses for professionals, including “The Shift From Hourly Billing to Value Pricing,” “You Are What You Charge For: Success in Today’s Emerging Experience Economy, “The New Business Equation for Industry Executives,” and “Specialists Make More Money.”

He is the author of the best-selling marketing book ever written specifically for the professions, “Professional’s Guide to Value Pricing,” which has has been ranked number one on Amazon in Australia and New Zealand. His book, “The Firm of the Future: A Guide for Accountants, Lawyers, and Other Professional Services,” co-authored with Paul Dunn, is the 2003 Book of the Year on SmartPros.com.

Ron’s most recent books are “Pricing on Purpose: Creating and Capturing Value,” and “Measure What Matters to Customers: Using Key Predictive Indicators.” Ron has toured the world, spreading his value pricing message to over 70,000 professionals. He has been appointed to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountant’s Group of One Hundred, a think tank of leaders to address the future of the profession, named on Accounting Today’s 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 Top 100 Most Influential People in the profession, and received the 2003 Award for Instructor Excellence from the California CPA Education Foundation.