Limiting scope creep from the start
In this episode, Chip and Gini delve into the topic of scope creep in agencies. They discuss the bell curve of profitability and the importance of setting clear expectations from the first client conversation. They highlight strategies like dividing projects into 90-day scopes to regularly reassess goals and deliverables. The duo emphasizes the significance of internal communication, developing a culture of transparency, and ensuring team members understand project scope and costs. They also stress the need to build flexibility and cushion into initial pricing to manage minor scope changes and avoid financial strain. Finally, they agree on mastering financial understanding and regular one-on-one meetings for smoother agency operation. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “As agency leaders, we need to be thinking about scope from the very first conversation that we’re having with a prospect.” Gini Dietrich: “Scope creep comes into play when we don’t price projects based on actual numbers.” Chip Griffin: “Scope creep tends to happen because you’re not communicating well with the client, but just as importantly, you’re not communicating well with your own team.” Gini Dietrich: “When your team is involved from the beginning versus after the contract was signed, scope creep will become less of an issue.” Resources How to stop scope creep before it starts Related How agency owners can avoid scope creep (featuring Steve Guberman) Hidden overservicing by agency employees How agencies can avoid scope creep with client projects (featuring Ben Aston) 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: I am Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, you know, I think we should expand the scope of this podcast. I think we should start covering economic issues and engineering, and I don’t know, while we’re at it, why don’t we do the arts? Gini Dietrich: Let’s do some politics. I, I’d like to do some politics. Chip Griffin: Oh, definitely politics. Yeah. Yeah. I think that would be smart. I think that’s really smart. A good expansion of the scope of this. Gini Dietrich: Absolutely. Yes. Chip Griffin: But, but we’re still gonna do it in, in just about 20 minutes a week. We’ll choose the topic, we’ll pay ourselves exactly the same amount. Gini Dietrich: Yes, absolutely. I, I’m okay with that. Chip Griffin: Okay, Gini Dietrich: cool. Let’s do it. Cool. Chip Griffin: Well, so that obviously is a joke. We’re not doing any of those things. Gini Dietrich: No. Chip Griffin: Although it might make it easier to come up with topics ’cause some weeks we struggle to figure out what to talk about and if we were covering everything, or maybe that would make it even harder. Gini Dietrich: Although we could just record our pre-conversation and be done with it. Chip Griffin: Yeah, we’d probably get in a lot of trouble though, so let’s, let’s not do that. Okay. Can we, can we just agree we’re not. Gini Dietrich: I’d have to tone down my swearing too. Chip Griffin: We’re not hitting record before we hit record, so that … not serving any purposes at all. Gini Dietrich: Nope, I agree. No, not good. Chip Griffin: Alright, well how about we talk about scope creep when it comes to agencies rather than this podcast. Gini Dietrich: I like it. I like it. And you just did a webinar on this, so tell us all. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, look, it, scope creep is, is something that I think just about every agency experiences at one point or another. I think I’ve talked in the past about my theory of the, the bell curve of profitability for agency clients where you tend to be less profitable in the beginning because you’re getting up to speed and then you start to figure it out and you get efficient and you don’t have to ask so many questions to get things done well. And then over time, that’s when the scope cr