Mastering client staffing for small agency success
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 int