{"id":4932,"date":"2014-07-15T13:29:38","date_gmt":"2014-07-15T18:29:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/getflywheel.com\/?p=4932"},"modified":"2024-09-23T11:07:21","modified_gmt":"2024-09-23T16:07:21","slug":"keep-your-agency-small","status":"publish","type":"resource","link":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/case-studies\/resources\/keep-your-agency-small\/","title":{"rendered":"Keep Your Agency Small and Still Hit it Out of the Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

Your agency will tell you when it feels the need to grow. There are signs. But what do you do when you see those signs, and bigger doesn\u2019t feel better? Here\u2019s why the team at June Advertising<\/a> chose to say, nope, we\u2019re good, thanks, and keep their agency small but mighty.<\/p>\n

\"june-9\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t Ignore Your Instincts.<\/h3>\n

\u201cDo good by doing what you\u2019re good at — and I think that\u2019s fitting for us,\u201d said Robert Mucciaccio<\/a>, creative director of the five-person, 9-year-old creative agency. \u201cWe\u2019re good at running a tight ship where we can touch all the sides. We\u2019re at least somewhat involved in every project that goes on here. Once upon a time, we started to get a bit larger, and then there were clients that we weren\u2019t getting to know as well. And it just didn\u2019t feel right, didn\u2019t feel like us. We just found that we were unhappy. And this is kind of who we want to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

He and co-founder Sarah Whipkey<\/a> both have backgrounds in larger agencies. \u201cAnd we wanted to branch out and become something different,\u201d Mucciaccio said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd now smaller shops are popping up everywhere,\u201d Whipkey commented. \u201cThey\u2019re kind of cool,\u201d she added with a laugh.<\/p>\n

Build relationships with contractors to supplement a core staff.<\/h3>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re five people right now,\u201d Mucciaccio said, \u201cbut we stretch anywhere from five to 10 depending on the year, what kind of clients we have, what our bandwidth will be. If, for example, we\u2019d land a big client that was a surprise, we\u2019d start with a freelancer and ask them to come in and work with us as though they were full-time for the project. Contracted. And then what usually winds up happening is that business builds and they turn into employees here.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, two of June\u2019s five employees started out that way.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great because it lets them see how we work, and it lets us see how they work,\u201d Whipkey said. \u201cIt works better than, you know, an interview and then looking at a portfolio and yay, you\u2019re hired! We\u2019re such a small agency, we have to have a good fit personality-wise too. And you don\u2019t really find that out until you\u2019re working with someone day in and day out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mucciaccio estimated that a freelancer or two is usually involved in every June project. \u201cWe have partners that we work with continuously for photography and videography,\u201d he said. It\u2019s a good workaround for the large-agency solution of a staff full of specialists for every occasion.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t get all that expertise in one person,\u201d Mucciaccio said.
\n\u201cAnd keep yourself small,\u201d Whipkey added.<\/p>\n

Determine what you\u2019ll offer and what you\u2019ll omit.<\/h3>\n

\"june-7\"<\/a><\/p>\n

If it\u2019s important to your agency to stay small, you\u2019ve probably figured out that you can\u2019t be everything to every client. For June, that means offering only creative services and only from a senior team.<\/p>\n

Whipkey stated that everyone at June is the A team, and most of the staff has large-agency experience. So while they know they\u2019re not able to offer specialists in PR, account planning, research, inhouse production, and so on, they focus on their creative service: design and messaging.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur ideal client is a savvy internal marketing person,\u201d Mucciaccio explained. \u201cThe corporate communications folks we work with at ConAgra, for example, are pretty deep in strategy already. They\u2019ve got a clear picture of where their marketing\u2019s headed. We fit their need for a creative partner well. That\u2019s where the whole lean and mean comes in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of times we say we want to be an extension of your team,\u201d Whipkey added. \u201cWe\u2019re not an inhouse design department, but we\u2019re kind of the external version of that. We can come to meetings quickly, jump on the phone, things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recognize the projects that aren\u2019t for you.<\/h3>\n

\u201cFor the most part we don\u2019t accept projects that we don\u2019t feel we have the right skillset for,\u201d Mucciaccio said. \u201cAnd clients generally don\u2019t turn to us for things that aren\u2019t in our wheelhouse.\u201d For June, that means things like no PR, no managed social media, and no dedicated strategist.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce the strategy is set, that\u2019s where we come in to shine,\u201d Whipkey clarified. \u201cWe can fulfill that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe may have a strong opinion on who we think your audience should be, but that should not be confused as consulting on a strategy,\u201d Mucciaccio said. \u201cThat stuff\u2019s great, but that\u2019s not what people turn to us for.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd not every client needs that,\u201d Whipkey added. \u201cCertain clients know their strategy. They just need someone to implement that strategy and think about it outside the box to get noticed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Embrace the flexibility of a small staff and challenge your employees.<\/h3>\n

\"june-1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cDo we wear many hats? Yes, in that we don\u2019t call ourselves account managers, but we do manage our own accounts.\u201d Whipkey\u2019s statement emphasizes a core truth of small-agency life: Everyone pulls more than their own weight. A member of a team like this had better be interested in cross-discipline learning.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not afraid to put our creatives in front of the client,\u201d Whipkey said as an example. \u201cAnd I think everyone really appreciates that here. You\u2019re better for it, to be able to speak to a client, to be able to compose an email without someone standing over your shoulder. We don\u2019t micromanage. We all have to be held accountable for what we do each day.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say that employees don\u2019t exercise their own skillsets. \u201cOf course designers design,\u201d Mucciaccio said, \u201cbut the expectation is that you\u2019re not coming to Sarah for spellcheck. You put basic thought and consideration into what you\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Basic thought and consideration also goes into a small staff\u2019s shared workspace. \u201cIn a large agency, not everyone gets a voice. The interior designer comes in and says, this is your color palette and so on,\u201d Whipkey explained. \u201cHere, we got to pick. We threw color on the walls, our bathroom has stripes in it, we adjust the thermostat, we play the music we want. Little things like that you can\u2019t do when you work with 50-plus people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, a shared workspace means that everybody sits close to the fire, as Mucciaccio put it. \u201cWe\u2019re all in this open room together. If someone\u2019s on the phone, we\u2019re all privy to the conversation. Which is a good thing. It helps everyone to keep their finger on the pulse of what\u2019s happening with a client, how they feel, the nuance of the conversation\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen someone goes, \u2018Oh, you want that tomorrow?\u2019, everyone\u2019s ears perk up, and they\u2019re like, \u2018What did we just promise?\u2019\u201d Whipkey said with a laugh.<\/p>\n

That hive mind, if you will, means that group status meetings are generally a smoothly run thing. \u201cWe ask once a week where we\u2019re at with everything, but everyone\u2019s so well-versed in where we\u2019re at that nothing\u2019s a surprise,\u201d Mucciaccio said. \u201cNo one\u2019s been sitting in another part of the building and is just learning about it for the first time. And we do that with RFPs too. Everyone gets a voice. Do we want to pursue this, does it fit our skillset, is it going to take a lot of time and result in something that\u2019s not good for June?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"june-19\"<\/a><\/p>\nRobert Mucciaccio and Sarah Whipkey of June Advertising\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in control of what\u2019s happening here,\u201d Mucciaccio added. For other agencies contemplating a pivotal moment in growth, he left a couple suggestions on the table. \u201cJust remember that with big things come bigger expectations and less control. Ask yourself if that\u2019s the path you want to be on. Small, for us at least, keeps things uncomplicated.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Your agency will tell you when it feels the need to grow. There are signs. But what do you do when you see those signs, and bigger doesn\u2019t feel better? Here\u2019s why the team at June Advertising chose to say, nope, we\u2019re good, thanks, and keep their agency small but mighty. Don\u2019t Ignore Your Instincts.…<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":297,"featured_media":4947,"template":"","resource-topic":[],"resource-role":[],"resource-type":[916],"class_list":["post-4932","resource","type-resource","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nKeep your agency small and still hit it out of the park<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Discover the benefits of keeping your agency or team small. 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