Agencies are in a difficult, but positive, position in 2022
It’s tricky because they have access to a wide range of agencies worldwide. Favorable because brands that use digital communications are more important than ever. Brands that use marketing, PR, development, and Miami website design agencies (to name a few) are not able to lead, entertain, educate, and win over consumers in a globalized and oversaturated market. All brands need agency expertise.
How can agencies deal with fierce competition? As with many issues of today, leveraging technology is the solution. Agencies must be able to deliver work in a way that will improve their efficiency and margins. This requires a healthy approach.
Agencies need to consider what essential features they require as project management platforms continue to grow. Continue reading to learn the top features that agencies need to grow and increase their efficiency.
Source: The Productive Company, Inc.
What an embedded sales funnel can tell your agency
A couple of teams can be used to communicate with the sales and business development teams at an agency. Agencies need a sales funnel to organize their sales efforts. It provides an overview of the new deals in the pipeline, the scope, timeline, and financial aspects of the upcoming projects.
Business development representatives can organize sales information through a sales funnel embedded in agency management software. This allows them to easily inform operations, project, and resource managers in the planning of work for their teams. HR can plan potential hires and management on overall metrics.
Stakeholders can see the progress of potential clients and new jobs quickly with a readily accessible sales funnel and associated forecasting reports. It is possible to answer both strategic and tactical questions by having all sales data in one location. How likely is it that the six-month-old project will start next month? What are our investments as a company to deliver it successfully? What impact will this same project have on our profitability if we hire freelancers? And what in-house resources should we use? A sales team at an agency may also be working with leads that are in their pipeline and will need to be addressed soon.
Agents can answer these questions and many others through a sales funnel which is part of a larger agency platform that includes reporting, resource scheduling, time tracking, and project management.
Invoicing, Resource Planning, Time Tracking, and Budget Spending – All Connected!
Agencies need to be efficient with their time. They must monitor and update their schedules, budgets, and invoicing. These types of businesses typically deliver project work via timelines and tasks. They need to think about how to link those tasks and projects to reporting and billing via tracked budget spending, tracked time, and invoicing. Tracking time spent on services is not enough. You also need to keep track of all costs using the same agency management tool. This includes overhead, contractors, and out-of-pocket expenses. It is essential.
A global agency landscape study was conducted at the end of 2021. of the 169 agencies who participated in the benchmarking survey, half have less than three months of visibility into their revenue forecast. This is a key aspect of resource planning and balancing the work of teams. According to the same study, 51% of agencies consider investing in operational efficiency to be their top priority this year.
These numbers show that agencies are increasingly looking for a single source to run their businesses on data.
The Base of Data-driven Decisions
It is crucial for agencies at the cutting edge to make data-driven business decisions at all levels.
Real-time metrics should be as accurate and precise as possible. All team members must track their time regularly to make sure they are accurate. Agency leaders must now look at data to determine the well-being and financial health of their employees, in addition to being able to see the state of the agency’s finances.
Productive allows us to see a lot farther ahead. We used to plan projects two weeks ahead of time. We accept bookings for projects starting in 4-6 weeks.
If agencies dig deeply enough, they can find data that shows how balanced their team’s work is, how varied their tasks are, and how often they take time to relax. It also shows how employees are developing professionally while ensuring overall agency growth.
As Your One Source of Truth
Today’s agency leaders empower their employees by giving access to agency data to different members of the team, allowing them to positively impact the direction of their business growth.
Leaders today want to be able to manage an agency from sending out proposals to managing tasks to invoicing each project. A single source of truth is essential for the future of agency management.
