The joys and frustrations of agency ownership

Becoming an agency owner is an intimidating concept for many people.

They ask:

There’s no simple solution or magic recipe to guarantee success. It takes endless hard work, determination, and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears.

Here are a few considerations for any PR pro who may be heading down this path:

1. Build a plan.

When I became an agency owner, I flew by the seat of my pants. I sold my home, packed up my car, and traveled across the country on a hunch.

It’s not that I didn’t take the decision seriously, but I honestly didn’t create a plan. I relied on my knowledge, relationships and skills to start it up and keep it going.

As a PR pro, you would never recommend to your clients to go to market without a solid strategy, goals and objectives to measure success. So why should your agency be any different?

I worked on my first agency for close to 10 years, and I believe it was quite successful, but I really have no proof, other than the fact that I had a number of great clients and I paid my bills.

Could it have been bigger? Could our profits have been higher? Why were some years better than others? Those are questions I honestly can’t answer, because I didn’t have a plan to reference.