TOP 20 MOST COMMON MISTAKES IN AGENCY MANAGEMENT

Because it’s good to learn from your mistakes, but it’s cheaper to learn from others’ mistakes, Davy Tessier, founder and CEO of Furious squad, shares his experience—and that of others!

Managers and business owners, here are the top 20 most common mistakes in agency management. You’ve been warned!

The Most Common Mistakes on the Sales Side

• Not having a handle on the sales pipeline timeline: dozens of spreadsheets, hours of meetings, liters of coffee, Jipé’s jokes—and yet still no clarity… And of course, managing the schedule at the last minute—otherwise, it’s no fun.
• Not knowing the exact cost of a presale in real time: yet this information is useful for comparing it to the probability of winning and preventing Sylvie from burning out—especially since it won’t bring in a single kopek anyway.
• Don’t try to overanalyze the reasons for losing a competition—a simple chart at the end of the year quickly shows where we’re falling short. That’s the basics!
• Not tracking your conversion rate. Yet it would be helpful. Because when you’re just guessing, there are often significant, unexpected discrepancies (by sector, customer, sales representative, or offer).

The Most Common Errors on the Production Side

• The proliferation of project management tools. Everyone uses their own tool and method. As a result, it’s impossible to get a consolidated view and see that things are about to go off the rails before it’s too late… Ouch!
• Centralize scheduling with a single person. The traffic manager often ends up being the one who does the scheduling for others instead of resolving conflicts. And just like that, you’ve created a major bottleneck that often leads to slowdowns, delays, and a complete lack of visibility beyond the week covered by the schedule.
• Not knowing a project’s profitability. Few agencies are able to say precisely whether they are making or losing money on their projects (particularly because they do not track their gross margin), and even fewer can say whether they will make a profit or not in the case of pre-sales.
• Do not track production based on progress (most agencies track it based on invoicing). The result: significant management discrepancies and a December that, as if by chance, is the best month of the year in accounting. #OnVousVoit.
• Do not link purchases to a project. This makes it impossible to know the actual cost of a project—and therefore, which ones make us money and which ones lose us money.
• Failure to track project quality. Few agencies think to automatically assign quality ratings to their projects (such as client surveys).

The Most Common Mistakes in HR

• “Who’s in today?” That’s a phrase you often hear at the office, and it highlights the lack of tools for managing remote work…
• Teams’ fear of reporting. It’s curious how often we hear teams express fear about rolling out a new tool because it might reveal unflattering information to management. On the contrary, it’s also an opportunity to highlight the effectiveness of those whose voices are least often heard.
• Assigning one person to multiple managers: that’s the most basic managerial mistake.
• Don’t just write down and define individual goals. How many people in agencies don’t have a clear goal assigned by their management? It’s actually quite helpful, though, for knowing where you’re headed.
• Don’t track employee satisfaction automatically. Who asks their teams for feedback on projects or working conditions? And how many managers find out (too late) about that feedback on Twitter or in an Instagram Story?
• Failing to respond to employees’ daily requests to provide them with the right tools to do their jobs properly (equipment, etc.). In addition to making them more efficient, this also helps reduce the agency’s far-too-high turnover rate. An employee who feels heard is an employee who will want to stay.

The Most Common Mistakes in Finance

• Making things too complicated: accounting codes by project type that require endless re-entry, for example, or holding companies left and right… SIM-PLI-CITY, we tell you.
• Not having forecast tables (cash, landing, etc.).
• Do not automate (billing, follow-ups, internal follow-ups). This prevents oversights, not to mention the time saved.
• Not knowing how to categorize customers (gross margin vs. profitability, dependency, etc.).

Do any of these mistakes sound familiar? Update your methods by adopting a more structured project management strategy tailored to your goals. This is also a good time to develop a clear action plan, reassess your organization, and build a stronger foundation with your teams and clients.

This article was published on Stratégies on August 25, 2020.

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