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business planning

Leveraging Earn-Outs as a Succession Strategy for Smaller Advertising Agency Owners

Laurie Mikes
3/8/2024


Succession planning is a crucial aspect of managing a business, and for smaller advertising agency owners, the challenge is often compounded by the unique dynamics of the industry. One increasingly ...

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Seven Steps for a Final Quarter New Business Push

Seven Steps for a Final Quarter New Business Push

Second Wind
10/23/2023

With the third quarter already a month gone, we hope we’re in time to share a few reminders about closing out your year with a strong new business push ...

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A Stake Is at the Heart of It

Second Wind
6/5/2023

One of the best things we’ve seen at smaller agencies in recent years is the advent of stakeholder programs. These programs engage key agency employees who are not currently ...

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Is There An Ideal Mix Of Accounts In Your Agency

Second Wind
2/9/2023

It’s a good question: most agencies have an account mix that is far from ideal. Frequently, a single account controls the life of any given agency—a “gorilla,” if ...

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Surrounded by Gorillas

Second Wind
1/25/2023

For a small to midsize agency, one of this business' most dangerous situations is having a large account. We define a large account—a “gorilla”—as one that controls more ...

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Is It Time To Let Your “Baby” Go? Transitioning to Retirement

Second Wind
1/18/2023

You’ve nurtured, fed, hovered over, and perhaps spent every waking minute working on and worrying about your agency. Meanwhile, your agency people, who helped you to grow the business ...

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Who Will Buy Your Agency?

Second Wind
10/13/2022

Many agency principals have the notion that when they wish to retire, they can sell their agencies to a larger agency, collect their money and start playing golf. While this ...

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Balancing Act

Second Wind
10/11/2022

This is a stressful business. We love it (or, one presumes, we wouldn’t be doing it), but it is definitely stressful. We frequently speak with agency principals who are ...

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Another Recession? How to Prepare for Hard Times

The "R-Word"

Jack Henke
8/2/2022

Recession. Many Second Wind members vividly remember “The Great Recession” from late 2007 until mid-2009. It is such a painful memory that the mere mention of the word “recession” is ...

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New Year’s Resolutions… or Mere Wishes?

Beth James
12/30/2021

I had an interesting, and inspiring, discussion while dining with friends. The first part of the discussion covered why it is important to have New Year’s resolutions (as opposed ...

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Seven Essential Strategies for Your Agency in the New Year

Second Wind
12/27/2021

Another year has come and gone: now it’s time to take stock and get an agency plan of action together for the coming year. What follows is a short ...

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Manage Uncontrolled Growth

How Do You Manage Uncontrolled Growth?

Deborah Budd
9/15/2021

We should all have such a problem, right? Yet it is not unusual for Second Wind to hear from ad agencies struggling to manage the demands of a booming business ...

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Are You Strong Enough?

Second Wind
8/4/2021

Do you ever pause for a moment in your busy day, and ask yourself, “Is our ad agency strong enough to be the agency that prospects and current clients will ...

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Landing The Big One! What Every Smaller Ad Agency Needs to Know

Beth James
7/21/2021

Winning a really big account can either float a smaller ad agency’s boat, feeding new growth for the agency and employees… or sink it under the weight of client ...

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Planning to Hire: Assessing Talent Needs, Budgets and Recruiting To-Dos

Deborah Budd
3/29/2021

For most smaller advertising agencies and marketing firms, hiring is something you do as you a) need more people due to account wins or in-demand skills, or b) you have ...

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Should Your Successor Be Just Like You?

Deborah Budd
3/25/2021

Letting go of your baby is part of the succession planning process. Ideally, you already have a person or people in place to move into the role of ad agency ...

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You Need a Successor

To Have a Succession Plan, You Need a Successor

Deborah Budd
3/11/2021

Many an ad agency owner flies solo all through his or her career. This may be due to a number of factors, sheer passion for the work and the business ...

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What's the Plan? Agency Business Planning

Second Wind
1/19/2021

I remember well how, as each year waned, my agency would be immersed in a rush of activity: annual reports to assemble, catalogs to update, print ads to run for ...

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Watch Yourself…Hard Times Are Just Around The Corner

Second Wind
2/15/2017

Many smaller agencies and design studios tend to forget hard times when clients are active and billings are flowing. However, most long-term advertising agency people (and other business people) never ...

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Business Continuity: Do You Have a Plan?

Second Wind
7/29/2016

You never expect bad things to actually happen to you. It is always someone else who has a fire, flood, accident, or destructive computer virus. Let’s face it—even ...

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