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 ...

Agency principals ask us all the time how to measure the financial success of their agencies. When we respond, many seem disappointed. "That's it?" they ask. "Those are all ...

What’s all this fuss about revenue recognition with agencies?  Isn’t revenue recognized when we just bill the client???

What do accountants know about financial reporting for advertising and ...

In the dynamic world of advertising, change is constant. As a small advertising agency, evolving with the times is essential to staying competitive and delivering competitive services. One aspect that ...

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 ...

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 ...

In our opinion, there was nothing more dreaded in college than the open book test. The prof could throw just about any kind of curveball question, and you would have ...

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 ...

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 ...

Our late founder, Tony Mikes, originally wrote this article in 1998… and it’s as if he wrote it last week. As he was fond of pointing out, business is ...