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Mediacurrent: What Does Success Look Like?

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Dave Terry's picture

Dave Terry  | Partner, Client Services

Feb

04

2014

There was an article by David Baker that caught my attention. David is a long-time consultant for the web agency marketplace who offers blunt, but sage advice that comes from maintaining a strong pulse on what is happening in our industry.Essentially, he challenged Principals to think about what success really looks like at your agency.

Along these lines, at the beginning of each year, Mediacurrent does a "State of the Union" where our purpose is twofold: (1.) We provide a retrospective on the prior year, where we attempt to be as open and transparent as possible with our team (2.) We talk about strategy and where we are headed as a company. We reinforce our mission, culture, and inject a certain theme that we deem as critical to achieving our goals. This year we talked about the importance of alignment at Mediacurrent.

David's underlying message was that it is crucial that you know what various success factors look like. Here is what we shared with the Mediacurrent team at our State of the Union last week:

  1. Being able to give back to our community feels good and our roots should never be forgotten.
  2. We will almost always have more opportunity than capacity, allowing us to be choosy about which clients receive the benefit of Mediacurrent’s expertise.
  3. Our positioning in the marketplace is laser-tight and will allow the right prospect with the right project at the right time find the right solution with Mediacurrent.
  4. Our culture creates below industry average turnover and will contiune to allow us to attract top talent.
  5. Our customers and prospects appreciate what we do; we will be judged more on value versus how many hours we invoice.
  6. Our content is so intriguing and compelling that our prospects and existing network look forward to receiving it.
  7. Our knowledge, training, processes, and strategic input will continue to be sought after by new team members and customers.
  8. We have a diverse portfolio and an appropriate blend of work. We will never be too heavily dependent on one customer.
  9. We can raise pricing at any time without the fear of negative repercussions.
  10. Unsolicited referrals will become the norm and second-nature.
  11. All of our key processes are, and will continue to be, automated and well-documented.
  12. We will continue to foster a positive and supportive environment. We feel fulfilled, happy, and generally look forward to coming to work because we enjoy the people (teammates and customers) that we work with on a daily basis.

Finally, I would assert that these items are applicable to not just web agencies, but any professional service organization. What are your thoughts?  What are some factors that will help your company define success?

Additional Resources

 | Mediacurrent Blog Post

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