by Jenna Overbury | Oct 9, 2023 | News
We are making a few changes at Agency Local. These are to more reflect the landscape we are in to be more inclusive in the support and help we provide to Agency Owners and Founders.
We are opening up the community to one and all!
Our community lives on Slack, which the vast majority of Agency owners already use.
The community is there to support you and for you to support others.
- Need help with a commercial challenge
- Got something on your mind you want to get opinion on
- Looking for an agency to partner with
- Looking for an agency to help a client in an area you don’t cover
- Share your wins
- Signpost your latest blog or LinkedIn post
- Running an event and want to let people know
The list is endless.
Access to Experts
You will also have access to business experts who are also welcome to our community. They are here to help and support not to sell!
Agency Events
We will be signposting agency events – not just our events – any event that is relevant to an agency owner. These will be events run by other agency communities, agency run events as well as providers of agency related services who are running events.
Sign up + spread the word
If you are not already there please do come and join in the adventure. It is simple to sign up and here is the link.
https://join.slack.com/t/agencylocal/shared_invite/zt-bkprboab-josQXLuFx9yD7UkC9gdMaw
Please invite any colleagues, partners, other agency owners you know.
The only thing we ask is that you follow our simple community rules:
Please be:
- Open & Honest
- Collaborative and Supporting
- Transparent & Caring
Please engage and don’t be a wallflower – the value of the community is in the discussion and from learning from each other.
We look forward to welcoming you to the community.
by Chris Bantock | Mar 14, 2023 | News, People
A BIG Agency Local welcome for Lou Crane.
We are delighted to welcome Lou Crane to Agency Local. Lou takes up the mantle of Community and Partner Manager – making sure that the needs of our members, partners and associate guides are catered for.
Lou has 7 years of experience in the Marketing & PR space, most of which were built up within one of Europe’s leading SEO agencies. During her 3-year tenure at Evolved Search, she was an integral part of the team that won multiple industry awards in the UK and abroad.
More recently she has spent the last two years as a Freelance PR Consultant while travelling the world as a new-fangled digital nomad, but has still found time to set up a social enterprise project that utilised an affiliate marketing model to generate additional revenue for UK based charities.
She is now joining us as our new Community and Partner Manager to help grow our membership base, improve our service offering and share her experiences of working with some of the UK’s leading marketing agencies.
It is important for Agency Local that we understand our clients so having first hand agency experience is a non negotiable. Lou not only understands how agencies work but also the challenges they face everyday.
This is a vital role in the future growth of Agency Local as we continue our quest to help more agencies to become great businesses and the owners better leaders.
We wish Lou every success.
by Chris Bantock | Feb 6, 2023 | News
I am delighted to be able to make this announcement today as it is the first step in the vision to create the best business support infrastructure for marketing agencies and creative business.
Today I am announcing the first official agency local partners. These are all businesses that focus on a specialist area of business solely for agencies and creative businesses. These partners bring with them a depth of knowledge, experience and know-how that will be of immense value to all members of agency local.
The combination of Agency Guides to support agencies on their business journey and Expert Partners providing in-depth knowledge, as and when agencies need it, provides an extremely powerful proposition for any marketing agency that wants to survive, thrive, grow and scale.
The partners will be actively involved in the community supporting our members on a daily basis. They will be sharing their knowledge and wisdom on an ongoing basis and of course will be available to work one to one as and when agencies need their assistance and services.
We will be adding to this list over the coming months. Today, here are the initial partners:
Bella Hegerty – Agency Customer Journey Partner
CFO For Growth – Agency Finance Partner
Chime – Agency Marketing Partner
Iconos Group – Legal Partner
Pink Giraffe – HR and Recruitment partner
Welcome one and all!
by Chris Bantock | Jan 6, 2023 | News, People
Hot on the heels of Freia’s announcement last month I am delighted to announce another Associate Guide joining Agency Local.
Today, Owen Hughes has graduated from being a Member of Agency Local to being a Guide. For Owen this is a natural progression and follows his passion of helping others to develop their businesses. Owen has a proven track-record of generating significant income and planning ambitious, yet achievable business strategies.
The recruitment of Guides are a key part of being able to provide the best business support to agencies – helping them come to terms with the stresses and challenges of running and growing an agency business. Owen is the latest person to assist us to deliver this.
Agency Background
Owen brings with him a wealth of strategic, commercial and agency experience. He has run his agency – EWO Communications for over 20 years providing organisations with strategic, commercial marketing advice and support.
He grew his agency to a team of 24 people, winning and working with some great brands including Brother, BMW, Porsche, Roussel Pharmaceuticals, Metacube, Salesforce, Saracens RFC, Wasps as well as local and regional businesses.
I have known Owen personally for many years. When I ran my agency, Owen and I collaborated on projects and since Agency Local launched he has been a very strong supporter and contributor to the community.
Sustainability and Purpose
Owen has a passion for helping business with purpose. Having recognised that organisations needed to develop a programme of activity that supported the local community, he has spent the past decade working across all sectors to develop CSR strategies that enhance the value of the organisation and in doing so, assisting these businesses to grow, increase profit margins and attract a focused, engaged workforce.
Most recently, Owen has been involved in launching the first global CSR accreditation programme, establishing a global network of partners and members – CSR-A.
I am sure you will join me in welcoming Owen to the community as Associate Guide. I know he will be able to support many agencies along their journeys and if you don’t already know Owen then I suggest you set up a call with him.
To find out more about Owen:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/owenhughes/
by Chris Bantock | Dec 5, 2022 | News, People
As part of Agency Local planned development in line with our mission to provide a one stop business support infrastructure for agencies we are expanding the capabilities on offer to members by growing the ‘Agency Business Guides’ and agency partners.
We are really delighted to announce that Freia Muehlenbein has joined Agency Local as an Associate Guide. Freia will bring a wealth of agency business growth experience and her knowledge and guidance will provide a huge contribution to individual agencies, members and the community as a whole.
Freia is a German-British agency growth consultant with 12 years of experience in growing and improving agencies. She supports digital, creative, and marketing agencies with the delivery of strategic initiatives, operational processes and systems, leadership development, change management, and pitch close rate optimisation. Her super power is translating strategic goals into simple initiatives that lead to improved productivity and efficiency.
Freia runs Be-Reyt and will be providing her services to Agency Local members. As you may gather by the business name she is based ‘up north’ in Leeds.
We are really excited to have Freia as part of Agency Local and am so looking forward to working with her to support her supporting our agency members. Please say big ‘Hi’ to Freia.
To find out more about Freia:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/freiamuehlenbein/
Be-reyt.com
by Chris Bantock | Dec 5, 2022 | Agency Business, News
We have some exciting news to share with the whole agency community. From January 2023 we will be rolling out version 3 of agency local.
It is our aim to provide the best all round business support infrastructure for small and growing agencies on your business journey. Yes, ‘all round business support’, not just sales, but every aspect of running a business from positioning and marketing, understanding your agency finance, and developing process.
In fact everything that will add real value to your business and will mean you are running a great agency.
Why version 3 ?
Agency Local was founded in 2019 and the first iteration was in a pre pandemic world, where we had face to face events and offered workshops.
Version 2 was a reaction to the pandemic and it laid the foundations for what agency local will become. During this time our aim was to support and help agencies to survive and thrive through the pandemic. This was done by running business educational online events and starting support groups, and offering 121 coaching.
Now we are in a post-pandemic age and what we provide to agencies needs to adapt and change once again for us to be able to provide a premium Business Support infrastructure for marketing agencies.
Welcome to Agency Local 3.0.
Our vision remains the same
To accompany agency owners on their agency business journey by providing a community to support and transform their agency business. Expanding business knowledge to create an agency with solid foundations, practical implementation support and build value into the business for the future.
To create the clarity of direction for the journey and to be there for the short term bumps in the road.
What’s Changing?
Oh where to start!
Learning and Education
In September we paused the ‘Ask The Expert ‘webinars and piloted ‘Active Based Learning’ (ABL). ABL is a much more practical focused experience with actions and accountability. The feedback has been amazing.
“This was the first time I have come away from a session genuinely inspired to make changes in the way I undertake my work. It was also great to speak to some focused, interesting people, all who had different ideas and experiences.” Owen Hughes MD EWO
We develop a practical focus for the month designed to improve your skills and to make an improvement to your agency. Knowledge is provided by short form videos for learning, followed up by a members event to discuss, experiment and apply to your agency. Accountability buddies are established and at the end of the month we come together to review the impact, celebrate successes and to counter any challenges.
So far our Practical Focuses have been on Time Management (how to get 4 hours back a week), Managing the emotion and commotion of Change (becoming a change agent) and Negotiation skills (winning better deals).
This is available for ALL members of Agency Local.
Peer Groups
We know how important it is to be surrounded by people that ‘get’ your business and your challenges.
We have been running ‘90 Day Planning’ groups for over a year and half now and these are brilliant for making significant changes and improvements in your business – on an ongoing basis. We are now expanding these by offering two new groups in January.
Agency Business Club
This is for those young agencies with 2-9 employees or teams that are serious about surviving and thriving. You will learn, you will be challenged, you will support others, and above all you will be held accountable. You will also have the opportunity to work with a ‘Guide’ on a 1to1 basis. This will be a half day on line group with a max of 8 people.
Upper Club
This for those agencies with 10 – 25 employees where the business challenges are somewhat different. Establishing teams, leadership teams, becoming more efficient, reducing your time in the agency. Same learning, challenge and accountability. This is a full day offsite group meeting.
Agency Business Guides
In order to be able to provide the premium business support we are expanding the number of Guides in Agency Local. They will all have extensive experience of running and most cases selling an agency. This provides a deeper pool of expertise as each Guide will have their own areas of specialism to support any agency problem or situation.
Agency Local Partners
A vital part of our community will be our partners. Partners are other businesses that provide services, training or products specific to agencies.
All Agency Local members will have access to these partners from within the community channels and will enjoy a discount off their products and services.
There will be a bigger announcement about these partners in the coming weeks.
New year, many changes, one new agency business support community.
As we head into what will no doubt be another turbulent year the need for support, learning and guidance becomes even more critical.
The changes announced here are designed to give you, the agency owner, founder or senior leader the access to all you need to help you to be more successful, to build a solid business and to create value in your best asset – your agency.
We look forward to welcoming you and working with you over the coming months and years.
You are on a business journey, we will be there for you at every stage of that journey. If you are interested in finding out more please reach out to Chris Bantock or any of the Guides or via the Contact Page we would be happy to help you.
