Chip Griffin

Agencies should allow employees to work from home for now

Chip Griffin — Thu, 12 Mar 2020 12:29:19 +0000

Some agencies seem reluctant to allow employees to work from home during the current crisis because they prefer to have in-office workers and are concerned about the precedent they may be setting. Stop it. I’ll set aside for a moment that the remote work genie is out of the bottle and the 2020 pandemic will...

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Unsubscribes used to sting, but now I see them as a win

Chip Griffin — Sun, 08 Mar 2020 15:14:23 +0000

My friend Christopher S. Penn recently offered a video explaining why he includes a giant unsubscribe button in his email newsletter. Ironically, I had the topic of unsubscribes on my own editorial calendar for Chip Shots, too. The truth is that unsubscribes used to bother me. I would get a notification from my email list...

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No employee should be irreplaceable

Chip Griffin — Fri, 06 Mar 2020 16:37:09 +0000

Businesses get into trouble when knowledge or relationships reside in a single employee. The reality is that team members leave the company, get sick, or otherwise become unavailable, sometimes with little or no notice. If one employee is the only one who knows how to perform a specific process or use a particular tool, that’s...

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How to value employee ambition

Chip Griffin — Mon, 02 Mar 2020 12:33:00 +0000

Ambition means different things to different people. For some, it is an essential quality. To others, it can have a negative connotation. As an employer, how do you view ambition when it comes to employees? In my experience, the best employees all have ambition. Now, that doesn’t mean that they need to be ambitious in...

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Stop worrying and start doing

Chip Griffin — Mon, 24 Feb 2020 11:28:34 +0000

A consistent theme I see in working with my clients is fear about possible negative outcomes of changes in their business. They worry about missing out on revenue if they focus their agency on a particular niche instead of being all things to all people. They worry about losing clients if they push back against...

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Be opportunistic

Chip Griffin — Sun, 23 Feb 2020 12:22:50 +0000

Yes, you need to have goals and a plan. No, you should not flip-flop on your choices all the time. But you should be ready to take chances and take advantage of new paths that appear in front of you unexpectedly. While the word “opportunistic” sometimes carries negative connotations and can suggest moral ambiguity, I’m...

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Understand the tradeoff between cost and elasticity of business resources

Chip Griffin — Sun, 16 Feb 2020 11:43:11 +0000

In the age of cloud computing and the gig economy, the ability to scale and pivot in many businesses has never been easier. This is a real advantage for technology- and service-based businesses because it increases competitiveness and provides incredible flexibility. But this elasticity of resources comes at a price. Literally. When I ran a...

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Paint a clearer picture to get better referrals for your business

Chip Griffin — Fri, 14 Feb 2020 12:18:28 +0000

I work with a lot of agency owners who tell me that they get the majority of their business from referrals. That’s pretty typical of the industry overall — as well as most professional services firms. Those businesses that want to accelerate growth need to move from passive referrals — those that show up out...

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Stop it with the co-CEO, co-President, and other co- titles

Chip Griffin — Mon, 10 Feb 2020 11:21:12 +0000

A major global PR agency recently announced that they were doing away with their co-CEO arrangement. Believe it or not, they had three individuals holding the co-CEO title. Leadership can be shared, but ultimate responsibility for day-to-day business decisions cannot. Harry S Truman’s desk sign didn’t say “the buck stops here … and here …...

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Set your goals 3×3

Chip Griffin — Wed, 05 Feb 2020 12:00:54 +0000

They say everything comes in threes. That doesn’t apply to work and personal goals, in my experience. But most people and organizations would benefit from setting their goals three by three. What do I mean? First, I like the idea of 3 priority goals. It’s small enough to be focused, but big enough to make...

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