An agency cannot exist for long without time sheets filled in by each employee every day. The one thing that most employees hate to do and forget to do is their time sheet. Nothing will irritate your boss faster than a time sheet that is blank, half filled in, or filled in on the basis of your memory at the end of the day, or worse yet, the end of the week. Why? Because a time sheet is your record of what you did for that day that is billable to a client for a specific project. Even though the agency has estimated ahead of time how long a particular project will take to complete, when it comes time to prepare the final bill to the client, the agency will go by the real hours put into the project. The only exception to this is if the hours put in exceed the estimate, and the additional hours do not reflect client requested changes that would have taken more time. In this case, the agency needs to know why a certain job took more time than estimated. That information will help them decide if they need to add in extra hours for a similar job on the next estimate. If they keep quoting jobs based on a projected amount of time that is not accurate, the agency will be losing money.
Time sheets are without a doubt a pain in the neck. They require that every time you begin work on a certain project that you grab that project's time sheet and log in your start time. Then you have to write down your activity, such as paste up or price quote, etc., and then log in the time you stopped working on that phase of the project. If you forget and try to go back at the end of the day, or as some people do, at the end of the week, there is no way you are going to remember exactly how much time you spent for each thing you did.
Agency production meetings
Most every agency has, at the very least, weekly production meetings with all members of the staff. During this time, management has the opportunity to get a report on the status of all projects. That includes what problems are occurring, how they are being handled and what is happening with new projects. Production meetings are an excellent time to see the entire agency in operation and understand how your work fits into that operation. This is also a great time to make yourself and your ideas visible to management. But do not try to steal the show. Use your thoughtful judgment as to when to speak up and when it is best to remain silent. Politics are strongly at work during agency production meetings. So be alert and take notes. The most important information you need to know about how to become an asset to your agency will be revealed during these meetings.
A look at the big picture
After you have been at the agency for several months, you should begin to get an idea of the big picture. What that means is, where is your agency going in terms of its goals, such as future growth, the clients it wants to attract, and the gross billings it is working toward in the future. If you are having trouble getting a clear picture of your agency's destination, make an appointment (wait at least six months or a year before you do this) with the agency owner. Then tell this person that you want to understand where the agency is headed so that you can help contribute to its goals. This will put you far ahead of most agency employees who only think about their own job responsibilities and never look to see how their work effects the growth of the agency. After the owner tells you, ask how you can help the agency achieve those goals. What recommendations would the owner give you as to the skills you should work on developing to their fullest, or any courses you can take to improve your work in the agency?
How reputations are made
An agency earns its reputation first and foremost by staying in business. As strange as that may sound, agencies come and go faster than any other business I have ever seen. The standard length of time a weak agency can stay afloat is about two years, then it begins to slowly or quickly sink from the horizon. I always maintained that a new agency opens up every month. It happens when some disgruntled employees leave and starts their own agency, convinced they can do it better. But few survive. Other agencies are born when a larger agency goes down and several employees who were cast adrift scoop up the handful of remaining clients and form a new agency. These are the agencies that usually make it. The prime candidates for failure are the know it all ex employees who are fired or who quit; or investors who know nothing about advertising and buy a thriving agency, thinking they will pick up the tricks of the business as they go along. If they are lucky enough to keep on key employees and let them run the business, they may increase their chances of survival. But if they try to run the show themselves and do not recognize that they need to keep the experienced people on staff, and instead they try to save money by bringing in new, inexperienced people, that is a combination that spells certain disaster.
The second thing an agency builds a reputation on is ethical treatment of employees, clients, vendors, and subcontractors. That means charging reasonable prices, billing their clients fairly, paying bills on time, and treating people with respect.
Agencies also earn a reputation for quality work. Some agencies are good enough to produce work that is both high in quality and creative as well. These shops will become readily sought after by clients who like to brag about their agency and how many awards it has won this year. But these same clients are not usually the long termers who will stay with an agency for years. Since having an agency that is in demand is important to them, they will usually leave when a new agency hits the trade magazines as a hot property.
