Not many CEOs hold dual roles like you now do. Brad Simms is chief exec at Gale and CPB, while the recently retired Kristen Cavallo was chief exec for MullenLowe and The Martin Agency. What’s the key to leading two agencies?
Having trusted leadership is so key. Recognizing that I’m going to have professional FOMO. I’m just going to have to manage myself. There will be conversations that I really want to be part of and help, but that’s the whole reason I made sure I had great people in leadership. I have to emotionally pull myself out of certain things and really recast my contributions. You can just add more and more time to your day by taking on more responsibility, but then you’re going to mess it all up.
Advice on holding dual roles from Kristen Cavallo
“Make sure you understand how you are motivated. Do you need time alone? Time with others? Praise? Get clear on that because the agencies will succeed if you succeed. Give yourself the best odds.”
Building an agency
So many indie agencies reside in cities outside the recognized talent hubs for this industry, and McKinney has been headquartered in Durham, N.C. for 50 years. What’s key to attracting talent to N.C. that other agencies can learn from?
We try our best to have a unified culture. We operate under a single P&L, so you can be in any of those locations [McKinney is in Durham, New York, L.A., Phoenix and Dallas] and still have the same career and still have a very similar employee experience. We focus on employee experience pretty significantly, and when you are in markets outside of New York and L.A., you need to double down on that a bit. [McKinney’s retention rate is 92%].
Views on the industry
What’s something in the industry that you’ve done a complete 180 on?
The power of influencers. And that might sound odd because we acquired an influencer agency … My viewpoint that changed was I thought it was going to be a slower burn, in terms of how important influencers became. There’s articles all the time about how influencers are becoming a bigger part of the marketing mix. Agencies are now hiring creators and we’re doing the same now. I knew influencers would be a positive thing for us to have and it was creating upward momentum, but it’s becoming such a bigger part of what we do.
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