I spent the last full week of July in Spain on a family vacation. We stayed an hour outside of Barcelona. I loved the view we had from the home we rented, a sweeping panorama of trees with the Mediterranean Sea off in the distance. I thought more than a few times what it would be like to live and work in Europe with primarily American co-workers and clients. Being 5-6 hours ahead means that […]
How much cash in the bank makes sense for an agency business? Some agency owners I’ve talked to say enough cash to cover at least 3 months’ of expenses. I’ve also talked to ones that have enough to cover a year’s worth of expenses. Some serious amounts. I like having cash in the bank. Especially in a higher interest rate environment, having cash is a good place to be and provides a sense of security. […]
At the start of the month, we briefly acknowledged Barrel’s 17th year of being in business. I posted something on LinkedIn and after work, poured myself a glass of white wine. On one hand, it’s just another day, month, and year in the business – I like to think that we keep our heads down and continue working hard. On the other hand, every additional day, month, and year is a blessing and a privilege […]
Complacency Has Its Roots in Success “Companies usually fail because of the incompetence and arrogance of a complacent management team, not because they struggled to predict the future.” (Scott Davis, Carter Copeland, and Rob Wertheimer, Lessons From the Titans) In Lessons From the Titans, a book about large industrial companies and their various ups and downs as businesses, the authors share a story about Boeing. The aerospace company, with great focus on driving efficiency, achieved financial […]
In 2010, we moved into a new office a few blocks away from the Flatiron District in Manhattan. Coming from a small, dark room at a co-working space, the new office felt like a dream come true. We had a conference room, a private office for me and my Barrel co-founder Sei-Wook to share, and an open area for about six employees. I distinctly remember talking to Sei-Wook after our move and saying, “This place […]
May was a hard month. Lots of travel, meetings, and moments, both business and personal, that tested my patience. Thankfully, I knew this was going to be the case going in, so I tried to be as mentally prepared as possible. The trick was to take things one day at a time, enjoying the occasional down moments as best I could and also celebrating even the smallest of wins. More travel, work, and personal obligations […]
Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach to Customer Service by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles is a quick read (a little over 100 pages, can easily be finished in one sitting) told in a business parable style. A protagonist called Area Manager is guided by a fairy godmother-like character named Charlie and introduced to business owners practicing the Raving Fans framework, delivering exceptional customer experiences to their respective customers. Raving Fans Framework Overview The Raving Fans […]
A key to longevity in this business is to have a lot of friends who also run agency businesses. I’ve been lucky to meet and develop relationships with dozens of agency operators over the years. They’ve inspired me with their discipline, creative thinking, leadership, and ambitions. They’ve been great sources of comfort when things haven’t gone so well for me, sometimes lending a patient ear to hear out my challenges and at other times commiserating […]
I’ve written about the various aspects of running an agency business. Like any other topic, the deeper you get into it, the more nuances and complexities you encounter. However, it’s worth taking a step back every now and then to revisit some core ideas even if they may come off as oversimplifications. I present to you five agency business themes with some lessons: 1. Win New Business Winning new work from clients is what breathes […]
We concluded our trial of Roam, a virtual office collaboration tool that’s meant to evoke a sense of place online while encouraging more casual “drop-in” conversations among team members. The interface looked sleek and the value proposition was promising, so we went for a 30-day trial with our team. The 30 days came and went very quickly and we decided to send out a team survey to get a check on how people were feeling […]
I turned forty years old today. I spent time with my kids, shoveled our driveway (it snowed up in Rhinebeck), got in a workout, enjoyed dinner out with Melanie, had cake with the kids, and took a long walk alone outside. It was a quiet, normal, and beautiful day. My thirties flew by quickly. It feels like yesterday that I sat down and wrote about some things on my mind as I turned thirty. But […]
“What I am suggesting is that a dose of gratitude be injected into the process, because everything is not “bad.” We all have a long list of things to be grateful for. Never say, “It can’t get any worse,” because it can get a lot worse. I love H. Ross Perot’s definition of an entrepreneur: “Someone who is grateful for the progress that has been made and simultaneously dissatisfied with the rate they are making […]
Note: Right before heading to bed on a winter weekend night, I took a few minutes to remember what transpired that day. I wake up tired and groggy, but it’s 7:20 and I can hear my oldest son Grant playing with his trains right outside the bedroom. Mel goes upstairs to change our younger boy Teddy. I make a smoothie for the kids dumping bananas, spinach, blueberries, pineapple, mango, and strawberry chunks into a blender. […]
I’m feeling positive about how we’re starting the year. This isn’t because things are all rosy and looking up. In fact, as you’ll read in the next section, we’ve had some setbacks that’s required tough decisions in the first few weeks of 2023. But what feels different about this year is that we’re starting off with a lot more confidence in the systems and structures we have in place, the result of a year-long effort […]
Types of Lead Sources At Barrel, we’ve stumbled into a number of different lead sources over the years, and the mistake we made was in not taking the time to understand the source and how to keep the flow strong. We recognized the source and assumed that they’d organically continue coming. To start, these are the most common lead sources I’ve experienced. It’s not a comprehensive list by any means (e.g. it doesn’t have inbound […]
For the second year, I’ve put together an annual review. It was, on the whole, a wonderful and memorable year. Sure, there were setbacks and disappointments, but there were joyful moments and all kinds of learnings. Once again, taking the time to reflect on the year was in itself a great reward. Highlights Watching the Boys Grow Up Grant is almost 4 and Teddy will be 2 in March. It was the first full year […]
I have to admit that I have trouble “turning off” during the holiday season. I enjoy time with family and friends, watch a few movies and football games, read a bit more fiction, but I still come back to thinking about the business. My guess is that a lot of entrepreneurs / business owners are in this camp, continually reflecting on what went right and wrong over the past year and looking ahead to how […]
I’ve created a spreadsheet that agencies can use to plan their finances for an upcoming year using a bottoms-up approach. With the right inputs, one should be able to come away with targets for revenue and profit. For the past ten weeks, my Barrel co-founder Sei-Wook and I have been poring over our finances, reorganizing the data, and coming up with different ways to land at our targets for next year. It’s been an enlightening […]
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’d like to express my gratitude for all the hardships and setbacks that being in this business has presented me over the years. They’ve made me tougher, more humble, a bit savvier, a bit smarter, and ever more optimistic. I remain optimistic and energized because of the wonderful people of Barrel who work closely with me to navigate all the hardships and setbacks that come our way all while sharing […]
In Extreme Revenue Growth by Victor Cheng, a book about developing “revenue growth engines” to scale quickly from $1 million to $25 million+ in revenues, Cheng introduces “The 10 Times Question” which goes like this: If your business grew 10 times overnight, would you be able to handle it? The question is intended to help company leaders think about what might break in the business if sudden growth were to happen and in doing so […]