The joys and frustrations of agency ownership

Are you interested in starting out on your own and launching your own company? Here are some tips to help your transition from employee to boss.

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Becoming an agency owner is an intimidating concept for many people.

They ask:

There’s no simple solution or magic recipe to guarantee success. It takes endless hard work, determination, and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears.

Here are a few considerations for any PR pro who may be heading down this path:

1. Build a plan.

When I became an agency owner, I flew by the seat of my pants. I sold my home, packed up my car, and traveled across the country on a hunch.

It’s not that I didn’t take the decision seriously, but I honestly didn’t create a plan. I relied on my knowledge, relationships and skills to start it up and keep it going.

As a PR pro, you would never recommend to your clients to go to market without a solid strategy, goals and objectives to measure success. So why should your agency be any different?

I worked on my first agency for close to 10 years, and I believe it was quite successful, but I really have no proof, other than the fact that I had a number of great clients and I paid my bills.

Could it have been bigger? Could our profits have been higher? Why were some years better than others? Those are questions I honestly can’t answer, because I didn’t have a plan to reference.

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