Monday, April 30, 2012

Delegation, The Power To Empower

By Ernie Arias
"I just do what I'm really good at, to delegate. The rest I delegate it."  twitted on July 14th, 2011.  https://twitter.com/ERNIEARIAS/statuses/91704449155862529

My first gig as a studio manager was about ten years ago. A responsibility I earned because of my work ethic, outstanding skills as a studio artist and an excellent interaction with my co-workers as well as with the Traffic Coordinators, Editorial, Print Production and Account personnel. Pretty much everyone agreed I was right for the position and I was very excited in taking this new challenging opportunity. However, today I look back and realize how 'green' I was, regardless how super-talented I might be.

I still remember my first week as being such a traumatic and stressful experience, because either I wanted to do everything myself or at least be involved in it more than I needed to be as a supervisor. There I was, completely out of my comfort zone and as someone else pointed out, "I found myself distrusting my piers," the very same individuals I've never judged or distrusted before when I was not a supervisor. On the contrary, they were all excellent professionals and we had a very strong studio process in place plus a newly created quality control unit. As a matter of fact, there was no rationale that could have possibly explained my behavior. So what was wrong? What's happening?

My problem was very simple, I was not delegating as much as I should. It took me a while until I was able to adjust to my new responsibilities as manager and learned to delegate effectively.

The Big Picture

Delegation is probably one of the most important skills a studio manager must possess and it's as simple as assessing the job requests, dealing with priorities and distributing the workload among your staff (and freelancers), always following the cardinal rule of not doing anything that doesn't absolutely need to be done by you. It's very easy to fall in the trap of creating a work overload on your desk if you don't delegate effectively, especially to those who are very skillful and can take care of any task as good as any studio artist or even better. You need to focus in your task as a manager in order to maintain control over the workflow, priorities, process and quality of the final delivery. You must sit down on the 'Captain's chair' to be able to see the 'big picture' and ensure the operation is running smoothly, as well as to identify, anticipate any potential problem and take corrective action.

Building Trust And Empowering Your Staff

By delegating, assigning important tasks, you build trust and create a sense of ownership and empowerment among your team. Trust is essential to leadership and team building, and also to earn respect beyond your appointed position. Good employees are very observant of the manager's ability to delegate and when they sense they're not being utilized as much as they can perform or to the level they can perform, they simply feel themselves as not being trusted, hence a bit demoralized. They can also misjudge the manager as not being confident or even worse, holding a heavy workload on your desk might also be misinterpreted as territorial protection.

The good news is that delegation is a skill, and as any skill it can be learned. Not surprisingly, there is a very tight connection between your title and your ability to delegate. The higher you climb up the corporate ladder, the more refined and effective your delegation skills must be.


_______________________________________________


If you've made it to this point it means you read this article. Awesome!! Your opinion is greatly appreciated and if you like it, please use the share buttons to spread the word.
Thanks,
Ernie Arias

Saturday, April 14, 2012

A New Business Pitch: Put The Bubbly On Ice, This One Is A Win!!



By Ernie Arias

Of all activities, New Business pitches are the most exhausting, demanding and strenuous projects in any advertising studio. They can also be the most satisfying and rewarding, especially when the 'cherry on top' is a big WIN. It feels as if you're putting your hands on the most coveted of all trophies after a fierce and long competition.

What a win Represents

Winning a new account or getting more business out of an existing client, it's essentially what our business is about. You don't have to be a genius to realize that a new account will bring financial gains to your company and eventually this translates into securing job spots, the possibility of hiring more talent, new creative challenge that comes with a new product, brand or market and it also opens the door to expand the clientele because of all the good PR that comes with a new business win. It's not a coincidence when an agency wins an account, several others come right after. Simply put, every new business acquisition adds equity to an agency's brand.

Team effort and studio's role

You can certainly compare a new business pitch with a competition because that's exactly what it is. Several agencies competing against each other in a showdown of creativity, marketing and business strategies. The studio is an integral team member in this 'competition' and plays two very important and distinctive roles. The one prior to a presentation and what we do after the agency wins an account.

Let's use this analogy from ancient times to represent the studio roles: Hunters would go out into the wild for days and come back to 'put the meat on the table.' Then you have the people who'd cook and grill this meat to perfection in order to feed the whole tribe. Prior to the hunting campaign there was a team preparing those hunters with proper weapons and some food and water to survive several days out of their shelter. In this analogy the group of people preparing the hunters represent the studios.

Every creative execution, regardless the media in which is going to be presented, goes to the studios for an exhaustive clean-up and meticulous scrutiny before it's produced either as a printed and mounted board or as a video presentation. After a win, the studios are in charge of delivering ads (print and digital), web sites, direct mail, in-store and OOH pieces to vendors and publications. Some people usually call it the 'dirty work,' while I call it the 'Final Touch.' And the quality of this 'final touch' in combination with an excellent creative output and a stellar Account team performance is what allows an agency to get more business from an existing client.

Don't you want to be part of this?

So after knowing all of these interesting facts, don't you want to be part of the team working on the next new business pitch? Well, I do. And I believe every employee should embrace new business as one of the most (or maybe the most) important projects in an agency. New business efforts bring cohesion, strengthen our culture, raise the morale and promote high employee engagement, not to mention of all the good things that come after a win. 

I can hear the Commodore shouting, with his powerful and commanding voice, "Bring the champagne! This is a win! Let's celebrate!!"

_______________________________________________


If you've made it to this point it means you read this article. Awesome!! Your opinion is greatly appreciated and if you like it, please use the share buttons to spread the word.
Thanks,
Ernie Arias