Drew McLellan is the Top Dog at Agency Management Institute. For the past 23 years, he has also owned and operated his own agency. Drew’s unique vantage point as being both an active agency owner and working with 250+ small- to mid-size agencies throughout the year gives him a unique perspective on running an agency today.

AMI works with agency owners by:

Leading agency owner peer groups
Offering workshops for owners and their leadership teams
Offering AE bootcamps
Conducting individual agency owner coaching
Doing on-site consulting
Offering online courses in agency new business and account service

Because he works with those 250+ agencies every year — he has the unique opportunity to see the patterns and the habits (both good and bad) that happen over and over again. He has also written two books and been featured in The New York Times, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Fortune Small Business. The Wall Street Journal called his blog “One of 10 blogs every entrepreneur should read.”

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

Why the days where creative led agencies have passed and why creative has been replaced by strategy, content, and lead gen
The shortage of writers compared to the abundance of art directors and why that’s a pretty big issue for agencies
Why creative directors aren’t in that high of demand anymore, and what traditional creative directors look like in the agencies that have them
Administrative, account service, and creative services: the three departments that make up most agencies today
The triad of leadership - a writer, art director, and digital producer lead the creative services department in lieu of a creative director
Why you don’t usually even need to produce spec creative for a pitch anymore
Figuring out which roles inside your agency you still need
Allocating funds from cut positions elsewhere to serve your clients better

Ways to contact Drew McLellan:

Email: drew@agencymanagementinstitute.com

We’re proud to announce that Hubspot is now the presenting sponsor of the Build A Better Agency podcast! Many thanks to them for their support!

Episode 105: Are Creative Directors Going to be Extinct? with Drew McLellan

Build a Better Agency Podcast