How To Manage Agency Projects Like A Pro

If you manage agency projects and find yourself in a team leadership position, you likely deal with many different challenges. You’re responsible not only for the projects themselves, but you also have to collaborate with internal and external parties to make sure everyone stays on the same page. With so many moving pieces, how is it possible to ensure project success?

We’re here to give you some pointers. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution for agency project management, as all organizations have their own campaigns and goals. But there are definitely some best practices that everyone can implement across the board to better manage your agency projects. So whether you turn to project management software or focus on getting apprentices onboard, we are sharing some tips to help you lead your team and manage agency projects like a pro.

1. Delegate tasks 

Your business should run on its own – no matter if you are on sick leave, taking a vacation, or simply want your agency to generate a passive income without your engagement. By delegating more tasks to your team, you can work in a more predictable environment where your approvals are no longer bottlenecks, and every project stage can be completed without your excessive engagement.

Giving your employees more freedom to run projects and making critical decisions on their own contributes to higher employee engagement. And according to the GetPlaceToWork study, companies that focus on inclusivity and work on team engagement are growing 5.5 times faster than those which don’t.

Source: Acadal

So how can you delegate better?

First of all, hire people who are independent and like taking initiative. Give them a lot of space and freedom to put their ideas into action, and allow them to decide on how they will proceed with projects. You should also avoid engaging in daily tasks, instead only getting involved when someone needs advice on more complicated cases. Hiring the right people will also make it easier to delegate, as you feel more comfortable passing along responsibilities to them. 

Here are 4 types people you should hire that will help you delegate better:

1. Doers – These employees don’t procrastinate with finishing tasks and are determined to stick to assigned deadlines. They won’t let you down, tasked to bring the most complex projects to life.

2. Initiative experts – Try to get those on board who like coming up with new creative ideas and who are ready to proceed with them without much supervision.

3. Team players – Working for a creative agency often means working with multiple specialists requiring perfect communication skills. Check for your next candidate’s communication skills and learn if they feel comfortable asking others for help, working hard on improving the process, and contributing to the team’s well-being.

4. Great planners – These people are extra organized and are always working on increasing their productivity — at wok and otherwise. Strong planning is a character trait that usually seeps into all areas of someone’s life, so if you know someone uses dedicated tools for creating shopping lists or managing daily chores, it’s a good chance they will bring that same sense of planning to the workplace too.

Aim at automating your recruitment processes to hire at scale when the demand for your services increases drastically in a short period of time. As predicted, more agencies like yours will even rely on AI helping at hiring and onboarding people in the near future, so it is worth keeping an eye on new trends.

With a mix of these people on board, it will be easier than ever to divide tasks and responsibilities among team members for the most efficient workflow possible. 

2. Keep an eye on your team’s productivity

As a manager, you have to know where your team’s time goes. But this doesn’t mean you should install employee monitoring software on your team computers and call it a day. Quite the opposite. One of the best ways to improve productivity is to give your team more freedom to work the way they are most comfortable and effective.

At the end of the day, your team’s output is much more important than the total time spent at the office. And if you’re managing a remote team, it’s even more crucial to equate productivity with results, not with the amount of time logged into a computer. As long as someone meets deadlines and produces great work, does it really matter how much time they spent or when they logged in?

So instead of micromanaging tasks and setting strict working hours, spend time helping your employees manage their time well. Help them analyze their current processes and find their most time-consuming tasks. After doing this analysis, you can identify which areas need improvement and come up with tangible ways to actually make your team more efficient. 

3. Automate project management

Supervising a couple of projects can be easy, but once more clients want to work with you and you get flooded with multiple projects running at the same time, things can go off track. Thanks to a variety of project management tools, including Hive, you can build on processes that will make task management considerably easier, ultimately saving time and money. 

For example, Reichman Jorgensen saves $150,000 per month by automating their workflow in Hive. For each category of lawsuit, they have a pre-saved Hive project template with corresponding formatting, actions, sub-action steps and timelines that the team can apply to a case with one click. Labels are added to each case and individual tasks to help their teams group and sort specific to-dos. Imagine how much time this automated process saves them. 

These Hive project templates can be customized for any type of agency project as well. From lead generation campaigns to graphic design projects, you can easily create a template and apply it to future projects in one single click. Instead of starting from scratch with every new project, you will simply open the pre-populated template and hit the ground running. 

4. Improve client proofing

Getting projects approved by clients can sometimes take a lot of time, especially in the creative industry where clients can get carried away with correction rounds. This situation can cause your team to spend more time on the project than expected, resulting in lower margins for your agency. 

Here are some tips to help improve your client proofing process:

1. Understand the requirements. Ask as many questions as needed to better understand the scope of the project. Describe it in your contract to avoid any misunderstanding. The more you know about what your client requires, the better you will be able to estimate time and deliver great results from the start.
2. Agree on objectives. Get a bigger picture of what your client wants to achieve from a business perspective, what KPIs they see in places, and what determines the success of your campaign. In some cases, objectives can not only deal with reaching a certain KPI, but they also require compliance with restrictive industry regulations. If you know all objectives from the start, you can avoid unexpected hiccups and road blocks.For example, your team is managing the social media of one of your new clients operating in the digital health space which has to comply with HIPAA regulations. Their objective would be to gain more clients with digital marketing while complying with the law. As the client has to follow certain guidelines that restrict marketing opportunities, they stay skeptical of each content suggestion. However, by studying the regulations, offering content that is compliant with it, and stressing out the fact your content is in compliance, you can steadily gain trust and get client approval much easier.
3. Ask for feedback at each stage. Getting client’s feedback at each stage of the project can help you save time on reworks. By engaging the client in the process, you can align your plan with your client’s expectations from the start, which drastically increases the chance of approval. In addition, keeping track of feedback and approvals at each stage can come in handy if the client suddenly objects at the final stage.Using an online proofing tool is a great way to facilitate this feedback process. With Hive, you can manage your proofing and approvals right within your project management software. With Hive’s proofing feature, you can also invite external users (even if they aren’t Hive customers) to proof and approve documents and videos that correspond with any task. Clients can also annotate files and leave feedback via comments for maximum collaboration.
4. Be clear about agency fees and invoices at each stage. Sending an invoice as soon as possible and getting paid on time by clients is one of the key elements for retaining positive cashflow. It also means paying your staff on time and planning future investments better.

5. Give freedom to choose tools

Another way to achieve a positive cash flow and drive the company’s growth is by giving your team more freedom to decide on the way of running projects and pick the best tools. There is some evidence to prove it works.

Michelin, one of the biggest employers in the US, with over 114,000 people, wanted to conduct an experiment on one of their German plants. Its idea was based on eliminating managers who direct employees and substituting them with coaches who had no formal authority. In addition, employees could decide on the way they planned to achieve their personal targets, manage their tasks, and even book holidays.

Michelin saw success and decided to apply the same principles to all of its other plants as well. Since then, Michelin has nearly doubled its size, and the company’s transformation has got the attention of major media outlets.

Michelin’s experiment can be applied to any industry, including creative fields and agencies. Give your employees the freedom to choose how they are going to achieve their targets and manage projects. For example, some people prefer to manage tasks in a timeline, while others would go for Gantt chart creator. Pro tip for ultimate project flexibility: Hive. Hive lets users view any project in 6 different views (Gantt, Kanban, Portfolio, Summary, Table, and Calendar) so everyone can work how they are most productive.

This also applies to the digital marketing toolset. For example, some specialists would prefer using Active Campaign to Hubspot or some other email automation system. Instead of sticking to only one tool, give the freedom to choose your team’s favorite.

6. Automate appointment scheduling

Have you ever counted how many hours you spend on low-value tasks? This study proves it’s at least 19 working days per year! Even more, employees in Australia and New Zealand (and likely elsewhere, too) estimated they spend almost half of their time on repetitive tasks.

Source: Clockify

For agencies, one of the repetitive tasks is appointment scheduling. No matter if you are trying to manage your appointments on your own or delegate them to your assistant, this task should not be managed manually and eat out your team’s time.

Scheduling appointments can be much easier – instead of juggling emails with clients trying to find the time to suit both parties, go for an appointment booking app that will help convert your leads into calls and sales faster. You should also Cconsider using software optimized for your industry. For example, agencies specializing in solar energy solutions can use a solar appointment setting tool. Using an efficient scheduling tool can be a game-changer in ensuring a steady flow of leads and prospects.

To further optimize your meeting booking process, make sure you follow up with meeting attendees leading up to the event. Meeting reminder tools like GoReminders can do this automatically for you, helping reduce the number of leads and clients who don’t turn up for a call. This way, you can manage your agency pipeline better and nothing will go through the cracks.

To sum up

Managing projects while working at an agency takes some effort, but with the proper agency tools and leadership skills, you can set your team up for success. Agencies rely on collaboration — both internal and external — to make sure everyone benefits from the result of the project. So when your team works together well and includes clients throughout every stage of the project, you are sure to set yourself up for success.

If you’re in the market for an agency project management tool, sign up and try Hive free for 14 days. There’s a reason why over 1,000 teams are using Hive to power their projects!