Your agency doesn't have a sales problem. It has a people problem. I spent 15+ years building teams, from scrappy startups, to scaling tech companies, to huge agencies like GroupM and WPP. Now, I give small agency owners the SOPs, frameworks, and hard truths they need to build high-performance cultures that run without them.
The Tl;DR, Showing How To Create An Annual Report
October 14 - October 27
Writing Your Own Report Card (For The Fourth Time)
For the past four years, I built an Annual Report to document my progress as an entrepreneur as well as get feedback on where I was going next. Here's Year 1, Year 2, and Year 3.
This being my fourth go-around for this exercise, it was a lot tougher than previous years. One key differentiator was that from Feb 2022 until Aug 2023, I was doing consulting with a big big marketing company. It was a lazy girl job.
Upsides: Easy money.
Downsides: Stopped hustling my own business.
When that lazy girl job ended in August, I was at a crossroads- do I seek full-time employment that provides financial freedom, do I reinvest in a business that provides everything but financial freedom, or do I pursue something else?
#professionalcrossroads
I forced myself to grapple with this crossroads on a deep personal level. What made me happy? What made me financially secure? Why would I do one thing over another? In the past three years, what do I look back on with joy and what that might tell me about where I should go next?
Somehow, Past Dan was smart enough to write an Annual Report for every year. Those artifacts were valuable exercises then but even more so now. Back then I needed to measure progress. Now I needed perspective, and three years of Annual Reports were very helpful to trace a throughline of behaviors, thoughts, and improvements.
Thanks, Past Dan. You done did good work.
Now, not all of you may have a Past Dan that encouraged you to analyze, document, and present your progress in your own business. That's ok! You can't change the past but you can write the future.
If you want to set yourself up for longitudinal growth, start now. Pick an auspicious date that you can set aside as an unforgettable milestone for reflection and pretend that you are making an important presentation to the smartest people that you know.
For me, I used my LLC filing start date as my auspicious date and actually invited smart people to tell me their thoughts (my "Advisory Board"). Having an audience provided way more pressure, way more humbling feedback, and ultimately way more results.
Here's a format that I use for my Annual Report:
- Snapshot of your business lifetime so far (including failed business approaches)
- Last year's goals and what you actually achieved (including your missed targets)
- Financial status, including what categories you spent and made the most money
- Marketing, including your output and your impact
- Sales, including your wins and losses
- Wins and Fails
- Next Steps
- Any relevant data/appendix items
Here's what I've found not to be as relevant to an Advisory Board or Future Me:
- Super detailed website, social media, advertising, etc. traffic numbers
- Specific failure incidents ("this one guy didn't pay me" stories) that doesn't indicate a trend
- The specific line items you spent the most money on
- Individual webinars/programs/initiatives
- Case studies of terrible customers (they're unforgettable!)
- Side projects that nobody really cares about
- Detailed next steps (vs strategic next steps)
To help you get started writing your own Annual Report, I've created a template Annual Report that you can use for free to get started. If you get stuck, you can always write back and I'd be thrilled to help you frame up your own Annual Report.
Have fun looking in the mirror.
| Make Your Very Own Annual Report |
A TL;DR from the CRO
More fetching in 2023-2024 would be a good goal.
-Roman Noodles, Chief Ruff Officer
I took a little vacation to Las Vegas last week to lose money at the casino (which, surprisingly, I failed at) and see several national parks (which I did not fail at).
Since most of you know that I'm an amateur rock tumbler, I tried to collect some interesting rocks while questing around the desert that I could take home and turn into something cool.
Problem 1: a lot of rocks in that area are too dang soft to rumble-tumble. The Grand Canyon is grand because the geology is mostly sandstone and other mushy rocks.
Problem 2: evidently it's bad luck to take rocks away from their homes. Something about the spirits and stuff and whatever.
However, looking into the bad luck concept did reward me a very important piece of knowledge: the conscience pile. It's literally a pile of rocks people returned because the rock-pilferers felt bad...or tried to break a curse.
What if we had more conscience piles in our lives? What if you returned bad advice to their owners, or maybe disappointing meals back to a restaurant?
Yeah, think on that last one.
Go break a curse,
Dan from Learn to Scale
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Dan Newman
Your agency doesn't have a sales problem. It has a people problem. I spent 15+ years building teams, from scrappy startups, to scaling tech companies, to huge agencies like GroupM and WPP. Now, I give small agency owners the SOPs, frameworks, and hard truths they need to build high-performance cultures that run without them.
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