I’ve got 99 problems but my pitch ain’t one…
As an agency owner, you're no stranger to the ton of challenges that come your way.
From managing client expectations to keeping your team motivated, keeping a healthy pipeline to your 3 year strategic vision - there are always multiple problems that need addressing. For everything that’s working, there’s loads that isn’t.
But how do you prioritise what needs addressing first? When you’ve got 10 things all screaming at you, but only have 8 hours in a day, problem one is working out where to start.
Here’s some advice on how you can prioritise effectively when faced with a shit-list from hell…
1. Assess Urgency and Impact
Start by categorising your problems based on urgency and impact. Urgent issues are those that need immediate attention to prevent significant damage, while impactful problems are those that, when solved, will bring substantial benefits to your agency.
Urgent and High Impact: These are your top priorities. They need immediate action as they can significantly affect your agency’s operations or reputation.
Urgent but Low Impact: Handle these quickly to avoid escalation, but don’t let them consume too much of your resources.
Not Urgent but High Impact: Plan for these strategically. They are crucial for long-term success but don’t require immediate action.
Not Urgent and Low Impact: These can often be delegated or scheduled for later, ensuring they don’t distract you from more pressing matters.
2. Evaluate Available Resource
Consider what’s needed to solve each problem. These include things like time, money, people, and technology. Sometimes, a problem might seem critical, but if the necessary resources aren’t available, it might be more practical to focus on something else temporarily.
Quick Wins: Whilst I typically HATE this term, Identifying problems that can be resolved quickly with minimal resources. Tackling these first can build momentum and provide immediate relief.
Resource Intensive Issues: For problems that require significant resources, work on a plan on how you can find the necessary resources or break the problem down into manageable parts. Outsourcing it might be the best option.
3. Consult with Your Team
Your team is a great place and often an underused area when it comes to putting problems into a list. They can provide valuable insights you might not have considered and help you understand the practical implications of each issue. Regular team meetings to discuss and order problems will help to build a really collaborative environment and ensure everyone is aligned. Team culture is increased as a by-product.
Gather Feedback: Encourage team members to share their perspectives on the most pressing issues. What are they and what solutions do they consider to be the most suitable.
Delegate Tasks: Based on the feedback, delegate tasks to the right team members who have the skills and capacity to handle them. Just because you’re the founder, it doesn’t mean you have to spin every plate.
4. Focus on Strategic Goals
Align your problem-solving efforts with your agency’s strategic goals. This ensures that your actions contribute to the long-term success of your business.
Think about short-term vs long term goals and determine whether solving a problem will help you achieve your short-term or long-term goals. This will help you massively prioritise.
5. Use the Eisenhower Matrix
Whilst I’m not a fan of corporate buzzwords and bullshit, one framework which is perfect here is the Eisenhower Matrix. It helps you categorise things into four quadrants based on their urgency and importance. (Asana explain it nicely)
Square 1 (Urgent and Important): Do these tasks immediately
Square 2 (Not Urgent but Important): Schedule these tasks and tackle them proactively. Make sure you give them timescales so they don’t float.
Square 3 (Urgent but Not Important): Delegate these tasks if possible - who in the team might be best suited to own them?
Square 4 (Not Urgent and Not Important): These can go. They’ll distract you, suck time and don’t have any impact. Bin em’
6. Embrace Tech
There’s loads of tools out there which can help you create an action list, keep you on track and measure progress. Use them, get it out your head and into a format that’s accessible by others. Tools like Trello, Asana, or Miro can help you visualise your priorities, set deadlines, and monitor progress. AI (the first mention!) can also be your friend here and provide a great method for simplifying your list, offer 3rd person perspective and, in some cases, even give you the solutions to certain problems.
7. Review regularly
Your ‘to-do’ list is not a one-time activity. Regularly reassess it to adapt to new challenges and opportunities. Your agency is changing monthly, weekly, even daily so you need to keep on top of what’s needed and where effort and time is best spent.
Weekly reviews will help keep things on track. It gives you a chance to get together with your team, monitor the status, gain valuable insight and perspective (priorities change) and keep momentum up.
As I said, things will change, so be prepared to be flexible and promote or demote as needed as our industry is a bit crazy right now.