grow, build, sell, live: a practical guide to running and building an agency and enjoying it

Agency leaders spend the majority of their time on three areas - their people, clients and new business. These are all important levers for consultancy growth. But too often, agency owners forget two more essential tools for growth: attention to the numbers, and investment in their leaders.
The consultancy leadership role can seem like an endless stream of fires to put out. It can leave leaders feeling as if their team, or their clients, are running their business rather than themselves. That’s where this book comes in.
Grow, Build, Sell, Live features practical and implementable advice and tools to address the day-to-day reality of running a successful agency. In addition to giving guidance on people, clients and new business, the book covers leadership and the numbers in detail to ensure leaders have the tools and knowledge to be in control.
The content draws on proven approaches, helpful science and real-life examples to give practical recommendations to improve readers’ ability to achieve the controlled growth which is essential to agency success.
If you are thinking about starting your own agency; have started one and hit your first round of growing pains, or are a veteran looking for an exit, this book is for you. It will appeal to current and aspiring agency owners who want to understand and be conscious of their choices and take control of their agency.

Richard Houghton works as a specialist management consultant to agencies in marketing services, focusing on growth. He spent the first 25 years of his career working in public relations consultancies in the UK and Europe, holding senior management and managing director positions in three top ten agencies. He also ran his own technology agency for a decade. During his career he has dealt with a very wide range of management challenges including merging three agencies to create a new firm, divisional and agency turn rounds, and the launch of an agency. A columnist for PR Week, he writes on the business of public relations in the monthly Agency Doctor column. A past president of the International Communications Consultants Organisation, Richard sits on its Board of Management and is a former Chairman and founding Fellow of the PRCA. Crispin Manners is CEO and Founder of Onva Consulting. He is also Chairman of The Employee Engagement Alliance and a Director of The Employee Engagement Awards. A Founding Fellow and Past Chairman of the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA), he was one of the youngest Fellows of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) and is a Fellow of the Institute of Directors. Crispin grew his business from 3 to 66 people. In the process he led the company to be the fastest growing PR company in the UK, the #2 performer over a decade and one of the Top 5 PR firms to work for. It was later ranked Ofex Company of the Year and received the accolade of the UK’s Innovative Company of the Year. He now specialises in driving growth through employee engagement and advises a number of PR agencies around the world on how to achieve their potential.