5 Habits Your Agency Needs To Scale (Based on 3,000 Agency Consultations)

We get all of that into ClickUp so that we understand what we're actually doing and can track all that progress. And so, yeah, you're probably going to have some things that are ad hoc as well, like sending emails or maybe things that come up. But we want to have as much processes that we possibly can built out inside of our system to leverage these, save them as templates and use them over and over and over again. But again, what we want to do essentially is just make sure everything is in one system so that it can be trusted and we have a single source of truth. So, as you can see here, once I actually start to use these workflows like this and I come here to where it's profitable and healthier team. So let's jump into the first and most important habit, which is going to be if it's not in ClickUp, it didn't happen. And so I'm using the word ClickUp here because at ZenPilot, that is our favorite project management system and tool, especially for agencies. But regardless of the system that you use, the most important piece of this is if it's not in your project management system, whatever that is. Asana Monday Teamwork, it didn't happen. You really want to get your team to understand that, hey, if you're working on something, if it's not in the project management system, we're just going to assume that you didn't do it. And this is super important for agencies, especially those remote agencies, because we want to make sure that we're building a single, cohesive source of truth to really understand what's happening, especially for, for your clients. And as you work with clients, you want to be able to document that entire story, to know what we're doing. So we want to build a single source of truth. So especially we are able to trust the data that's in that system to understand what's happening. Because if someone is working on a project or deliverable and then they don't actually put it in there, no one's going to know, like for working across different teams, no one's going to know that you completed that task or that you worked on it. So maybe someone is doing duplicate work as well, which is going to be problematic because then we're doing two things or one thing twice. We don't want that to happen and we just want to build a reliable system. If you've used any other system in the past, whether it's a CRM or whatever it may be, if you're not getting everything in There, all the data that's necessary and you can't actually trust it, then what is the use in it? If we can't have confidence that this is our source of truth, then it becomes essentially pointless and useless. And this is important for agencies because a lot of agencies don't follow this all that much. And then they have their teams maybe doing some things in the system, but not all things. So we're not really documenting what we're doing and we're not able to track all of it as well. So super important. And this in addition, is going to help make sure that nothing slips or falls through the cracks when we're working on projects and deliverables, either for ourselves or for our clients. So again, most important thing is if it's not in ClickUp or if it's not in your project management system, it didn't happen. I can't stress this enough. And so what can actually help with this, and this is a big part of our zenpilot system here, and what makes teams more productive and actually follow sort of if it's not ClickUp, it didn't happen, is you want to go ahead and everything that you do, all those deliverables, all those projects, client onboarding, yada, yada, yada, we want to make sure that we have all of that documented and built out as a template inside of our project management system. So this is a reason I really love, and we love ClickUp at Zenpilot, is your ability to build something like a process library where all of that work lives. And I can actually save all of these as templates, because if you go and you see down here, I have all of our different work categories that we might be actually servicing our clients with. And then each one of those, I have all of these templates built out with all the parent tasks and subtasks as well. So whether it's inbound work, ABM work, SEO work, our client onboarding process and workflow there, as well as maybe we're doing a website project. I have all of that already built out. So people are not going to have near as much of an excuse to not put their tasks in their work inside of ClickUp, because I can build all these workflows out and then just save them as a template, and then you're going to get assigned that work and all you need to do is sort of follow that task. And so this makes it way easier too, to assign and delegate workout to make sure that everything is getting into the system, to manage that and to understand where projects and deliverables and actually lie for our clients. So as you can see here, the most important thing is going to be building all these. We have parent tasks here and subtasks. The structure is essentially the parent task is the name of the deliverable, like podcast case study, landing pages, press releases, ebooks, blog posts, yada yada. And if I come down here, all of these subtasks are going to represent the action steps that will need to be taken by individual people to actually complete this podcast episode. So whether you're creating the strategy, scheduling the interview, designing the thumbnail, all the way down to scheduling the publish date, we want to make sure each of these is assigned to people so that they get sort of complete it in ClickUp. They communicate and ClickUp and basically some live work. As we'll see. We have this blog post. These are each assigned to people so they know what they're in charge of within this sort of workflow for completing this blog post. In addition, everyone's tracking their time in here, so we know how much time we've actually tracked against this blog post. And then we can also see all the communication as well right here. So once we get everything in there with communication, with all the tasks, with actually tracking our time, with tracking the progress of this and all the due dates and everything, that's going to make it way easier for us to manage projects and know what is happening and what people are in charge of, to again, build a single source of truth and make sure that nothing slips to the cracks. So as you can see, this is just for one retainer that I have for shruit farms. But as you do that for multiple clients, as you do that for all internal work as well, we're really going to understand what's happening across the agency and where everything lies. So as you can see, if I jump up to a different view higher in the hierarchy inside of ClickUp here, as we could see now I'm able to manage all of that, all the work that's happening across all of my different clients, see the progress of that, how much time we've tracked, what's actually been completed, what's closed, so on and so forth. We really have a good story for what we're actually doing in building here for our clients. So that's super important. Make sure that if it's not in ClickUp, it didn't happen. Get your team to really believe that and put all of their work, all of their effort, communication, tracking time, all of that inside of one system, so that can Be reliable, make sure nothing slips through the cracks, and get you exactly what you need as an agency. So after that one, basically everything stems from that one. But the second habit that you need to make sure that your team is picking up on is due dates matter. And so due dates mattering, there's oftentimes people will put due dates inside of their project management system and they just put a task in there with a random due date, and then that due date comes along and other work comes up, and then you keep pushing that due date back and back and back. And that's not really helping anyone. If you see a bunch of tasks that are just pushed from Friday to Monday to Tuesday to Wednesday, like no one's going to know when we're actually going to be completing that task. And so that's going to make it very hard to know, like, hey, now can I work on my step from this workflow? Uh, if you're, when are you gonna actually complete this? We wanna make sure your team is, is seeing due dates in the system to say, hey, this is due on the 19th. You're actually gonna complete it on the 19th. Because if you don't do that, it's gonna be way harder to build realistic timelines for your clients. Because if your project manager and your account managers are coming together and they say, hey, our team is really following due dates matter. Once I give them that task, if I'm actually looking at workload and things to make sure we're not overbooking them on that day, if your team is following that, they're going to be able to confidently go to their clients and your clients and say, hey, this is due on July 26th. We're going to get this done for you on July 26th, especially if you, the client, also hold to your part of the deal as well. So if you are, we send you something on July 15th and we need a review by July 16th, you're going to have that to us as well. And that's going to keep us on pace to reach that deadline that we've set for us. So that's going to help us build realistic timelines. It's also going to make it way easier for your team to prioritize their work. Because if everyone follows due dates mattering and the due dates is when I should be completing those tasks, I'm going to be able to come here and see all of my work that's been assigned to me. As you can see, I have not obviously done a very good job of following that because I have a lot of overdues, but that's going to help me know exactly what I need to work on today, tomorrow and in the future. Because these due dates have an actual meaning. It's not just something that's like a suggestion. This due date is, hey, you need to complete this on July 19th. And so the other part that we do at Zenpal is we also make our due dates, the due dates, the do dates. So if this is due on the second, which this is back in 2022 here, I can remap these workflows in the future. So it's not that big of a deal. But if the due date is going to be this day here, that's also when I'm going to do it. So we make these a little bit more bite sized pieces and that also is going to help with workload in the future. Because if I come here to this workload view and I have all of my due dates mattering and the due date is the do date for when I'm actually going to complete and do a task that's going to tell me, hey, you're going to be completing this one, Amy, on the 9th of July here. And so we all know, hey, she's booked up for five hours there and then in the future six hours and six hours. So we all know just based off the way that we're building these tasks out and following all these due dates, that that's when that work is going to be complete. To know, hey, you're booked up that much time. So that habit is really going to help your team propel forward when it comes to being able to see workload overall, building better realistic timelines and just being able to prioritize work for your team there as well. And so again, make sure due dates matter. They have a meeting. Your team's not just pushing tasks forward and forward and forward and forward. We want to make sure the due dates matter. And so now one of the bigger ones here as well, and this is probably the hardest one to get your team to start falling, especially for some agencies if you're not tracking your time right now, because sometimes this can be a bit of a culture shock, but really another habit that you want to do at your agency for you to get good data is track your time. And so really the best way that you can sort of push people into this is not brand it and pitch it as like, hey, we're just, we want to know what you're doing on each and every day. So please track your time because Some people get scared and nervous of that. Cause they feel like you're kind of hovering over them, micromanaging them. We need to track our time so that we know like, who are our best clients, who are our most profitable clients. So tell the team this is more of for the business. This is also going to be for you as well, so that we can get us into good client relationships. Because if we don't track our time, how are we going to invoice our clients? How are we going to know which of our clients are the most profitable as well, to know what kind of client really fits our ideal customer profile there? So we want to be able to get that data to understand what clientele is actually best for the business. And so tracking your time, yes, it's going to help with invoicing, especially if you're tracking those billable hours and that's how you're billing your clients is based off of how much effort and work and hours you're actually putting in. So you're going to need to track your time for that. But it's also going to help us with profitability analysis. So if I come here, a dashboard that we can actually build within the ZenPilot system is being able to see sort of how profitable we are for each of our clients. And this is stemming from ClickUp data and me tracking my time and ClickUp data inside of ClickUp and merging that with some financial data with those cost rates and billable rates to really be able to understand which of our clients are most profitable across certain months. In addition, I can also start to look at like, what are the most profitable projects or services that we do for our clients as well, which is going to give me good data to really, again build that ideal customer profile in the future. In addition, when you track your time, you'll start to be able to get sort of a realistic overview of where time is being spent and be able to know sort of how much time do we have available, how are our estimates versus what we actually track to be able to see, like, hey, are we under or overestimating certain projects? And all that's just going to help you build a better business for both you and for your team, because they're not going to be overwhelmed if you're able to get really good estimates and build those realistic timelines with all that as well. So we just need to track that to get really good data for us to be able to understand all of that information. In addition, this is also going to help with understanding how long things actually take, because if you remember, I built all these process templates here and I have all of the time estimates which is going to help me populate my workload view here. But as we actually track our time in each of these individual tasks right here, which, which the way we would do that is if I actually come to this view I was looking at earlier, I can see the work that I'm assigned to and I can actually track my time right here. So the easier you can make it on your employees and your team as well is going to be super helpful. So I'm able to come here and just see my task, see what I'm assigned to, see the process and be able to track my time directly in that task. It's going to make it way easier for me rather than having to jump to another system and things like that. But that's going to help understand how long work is actually taking. Because then over time I can start to compare all of my track time versus those time estimates. So then over time I could build better and better and better time estimates so that we really understand, hey, this specific task is taking one hour, maybe it's an hour and 15 minutes, which all of that is going to help with making sure you're not overwhelming your team as well. Because better time estimates, better realistic timelines is going to help us understand workloading capacity that much better to really understand how much work is on your plate. So I'm not giving you too much work. So communicate with that, that with your team as well, that we can get better realistic time estimates, better realistic timelines so that you're not overwhelming them and overworking them or even underworking them, because both of those are gonna lead to burnout. And then in addition, a few other things that also leads to accountability and focus. And focus is one of the biggest things that I've seen as a benefit for just me individually tracking my time. Because if I go back to my work here, if I wanna work on a task, and this really comes in with focusing because sometimes you can get distracted on work. But if I come here and say, hey, I'm going to interpret and share this client feedback and follow up with client, if I'm going to start working on that task, I'm going to start my timer just like that, and then I'm going to do this task and not get distracted because I got that timer on. So I'm going to focus all of my efforts into getting this done as that time is tracking, rather than me being like, oh shoot, we got to bounce to a slack message or I got to bounce to another task here because I'm all focused on getting this done as that time tracker is, is ticking for me. And you'll see it up here and it's like, oh man, I don't want to spend too long in this. Obviously don't get a little intimidated by that. But this is going to help your team focus their efforts on the task that they're actually assigned to. And that's also why it's helpful to have all these be smaller, bite sized tasks that are very specific on what you're actually supposed to complete inside of this Pinterest campaign in this example. Because if you just have one task with this is what we're doing. We're doing a Pinterest campaign. You assign this to a bunch of different people. I'm not actually tracking my time on a specific task so you can get again a little distracted there. And that's also going to give you good data on how long each of those individual steps are taking. So when I were to complete that task, I can actually go here, stop my timer, close the task out and then we're good to go. So again, that's super important is tracking your time. If you want to get any of that visibility into what your team is doing, how profitable we are, invoicing how long things are taking, so on and so forth, that's where you're going to get the good data that you need to really drive the business forward. Now, after tracking your time, and this goes with due dates mattering, especially because due dates matter. But sometimes, obviously things are going to be pushed because priorities shift and things like that. And we're not living in a perfect world where we're able to get everything done on time. Obviously that's what you want to do. We've had agencies that have been able to do that. Good example is gravity global completing 99% of their tasks on time, which is huge. It's because they stuck with the due dates matter. But here again, sometimes things happen. So we always, if it does happen, we always want to be leaving a trail. And this is also helping to make sure everyone gets on the same page. We're writing the story of what actually happened in a deliverable or project and also helping hold the team accountable. So let's say I'm in a situation where I need to actually I'm not going to get to this today. I have a lot of work. Maybe the project manager put a little too much on my plate because this time Estimates might not be as realistic because we just got started, but let's say I need to actually push a task to the next day. What I want to do is make sure anytime that happens, I'm coming into this task and I'm mentioning whoever needs to know. So let's say this is John Smith, hey, you are maybe next in the process. Or maybe this is my manager or just someone that needs to know. Maybe it's the account manager, project manager, whoever. I always want to say, hey, I'm falling behind on this. Maybe it needs to be reassigned to someone, or so on and so forth. Just make sure you mention and leave a comment for why you are falling behind, why you weren't able to get to this today, or just say, hey, I need some help on this. Is there any way we can bring in maybe another copywriter or something into this task? So every time you fall behind on something, just make sure you communicate that to the rest of the team so that we're leaving that trail in those breadcrumbs to know what happened during this project so we can go back to sort of see that information. So to know maybe where things fell behind. And again, all that's going to collect data for you in the future to be able to maybe push some of these due dates inside of that process template that you build out. Maybe we've made it a little too close together and we need to push some things out based off all of the work that we're getting. But just think about things like that, always leave a trail for why maybe something that got pushed and things like that communicate all in one place. So we leave those breadcrumbs for the rest of the team to really build that story. And then after leaving a trail, another massive one, and really a core piece of the Zenpilot system here is making the process live, where the work gets done. And this is so important, this habit right here. As your team, you want to get them to be more process driven, more systems minded. But we always want to make sure for all of our work. And this is so important for those agency owners that are starting to really scale their business. And maybe you're doing a lot of different things, wearing a lot of different hats and you want to make sure you're able to delegate work. You can build out a ton of sops and maybe Google Drive or somewhere else, but if those SOPs are not actually connected to the work that needs those SOPs, then it's going to be very difficult for the team to actually follow those because There's a disconnect there. So what we want to do to make sure that our processes get followed by all is anytime you have tasks in here. And this is also very important to have some sort of process library like this, because whether I have SOPs built out in a knowledge base, maybe that's included ClickUp, or I just want to put those directly in these tasks inside of my ClickUp workspace. As you can see here, this has the whole process for how you're going to complete this. So someone's going to get assigned to this task and then they're going to have the description here either linked out to an sop, standard Operating Procedure inside of a ClickUp knowledge base or in Google Drive or somewhere. They're going to have the task. This is the what. I'm going to send the welcome email introducing client to Strategist and then this is going to be the how. So once you get that process, living where this work is happening now, when this task actually gets assigned to me in the future, now I'm actually going to know exactly what I need to do and how I need to do it, and I'm going to follow that proven process that our agency has. So you as the maybe agency founder or the one that built the business, you are growing because you have a really good process for how you do things, a really good strategy. You want to make sure you can duplicate yourself essentially. So you want to have that process, whether this is a loom video again, a standard operating procedure in a document, or just a description like this. You want to make sure as you bring new people on board, they're following your process for how you do things. And so if you want them to follow it, this needs to be where the work is actually happening so that they click directly into their task and they know exactly what they need to do, how they need to do it, so they can get it done right the first time and do work better. This is not going to say, hey, this is a very strict whatever. Sometimes people are scared of processes because they think it's going to take away creative freedom, but that doesn't. They're going to follow it and then also add their additional creative freedom here as well. So make sure your processes, whether it's in a knowledge base like this, inside of ClickUp, whether it's in a Google Drive or something, just make sure those, if you want to get them followed by all, are connected to those tasks for where that actually needs to follow that process. So that's super important. That's going to make onboarding way easier. As you bring on new people and they're assigned to that work, you you can easily delegate work to them and get them trained up way faster than you would otherwise. And then you're going to get better and consistent results for your clients. And it's just going to make your team that much more productive because they have the what and the how for they need to do things. And it makes them that much easier to just follow your process and get their work done better and faster and deliver better results more consistently for your clients. And so those again are the five different habits that you need to follow. If it's not in ClickUp, it didn't happen. Or if it's not in your project management system, it didn't happen. Due dates should always matter. Track your time, leave a trail, and make the process live where the work gets done. And so these five habits are a huge part of our Zempilot system. If you have any questions about the Zen Pilot system and how that can really help you double your productivity and profits as an agency to really install these habits as well as many others and really get a system that's going to help promote all of these and build those healthy habits across your team, go down to the link below. I have it there to learn a little bit more about the ZenPilot system and how it can help your agency build a more productive, profitable and healthy team. But I appreciate you watching this video. Stay tuned for the next one and we'll see you again next time.