Agency Journey is a monthly series detailing the happenings of my agency Barrel, founded in 2006.
Below are past episodes along with the topics covered in each.
Agency Journey Episode 20 (Y15M11), April 2022
- A Professional Liability Case
- Our First Ever Barrel Holdings Quarterly Review Meeting
- A Longtime Client Gives Notice
- Shifting C-Suite Responsibilities
- Performance and Standards in Managing Employees
Agency Journey Episode 19 (Y15M10), March 2022
- A Couple of Launches
- Boomerang Hire, Our New Director of Software Engineering
- Staying Tight on Costs
Agency Journey Episode 18 (Y15M9), February 2022
- Hard Realities and Tough Decisions
- Heads Down Execution
Agency Journey Episode 17 (Y15M8), January 2022
- New Business Wins & Outbound Action
- Team Attrition Setbacks & Q12 Worries
- Annual Planning Meetings
- Simplifying the Business with Key Metrics
- We Launched a New Portfolio Company
Agency Journey Episode 16 (Y15M7), December 2021
- Working in New Team Members
- New Launches & New Wins
- Keeping It Simple in 2022
Agency Journey Episode 15 (Y15M6), November 2021
- Containing and Putting Out Fires
- New Launches & New Wins
- Achieving Hiring Goals
- Sharpening My Focus in Key Areas
Agency Journey Episode 14 (Y15M5), October 2021
- Missing the office vibe
- Quarterly Partner Meeting in person
- Choppy Waters: Business Struggles & Team Turnover
- Sports Analogy: Taking Our Eyes Off the Games
Agency Journey Episode 13 (Y15M4), September 2021
- The unstoppable force of human adaptation
- DTC Patterns
- Barrel Manager Growth Framework
- The need to refocus on client outcomes
Agency Journey Episode 12 (Y15M3), August 2021
- Building a Talent Acquisition Discipline
- Modernizing Our Financial Systems
- Launching Vaulted Oak, a New Agency Business
- Staying Disciplined on the New Business Front
Agency Journey Episode 11 (Y15M2), July 2021
- In-Person Partner Planning Meeting
- Mid-Year Reflections
- Barrel Maxims
- All Feedback is Information (How we responded to negative Glassdoor review)
Agency Journey Episode 10 (Y15M1), June 2021
- Celebrating 15 Years
- New Talent Acquisition Manager
- No More Fighting Fires
- Agency Business Model
Agency Journey Episode 9 (Y14M12), May 2021
- Launches & New Business Wins
- Immunity to Change Map
- New Org Structure
- Prioritizing Talent Acquisition
Agency Journey Episode 8 (Y14M11), April 2021
- Wes Celebrates 10 Years at Barrel
- Quarterly Town Hall
- Initiatives Across the Board (Impact of coaching)
- Leadership (Making hard decisions)
- The Downstream Impact of Business Development
Agency Journey Episode 7 (Y14M10), March 2021
- Leveling Up on HubSpot
- Agency One-Pager
- Novus Global Training
- Busting Through the Intuitive Fence
- Systematizing Lead Generation
Agency Journey Episode 6 (Y14M9), February 2021
- Making Meetings Effective
- Sei-Wook Becomes a Dad
- Tightening Up Our Services Offering
- Reimagining the Way We Work (Moving to Asana)
Agency Journey Episode 5 (Y14M8), January 2021
- A Week of Looking Ahead (Annual planning meetings recap)
- Our Director of Client Services Starts
- Profit Share Goes Out
- A Few of Sizable Investments (Professional services membership org and coaching)
- Project Delays and Their Impact
- Team Structure, Utilization, and Leverage
Agency Journey, Episode 4 (Y14M7), December 2020
- New Business Wins Just in Time
- Director of Client Services Hired
- Sales Schema Outbound Campaigns
- Thinking About Business Structure (Pod-based model and accounts)
- Writing Down Thoughts, Visualizing Ideas
Agency Journey, Episode 3 (Y14M6), November 2020
- Director of Business Development (Dan’s promotion)
- Director of Client Services Hiring Continues
- Taking Time Off
- 80/20 Principle and Managing My Time & Priorities
- Vision, Intentions, and Questions
Agency Journey, Episode 2 (Y14M5), October 2020
- Diversity Hiring
- Promotions
- Hiring for Director of Client Services
- Initiatives to Make the Business Stronger (Leveraging software for the business)
Agency Journey, Episode 1 (Y14M4), September 2020
- New Business (Wins)
- Improving the Barrel Team Experience
- Feedback (Team workshop and debriefs)
- Net Promoter Score (NPS)
- Recruiting and Org Structure
- New Business Leads (Marketing to drive more)