Teams | Collaboration | Customer Service | Project Management

Nifty has been the versatile Swiss army knife for an automotive tech start-up, Schmicko. They specialize in professional mobile car care services, held together tightly with smart technology, starting with Nifty. With so many moving parts of the business, from onsite technical services to customer service, marketing, and so on, it becomes incredibly easy to get caught up in daily activities instead of the ‘main objectives’.

Let’s face it, you didn’t start an agency because you’re obsessed with numbers. But whether you like it or not, understanding your business and how to set yourself (and your team!) up for success often starts with and comes down to numbers.

Just before the holidays in 2021, the marketing team at Mural was met with the most brow-furrowing of work problems: Company leaders presented them with an abstract-sounding challenge and gave them a hard deadline to figure it out. Mural was going to complete its first acquisition in its 10-year history and establish a new market category. But how does one launch a new category? And what is this new category? How does one communicate that positive transformation to customers?

Getting new employees is expensive and takes up a lot of time and resources. Hiring a new employee costs on average $4000, according to Glassdoor. Additionally, the U.S. is currently suffering from the Great Resignation, an unprecedented amount of workers leaving their jobs. For that reason, it is important to try and retain as many of your current employees as possible. You will probably also face the challenge of hiring new talents. It is not easy, and you need all the help you can get.

Figuring out what to charge for products is challenging. Determining what to charge for services is even harder. And when those services are both creative and wide-ranging — like they are at your agency — getting pricing just right can feel downright maddening. In this guide, we’ll show you what you need to know as you develop an initial pricing strategy for your agency, along with 14 strategies businesses across a spectrum of industries use to set their pricing.

Whether you are just starting out in your project management career or are a seasoned pro, it is essential to understand the iterative process. This process is commonly used in software development but can be applied to any project – sometimes even a personal one. An iterative process is an approach to problem-solving that involves breaking down a significant problem into smaller, more manageable pieces.

You’ve been running your agency with a small but mighty team, and it's been working out for you…or so you think. How do you know when it's not? Agencies can get used to running lean out of pure necessity, stuck in survival mode while efficiency, profitability, and employee happiness suffer–and don’t have to! But the thought of hiring help can seem like a bigger burden than a simple solution.

Project managers know the success or failure of a plan rests primarily on their shoulders — that’s why staying focused and organized is critical. Keeping team members on task, handling the inevitable issues that rear their ugly heads, and moving the project forward so the deliverables are completed on time takes more than luck and skill. Project success depends on how well you stay organized. There are dozens, or hundreds, of ideas and methodologies for staying organized.