The Highest Leverage Moves To Make On Your Way To 8 Figures

April, 7th 2024

Exiting account management and account strategy is one of the highest leverage moves to make on your way to 8 figures

The ROI could be huge with all the new free time

But it can also kill your business

Mess this up, clients will be calling you dissatisfied and asking you to come back

Sentencing you to agency prison forever

Here is how to do this the right way 

Grow Now

1 Scope Out The Role

Roles

Goals & KPIs

Responsibilities

If you have been owning this role, and this is your first time delegating, take the time to truly sift out all the things you do

Include the micro details 

The objective of this exercise is to identify the end-to-end approach that makes you successful here to templatize the standard work once the role is delegated 

2 Training Library

While you are functioning in the role, aggregate AS MUCH as possible

• Every time a client asks you a question in email or DMs, have an admin add to a training library/internal Wikipedia (question, subject, answer, picture/loom of interaction)

• Every call you conduct, record it

The goal when we onboard someone into this role is they have 10s of hours of content to consume

It should be so much, that it is overwhelming

When we onboard this role, a lot of the first week will be consumption of content

We will want a consistent cadence of observing/studying you in the role via the content you provide

This consumption can go on for months…

Killer Content (My favorite pieces of content from last week):

• Podcast: Ultimate: How Dot & Co Gets Agency Owners Out Of Account Management

• Long Form Youtube: Maximizing Your Time: The SAD Process for Entrepreneurs

3 Training Matrix

As a result of exercise one, scoping out the role, you should have a clear understanding of the micro behaviors you conduct that lead to effective results, trust, and rapport

When this is done well, you’ll have multiple categories of functions conducted

Some examples:

• Copywriting 

• Communication 

• Conflict resolution 

• Presentation and FAQs

When we onboard or interview talent, we can use this matrix to assess the skills our talent does and does not have

When we know what is missing, we can provide an intentional training roadmap (or specific training from the training library for them to consume)

This will speed up the adoption of missing skills 

I recently recorded a great video on how to master employee onboarding 

This will help you scale rapidly 

The video link is here (link) 

4 Training Rubric 

For any role, we need a rubric on how to do things well

• How to write a good blog

• How to run an effective ad

• How to conduct a weekly client meeting

• How to conduct a monthly business review

The list could go on forever

All of the above bullet points could, and should, be training documents if applicable to your company

They should also be grading rubrics when auditing team members' work

The brain works within mental models

When we give feedback towards a consistent standard, the brain maps quicker to that path when performing skills with a broad stroke of options

5 Onboarding 

If possible, I recommend you onboard your talent in advance of needing them PT/FT

At 8F, we onboard consultants months in advance of needing them in a PT function

In order for us to make this possible, we offer prospects who don't have the budget for our services to work with new consultants who are in training

They are assured the talents they’re working with are still exceptional (8 figure executives)

They are just learning and adapting to our models 

This gives us the ability to pitch our consultants working with us in a micro capacity

1-2 accounts at first to get paid to learn our systems and ensure we are a good fit for them and they are a good fit for us

For 8F, it mitigates making a bad hire

It turns a training expense into a minor profit 

It mitigates putting a green team member on an important account

Let me know if you want to be put on the waiting list for something like this

6 Outsource AM

There are many agencies that have been bringing on senior account managers via a white-label provider

There are service providers that will source senior account managers and elevate their performance through training to elite standards

When investing in a company like Dot & co, you invest in a fixed retainer for them to staff an account manager

They place someone with agency-specific experience 

I love this model for many reasons

• Companies like this sift through tens of thousands of resumes to make 1 hire

• When talent churns, they source and staff on your behalf

When done well, it's a great investment of capital to arbitrage the time it takes to find an excellent AM

7 Join Calls

Prior to handing off your accounts to a new AM, bring them into your calls for 1-3 months to work alongside you and to warm up your clients to this new team member

8 Run Calls Together

When you feel they’re ready, begin having them take more ownership in the calls and collaborate with you

9 They Run Calls

When it’s time, have them fully run the calls while you audit them writing notes in the rubric

10 Call Reviews

Eventually, you will delegate your calls or bring on new accounts to this team member

At first, I strongly recommend having daily training sessions and call reviews

When done well, delegating account strategy or management off your plate can lead to massive ROI

Most founders do all the legwork to only avoid auditing their talent on an ongoing basis

Audits must be forever

Conduct audits and feedback daily then weekly then eventually bi-weekly

The AM/strategist manager will always have auditing of calls and performance on their standard work

This ensures our standards are never dropped and when the ball gets dropped, the audits will catch a drop in performance and re-adjust to the standard

Stay Happy

Stay Hungry,

Jordan Ross

CEO & Founder @ 8 Figure Agency

Let's Stay in Touch!