Having had time to digest The Budget (and recover from a bad bout of indigestion) we’re now making the adjustments to our somewhat blown budget. We clearly weren’t alone in our initial Rennie reaching reaction:
- 67% of business leaders feel negatively towards the Autumn Budget
- 67% think that it does not support the Government’s growth mission
(Institute of Directors, 1st November 2024).
With a significant impact on our clients business plans as well as our own, it’s up to us to make proactivity our weapon of choice. Whilst I’m not preaching a ‘manifest’ message here, what I am saying is that this kick in the business balls, might also be a kick in the business arse that we need. This article looks at five opportunities for growth in the face of a challenging budget.
Take opportunities to optimise
The cost of employing our teams is going up. Does this affect our planning? Yes. Does it kill our ambition and stop growth? Only if we let it! We can address the challenge of increased employment costs by optimising our processes.
We can look to improve utilisation, nail accurate briefs and get the work right first time. In short, it presents an opportunity to sharpen up. We’ll have a more efficient operation and deliver better service to our customers – win-win.
Face budgets with confidence
But what about clients cutting budgets? Clients will only turn the taps off when their confidence in your capabilities (and theirs) hits a wobble. Having early conversations that address the budgetary elephant in the room is the way forward.
It’s your business to understand the impact of the budget on theirs and seek out ways to make them more money to solve the problem.
Perform better
With tighter budgets, ROI comes into closer focus. So our focus will be on pushing performance for clients. We need to make every pound count and work harder to earn the next ten, the next hundred, the next thousand…
Being all over the data so we can make agile decisions about where a client’s budget is best spent is not just our responsibility, it’s our privilege. We get to celebrate their successes and do work that genuinely improves their bottom line and profitability.
Be transparent
At the risk of not winning ‘most popular peer’, we all need to increase our transparency with clients. Our reporting needs to be on point. In a dynamic market, we probably also need to up the frequency too.
Clients need to know we’re making their business our business and responding to what we’re seeing. Their marketing investment should never be subject to a ‘set and forget’ strategy. It should be kept under constant review to yield the best outcome on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.
Increasing value and saleability
And where clients had plans to sell their businesses and are massively affected by the changes, it’s even more important to work with them to increase the value and saleability of their asset. The net result being that, of the diminished percentage they’ll see as a return for their years of toil, they’ll at least get to enjoy a slice of a bigger pie.
In conclusion
In my view, we have a responsibility to hold back the self-fulfilling prophecy of another recession. By going for our growth plan regardless, we’re setting a standard for our clients to see. If it works for us, it will work for them. And before you dismiss this as merely ‘big talk’, McKinsey reported that businesses which invested in marketing during the 2008 recession achieved a 17% compound growth rate.
I’m a firm believer that growth is a choice. Yes, there are a myriad of macro and micro factors affecting the agency world. Yes, we may not see exponential growth any time soon. But next year, the UK is projected to see economic growth at 2% and inflation is set to fall by 2.6% (BBC). Let’s not be on the back foot. Let’s get into it with a mindset and strategy set on growth, back ourselves, inspire our clients and F@$% THE BUDGET!
If you enjoyed this article, you might also be interested in watching Andy’s talk on
‘Growth is a Choice’