“I am delighted, that through the EACA network, we can offer this webinar to IAPI members. As a globally recognised expert in pricing and business strategy, Tim Williams has provided our leaders with highly informative and thought provoking seminars in the past so, for those who have attended previously, you will know how knowledgeable and practical his sessions are.” Charley Stoney, CEO, IAPI.

But these are largely temporary dynamics that will eventually turn themselves around. The central cause of the problem -- the key driver -- is the agency business model itself.

More specifically, agencies are lacking a revenue model. Whereas most other modern businesses have a dynamic, multi-faceted pricing structure, agencies simply have a schedule of hourly rates. They have a self-limiting inventory of hours they sell to their clients, which places a self-imposed ceiling on both income and profits.

1. Reframing agency services as solution sets creates an inherently more valuable offering to clients. Many existing agency competencies can be reimagined as programs or products, which are more scalable, more repeatable, and ultimately more profitable than labor-based services.

2. Moving away from the labor-based compensation approach means senior people can deploy their talents without the constant worry of being “billable,” which results in a higher degree of professional satisfaction.

3. A focus on providing external value (instead of just conforming to internal guesstimates) provides the right kind of healthy, purposeful internal incentives and allows professionals to flourish.

4. Overwork can be avoided by moving to a revenue model where there is clear alignment of economic incentives. In this model, an effective campaign can enjoy a long life (as it should) and the firm can benefit financially without having to constantly log hours against a project.

Specific topics that will be discussed include:

• Developing a revenue model, not just a cost structure.
• Cultivating a diversified pricing portfolio.
• Selling solutions instead of services.
• Building a business that’s easier to scale but harder to duplicate.
• Removing your self-imposed profit ceiling.
• Monetising what you know, not just what you do.
• Selling, tracking and managing outputs and outcomes instead of inputs.
• Trading utilisation for effectiveness.
• Institutionalising pricing (not costing) as a core competency.

Based on his expertise in business models and pricing strategies, Tim has been interviewed and quoted by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Guardian, National Public Radio, Toronto Globe & Mail, Australian Financial Review, Huffington Post, Bloomberg News, Marketing Week as well as radio talk shows, televised interviews, and podcasts. Tim writes the popular blog Propulsion and contributes regularly to LinkedIn, where he was invited to serve as a global LinkedIn Influencer with several hundred thousand subscribers to his posts.

As a consultant to advertising and marketing firms, Tim has worked with hundreds of agencies and other professional firms ranging from mid-size independents to multinational networks, including all five of the top agency holding companies. Before forming Ignition Consulting Group, Tim was president of several independent agencies after having worked for global agencies including Ogilvy and Burson-Marsteller in New York and elsewhere.