FunctionFox Articles & Resources


At FunctionFox, we believe in sharing what we've learned. Here you'll find all kinds of articles and white papers that provide insight into issues that are critical to the success of creative teams like yours.

Growing Your Company

Not Getting the New Business You Want? Take a Closer Look at Your Target Audience.

As a creative professional, you know the impact of branding, market differentiation, and design, on your clients’ business. But what about your own business?... More

To Win More New Business, Try Focusing On Fewer Prospects

One of the most common business development mistakes that agencies make is trying to keep in touch with everyone: every prospects, colleague and connection... More

5 Questions Before You Commit to a Niche

Once you've got positive answers to these 5 questions, you can confidently begin your approach toward your niche... More

The Power Of Uniqueness. Five Steps to Differentiate Your Company

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." But it won't help you when it comes to marketing. Is your message interchangeable with your competition?... More

3 Unbreakable Rules for Business Planning

In the world of marketing and strategic business planning, these tried and true rules are easy to comprehend but difficult to follow... More

5 Need-to-Know New Business Secrets for Advertising Agencies

Practical and thought provoking insight about how advertising agencies - and digital publishers - can successfully generate new business... More

How to Create a Platform for New Business

If you're serious about taking your agency to the next level, you can't succeed without a platform... More

Getting Time on Your Side

5 Sure-Fire Ways to Account for all the Work You’ve done so you can Stay Creative

Whether you’re in a design team charging back to an internal department, or part of a creative groupe working directly with clients, accounting for all... More

747,000 Reasons to Keep Track of Your Time

The only thing worse than not tracking time is tracking time inaccurately, and then making decisions using flawed data... More

Personal Whitespace

It was the beginning of the year 2000 and I was returning to work from a much needed two week holiday break when I sat my staff down and made an announcement that shocked them all: "Starting today I'll be taking off every Friday." My team looked at each other with doubtful expressions on their faces, turned back to me and said, "Yeah, right!" ... More

Say Goodbye to Billable Hours

I spent the first six years of my marketing-agency career chasing hourly quotas instead of results. Yes, we cared if the client was happy and successful, but the fundamental economic driving force behind the firm's existence was the billable hour... More

Tracking Hours is not only for Chargeback Organizations

In-house creative service teams with an hourly chargeback model must track their time-often to the quarter-hour increment. The discipline of time tracking can be off-putting for many teams at first, but the advantages of time tracking can't be ignored... More

Creating Strong Relationships

Spread the word, spread the love.

If you want to attract new business by having your current clients spread the word, you can help them recommend you. Here are 4 strategies for generating good, loving referrals... More

Getting Clients vs. Enrolling Clients

Healthy clients want to be led, guided and served. So rather than trying to "get" your next clients, change your mindset. Look for clients who you can enroll in working with you... More

How to avoid nightmare clients

There can only be one leader in your client relationship and if you aren't the one leading, your client will be, and that's when the nightmare begins... More

Bad Clients are Easy to Find

Most creative teams have worked with clients that have morphed into something nasty. How does it happen? Are there clues that the client will be a disaster? Are there clues a client will be a dream? The short answer to both questions is yes. There are definitely clues and if you know what you're looking for, you can see the signs almost from the first contact. More

Getting the Numbers Right

3 Advanced Pricing Strategies

If you are having difficulty getting clients to agree to a final price, here are three strategies that may help you when negotiating and presenting your fees...More

What is Marketing Agency Slippage?

Agency Slippage is the amount in dollars of billable work each year that you are not billing your customers - this is also known as your Realization Gap, or the amount of billable hours you are not realizing... More

3 Things You Must Control In Your Creative Businesses

Even if "business" is not your favorite aspect of your business, don't ignore the 3 essential elements you can (and must) control to be successful in business: your pipeline, your pricing and your cash flow... More

A Simple Formula for Profitable Pricing

Are you losing money on the projects you're working on today? Did you price them high enough? Here's a simple way to calculate your pricing if you want to be profitable... More

What is the Real Cost of Speculative Creative?

Here are five reasons that spec creative is very, very, very expensive for a small creative company. What can you do? How can you get more business and avoid RFPs? It comes down to being an expert and marketing yourself to the prospective clients that would benefit from your expertise... More

How to Determine Pricing?

Common questions that many creative professionals ask with regards to pricing: How do you determine pricing in your company? When do you raise your rates? What is your target Billable Efficiency, and how do you come up with those numbers? More

Managing for Success

What Stands in the Way of Change

Whatever change you desire, there is one thing that will always slow you down and keep you stuck from from making it happen. The fear of the unknown... More

Using Brand Briefs and Creative Briefs to Guide Design and Client Feedback

Nobody likes surprises. One of the things we talk about often is the anxiety a client must feel talking to and evaluating designs. Anxiety is high among experienced clients and... More

How to Prioritize Your Marketing

If you don’t prioritize your own marketing, if you keep putting it on the back burner, you won’t get the projects you want. Yes, you’re being paid to do the client work, but... More

Why Principals Are Looking at Succession Options Again

I’ve fielded more inquiries about succession recently than at any time in the last two decades. By succession, I’m including... More

10 Ways Marketing Agencies Can Maximize ROI for Clients

The future belongs to dynamic agencies with a commitment to producing measurable results for clients. Here are 10 tips to help you maximize client ROI... More

Six Kick-Ass Ways to Do More Than Just Traffic

Just another little tidbit to get you excited about a very important - but often neglected - function of a well-run agency... More

Are you ready for 'The Pitch'?

How Bee-line Communications Inc. got ready for 'The Pitch' with FunctionFox... More

Additional Resources

The Rise of Multimedia Content

Not news: Marketers have moved beyond the written word and blog post in our campaigns. Text was once sufficient to reach your target audience by appealing to their needs and interests, but.... More

7 Ways to Improve your Bottom Line

Without an efficient creative review process agencies cannot produce and ship assets at a rate that customer data makes possible and, as a result, that customers now demand.... More

Top Ten Resources for Freelancers

Check out these 10 practical resources for more profitable freelancing... More

Are You in Control of Your Creative Work?

Five steps steps to take throughout the creative process that will help both you and your client be more effective and happy... More

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