Seriously, are you? Why do you think so? Is it because you've been doing what you do for a day, week or year longer and thus you are more "experienced" and thus smarter or did you commit yourself to learning via blogs, articles, webinars, or a conference?
One of the biggest gripes I have with the hourly billing model that most agencies are adopting or being forced to adopt by clients is that it doesn't leave room for "getting smarter" time. Add in a purchasing agent or two and you get a total cluster$#%k of a contract because all they focus on is activity based billing. Every line item in a time sheet is scrutinized to make sure the activity is billable under the contract and "getting smarter" isn't one of them.
But here is the rub... part of what clients should be paying agencies for is getting smarter. As a Brand Manager, Marketing Director, CEO or Owner, you have a pretty broad spectrum of things you need to cover. Your agency has one: communicating to your customer/prospect. Because of that, they need only really stay abreast of that one vertical (primarily but not exclusively) to remain smarter. And because they are smarter, they can make you smarter.
It's a shame really. Personally I just find time to do it because frankly life would be boring if I wasn't constantly learning and sharing. I've talked about creating services that keep you smarter and at our agency, Zehnder Communications, we instilled ThinkAbouts in an effort to ensure our workers stay smarter. But what do you do? How do you ensure that you, your staffers or co-workers are getting smarter? Where do you bill that time?
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