Do you (really) listen to your agency when they present, provide strategic counsel or make other recommendations on your business?

All the time? Some of the time? It depends? No? Or, you gotta be kidding…?  The more we talk to clients, the more we realize the position we hold and the services we offer are like those of a “corporate psychiatrist” – we spend a lot of time listening before we can really help diagnose a marketer’s real issues – and even then the job is to help the client see the issue for themselves.

So, when it comes to the question of do you listen to your agency – marketers often confide that they don’t – at least not all the time.

Surprising?  Or is that ringing a little too true for comfort? 

Well, if it’s ringing true for you, take comfort that you’re not alone.  A surprising number of marketers have confided in me that they don’t listen to their agencies all the time. And it’s not just senior level marketers who are tuning out – it’s manager level marketers who are also multi-tasking their way through agency presentations.

There may be any number of reasons for not wanting to listen, but in my experience these can be distilled into the following categories:

Trust

Trust – or lack thereof, is the number one reason for not listening to agencies. And this is worrying.  If you’ve retained an agency to help drive your business, you should be trusting you’ve made the right decision and listen to what your agency has to say.  Unfortunately we hear time and again that marketers don’t “trust” their agencies so they’re frequently tuned out.  And there can be any number of reasons for this. Read on…

Lack of experience

One of the reasons that causes clients not to listen may be a lack of perceived experience by resources assigned to the business.  But the other issue around experience is one that’s directly related to business acumen: Does the person I’m talking to have seasoned business experience to be really counsel us on how to help build our business?

You know your business better

Similar to lack of experience, marketers quickly tune out an agency’s point of view if they believe there’s a real gulf between their own knowledge and an agency’s understanding.  And true enough – most agency resources will never understand your business as well as you do.  But are marketers overlooking objectivity and outside perspectives when they take that view?

Creativity

One issue that appears to have marketers really tuning out is when the creative agenda overtakes the business issue that’s being addressed.  Nobody questions the power of creative when it comes to communicating a message, but when the conversation moves to minutia marketers tune out with frustration. 

Business objectives get lost

At the end of the day, it’s business.  And marketers want agency activities to be aligned to specific business objectives.  When activity or conversations move away (or appear to move away) from the business – the less attentive marketers become.

Budget

This is perhaps less about not listening at all and more about a shorter listening span.  Whenever costs go up and budgets get jeopardized, the listening window gets shorter because marketers want to get to a solution – not rationalize budget overruns. 

Lack of proof points / ROI

In today’s ROI driven world it’s not surprising that marketers are looking for proof points to support agency rationale. If those proof points are weak or ROI calculations aren’t abundantly clear, marketers are going to be less inclined to listen (and / or trust) what the agency has to say. 

Other priorities

And sometimes it’s just a question of priorities. With marketers under so much pressure and so few resources, even good ideas can fall by the way-side and not get a full hearing because other issues are – well – just more important.

Any of those sound familiar? The trick – perhaps for both marketers and their agencies – rests in timing and defining a framework for the types of conversations required.

And it needn’t be complicated. Marketers and agencies should consider setting just a few simple parameters to manage conversations and increase marketer engagement for a healthier, more productive relationship.  Consider some or all of these approaches:

Pick a time for issues

If you or your agency has an issue that needs to be discussed – take time out to talk about it. Sounds overly simplistic perhaps, but dedicating time to discuss whatever it is will almost certainly make for a better outcome than if you try and talk about it on the fly.

Create a process for new ideas

If you want new ideas – you need to be receptive to hearing them while not being distracted by something else.  A weekly, monthly, quarterly – whatever it is – session dedicated to just new ideas will almost certainly yield positive results. 

Set a standard for ROI

If you’ve not developed or shared preferred metrics for measuring ROI, setting a standard by which you want work measured will almost certainly improve the relationship between you and your agency.  The agency will know and be able to work towards what you expect.  And you’ll be more attuned and attentive to what’s being said because it’ll have meaningful metrics attached.

Know when to rebook

If you’re swamped, distracted, overwhelmed, too busy, sick – or perhaps just grumpy – rebook the call, lunch or meeting – to a time when you’re not any of the above. Everyone will get more out of it. (No kidding).

So if you’ve found yourself not listening – some of the time – or perhaps even all the time – take time to think about why and put a framework in place to make your agency conversations more valuable.

Image by freepik.

When it comes to agency relationship management, disconnects between marketers and agencies can be extremely costly and potentially very damaging.  The danger is that rather than proactively attempting to resolve problems, there’s often a tendency to either hope for the best or put lipstick on the proverbial pig in the hope it’ll look better tomorrow.

Problem is, even small upsets can shake the very foundation of client / agency relationships – especially if they’re disconnects around:

Unfortunately, these kinds of disconnects are all too common and the fixes run much deeper than a simple out-of-pocket expense for a corresponding make-good. Left unchecked, disconnects can lead to:

That’s the bad news.

The good news is there are tools and solutions to help you bridge disconnects that won’t have you reaching for your corporate cheque-book or calling an agency review. Here are five that we often come across that we can help alleviate:

Disconnects with costs

Disconnects with costs begin either because the marketer believes they’re paying too much or the agency believes they’re not being paid enough. In either case, one solution is to conduct a cost benchmarking exercise to evaluate the costs against your current agency. The results will provide granularity and transparency around costs and resources and provide a firm, neutral ground for negotiation and resolution.

Disconnect with assigned responsibilities

With the evolution of digital requirements in the overall marketing mix, disconnects in responsibilities have become increasingly common. The first place to look is your agency contract to determine what requirements were set when the agency was first appointed. Chances are that a contract review can help define and alleviate disconnects in responsibilities, and provide a fresh framework for a better working relationship.

Disconnects with overall agency satisfaction

Before contemplating an agency review it’s essential to understand where dissatisfaction really lies and whether there are patterns or themes that make-up the disconnects you’re experiencing. The best way to understand what disconnects are causing roadblocks within your agency relationships is to have a third party conduct a stakeholder interview process to help provide an objective perspective on what’s really going on. A neutral stakeholder interview process can pinpoint disconnects and identify potential solutions that may even offset the need for an agency review.

Disconnects or turf-wars between roster agencies

For marketers with multiple agencies on their roster, it’s not uncommon for disconnects and / or turf-wars to crop-up between agencies. The challenge is often that it’s difficult to uncover where disconnects are happening – much less why. A 360º agency evaluation process that evaluates at both agency and client perspectives will pinpoint disconnects or roadblocks and point to solutions that can make for a more collaborative and productive agency roster.

Disconnects with resources on your business

If you’ve been struggling with too many, too junior, or not enough resources in a particular area on your business, chances are the disconnects are around the cost of those resources to run your business. A professionally run staffing and cost alignment process will help most marketers define what resources are required to run their business effectively while also defining the costs associated with that plan.

The best way to avoid disconnects in any client / agency relationship is to proactively manage the relationship before the disconnects are allowed to begin – using some or all of the tools described above.

If you haven’t got an agency relationship management plan or a mutually agreed client / agency playbook – perhaps it’s time to sit down, start talking and taking your agency relationship seriously.  That way you can avoid the lipstick and the potential pig’s breakfast.

 

Over the past two decades I have seen more than a thousand agency credentials presentations, either in reviewing an agency or as part of the pitch process. I am often asked to help agencies refine and sharpen their agency story. You would think that advising a company that is tasked with developing their client’s brand story would be redundant. But for some reason, very few advertising agencies appear to know how to tell their own story.

Because of the prevalence of storytelling as a business skill, many agencies will declare they are going to share their agency story. But what follows is far from a story, let alone a powerful and compelling one. Instead it is a lists of features such as the people, clients, capabilities and case studies. These lists are almost never distinctly unique to the agency, filled with the hallmarks of every good agency and therefore not particularly distinctive or memorable.

The question is why?

Agencies are filled with smart, talented people who are professional storytellers. So why do agencies find it so difficult to develop and tell their own story? The issue is the way most agencies think about their credentials and the associated story about their agency.

When you talk about a credentials presentation, many agencies immediately frame this as a commencement step in the maligned pitch process. This is quite a narrow view of the role of a credentials presentation. You may need to present your agency credentials in many situations, other than as part of a pitch. It could be to introduce the agency to a new CMO of an existing client. It could be as an introduction to a marketer wanting to know more about the agency. Or any number of other opportunities to pitch the agency and what it can do.

A laser-like focus

To understand what makes a great credentials presentation, you need to have a laser-like focus on the purpose. For me, there is only one purpose and that is to get to the next meeting that will lead to being awarded more business. This is where the agency story is essential. Unlike a list of facts and features, a great agency story captures the single-minded thought you want the audience to remember and associate with your agency. It is memorable, based in a truth of the agency and creates a desire in the audience to know more.

Independent agencies have the opportunity to create their own story. While for network agencies it is important to take the network story and customise it to your market situation and reflect your local positioning. You can achieve this through the inclusion of the relevant proof points.

The proof points for the agency, previously a list of features, are delivered as benefits that support an agency story. Each proof point builds on the credibility and the power of the agency story. It requires discipline to only include the proof points that support the story and to leave out anything that is irrelevant and confusing.

When you have developed your agency story, the first people you should share it with are your staff. They will tell you if it rings true, and possibly it might motivate them to greatness. Then share your story with your existing clients.

Clients as ambassadors

Too often agencies put all their effort into winning clients and forget to update them on how the agency is evolving. Who knows, you could even win extra business by sharing the proof points they may not know. Even if they don’t, your clients are the best ambassadors for talking about you to their friends and colleagues in marketing.

The other thing about a truly great agency story is you can make the telling as long or as short as time allows, by adding the proof-point details to support the story or by leaving them out. If you have an hour-long meeting, plan and practice telling the story in less than 30 minutes, leaving time for the client prospect to share their story. If you have 30 minutes, tell the story in under 15 minutes. And if you have 2 minutes in an elevator, tell it in 60 seconds. (It’s why it is sometimes called the elevator pitch).

Imagine meeting a marketing prospect socially and when they ask what you do, rather than telling them just the name of the agency and the type of agency, you give them a taste of the story in a sentence that makes them want to know more?

There have been some great one liners that capture the agency story, the promise of a benefit that makes the agency distinctive and memorable in the mind of the advertiser and the industry. I am sure you would be able to name these agencies just on the lines from their agency stories such as ‘Nothing is Impossible’, ‘Brutal Simplicity’, ‘The Disruption Company’, Truth well told” and more.

But the agency story is not these lines. The story, like all great stories, is in the telling.