Hot take: It’s not your agency, it’s you
AUFI’s Nick Bell: your agency isn’t underperforming — you just hired wrong
CHERRY ON TOP 🍒 is our monthly newsletter exploring the ins and outs of everything that modern businesses need to truly shine. We dive into topics that live at the intersection of our two companies – ORCHARD STREET, a venture studio + angel fund & DALY, a comms+ agency – as both help founders get the best ideas out into the world, through outstanding operations, comms, and culture-building.Ally here! It turns out the well-worn trope of “it’s not you, it’s me” has legs in the business world, too.
In this issue, the fabulous Nick Bell — founder of brand x agency matchmaker ASK US FOR IDEAS — dives into the common mistakes he sees brand leaders make time and again when picking an agency partner.
Whether it’s choosing a design firm to lead a much-anticipated rebrand, a paid media shop to boost growth with a new ad strategy, or a PR team to build brand awareness and credibility, it’s clear that company decision-makers are overlooking what matters most in an agency partner (often falling, instead, for the shiny new thing).
(I have to admit, being on the agency side myself, there’s something validating about hearing that sometimes, it’s not me … it’s you(r expectations).
But Nick wouldn’t be a true matchmaker if he just diagnosed the problem without a clear plan for how to help brands correct course and find their one true agency love!
So with that: I’ll let Nick do the talking.
Nick: The main thing that comes up time and again when we first meet brand and marketing execs: they’re disappointed.
They’ve hired an agency, and they’re not feeling good about it. The agency hasn’t lived up to their expectations. They’re underperforming. They don’t get the brand. They don’t get the marketing team. They don’t prioritise them as a client. And the client feels a creeping sense that they’re being fobbed off with the B team.
We’ve heard all of the above, many times over.
Now let’s be clear: in some instances, these clients are justified in their feelings. An agency might have wooed them with a hypnotising pitch and then revealed themselves as subpar: all smoke and no fire.
In most cases, however, the agency isn’t the problem: the client is.
Here’s how the story often goes: the CMO is dazzled by a brilliant case study that’s been shared widely within marketing and business press. Or maybe they let FOMO get the better of them, and they chose the agency everyone else was talking about. Either way, they jump in with both feet, and not a second thought.
They don’t ask whether the people that made the work they saw and fell in love with are still at that agency. They don’t check if their budget is enough to really make them a priority within the agency’s roster. They don’t question whether they’ll be considered a dream client or just another customer on the invoice roster. And they don’t take the time to discover how the agency truly works: if it’s WhatsApp messages at midnight and creatively-productive chaos, or a partner that will guide them through the process step by iterative step.
No one stops to ask the essential question: what type of agency is specifically right for us?
The answer usually isn’t the team that’s winning the most awards or doing the most interviews, or working with that one brand you keep your envious eye on (that’s all just seductive distraction).
By just focusing on how agencies present themselves to the world, brand decision-makers miss out on the thousand tiny, subtle pieces of juicy information that let you know if they’ll be a good fit for you.
And that means brand-agency partnerships often go wrong before the two sides have even met – the CMO dazzled by a glittery carapace without stopping to check what’s living underneath.
Before even thinking about shortlisting potential partners, brands have to get clear. They need to understand why they’re embarking on something and what it’s for, rather than over-indexing on what they want at the end of an agency partnership.
Then, they need to define what success is going to look like — this could be broad strokes around increasing brand perception, or something far more specific, like needing to communicate better on-shelf, or unlocking a very specific new audience through press, social media, or influencer work.
And lastly, once they’ve got to the meeting stage, it’s essential to ask the right questions. Quiz agencies on how they operate day-to-day, and how their client relationships function.
Understand how they think, how they problem-solve, and what kind of working culture they have – down to who in the team will actively be involved with your project.
People often feel like brand-agency relationships go wrong halfway through a project, and it’s tempting to put that on the agency. However, more often than not, it comes down to a very avoidable mismatch.
Finding the right agency means ignoring any feelings of FOMO and instead being obsessive about the selection process. Ask the right questions, and then give your agency room to be the best it can be.
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The Cherry on Top: They say that comparison is the thief of joy, and it’s true. Stop looking at the agencies everyone else is hiring. In almost every instance, it’s just a distraction.
Nick Bell is the co-founder of ASK US FOR IDEAS, a creative matchmaker that connects ambitious businesses with the world’s most remarkable agencies. He’s been introducing brands to agencies for the last 15 years, and counts Chanel, Nike, Wise, and Common Goal among AUFI’s clients.