How to Get More Value from Your Agency Relationships

Many growing businesses will engage agency partners before ever employing an internal marketer or marketing leader. And many of these businesses will experience frustration with agency partner communication, project timelines, budgets, and outcomes.

We know this is true because it’s one of the primary reasons clients seek Authentic Brand’s help: Entrepreneurial businesses struggle to select the right-fit agency partners, and then they struggle to understand (or leverage) the value of their capabilities.

All too often, agency relationships and engagements falter. But why? Are agencies to blame? Are client expectations unrealistic? Is there a better way to manage client and agency relationships to achieve long-term success and value?

Join us for a recorded webinar where we dive deep on this topic with three agencies from our Ally Network. 

Key Takeaways

• Failing to ask the right questions can result in misalignment and wasted resources.
• Clients with marketing maturity are more likely to have realistic expectations about the outcomes of marketing efforts.
• Effective collaboration leads to better alignment of goals, ensuring that marketing strategies are cohesive and integrated across all channels.
• Agencies that teach clients foster a collaborative environment that enhances trust and strengthens relationships.
• Agencies need to be proactive in explaining why discovery processes may need to be repeated for different aspects of marketing, ensuring clients understand the rationale behind these processes.
• Businesses should prioritize investment in web presence and content as foundational marketing elements to support long-term growth.

Links & Resources Mentioned

• Authentic Ally Network
• Irish Titan
• Brandpoint
• Shop Class Creative
• Is the agency of record irrelevant in today’s marketing landscape?
• In-house marketing vs. agency or freelancer: What’s best for you?

Webinar Transcription

Welcome and Introductions

Jennifer Zick: Welcome. We’re about to kick off for the latest Growth marketing webinar event. We’ll give a couple of minutes for folks to roll in. I see the participants starting to check in, so welcome Everybody. In about 30 seconds, we’ll officially kick off. So grab yourself a beverage, a notebook, a pen, and be ready to hit our Q and A with us with all of your great questions about working with your agency partners or with your clients if you’re an agency in participation today. 

Again, welcome. I see everybody starting to pile in. Thank you so much for joining. We’re going to go ahead and get started right on time. I’m Jennifer Zick. I’m CEO of Authentic® and delighted to be your host for today’s webinar as part of our Authentic Growth™ series. 

Today we’re going to be talking about a really important topic which is how to get more value from your agency relationships and investments. So we’re delighted to have you with us today. I’m going to open up with just a little bit of housekeeping before I have the great pleasure of introducing my panel of peers. So first of all, I want you to understand who we are as hosts of the webinar and why we are putting the series together. 

So, Authentic is a community of fractional CMOs that works with growing businesses. Most of our clients are between 5 and 100 million in revenue and growing. And for these entrepreneurial businesses, we play the role of chief Marketing Officer. And our promise is to help those clients to Overcome Random Acts of Marketing® and to confidently take the next right step to build revenue. 

A really important ingredient in the work that we do is the relationships that we hold with our clients teams and with all of their external partners, contractors, freelancers and agencies. And no business can go it alone when it comes to all the disciplines of marketing. Having really great agency partners is truly essential. And so we know that there are some common pain points that growing businesses face when it comes to optimizing those relationships and the impact of those relationships. 

So we’re really excited to deep dive on that topic with you today. Before we get started, I want to recognize that there’s a diverse population in our audience of participants today. Some of you are executive leaders responsible for revenue inside of your growing businesses. 

Some of you are the marketers or the salespeople in the trenches of helping to build the business and build the brand. And others of you might be the partners that are in the agency seat or in the service provider seat outside of the business, but working deeply with your clients. To advance their brands. So whatever role you’re playing as a participant in today’s event, I hope that you will get at least one really helpful, actionable nugget that’s going to make you feel more strong and more prepared to help grow those businesses. 

So we want to invite you to make this interactive. We realize that you are not on screen with us today as a participant, but we do have a Q and A you’ll see at the bottom. Usually it’s at the bottom of your screen there’s a chat feature, which is helpful for just saying hello, but where we really want to direct your attention is the Q and a little bubbles in the Q and A. You can post a question for any of our panelists, and we will be moderating that conversation throughout. 

And toward the end of the event, we’re going to ask the panel. We’re going to save some time to ask our panelists your questions. So don’t be shy. Throw it out there and throw it out early, because the others in the audience can vote up your question if it’s also relevant for them. So use that feature. We’re excited to watch your questions come in. 

All right, so without any further ado, I’m delighted and privileged to introduce you to three of my favorite agency peers who have worked with several of authentic brands clients and who have just really proven with their teams the impact that they can bring. These seasoned agency leaders have been there, done that, and seen a lot, so I’m really excited for them to share their perspectives with you today. We have Darin Lynch, who’s the founder and CEO of Irish Titan. 

I’m going to ask each of these members to introduce themselves after I kind of go around the virtual room, so to speak. We have Scott Severson, who is the CEO of Brandpoint. Hey, Scott. And Alison Fairbanks, who’s the co founder and creative director of Shop Class Creative. So, Darin, would you kick us off with a brief introduction? 

And then I’ll hand the microphone over to Scott and then to Alison, and then we’ll jump in. Oh, you’re on mute. So please come off mute now. 

Darin Lynch: Already made a Zoom mistake. Right. Thank you, Jennifer. Happy to be part of this conversation. Looking forward to learning with Scott and Alison and hopefully helping everybody get a little bit of value out of this. I’m Darin Lynch, founder and CEO of Irish Titan. Hence the green. I don’t always wear all green. Today I do have a green shirt and a green jacket on, and this green knight is here every day. 

So Irish Titan is a company I founded way back in 2004. We’re an E-commerce agency. And so what we really do is we build and grow e-commerce channels. So we will build merchants, that’s how we refer to our clients. We’ll build merchants’ websites and then we work with them on the acquisition conversion retention strategies around those websites. 

And so building and growing e-commerce sites is what we do every day. We have about 30 titans. That’s how we refer to our employees. 30 titans right here, all located in Minneapolis. For now, we’re opening up an office down in Austin, Texas and we’re closed only two days a year, St. Patrick’s Day and the day after. 

Jennifer Zick: That’s fantastic. Thank you. Darin, over to you, Scott. 

Scott Severson: Well, thanks Jen. And thanks everybody for joining us today in the hot weather. It’s better to be inside, I think. I’m Scott Severson. I’m the CEO of Brandpoint and Brandpoint is a content focused marketing agency. We work with both other agencies and client direct in a pretty wide variety of categories. Our core services that we offer are content and SEO strategy, content creation and optimization, strategic marketing services, paid media, and content distribution. The primary client outcomes that our clients are looking for out of our work are awareness, traffic, leads and sales. 

A few things that are unique about Brandpoint is first, we have a proprietary content distribution network that helps our clients get their stories in front of new audiences on over 1100 media publications like Chicago Tribune, Houston Chronicle and LA Times to name a few of the bigger ones. I think that our clients really like working with us because we have a unique points-based pricing model that creates a lot of transparency and flexibility for our clients. And then finally we have a proprietary content marketing software platform that all of our clients use to see everything that we’re developing for them, what the status is and it makes it easier for them to manage approvals and publish their content. 

Jennifer Zick: Thank you, Scott. I’ve had a close up encounter with your software and it’s pretty world class and it’s an awesome way to get collaborators working in a streamlined fashion. So great to have you here. Alison, let’s hear from you. 

Alison Fairbanks: Well, hi everyone and welcome to this hot, steamy day. I agree, it’s a great day to be indoors watching a great webinar. I am the co-founder of Shop Class Creative. We’re a tiny shop. We’re a group of two, writer and designer. But our sweet spot is really all about branding, brand strategy, brand identity development, the big ideas that carry forward through the websites, through the content, et cetera. So we’re often in a more segmented agency world. We’re often in that first spot where we’re creating the brand strategy. 

And then I think one of the things that we pride ourselves on is being extremely collaborative because as a small shop, and we’ll talk about this later a little bit, you know, we’re often working with specialists like Darin, like Scott, and making sure that the brand we develop works and is consistent throughout all of those applications and communications. 

We also have a really sweet roster of friends in the community in research and creative services, photography, illustration, that kind of thing. So we often also create bigger teams. But my partner, Katherine Lam, who’s the designer of the team and I’m the strategist writer of the team, we’re the two, and we love, we come from the big agency world, but we’re really loving the traction and the, I think, broader place at the table. We are, as a small group, really excited to be here. 

Thanks, Jen. 

Common Agency Mistakes

Jennifer Zick: Thanks, Alison. And I’ve had close encounters with the work of all three of these agency groups. And I can tell you some of them who are small are very mighty. And the ones that are bigger have really great lanes that they know how to swim in really confidently. And so we’re going to talk a lot about what that means for growing businesses, bringing in the right agency partners and knowing how to identify which lanes are needed, in which order, when and who those right providers are. So let’s dig into the fun stuff. Alison, I’m actually going to tee this first question up for you. We’ve got a few questions we want to cover today, and I know there’s going to be a lot. 

We’re not going to be able to go as deep on everything as we’d love, but we want to get through everything we promised. So here we go. We’re going to start with a little introspection because like me, all of you have had more than a few go rounds in this rodeo of business growth and agency collaboration. You’re all very experienced agency leaders, and you’re clearly doing things really well because your businesses have existed and thrived for a long time. So congratulations on that. But I’m guessing that you’re not perfect and maybe you’ve made some mistakes along the way. So I’d love to hear from all of you, starting with Alison, what are some of the most common mistakes that you’ve experienced along the way and not just within your own current business, but your past big agency life? 

What are some of the big common mistakes that agencies make and so knowing some of those things, what are the red flags or areas that clients can be aware of when they’re evaluating agency partners, even in the pitch process? 

Alison Fairbanks: Yeah, that’s such a great question, because how do you know when you’re meeting people? I think one of the most common mistakes we all make, and certainly agencies are not immune, is not asking enough clarifying and challenging questions. So I think we’ve all had that experience of sitting around a table conversing, the plan is coming together, everybody’s nodding their head, and two weeks later, you find out that what the client had in that little thought bubble was not at all what you had in your little thought bubble. 

So asking more questions up front, and I would say this leads me into the red flag question. Whether you’re meeting an agency through an RFP process or through word of mouth, which I think is arguably the better way to meet the people you’re talking to should be challenging you. 

Are you asking the right questions? Are you trying to solve the right problem? Have you scoped things right? Should this score be adjusted? And to that point, often we’ll get an RFP where there’ll be some cursory strategic information, and we’re asked, how would you solve this problem? And I would say that if you have a group come to you and say, we would solve it like this, you should think twice about that group, because strategy and deep insight comes from relationship and our relationship with you. It really takes time to get to know the target audience, the industry, et cetera. I know I’m rambling on, but really expect that your agency should challenge you. I think that is. That’s the big piece of advice. 

Jennifer Zick: I don’t think that was a ramble at all. I think it was spot on. And I think what I hear you saying, and, guys, I’d love for you to chime in on this, is that if your agency is just saying, yep, we can do that. Oh, yep, we’ll solve that. 

Alison Fairbanks: Yep. 

Jennifer Zick: If they’re just yes people, you probably don’t have a really strong partner who’s gonna actually bring strength and additional perspective to the table. Scott, Darin, who wants to chime in on that? 

Scott Severson: Well, I think on a similar note to Alison, when she was talking about RFPs, from an introspection standpoint, one of the things that we don’t do anymore is respond to blind RFPs, where the. The sender is just looking for you to fill it out and send it back. We really look for partners. We don’t want to be a Vendor to anybody. 

And so if you are searching for an agency, my recommendation would be, I think an RFP is fine, but you need to be able to invest the time upfront to really look for that fit and relationship. It’s not just about. About checking the boxes for that RFP. And then one of my lessons learned early on, I used to believe that any client with budget was a good client. You know, if you had a budget, awesome. We love you and we still do. I mean, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve learned painfully that budget alone is not a good indicator of who’s going to be a good client for us. 

So we, like Alison said, we want to work with clients who understand marketing and have the right expectations. If you think marketing in particular, what we do in content marketing is like flipping a switch to generate revenue instantly, we’re probably not going to be a good fit for you. So today in our targeting, we really try to focus on clients that have a level of what we call marketing maturity. They understand the value of what we do and they know how we fit into their ecosystem. For us to be a good partner for them. 

Jennifer Zick: That’s awesome, Scott. And you started to drift into territory. We’re going to go deeper in our next question. But, Darin, is there anything you’d want to add about common mistakes agencies make? 

Darin Lynch: Yeah, I think both Alison and Scott, I think, pointed out some great examples. Right. Like Alison’s comment about not just saying yes all the time. I think that’s really valuable. It’s one of the things that I talk about with people when I’m interviewing them to join the team, especially if they’re going to report to me because, like, one of my flaws is I don’t need a yes man. I already know I’m right. And so I need people to point out what I’m not. Right. And I think that our clients expect us to make them say no twice. Right. Like, if we’re not challenging them, making them say no twice, presenting new perspectives, what value are we really adding? Right. 

I think that Scott’s comment too is really valuable in the sense of, I think all businesses go through three phases in their life cycle. At first, you’re everything to everybody because you need to check to keep that light on. Right. Then you’re something to everybody. You know, what you do, maybe haven’t quite zeroed in on who you do it for. Then you’re something for somebody. We’ve all gone through that in our own businesses. Our clients have all gone through that in their own businesses too. 

And so helping them identify where they are in that cycle makes them a more informed consumer. Right. And then that sales process helps us better shift from or that awareness in that sales process of where there helps us shift from a sales process to delivery process. 

And I think that one of the things I would encourage clients to look for is to understand really early who’s going to be doing the work that is being sold to you? Is it the person shaping the engagement or is it going to be somebody else? And regardless, then understand what their internal handoff process looks like and then keep an eye on that. Because when you move from sales to kickoff and if you’re answering the same questions you already answered in sales, it’s a waste of time. Like you wasted that whole process. 

So make sure to proactively plan to avoid that. That’s something I’ve seen over the years. And one of the mistakes just to wrap up that we’ve made over time is clients don’t care about your other clients. Right. 

And so if you’re challenged in meeting deadlines because of other client work, do not tell the client that. Figure out how to make it happen so you’re not missing that deadline or else be super proactive about that. But the last thing to do is say, well, I couldn’t get to your stuff today because I was working on somebody else’s. They don’t care if other clients have a bigger book of business for you because to them, all they care about is their business. It’s their job. Right. And I think that especially when we’ve hired younger people who aren’t as seasoned in some of the communication styles, we really have to make sure to coach them out of that. So that’s a mistake that I think we’ve all learned from over here. 

Managing Client Expectations

Jennifer Zick: Gosh, that’s a lot of wisdom packed into answering just that first question. And we’ve got several more to go. That’s a great start. And Darin, I think you might have just inspired a future webinar on being everything to everybody, something for someone. That’s a brilliant way to describe business evolution and becoming a focused brand. I love that. I’m coming back to you on that one later. Not today. 

All right, moving on. I’m going to tee this next one up to Scott first. So we just talked about common mistakes that agencies make. Let’s flip the script because this is not a one sided relationship. Sometimes clients have wrong expectations or they have challenges in their communication side of the partnership. And I can not tell you how frequently because we work with small businesses, CEOs and CFOs. 

I have the conversation about, all right, I want you to tell me for every dollar I put into the marketing budget, how fast is it going to come out the other side of the pipeline as revenue? Right. And so we’re constantly managing and setting expectations. So, Scott, how do you have it? This is multiple questions packed into one. So flow with me here. 

How do you help manage those expectations? And then what red flags are you looking for as you screen potential clients? Because you’ve gotten smarter. Not every client with a checkbook is the right client. Right. What are you screening for? And then if they get through screening and become a client, what are some of the things that might make you actually fire a client? 

Scott Severson: Sure. Well, I think to start with the misperceptions, I think a big one that you touched on is that marketing is going to create an instant result. It’s like believing that going to the gym for a month is going to make you look like The Rock. And it just doesn’t work like that. Like working out. Marketing is something that you need to do in a disciplined fashion over time consistently to see results. 

Another thing that we have as a misconception is how much marketing services should cost. That comes up a lot because like one of the things that we do a lot of here is, you know, creating content and we employ the very best writers that we can find and they’re all really experienced former journalists and there is an expense to that. 

And so there’s a perception out there in the marketplace that you can get a $50 blog post and you. But will it be good? Will it be error free and technically accurate and in keeping with your brand? And will it do anything for you? Most importantly, does it generate a result? Probably not likely. So I think so as it relates to kind of the qualification piece, the marketing maturity is one of them. 

And then another is really just as Darin talked about, is really setting those expectations upfront around what are the outcomes that you’re looking for the client, how are we going to measure those and how are we going to report on those should really all be discussed and agreed to before you do an engagement. As for firing a client, yeah, it’s really hard to walk away from revenue. 

I’ve been at Brandpoint for 15 years now. It doesn’t feel like that long. When you say it out loud, it’s like, wow, it’s a long time. But in my time here, I have only had to fire one client. Thankfully. So it is not a fun thing to do. 

Jennifer Zick: Darin, it sounds like maybe you’ve got some experience with firing clients. No, I’ve been there. 

Darin Lynch: Yeah, we’re lucky enough to have not fired a lot, but the number is greater than one. And so I think that, you know, sometimes that’s a function of maybe some of our challenges at different points in our growth curve. Sometimes a client that just didn’t work out for whatever reason, sometimes an unrealistic client. You know, I think that what all of us do is challenging, right? Because marketing is intangible, right. So with our digital focus we are at the intersection of technology, marketing and creative, all three of which are intangible, constantly evolving and very fluid and hard to form. Hard for people to understand. So it’s difficult to establish expectations and shared alignment on that sort of stuff, right? Like we literally will have. This doesn’t happen quite as much anymore. 

But we’ve had prospects come to us, say make me look like Apple and get me on the first page of Google and like, red flag, right? Screaming red flag. When you hear expectations like that. I think that the whole process of establishing those expectations really comes down to trust, right? And being upfront about what are possible risks and possible shortcomings on either side. 

The self awareness of strengths and weaknesses on both parties at the table go a long way towards establishing that trust. One of the things that we look for is that serial dating is bad. If we come across a client or a prospect, I should say in this case who has been changing agencies regularly, probably not a good sign, right? Because that’s reflecting an absence of trust, an absence of grace, maybe unrealistic expectations. 

Investment in Agency Services, Outcomes, and ROI

Jennifer Zick: I would agree with that. And while we need to move on to the next question, I would recognize the fact that we all run human professional services businesses and the quality of our cultures and our businesses relies on hiring high level skilled people and being able to keep them and keep our cultures healthy and happy. And so it’s really important we work with clients who value human relationships and have high regard and respect for what each contributes to the relationship. And if that’s lacking, it’s not worth the paycheck if our people are in pain. So I know you’re all nodding on that one. 

And I’m going to move on to the next question which I’d love to redirect back to you, Darin, talking about ROI, we’ve already touched into expectation management around roi, so I think we’ve all worked with clients, particularly if we’re touching anything digital in recent history Trying to manage expectations around businesses who maybe are stepping for the first time into digital and saying, okay, so I’m going to give you this budget and then in 30 to 90 days you’re going to show me a 4x ROI on that. Right. That’s how that works. Right. Put me on the first page of Google and make me look like Apple. So how do you give grace to clients who are new and could be potentially great clients but need some education and support and expectation setting? How do you talk about that? Investment in agency services, outcomes, roi. 

Darin Lynch: Yeah. So I think first, the first step to that is making sure that there’s a shared alignment of where people are on that journey. Like I talked about those three phases. But another way to think about it is someone who knows who they are and knows that they know who they are. That’s great. Someone who knows that they don’t know who they are. That’s great too. The worst. It’s like When Harry Met Sally. Right? You’re the worst guy and you think you’re low maintenance and you’re high maintenance. 

The worst is someone who thinks they know who they are but don’t. You’re immediately going to be really challenged in maintaining shared alignment. And so if someone’s new to digital or new to e-commerce. Right. Like particularly we have a lot of B2C merchants that are new, like they’re launching an e-commerce channel. 

But we really have had a lot of B2B manufacturers that are two $300 million companies with no e-commerce channel. Right. As long as they’re aware of that, then that’s fine. And what we do is particularly challenged because everything is measurable in digital, at least from a measurability perspective. We’re all challenged in different ways in our businesses. 

But since everything we do is measurable, we have to talk about that in the pre-sales process a lot. And sometimes merchants want to know what ROAS they can expect. Sometimes they want to know ROI, page clicks, conversion rates, whatever the right metric is for what their business is. And we’ll talk through all that. We ask for access to analytics and platform admin in the pre-sales process so we can try to get in there and get a reasonable sense of what they’re looking for. 

We do quarterly business reviews where we talk through those metrics once they’re on and make sure to do the reporting. So metrics are really important and measurability is important, particularly for that world of marketing where people are nervous about the ambiguity of it. 

Jennifer Zick: Yeah. And I’d like to reframe this question over to Alison, because value is sometimes something you can measure with data and metrics, and other times it’s intangible on the front end of a lot of brand building. The work that Alison, that your team is doing in terms of strategy and articulation of the brand through all of the aspects of the story and the visuals, there’s not data behind that, but there’s definitely a huge difference between your approach and the value of the wisdom you bring to that versus a startup that wants to solicit an entire ecosystem of gigsters to design a logo for $9. And I’ll pick the one I like, right? So I can get a logo in a lot of different ways for a lot of different prices. 

How do you talk about the value of the investment in the strategic approach that you take? 

Alison Fairbanks: Yeah, well, I would say there’s enormous value in the brand strategy. It is going to, if you do it right, it is going to move you up that chain from an organization that’s everything to everybody, to being something for a certain special someone. If you think about your brand positioning as that real sweet spot between what people really need, the gap in the industry and what you authentically bring over time, I mean, you’re going to have a very narrow focus. And the narrower that focus is, the more expansive, innovative the communications work you can do. I would say that our science is the strategy, the strategic piece, and that really sets a foundation for every other agency you work with, your key messaging, your brand promise, your brand positioning that gets everybody on the same page. 

It creates the parameters for us to say, here’s the consistency that builds your reputation. So I think there’s immense value in that. You also, with a brand should have traction over time, better engagement. Maybe you’re trying to reach a new audience, launch a new product. Whatever it is, your brand can help you with that. Again, to Darin’s point, it’s not going to happen overnight, but you should see movement. It’s just harder to quantify. We’re a little bit more about the who than we are about the how much. 

What Makes a Great Agency / Client Relationship

Jennifer Zick: Yeah, that’s great. We could spend a lot of time on just this piece, but I’m keeping us on track for our schedule to get through everything. So onto the next question, which I’m going to start back with you again, Alison, because let’s be honest, we’re old enough and wise enough now to screen pretty well for that client agency, fit, consultancy fit. So we really enjoy most of the work we do with most of Our clients. But there are some clients that you just love. Like there’s just that magic between their team and your team. It’s just you’re making magical music harmoniously together. So what’s the it factor? What makes the difference to create that magic? Connections between really high value relationships between clients and agencies? What have you seen create that? 

Alison Fairbanks: Yeah, I think a culture of trust between people. Right. And then you need to behave in ways that reinforce that trustworthiness, obviously, being transparent, being accountable, being human. Right. People make mistakes. Let’s solve the mistakes together. Let’s be partners. Let’s have some fun. And then I was thinking about this question a little more last night and I think there’s an emerging piece for me that creates some magic. We are all running very lean these days, especially on the client side. It’s always been there, but I see it deepening, getting a little harder for people. Sometimes we don’t have return phone calls and things like that because the bandwidth just isn’t there. And we’re totally related. Right.

So one of the things that creates that magic spark is having the right people in the decision making seats so that when we can have a contact person who can make the decisions to move the project along and things are just, they’re moving, we’re talking big new ideas are coming from that. That is fun. That is magical. When things get put on hold because people are just so busy, it takes a lot of time and effort to get back in the swing. Two months later and you lose that momentum. So I would like to put out that there’s kind of a new spark on my radar. Does the client have the bandwidth and is that person capable and empowered to make those kinds of decisions to move things forward? 

Jennifer Zick: Wow. You just beautifully articulated the reason our company exists. Authentic exists for that reason. To put experienced leadership at the helm of growing businesses to activate and really empower the internal resources together with the external partners toward constant momentum and growth and the integration of the strategy. So you’re absolutely right. I would agree 100% with what you said. 

The real magic happens in cultures and partnerships of trust and where decision making can be efficient so that the feedback engines don’t stop. Because not only does it stall out the energy, but it costs businesses real money to reboot, to keep ramping back up. So, gentlemen, do you want to speak into that at all about magic, how to create magic between agencies and clients? 

Scott Severson: I think it comes back to what Darin and Alison said about fit. We look at, you know, clients that fit. Our ideal client profile. And we have a few segments that we look at. We really like working with other EOS companies because we speak the same language. And I think that just creates a nicer dialogue. We like clients with sufficient budget to do good work and generate a meaningful result. But I think the biggest thing that gets us energized at Brandpoint is when, and we’ve had many clients tell us this, that they view us as an extension of their team, not a vendor. And our team genuinely gets excited about when they get a big win for their client or they knock something out of the park for them. Our team really views themselves as part of our clients as well. 

And it just makes it a lot more. More fun. And we really do our best work when there is that collaboration. And then the final thing I would say is I can see scenarios where Darin and Alison and Authentic and Brandpoint could literally all be working on the same account. And to the degree that multiple agencies are involved, the more that the client can make it known and be transparent about that and make it known who the partners are and create swim lanes and create an environment for all of the partners to collaborate in our areas of strength, I just think that’s a better outcome for all involved and it makes for less duplicative work as well. 

Jennifer Zick: I absolutely agree. In my last corporate role, leading a global team with many partners we hosted, I put together a weekly call and brought in my digital partner, my advertising partner, and my content partner along with my team, because the work streams that all of those ninjas were working on had to work together. If they didn’t, they would just be disconnected, random acts of marketing, which, of course, we oppose over here. So I agree. And prior to this call, we were chatting about our new hybrid world that we’re all coming back to. Some are coming back to the office, some never will come back to the office. Teams that. Teams that used to feel very internal over here at this space and our agency partners out there somewhere. 

That ecosystem is shifting now, so you’ll have internal teams collaborating remotely and agency partners collaborating remotely within those teams. This is the best time in the world to create collaboration that unites all of those efforts. It’s awesome. Darin, is there anything you want to add before we segue to the next question, which I’m teeing up for you? 

Darin Lynch: No, I think in spirit of time, I’ll keep my comments to myself and I’ll probably just include them in my answer. 

Shifting to Digital Marketing

Jennifer Zick: Oh, that’s so smart. You’re so smart. Before I tee that next question up. I want to acknowledge that our Q and A is like crickets out there, people. So if you’re on as a participant, throw a question in there that you’d like us to pose to any or all of our panelists. We need to have some material to lob at them or I’ll just make up crazy stuff at the end of this call. So throw it out, don’t be shy, get the party started. All right, 

Darin, I’m coming back to you and I’m going to date myself a little bit here because when I first started my marketing and sales career, which was more than 20 years ago now, the marketing landscape at that point looked really different. In fact, this is crazy to think about my first job out of college. 

Before I moved into marketing, I did not have a computer on my desk in my first corporate role. 

Darin Lynch: What. 

Jennifer Zick: How did we even work? What did I do? Don’t even. But when I entered the marketing ecosystem over 20 years ago, there were like five disciplines any marketer needed to understand, right? Advertising, PR, trade shows. I mean there were like five core things that marketers did and they could generally depend on if they were large enough to afford it, an agency of record to help them across those initiatives. But agency services have changed dramatically in the past 20 years as agencies capabilities have. And the onset of digital has shifted from the five core tools in the marketers toolbox to 5,000 softwares and many channels and many tactics that you could deploy. 

So what does it mean for client organizations, especially in legacy businesses that have existed for quite some time to make that shift, what does that mean for the client teams and their collaboration with agency partners? 

Darin Lynch: Yeah, I think that it clearly has changed, right. Like when I started Irish Titan way back in 2004, it was very different. You know, I think you framed the question like in the last 20 years. Well, 20 years ago we were all buying CDs. You couldn’t buy vinyl. Metallica was suing Napster. Right. And now nobody buys CDs and a lot of people buy vinyl again, right. So a lot has changed. And when we first started, I mean we were early to a real strong e-commerce focus. My first e-commerce focused product was in 1998. Right. So I’m a dinosaur by e-commerce standards. And at that time if we didn’t engage directly with a prospect that we sourced and were brought in via an agency, it was AOR kind of dynamics, right. 

And lots of times we were asked to engage as though we were the agency, which we would never do. Multiple times were asked if we would carry agency business cards and present ourselves as being part of that agency. And we would never do that. We strongly wanted to engage directly with the client, even if that was through the agency. Because I think the more specific our lane is, the deeper and richer that set of information is. Right. And e-commerce is very P and L driven. If people are going to invest in e-commerce, they’re going to expect to see sales and profit. And so you don’t want things getting lost in translation there. Right. That’s changed. That AOR barrier has really changed over the years. Right. Like now there’s a much stronger sense of collaboration. 

We frequently still work through agencies, but I would say that we far more frequently work with other agencies. Right. Like Alison and Scott and I might be working together on a client. And that happens all the time now. So whether it’s the client or the agencies, we need to be comfortable with that. Which really, I think, uncovers the need to. I think, to summarize it, if I’m the client and I have multiple people working well with me in my sandbox, I still need to know who’s the one throat to choke and the one back to pat, Right. At the end of the day, who’s the one throat to choke and the one back to pat? Everybody needs to work together, but you need to know that in case things need to be corralled for good or bad. 

Alison Fairbanks: Can I add to that? I think that’s so interesting. It’s kind of a flip on something I was thinking about, and that is when you have multiple agencies working together, I think a role is often missing. And that is when you had a big agency, you had a creative director who might have been overseeing all the work from all the operating units. Now some people are hiring an ad hoc creative director. Google is doing this. And I think that’s a great idea. Whether that’s somebody from one of your agency partners or whether that’s somebody in house, who is the person who’s going to hold the strategy, the big creative or marketing idea, and the quality control throughout everything that you do. And that person can see the work before it ever comes to you, the client. 

So it can be a real benefit to have that. And I think, you know, we talk a lot about swim lanes. Each swim lane needs to have a leader, and we need to know when that person is leading. But I also think we could reinstate and have a habit of having some. That one Batman throat to choke? I hope not. One back to pat. And that could be a creative director role. And I think, boy, that would solve a lot of problems. 

Finding the Right Agency Fit

Jennifer Zick: I think this is a super smart conversation because we’re navigating the big pendulum shift from centralized agency services to completely decentralized, which creates other inefficiencies. But going back to the first question we began with today, which was, you know, mistakes agencies make, there’s something I continue to see which we really vet for when we set up our Ally Network relationships with those that we refer our clients to. Back in, you know, back us up. Ten, 15 years ago, a lot of larger agencies were trying to maintain their foothold by pretending they had capabilities they didn’t. 

And white labeling and project managing other agency services like yours, Darin, but not knowing how to do it well and creating a lot of cultural friction and way too much overhead on top of what your team might have been able to provide by going direct to the client. Right. So back in that day, I was on the agency side as well, selling web development services. And we tried to dance with some larger agency partners and boy did they make our lives hard because they didn’t speak our language. They tried to control the client relationship. They wouldn’t let us in to do what we did best. So I think a lot of the ninja skills that happen in the digital world said no more of that, like we’re going direct. But then the client’s world got really complicated. 

Okay, everybody’s direct, but who do I choose? And so one mistake I still see agencies make today, and I’d love for you to speak into this if you’d like, is there still are small niched agencies who haven’t learned not to be. Yes, people like, maybe they’re best in the world at search engine optimization, but a client needs a website built and they’re like, yeah, sure, we’ll do that too. And the client just believes they can. What are you seeing out there in terms of how can a client know that the person in the agency they’re talking to really actually does what it is that they need and does it well? 

Scott Severson: Yeah, I think in a virtual world that’s tough because it’s really easy to represent yourself as one thing that maybe isn’t accurate. I see a lot of marketing agencies that have content marketing on their list of services and when I’ve chatted with them about it, they don’t have any writers or people that have expertise in that work. But it’s that thing that they put out there because they’re checking the box. We feel like we need to do that. And I do think it’s important to, you know, really figure out, you know, who’s going to be the best at this thing that you need and bring it all together and bring the right players together. 

And I think that’s something that Authentic does a nice job of, is really understanding who to bring in for different projects and understanding what that landscape looks like. It’s pretty important. You know, as I was thinking about, like, what’s changed over the last 20 years, it’s. Cause I’ve been at this as long as Darin has. You know, I think the key skill for agencies today that didn’t exist, that wasn’t as big of an issue 20 years ago, is understanding how integrated all of marketing is and how to successfully orchestrate and bring those services together in a way that acknowledges how everything works to achieve the objectives. I think it’s more complex than ever. 

Alison Fairbanks: It really speaks to that need to collaborate. And I would say we’re so lucky here in Minneapolis St. Paul, we’re a very collaborative community. We’re working on a project right now where we have a web developer out of another state. The culture is completely different, and they are not collaborative at all. And it is just throwing our poor client into a tailspin. But I feel like we are fortunate here that we have a very collaborative environment and that we see some fun in that. Oh, I had another point that just flew in one ear and out the other. Okay, if it comes back, I’ll be here. 

Jennifer Zick: Just speak up. Is there something you wanted to throw in there? 

Darin Lynch: I was just gonna echo those comments. I mean, I think that one of the things I’ve seen change the most in our broad space is that sense of collaboration over the years. You know, I think that when Irish Titan was much younger, the number of agencies, a lot of people back then would say, well, you probably get a lot of leads through other agencies, right? I’m like, actually have a lot fewer than you think, because they try to keep us behind the curtain and answer the questions or get us to present as them, et cetera. And it just didn’t work very well. That happens so infrequently now because either some of those agencies have learned and evolved or perhaps gone away, or just the new people, the entrepreneurial spirit with how agencies have grown over the last few years have been created. 

We collaborate so much more in the space than we used to. Like, that is something that has really changed over the years. 

Alison Fairbanks: I think it goes back to also you on the client, any clients on this call have those conversations all the time with friends and colleagues and people inside and outside of your industry so that you can get those word of mouth referrals so you can hear how it’s done, so you can hear the trouble spots. It’s never too early. It may sound ridiculous to start a year ahead of when you need a brand developed or something, but really be out there all the time so that you kind of know what to expect and you know who to call on. 

Audience Q+A

Jennifer Zick: That’s awesome. Awesome wisdom. You guys. We’re going to go over to the audience Q and A and our apologies for the technical glitch folks, but the Q and A is now enabled. So throw down your thoughts and let’s take your questions. I want to start with this question from Anonymous. That’s my favorite question because this person used the phrase how the sausage gets made, which I use all the time. So this person’s my favorite. So often, says Anonymous, it feels like agency partners are working behind the curtain and the client team really doesn’t know how the sausage is being made. And she really appreciated, Scott, how you spoke to the fact that your team acts as an extension. Like how do you get there? How can a client get there with an agency partner who might not have that same culture already? 

How might they draw their agency into more of a partnership mentality? 

Scott Severson: Well, I think you can start by asking for it and asking for that detail around what is the workflow? Depending on what is being produced, what does that workflow look like? Who is involved in your team? What is our role going to be in that process? That’s one of the reasons our clients like our software is they can see they have that transparency where they can see the sausage being made, they can see their work being worked on and edited. And knowing where it is at any given point in time is nice. So I think asking for the right tools to create that transparency is something you can think about as well. 

Darin Lynch: One thing I’ll chime in with on this topic is be very specific and direct in asking what their resource model is. And I say that because the resource models in our world vary, right? There’s our model, which is Titan only, as we call it. Like we do all of our work with just our titans. We don’t use any contractors, freelancers or offshore resources. All of those models are fine. There’s a reason we have a Titan only model. It’s actually part of our sales approach and our resourcing. All these reasons I won’t I’ll spare everybody with. Right. But we speak to that. And one of the things that I encourage prospects to do is to ask that of the other people they’re talking to. 

I think one of the reasons that sometimes there’s this sense of not seeing how the sausage is made is because some agencies might have a name on a shingle and have an army of contractors scattered around that they don’t have any real relationship with, but they don’t want to say that. Right. Other agencies have a core team in house and then really tight relationships with some freelancers or contractors. All of it’s okay. But if you don’t know exactly what resources are involved in delivering you the value you’re looking for, then you’re definitely going to have a sense of things being kept behind the curtain. 

Alison Fairbanks: On our front, we like to say that the only time the client should be surprised is that first moment that we reveal something new and they’re clapping their hands and going, oh, my God, I’m so excited. But from there up to that point, we worked together to ensure the strategy is correct. And after that point, we work together. Together to refine. And they will see various iterations. We did. We have had a client who had an intern or someone internal who needed some practice at concepting, and we took them on as part of our let them come to the concepting session. So I think there’s something also about, you know, not just being an agency, but creating agency. So helping the client get smarter, understand there’s real value in that. 

So why there may be some things that you know, we want to just. This may be just too detailed or in the weeds. I think there’s great value in letting. Letting clients see a little behind the curtain. It gives. It really does create a lot of trust and peace of mind, for sure. 

Jennifer Zick: I love that perspective, Alison. And you really spoke into one of the values and attributes that we look for in our ally provider network members. One of our corporate values at Authentic is generosity. Another is wisdom. And when you can bring those two things together in a way where you don’t feel like you have to protect your turf, but that you will happily share what you can to empower others, knowing that your turf is really well established already and the value is in the relationship and that trust, magical things happen. And our ally network providers are big on teaching clients how to fish. If the client wants to build that capability in house, they’re big on helping equip them to do it. Most clients won’t want to build every ninja capability in house. 

They can’t afford to and they can’t afford to keep that education level up. But it is something magical in a relationship when they feel the support to see how you do what you do and to learn from you, that’s powerful. 

Alison Fairbanks: I can see that there could be a situation, we have run into this a couple times where there’s overlap between what two agency partners do, and that can be a sticky wicket. So. So there needs to be an agreement upfront who’s going to lead, who’s going to monitor each swim lane. Right. And play that role and who’s not. And that’s something that once you’ve all agreed with the client, you can enforce that. Because that does get touchy for agencies where you’re feeling like we would have done that differently or something. And, you know, I think that’s where ego comes in. And you just, you know, I think we’re all fairly good at just taking our ego out of it and saying, this is for the client. Right. They’re paying the bills. 

But where there’s overlap, I can see where you do have to tread lightly and understand that people might want to keep something close to their chest. 

Darin Lynch: And then, Alison, I think that reinforces one of the points were all making earlier in what amongst many things, authentic brand does. Right. Like having that creative director or someone that’s shepherding that so that all of the services are as aligned as possible and as little duplication as possible. Because our worlds do overlap. Right. There’s some things that Iris Titan does that Scott does. We don’t do too much branding. 

Jennifer Zick: Right. 

Darin Lynch: But the edges of all of our worlds are fuzzy. And I think that’s part of the reason too, that there’s value in having an abundance mentality. We’re all fortunate enough that we’re not fighting over manufacturing printing presses. Right. Like we’re not fighting over a shrinking market. And so I think that those of us lucky enough to be in a space that’s growing and that have an abundance mentality like we do, and many in our space do, those are the ones that are most willing to open the kimono, show them how the sausage is made and establish that trust. 

Jennifer Zick: Absolutely agree. Absolutely agree. And one of the things I hear a lot from clients because we are entering in with that in house seat of accountability to integrate all the facets of marketing, is that clients get confused because marketing is a really broad and ambiguous and fuzzy area of the business. Right. And ever changing. And so it can be confusing all of us and all of our agencies and consultancies have proven process. Right. We’ve developed our approach and we have a proven process. And for almost every consultancy or agency, there’s a front end period of discovery. Whether you call it discovery or something else, there’s something on the front end and clients are like, wait, I already paid for that. I already did that with another agency. Yes, but you haven’t done it with a lens on content strategy. 

You haven’t done it on a lens for a new product launch. You haven’t done it on a lens for e-commerce development. Right. And so it’s beholden to us to explain why it looks like we’re doing the same thing again, but it’s different. So that’s challenging. I see you’re all nodding your heads. I’m not sure if you’ve got anything you’d like to add on that. We’ve got some more questions coming in, so I’ll give you a moment if you want to chime in. 

Scott Severson: Yeah. I think your point about the lens that you’re looking at is the key there because Darin and I might have completely different lenses and Alison might have completely different lenses that we’re going to look at the data through to do our work. So I think that’s a key point. 

Alison Fairbanks: But I do think you can have a kickoff with multiple agencies. Another thing we like to say is the earlier you can bring us in, the better. And I think everybody on this call would agree with that. There may be things that you feel like, oh, well, the content guy’s never going to need to know that. Don’t be so sure. I mean, the more information that we can have about what’s going on behind your curtains, the better work we can do. And so you could maybe do some of that discovery one time. There may be specifics with specific groups, but everybody can really benefit from hearing those upfront discussions and hearing the questions the rest of the agencies are asking. 

Darin Lynch: Right. 

Scott Severson: Well, and I think that goes back to the collaboration and synergy. We’ve certainly had instances where other agencies have used our research and some of our upfront strategy work to inform the work that they’re doing. And whenever we can do that, it saves our client from having to pay to have this other agency do it. It makes all the sense in the world. 

Jennifer Zick: Yeah. And I’ve found a lot of success I’ve been really pleased with as you start to find the partner providers that you have a strong sense of trust with as the leader of a business. I might know, I might understand that there are various channels we’re going to need. Like, I get that, right? Plus I have a marketing background, which helps, but I get that, like, our business needs a website and it needs a strong brand message and it needs an updated look and feel and it. I kind of get what we need. What is challenging is in what order with what handoffs and what overlaps of coordination. And so I found great success in choosing my partners really early and then doing a roundtable of like, let’s chart this out. And I know a lot of businesses get nervous about bringing partners in. 

They’re all going to be fighting for the budget and each one of them wants to be the first one. But really, when you have trust, that’s not how it works. I have partners who are like, all right, well, it makes sense if this ally partner does this piece first and then next quarter we’ll step up and we’ll take it from there. And then next year we’ll come in with this piece and they help me forecast. Like, I already kind of have a very good plan for my marketing spend for next year. Knowing the sequencing that our partners help us craft together, and they’re really generous with working in collaboration that way. I’m going to move on to one more audience question at least because we’re going to have to end on time. 

But this could go on all day and be a great conversation. This is a good question because it gets to sequencing and this is huge because while I think it might be kind of evident that maybe the first marketing dollar you invest is around a clear brand, go to market, message and focal point. After that, what do you do next? Where is the budget best applied? I’ve got my own biased opinions here, but where should some first marketing budget dollars go? Ready, set, answer. 

Alison Fairbanks: I’m going to chime in really quickly because I would say even before brand, it’s a really great investment to do a broad communications audit. If you’ve been conducting random acts of marketing, you need to know what dots are disconnected and what loose threads you’ve got out there. That’s a really good way to start before you do anything. Excuse me, anything else? 

Scott Severson: Yeah. I would say your very first marketing dollar, and this is making an assumption that you know what your brand is, you know some of these foundational things. But I think your first marketing dollar should go to your web presence and specifically your content. Because if living through Covid taught us anything, interactions with our potential customers are going to be really increasingly on digital platforms. In that world, I think the best content and customer experience is going to win. We use the term owned media to represent your content and your website. And it’s our perspective that really acts as the foundational layer for all of your marketing. And if you have a strong foundation there, everything else that you do is going to be much more effective. You’re paid, you’re shared, and your earned media need that foundation to really work well. 

So that’s where I would start. 

Jennifer Zick: Thank you for supporting my bias, Scott. Content is what my recommendation would have been as well, with the assumption that you have some basic brand focus and foundation, you’ve got a business vision and you have decided to some degree who you are to someone unique. Right? But content and I were trying to live our own best case study at Authentic. Day one, when it was just me and a kitchen table, I was writing blogs and I knew that they would continue to evolve. But you know when the right time to plant a tree was 10 years ago, right? So companies who want to eventually amplify growth through advertising and E commerce have to have something to amplify. So I agree. Your content, your message, your consistency. Going to the gym in marketing is content. So don’t give that up. 

Don’t think that you can turn on a light switch and just start driving ROI. That is not how it happens. You guys, it’s 1:00 Central Time. It’s the top of the hour. That means we have to wrap up. Though it breaks my heart because this is such a rich conversation, I want to give a real great virtual round of applause to our panelists. Thank you all. We treasure you and we love the work that you do. We highly recommend every single one of these agencies connect through Authentic Brand. If you’d like an introduction or reach them on LinkedIn. Thank you all for attending. It’s been a blessing to spend time with you. 

Go forth, stay cool, be cool to your agency partners and they will be cool to you too. We love you. Come back. See you next time.