Creative Agency Secrets

I received this email on Monday.

 
Hiya! Can I pick your brain? A charity I am a trustee of has been advised by a [web design] company that (viz redeveloping the website) "social networking / web based community is a passing vogue" therefore relatively unimportant for new web capability. This for a very dispersed, defined community, where I see real potential for increased volunteer mobilization, with peer and expert support online.  What would u say?

What a great question! 

Whether you are an agency or a brand looking for an agency, selecting the right one to work with is difficult.  And it seems that the trustee and the charity may have some issues with what this digital web design agency is suggesting because it won't support their strategy of building up an online community with a view to mobilising volunteers and getting expert and peer advice available online.

I have long advocated using "golden questions" as a filtering device to shorten the list of candidates.  But it is also useful in this situation.  

Here is my reply.

A golden question I frequently use when selecting an agency to work with: Look at their website and speak to them. 

Ask them what tools, techniques and tricks are they using for their own sales and marketing. Check all these categories.

• marketing
• e-marketing
• digital marketing
• internal intranet
• website

Which are working and proving effective at the moment?

If they don't do it themselves, chances are they aren't as knowledgeable about it as they should.  And that may be why they aren't recommending it for you.

There are some exceptions to this e.g. mass email marketing is rarely appropriate for a B2B business (but I'd still expect the agency to do some email marketing for their own account). 

Analysis: There is a mis-match between the charity and agency at this time.  Either they force the agency to do what they ask (build a community site) or they find someone else to do it alongside the website build as an add-in or they fire the agency and find one that will do the whole piece.  Tough but most likely to get the outcome you want, if the latter.

Definition of a Golden Question and examples

Past post on Golden Questions here.

We all have the odd client who could loosely be described as ‘difficult’. In fact sometimes you find your life gets dominated by a client whose behaviours are inappropriate, demanding and just make it a bad time to work with them.

I call people like this ‘energy-takers’. In any relationship you should find that there is a free exchange of energy between the parties. In a normal situation this is a balanced give and take. This works for both friendships, colleagues, romantic partners and business partnerships. James Redfield describes this very clearly in his book “The Celestine Prophecy“.

Here is what he says in the Fourth Insight

THE FOURTH INSIGHT . . . THE STRUGGLE FOR POWER

Too often humans cut themselves off from the greater source of this energy and so feel weak and insecure. To gain energy we tend to manipulate or force others to give us attention and thus energy. When we successfully dominate others in this way, we feel more powerful, but they are left weakened and often fight back. Competition for scarce, human energy is the cause of all conflict between people.

I know people who sap energy from me when we meet. They just take, take, take and you feel drained after an encounter. Frequently they have problems which they tell you about - ad infinitum. And when you offer solutions, they don’t take your advice. This is because they don’t want their problem solved, they just want your energy to say ‘poor you’. and ‘how awful’ and it does neither of you any good to stay in the relationship. You support them but they don’t value your support.

Sometimes clients do this as well - and particularly those where you have a long term relationship when they are a dominant client for your agency - sometimes they take advantage of the fact that you depend on them for a lot of your revenues.

Now we’ve all worked with demanding clients - they can often be the most satisfying people to collaborate with - if you have a good, balanced working relationship. Or they can drive you crazy with inappropriate requests for no money over the weekend…..

A question I sometimes ask agencies I work with is

“Have you ever fired a client?”

I find the answers given to this question give me great insights into the agency, its self-perception and strengths and weaknesses. This acts almost like a golden question and tells me the degree to which the business has confidence in itself and its offering to clients.

If you have fired a client, it’s a bit like getting rid of a boy/girlfriend. You realise your life-path is not running in parallel - your paths diverge and so you instigate a change. Any relationship can change over time but those that become bullying, abusive and not respectful, deserve to end - for the good of both parties.

Remember when you first set up a contract with your clients, reserve the right to renegotiate on a regular basis - so that if you get scope creep or the assignment varies, you have come-back for more / less money. Also, add in clauses about respectful relationships and dealings with your team. They are important and a client that messes them around, should not be working with your organisation. [if you people matter to you, that is!]

And to end, on a lighter note, take this 20 question test to see if your client is, REALLY IS an ASSH**E!

Enjoy.