I’d like to share an anecdote that illustrates one of the many reasons to hire an agency.
One of our newer clients has a problem. I’ll call this client Acme Corp (the names have been changed to protect the innocent.)
Acme Corp is a first-class brand, a world-wide leader in its field. However, Acme’s long-time dominance has them, I think, a little bit on the defensive. They’ve not had to innovate super hard, due to the incumbency of their dominant position. So now they are counter-punching as this incumbency is eroded by hungry upstarts.
In a meeting with the board next month, we – Mason, the agency – are going to surface one specific strategy that will help Acme increase incremental revenue by – we estimate – 10%, at no incremental cost.
The issue is that we, Mason, are not supposed to be in the silo where the fix for this particular strategy lives. So we are going to piss some people off, frankly, when we surface this.
And that is one virtue of working with an agency: we have seen this problem more times than any one company has, so we are able to see it super-quick, and implement a solution. Most-importantly, because we have 40 clients, we can afford to piss someone off a little bit. It’s part of our job to offer these solutions, and we can do it in feather-ruffling way because A) we have a solution in our back pocket and B) although we’d hate to lose this client? We’d survive.
Put simply, one reason to hire an agency, is to have someone on call to tell you hard truths you don’t want to hear – – – as long as they provide a solution.