A while back I wrote a post about the best bit of advice I’d ever had regarding solving problems.
Or should I say, on how to present how you are going to solve a problem.
But this is dependent on knowing what is the right problem to solve … and quite often, it ends up being the problem we want to solve versus the problem that needs solving.
Now of course, we can only solve the problem that relates to our particular discipline.
For example, as much as adland likes to claim it can solve everything, we can’t build a car.
[Trust me, I’ve tried]
But that’s not what I want to talk about.
Too often, when there is a huge piece of business on the table, our goal is to get all of it.
Every last piece.
Doesn’t matter if it’s not our core expertise.
Doesn’t matter if the work won’t be interesting.
We. Want. It. All.
Now there’s many reasons for this – mostly around money – but what it often ends up doing is destroying everything we’ve spent decades trying to build up.
It burns out staff.
It undermines the creativity of the agency.
It forces quick fix solutions rather than ideas that create sustainable change.
It creates a relationship based on money. rather than creativity.
It positions the agency more as a supplier than a partner.
Now don’t get me wrong, money is important, but when you let that be the only focus – it is the beginning of the end.
Before you know it, the money becomes the driving factor of all decisions and – because you have had to scale-up to manage the huge business you’ve just won – you end up looking for similar sized clients to ensure the whole agency is being utilised rather than chase the business that can elevate your creative reputation.
Oh agency heads will deny this.
They’ll say they still value creative, regardless of the size of client they work on.
And maybe I’m utterly wrong.
But as I wrote a while back, we had a [small scale version] of this situation when we had cynic … and while we were making more money than we had ever earned, it had made us more miserable than we’d ever been.
Thank god we noticed in time, because we were in danger of seeing more economic value in the processes we were creating for the client than the work and then that would be it.
People would leave.
Our reputation would be damaged.
We’d have to pay more to bring people in to deal with the situation.
The profit margin money we were making from the client would be impacted.
Soon we would be doing work we didn’t like without even the excuse of making tons of cash.
The client would call a pitch.
We would have to do it because we were so dependent on them financially.
They’d pick someone who would do things cheaper.
We’d crash and burn.
We would hate ourselves.
OK … OK … that is a particularly bleak possible version of events and I know there’s a lot of big agencies that have found a way to manage doing work for big clients while marrying it with maintaining their creative credentials [but not as many as they would like to admit] but I am surprised how few agencies say which part of a big job they want to do.
I get why, because there’s fear the client will write you off because they want a simple solution rather than a complex.
But if you’re really good at something, then you have the power to change that mindset from complexity to effectiveness.
Of course, to pull that off, you have to be exceptional.
A proven track record of being brilliant at something few others can pull off.
Which means I’m not talking about process or procedures … but work.
Actual, creativity.
In my entire career, there’s only been 3 agencies I’ve worked at – and one of those I started – who have told clients they only want a slice of the pie rather than the whole thing.
More than that, they also told the client how they believed the problem should be handled rather than simply agreeing to whatever the client wanted in a bid to ‘win favour’. Of course, the slice they focused on was not only their core area of brilliance, but also the most influential in terms of positioning the entirety of the brand – the strategic positioning and the voice of the brand – so what it led to was a situation where the benefits for the agency far exceeded just an increase in revenue.
They had the relationship with the c-suite.
They set the agenda everyone else had to follow.
They were paid for quality rather than volume.
They made work that enhanced their reputation rather than drag them down.
They were more immune from the procurement departments actions.
All in all, they ended up having a positive relationship rather than a destructive one.
Now, I am not denying that in all 3 cases, the relationship lasted less time than those who were willing to take everything on. In many cases, once the initial strategy and voice work was done, many companies felt we were no longer needed. Not all, but a few.
And while many will read this and say my suggestion to choose the part of the work you want rather than take it all on is flawed … my counter is not only did all 3 agencies enjoy a reputation, relationship and remuneration level that was in excess of all the other agencies they worked with – and often delivered in a fraction of the time – but they ended up in a position where they attracted new business rather than had to constantly chase it.
In all business, reputation is everything.
Don’t make yours simply about the blinkered pursuit of money.