YOU GET THE AGENCY YOU DESERVE

A guide offers a multifaceted plan for helping executives and firms work more effectively with their marketing agencies.

Belsky, the CEO of a digital marketing agency, opens his compact book by observing that there are plenty of people employed in managing the relationships between companies and the consulting agencies they hire. Unfortunately, he points out, there’s comparatively little emphasis on improving the relationships between clients and their agencies. The author cites three reasons for this: Executives seldom feel compelled to be better clients; they rarely understand why they should try; and they have little or no available coaching on how to improve along those lines. In these pages, Belsky offers a lean, systematic outline of how to be a better client, drawing on his experience interviewing over 100 CEOs, chief marketing officers, and other business leaders. Too many clients seem to believe that it’s their agencies’ job to solve any problems in relationships, but the author argues that executives working from their end to improve things will maximize efficiency and profits. What are the key ingredients, for instance, of the great “brief” that will help align what the client wants with what the agency is offering? Every brand or marketing campaign has its own tone, for example. Belsky suggests asking what that tone is (“Is it lively? Is it tranquil? Is it playful? Is it serious or informative?”). It’s through this basic, ground-up approach (how to work conference calls, how to break down presentations, even how to decide whether or not hiring an agency is necessary in the first place), combined with plenty of short sections and numbered points, that the author demystifies the process by which executives can better work with the agencies they hire. He smoothly and expertly lays out simple, useful lessons that are too often overlooked in the business world.

A helpful, practical, and approachable playbook for improving client and marketing agency relationships.