The agency business runs on multi-year contracts, also known as retainers. It’s my contention that the structure of these deals is a large part of the problem that agencies have with clients, and clients have with the agencies they hire.
A retainer may be necessary to cover the agency’s hard costs, but it’s also an invitation to put the account on cruise control. While there are “maintenance duties” on all accounts, it’s not the desired state for a brand or an agency partner with specific near-term goals in mind.
Here are the near term goals that Bonehook attends to for clients:
- Create a new brand identity, website, and go-to-market plan from the ground up
- Realign, reconstitute, and revitalize an existing brand’s identity and approach to customer acquisition and retention
- Amplify new and/or remade brands to highly specific receptive audiences
We manage to do all of the above inside tightly orchestrated 90-day or 180-day Sprints. Our Sprints are designed to run efficiently, on time, and on budget. Therefore, our process is critical to everyone’s success.
How Prepared Are You to Sprint?
Are you able to make big decisions on the fly in a meeting? That’s sprinting.
Are you willing to keep “the cooks out of the kitchen” and stick to the plan, as prescribed? That’s sprinting.
Are you ready to carve the fat from your budgets, your operations, and your time to market? That’s sprinting.
Sprints Are for Runners, Not Spectators
I know how good this sounds to most clients. I also know how hard it is to do.
People who start a sprint may not complete it. Many people are fine with a brisk walk to their intended destination. Our best clients move faster and more decisively than that. Why? Because the marketplace demands it.
Agility and adaptability are the cost of admission today.
Still, there are plenty of sloths who overcharge and underperform. Every industry has them. For some clients, hiring a sloth is the best possible match for their own pace and internal dynamics. We don’t want those clients.
We want clients who move at the pace of today’s digitally-enabled, bullshit-filtering, marketing-averse shoppers. Clients with something to say and a burning need to say it just so, in the right place at the right time. Clients who want to win.