Before You Fire Your Agency, Ask Yourself This

Sometimes you have an agency problem. Sometimes you have a business problem. And sometimes you’ve made it impossible to tell the difference.

I’ve spent more than twenty years being hired to replace agencies.

I’ve also spent more than twenty years being the agency somebody wanted to replace.

That tends to give you a slightly different perspective on firing your agency.

Sometimes you absolutely should.

But before you do, I’d ask one question:

Have you done everything in your power to make the partnership successful?

It’s not a particularly comfortable question. That’s why I like it.

When a company isn’t growing the way leadership expected, the agency is an easy place to look.

Sometimes that’s exactly where they should look.

But sometimes the agency isn’t the problem.

Or expectations that never had much relationship with reality in the first place.

I’ve told founders and CMOs during the sales process:

You may not have an agency problem.

You could fire them tomorrow, hire us, and six months from now find yourself sitting in exactly the same place.

That’s not a particularly effective closing technique. But sometimes it’s the truth.

The lines get blurry.

Here’s where it becomes more complicated.

A business problem can eventually become an agency problem.

That’s part of the job.

The agency doesn’t necessarily need to own every problem. But it damn well better be curious enough to find it.

Because if you can’t identify the constraint, you can’t solve for it.

There are also some warning signs.

One of mine is hearing this repeatedly:

“Our Google rep says...”

Or:

“Our Meta rep recommends...”

There’s nothing inherently wrong with listening to the platforms. We do it every day.

But there’s a big difference between listening to a recommendation and outsourcing your judgment to the company selling the media.

The platforms have objectives. The client has objectives.

Sometimes they’re perfectly aligned. Sometimes they aren’t.

A good agency knows the difference.

And a great agency should be willing to say:

Or even:

You shouldn’t hire us.

We learned that last one the hard way.

Early in our history, there were times when client spend outweighed the truth.

We took business we probably shouldn’t have taken.

It produced revenue. It also produced churn.

That’s a lousy business model. And an even worse way to spend your life.

Eventually we learned that the difficult conversation is much better had before the engagement than 30 or 60 days into it.

Before the engagement, it’s discovery. Afterward, it sounds like an excuse.

That distinction matters.

Choosing an agency isn’t particularly easy either.

I’ve watched companies make virtually every mistake imaginable.

Every few years there’s another one.

They’re everywhere.
They’re speaking at conferences.
Their ads follow you around the internet.

Someone tells you their VP of Strategy is the smartest person they’ve ever met.

I’ve watched hundreds of these agencies come and go.

That doesn’t mean the hottest agency isn’t excellent. Some are.

But I’d evaluate something much less exciting:

Or are they already prescribing the solution before they’ve finished diagnosing the patient?

Cookie-cutter solutions are easy to scale. They’re also remarkably good at missing the thing that’s actually preventing growth.

And here’s something almost nobody asks during the pitch:

Can I meet the people who will actually work on my business?

We offer it. I’m continually surprised how few companies take us up on it.

Think about that.

You’re potentially entrusting an agency with millions of dollars in media investment.

You’re going to meet with their account team every week.

You’re expecting these people to understand your finances, your products, your customers and your growth goals.

And you hired them because you liked the person who gave the pitch?

Meet the team.

The brilliant MBA who dazzled you during the sales presentation may never touch your account again.

The people who will? Those are the people you’re actually hiring.

Then the honeymoon ends.

This is where the real relationship begins.

A client might take three weeks to hire us. Sometimes months.

During that entire process we’ll tell them:

Then we sign the agreement.

And approximately five minutes later somebody asks:

“When are we going to see results?”

I love the human condition.

The first 30 days tell you a tremendous amount about whether the relationship is going to work.

Not because performance has already peaked. Because you learn whether both sides can actually operate together.

We have requests. The client has requests.

There are things we need access to.
Things their team needs to repair.
Data we need.
Decisions they need to make.

A good-fit client works through that list with us.

When something gets stuck, both teams try to solve it.

That’s partnership.

And eventually the early work starts producing results.

That’s when things get really interesting.

Because now you’ve earned enough trust to tackle the bigger problems.

The operational issues.
The margin questions.
The merchandising problems.
The things that never appeared in the original agency scope.

That’s when an agency stops feeling like a vendor and starts becoming part of the company’s bench.

Those are the relationships that last years. Sometimes decades.

There’s one thing that usually kills them.

Blame.

On either side.

Once the agency starts blaming the client for everything that isn’t working, something has broken.

Once the client starts blaming the agency for everything that isn’t working, something has broken there too.

When I hear our team blaming a client because they haven’t been able to deliver something we need, my first question is:

Can we help them solve it?
Can our technology team assist?
Can we provide another resource?
Can we find a workaround?

Because pointing at the obstacle doesn’t move anybody forward.

Eventually, however, both sides have to do their part.

Which brings me back to firing your agency.

Before you do it, look backward.

Read the meeting notes. Look at the requests.

Were they consistently asking your team for something they never received?

Did they have access to the information they needed?

Did they understand your margins?
Your inventory?
Your actual business objectives?

Did you give them the creative they requested?
Did you make the site changes everyone agreed were necessary?
Did you give them a reasonable amount of time?

If there are legitimate requests sitting unanswered for months, there’s a decent chance your next agency is going to encounter exactly the same problems.

Changing the agency won’t change the constraint.

But let’s assume you’ve done all of that.

You’ve given them the access.
The data.
The support.
The time.

And something still feels wrong.

Ask them one more question:

“Do you still believe in our business?”

Then listen carefully.

Not for a sales answer. For conviction.

Because agencies sometimes quietly quit before clients fire them.

The account starts feeling set-it-and-forget-it.
Nobody brings new ideas.
Nobody challenges anything.
Meetings become reporting sessions.

The agency doesn’t know how to fix the problem, so it quietly manages the status quo until somebody finally ends the relationship.

If you feel that happening...

You’re probably not imagining it.

But there’s another answer I respect tremendously:

“We don’t know yet. We’re digging into it. We’ve pulled in additional people and we’re going to figure it out.”

That’s not weakness. That’s intellectual honesty.

Give those people some room.

If you hear the same thing month after month, that’s different. Then you’ve got a problem.

I’ve had clients leave Voltage over the years because somebody else had a shiny new idea.

One longtime client in particular has done it more than once.

He’s smart. I like him tremendously.

He’s also a sucker for shiny objects.

Every few years I’ll get the call.

“We need to talk.”

He’ll tell me how much he appreciates our team.
How hard everybody works.
How much he values the relationship.

And eventually I’ll say:

“What can I do for you?”

Then I hear about the new agency.
The new strategy.
The brilliant executive.
The incredible pitch.

And I tell him the same thing every time.

There may absolutely be something to it. Or it may simply be a great sales pitch.

Unfortunately, there’s only one way you’re going to find out.

You have to go.

He’s gone. More than once.

And more than once, he’s come back.

We’ve had other clients leave and return over the years too.

I don’t take any satisfaction from it.

Well...

Maybe a tiny bit. I’m human.

But it reinforced something I’ve come to believe after twenty years in this business:

Don’t change agencies because somebody sold you something exciting. Change agencies because you’ve concluded the current partnership can no longer get you where you’re trying to go.

Those are very different decisions.

And before you make either one...

Look honestly at both sides of the table.

Because sometimes you need a better agency.

Sometimes your agency needs a better client.

And sometimes...

you both just need to become better partners.