changeChanging agencies can be a major undertaking – if you let it be.

You got to move intellectual capital, physical capital, restart relationships…it’s like meeting and moving in with a new significant other…a lot of effort for what you hope will be a better day.

Here are some things you can do to make the process of finding and “moving in” with an agency as simple as possible:
  1. You probably have lots of agencies call you, right?  Organize 3-5 simple questions, send it to those that reach out to you, and sit back and collect the responses.
  2. Have someone that works for you in marketing give the answers a look.  Spell out what you’re looking for in the responses and have this person do a simple “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” on each of the answers.  They miss more than one, throw the bums out!
  3. Once you’ve narrowed your list, send them a description of your challenge.  Maybe a brief paragraph outlining what you’re struggling with and what you’re looking for.  Be specific with these agencies – both in what you want to see content wise and what the limits are in terms of what they can/can’t submit.
  4. This time you have to do a little bit of work as it requires someone with more marketing experience to not only see if the agency hit the mark – but to also do your best to see if they’re giving it to you on the straight.
  5. Widdle down your list of agencies to 3 or 4 and pay them a visit (assuming it makes sense from a timing and cost standpoint).  During the visit have them present  their capabilities and have them introduce you to key departments on the team.
  6. Post these visits you’ll probably be able to narrow down the search to 2-3 agencies – at which point, you outline the assignment – what you’d want them to do for you if hired, and ask them to present to you 3-4 weeks out.

While it seems like a lot of steps, it really shouldn’t take that much time.steps

We follow a bit more involved process and the biggest time consumers involved finding the right firms to meet your needs (which you’d substitute with a more passive search), visiting them (which most of our clients do either pre-or-post the final pitch, and the final pitch itself.

If all this seems too overwhelming (even though it really isn’t), happy to talk about how we can help – either coach and counsel you through the process (at no cost to you) or by managing the entire process for you (again at no cost to you).