There’s not an agency owner on the planet who is not thinking about how technology, AI, freelancers, the cut—the-contract-economy gig—all of those things are influencing what we sell to clients and what they want from us.
And one of the things we’ve seen for years in our Agency Edge studies is that the demand for making things, the things that we as agencies sort of historically have always done, whether it’s making TV spots or radio spots or producing podcasts or producing digital ads, all of those things, the demand for those is going down. And the increase is the strategy.
The increase is the thinking. The increase is what or how we should talk about the client’s business as opposed to the stuff that we make. It’s not that agencies aren’t still making money when they make stuff, but the demand for that is reducing, and the tolerance for paying for that stuff in terms of paying $175 or more an hour is also dropping.
And so as you look at the future of your business and you say to yourself, between AI and the gig economy and all these other things, what do clients really want from me? That’s a very worthy question to ask yourself to be saying, okay, not only this year, but next year and in three years, what do I think?
Where do I think that puck is going, and how do I move my agency that way? I was doing a podcast interview with a really interesting gentleman from the UK named Robin Bunn, and he said something that really stuck with me. He was talking about how agencies aren’t great at differentiating themselves, aren’t great at talking about how they are different from their competitors.
And he said this sentence, which has just been banging around in my head, and I want it to bang around in your head.
View Video Transcript
Hey, everybody. Drew McLellan here from Agency Management Institute this week coming to you from New York City. You know, there's not an agency owner on the planet that is not thinking about how technology, how AI, how freelancers, how the cut– the contract economy gig, how all of those things are influencing what we sell to clients and what they want from us. And one of the things we've seen for years in our Agency Edge studies, is that the demand for making things, the things that we as agencies sort of historically have always done, whether it's making TV spots or radio spots or producing podcasts or producing digital ads, all of those things, the demand for those is going down. And the increase is the strategy. The increase is the thinking. The increase is the what or how we should talk about the client's business as opposed to the stuff that we make. It's not that agencies aren't still making money when they make stuff, but the demand for that is reducing and the tolerance for paying for that stuff in terms of paying that $175 or more an hour is also dropping.
And so as you look at the future of your business and you say to yourself, between AI and the gig economy and all these other things, what do clients really want from me? That's a very worthy question to ask yourself to be saying, okay, not only this year, but next year and in three years, what do I think? Where do I think that puck is going and how do I move my agency that way? So I was doing a podcast interview with a really interesting gentleman out of the UK named Robin Bunn, and he said something that really stuck with me. He was talking about how agencies aren't great at differentiating themselves, aren't great at talking about how they are different than their competitors. And he said this sentence, which just has been banging around in my head, and I want it to bang around in your head. And he said, “Agencies need to learn to stop talking about what they do and instead talk about what they cause.” And I just thought that was a really interesting and smart way to start reframing the way we talk about ourselves, our services, and what our clients get from working with us, what we cause, whether that's we reduce friction for a repeat sale, whether it is we cause a deepening relationship with an existing client, whether we cause curiosity in the marketplace around a new brand or a new offering.
Whatever it is, I just, I thought it was a very unique twist on language that probably would help all of us articulate the value proposition of what we do. So as you look at your website, as you look at your sales materials, as you look at the way you talk about yourself on social, ask yourself, am I talking about the stuff, what we do? Or am I talking about on behalf of our clients? What do we cause and how do I focus more on that, that outcome, that deliverable, than the actual tangible stuff that we make? So give that some thought. All right?
