Wing It Unhinged - Agency Personality Matters - Wing It Episode 98

Speaker A: But if you're thinking of leaning into a long term relationship, maybe uh, having an agency around to do, uh, you know, part of your team really, you know, then yeah, who are we working with? What are the, what are the individuals? What are, you know, what's their personality like? How do they, how do they think of things? So that, that we thought was an interesting topic because, um, you know, we've had some really successful long term partnerships with accounts and I think part of that is how we think about, uh, linking up customers with strategists with account leads and, and how that whole works. We talk about that. All right, Wing it podcast episode 98. Uh, who do we have? Kevin Muller, Michael Turksani. All right, this is the last one in this studio. In the studio and then we move. Yeah. In fact there, there was a painting that you used to be able to see behind you, but we've already packed it up. So we're changing, we're moving, uh, we're going to have a cool. Another, a different location, a different setup for the podcast that we're going to do as well. So hopefully it reboots uh, the visuals for anybody that actually watches the clips.

Speaker B: And yeah, so basically every clip of podcasts we have is now going to be timestamped around pre move and post move.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's definitely going to look a lot different. A lot different. So. And frankly, the original podcast room looked almost identical to this room because I think it had a red wall. Pretty much it was the same, just slightly smaller.

Speaker B: Um, so I think. Is this the third or the fourth podcast room?

Speaker A: Well, this was the second original podcast room. Then we moved it into M. We had it in the boardroom for a bit and we had it in my

Speaker B: office for a bit. Everywhere. Yeah.

Speaker A: So, but uh, that's cool. So after this we're going to box up all the stuff and uh, move on. But until then we're going to, we're going to continue with our content strategy. This is part of our content strategy.

Speaker B: Content strategy doesn't care where we're shooting this.

Speaker A: Nope.

Speaker B: So we're talking, what we're talking about fit around, um, people at the client side with people at the agency side.

Speaker A: Yeah, we're talking about. So we wanted to explore, you know, when you're, when you're thinking about hiring an agency beyond, you know, a, a, a project. I got to get a project done. You know, hey, I may need a, a, uh, you know, a website's a very big deal. But so maybe that, that one as well. You'd want to have what we're going to talk about today as an important element. But you know we do a lot of projects that I think the whole fit factor, personality of an account lead strategist, probably not really a big deciding factor. But if you're thinking of leaning into a long term relationship, uh, maybe having an agency around to do uh, you know, part of your team really, you know, then yeah, who are we working with? What are the individuals, what's their personality, how do they think of things? So that we thought was an interesting topic because um, we've had some really successful long term partnerships with accounts and I think part of that is how we think about uh, linking up customers with strategists with account leads and how that whole works. We'll talk about that and then um, maybe a little bit around like, well what happens when you need to change that? Like what happens if you ever go through a uh, situation which I know a lot of clients have had, where they have to change account leads. So we thought that was a little bit of a uh, change from marketing tactics and AI, uh, and that kind of flavor to. Look, what are we trying to do? We're trying to find companies that want to work with us over a long term period of time. Right? They, they, they themselves recognize that they want a marketing vendor that's going to be part of their team, it's going to work with them, augment skill sets. But you know, we're not talking about a uh, three month engagement. We're talking about people that would love to have a partner like us to help them grow their business for years to come.

Speaker B: In my mind, when, when a client is looking for an agency, there's kind of, there's, there's two factors. I think often only one of the factors is really considered when evaluating agencies. Oh, can, can this agency and their people deliver on the things that we need? It's video production, it's content creation, it's demand gen, um, capabilities, things like that. And that's important. But the other part is can we work with this agency? Can we even on a relatively short term basis, call it one or two quarters. Do we feel like these are the right people? Do they have the right processes for how our organization needs to work? But probably the most important one is do we like and trust the person that we're going to be dealing with on a day to day, week to week basis? Sometimes you meet some of the team, sometimes you meet all of the team. But really there's that one crucial interface. Whether it's like an account manager, whether it's a lead strategist and do you actually like that person? Do they understand your business? Can you see yourself on call with them two, three hours a week indefinitely? Right. And I think that's a huge thing that doesn't always get asked. And then on the agency side is when you're, when you're also going through these pitches and then you start working with an organization, are you aligning the right kinds of resources with that agency or with that client? M. That's really important for the agency to think about too. So let me stop there because there's a lot that we can get through but maybe we can talk a little bit. Your take on um, the client actually making sure they're asking themselves question. Do we like the people on the other end of this meeting? Do we think we can actually work with them on a long term basis?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think we, we've definitely had clients that, you know, where you're in, you're, you know, you're going to be entering in um, a sizable engagement and they're asking who, who are we working with? You know, how many times has there been the bait and switch that you hear about from agencies, right. Heavy hitters come in as the pitch and then you get relegated to the juniors to run the, run the show. Right. So it's definitely m. Uh, something that, that we've seen and people I think are more aware of when, when they're getting into a long term engagement, definitely more sizable engagement, they're a little more weary of that. On, you know, I think on, on what a client should really why is it important? I think maybe is, is, is the factor is that if you, we talked a little bit about this before the podcast that you know, if you were a highly creative individual, right. And, and you're again, you might just be, you know, you might be running all kinds of automated programs or you might be deploying demand gen campaigns or you might be getting uh, certain data services from, from an agency. Right. So it's like not, not even creative type work necessarily fully, but you are a creative person. Right. So your conversations tend to skew to the big picture. You know, hey, how could we think outside the box? You know, you know, I've got this idea, uh, messaging or, or visuals and then you're paired up with somebody that's highly analytical and you're thinking, well you know, you're running predominantly demand gen campaigns. Yeah, there's landing pages, there's visuals. But like to the degree that the Bulk of what you're getting from us is not necessarily highly creative work, but you are that type of person. Then there's going to be a mismatch there. Know you're going to have somebody that is bringing numbers, bringing stats, talking to you about, you know, analytics or they're a very analytical person so they're skewing in that direction. So, you know, I think that that's partly why this is so important. If you, if you have certain individuals that are the leads on your team looking for that fit factor, that's ultimately why you, why it's important now beyond, you know, hey, who would I be working with? The agency doesn't have unlimited people. Right. So what can, what else can you look for? Well, I would recommend, we would recommend, you know, of your strategist leadership team. Uh, probably a lot of the strategists are part of leadership team. How long have they been there?

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: You know, are these, are these short tenured individuals that, you know, likely, if you had a changeover couldn't really step in and be. Or are these like six, seven, eight year people that, yeah, you know what, I can step in for a period of time and, or permanently if needed. How, what's the tenor of your account team? Yeah, you know, so yeah, are they the director of accounts, the person that's leading accounts, or the manager of accounts? You know, they've been here for seven years and then the people underneath them, multi year, like, you know, like it starts to feel like, okay, I'm not with somebody that, you know, um, flash in the pan. Yeah, flash the pan. Or there's layers that can step in if needed. Right. So again, it sort of ebbs and flows and I think has the. Is it unrealistic for a customer that's spending not a lot of money to sit there and hum and ha over who the person is? It's going to, you know, I think there's a level where it's like as the deals, as the engagements become larger and they become more meaningful to the customer and to the agency, that, that's, that's super important to get right. Yeah.

Speaker B: And I think you earned that too.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: You get to know one another, you build upon that, et cetera. Just stepping back, we didn't mention this before, but it's worth calling out now is in my mind the strongest client agency partnerships are the ones where they're usually initiated by the client in terms of a search. And what they do is they look at their core competencies and skill sets and they Say, let's not go get an agency that can do those things that we already have internally. M. Let's look at from a skill set capability and say, what does an agency bring that we don't have strength, um, in. And then you're kind of, you're covering more of the spectrum of marketing capabilities as a whole. And then there is the sort of more personable, uh, or like characteristics, um, that you're trying to match to make sure that you've got the right people. So I think that that part's crucial too. And then you're absolutely right. I think you have to, on the agency side, make sure you're aligning your resources that will best work with that organization and those particular people that they'll be working with closely in terms of bringing the right kind of way of thinking to sort of build upon that. Right. To create more together and there's just more value, more cohesion and it just makes more sense. It's a more seamless experience. Sometimes I think you can look at and assess a situation, say, you know what, they probably need someone who will go in and challenge a bit more. And to a degree that's healthy. Right. And in other cases, yeah, we really need to match their analytical thinking with someone analytical equally on our side with maybe a bit of different experiences so that there's nice, um, collaboration as a whole.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Or you know, somebody and I. So I think when you look at the role of the agency is that, you know, in all cases it's really, it's really important that those individuals are, you know, as much as, as the, as the customer may want us to feel like part of the long term equation that those individuals also feel that way and are acting that way. You know, we're not just order takers getting something done. Like, I'm invested in your success. I want to see, uh, I want to see this work out for us as a team. Right. And no vendor has every answer. Like there's no, there's not going to be a scenario where like there's never a problem. You know, I think to the extent that a lot of these capabilities are commoditized and let's, let's, let's actually call spade a spade. I don't think any one of us is sitting here saying, hey, you know what? We can do things that nobody else can do. Like I think, I think these are commoditized services. I think the way in which you partially, one of the ways that you differentiate is through your engagement model, through your account and strategy model. You know, the fact that we've got an account lead and a strategist paired, you know that there's an overlay of multiple levels around that account process. So that, uh, you know, when you do, when you do have a changeover, which is going to happen, or you do have a problem, which is going to happen, what's the biggest part that the agency can do is, well, we're going to, we're going to make it as seamless as possible. But that individual has to be. I feel like I'm part of your team. I'm not just the vendor.

Speaker B: I was just going to say, I think I totally agree. The agency, it's on them to make sure that they clearly demonstrate through their actions, through their engagements, even through their energy that they're into this account. Yeah, they're committed to it. You demonstrate in your actions. It's going perhaps a little bit above and beyond.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: But, but really making sure each one of those meetings that you're in with your client, that you're crushing. Like, you've got to be fully engaged, prepared, proactively bringing things to the table, new ideas. You should definitely be asking lots of questions early on and just showing that you care. You're fundamentally invested in making sure this is a success. In some cases it might come more naturally because, hey, maybe you really like that vertical or industry your clients in. But in other cases, uh, I think like the energy part can't be understated. You've got to come and bring and just create a really positive meeting with your, with your client and that'll show, like, if you're not into it, you're not into it. And that's. Most people can tell.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that, you know, when, when you have a, uh, sense of overall team, like, you're still a vendor, you are a vendor. So I don't want to say you're still a vendor or just a vendor. You're part of, you're part of the equation. But you, you are expected to bring a level of capability and, um, likely better than if we were to be hiring this internally. Right. That's why they're selecting a vendor. So there's a level of professionalism. There's a, you know, you're not gonna, you know, not have your crap together in a meeting. You know, you're gonna have that. Whereas, like, the internals, you can kind of, okay, fine, you're, you're, you know, sometimes you're not all there. Whereas the agency, they pretty much need to be on all the time.

Speaker B: But you're a hired gun. That's absolutely right.

Speaker A: Yeah. You're a hired gun and you want, I think, but you do want to have that full sense of team. So, you know, we did all. We also talked about. Well, yeah, it's commoditized. But are you looking for someone to just rifle shot orders to rifle shot, um, demands to, you know, make it happen, or are you looking for this individual to be part of your team and, and, and let you know? So there's a real difference there. And we've certainly seen accounts. I hope this is changing in, in, in the economy going forward. As we've talked about where, um, you know, we've been in accounts where like, they don't really value that. They're not, they're not there to have, uh, hey, we're a part of a team. You know, you're here to, you're here to do what we need you to do. And, and that's kind of the extent of it.

Speaker B: Yeah. As it relates to how clients approach and treat vendors, I do think it's changing for two reasons. One, fundamentally, with the scrutiny and pressure on budgets now, clients can't afford to get this wrong. So they need to leverage and make sure it works with, um, the hire gun or the agency that they've gone and brought in. So I think that's part one and I think part two is it's up to the agency to earn and command that respect. And you're not going to get it through low energy, low engagement and generally not being excited about the project. You stand a much better chance almost always of getting that buy in. If you're coming prepared, ready to talk about anything, asking questions, being engaged, and just generally providing a good level of service. It's no different than selling shoes. In this case, we're selling marketing experience and know how.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: But fundamentally it's customer service one on one.

Speaker A: Yeah, I agree, I agree. And um, I think. I'm glad, I'm glad to hear that. I agree with you. I think we've seen CEO is glad about the delivery. No, not so much the delivery, but the change in the demands that are being put on marketing teams. And, and yeah, you know, the, I think there was a period of time for sure that, that you know, money was flowing, teams were big, vendor money was being thrown. I mean certainly like the last, you know, through the COVID period and uh, even before though, like, you know, there was money was flowing, vendors were engaged and lack, uh, at a, uh, at a Much lower sense of accountability I think in terms of overall results. So like when I think about it now it's like, well that's great to have somebody that you can actually rely on people, hey, more than one probably starts with the people that are leading sales. Like in our organization, you know, our revenue leader, great business relationship, we've got that down. You know, we've got strategists, we've got account leads. Maybe the odd time you meet, whether it's solutions engineering head Mark or it's going to be um, some of the other management account leads or the management leads of their center of excellence that are also there. But you know, what a better place to be to have a uh, quote unquote vendor that is going to be there for a while and help you solve problems. By the way, that also helps them have success as a company which is then self fulfilling for you to continue to have success as a customer. If you're seeing constant firings and hirings and turnover from an agency perspective, I mean again, you're not, there's no flywheel that that agency's. Now I'm not, I'm not making excuses for, for poor agencies out there that aren't getting the job done or like what you said that, hey, you're not stepping up and actually showing up. But what I am saying is that ultimately the goal of any marketing team should be to go drive value for the business. Uh, and if you're just throwing stuff over to an agency and not doing your part in developing uh, an entire. And we've got another thing we can talk about in a sec, then I think, I think you are doing your business a disservice because now you're. It's no different than hey, I joined this company, we have Pardot. I want to put it in HubSpot. Great. You're going to spend six months. Well, it's not six months. Okay, whatever. Sure. I'd like to see it not be six months unless you've got zero going on. Guess what? We're on a system. If we were to switch systems, that's not a trivial process. It's going to probably take four months easily to get that done properly, um, if not more. And incentivity. Talk about that. So it's the same thing with switching agencies. We're going to wholesale switch, we're going to just keep wholesale switching. We're never going to work to build a bigger picture strategy and engagement. Then you are going to do your business a disservice.

Speaker B: I think from the agency side too. I think sometimes you can be guilty of looking too long term or too big picture. Oh yeah, we're trying to get this like multi year retainer deal. Oh yeah. And sometimes it's just like honestly just go do a good job with what they're asking you to do. If you do good enough, nine times out of ten the engagement's going to continue. Yeah, it would have to. If you really do a great job and you add a ton of value and they don't proceed with you as expected. That would be unique and few and far between.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: But sometimes it's like, well, we're thinking about the big thing being the big thing and then you're not thinking enough about the thing right now.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And you know, you can't get to step two without doing step one. Okay. So that's got to be the priority I think too is just delivery. And you're right like the expectations. Going back to your point on um, an outsourced agency and consultant, it's a different expectation than if you're an internal employee. It just is by an hourly basis they're paying more. They're paying for someone who has been there and done that and typically knows what to do or at least has a pretty good sense of that. They're not hiring agency saying we think in six months they can start contributing. They probably are realistic around there is a ramp up period. But the bet is we're paying a premium for that ramp up to be a lot quicker.

Speaker A: Yeah. So in the realm of institutional knowledge and um, a lot like personality fit factor, relationship fit factor. Right. So you're, you're hiring an individual and, or multiple people on marketing team to fulfill a t, to fill a, fulfill a function. And what we said on one of the last podcasts, when we're looking at, you know, the shifts and the downsizing and the things that have been occurring is that you know, marketing is so dynamic and is so fraught with turnover and all this kind of stuff. It always has been. Right. But even more so kind of now that rarely do you really see, you know, we're hiring this individual, we assume this individual that we're hiring as our, you know, demand gen manager or gen specialist. They're going to be here for, for 20. Look, our business isn't going away. I even Goose Digital, like I don't have a plan where Goose Digital is not going to be here in two years or four years or 10. Like I don't have that plan now. Maybe we're SaaS companies looking at exit, that's not what this is. We're talking about the lion's share of every other business. They're not thinking, oh, we're not gonna be around in two years or four years or five years. So why are we hiring people and not giving them ideas for growth? Yeah, you're gonna start here, but as we grow, we're gonna put you in new roles. So like they think, oh, you're, we're just plugging a hole. We're plugging a senior, we're plugging a demand gen specialist role. We need that. But it's like actually m, no, you're bringing somebody into your business, a career, they want to grow, they want to be here over time. Or did you sit down with them when you hired them and you said, look, this role is going to cap out. We really don't have any plan to spend more than 100k a year on paid media. That's about as good as this is going to be. So likely you're not going to be happy here for, you know, after a year and a half when you figure this out and or you realize you hate it, you'll probably be onto your next job. So it doesn't make sense to me. So you're probably going to be building up a team and building a relationship and not expecting overnight. So obviously agency versus internal, different story. I'm hiring a professional and a capability. But to the extent that we're building relationships and we want continuity, we want long term institutional knowledge, we don't want disruption in our programs. Right. Uh, I think that is what we are saying is that you should be leaning into that as a marketing leader looking to bring in an agency.

Speaker B: So I think on that too. The other thing is when you're thinking of a long term engagement, a lot of it has to come down to like the ability for the agency to pivot and evolve. Because if we do do a really great job for our client, then chances are we may not have to put as much focus on it next year. Then what? And I think as the client, when you're evaluating agencies, I think one of the critical questions that you should be asking agencies you're considering working with is, is show me examples of how you've evolved an account.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Whether it's things like we did that and then we moved on, whether it's shifts in the client side business.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Oh, now we have to make a pivot. It's no one's fault, it's just the landscape changed.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: So now what? And because I think all of the long term engagements we have and which we would define as multiple years, we're not doing the same things we were doing when we started, right?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Some of it's bigger or better, but some of it's just different. Mhm. For a variety of reasons. And I think you'd want to know that not only are you working with people that you like in an engagement model that seems to flow and seamlessly fits in with your business, but also do they have the ability to realign and pivot and ultimately change and evolve so that it meets the current offering. Because you don't want to hire an agency today, invest all this time into bringing them up and then in two years it's, what you're doing is obsolete and there's just no ability for them to pivot now and address the new market needs.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean I think that you, we could do a whole podcast on you know, the benefits of, of choosing an agency that has multi disciplines and or you know, flex engagement models or other, other types of, of uh, of agency capabilities that would allow you to make that pivot. But even if it wasn't so like hard pivot like oh, you know, we hired a marketing, a marketing automation or elements of ops and now we want to do website like that, you know, m. Or video like. I think what you're saying is that no differently than if you had these people internally which again I mean like this, we're not doing a podcast on the benefits of like hiring an agency but let's just call it out. Hey, we thought this year was going to be heavy into email or. No, we, because we did it last year and we did heavy into demand, uh, LinkedIn paid meat. So what did we have? We had, we had a um, a creative and a map resource internally that was handling a bunch of email and we had somebody that really knew social network, paid media and some remarketing and that's what we had. And guess what? 2024 isn't that anymore? 2024 we're doing this and that and, and other strategies. Oh, oh shoot. What do we do with these people? You know, are we are uh, uh. Hey, we hired you to do this. Would you like to go build our website? Well, I don't really build websites. I was hired to be automation. So yeah, I mean we're not doing a podcast on the benefits of hiring an agency, but I think that that is a big one. Now what you're saying is, well, what's going to happen when those inevitable shifts occur, is it going to be a, hey, well, I'll stop. We're cutting a new sow. That's a change request or is it going to be. No, we actually have. That is part of how we do things. And not only can you make it happen from a commercials perspective, but we. The people that you're working with, to your point on fit. Fit factor is that. Yeah. And they can too. They can, they can pivot, just like you'd expect a strong internal marketing resource to pivot. Right. So yeah, I like that a lot. We didn't even talk about that at the beginning of the podcast. So you threw that in. That was nice.

Speaker B: Um, unhinged.

Speaker A: Unhinged hand. Um, what other kind of, what kind of other things fall into the category of like relationships and fit, uh, factor?

Speaker B: I, I think some of it too is like I was listening to uh, Dave Geard talk about this on his podcast and he was sort of reflecting his time, um, when he worked for HubSpot and then some other companies after Drift and he was like, you know, most of the time agencies didn't work out was actually my fault as the client. I wasn't clear enough with what the expectations were or I didn't give them enough information to make what were doing good as opposed to just okay. Mhm. So I think there is some accountability on the client side to make sure like you're feeding the right information so that the agency can hopefully do the right thing with it. I do think though, like my, my personal perspective or bias skews to. Agencies really need to um, to push to add value.

Speaker A: Yeah. I think what you're saying is there should never be a cop out and, But I think what he's saying, we heard this from one of our other accounts that had a consultant that was working with them that used to run all the agency relationships from Microsoft. Right. And the part of, the, part of the learning there was. And then the anecdote was nine times out of ten when there was an agency breakdown, they felt it was actually on the client side that, that ultimately came down to, like you said, uh, either, you know, a lack of experience, understanding kind of the uh, what, what was being put forward and how it was being put forward and communications, expectations, expect all that stuff. A lot of the, that was interesting. Right. Because it wasn't, it wasn't six out of ten. It was. But at the same time, like we're not sitting here saying, oh great, that means we can just sit back and you know, wait for the Information to come at us. That's not what we're saying at all. In fact, you should be a part of the. Part of it, by design, should be a consultative fabric that you've put through the org to help tease a lot of that out. Right.

Speaker B: Like, I think we're. We're very close to 300 clients at Goose that we've worked with over the course of, um, our life. I can think of maybe on less than one hand, the number of clients that we did not have a good shot, if not very good shot to be successful with. And that's. That has nothing to do with the client side. Whether it's like expectations and communications and all that stuff. It's like we could have. If we had done what we normally do with the levels and standards that we would expect of ourselves, we had a very good shot to have a successful engagement.

Speaker A: Yeah, and that's why I said, if you like, if you. When you talk about, um, the accountability, where, where does it sit? And ultimately, ultimately it sits with the client right Now. What's their. What's their role to the extent of enforcing that accountability or taking that accountability as it relates to, like, a failed agency engagement? Look, at the end of the day, you hired an agency, right, to deploy your plan. Now, if that agency just. You got into something, they oversold you, they had no real ability to do it, or, and, or there was just. They don't have the capabilities that you thought you had. You know, you might have a, uh, you might be in a situation where you're asking for a refund, or there might just be a breach of something there. But, but in all likelihood, what is the situation is that you, as the marketing leader, huh? You know, decided that was the right thing to do and you didn't have your side figured out on how to ensure that that side of the equation made sense. Like if, if, if you decided to take, you know, you wanted to change your own tires and put your own winter tires on, and then the thing flings off on the 401 and kills someone like they're gonna be out. Why did you do that? Why didn't you take it to a mechanic, uh, that knew what they were. You made the decision to do that. Nobody forced you to change your own tires. And it's the same thing with the marketing leader. So I do think it's part of the. The, you know, how do you go to the, to the CEO and the president, the revenue leaders, and say, hey, by the way, this didn't work out because the Agency, you know, they, they did not do a good job. It's like, uh, you know.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker A: That really, you better really have that nailed down if you're going to bring that forward. Uh, you know, be no different about. So it's a scapegoat. Yes. Have you, if you're saying, have agencies been, you know, used as scapegoats for failed initiatives and failed strategies? Yes, 100%. Yeah.

Speaker B: But it's kind of like I always like, I think the analogy is like a coach and a sports team. Okay. It's like the client's the coach, but like, like the players or the agencies still have to deliver. And if the, the agency is not

Speaker A: sure, hey, I don't know if we're

Speaker B: adding value, just calling that out. What could we be doing? Are they better aligning to what the outcomes and goals actually are? Are they asking those questions? Are they calling out, hey, like, I think based on those objectives, we could be doing something else that's more valuable, higher impact.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: There are times definitely where the agency doesn't give themselves the best chance to succeed. Because of that, you veer away from process or asking the hard questions. So maybe another trait or characteristic of the people that you're working with, uh, on the agency side would be, are they honest? Are they straight shooters? Will they call something out when something needs to and it's in with tact is within the best, um, the intent for the best for the relationship and the actual outcomes and performance. Right. So I think that's going to be really crucial too. So. Yeah. Is it possible the agency does everything they can and still it wasn't a success? Yeah, it's very rarely like that.

Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of times what probably the failures tend to be in, you know, the overall go to market, you know, really wasn't an execution of whatever was being put forward at that level. It was more, you know, our business is trying to go sell X, Y and Z. And we think it's this message and this is the tam. And then, and as a result, we're, we're going to go out to market and then the whole thing flops. Not so much because it was poorly executed. It was just that at a high level, the market product messaging fit was not, was not 100% there.

Speaker B: You know, I had a funny thing the other day. Uh, we're working with a large organization where marketing, um, and sales are, they're not super aligned. It's not to say they're, they're misaligned, but like they're just not closest departments. They're just a large organization. Different geographies, different products within the portfolio or suite. And um, as part of the engagement, we're gonna be doing some ABM stuff with them. Actually like a second round of abm. Totally different market, totally different product. And their, their product marketing team said, well, do like I, I said I want to meet the sales team. I want to understand the sales cycle. What are the kinds of objections and challenges they have to work around, what goes on in the deals. And the marketing team asked me like, oh, do we need to be there? Like, we don't really need to be out. Like, yeah, you do. You absolutely do. Like, one, perhaps you can add contacts and additional value to the meeting. And if, two, if, if you can't, then it's like, then you should be here with me learning.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And, uh, they kind of wanted to split up into different meetings and recaps. And I was like, we can recap after if you want, but you've got to be there. Find a way. I'll record it. We'll transcribe notes. If you can't actually physically make the meeting. But like, you gotta be there because you gotta absorb what's going on in these two. Right. That speaks to like, alignment and making sure that that strategy you're talking about is wrong from the get go.

Speaker A: Yeah, at. Well, I mean, I think we're treading into like a whole nother topic which, uh, with two topics. One is, I think it's interesting to go over some ABM stuff at some point. But I think the other topic you're kind of treading into is the almost the lack of accountability, what I'm hearing, and uh, responsibility that, that the internal marketing team has over the entire maybe process. Like, uh, and it's not to knock

Speaker B: the clients and stuff like that. Uh, what it is to say is like as the, as the.

Speaker A: But you can't. What I mean, but I guess what I'm saying is that you can't. And I'll let you go as a strategist, but you cannot outsource. Ultimately, you can't outsource accountability. You can't outsource the knowledge of what our business. Like, you know what I mean? It's like, oh, I have no idea what the sales team's objections are. And, or like that. It's like, no, you can't outsource that. That's.

Speaker B: You can't.

Speaker A: Like, you have to know that 100%.

Speaker B: But, uh, on, uh, the flip side, I'd Say the same thing for the agency is like, you have to be also accountable.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: As a strategist, you need to know how all these pieces work so that you can give the best possible recommendations and strategy. Yeah. And whether the client marketing team knows that or not, I need to get that information from someone.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: And it's not a good enough excuse for me to say, well, you know, the strategy was bosh, but in fairness to me, I didn't talk to sales.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: No client's going to allow for that and your results will suffer. And we are definitely in the results based or results oriented business. And that's just the kind of like the level I think right now you need to be at as far as agency accountability and doing the right thing. In some cases, like the client says, we want you to meet sales, and in other cases I'm the one sort of pushing in, knocking the door down to say like, we need this and I'm happy to explain why it's going to be helpful and I'll even do that on my dollar if I have to because we just need to know that information. So one way or another, I just have to understand the full sales process because I don't want to put out a half baked strategy.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And you want to be able to defend it. All right, I think that's pretty good. I think we're pretty good on that one. This was a really good, um, I guess, uh, send off to the, uh. Yeah, the, the Studio 2, Studio B.

Speaker B: Talk about a cliffhanger.

Speaker A: Studio B. So the next one will be Studio C. Technically Studio C. So we're gonna do that.

Speaker B: It sounds like we have, um, well, more unhinged episodes to come. But also perhaps a hinged, uh, ABM. Reflections of ABM in 24.

Speaker A: I like that.

Speaker B: So, uh, yeah, hinged or regular.

Speaker A: And maybe a real edgy one like you can't outsource accountability.

Speaker B: Maybe that one.

Speaker A: Ooh, that'll get some attention.

Speaker B: Hey, that'll be clickbaity. Straight fire. Is that what they say now? Yeah.

Speaker A: Oh, is that what they say? All right, good stuff. Thanks everyone.

Speaker B: All right, till next time. Peace.