I was talking to a colleague the other day (who is with a major agency in town) and we were commenting on how the business of being an ad agency is going through a world of change.  A much needed change.  As the owner and partner in an independent marketing firm (some call us a small agency), we’ve had to refine our business model to fit the economic and client climate of today—just to put food on our tables.  Maybe it’s that sort of imperative that has eventually come to the ad agency world, with clients who are willing to ‘shop around RFPs’ after 75+ years of remarkable service.  Mind you, not every ad was remarkable, but I’ve made my rounds and every major agency I’ve worked for has over-serviced their clients with little gratitude in return.  What is an agency to do?

It has to consider the type of model we use at A Few Good Marketers—and one I’m sure many small businesses have come to master.  We are a virtual company, so we have mastered the fine are of free applications on the web;  free file sharing, free large file transfers, free email, free conference calls, free video calls, free content management platforms for our client websites…and the list goes on.  This mean we have remarkably low overhead—as in, almost none at all, relatively speaking.  We’ve also mastered the art of churning project work which is not a model well suited to support extravagant offices and employment perks.  It takes careful business planning and an investment in business development as a core competency.   And in order to service this project machine, we’ve had to master the use of contract talent.  Now, agencies are used to the freelance world for creative talent, but we’re using contractors for all lines of work—from strategy to PR to development.  And we get to match our talent with exactly what the client needs.  Imagine that!  We don’t have to use the copy guy down the hall who simply cannot write to a female audience or the developer or pushes everything into .NET because he’s a Microsoft junkie.  We just pick the right talent for the job.  And then we pay them just for that job.  And then we move on to the next project.

We’ve also had to learn how to manage a talent pool and workforce in disparate locations who are not connected under some European parent umbrella company and beholden to work together.  But—surprise!—there are plenty of seriously talented individuals seeking work who provide outstanding contributions to client deliverables.  Sometimes, we deliver projects for clients and never actually see or meet with our talent in person.  That’s right.  They are hundreds of miles away, but just one click away on the other end of Skype if we need them.  Being able to walk down the hall and see your production team hard at work is over-rated and over-priced.

The client benefits in all of this obvious to us because we believe it is our strength.  We can deliver diversity in talent, ideas and creative while dedicating the majority of the client’s budget to actual work deliverables instead of paying for overhead.  We can quickly morph our team into the talent set that is needed as marketing/advertising needs ebb and flow.  We believe many clients today have the ‘food on the table’ imperative and see opportunity in the changing marketplace of communication services.  In the end, great ideas and great work will prevail, but it might be found in new places or unlikely partnerships.

http://www.afewgoodmarketers.com