My favorite questions.

Inspiring the best from your agency.

By Marissa Loper

I stared back at him and cocked my head to one side, contemplating the wisest way to answer. No one had ever asked me this question.

There were four of us sitting around a conference table, and all eyes were on me.

Just 15 minutes prior, while my sister-in-law was giving me a tour of her family business, we had chatted about Thinkwell’s branding refresh. Carla had wondered aloud if her company needed a similar change, and I had given her my honest opinion. Yes, it was time.

Impulsively, Carla asked me to sit down and then proceeded to go fetch and usher in two of her brothers (who are also her business partners). It was the first time we had met, and I felt ill-prepared for an impromptu consultation.

“Tell Robert and Ralph what you just told me,” Carla urged.

So I did. A little clumsily, probably. I was in vacation mode.

That’s when Ralph looked at me and asked,

“What exactly is marketing?”

Ahh, yes. Excellent question.

I could practically hear Julie Andrews singing softly in my ear: “Let’s start at the very beginning. It’s a very good place to start.”

So I gathered my thoughts, took a deep breath, and explained to Ralph that marketing is the business of figuring out the right messages and the most effective ways to get those messages out to the right people.

Typing that sentence made me cringe. I dislike how fluffy my definition sounds, because what I do for a living is actually grounded in strategy and discipline. But I’m keenly aware that some people view marketing as hocus-pocus.

I guess Carla and her brothers either bought in to the strategy or succumbed to my witchcraft, because they said yes to the rebrand. (Check out www.kessick.com to learn more about their incredible wine storage solutions company, and be sure to oooh and ahhh over their revamped logo with a “K” that resembles the silhouette of a racked wine bottle.)

I learned a valuable lesson that day at Kessick:

Don’t assume people understand what you do.

By definition, if you’re an expert in a field, others are not. (Why thank you, Captain Obvious.) Ralph’s question taught me to start by explaining how a potential client could benefit from marketing as a discipline before jumping into how my agency, specifically, could help.

So, Ralph, please know that your question now ranks second on my list of favorite questions clients have asked me.

Curious about the top spot? Watch this little video. I’m still chuckling over the CEO’s genius question.

Both of my favorite questions put me on the spot. I wasn’t expecting either one, so I didn’t have a prepared answer to give. Both men got the raw, unscripted truth. And that’s probably why their questions have landed on my favorite list.

But there’s one question that might just oust those two from their current positions. It’s a question that I would absolutely love to answer, should anyone ever ask.

So, dear reader, since this is my blog and I’m the boss of this blog, I’m going to ask myself this question and then answer my own favorite question.

Here goes:

“How can I get the very best work out of my ad agency?”

I’m so happy you asked.

It’s like you read my mind.

So, you’ve invested in partnering with an agency, and now you’d like to understand how to maximize that investment.

Okay, okay, stop begging. I’ll offer three tips for how to inspire your agency partners.

Tip number 1: Share the problem without mandating the solution.

You didn’t think I’d just lob a softball for the first tip, did you?

Honestly, this piece of advice might just be the most difficult one—but if you as the client can master it, you’ll get better results every time.

For example, you might be tempted to send us a note saying, “Here’s the conference theme and our show flow. Please build content accordingly.”

Sure, we can do that. And we’d do a good job. My creative folks can make just about any theme work, and we can certainly write scripts for the show flow you already produced.

It would be better, though, to bring us to the table earlier in the process and say something like, “Our sales force needs motivation to hit next year’s aggressive quota. We’ll have all the salespeople at a conference for 2.5 days. What should we do?”

If you want your sales meeting to be incredible, the second example is the way to go. We’re awesome at developing dynamic conference themes and whipping up smart run-of-show documents based on what we know works well from 20+ years of planning events.

(Please forgive me if that statement sounds arrogant, but as a favorite client of mine once told me years ago, “It ain’t bragging if it’s so!” RIP, Judy. I miss your words of wisdom.)

We would enjoy working with you to create the event … instead of making the event you created work. And by sharing the problem you’d like to solve without telling us exactly how to solve it, you’ll get our best.

Tip number 2: Set your agency up for success with the right information, assets, and timeline.

I know—what I’m suggesting is a “perfect world” scenario, and our world is rarely perfect.

But we do some of our strongest work when clients strive to set us up with the things we need to be successful, including the following:

• Information we need to do the job (i.e., data for charts, log-in information for your website, reference articles, source materials, stats or deadlines you want to include, etc.)
• Assets we need for the job (i.e., images, photography, video assets, etc.)
• A timeline that’s reasonable to complete the work

Armed with these three things, we can deliver a draft you’ll love.

Without the information or assets, your draft will be full of placeholders. Without a reasonable timeline, our work will be rushed. And in those scenarios, we simply can’t deliver our very best.

So, if you feel like you’re getting ho-hum results from your agency, ask yourself if you gave them the information, assets, and timeline they needed. (If you are doing those things but still aren’t getting results, you may have hired the wrong agency. Call Thinkwell, STAT!)

Tip number 3: Sandwich your feedback.

Remember when you were a little kid, and you came home from school with a stick-figure-family drawing? Hopefully, your parents displayed it proudly on your refrigerator.

Can you imagine how you’d feel if they’d thrown your artwork directly in the trash?

Thankfully, my team has thicker skin (and more skills) than a kindergartner, but the idea is the same.

When you’ve put your heart and soul into a creation, it sucks the air right out of you when people say they hate it.

That said, we don’t always hit the bullseye on our first attempt, so we desperately need your constructive feedback.

It’s a delicate balance, but I promise your agency partner will be grateful if you “sandwich” your negative feedback between some positive notes. Begin and end your message with affirmation, while placing your more negative feedback in between.

So, for example, your email could read something like this:

Dear account person:

Thank you so much for getting the first draft of our postcard over to me so quickly! I always appreciate the extra review time, and I think the image you guys selected for the front of the piece is perfect. Bravo!

On the next draft, I’d love to see:

• • • A few different headline options—my gut says this one is a little too humorous. Could you try a more direct approach?
    • A new image for side 2—can you find an option that shows a younger couple?

Again, great job on the first draft. With these couple of tweaks, I’ll be excited to show my boss.

Now, I’m aware that this kind of sandwiching takes time and might feel like overkill.

But I promise you as a person who’s often on the receiving end of these kinds of emails, it is always refreshing to hear a little good along with the bad.

Even when I’m 100% aware that I’m being sandwiched, I still take the negative feedback so much better when it’s served up in this manner.

When my team emails a draft for review, it feels a bit like we’ve put our hearts on a silver platter when we click “send.” You don’t need to sugarcoat your feedback, but sandwiching it sure helps it become more palatable.

Great, now I’m craving sugar and sandwiches….

Parting words from your partner

Finally, although this particular post is about how you can inspire our best work, I want you to know that here at Thinkwell, we are always looking for ways we can take better care of you.

When we aim to serve you better while you look for ways to set us up for success, that’s when the real magic happens. That’s partnership at its finest.

And, ultimately, when my team feels like an extension of yours, you’ll get our very best.