How to win without pitching and get fair value for your work—4 Small Agency Conference takeaways

Finding an agency’s value proposition, marketing your work and engaging clients differently were just a few topics covered at the Ad Age Small Agency Conference on July 23 and 24 in Boston. See all of the 2024 Small Agency award winners here The conference was held last week as small agencies around the country are having a moment. In recent months, smaller shops have won sizable accounts, as CMOs look to smaller shops skilled at projects and working with in-house agencies. Below, Ad Age lists four takeaways from the conference about how to grow your agency and create strong campaigns. Find your agency’s point of difference Executives from consultancy Team Uncommon advised agencies about how to stand out in a saturated market, noting that shops must first have a clear understanding of themselves and the expertise they can offer clients. That can be achieved with a nine-word exercise, said Rishad Tobaccowala, a longtime Publicis Groupe exec who is a growth consultant at Uncommon. Tobaccowala told agencies to ask themselves: What three words capture your expertise, craft and work that makes you better than your competitors? What three words describe your agency’s personality and culture? What three words describe your journey and why should people believe in you? The answers should yield nine words that capture your company’s positioning. That group can then be reduced to three, and lastly to one. More from Ad Age: Tracking ad agency account reviews Howard Moggs, Uncommon founder and chief growth officer at Team Uncommon, suggested that agencies analyze their work and look for patterns—do they tend to work with challenger brands, startups or premium and luxury clients? Questions like this will help them determine your niche. Moggs advised shops to figure out what sort of problems they are skilled at solving and double down on that. “Put your credentials in a presentation that says something like ‘Clients hire us when they have one of these four problems,’” said Moggs. Ad Age Creativity Bookmark our section covering the best in brand creativity every day Read more here Find ways to market your work Establishing an identity starts with a name and living up to it. Bandits & Friends, Opinionated and Partyland all have monikers that reflect their point of view and provocative work to back that up. But the client relationship “has to go both ways,” said Courtney Berry, president and co-founder of Bandits & Friends, noting that clients should cooperate in allowing the agency to PR their wins and the work, which are agencies’ calling cards. Also: How incumbents can defend accounts and retain clients Sometimes that requires a bit of negotiation with the client, noted Kate Higgins, chief growth officer at Opinionated, referencing a recent conversation with Panda Express, which named Opinionated its creative agency of record earlier this month. “Panda Express is very humble, family-owned and so they didn’t want to do press necessarily, but when we explained to them that this is our lifeblood and our ability to [get business], they were immediately on board,” she said. Talking about PR early with clients helps, Berry added, to help them understand that while it serves the agency it also serves them too, as industry press helps attract talent that could support that client. The most important thing to remember is to “believe in the value of your work and fight for it,” said Berry. Don’t be afraid to approach clients on your terms It is possible to win clients without pitching, said executives from Creative Haystack, Atlantic New York, Mischief @ No Fixed Address and Curiosity. Having a strong reputation helps to skirt a pitch. Oliver McAteer, head of development and partner, Mischief @ No Fixed Address, said his agency leans heavily on PR to get the word out about the kind of work the agency does, which naturally attracts client prospects. Other suggestions from the panel include requesting a chemistry session with a client (most of them are willing to save time and money), asking potential clients why they’re hosting a pitch and crafting solutions accordingly, or just catching them at an opportune moment. One creative example came from João Coutinho, co-founder and chief creative officer at Atlantic New York. In 2023, his agency launched a car service that offered free rides between Nice airport and Cannes if prospective clients were willing to listen to the agency’s elevator pitch along the way to the Cannes International Festival of Creativity. Whether it’s an elevator pitch or a formal RFP, be prepared. Do research beforehand, study a client’s earnings reports and do some sleuthing to find out who you’re pitching against, said Ashley Walters, partner and chief marketing officer at Curiosity. She emphasized that pitching is a two-way street, and it’s important to know what kind of relationship you’re getting into to understand if it is mutually beneficial. Read more about Atlantic Car Service Don’t give away your work—and defend its value Executives from Fig and Translation debated the necessity of spec work, concluding it is often necessary. Despite spec being time-consuming and expensive, Mark Figliulo, founder and creative chair at Fig, argued that doing spec work creates a fruitful tension in agency teams that allows them to come up with their best ideas. Chaucer Barnes, chief marketing officer at Translation, concurred, adding that providing spec work for clients, even when they don’t ask, puts an agency’s expertise on display. However, both agency execs agreed shops should maintain ownership of spec work and not give work away for free. Similarly, Frances Webster, co-founder of Walrus, speaking on a compensation panel, urged agencies to fight for their worth. “Know the value of your work and negotiate accordingly,” she said, reminding attendees that “you set the tenor for the rest of the relationship.” Added Brent Banker, co-founder at X&O, to a round of applause: “Stop giving your shit away for free.” Sign up for Ad Age newsletters From influencer marketing to agencies, get the latest news and analysis delivered to your inbox Click here

How to win without pitching and get fair value for your work—4 Small Agency Conference takeaways

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