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1. When is the right time to get an ad agency?
Any time is good, honestly, but from my experience with small clients, three things need to happen:
- You need to accept that an ad agency is a business, which will charge you money and needs to make a profit. If your business plan depends on having an ad agency work for free “because you are starting up”, then your business plan is wrong and your business is not sustainable.When I had my last agency, Montaño + Salup, we pitched a transportation company that was on the verge of growing. They had purchased some buses, needed to generate business. We were going to do 100% direct response.
At some point, the owner looked at our proposal, zeroed in on our fee and said, “what is this?” in a tone that communicated, “you are stealing from me”. When I explained that this was our fee for the work he got really aggressive. He just thought that we should not charge a fee. We passed on his business.
- You need to accept that the people in the ad agency know their stuff. From your side, you should have at least an idea of what you want to achieve with your advertising, be able to explain it with some degree of precision (a brief) and then let them come back to you with a strategy, a plan and a way to measure these results. If you think you know more than the agency does about advertising and marketing… don’t hire them!
One of my favorite clients when I had deRojas + Salup was Gus Machado Ford and Buick. The GM told us, day one: “I need to sell 300 vehicles a month. You are going to have a fixed budget, and from that budget you will need to do creative and buy media. The allocation is up to you. If I don’t sell 300 vehicles one month, you are on probation. Two months of less than 300 vehicles and you are fired.” He was super clear, quantified, and knew the results he wanted. We lasted 10 months on the account, a record for him at the time.
- You really need a budget that will at least create an impact. Otherwise, you are kidding yourself.At both agencies we had companies (and people) approach us with budgets of $2,000 or $3,000 per month. My advice was always the same: hire a person. You are just not interesting for an agency.
The next installment of the series will focus on the following topics: What should be the structure of the agency? and What should be your budget?
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Lessons in Small Business Marketing Decision Making
