Is Your Business In Liftphase?

Here is the secret: Every small agency can do anything that another can do. The products and services that they are offer are the same as any other. What you are instead shopping for is the unique talent that exists within an agency, the talent you need to put you into Liftphase.

To be placed into Liftphase, it takes the right combination of ideas, insight and precision of execution. Numbers are just numbers until they are applied.

The issue though is that agencies have turned your brand/business’s marketing into a commodity to compete for. They are not acting as an agent for you. They are trying to squeeze another 2% of margin out of your digital media spend.

Compare this approach to your lawyer. Would you prefer the cut rate firm who just happened to be the cheapest? Or would you rather have a legal firm that understands you, your challenges and is a partner with you to overcome your legal challenges? Would you prefer to trust them to do their work or to stand over them and micromanage the details of the work that you went to the agency for in the first place?

The truth is that many agencies do not have your best interests in mind, nor do they necessarily have the best interest of their employees in mind. So who do they serve? They serve the billable hour or the media markup. Still. It’s archaic.

And here’s the biggest secret: effective marketing is not numbers. Effective marketing is based off of intuition, interpretation and emotion. People buy products that represent what they want you to think about them. They don’t want to be thought of as a number.

The word data is thrown around as if data itself does work. Data does not do work. People do. People interpret, understand and apply the results of data. When you are sitting in a meeting with your agency and they say “data doesn’t lie,” fire them. Data lies all the time. It can cause you to increase spend on a product that is low margin simply because data says it is “performing.” Instead data works best when used as a tool. Like money. Money is a tool. It does nothing unless your profits are used to build your business. So too should data be used as a tool. Would you trust a cut-rate financial manager with your money while they harp about their position that “money doesn’t lie?”

Put your business into Liftphase by aligning the realities of your marketing with the reality of your business, your processes (or lack of) and most importantly your people. Talent, especially the unification of that talent in your organization, will put your business into liftphase.