The True Cost of an Agency

I’ve worked for big companies and small companies. Almost all of them hired agencies at one point or another. I was never a fan. Agencies always felt like a lot of theater and not a lot of substance.

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When I came here, I realized just how much of that theater is baked into the industry. Most agencies sell polish, not truth. They tell you what you want to hear, not what you need to fix.

That said, the right agency can deliver value:

• Outside perspective. Companies are often too close to their own problems, convinced that their challenges are unique. In reality, they’re often symptoms of the same issues that plague every organization: misaligned goals, broken journeys, wasted tools. An agency can cut through the bias and politics to show what’s really going on.
• Focus. Internal teams have day jobs. Marketing still has campaigns to run, sales still has numbers to hit, IT still has fires to put out. A major digital project can’t compete with those priorities. Agencies can focus where internal teams can’t, driving progress without competing against the rest of the business.
• Expertise. Working inside a business, you only see one way of doing things. Working inside an agency, you see the spectrum of possibilities. I’ve seen the same problems across industries, what causes those problems, and how to address them. That matters, because while the problems are often the same, the solutions never are.

Discovery Isn't Theater

I’ve sat in discovery sessions and too often they are based on a handful of predictable questions, no follow-ups, no validation. Whatever is said is taken as truth and becomes the foundation of the entire project. If those assumptions are wrong, then everything built on top of them is wrong too.

Participation Matters

Project stakeholders must be part of the process from day one and committed through the end. When stakeholders aren't part of the process from the beginning, don't understand how decisions are made, how the data and customer voice all fit together, projects suffer.

Data, Not Feelings

We've seen executives get cold feet, look at competitors, and assume the best approach is to copy their strategy. That's a recipe for disaster since your competitors fundamentals, business model, and audience are most likely unique.

The Difference

The difference between real discovery and theater is simple: Discovery strips away assumptions and pours a foundation of data that stands up to scrutiny and real-world applications. Most agencies fail to deliver this.

Technology Isn't the Requirement

When projects are planned around technology instead of business goals, the results are predictable: uneccessary purchases of overlapping tools, teams drowning in integrations they never asked for, and a generic user experience that causes customer frustration and tarnishes your brand.

We recently helped a client dig their way out from a Salesforce and FreshDesk implementation. Between duplicated services and developer fees, they were wasting $33,000 a year. By consolidating into HubSpot, we eliminated the duplication and cut out the overhead, freeing budget for actual growth initiatives.

The examples pile up quickly, but share a common lesson -  requirements must drive technology decisions, not the other way around.

The wrong platform choice isn't just expensive; it's unmanageable. A recent client was sold on Adobe, basing their purchase decision on Adobe's pitch - not their resourcing capability. Adobe ignored team resource availability and capability, and focused only on selling technology. The business couldn't afford additional resources on top of sky-high Adobe costs and the solution has since become unusable shelf-ware.

Personas Aren't a Strategy

You've seen personas like this: “Mary, 42, likes yoga.” And...? What of this tells you how Mary makes a decision or what stops her from buying? If a persona doesn't make sense to you, it doesn't make sense to construct your customer experience on it.

A clear picture emerges when you build personas and journeys from customer interviews, SME insights, support tickets, win/loss notes, and analytics. The first drafts of this type of persona always surprise clients. With data points on the table, from customers, from the team, from the analytics, real insights emerge and produce real  solutions that benefit the business.

Surface-Level Fixes are... Surface-Level

Everyone loves new design. But superficial design won’t fix broken customer journeys, missing content, or poorly-functioning integrations. Too often, a redesigned site is launched and performance flatlines.

We have a unique approach that begins with a type of lo-fidelity design called a Content Blueprint™. These essential documents go beyond wireframes and focus on how a page builds awareness, creates understanding, and helps users take action. Once the design is set, visuals can change without breaking the structure. ‍

A Never-Ending Cycle of Rework

Companies often make significant investments into a redesign only to watch performance plateau, and end up back at the beginning every 2few years. A full rebuild, another cycle of disruption, more wasted money – and no real learnings or progress.

From our perspective launch is the starting line, not the finish line. Real gains come from ongoing optimization and accountability to design decisions and their evolutions. Every 3 months, we analyze, produce new opportunities, test, iterate, and adjust design, content, and technology. We leverage our Pathfinder process continuously. This ensures you see continuous performance gains after launch, not a plateau.

Building Sand Castle Strategies

Bottom line: projects fail when the foundation is weak or missing.

A great agency delivers expertise and proof, identifying patterns, validating assumptions, and finding the right path forward for your team and your goals. You'll know it when you see it in analytics, dashboards, and reports that speak for themselves and defend the ongoing invesment you make in a mission-critical partnership.