Playing well in the strategy sandbox.

A call for harmony between consultants and agencies to best serve their marketing clients.

Ten years ago it was relatively easy to know what to do to launch a brand, create awareness, generate leads. However, in today’s world your marketing plan could be as much about community awareness, social networking and events as it is about TV, print and email. What’s more, each of these crafts must work synergistically in order to get traction. This makes it increasingly important for the consultant and the agency to function as one entity.

Three things consultants and agencies should keep in mind, to get the most out of your client relationships and deliver the best service.

Solve a marketing problem, not a tactic. If your client isn’t allowing you access to the big questions, you’ve already lost. Your relationship will be shallow at best, and that never leads to the best work. To clients, I would warn that this model will get you at best a mile deep with the talent you’ve hired. Not a great use of time or money.

Play to your strengths. The consultant should prepare the marketing organization for working with an agency by gathering the materials, insight, and buy-in of all internal groups to produce a clear, consistent objective. The agency should be prepared to present a point-of-view, and guide the client in the tools that are available and how to effectively put them to use. Too many consultants try to be a one-person agency. And too many agencies try to be an internal advocate for the client. In order for the team to function, each partner needs to focus in on their core capabilities.

Work as one. Few clients will respond to internal bickering, even if it’s justified. Set up your billing structure to allow for multiple conversations with the entire team. When you’re in the midst of a project, that’s not the time to try to increase your billings or responsibilities. If any team member attempts to gain at the expense of another, they appear to be land-grabbers. This seldom results in anything more than fleeting, incremental gains.

If both parties have done their jobs well, the consultant will be invaluable to both the client and agency. A consultant can be the third-party, external resource needed to help give credence to cutting edge creative, where the client is on the fence. The agency becomes indispensable in bringing reality to strategic plans. The client ends up with consistent, valuable insight, experience and service from everyone—the key to a long and fruitful relationship for all.