Rule of thumb 2: personnel matters
Now that you know your budgets are in line with the budgets of your agency, the next important task is making sure you mesh with the personnel and their expertise.
Be sure to ask if the individuals in the review will be involved in the day-to-day operations of your account, and if not, who will be? Be sure to meet those who will be directly involved with handling your account, because again, no matter how large an agency is, your budget will dictate the account team -- that's who you want to meet because that is really who you're hiring.
For example, while I'm the president of AMG, we're a small agency, and I personally handle many of the daily tasks assigned to servicing a client, giving our clients the benefit of my, ahem, many years in the business and my expertise. Smaller agencies like ours tend to have the ability to be a bit more nimble, opportunistic and certainly hands on. If that is important to you, be sure the chosen agency fits within those guidelines. It is impractical for executive leadership to be involved in the day-to-day activities of every account -- and in some instances, you wouldn't want them to be -- so again, ask about personnel and ask about practical expertise of those assigned to your account.
Warning signs you have the wrong agency personnel:
- You've never seen or met the owners or leadership of the agency or, worse, the only time you met them was during the review and sales process.
- You are constantly having a new account executive assigned to your account.
- Those assigned simply don't understand your organizational goals or your industry.
