The RFP process for hiring a digital agency is 22nd century kabuki. Highly trained, costumed, and perfumed players sing and dance well-rehearsed traditional lines in ritualized set-piece scenarios. Unfortunately, the process rarely predicts the texture or substance of the subsequent client-agency relationship or the quality of the services likely to be delivered.
The process for finding an agency partner ought to be less arduous, more fun, and more likely to foreshadow the working relationship. Yet getting there requires a willingness to break with tradition by confronting your demons, identifying genuine needs and political or psychological realities upfront, and structuring a search process designed to elicit critical information about an agency's competence, finances, and operating style, while laying bare the tone and texture of how agencies operate day to day.
Achieving this ideal isn't as difficult as you might think. Here's what your process should look like.
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