Answer these 5 questions to help distinguish your shop
A lot of people I know are starting agencies, and a lot of them come to me for advice on public relations—asking something like, “How do we get our share of the attention before we have the clients or the work?”
Don’t think about PR yet, I tell them. You’re not ready for it. The best thing you can do is sit down together with your partners and talk over the big stuff: what you want to do, how you want to do it, and who you want to do it for.
We’re working on it, they say, we’ll get to that next. But there is no next—because the moment your first client hands you a big fat check, all of those things go out the window. You do what the client wants. You become what the client needs. If they need digital, you’re a digital shop. If they want performance media, you’re suddenly knee-deep in analytics. And the agency you were going to form becomes something else.
Lots of good agencies, and even some great ones, start that way. Agencies are wired to tell their clients’ stories: That’s the mark of a good agency. But great agencies are the ones that learn how to tell their own.
Think of the shops you most admire. I’ll bet most of them have a clear origin story, hammered home and shaped by everything they’ve done since.
If you want to witness this story unfold in real time, look at Mischief. Yes, they do great work, but the reason they’ve captured the imagination of the industry is because they tell a great story. I mean, literally: “We’ve long since traded our sacred cows for a handful of magic beans,” from their positioning statement, tells you everything about the relationship they’re cultivating with the industry.
So, you want to start your new agency? Write that origin story. Prove you have a reason to exist. Five questions will help you tell it.
What do we do that nobody else can?
Way too many founders start with something like this: “We’re a collective of dreamers, doers and thinkers. We live at the nexus of collaboration and inspiration, and we make work that works.”
Congratulations—you’ve just described an agency. You have to do better than that if you want to thrive. What problems are left unsolved if you don’t solve them?
How do we do things better than anyone else?
The most important part of the story is the “how.” Anyone can do great work—how you get there is something you can own. The way you look at the world. The way you solve a problem. The ways you collaborate. If your story here isn’t unique, you’re going to have to build it.
How do we make our story true?
These answers only work if you live them. If you’re culturally savvy content creators, you better hire people with credibility. If you’re driven by data, you have to have the systems in place. If you want big AOR assignments, you need a good accounts team.
Just as important are the things you won’t do. Decide the types of brands you want to avoid, the work that kills your soul. Set guardrails and stick to them.
How do we clarify our story?
Positioning statements are lame, right? Most agencies tend to half-ass them until someone writes a manifesto an hour before the site goes live.
They matter, though. They provide a big blinking marquee that draws in prospects and talent alike. Be specific: You’re not the premier provider of marketing services, you’re the creative boutique who believes all content should be under six seconds or over two minutes. If it sounds like someone else, you need to start again.
How do we tell our story to the world?
OK, now we can talk PR—although really, everything above is PR, too.
Before you start speaking to reporters, settle on the themes that will show you in the best light and work them into everything from press releases to op-eds. Keep reminding yourself, and the world, of that story.
There’s a scene from The Goonies that everyone my age could quote—it’s when the jock drops a bucket down a well to rescue them, and some of the adventurers are tempted to go up. Sean Astin talks about their parents, dealing with their everyday stresses, and how one day the kids will be like them. But not today. “Down here, it’s our time. It’s our time down here,” he said. “That’s all over the second we ride up Troy’s bucket.”
This is your time. There will be plenty of time to jump on client calls and pitch out press releases. There will even be time to rethink all the choices I just asked you to make. Not now, though. Now is your time to take a beat. To reflect. To learn who you are and what you want to become.
Because that’s all over the second we ride up Troy’s bucket.
