Founder and CEO of Mason Interactive, an award-winning performance marketing agency with locations in New York and Charlotte, NC.
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Not too long ago, we were approached by a fantastic brand via a referral, and we withdrew our agency from consideration. There are red flags in a client onboarding process, and this client exhibited none of them. So, if the potential partner exhibited none of our known red flags, why did we withdraw?
At Mason, our culture centers around growing our clients’ businesses. In no particular order, growing a client takes human firepower welded to machine learning and automation, clear expectations and over-communication. With that in mind, this client would have fired us in six months because the fees they wanted to pay would not allow us to devote the human firepower they needed. We’re very upfront about that because we believe that you shouldn’t view your marketing efforts as an expense but as an essential function. The more you put into it, the more you get out of it.
To be transparent about how I communicated this to the brand, I’ll show you my email to them here:
Hi [redacted],
I wanted to recap our convo from yesterday in writing. First, thank you! [Brand Name Redacted] is exactly the kind of mission-driven company we want to partner with, and I sincerely appreciate your time.
MORE FOR YOU
You’ve clearly articulated your pain points, expectations, and price constraints. And we can meet your price. That said, we’re withdrawing from the race. I think [Brand Name Redacted] needs:
1. To prioritize Conversion Rate Optimization. Increasing your Conversion Rate by 0.5% would solve a lot of problems.
2. To laser-focus on growing brand awareness through FB/IG and Google/YouTube. TikTok, Snap, and more are 100% necessary, but these are nascent platforms and will not have the ROI/ROAS/CAC that you need today. [Brand Name Redacted] needs to be in them, because that’s where the consumer is, but (for today, at least) they are the snack and not the entrée.
Working through those complex issues requires an “A” Team, and we cannot afford to give you an “A” Team at that price. So, by meeting your price, you’d be unsatisfied, you’d fire us, and nobody wins. I 100% realize that this sounds self-serving coming from an Agency, but I believe it.
I wish you all the best; you really are exactly the kind of partner we look for.
My offer for alternative pricing stands, and we’ll stay in touch.
Thank you again for your time, truly.
4 Red Flags To Keep An Eye On
While [redacted brand] didn’t exhibit any red flags, there are a few of them I’d encourage all agency leaders to be mindful of before taking on new clients. Those red flags include:
• Nobody owns marketing internally. When a prospective client has a different representative of the company on each call, it’s a pretty clear sign that no one owns that function (in this case, marketing) internally. This creates a situation where we’re executing on a different person’s vision, goals, etc. So, if a different person is in charge each time, it’s hard—and almost impossible—to be successful.
• They’ve fired three (or four, or however many) agencies in the last quarter/year. This is a big one for us. If the potential partner has churned through agencies, it’s probably not all of the agencies’ faults. We always ask why a prospect is looking to change agencies to see how we might be able to do better, but generally, if a client has fired four agencies in the past year, we’ll likely be the fifth.
• They have no concrete goals. “More” is not a goal. “I want to sell X widgets by Y date at Z cost” is a goal. Sometimes we come across a prospect who doesn’t have goals because they don’t believe they need them. Though it’s not an immediate sign to walk away, generally clients with goals will be more successful than clients that don’t have them.
• They have unrealistic growth targets. “I want to grow by 4x next year, and I’ve got a 5% increase in ad budget to do this.” That’s not going to happen, no matter what anyone tells you.
What do you do if a prospect shows one or some of these red flags? Charge them more? Simply reject the deal? We’ve done both of these in the past. You have to think really hard about the prospect and what the partnership will look like beyond closing.
In Summary
As much as you want to sign new deals, if the partnership doesn’t seem like it’s going to be successful, it’s important to not sign them on. As marketers, it’s important to grow our clients’ businesses, and to do that, you must build healthy and sustainable relationships with your partners. One of the biggest green flags we’ve seen is when a prospect understands that.
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Author: Brook Shepard, Forbes Councils Member
