From Vendor to Partner: Getting the Most Out of your Agency Relationship

[Music]

Thank you so much. Thank you everyone.

I'm so excited to bring this topic to

you today. Sounds like it's very near

and dear to some of our

hearts because everybody loves

consultants. uh and that either you know

what that is either based on how old or

how young you are. So laugh

accordingly. Um but no matter who I

spoke to when I announced my speaker

topic whether it was someone in house or

someone on the agency side there was

equal excitement to get this sorted out.

Oh please do talk about that because we

need to get that sorted out. So people

on both sides of the aisle so to speak

have a great interest uh in settling

this topic uh because not all agencies

are terrible but all people have had

terrible experiences with agencies. So

we will look into that together. Uh but

we'll play a quick round of mythbusters

if you will indulge me with the number

one at the top of the list. They

probably want to steal my job. Now mind

you before we go down the line I have

spent just as much time inhouse as on

the agency side. So these are things

I've thought myself or things I've said

myself or heard as we were onboarding a

new agency.

Uh most consultants like consulting uh

for the variety that it provides. So,

use the benefit of their many reps of

having done it lots of times before to

fasttrack your productivity and validate

your ideas. They work for you after all.

So, use the benefit of the many, many

times they've done this and apply it to

your specific

circumstance. What if they make me look

bad in front of my boss? I think that's

a it's a fair concern. Um, what I would

say to that is we want you to look good.

Okay? And cultivating a great

relationship with you is you in the

future, you I'm assuming you're not

going to retire from your current job.

You're going to move on. You're going to

go to different companies. Your

network's going to grow. If we trip you

up, make you look bad, try to show you

up in front of your boss, you're never

going to come calling to us again. We

want to have a relationship with you so

we can grow with you.

Won't they just toss around a bunch of

buzzwords to sound

smart?

Yes. Um, however, great partners get

into your groove, aligning to and

respecting your language, your acronyms,

your culture. Uh, back to that variety

piece. One of my favorite things about

consulting is learning all y'all little

acronyms and your GTMs and your AOVs and

your I love it. It's so interesting to

me. So, we want to learn your language

and get in the

groove. They will suggest a bunch of

unnecessary stuff uh to drive the bill

up. Oh, walk around. Sorry, it's my

first

one.

Any solution that we put forward should

be able to be real and deliverable.

That's what we're there for after all.

Full stop. So that healthy growth will

scale organically, strategically, and

most important,

collaboratively. All right, but we're

going to set a few scenes and talk

through them. I'm sure some of them

might sound familiar. So, we're going to

start at the end.

Because what we really need to do

together to set the stage for that

partnership is to find outcomes and not

just deliverables. You do not want just

a pair of hired hands ticking off a list

of activities that you need to chop down

on your list. So let's say the goal is

deliver a new checkout flow by Memorial

Day. Sounds easy enough. Uh, but the

problem is every decision, feature, or

pixel seems to come with extra dollar

signs and an extended timeline. So, stop

me if you've heard this before. You

might say, "Hey, we'll need to add push

notifications." Agency might say, "Sure,

no problem, but we need to add another

design round and another designer."

You're like, "Wait, how what happened?"

Well, it's out of

scope. Um, it's like, are you making a

checkout flow or playing Simon says?

Every screen feels like a high stakes

negotiation. Costs are ballooning and

launch day, please. Uh, not to mention

trust is eroding by the minute. Have you

ever been in a situation like this?

Yeah, some head

nods. So, where did it go wrong? If we

take it back to that transactional

start, even when spelled out in black

and white, the words on a contract can

leave a ton of room for

misinterpretation. Uh, so it sounds like

this one was built for a vendor

relationship and not a partnership. The

agency was giving marching orders to do

a thing, uh, but no real insight into

why, uh, that matters and what impact

it'll have on your users.

um the focus was on outputs and things

to do and not outcomes or business

success. How do we fix that? Uh you need

to look for a partner and not just an

executor. So if we rewind the clock back

and set this up for mutual success, the

agency is aligned to your business

goals. Um think about key behaviors or

flows or activities that your user might

do on your site, your website, whatever

the experience is. It could be a kiosk

um that will drive product success. For

example, uh I'll be calling from

different uh experiences in my past. If

you work for an e-commerce site and

you've determined that new users who

place five orders in 90 days, it could

be anything, sweaters, asparagus, and I

say that because I've worked at both uh

online retail for clothing and a grocery

deliverer. Um, but if they place five

orders in 90 days, we might have proved

out that they have a lifetime value of

20% on average. This is all speculative

and made up, but it's just to paint a

picture, that there should be some kind

of thread that you can uh pull through

for the activities that lead to value.

So, this contract for success needs room

for iteration. No one nails it right out

of the gate. User discovery and insights

will continue to evolve over time, and

you need room to adjust as you learn

more. That lifetime value gain is well

worth building in a few nudges and

prompts and your user journey uh if

they've gone

idle. Pivots happen deliberately and not

through guesses or assumptions. In the

face of compelling data, insights are

critical user gaps. We adjust to that

new information, but with intention and

confidence, accounting, of course, for

any necessary trade-offs that may be

made to accommodate them. So, that

lifetime gain is totally worth it. Uh,

glitter confetti shooting out of a

cannon when they stick it in their cart,

you know, might not be, but we'll

discuss. Uh, costs are predictable and

not a constant surprise party. Weekly

rates, monthly maximums, these are just

a few of many ways to stop the nickel

and dimming. Not to mention that value

and currency don't always have to

translate to cash. What are different

co-arketing activities you might be able

to do that could also lend value to both

sides of the aisle? Case studies,

podcast, logo usage, etc. Get really

creative uh with

that. Scene two is ready, fire, aim. Uh

so often we take off down the road,

recalibrate, and have to change course

and start over again.

Uh so to set this scene, we're still at

the same agency in uh in-house

experience. Things seem better until

they aren't. Uh so the agency is now

embedded. We're working as a partner. Um

but suddenly there's internal drag and

friction. So what can we do to get ahead

of that? Maybe your copywriting team is

slammed and has no capacity to uh put

towards your effort. The engineering

team is forcing tech changes uh tech

stack changes mid project. And maybe you

did secure budget for that extra

designer, but the very necessary system

access that they need is stuck in a

procurement

swirl. She died of procurement will be

on my tombstone. Um, so now the agency's

hands are tied. They're blocked by

bureaucratic bottlenecks. Uh, work slows

down as velocity is all but ground to a

halt. And once again, you are not

getting value and the frustration is

building.

Where did it go wrong?

So, no one planned for execution

realities. Now, when I was in house,

this happened all the time. My special

special marketing project meant nothing

much. Let's just say to technology team,

to the design team, etc. So, the most

solid airtight plan can still fall apart

if no one maps out how it will actually

come to life. So, the team green lit a

plan without resourcing the work. Uh the

strategy was sound, but the people

responsible for doing it uh didn't

always have capacity or context to

execute effectively. Uh key dependencies

weren't surface until too late. That

quick fix um turned out to really rely

on a ton of back-end work, uh complex

analytics tagging, uh a reworked

customer journey, touching on

departments who weren't involved in the

original scoping. So everyone assumed

alignment, but no one verified it.

Kickoff was enthusiastic. It always is.

It feels great. Um, but the day-to-day

flow hit snags with assumptions and

competing priorities. It was not

coordinated. Uh, no shared definition of

done. So, one team's definition of

completion or even good enough didn't

match anothers. QA, it's never good

enough. Um, sent it back with bugs. Uh,

the product manager said, "Chip it."

While designers were still tweaking.

If we rewind and set that up for

success, we need to really take the time

to map the total ecosystem that you find

yourself in. What might you discover and

get ahead of if you truly take the time

to take like a 30,000 foot view of your

organization? Uh map out the affected

groups and the players too to pull off

your plan. Um in doing so uh you can

even add the agency partners themselves

as a a touch point in that journey and

even customers if it if it's relevant.

Uh define those blockers and dependency.

Cross departmental partners with

competing road maps of their own may

have little to no time for your

project's needs. It's not that they

don't want to or don't care, but they've

got their own competing priorities that

they're up against as well. And while

the word blockers and dependencies seem

to carry somewhat negative connotations,

uh really taking the time to map out can

surface where the opportunities and

solutions

lie. You want to then sequence that work

uh once you've identified the players

and actions and create an ambitious but

informed timeline of coordinated

handoffs with built-in feedback loops.

So rather than feeling ambushed and

pressured there, have an opportunity now

to work your ask into their schedules.

Uh and finally, socialize, socialize,

socialize. Uh pull your group together

and talk through the plan

live. It's important that people have a

chance to air their anxieties or

trepidations that this might surface and

this will allow you to get on the same

page with a shared sense of urgency

towards the

mission. Co-conspirators are much more

fun to work with than adversaries. if

they feel like they're in on it with

you, they can come along on the ride and

not be drugged

along. And finally, who's the

boss? Here, we're going to define

boundaries and not just buy in uh with

the grand assumption that you guys are

now humming along as a unit. So, right,

the the agency is cruising, the teams

are delivering, launch is in your

sights. Uh but what happens next? Uh the

fancy industry term that we like to use

is the old swoop and poop. Uh, so you

might have a leadership that shows up.

Maybe it's a new exec. Maybe it's uh

someone who just hadn't heard about the

project yet. Uh, but midway through they

come through with a new priority or

simply a new opinion. And suddenly

you're back at square one. It might look

a little something like this. We're

finalizing last user flows this week.

Wait, why are we even using this

platform? Insert braise branch, you

know, whatever the case might be. Uh

because we aligned on it two months ago.

Yeah, we should pivot like entirely and

you cry. Uh let's get a new deck

together by Friday. Sure. Uh the team is

now forced to change direction. The

agency feels sidelined and you are in

the tank for months of work that you

have nothing to show

for. Um but where did this one go wrong?

So let's define the problem here. There

was no alignment at the top. It wasn't

the agency's fault and it wasn't the

product team's fault. Uh we now have a a

common united in uh enemy in our senior

leadership. So that's always fun too. It

was a slow silent uh unraveling of a

project that never had a unified voice

at the highest level. Leadership was

looped in a little too late and by the

time execs were given a chance to weigh

in um all the hard decisions had been

made and unraveling them meant losing

weeks and weeks of work, maybe months.

I've seen worse.

uh no one owned the big picture. Each

function focused on their part uh of the

puzzle and no one was actively steering

toward the original vision or protecting

it from disruption and there was no

shared north star. Um teams aligned on

different interpretations of success. Uh

one exact prioritized brand polish. Uh

another wanted to focus on adding AI.

You may have heard of it. Um, without

agreement, every review felt like a

reset. Uh, course corrections came

without a safety net. Pivots are

inevitable, but without clear escalation

paths, every change felt reactive, not

strategic,

uh, the board, uh, investor pressures,

etc. No one knew who had the final say

or how to move forward without further

stalling. How do we fix that? It's

tough, but we can try to unpack some uh

tips for you. So, we're winding this

back and setting it up for that mutual

success we're looking for. Leadership is

involved at the start, not just at the

end. Um, anyone who holds veto power

needs to be present during the kickoff.

Otherwise, you're not launching a

project. You are setting up your seuite

to be blindsided. Uh, and they don't

like that. uh set expectations early

about who needs that visibility and

when. There needs to be a clear

escalation path if or when things go

sideways, who gets to call

it. Having an agreed upon decision maker

or even a small committee, a small one,

uh ensures pivots are thoughtful and not

panicfueled. No more leadership with

lash. Define the vision once and protect

it. Your core objective shouldn't be up

for debate debate every spent. Document

it, share it, align on it. That way,

when shiny new ideas pop up, teams can

point to it and ask, "Does this move us

closer to our

goal?" Uh, and finally, give the agency

some air cover. Empowered partners make

better decisions. Make sure your agency

know you've you've got their back um and

that they're not stuck defending the

plan solo when someone new parachutes in

with a quick question.

Scene four, a successful

partnership where it all comes together.

We have trust, clarity,

momentum, and now the agency isn't just

hitting their deadlines. They're helping

you drive your business forward.

Decisions are made effect uh are made

efficiently with clear owners.

Adjustments happen without

bureaucracy. Costs are predictable and

transparent and tied to business value.

and the company and customers feel real

impact. So the key takeaways for how to

build a true partnership define your

outcomes, not just tasks and

deliverables. They have to be tied to a

goal, not just

activity. Plan for execution realities.

Surface blockers and dependencies early

by checking in with your internal

teammates. Clarify decision-making

power. Who are the dayto-day approvers

with the authority to call it? Secure

that very important leadership buyin.

Avoid lastminute interference from

higherups. Plan for some buffer. No

industry is immune to strategy shifts or

market pressures that are outside of any

of our control. Tariffs.

Um, think long term. Uh, invest in

relationships, not just contracts.

So finally, a little vulnerability goes

a long way. Um, don't be afraid to tell

them things. Let them in. Let them uh

get some some buy in to your cause and

your pains. Uh, when people are made

aware of your pains and fears and

anxieties, they can then take your

problems on as their own uh, and craft

better solutions with you. So, would you

rather have a vendor who follows orders

or a partner who helps you succeed?

Thank you.

Yes. Wonderful job there. We We've got

time on the clock, so that means that

you're stuck with me for a little bit.

So, let's just We can do this together.

Yeah. You feeling it? I don't know. No,

no, no, no, no. We have to stop. Like, I

have I have no rhythm. Yeah. Um, so

let's go ahead and like dive into the

the Q&A here. Um, before we even get to

these, I just want to compliment you in

that like the relationship between

agents and uh like agencies and vendors,

the nature of partnership is it's

something I'm really happy to hear

about. I'm sure many in the audience can

agree. Um, what kind of led you to put

the presentation together? like what was

the inspiration to come up here on stage

and kind of share your perspective?

Um, you know, going from in-house to

agency, I just kind of there was always

this kind of subtle or implied eye roll

like oh

consultants and it was like I'm not a

lawyer for God's sakes, you know, just

kidding. Um, but um, it just kind of had

this connotation and uh, dare I say

reputation that I wanted to kind of

stand up against. I think there's uh,

ethical agencies. I think there's stand

up and do right agencies. there are bad

ones. Um, and so it it largely depends

on kind of who you're dealing with. So

selection really matters as well. Um,

but I wanted to just uh model what a

healthy uh consultant relationship could

look like. Yeah, there were there was

definitely uh some gold in those slides

for sure. So uh as far as you know some

of the nature of the questions that we

have here, there should be very few

surprises for you given the content.

Um, first question kind of deals with

the billing model. Yeah. Right. And what

do you think works best in terms of like

retained services, time and

material, projectbased? Like we'd love

to hear your perspective on what works

best for what contexts. Uh, the length

and complexity can pay play pay a big uh

part in how you might arrive at your

final answer. But I think if um

controlling cost might be your driving

motivation, and I get it. I mean it is

for lots of people. Uh fixed fee models

sometimes provide some uh kind of sanity

and safety uh for at least you know that

there's not going to be uh again a

surprise uh when you open that invoice.

Um there could be um monthly maxes,

weekly rates and that way it just kind

of normalizes what the the pace of that

that billing might start to look like.

You could do a weekly rate but still get

a monthly invoice just to be clear. Um

versus like maybe a TNM model as you

mentioned. If you have a better idea of

exactly what you're doing, you just want

kind of hired hands, maybe the TNM model

makes sense because you just want to run

that at a rate that you can kind of uh

match the the eb and flow as you see

fit. Um versus maybe something where you

want to do a little more exploration. Um

the the kind of caps or maxes might add

some security.

Absolutely. To your finance department.

So, it kind of sounds like it it depends

on the type of outcomes somebody might

want andor the nature of the

relationship that's best for the client.

Yeah. Um, you know, if you're doing a

more exploratory exercise, um, it might

make sense to kind of cap that at, you

know, six weeks for whatever, you know,

teen thousands of dollars, you know, you

might be talking about, for example. Um,

you know, maybe that's time boxed and

attached to a fixed uh amount of some

sort. So there are other ways to explore

that kind of hybrids, right? So, uh, you

teed up some really great scenarios that

I I I definitely related to. Uh, there's

kind of a a question that's masquerading

as an additional scenario. Okay. So,

swoop and poop comes in, right? Like a

stakeholder doesn't like what they've

seen, even if they've been smiling and

nodding the whole time. I'm sure that's

never happened to anybody in this room.

Not

once, right? No, I mean it it feels like

fanfiction in a way. Um, but when

something like that happens, do you have

any advisement on from a consulting

position how to go back and renegotiate

like a goalpost or maybe submit a CR on

the end of something like that?

Yes. Uh, so there's a couple ways to

handle that. there could in fact be a

change request. But one thing I like to

do is just really capture every hope,

dream, and wish I've heard along the way

on the project and put it on the road

map. The road map is a balm and gives

people a lot of safety and like, oh, she

is listening. She heard me. It's right

there next quarter. Oh, okay. Sometimes

that is a really effective tool to let

them know that they've been heard,

they've been considered and they've been

kind of uh allocated for and we can then

have a conversation about whether it

lives here or here on that road map but

at least they know it it exists and that

usually helps to to allay a lot of

anxieties. Um if in fact they want to

insert that uh then yes that is a

discussion that might uh necessitate a

change. Gotcha. Perhaps. Yeah. Yeah. Or

we trade it. I love to trade. What do

you mean? So if you need that Canon to

shoot glitter confetti when a customer

puts shoes into their shopping cart,

then you might not be able for for

instance, just an example, random

example, then you might not be able to

have something else that we had

initially prioritized before. So just

kind of moving the pieces around. Yeah,

you had me it. Yeah.

Um there's also like another somewhat

high level scenario whereby as a

consultant there may be a case where as

a individual contributor or member of a

consulting team I'm deployed into a mix

of consultants or into a scenario

whereby a client might have a little bit

of a skewed or negative bias towards me.

Right? So, I may be perceived as someone

that's part of like a previous regime or

an org that um is not looked upon

favorably. As an individual, how would

you advise someone to navigate those

waters?

Just pull them closer.

Um I like to just give them a lot of

attention. Maybe get a one-on-one booked

with them. Try to figure out maybe where

that's coming from. Respect their

expertise. Um, and I think the one major

thing people worry about is that the

consultant is going to take over. Uh,

and I can't. I can't without your kind

of explicit participation. I'm not

trying to take over. I think what we're

offering and what we have to um lend of

value to the scenario is again the the

reps, the times that we've done it. I

can give you kind of a safe uh play

space or guard rails to work within, but

I cannot and do not want to usurp your

SME expertise. you know, um, uh, I need

it. So, letting that person shine in the

best way that they, uh, know how, um, I

think allows them to feel respected and,

um, able to contribute with you.

So, come at it headon. Set up the

one-on-one, listen, and try to shower

them, try to figure it out, time and

attention, and let them shine for the

expertise that they hold.

All right. I couldn't put that better.

Um, Tanisha, thank you. It's been a real

pleasure. Thank you. Okay, thank you so

much.