Be bold and go small. That’s my message for potential clients this year. For some of them, it’s breaking a habit of a lifetime but 2019 is, I have decided, the year they should bin the caché of hiring a ‘name’ agency. The clever clients are hiring agencies where their business is going to be important to them. So important that they are going to wake up each morning thinking about it.
But of course I’m going to say that – I’m the co-founder and director of a small sports marketing agency formed back in October 2016. Yes I’m biased, but here’s why I know that I’m right:
- We keep our core team small which keeps our overheads down. We aren’t going to spend your fees on having a prestigious address (although we do have a lovely office right by Victoria station – pop in and see us and our beautiful Frida Kahlo mural by Zabou) or spend your money on lavish office parties (two hours at Flight Club is enough for us). What we will do is spend your fees on talent and looking after that talent to keep them motivated, driven, continuously developed and hungry.
- We move fast and are nimble and we don’t have layers of bureaucracy to wade through. I’ll answer the phone to you, listen to your brief and respond to you myself. We live and breathe the business and our clients’ satisfaction is the most important thing to us.
- We know what we are good at. We have very defined skill sets and we also know what we aren’t good at. So the team working on your passion, will be a team that is passionate about the work they do. And when we need to, we bring in the specialist expertise to ensure our clients receive best in class services. That makes it so much easier for everyone and brings our clients the results they are looking for, and some.
- Creativity doesn’t come with quantity, and quantity often means that consistency is lacking. We aren’t tied to a parent group or holding company so can choose which clients we work with and also who delivers the work for you. We won’t choose a hospitality delivery team or content production partner because they are owned by the same company, we choose them because they are the very best at delivering what you need.
- The world doesn’t phase us. Yes we know it’s a big world out there, but having an office in each country doesn’t necessarily mean the work they do is going to be any good just because we have the same name over the door. We have delivered award winning work around the world and delivered with flexible and nimble teams. We have agency partners and individual operators in markets all over and with the connected world we live in we don’t all need expensive offices in multiple locations.
- We are efficient with our time and yours. That doesn’t mean we won’t go the extra mile (we always do) but a focussed effort always brings larger rewards.
So if you are looking for a new agency, we say – don’t be swayed by the address, the heritage or the parent company, dig down in to the detail. Who is actually going to work on the account, are they excited about the brief, will they think about you each morning when they get out of bed, or will the excitement be about the fact that you are another logo to add to the ‘global brands we work with’ page in the creds deck. And most importantly, where is your budget being spent– is it on talent or trappings?
The clients we love to work for are the ones that didn’t see us as a wildcard because we are small, they see us as contenders because we are experts in what we do, we deliver in spades and they know that their business is really important to us.
We are experts in creative communications, sports marketing, commercial strategy and partnerships. It’s as simple as that.
Interested to know more? Email Emily or James and we’ll get straight back in touch.
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