Becoming an agency of record (AOR) has been a coveted goal that is as old as our industry. Securing that title often required RFPs, lengthy vetting, and pitching by a dedicated account team offering new creative ideas without knowing the brand intimately. It’s also an antiquated and costly approach – for businesses that need to become more agile and innovative, and for agencies that desire to do their best work.
Deeply ingrained habits die hard, which is why we were compelled to carve a different path and plant a new flag, one that replaces the AOR’s transactional reality with our value-driven and personal mindset around a new AOR – the Agency of Relationship.
Truths of the Agency of Relationship
This is an intentional shift from siloed teams solely charged with executing for one business to providing clients with full access to our subject matter experts to help solve their biggest business challenges. That is what businesses desire, even if it’s not spelled out in a formal request or RFP.
Our embrace of this version of AOR is rooted in three words – Truth Be Told – and continues to shape our thinking around client engagement and the important work that ensues.
The cynic in all of us will be quick to say – we’ve heard that before, or that every agency speaks to the value of relationships, so let me challenge those assumptions head-on and share our truths:
- To perform as an Agency of Relationship is to value relationships over whose ideas win out, over the best price, over the size of future budgets or invoices, and over the client logo positioned on a website as a badge of honor. Relationships must prevail over the building of business at all costs. It stands in stark contrast to its famous counterpoint – it’s not personal, it’s business.
- We value truth-telling – when it’s hard to share, even harder to receive, or if it means we might not secure the work going forward.
- We don’t speculate on what we think would be a good solution to your problem; we do the due diligence to determine the best strategic direction.
- We eschew the restraints of business as usual and recognize the potential in business as it is right now, which positions us to realize innovative solutions faster.
- We owe it to every current or prospective client to be honest and forthright, not opportunistic. Because truth is, and always will be, the necessary litmus for every action and decision that follows.
To be clear, this is radical candor. It is a different kind of show and tell from an agency.
The new AOR: meeting previously unmet needs
While there are many ways our relational approach continues to reveal business growth for us and clients alike, here are four examples of what we see our clients continuing to care about, as seen through the lens of trusted relationships:
Relationships build mutual respect, diffuse power plays.
Previously, agency expertise revealed its value when you asked for it with clear parameters. Without it, a menu-sized scope of work was thrust upon you because it was the agency’s trademarked way of doing things.
Our relationally driven approach is different. It works to diffuse underlying power struggles, especially when there is mutual respect and aligned focus on solving increasingly difficult challenges. Shared ownership affords our subject matter experts to bring strategic perspectives from outside your walls, giving perspectives you might not have otherwise. Together, we align key initiatives to the business strategy and goals. It’s this high-level strategy work that confirms the work and the right tactical steps for implementation by our blended teams. When that happens, tensions cease to exist, and opportunities emerge to acknowledge partners for their insight and execution.
Honesty saves money.
When honesty and transparency are at the forefront, hard conversations become a little less hard, relationships flourish, and costs do diminish. That’s not because we charge significantly less, or budgets automatically shrink. It’s because we have greater clarity on the work, and we remove assumptions through open communication. That allows us to bring expertise to bear on a specific scope of work. We help connect the right dots while disconnecting from those that don’t add value. It’s also how we cut overhead and the unnecessary bloat from traditional client-agency arrangements that, if left unaddressed, can foster skepticism and erode trust.
Intentionality drives success.
You’re doing good things, perhaps even groundbreaking things. But so are others, including your competitors. Great ideas don’t have value until put into action. The real work is in figuring out how a great idea best moves the needle, and getting it to market faster than the competition. That determines what is and isn’t special.
We bring a valuable outside perspective with new thinking and a no-nonsense approach. Insights and action are necessary to gain the traction that leads to acceleration, which is true whether you’re a Fortune 100 company or a startup. Those who are intentional – by empowering the right people in the right seats and solving agreed-upon challenges – dramatically increase their chances of creating and growing something worthy of being special.
Investing in relationships pays off.
Regularly switching agencies is part of the old AOR game. The insatiable desire for the next great idea, the better contracts, and the best returns is ever-present. But it is also costly in terms of lost time, team onboarding, and, in retrospect, realizing expert thinking likely went untapped.
Investing in relationships breeds deeper human connections and stronger business familiarity. Both take time but also become powerful catalysts for new thinking and bringing better ideas to life. A stratified account team taking orders only gets you so far, which is why we are quick to bring any of our experts to the table to share expertise and help solve problems. Hiring an agency team shouldn’t mean getting a limited roster. It should include having access to every expert at your disposal to tap into the full range of thinking and expertise that is available
There’s more to our relational approach than this, more elements you would expect to see from a strategic design agency including ideation, audience testing, being malleable in our work, shifting and shaping offerings with user feedback and customer insights to deliver on the brand promise across channels. In the end, it’s still about the pain points clients seek to resolve with outside talent.
What we have learned over time is that prioritizing relationships from the beginning is like owning a skeleton key that unlocks a multitude of challenges, and accelerates us toward viable solutions. It is also why we believe any client who walks through Hyperquake’s doors will leave in a better place – and we do everything we can to deliver on that belief.
Many of our most trusted and lasting relationships began by taking clear and strategically sound directives from clients. However, what those clients experienced was more than our pledge to do the best work possible with a tightly defined team. It was a willingness to bring in and do whatever it takes to realize success. And that is borne of our commitment to them as people, colleagues, and friends.
We might not be able to change how most companies seek and qualify their agency of record partners. But what we can change is our approach to it – before the work is awarded, throughout the project duration, and how we support it long after it’s over. Truth be told, for us it boils down to simply treating people the way you want to be treated. The outcome of that approach has richly rewarded us with the type of long-term relationships everyone is trying so hard to secure.
