10 Questions to Ask Before Hiring an Agency  ## Metadata - Author: [[The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast]] - Full Title: 10 Questions to Ask Before Hiring an Agency - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/5e168bc5-3ed8-40f9-a7f3-19241bdad536 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Clients Locked Into Bad Agency Deals** - Sara Nay shares two stories of clients trapped by agencies: one in a three-year SEO contract and one whose agency owned the Google Ads account. - Both clients received confusing reports and couldn't access or control their marketing assets, leaving them stuck and wasting money. Transcript: Sara Nay And I led the post saying that I am sad and mad and fired up all at the same time. And so the conversations I had with two separate business owners, the first one was with a small business owner who has been paying an SEO company $8,000 a month. It is locked into a three-year contract with them. On top of that, he had no idea if he was getting any results from the efforts, and he didn't know how to get out of the contract because he signed this three-year commitment. Another story that I told on LinkedIn was another conversation I had with a different business owner. And he has been paying $10,000 a month for Google Ads to an agency. But the issue is the agency owns the Google Ads account. And on top of that, he doesn't have access to it. And he has no idea how much of the money that he's paying every month is going towards the agency's management fees or the actual ads. In both of these scenarios, the business owners were receiving reports from the agencies every month. They had no idea what the reports actually mean. It looked like foreign language to them. And so they're spending money on marketing. They're not really getting a return. And they're locked into these situations, both a bit stuck. The SEO scenario, he's stuck because he signed a three-year contract. The Google Ads scenario, he's stuck because this agency owns his ads accounts. ([Time 0:00:57](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b602eaa2-c2ea-4246-ac6a-a20ac4d7dd88)) - **Knowledge Gap Enables Exploitative Practices** - Marketing is complex and many small business owners lack education about it. - That knowledge gap allows some agencies to take advantage of clients who don't understand marketing purchases. Transcript: Sara Nay I think there's marketing is hard. It's complex. A lot of people get into business because they're passionate about something or they see an opportunity. And all of a sudden, they need to start understanding and learning marketing because that's how you spread the word about your business. And so there's a lot of people in the small business space as business owners that haven't been properly educated about marketing. And so they don't really understand how to go about or purchase marketing from partners that are out there. ([Time 0:02:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/dd6f87cc-92c4-40f1-bd27-775de8308ad8)) - **Demand Ownership Of Your Marketing Assets** - Always ask who will own your marketing assets and accounts before hiring an agency. - Insist you own websites, paid accounts, tools, and grant agencies manager access you can revoke when the relationship ends. Transcript: Sara Nay So the first question, and in some cases I would argue is the most important, is who owns my marketing assets and accounts? And so this one is very important because I've heard so many stories over the years of marketing agencies owning the accounts on behalf of their clients. And so they're building these assets that their client is basically handcuffed to this agency moving forward. And so the scenario I said in the opening with the example of the person spending $10,000 a month on Google Ads, the agency owned the account. And so when they parted ways, the small business basically lost their Google Ads setup because they had to start from scratch over again. So that's one scenario. Another scenario I hear very often, unfortunately, is a agency basically builds a website for the client and they own the website, the URL, the hosting, all of the things. And so now all of a sudden, the small business is tied to this agency until they part ways. And then they essentially have to rebuild this website from scratch when I would argue a website in a lot of cases is one of the most important assets when it comes to small business marketing. And so you absolutely should be asking this question when you're considering working with an agency or outsourced solution. It's who's going to own the accounts. And their answer should be you. You, small business owner, will own the accounts. And we will give you or and you can give us access to the accounts as managers or whatever the setup would be. And then when we part ways, you kick us out and you continue to own this asset that we would have spent all of this time building together. ([Time 0:05:14](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ee76a032-fcbe-483c-a8e1-150d31966fb0)) - **Set Clear Success Metrics And Review Cadence** - Ask how the agency will measure success and how often you'll review metrics. - Require clear measurement plans, agreed cadences, and education on what metrics mean and how they drive decisions. Transcript: Sara Nay And so again, in the opening, I shared those two stories of the person paying for SEO services and the other one paying for Google Ads. They were getting a report that looked like foreign language every single month, and they have no idea what it means. And so that doesn't help anyone, ultimately. And so when you're asking an agency that you're considering to work with, how will you measure success and how often will we review it? You want to see that they're measuring success for certain things on a daily basis, some on a weekly basis, some on a monthly basis. Maybe they're diving into certain metrics on a quarterly basis. There are, it really just depends on what all you're tracking in terms of the cadence. But you want to have an agency that you're working with that has a clear plan for measuring what they're going to measure, how they're going to measure it, how they're going to report On it, how they're going to analyze it, how they're going to use it to drive their decisions. And then how often will we review it is really important as well, because I've heard so many stories about companies just sending this report they don't understand. And that's all the reporting that they get. I believe that you should be speaking with your agency or your fractional CMO or whoever you're outsourcing or delegating or working with for marketing. You should be meeting with them on a regular basis to talk through the specific metrics that you agree to track together. And then you should be using those metrics to then guide your quarterly marketing planning moving forward. ([Time 0:07:26](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6859cc80-4d1e-45df-97d3-1d36514d7f0a)) - **Require Strategy Before Tactics** - Demand that tactics connect directly to an agreed strategy before execution. - Avoid agencies that push familiar tactics without understanding your business, audience, and goals. Transcript: Sara Nay Question number three, how do you connect tactics to strategy? So I actually was just speaking to a new client of ours, and he told me yesterday that he believes he's wasted about $100,000 on bringing in marketers to execute on tactics. And the reason he believed none of that was successful was because he didn't have a proper strategy in place. And so I absolutely agree with him in that scenario. There have been so many stories that I've heard over the years where someone will pitch, oh, you need email marketing, or you need paid advertising, or you need SEO work, because that's What we know. And so they'll bring in an agency to do just those things, but the agency hasn't taken the time to learn the business or what they're trying to accomplish or where they're trying to go Or who their ideal clients are or what message resonates with them. And so they're skipping through all of that because they're staying in their lane of tactics that they're comfortable with without understanding what the overall strategy is for The specific business and why that specific tactic will help reach their goal. So if you've been following along with duct tape marketing, we've been saying strategy before tactics for as long as we've been in business. ([Time 0:09:11](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ddbb102f-237e-44cf-9b82-30785ede9d02)) - **Avoid Long Lock-In Contracts** - Clarify contract end terms and avoid long lock-in clauses that limit future options. - Prefer shorter commitments like month-to-month or quarter-by-quarter planning to stay agile. Transcript: Sara Nay OK, number four, what happens if I want to end the contract? Actually, on my LinkedIn post, someone commented based on that one specifically that he had an agency send him a contract that basically said, after we end our agreement, you can't Work with any other similar solutions for a two year period. That's insane to me. And so with that, I think, you know, 12 month contracts even is long because marketing is evolving. It's shifting. It's changing. For our clients, we are only planning out a quarter at a time. So three months at a time because we need to understand what's working, what's not working, what's shifting, what's changing, how SEO is evolving. And so locking people into longer contracts, I just think it's hard on both the agency to predict, but also the small business owner, because if they're not happy, they're going to be Locked into this long term spending money, wasting money where they could have shifted to a different solution. Month-to contracts in our consulting engagements. ([Time 0:11:09](https://share.snipd.com/snip/32e10efd-49e9-4f87-8dcb-792c938b3828)) - **Know Your Day-To-Day Team** - Ask who on the agency team you'll work with and whether you'll actually interact with senior staff. - Request bios, tenure, and the option to speak with the people who will do the day-to-day work. Transcript: Sara Nay Number five, who will I actually work with on the day-to I've also heard a lot of stories over the years of I had this incredible sales call with this agency and I was so impressed And this Person had all of this experience. And they sold me into this engagement. And I got locked into a six-month contract, let's say. And then all of a sudden, I was working with an intern-level marketer. And so I was sold on this thought leadership, this viewpoint, and then I was handed something completely different. And so I think it's really important as part of the sales process is, you know, if you're talking to someone, it's, or am I going to work with you in strategy and retainer or I'm going to Work with other people on the team? If so, who are those other people? How long have they been with you? What is their experience? And so and also, can I talk to them if you want? I think that's a good fair follow up question. Can I speak to the people that I'll be working with as well? ([Time 0:12:24](https://share.snipd.com/snip/817eb4d6-f841-4dee-9001-dc41fb74dd46)) - **Ask For Sample Reporting** - Ask to see a sample report and verify the agency can explain it simply. - Ensure their reporting aligns with agreed metrics and helps you understand decisions rather than confuse you. Transcript: Sara Nay Number six for questions is how do you report on results and can I see a sample? This one's also important. I highlighted the importance of reporting earlier on another question, but hopefully they answered that if you're interviewing them successfully. They talked you through it. They're going to educate. They're going to simplify. They're going to work together. They're going to collaborate on reporting. But then ask for an example of the reporting. And so if they are saying it's going to be simple and easy to understand, and the next step is, OK, great, show me what your reporting looks like for a current client. And hopefully then they're willing to then show an example reporting for a client, stripping out any identifying information. But then also they're able to talk you through what it looks like and why and how they put it together and the reasoning behind certain things. ([Time 0:13:24](https://share.snipd.com/snip/798c64aa-5d2d-446e-a88f-1db7870d84f1)) - **Demand Human-Plus-AI Workflows** - Ask how the agency uses AI and what remains human-led in workflows. - Prefer agencies that use AI to augment human analysis, not replace strategic human judgment. Transcript: Sara Nay And so I think this is a really important question. I am all about AI when it comes to elevating humans. And so I think that all marketing agencies should be bringing in different forms of AI to help elevate and improve the work that they're doing, but not to just replace themselves or just To work faster, ultimately. And so we offer for all of our clients when we get started, we offer a package called Strategy First. So 30 to 45 day engagement consists of a ton of research and putting together a marketing strategy and plan. As part of that, we use AI to give us more information than we ever had before. So for example, one of the steps in that is doing competitive research. Before we used to have to go out and look at, I'll do all of the work manually. And so we could only get as much information as we could spend on that component. But now we still do work manually. We still go out and we look at the competitors' websites and social profiles and what they're in, content upgrades and all the stuff we can find online. Deep research report and a tool like ChatGPT that gives us pages and pages of research on their competitors in a much more detailed way than we ever have before. And so in that scenario, we are using humans to analyze the competitors, but we're using AI to give us more information to be able to make better decisions moving forward. And so you want to look for those types of answers when you're asking agencies, how are they using AI? You want to understand that they're using AI because they should be. If they're fearing it, they're being left behind. But you also want to make sure that they're using AI with the human plus AI approach, not just the replacing humans with AI approach, or you will end up not getting great results, I believe, Over time because the value is elevating our work we can do with AI below us. ([Time 0:14:24](https://share.snipd.com/snip/daad5e3d-5cab-4296-a7e9-df4d7fd06a4f)) - **Keep Your Team Involved And Educated** - Ensure the agency will involve and educate your internal team throughout the engagement. - Avoid vendors who promise to do everything in isolation without collaboration or knowledge transfer. Transcript: Sara Nay And so a bit of a red flag, I would say here is if someone says, oh, we'll just handle all of your marketing, your SEO and your ads, and we'll just, you know, we'll send you a report. And you just focus on your business and your growth, and you're going to have all these leads come in. I don't think that's going to be a great scenario. What you want to hear here is we are going to involve you in the process. We are going to educate you along the way. We are going to learn as much from you as possible on the front end and able to do our work on the back end. We are going to work on mastering your tone of voice and your style, and we are going to master your thought leadership perspective. So you are able to focus on where you should be in your business in the CEO seat or whatever it might be. But it's going to take some time for us to get up to speed. We are going to learn. We're going to involve you, involve you in your team. We're going to collaborate with you. We're going to educate you along the way versus, oh, we're just going to do our special magic work over here and you all stay over here. That doesn't necessarily work. ([Time 0:16:32](https://share.snipd.com/snip/52d2d106-cb55-4c46-99fd-a9506a7b9082)) - **Insist On A Documented Strategy Process** - Require a documented strategy process before any execution begins. - Have the agency analyze business strategy, marketing strategy, systems, and team to inform tactics. Transcript: Sara Nay We're getting there. What's your process for creating strategy before execution? This one is probably the nearest to my heart. It's something that we've, again, been teaching strategy before tactics for years. I truly believe that every marketing plan should start with a deep strategy dive. And so we have something called the marketing strategy pyramid. The foundation is the business strategy. If you're bringing in a marketing agency, they should take some time on the front end to understand your business. What is your mission, your vision, your values, your current revenue, your growth goals? Do you want to sell one day? They need to be understanding those things deeply so then they can work on the middle part of our pyramid, which is the marketing strategy component, because the marketing strategy Needs to guide the business where the business is trying to go. Then in our pyramid, we have a system strategy and a team strategy. And so I fully believe that when working with an agency or a marketer of any kind, they should come in, understand the business strategy, create the marketing strategy, analyze the Team. Then you can say, OK, here's what we should be doing from a marketing perspective. And now here's who we can have to help. ([Time 0:17:36](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f6900649-27ef-4733-b3df-03d209ec65ad)) - **Hire Partners Who Teach And Empower** - Ask what the agency will teach you and expect knowledge transfer during the engagement. - Hire partners who leave you more capable so you can own marketing when the relationship ends. Transcript: Sara Nay And one of my favorites as well, I like all these questions, I guess, is what will you teach me along the way? And so there, I think, as I said earlier, beginning in this episode, I think some of the challenges in the small business space is marketing is complicated. It's evolving. There's a lack of education. People don't get into business to become marketers, but they are forced to in a lot of ways. Answer, if you're bringing in anyone, you should be asking, what will you teach me along the way? Because their job, in my view, is to educate clients, to set clients up for success, to be able to make better marketing decisions moving forward. You've all heard it, leave it better than you found it. That's how we approach all of our engagements. We come in, we educate, we empower, we uplift, we give our clients ownership. Because my goal is, let's say we part ways in the future, because maybe you're hiring someone in-house, you're in a much better spot from an educational empowerment standpoint than You ever have before. ([Time 0:19:03](https://share.snipd.com/snip/fac20165-edd2-464f-b17d-25cc39fbdbaa))