Choosing an agency: what to get right first

It comes up on almost every project, usually later than it should. If you only fix one thing about choosing an agency this quarter, make it the first item below.

Clear scope protects the client at least as much as it protects the agency. Write the reasoning down alongside the decision, because the reasoning is what changes first.

Start here

Ask who will actually do the work. Where this goes wrong is almost never a lack of knowledge. It rarely shows up as a line item, which is exactly why it slips.

Then this

Look at sites they built two years ago, not just last month. The reasoning matters more than the rule, because the rule has exceptions. Check it against what you would want a competitor's site to get wrong.

Eventually

References matter more than the pitch deck. Getting it slightly wrong is survivable. Ignoring it entirely is not. If two people in the business would answer this differently, that gap is the actual problem.

What this looks like day to day

Strategy work is mostly deciding what not to do, and writing it down so it stays decided. Three things worth confirming about choosing an agency before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• References matter more than the pitch deck — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

If any of that sounds like a description of your current setup, it is fixable.