Every industry has them. Ours is no different.
Let’s talk about magic beans, jazz hands, and freelancers. We’ll tackle them one at a time and hopefully give you the insight you need to protect yourself from getting burned.
Let me first say that as the leader of this business, we don’t have it all figured out. We make mistakes. We miss some deadlines. We could improve our communication. We could innovate more.
What I will say is that our Core Values are either offended or exemplified through our actions as an agency. Our goal in all we do is to show the following values in not just our words but our actions:
In working with us, we want to know when we’re not living up to the standards we’ve set.
Just in the last few months we’ve encountered the following scenarios. These are all real life examples of clients getting the raw end of the deal.
Example 1 Jazz Hands — This is the agency that sells things then figures out how to do them on your time and your dime. As I mentioned earlier Disciplined Learners is one of our core values. We want to be learners and some projects not only require new learning but also some creative problem solving along the way. Recently, we’ve seen an agency sell ecommerce services and the end result was, um, lacking. You could clearly tell someone got in over their head and then bailed. When you ask questions of an agency like this, you’ll very likely get Jazz Hands. It’s the only way to distract long enough to keep you from figuring out they are in over their heads.
To contrast this, for years we turned down Ecommerce websites as we didn’t feel competent enough to handle them with confidence. We met a recent client and spent the beginning stages of our relationship fixing things that were broken and completing what was owed to them. I happen to know from first hand knowledge this particular agency that worked with them before us sells videos, ecommerce sites, and other services, and then tries to figure out how in the world to deliver said services after the fact. Please stop making our industry look bad.
Example 2 Freelancers — This might be the most dangerous one. With an agency they don’t often disappear, so you have some recourse to go back and work with them toward a mutually acceptable end result. I love the fact that people can start out the same way we did, with some bootstrap energy and a great bit of desire. Unfortunately, that’s some of what I see missing from freelancers and moonlighters. Before you hand your next website build over to someone who doesn’t understand hosting, plugins, or marketing automation software, think long and hard. Sure we all want to support a start up. All of us have a little affinity for the underdog. If you do decide to go this route make the decision based on the character of the person, not the price or deal they are offering. No overhead equals some sweet deals. Finding a freelancer can be a big win for the right startup or small business. If you’re established, then I may question the win.
Example 3 Magic Beans — Although I said freelancers are possibly the place where most might be burned, I believe that those peddling Magic Beans offend us the most. This is the digital marketing agency that talks big game. They use big words. They mystify things like SEO and analytics. They promise a lot and deliver far less.
This type of agency wars against transparency and truth. They act like measurable things are not measurable. They make simple things complicated to confuse you and create value that might not actually be there.
Find someone who will level with you. Someone you can trust. There is no man behind the curtain. Digital marketing is about strategy and execution with a bit of craft. It’s not rocket science. You can figure out many a things with a Google search, but that doesn’t mean you can create the strategy, execute, and measure in a rhythm and cadence that produces results.
That’s where working with a digital marketing agency comes in. Interested in learning more? Let’s connect.
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