Size does matter – when it comes to communication.
We won’t hide the fact that we are on the smaller size of agencies. We’re under 30 employees – and we like it that way.
As we were growing our own D2C children’s brand (Lone Cone), increasing our client base, and adding headcount, it became really apparent the more we had, the more complicated and process-driven every move and conversation we made had to be. It wasn’t for us. We learned that we value relationships, transparency, and simplicity. Therefore, we made a strategic decision to stay small and nimble, allowing for flexibility. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows and there are some trade-offs to being a smaller agency.
The biggest difference in a larger organization is that there are more people which means that you have a lot more specialists on your account. For example, in a larger-sized firm, there is a salesperson, an onboarding person, and then individuals who will tackle specific pieces of your account. You might have a singular account person who will listen to your requests and be responsible for executing among other team members. This model can be great for operational efficiency and keeping staff core to what they are good at. However, it does require an immense amount of organization and detailed communication to make sure nothing falls through the cracks.
In our smaller agency, we tried this model and found communication broke down between our team and it felt like we had an adult version of a telephone game. Rather than a single point person, we choose to bring a designer, advertiser, buyer, etc. to all bring their unique point of view to the conversation at hand.
From our perspective, by having the people working on your account in most conversations – our team can ask questions, efficiently collaborate, and hear your feedback instantly. We can act quickly, and keep a closer eye on our clients' accounts. This allows us to be more proactive and prevent our partners from feeling like they're on auto-pilot as they may have felt in previous agency relationships.
For us, the trade-off is that we have talented individuals wearing a few hats – client relations, marketing, and project management - but we find this makes for a stronger relationship and better project outcome.