“Who are you?” 

I always ask my agency clients this question and you’d be surprised at the number that can’t give me an answer.

They literally don’t know who they are.  That’s unfortunate, as in my experience, there’s nothing more important to an independent agency’s success than building and living out the agency’s brand. 

And by “brand” I’m not talking about a logo. 

I’m talking about how your agency’s values are experienced by your clients.   The hope is that their experience is consistent with your values, but making sure requires you to be intentional about your brand.  

Why “intentional?” 

Because whether you know it or not, your agency already has a brand, but it may not be the one you want.  Your brand is built on what your clients think about you through the hundreds of interactions you have with them, along with what they say to each other about you. 

And it’s solely dependent on the factors that they (not you) feel are important.  Every day, through every interaction, bit-by-bit, you build a brand, either positive or negative.  It goes without saying that you want a positive brand, but these don’t just happen, they must be intentionally defined, nurtured, monitored, and protected.  

 

Agency owners who have the brand they want will tell you that you must first define it for yourself by asking some tough questions like these: 

• Who are we? 

• What do we want our clients to say about us?  

• What do they say about us now? 

• What principles do we have in the agency that support our brand? 
• Are our actions and our brand consistent?

Answers to these questions (along with many others) form the framework for your brand, but the answers themselves are not your brand, because they are still just ideas. 

The next step in defining your brand is to use these answers to develop a brand statement that is equally shared and lived throughout the agency.  I say “equally shared” because it is very difficult to establish a good brand but very easy to lose it.  All it takes is one staff member who doesn’t buy into your brand to destroy what you’re trying to build. 

Do you want people to feel cared for when they call your agency?  Then you need to have an entire staff that shares the same values.

Go into any Chick-fil-A anywhere in the US and you will find employees that are welcoming, polite, and ready to help.  That isn’t accidental.  “My Pleasure” is a core part of their brand, and an employee that won’t embrace it won’t be an employee for long. 

Once you’ve established your brand and have a staff that fully embraces it, you must carefully ensure that your agency’s operations support it. 

Ask questions like these: 

• Are our workflows consistent with our agency brand? 

• Do we audit our activities to ensure there’s no brand “slippage?” 

• Are we encouraging behaviors that support our brand and continuously reviewing and correcting those that don’t? 

• Are we asking our clients how we measure up to our values? 

These questions, along with others, will ensure that your brand produces the client experience you want.  Without this, your brand just remains a good idea, while your clients continue to write it for you.   

Disclosure: No AI was used in the writing of this article.