We Are Good At This!
When I was 24 years old, I worked for a local Detroit sports magazine (now defunct) selling advertising and helping with marketing. When I spoke to businesses about placing ads with the magazine, they would tell me their budgets were tied up in other places. When I would ask where, a lot of the times it didn’t seem to make sense, and it all felt misguided. I never understood the decisions of how they were spending their money and knew there was better options that were more efficient or could make a larger impact.
Fast forward nearly 20 years and the same holds true. Smaller brands are at a major disadvantage when it comes to media because they have limited resources and aren’t experts on where to spend their money (or even how to spend within the places they want). Even if they put the money in the right spots, it’s still difficult to get it right. And even if they find someone to help, that person/team probably isn’t the right group to help someone of their size maximize the value from their budget.
DNW started over 5 years ago and was on an upward trajectory with growth helping smaller sized advertisers spend their money efficiently with an eye on the big and small picture.
DNW has gone through some lows in the past 14-16 months that shook my confidence to whether we could be successful at this. We went from a team of 5 to 2 while shrinking the client list by over half in that time. So many agency folks I spoke with shared similar stories and that much of the downslide wasn’t directly our fault, but sometimes you just think “the agency isn’t going to work as planned.”
Even with the knowledge you can really help a business and can provide tangible value, sometimes you must remind yourself as a business owner and company that you are good at this.
As a famous fake psychiatrist told many a guest 25+ years ago, “I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.”
Over the past 3 months things have turned around quickly, and the future is optimistic again. With multiple new clients on-boarding we are doing some things we haven’t in a while like setting up new accounts, reviewing old client data/dashboards, and auditing previous work done by agencies and/or internal teams. A few things are starting to become clear as we settle into a 2.0 version of the agency.
1) We are well tailored to help clients with a certain level of budget (i.e. enough to spend regularly, but not enough to afford internal teams or larger agencies)
2) There is a swath of brands who desperately need guidance on their media campaigns and digital measurement.
3) We are good at this!
It took a few good breaks and some business to flow our way to reaffirm the value we provide and how we can build something better as the agency evolves. It’s important to remind ourselves that the experiences we have provide real value to the clients and that it’s important to reflect on the skills you have.
Sometimes you must look in that mirror and give yourself some daily affirmations.