This was the mantra I set in an agency that I was leading up the value ladder.
In everything — marketing, sales, delivery — we would simply focus on being human and being useful.
When you set people the mission to become experts, consultants, advisers, it’s easy for them to fall into the trap of becoming formal, clever-clever, jargony, or even a little superior and condescending.
That’s because the prior models of professional advisory or consultancy firms were like this.
But that’s the old way, when clients sought advice from pin-striped suits.
Now, clients are turning to creative agencies as their trusted advisers, because the new world needs new advice.
So we get a chance to be a new kind of adviser.
We get to climb the value ladder in a way that fits our culture.
And, from agencies I’ve seen do this (including my own), I know that clients love it.
Use your experience and expertise to help clients — but don’t wrap it in MBA bullshit, jargon and formality.
Just be human. Who you really are. And advise in that way.
But most of all, focus not on looking important or flashy. Focus not on ‘selling’ your expertise.
Focus on simply being useful at every single contact point you have with prospects and clients.
That then attracts them in a way that means you’ll never need to push ‘selling’ on them.
Be human, be useful.
It’s the mantra for climbing the agency value ladder to become trusted advisers.