Last week I attended the 2024 Build a Better Agency Summit and I was struck by the amazing community that the Agency Management Institute has created. Over 400 executives from small and mid-sized agencies attended and the overall feeling I came away with was one of close, almost familial ties. It felt like the world’s largest family reunion.
These folks innately partner with one another. It’s almost as if it is in their genes. It’s certainly in their generous, caring culture.
There is a lesson here for marketing and agency leaders everywhere: relationships, partnering and, yes, community matter. They matter to the work, to our attitudes and to our success.
Returning home from this incredible experience, I came across some notes I had scribbled following a discussion many years ago with a senior, wise and incredibly successful C-suite leader. This quote caught my eye:
It’s impossible to get great advertising without treating the Agency as a valued partner.
It’s impossible to get great products without creating a partnership with R&D.
It’s impossible to get great sales results without creating a partnership between marketing, sales and the channels.
It’s impossible to get great anything without positive internal and external partnerships.
Of course this makes great sense! Big breakthroughs and progress can’t happen in silos. Working collaboratively with partners within an organization as well as with external partners is the key to effectively addressing business issues. Positive partnerships generate a kind of positive energy that can fuel growth, address deficits, and inspire creativity. Developing positive partnerships that are aligned on values and goals enable complementary strengths and expertise to flourish and ensure success.
In other words, go build the kind of client-agency relationships and community that I was observing among the participants at the Build a Better Agency Summit.
Help your own professional community flourish.
And join the community at the Build a Better Agency Summit next May. You’ll be glad you did!
