Know when (and how) to stay in your own lane as an agency

Agency owners so often hear about the importance of not just being order-takers and finding ways to be more strategic by understanding a client’s real challenges and opportunities.

And that’s absolutely true.

But that doesn’t mean that you should veer outside of your lane into areas where the client doesn’t want you to go — or worse where you don’t have the expertise to do well.

Understanding where those boundaries are will give you the room you need to expand your engagements and the value that you provide, while not becoming something that you’re not.

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Chip Griffin 

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin,

Gini Dietrich 

and I’m Gini Dietrich,

Chip Griffin 

and Gini, I wish you just do your damn job. Can you do that for me? I’ll try. Alright, right after this mean Gini, it’s it’s important for you to stay in your lane. Just stay. Why are you always trying to tell me how to do what I do here on my end? Just let me do my thing.

Gini Dietrich 

There’s so many things going through my head right now. And I’m trying very hard to use my Filter, Filter, Filter, Filter, Filter Filter.

Chip Griffin 

That’d be a first so yeah,

Gini Dietrich 

I know. But you know, I just did a six hour virtual media tour, some tired so I’m filtering. Okay.

Chip Griffin 

Yeah, that’s that’s probably a good idea. Because, you know, as you know, I hate to edit. So you do it hates edit? Yeah, yeah. So whatever you say, it’s go, it’s going out.

Gini Dietrich 

Maybe I should change my mind. No Filter.

Chip Griffin 

Well, while you’re thinking about your filter, I’ll tell listeners what we’re actually talking about today, because we’re not really going to talk about keeping you telling you how to do your job. Yeah, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz nobody keeps Genie in a box or a corner or whatever that thing was, Oh, boy. Yeah. Little pop culture there from 40 years ago. But okay. I’m sure our younger listeners will get it. Anyway. So this is, you know, speaking of aged people, we’re going to talk about David C. Becker. No, I’m just kidding, David. So when you hear this?

Gini Dietrich 

I did not agree to agree to that.

Chip Griffin 

No, David, we love you. We’re just we were just having a little bit of fun. I had to think of a way to take myself out. And well, you’re next in the line of fire. So anyway, all right. But you shared David or David C. Baker shared an excellent tweet. That has a good topic for discussion today, which is, and so let me explain what he shared. He shared a post from Henry Innes, who was himself sharing some emails that Tim Cook had sent back, I guess about a decade or so ago. And it was talking about Apple’s ad agency. And so the way that Henry Innes paraphrases it in his tweets is the client, Apple wants an ad campaign, the ad agency wants to talk about transforming their business. Instead, agencies aren’t in business transformation or ide...