Relying on third parties to deliver agency services

Most agencies depend on vendors and contracts to help provide at least some of the results that their clients expect.

Any time you rely on these third parties, you need to consider what happens if they don’t deliver as expected.

As more agencies consider using AI tools like ChatGPT to deliver services at reduced costs or shorter timeframes, these dependencies pose an even greater risk if they fail to perform as expected.

Chip and Gini discuss options, including having fallback plans or making clear to a client that results are contingent upon that other company or organization doing their part.

Resources

* What is a Tamagotchi?

* ChatGPT

Key takeaways

* Chip Griffin: “You need to have a backup plan and/or you need to be entirely transparent about being reliant on a third party and make sure that the client understands the implications if that is not available.”

* Gini DIetrich: “There are great opportunities, but understand what the risks are and protect yourself.”

* Chip Griffin: “Be careful about proposing something to a client that is hyper specific in writing. Make sure that you’re putting together more of a generalized plan, that you then work with them over time to consider.”

* Gini Dietrich, on the client having direct relationships with vendors: “I’m not the bank, so you have the direct relationship. You pay them directly and we’ll happily use it on your behalf.”

View Transcript

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.

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 today we’re gonna talk about relying on third parties, something that Gini has a lot of familiarity with because of a nice little Christmas toy she has right after this.

Gini Dietrich: Everybody get to see the tamagotchi now, right?

Chip Griffin: Some people would be satisfied with having their own kid they had to take care of . For some reason, Gini has now gotten roped into taking care of a pretend child. I do not understand this for the life of me. Do you want to listen for, for people like me who have never heard of this thing?

Gini Dietrich: I don’t know how you’ve never heard of this, because this was, this was popular when your boys were little.

Chip Griffin: Have you met me, Gini? Have you met me? I don’t know all sorts of stuff.

Gini Dietrich: You have children!

Chip Griffin: I have boys. They do not want to pretend to have a baby. They can barely take care of themselves let alone some little electronic toy.

Gini Dietrich: So my little one got a tamagotchi for Christmas, in her stocking, and she can’t take it to school. So every morning she comes and hands it to me and says, thank you for babysitting. And so I take care of the Tamagotchi during the day, and then when she gets in the car, when I pick her up, I hand the Tamagotchi back and she takes care of it for the afternoon and evening.

Chip Griffin: Okay. Yeah, that’s, um,