What a dilemma! You are asked to reduce budget, cut costs, reduce expenses. However, you need your BEST to gain market share, compete for customer dollars and emerge from the recession as a winner. You need the best employees, technology, service, partners, vendors, and agencies so you can outsmart and out-execute competition. You need the best to drive demand when marketing rules are being reinvented by customer conversations. You need the best because, more than ever befor

A friend of mine who owns a small agency asked for my perspective on best practices for agencies. Here’s what I sent her, which after I realized would make a blog post!… I’ve worked with about 10 or more agencies, plus many technology suppliers, and there’s a lot to improve. Let me start a few ideas that come to mind: 1) Pitches are not grounded enough in the client’s business objectives, strategy or measurements. Nor are they tailored to the ‘style’ of the company. The best