19 Mar Agencies or Freelancers: Which Are Better?

I’ve written a couple of times recently about why I believe the traditional model is failing communications agencies and why freelance digital media consultants are the future.

As a result, Gini Dietrich from Arment Dietrich in the USA and I recently had a debate about the issue for The Social Media Show, the video for which you can watch at the bottom of this post if you want to. We don’t, as you might expect, see eye-to-eye on the matter, so we’ve agreed to let you in on the action, have your say and, ultimately, decide which one of us is correct. (Hint: it’s me.)

Below is Gini’s point of view, followed by mine. Take a read and leave a vote at the end.

And just so you know, this is important: bragging rights are at stake here!

The View for a Communications Firm

by Gini Dietrich

Any business owner starts out with the idea that he or she can do things differently. They either have a great idea or they have a different way of doing things.

The latter is why I went into business. I really believed communications could drive sales and I was working on a way to prove it. Now I have a way to prove it and all of our clients enjoy a hefty return on their investment with us.

But I couldn’t have done it alone. In fact, if I were still freelancing, I would be bogged down in the work and not have time to think about how to innovate.

A few years ago, a friend and business advisor said to me: “Do you want to be a kick butt communicator or a kick butt business owner?”

He said I had to decide; it’s impossible to do both.

I thought about it and decided I had to forgo doing the work (for the most part) to focus on growing the business. That decision afforded me the opportunity to grow the SpinSucks blog, write two books, and go out on the speaking circuit, which all drive new business efforts for us.

Now my job is coaching and training—both employees and clients—and business development.

My job is no longer the day-to-day work (I think the last time I pitched media was in 2007!), but I have a enormously talented team to do that work.

Here is the advantage to our clients: They have an entire team of experts to work with. If they need someone who has earned media expertise, they can call the director of that department here. Likewise for shared, paid, and owned media. They also have a director of operations to better understand how it all integrates and the types of metrics to track. And they have me for really strategic stuff, for stakeholder communications, and to trot out at their big sales meetings.

So, while a freelancer might be really skilled at one of the four media types (or even two), they are still only one person.

A communications firm gives you lots of brains, lots of talent, lots of expertise, and lots of arms and legs to get lots of work done.

The View for Independent Consultants

by me

I’ve skirted around this a lot recently, but for this debate I’m not going to sugar coat things.

The fact is that agency structures benefit agencies not clients.

Agencies are structured around hierarchies based on experience. In the pitch you buy into what the directors (the most experienced team members) say. But in day-to-day life you deal with account managers, and much of the actual work is done by juniors (the least experienced team members).

This simply does not reflect the way business has moved. The days of recruiting for roles rather than skills should be long gone, but they’re alive and well within communications agencies.

The major issue with most agencies is that they haven’t adapted. The account director/ manager/executive model is outdated. It puts constant pressure on the firm to meet payroll, and the best way to do that is to sign clients up to long retainers.

But more and more clients want to work on short-term projects, or series’ of projects, which is an environment in which experienced and skilled freelancers can and do thrive.

With communications, you get what, or rather who you pay for. If you hire me, you hire ME. Just like Liam Neeson, I have a specific set of skills. Hire me and you get those skills, not the dubious knowledge of someone who’s been in the job for less time than they spent in diapers.

Agencies, due to their nature, are inconsistent. Pick a good independent consultant and you get far better value.

If you’d like more detail on this debate, you can watch the video if it takes your fancy. (It gets going after the first five minutes!)

Now Over to You

[poll id=”2″]

And now you’ve voted, tell me why you chose the option you did…

This post (and poll) is running concurrently here on the SpinSucks blog, so pop across and check out what’s happening over there too.