Please stop giving agencies a bad name

I’ve used every word I can think of to describe OTL Ventures outside of consultant, contractor, agency, or dev/design shop because those terms have always given me a negative visceral reaction. I am not sure where the negative connotation comes from, but I always pictured agencies like seagulls on a beach picking at spilled goldfish while some toddler stands idly by crying.

Alas, I thought I had overcome my identity crisis, after 18 months of running OTL (which is an AGENCY), when I was submerged into an ice bath of hate during a talk given by the head of a digital agency. During what ended up being a talk that could have fit into the loading screen between episodes of Arrested Development on Netflix, they stated their team is able to build a great mobile app for a client in a week and convert a website into a mobile app in “a day or two”.

WTF are you talking about!?

There is a huge difference between providing value to a client in a matter of a week and building out an entire mobile experience in 7 days. One is necessary and the latter is a joke. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and say they were talking about a mobile web app (they weren’t) and not an actual mobile app. [Sidebar: Let’s not ignore the fact that it can take Apple 6 days to review your app before it makes it to the app store which makes it especially hard to hit your target of 7 days but you know… details.]

A statement like this may just sound like harmless hyperbole, but it isn’t. It is a sales technique and a bad one at that. It creates expectations with any prospective clients that you cannot possibly live up to. Comments like this make people think of agencies as seagulls and not bald eagles.

I’ve not read it, but I’m guessing the first chapter of Shitty Digital Agencies for Dummies is Set Expectations Way Too High. The first chapter of this book would most certainly read something like this…

Step 1: Set expectations way too high so you get their business.

Step 2: When you fail to live up to those expectations hide behind some technical speak or blame someone like Apple.

Step 3: Leave them confused and feeling pretty meh. You are the master of your domain if your clients walk away thinking this is just how building software works.

It is not hard, to be honest. Instead of saying you can build a mobile app in a week, maybe you could say something like…

We don’t know how long development will take because we don’t yet know all the details. If we do our job right, not only will we learn the who, what, why, and how for your mobile app, but you’ll get a ton of value from each step of the process. Here are just a few ways you’ll benefit as we walk through our approach to build you a product that wows your customers.

• During a short branding and company identity session, you’ll better understand how to articulate your why and your brand’s personality. With this you’ll have a more complete understanding of how to communicate with your team, investors, and most importantly users.
• Through user research, you’ll gather an understanding of who you’re trying to serve. We will collect testimonials and specific vernacular which will be priceless crafting sales pitches and developing marketing copy.
• With the creation of a high fidelity prototype that is run through usability testing, you’ll have design assets and video testimonials for your product’s core experience. This will be crucial in those first sales demos, marketing pages, and even investor pitches.
• At the end of the process, you’ll have a software product that you can iterate and build on, delivering your users the value they long for.

However, it won’t take a week.

It is going to take longer, and it is going to require intentional effort and not magic.

Pitching your agency using something like the above won’t give your customers unrealistic expectations and won’t give agencies a bad name. Or go ahead and pitch the impossible timeline, and we’ll just work with your clients after you underwhelm them.