Straight answers
Choose an agency the way you would hire a senior employee: ask who will actually do the work, how they decide what to do, and how they will report against revenue. Beware case-study theater — polished results from other people’s budgets. A good agency can explain its first 90 days on your business before you sign anything.
Ask five. Who, by name, works on our account, and how senior are they? If the pitch team vanishes after signing, you have your answer. What would you stop us doing? An operator has a list; a salesperson has a menu. How do you decide what to work on each month? You are listening for a strategy, not a content calendar. How do you report? The answer should end at revenue, not impressions. What do you need from us to succeed? Good agencies name their dependencies honestly, because they have been burned by the same bottlenecks you are about to describe.
Guaranteed rankings, guaranteed revenue, guaranteed anything: marketing has weather in it, and honest operators say so. Long lock-in contracts demanded before any diagnosis has happened. Reports that lead with reach and bury the money. And the subtlest one: case-study theater. A beautiful results slide tells you a budget was large, a market was kind, or a team three jobs ago did good work. It does not tell you what this team will do with your constraints. Ask what they would do in your first 90 days instead — specificity about your business beats trophies from somebody else’s.
Days 1–30 are diagnosis: the numbers audited, the waste named, the quick leaks stopped, the strategy written down in plain language. Days 31–60 are the first proof: the highest-leverage work shipped, measured against the baseline the diagnosis set. Days 61–90 are rhythm: the calendar running, reporting tied to revenue, and the next quarter planned from evidence instead of hope. If an agency cannot narrate some version of that arc for your business in the first conversation, keep looking. You can see the standard we hold ourselves to in the studio’s work and how engagements are shaped.
Key takeaways
It helps less than pitch decks claim. Pattern recognition across industries often beats narrow experience, because the specialist may keep re-running the playbook your competitors also bought. Ask what transfers to your business and what they would need to learn.
Long enough to judge fairly: a quarter is a reasonable test of a real program. Be wary of long lock-ins demanded up front, before the agency has diagnosed anything. Commitment should grow with evidence, not precede it.
In writing, through the contact page. Ask us the five questions above, starting with who does the work. The first conversation is specific about your business, and if we are not the right fit we will say so and point you somewhere better.
Let’s talk
Don’t know exactly what you need? Good. That’s our job. Tell us where the business is headed and we’ll tell you honestly whether we can help — and if we can’t, who might.
Usually replies within one business day.
