Article - Five-year-old-itis - A Nasty Agency Disease

READ: 1 min

AUTHOR: Robert Craven

So many agencies that I see right now have what we call five-year-old-itis.

Their problems are five years old; in the last five years, everything and nothing has changed. And that is despite Covid! The world has changed but they haven’t. Not really.

Put simply, they are running their agencies using five-year-old business models, based on five-year-old assumptions about who the customer is, what they think they are buying and why, their competitors and so on.

Just about every assumption you had about how your customers and consumers behave/buy/pay/talk/share/discuss/choose/receive products and services has changed.

With one set of keystrokes, I can tell thousands of friends what I think of you and your product. Customers have always talked – but now they can talk to far more people than ever before. They are better educated and better prepared than ever before. They can no longer be treated like mugs! Surely every digital agency has realised this and how it impacts them? Apparently not.

My hunch is that five-year-old-itis is endemic nearly everywhere. Just about every start-up has been built on old-world assumptions about customers, channels and products. Just about every existing business has done little to significantly change how they do things from the heady heights of 2017. Most agency systems, CRMs, proposals and propositions have simply been cut and pasted from some agency someone worked in 10 years ago.

Sure, post-Covid you’ve made some cuts, maybe sacked/furloughed/replaced a few people. Sure, you’ve cut costs, maybe even got a new logo and a new website. But have you had a cold, hard look at your business and been prepared to make the tough, required decisions?

My point is simple. Customers want answers to pretty basic questions: how much will it cost? How long will it take? What might go wrong? What are other ways of getting the result I want? Who else should I be talking to (in other words, who are your competitors?) and how do you differ from each other? Can I talk to your existing customers?

It is arrogant and short-sighted to believe that potential customers aren’t asking these questions. So why not answer them head-on. Don’t wait for your one-to-one but do it now. On your website.

When you refuse to give an indication of the cost of delivering something that you are meant to be an expert at, they suspect you are playing them. You lose their trust.

And what is business all about?

Trust.

So why not go out there and gain their trust by telling them what they want to know?

Or you can pretty up the website and treat them like mugs.

So, quick fix or real fix?

Your choice.