The goal of this article isn’t to convince you to work with us at Influence Podium. It’s to share with you how we work, how we approach our partnerships, and what in our experience have been the determinants for successful and not-so-successful collaborations. From here, you can decide if we are a cultural and business fit or not.
Some agencies are meant to be scaled. They look for hyper-growth and top-line revenue. The actual delivery of the service usually suffers because of it. That’s not who we are. We know that, because of our service, we’ll never get past 20 clients. It’s just not feasible to scale beyond that – and we’re okay with that. That’s the type of company my team and I want to build.
In turn, that makes us more selective of the companies we decide to partner with. Not saying that in the “here’s some scarcity so sign with us” way, but the truth is we can only have 20 clients at a given time in our roster. Budget, cultural fit, and “excitingness” of the project are some of the factors we consider.
How to win together:
Now, turning B2B companies into media companies isn’t an easy task. The outcome is transformational (inbound opportunities, attract A-talent, win on brand), but achieving that requires a lot from a lot of people – which makes it a great competitive advantage. We hate fluffy words but, when my team and I discussed what makes some client projects go great vs not-so well, it all came down to – “partnership.”
Partnership is a word that a lot of agencies use but never define, let alone live. Partnership is two-sided; if you sign that contract, we’re both committing – your team and my team, you and I.
Here’s what we, Influence Podium, commit to:
• Ownership: we take your success personally. Your challenges are our challenges. Your success is our success. Ownership also means putting your success above our incentives. We won’t propose a strategy or upsell you a service that we don’t think is beneficial for you just to get additional revenue for us. We treat your resources like if they were ours.
• Radical transparency: we want our work together to be successful and, sometimes, that means having hard conversations. These can be about things we need you to do better or about mistakes we’ve made (we’re not perfect!). We commit to having those conversations when needed and to not be afraid of them. We also commit to receiving those conversations and never taking criticism and feedback personally. We all want the same thing: to see you win.
You know what you’ll get from us: a team of talented, competitive people that will work hard to make our work together successful.
Now here’s what we’ll need from you:
• Commitment: no one forces you to work with us. If you want to partner, know that building a media branch takes time and requires you to see the world like we do. Otherwise, it’s too easy to quit. That’s high-level commitment, but there’s also micro-commitment. Show up on time to our calls, be organized, deliver on your word… You know, just be great to work with.
• Communication: we’re your partners, not your vendors. Turning a B2B company into a media company plays a big role in your marketing efforts, so we need to know about what’s happening around us. Changing your sales pitch? Adding new offerings or new features? Doing other marketing initiatives? Let us know! We like and need to stay updated because more often than not, we’ll find synergies that benefit you.
• Trust: the reason companies hire us is because we know what we’re doing. Not bragging (maybe a bit), but my team and I have done this every day for years. We live this, and we really believe there’s no one better than us. If you decide to work with us, trust us. We get insights from over a dozen clients, and we have done this plenty of times before. Not saying we’re alway right, but my team knows what they’re doing.
And that’s it, not too painful!
After this, it’s up to you to decide whether we’re a good fit or not. If you think we might be, I’d love to chat and explore that with you.
For further reading, I highly recommend our article on how we see the world.
