Assessing Risk for Interactive Marketing Agencies

This blog was originally published on 7/24/2009.

We've had companies tell us they feel like there is less risk with a big interactive agency player (like Razorfish, IBM, Ogilvy). But as a business owner of a solid, stable, and growing firm I think the challenges are different, but the risk level is the same.

Boutiques get a bad rep sometimes due to being one client away from going out of business, or shutting down because of cash flow issues. Big agencies have a bad rep of being "fat" or over managed, of missing deadlines, and blowing budgets. I had a grad school teacher tell me that clients are won because of the relationships they build. So when we hear that a potential client went with a bigger agency with multiple locations, we clearly didn't do a good enough job building the relationship and easing their concerns. A lesson learned and we move on. I would love to get to know a CEO from one of the larger interactive agencies mentioned above to see how they see companies like us.