There are some culty agencies in the world of public relations, strategic communications, branding, and editorial content production. A good red flag that you’re being courted by such an agency is they might not even call themselves “an agency.” (Of course, we don’t, either. But we’re different! Honestly!). This agency might also resist other categorization. You say, “are you a branding agency?” They respond: “Agency? Branding? We’re far deeper than that.”
They might spend more time talking about their process than asking about your challenges. They might have a catchy name. They might talk about their “way.” As in, “the [catchy name of entity] way.” They might say they have a unique recipe to get you in front of a certain audience. They may have one star person internally who’s won a few awards and has a LinkedIn following that feels more like Beyonce’s. Getting in a room with them to talk about your challenges can feel a bit like trying to go out on a date with the coolest kid in high school. There’s so much of their aura wafting around that you get a bit dazed and confused.
What’s actually happening is: These agencies are selling to you, and for big money, and there is a good deal of snake oil in such a sales approach. Snake oil is a term that originated in the 1800s when it was thought to be a cure-all tonic, supposedly produced by boiling rattlesnakes and skimming off the oil that rose to the surface. Needless to say it was often cheaper to substitute…other oils.
When you’re confronted with this, you might think the fact that the agency can market themselves effectively means they might be able to help you do it, too. But it’s not the same. They might be spending a lot of energy and time curating their image, and redesigning their decks. So much energy, indeed, that they might have a lot less time and interest in you.
They place themselves at the center, claiming almost mystical abilities to save your organization–while perhaps not actually doing all that much. Rasputin was a self-proclaimed holy man, healer, and failed monk, who closely influenced the family of Tsar Nicholas II in early 20th—including a close relationship with the Tsar’s wife. But. He didn’t actually do a great deal to prevent the Russian revolution. Indeed, his association with the family undermined public perceptions of the Tsar. (If you’ve not seen the Alan Rickman version of his life on YouTube, you could spend an hour and a half less productively).
At TwoMinds, we’re not the story. We want to listen to you and hear you, and we’ll definitely bring our expertise and experience to the fore. Between our two minds, we have more than half a century of professional writing, editorial, communications, branding and production experience. We’ve seen trends come and go. But we don’t want to sell you on our mystique. We want to help.
Our approach tends to emphasize curiosity and listening. When we ask questions to understand what you’re trying to achieve, we’re doing so in a way that’s based on our experience of the bottlenecks that tend to come up for organizations when they try to move ahead with this kind of work. We don’t start from the point of view that you need “curing”, but rather, that you’re smart and insightful and that you might benefit from some willing and experienced partnership to get where you want to go.
To that extent, we want to make more room for your thinking and strategizing, and not less. We like partners who think. But we also know, sometimes, that you’re overbudrened with day to day activities and could use a couple of big brains to come in and outsource some of the intelligence for you.
If you’re curious to find out more, let’s chat!
Ellen Mendlow and Matt Davis are the co-founders of TwoMindsComms.com