What’s Broken With the Traditional Marketing Agency and Client Relationship Model (and How to Fix It) With John Bertino From The Agency Guy [AMP 180]
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- TAG’s Model: Consult with brands of all sizes to demystify marketing channels
- Top Problems: Too many marketing teams, specialties, and biased advice
- Issues: Growing fast by sacrificing fundamental factors of business operations
- Inexperience and Inexpensive: You get what you pay for
- Education and Expectations: Talk in transparent way, not over people's heads
- How to be a better client? Be willing and ready to learn
- How to choose an agency? Consider personality, services, and teamwork
- Best Practices: Slow, controlled, methodical growth; put clients first
- Hiring Process: Prioritize communication
- 4 Steps to Worry-free Marketing:
- Start a conversation with a brand
- Create a high-level custom strategy
- Connect with a vetted, proven partner
- Measure performance to produce results
- “Make sure brands are investing in the correct marketing strategies, the correct marketing channels, and ultimately, with the correct teams.”
- “The advice and guidance the brands are getting are coming from a subjective source, and of course, our model is designed to be extremely objective.”
- “They're often trying to get to the lowest or cheapest solution to their marketing problems, and rarely, if ever, is it the right way to go about it.”
- “The trend I see across agencies is those that hire more senior level staff, and they pay more to get them, they have happier clients.”
Transcript:
Ben: Would you mind introducing yourself and just sharing what you do with our listeners? John: Sure thing, Ben, and thanks for having me. My name is John Bertino, the founder and CEO of a company called The Agency Guy. We're based out of Philadelphia these days, that's our headquarters, but we did originally launch a company six years ago in San Diego and we currently have offices in both. We've got a unique marketing consultancy. Should I dig into that? Ben: Yeah, absolutely. By all means, I would love to hear all about it. John: Okay, cool. Unique consultancy as I said, we're a collective of five experienced digital marketing executives, every one of us with at least a decade or more of experience, either doing marketing or providing marketing services for clients, or working at agencies ourselves. We are backed by a collection of about 200 different carefully selected agencies and consultants. What we do and what our model is, is to consult with brands of all sizes. We really do consult with brands that are small mom-and-pop all the way up to enterprise level. We've got some great testimonials on our site from the large clients. We consult with clients generally pro bono, meaning at no cost, in an effort to help essentially demystify some of the various marketing channels, and make sure brands are investing in the correct marketing strategies, the correct marketing channels, and ultimately, with the correct teams. In many ways, it's almost like we're an interim pro bono CMO for a week or a month as we help guide them through this process.![](https://media.coschedule.com/uploads/180_John-Podcast-Graphics_quote-01-1.png?w=3840&q=75)
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