Something I wrestled with for years when I was running an agency was the idea that the business had to stand for something bigger.
A purpose. A cause.
If you've read any of the Simon Sinek "start with why" material, you'll know the argument: there has to be a ‘why’, a ‘just cause’, something beyond the money.
This all felt particularly acute around 2020/2021, and, tbh, the agency definitely skewed younger at the time which might have fed some of the idealist thinking.
Anyway. I do agree with part of it. Just ‘making money’ probably can't be the only goal. But I wish I had spent less time and mental energy worrying about it.
Looking back on that period, I really do think much of the time or energy we put into our idea of ‘Purpose’ was wasted.
Where I've got to now, and where I part ways with the original thinking, is what "have a reason to exist beyond profit" seemed to turn into somewhere along the line: the belief that your agency needs a world-changing, society-shifting purpose to be worth running.
That's bloody hard to retrofit to an industry mostly built around helping clients sell stuff.
For most of us - that's the job. It might be different if you work in the for-purpose or not-for-profit space, but for the majority of agencies, that's the honest description of the work. And I think that's completely fine.
If I were running an agency now, I'd refocus ‘purpose’ as being genuinely good at the craft. Doing work you're proud of, for clients you actually like, alongside people you enjoy being around and are inspired by. That's a perfectly good reason to keep going. You don't need to bolt a cause about changing the world on top of it to make it legitimate.
And if you also want to be a force for good, do that too - but you don't need to try and make the DNA of the agency look like a bird when it's actually a frog.
None of this is an argument to skip the strategic work. You still need a clear vision, and you still need your values sorted (more for your team than your clients - I really don't think most clients care what you say your values are). You need to know what you're building and where you're trying to get to, otherwise you drift.
The idea that there has to be something bigger, something that reframes the agency as a force for societal change is, I think, mostly a red herring. It absorbs a lot of time and mental energy, usually somewhere around the middle of an offsite, and rarely changes what happens on the Monday.
What should we focus on instead?
I don't know, but if you're unsure you can complete my free agency diagnostic. It might help point you in the right direction.
Cheers, Sam
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