I run an agency, so I am about to argue against my own commercial interest again. When a company is unhappy with its results, the standard move is to fire the agency and hire a new one — and sometimes that is exactly right. But far more often than agencies like to admit, switching agencies does not fix the problem, because the problem was never the agency. The company carries the real issue with it into the new relationship, and a year later it is unhappy all over again.

I have inherited plenty of clients from a fired predecessor, and I can usually tell within a few weeks whether we are about to succeed or about to become the next agency that "didn't work out." The deciding factor is rarely us.

Why the conventional wisdom is wrong

The conventional wisdom treats the agency as the variable: bad results mean a bad agency, so swapping it should mean better results. Sometimes the agency genuinely is the problem and a switch is the cure. But results are produced by the agency and the client together, and a large share of what determines them lives entirely on the client side — strategy, clarity, decision-making, the product itself. Fire the agency and you have changed one half of the equation while leaving the half that was actually broken fully intact.

What is actually true

What is actually true is that an agency relationship is a partnership, and partnerships fail for reasons that belong to both sides. When results disappoint, the honest question is not just "is the agency good" but "what is the system that produced this result, and which part of it is actually broken." Sometimes the answer is the agency, and you should switch without hesitation. Often the answer is the brief, the strategy, the decision-making, or the product — and switching agencies just resets the clock on the same disappointment with new logos on the invoices.

This is why some companies cycle through agency after agency, convinced each one was the problem, never noticing the single constant in every failed relationship. The constant is them. Not because they are bad people, but because the thing that was actually broken was never on the agency's side of the table, so changing the agency could never have fixed it.

Before you fire your agency

A switch is sometimes right — but run an honest diagnosis first, or you will buy the same problem twice.

How we handle it

When a prospect comes to us from a fired agency, the story is almost always "they were bad, we need someone better." Sometimes that is true and we are glad to do better. But part of our job is to figure out, honestly, whether the last agency was actually the problem — because if it was not, we are about to inherit the same wall they hit. So we diagnose the whole system before we promise anything: the strategy, the decision-making, the product, the expectations. If the real issue is on the client's side, we say so, even though it is not what a new agency is supposed to say. We would rather tell a prospect the uncomfortable truth and maybe lose the deal than win it, hit the same wall, and become the next agency they fire. The agencies that keep getting fired are sometimes bad. Just as often, they were hired to fix something an agency was never going to fix.

The honest take

Before you fire your agency, make sure the agency is actually the problem — because if it is not, the next one will hit the same wall, and you will have paid to learn that the hard way. Diagnose the whole system honestly: the strategy, your own clarity and decisions, the product, the expectations. Sometimes the agency really is the issue and you should switch decisively. But often the most valuable, least comfortable move is to look at the half of the partnership that does not change when you swap vendors — and fix what is actually broken there.

Sources