“Do as I say not as I do” - “Or why agencies are rubbish at taking their own advice.”

I’ve recently been working with a couple of agencies looking at their sales paraphernalia. “I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know” doesn’t sound like a great line to be coming out of your consultants mouth, but both times I was almost apologetic giving the analysis as it felt like I was teaching my Grandmother to suck the proverbial egg (whatever that entails). However it struck me that this was something that we wrestled with in all the agencies I worked for.

It reminds me of my Dad’s garage. He was an electrical engineer, and designed parts for battleships, and even devices for Concord. Yet the electrics in our house were a bin fire. He would never have dreamed of giving his clients anything but first class work, but was quite happy to never know quite how the automatic lights in the garden managed to stay working. Or let us near the cupboard under the stairs for fear of us getting a shock.

It doesn’t make sense that agencies don’t know how to sell themselves, given that this is there reason d'etre. And it also isn't the case that they don't try to, given the huge cost and the fact that sales is an agencies life blood.

So why?

I have a hunch that a major reason comes down to Humans innate cognitive biases. A major one being confirmation bias. So don’t feel bad about it. It’s actually human nature.But one of the best ways to get past your own cognitive biases is to get a fresh pair of eyes on it.