Agencies in the performance marketing sector are arguably having to face up to change faster than other parts of marketing services. When the platforms you’ve built your career and businesses around over the last 20 years are suddenly transforming, you have to reinvent yourself or face oblivion.

For this Waypointers episode partner Phil Gripton talks to someone who was there at the dawn of performance, Joe Procter, co-founder of Open Partners. Open Partners was founded around the concept of “agency of next”,  which Joe explains as “preparing clients for a future that hasn’t happened yet, so that they can adapt to that future faster than their competitors can.”

How quickly this change is happening in performance is plain for all to see. Google’s share of search dropped below 90% for the first time in 15 years, driven by the fast-growing trend to use AI for search. A recent Gartner report predicted that within three years, 50 % of organic traffic from google will have disappeared. Fundamentally if performance agencies don’t prepare for that future, they face an extinction event.

There is no one silver bullet that allows a business to successfully face up to seismic change, especially change that is driven by external forces. But Joe’s approach provides a strong blueprint for any agency leadership team who is looking to prepare for an uncertain future.

Present changes in terms that are meaningful to the C suite

This way they will know where they should be focusing. Joe explains his impatience with too many theoretical presentations about the future with nothing concrete to create a plan to deliver against. Joe’s advice is to bake everything in practical terms. Think in terms of (i) identifying what is happening; (ii) what it means for clients;  (iii) working out together how to address it (iv) what that plan looks like and over what timescale.

Build trust

There is a real opportunity for agencies to serve as a trusted guide to help navigate the future, and to make things a little less scary for clients. From the client perspective, it’s not just about knowing that the agency understands the future, but that they can be trusted to guide your organisation successfully through it. For Joe that also boils down to making decision based on the client’s best interests not just yours. And it clearly works for Open Partners as their NPS runs at a constant 9!

Ask whether your team structure is the right one

In the case of Open Partners, the exec team consisting of Joe and his co-founder ensured that they removed themselves from operations, so that they had time to focus on creating a future-facing strategy.

Culture is key

Open Partners operates an approach it calls “better for everyone” – which means that the three main stakeholder groups – clients, staff and partners are evangelical about the business and what it stands for.

For insight into how an agency has made change its competitive advantage and some practical take outs, select the Waypointers link.