Just do good things

Okay, so this is not really about search. But it is about relationships, business relationships. Seth Godin had a post about concealing things in marketing. It is more consumer focused, but widely applicable. It got me thinking about a problem I have seen repeatedly in nearly 20 years of marketing. Agencies try to spin results, shading numbers and show the good, while hiding the bad. I recall my first experience with a client service director at Leo Burnett in the early 90's who actually did NOT do this.

It was and still is rare to see. But, he said, outright and with expletives (to get his point across) that the brand manager was wrong and the numbers clearly showed the path to be foolish. We could have added several million dollars to the budget simply by agreeing with the brand manager and showing only those numbers that supported the wrong decision. But, the director refused. It was a proud day for our agency, and for me as a member of it. One of the many reasons I like working with Leapfrog is that we always move the metric to sales or revenue. There is no shading here. Client pays X and always gets Y. If it doesn't work, it is clear. Even as our clients ask us to take on more business outside our core programs, we work with them to develop a sales based metric in order to maintain the direct link between our effort and their revenue. There is no tap dancing the results. It works or it doesn't. Both in my professional work and my personal experience, I frequently find myself thinking: "Stop wasting time trying to make me feel good about the things you do. Just do good things." 

I wonder how much more productive companies would be if they spend as much time focused on doing good work rather than spinning bad results.