You Get What You Pay For

Originally sent out: 07/11/24

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“If you’re good at something, never do it for free”

It never ceases to amaze me how many agencies offer their services for peanuts.

It’s not just agencies, businesses up and down the country will sell themselves short, just to ‘win the business’.

If you’re good at something, why would you do it on the cheap?

The reality is, anyone genuinely good at something doesn’t need to cut themselves short, as they’ll have people queueing up to pay them fairly for their expertise/experience.

I mention this because this week I have once again been reminded that they’ll always be someone who will do it cheaper.

Cheaper rarely means better.

Most of our clients have worked with an agency or two before us and I’m always surprised to hear what some of them have previously been paying for services rendered.

“We’re paying £650/month”

“We currently pay £800/month”

“We’ve never paid more than £1,200/month for management”

I’ve heard these sentiments repeatedly this year, as I always do.

Every time I say the same thing… You get what you pay for!

When I hear those numbers I immediately think “how much time/resources is that agency actually putting into your account for that fee?”

Common sense dictates that it’s not much.

You can ask yourself, how much of your time could someone ‘buy’ for £600-£800 a month?

Maybe a day? Two at the very most?

Now, if we’re stretching that resource across multiple disciplines; in our case that would be across Google Ads, Meta Ads, maybe creative etc.

The reality is it’s impossible.

And yet, it’s all too common.

I’m talking to some fantastic brands at the moment who are frustrated at the lack of proactivity from their respective agencies.

Their businesses are struggling to maintain performance on last year, let alone grow, despite investing more into ads.

They turn to me and ask, what’s wrong?

I review their accounts and can generally see mistakes/opportunities of course.

But, equally their investment in expertise and management is generally so low that it’s not at all surprising what is happening.

You get what you pay for.

I want to make a point here that we’re not particularly expensive as an agency.

Our fees start at £2,000+VAT a month. Our agency day rate is £800+VAT (which is actually very reasonable for agency rates).

I know regardless of account size, it’s impossible for us to proactively manage any client with less than 2.5 days a month resource on their account, based on what we do.

It’s simple maths.

If you don’t have the time needed, either the work won’t be done, corners will be cut or worse still, everything will be put on full auto-pilot using AI (one of the many things I hate about AI), where a human barely goes near your account.

You get what you pay for.

Nine times out of ten when I have a conversation with a prospective client and I get them to think logically about what they are investing vs what they are expecting, they see a disconnect and realise that we’re not expensive, we’re just realistic and honest about the time needed to do what we do.

So remember, if you are genuinely providing value in your service or your product, that must be valued fairly.

Stand firm on what you know your worth.

Don’t join the race to the bottom, as there will always be someone who will do it cheaper.

I know what we’re worth and our clients can access our expertise and experience every month for the bargain price of £800/day.

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