David Jones, president and co-founder of Seattle-based B2B agency Yesler, is very clear about what he’d do differently if he could start his business again. In Yesler’s case, this doesn’t relate to something that went wrong, or had a disappointing outcome – quite the opposite in fact. Instead, it relates to something which Jones wishes his company had done more stridently, even aggressively. And that thing is embracing Agile working methodologies.
Yesler started its Agile journey two years ago, and it’s no understatement to say that it’s revolutionised how the agency operates, and the success it is seeing. “If I had my time again, I would make it [the deployment of agile] faster and more profound,” says David. “We started using Agile in its purest form, but we keep learning with it, tweaking how we use it and building momentum.”
The impact, he says, has been significant – and the successes it has driven are numerous. “Productivity has improved. Margins have improved. Headcount is flat, but we’re seeing strong topline growth. We’re just getting more done. And it’s having a big impact on morale – our internal NPS (net promoter score) rankings for the past two years just keep going up.”
Agile as an internal and external approach
Agile is well documented for use with internal teams, but using it to pull together teams from different companies (clients and agencies, for example) is more complex – so, how much does Yesler integrate clients into this approach? The answer, says David, depends. “There’s no one-size-fits-all approach, and it depends on the client, and their needs and preferences. But we’re happy to operate on a full co-creation basis (with fully integrated teams) or for just the internal agency team to be agile. At the end of the day, what’s important is the frequency and transparency of communications – it’s not just about moving post-it notes around.”
David believes this flexibility has been crucial to the growth Yesler has seen over the past two years. As well as creating and delivering campaigns and programmes, what might be regarded as the ‘traditional’ agency role, David says Yesler is increasingly acting effectively as an outsourced marketing department for many of its clients. This gives them access to a deeper suite of knowledge, skills and proficiencies than the client could maintain within an internal team, as well as delivering some of the ongoing marketing tasks.
“Marketing is increasingly complex,” he explains. “Marketers used to just be brand people, but now they’re data-driven and much more technical. The challenge for a CMO is to work out what they need and how best to use their budget. Do I need to hire more people, or can I bring in a specialist? Arguably the core internal team should purely be the brand and thought leadership function.”
"If you have an ABM strategy, everyone is on the same page. Both [sales and marketing] have a seat at the table"
Other functions can be externalised, David suggests. The recruitment challenge facing marketing leaders is only making this worse, he continues. “Unemployment is at a record low, and competition in the job market is very high. There are not enough people trained to use core platforms, and this creates an opportunity for us.”
Increasingly, the key to effective recruitment in the marketing sector (client-side or agency) is down to your organisational culture – which reflects back on Yesler’s use of Agile, among other things. “We take great pride in the length of tenure of our staff,” David says. “We’re one big family.”
Besides agile, David believes ABM (account-based marketing) is going to be increasingly key to effective B2B marketing over the next few years. “Until ABM came along, it was sales versus marketing in many companies. They worked in silos. If you have an ABM strategy, everyone is on the same page. Both have a seat at the table. There is lots of momentum around this.”
David also recognises the growing importance of marketing tech, which is, in part, enabling interest in ABM. But he urges a note of caution: “There is a proliferation of platforms, and marketers like shiny objects. There’s no shortage of hype, but marketers need to understand what they want the outcome to be. The first tool you need is your whiteboard.”
