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In a world where everything happens 'now,' managing expectations can be tricky. You may have stakeholders, customers, team members, and a board of directors to please. The list is long and never-ending.

Delivering your best requires a creative team responsive to your goals and objectives while thinking ahead on your behalf. Some partnerships and service providers may sometimes be flawed, but they should be consistent and reliable.

Here are our recommended must-haves when retaining a creative agency:

Listening
Your new (or current) team should be avid listeners. Listening to understand, not just to reply, is the key to all effective communication.

Responsiveness
Any service provider that misses deadlines or fails to communicate is not for you. Your creative agency should be accessible and reliable, with effective remote team management to ensure consistent responsiveness.

Trust
Let's face it, managing corporate identities, advertising, and marketing efforts is like protecting the family name. Your agency should treat you (and be treated) like family. Comfortable, honest, and respectful – always.

Great Work
Hey, great work creates great opportunities. And both benefit you, your brand, your department, your company, your collateral, and your creative agency. Mediocrity is not acceptable.

Creativity
Creativity in business is innovation. Your creative team should bridge the gap between where you are now and where you are going with purpose. This team should deliver equitable value, including staying on top of industry trends. That means using the latest communication and collaboration tools, like artificial intelligence (AI) and data-driven marketing.

Results
Setting goals and delivering on expectations is mandatory. The agency team should understand your goals and objectives and help you consistently deliver on them.

In some instances, creative agencies provide these deliverables through team hierarchy. Partners do the pitch and transfer the heavy lifting to their teams and account managers. Sometimes, this works, and sometimes, it doesn't, resulting in these values being lost in translation.

We encourage all clients to request commitment and communication structures as part of the creative services agreement. Covering a few diligent bases on the front end will save you valuable time in the long run, and everyone involved will thank you.

If you need a few reasons why smaller firms do this better, check out our 11 Reasons Why Boutique Creative Firms Deliver Big Value post to see what sets us apart.

Aedieno is a boutique creative agency. For direct access and personalized creative relationship management, please contact us.