Ignition Consulting Group

Consulting for agencies that want to stop selling hours

Ignition's clients are marketing agencies and professional service firms of other kinds that want to stop trading time for money. Its starting point is that a firm's expertise can be turned into scalable growth through higher-value programs and products, and its advice is organized around two ideas: standing for something, and getting paid properly for it.

Positioning: what the firm does and for whom

The first half of the work is positioning. The consultancy tests whether a firm can describe itself in an interesting and distinct way in half a minute, and argues that a clear positioning strategy answers two questions: what the firm does, which cannot be "everything", and whom it does it for, which cannot be "everybody". It says standing for everything amounts to standing for nothing. It lists what it helps a firm learn:

• how to define what the firm really sells and what its clients really buy
• how to build on the things that already set the firm apart
• how to give prospects a reason to travel a long way to do business with it
• how to carry the brand positioning through every function and discipline in the organization

Pricing: charging for value

The second half is pricing. The consultancy's view is that no single action improves an agency's bottom line as much as better pricing, and that many agencies wrongly assume the answer is more revenue or lower costs. It says most leaders already accept that clients do not really buy their time, but struggle to charge in any other way. Its guidance covers:

• charging for the value of outputs rather than the cost of inputs
• separating the value of ideation from the value of implementation
• writing more creative and effective pricing proposals in new business
• creating new revenue streams and a more varied mix of compensation

Workshops and the state of the agency business

Ignition runs live online workshops, some hosted with industry bodies, on topics such as building a purpose-driven agency, designing a revenue model that scales in a tight talent market, and presenting several pricing options so a client has more than one way to say yes.

It also holds a view on the agency industry. It says the persistent predictions of its demise miss the real issue, which it describes as a long-running pattern in which agencies take on ever more work for ever smaller fees. The firm presents its programs as a response to that trend, aimed at moving a firm from undervalued to profitable.