Marketing agencies are notorious for helping clients while neglecting their own business. This Wisconsin-based agency was stuck in the project-to-project cycle that plagues the industry—they knew they needed to become strategic partners rather than vendors, but weren’t sure how to get there.

By conducting deep customer research, I uncovered the painful truth: while clients felt the agency cared about them, they didn’t necessarily believe the agency truly understood their business or offered strategic value. I planned a three-year transformation spanning marketing, account management, sales, and strategy teams to help the agency shift from transactional relationships to true partnerships.

The results speak for themselves: significant increases in client trust, strategic perception, and satisfaction across all metrics. Most tellingly, client preferences shifted away from “getting work done quickly” toward valuing strategic partnership—proving that when you listen to customers and understand their businesses, everyone wins.