If you’ve worked with a marketing/creative/digital agency or consultancy before, you might have experienced something frustrating.

For schools who need agency support most, there’s often a gap that prevents you from knowing how to actually engage an agency in a way that gets the best return.

The agency can do basically anything.

It’s akin to a master chef presenting a blank menu to you. They can cook anything, to a world-class standard.

You just have to choose…

At best, I think agencies just forget what it’s like to ‘not know’.

At worst, I think agencies fall into a sort of superiority complex.

Not to just pile-on on agencies—I have worked agency-side for years, and now I run Bolsta Education. Cards on the table: I’ve been guilty of these mindsets above (and still am, occasionally).

The problems that organisations face are complex and nuanced.

As an agency owner, I don’t want to define what I can do into a process, product, or package because what if it doesn’t solve your unique problem? Yet, by not simplifying, I’m forcing you to pick a direction that may or may not be the best one to take.

Big agencies working with big clients with big budgets get around this by pricing in discovery. At this scale, if the scope changes partway through because the problem wasn’t well-defined at the beginning, there’s enough margin both ways to absorb the cost of change.

I’ve run projects like this and it can work great.

But what if you’re a smaller organisation, like a school, with an immature marketing culture and a tiny budget?

There’s no margin for error.

But your problems are still complex.

And you desperately need outside help.

I’ve thought a lot about how to approach this at Bolsta.

Here’s a few organising principles I’ve landed on:

  • Gradually customise
    (start with structured processes to ensure immediate quality and consistency, moving towards more custom, nuanced approaches over time)
  • “Teach first”
    (have a bias towards up-skilling internal teams, not creating dependant agency-client relationships)
  • Take action”
    (prioritise small, quick wins to get momentum for broader change)

How Bolsta works

I help schools step back, look at the bigger picture, and ensure we’re prioritising the right things before we get stuck in.

We plan with you

We always start with a discovery process. We’ll align your team, identify your core objectives and create an action plan that prioritises great work that will move your school forward. The most important stakeholders will be engaged from the start, ensuring we don’t hit any speed bumps along the way.

We build with you

Here we’ll build the systems, assets and infrastructure you need to support an amazing parent experience. And we’ll do it together, side by side so you don’t have to manage the complexity of the project in-house.

We partner with you

Finally, we’ll ensure that all of the changes are sustainable over the long run, by working alongside you as you continue to tick off your big priorities. Here, we’ll work through smaller projects to create strategies, designs and systems that will maintain your momentum.

Find out more about Bolsta’s unique approach…