Legend, Inc. is a project-to-project advertising agency without retainers, prepayments, or contracts required. Our invoices are primarily based on hourly rates. We will, of course, accommodate our clients special needs, but we typically charge on an hourly basis for creative and agency time, plus commissions on media or vendor placements.
Many of our clients rely on us for everything: media and vendor
placements, plus creative and production work; but it's always
up to them.
We maintain a separate
Client Trust Account for our clients' funds and
operate our agency from an account we refer to as our AGI (Adjusted
Gross Income) Account. It has always been our
practice to operate from our actual income, not cash flow from
total billings. That is an important distinction to the savvy client.
Over the years we have "inherited" many excellent clients from
advertising agencies that went out of business living on their
cash flow. Many of those clients were forced to pay the media and
vendors again when their agency ceased operations without paying
the vendors. Media and vendors always hold the clients ultimately
responsible UNLESS the agency protects their clients ahead of time,
as we do. We will fill you in on the details of this agency business
practice, but it is demonstrative of our overall business practice
of always putting our clients and their interests first.
We believe in strong client-agency relationships and insist on
them. For those services and projects which you hire us to perform,
we become your partners, not just another vendor. We are easy to
deal with, responsive and internally we maintain a simple and efficient
organization and management system.
The first project with any new relationship is always the most
difficult and sometimes it is also the most important. Over average
client relationship currently is well over eight years. Some have
endured for far longer than that. It is in out best relationships
where we believe we perform our best work.
Our key personnel have been together for many years. Sometimes
our clients go through growing pains and a changing of their personnel
as this occurs. The changing personnel syndrome can create a changing
advertising syndrome as well. Changing personnel within a company
can mean growth and progress; changing advertising agencies can
be a sign of disruption, disorganization and an uncertain message
from client-side management. We encourage periodic reviews, if
needed, and other mechanisms of relationship-building to avoid
these problems. An enduring advertising agency relationship can
mean a great creative advantage and should be worked on from both
sides.
We are available for meetings, but most of our business is conducted via other means. Meetings are expensive, time-consuming and often indicate a relationship that could be improved. We meet in person with most of our clients once or twice during the year, if that, but are in contact with them in other ways almost every day.
Basically, our business practices can be summarized in this phrase:
we treat our clients the way we would like to be treated.
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