Hiring An Agency VS Hiring In-House Talent

Imagine this, a man named Ganesh Sharma and his friend, Bharat Saxena designed a solar phone charger that will work even on cloudy days. They have got it to work and then approach investors. The investors are suitably impressed and they receive a large sum of money to really get it off the ground and into the market.

It’s time to plant money in the right places.

At first, they set up all the core manufacturing aspects like deciding upon their scale of production, sourcing their materials, leasing land for a factory, hiring a labour force with the experience to make their product and organising logistics for delivery of their product to their distributors. Now, they need to communicate to their prospective customers about their product.

Everyone needs a communication strategy better than this.

Mr Sharma and Mr Saxena start looking at who have been creating the advertisements for their competitor’s products. They notice that some of their competitors have a team of designers employed as part of the company while the others have chosen to utilise design studios and advertising agencies who work independently.

Mr Saxena thinks that the job of communication and branding should be left to an advertising agency or design studio because they have expertise that no one else in the company has. However, Mr Sharma thinks their product is so unique that only a team working exclusively for their company will fully understand how it should be communicated to their customers.

So, which is the right answer?

It’s neither. Both come with pros and cons that one must consider.

But here’s the Tl; dr version

If your company is a small one, outsourcing aka hiring a design talent/advertising agency is the best way to go. They will be objective when offering solutions and enjoy thinking out-of-the-box for new companies. This also allows small business owners to spend more time running and building their business rather than just focusing on the communication aspect.

If your company is a large one with a large budget and large office space, it’s sensible to hire talent and then a manager or two that’s answerable to the owner or upper management when handling the talent. A large company can also afford all the equipment required to attract good talent and keep them.

Let’s look into the pros and cons of hiring an advertising agency/design studio first.

The Pros of Hiring An Advertising Agency / Design Studio

1. As mentioned earlier, agencies have a lot more experience in communication and hence come with a lot of expertise on the subject matter.
2. Advertising agencies and design studios take a lot of trouble to find talent that knows how to create work with commercial appeal.
3. The tools for designing branding and communication material are already owned by agencies and studios.
4. They have more time to dedicate to marketing, branding and communication goals.
5. Design studios and advertising agencies have their own network for executing the ideas and reaching the audience you need to.
6. They can be cost-effective and bring a much-needed fresh perspective to the product/service.

The Cons Of Hiring A Design Studio / Advertising Agency

1. Agencies might not only have one business as a client, the service might not be exclusive. They could delay or make a mistake on a project because of handling another client.
2. There’s a need to constantly stay in touch with them as a business expands so that their communication material reflects the changes.
3. There needs to be a lot of time spent explaining the business initially and the agency or studio’s understanding needs to be checked and verified by everyone in charge.
4. Agencies and studios need business owners to have an idea of what they want from them. They will only be able to take an owner/marketing manager through a limited number of changes in the direction of the brief.
5. If changing agencies, the explanations, directions, and brief that were given to the initial agency or studio need to be given again.

What about in-house talent?

Hiring in-house talent could be what works for you. It all depends on the nature of your business. Let’s examine the pros and cons of hiring talent for in-house design.

Pros of Hiring In-house Design Talent

1. They are always going to be available during your office hours. You will know when you can rely on them.
2. It’s easier to organize in-house talent to meet and connect with department heads to understand the business thoroughly.
3. A business owner can choose and hire only the kind of talent required to complete and no one extra.
4. Changes can be executed more quickly with in-house talent.
5. Having in-house talent makes your company look more impressive in functionality.

Cons Of Hiring In-house Design Talent

1. You may not require a designer for more than a stipulated time. After that, you will be paying a regular salary to someone whose services you barely use and might not need.
2. If you have limited office space, you should not hire in-house design talent. It will make her or him feel uncomfortable and this results in lower quality work.
3. Designers require their own tools to design. If a business owner cannot give creative talent the tools they need to be good at their job, it will sink the business from within.
4. Every business owner doesn’t know what’s best for their business and in-house talent must comply with a business owner’s decision even if it’s a bad decision.
5. The benefits a business owner applies to the existing workforce will have to extend to in-house talent.

In case you were wondering what happened to Mr Sharma and Mr Saxena, they decided to work with an agency as it would be easy to find another agency if they end up unhappy. They might hire some in-house talent later but first, they decided they should work with creative people in agencies before deciding whether it’s right to hire them into the company.

Though Mr Sharma and Mr Saxena took one route, you can take any route, whether it’s hiring an agency or hiring talent for your company, IndieFolio allows you to do both.  Try hiring creative talent from the community or an entire agency. The only question that remains is, “Which one will you choose?”

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