What’s in a name? I guess it depends on what you’re talking about.

If it’s your child/pets’ name, quite a lot – you’d hate to spend your life calling your child “spot” because you were tired at the registry office that day and couldn’t be bothered to think it through properly.

But if it’s how you describe what you do, does it really make much difference as long as people understand or perceive what you do?

Well yes, I think it does…

(this would be a very short blog otherwise, to be honest)

I think no matter how small, descriptions can make a massive amount of difference to how you work, how you think, how you act, and how you deliver things.

For example, ever since RedKnows has been a thing, I’ve been adamant that we call ourselves a marketing consultancy, not a marketing agency. And like many, you might be thinking what’s the difference really, Isn’t that just some extra sales spiel?

Well no, it isn’t. And I’ll tell you why.

But before I do, a quick disclaimer. There are some bloody awesome marketing agencies out there who do unbelievable above-the-line (telly!) and below-the-line (everything else pretty much!) campaigns for massive brands, and deliver superb, innovative, and very creative results.

In fact, in previous lives I’ve worked with quite a few of them, so I can vouch for that.

Is it ok to vouch for yourself? Not sure.

Anyway – the point is, this is not a slag-off-all-the-marketing-agencies-except-us blog, it’s just about why I think what we call ourselves is important.

Glad we cleared that up.

So – as I was saying, we call ourselves a consultancy not an agency. Why? Because I think we deliver better work that way, and it’s a model that seems to fit the recruitment and talent attraction markets really well too.

As a consultancy, we don’t match or follow the agency model. We don’t do retainers, we don’t have account managers, and we don’t tie our clients into long-term contracts or deliver entire service solutions when all they need is a more focused piece of short term delivery.

Basically, we don’t do cookie cutters.

Working on a project-by-project basis means we have an absolute focus on what we’re doing and how we’re doing it all of the time, because if we don’t do it well, we don’t get to work with you for much longer, and that would make us very sad indeed.

Equally, when clients work with us for longer, and some do for many years, it’s because they want to, not because they have to.

They are not led by the terms of the engagement or the costs of exiting an agreement, they carry on working with us because they enjoy the experience, like the results they are getting, and perhaps most importantly, they like the people they are working with.

Plus being inch-wide-mile-deep in one sector has its advantages too. Our team includes ex-recruiters as well as marketing agency and business owners, who are embedded in recruitment and talent and have tons of knowledge to share.

So there you go. The answer to a question you didn’t ask and probably had no intention of asking, but one you now know nonetheless.

Thank me another time. In fact, if you’ve read this far, as a thank you for your perseverance and suffering, why not send an email to hello@redknows.co.uk with the word SPOT in the title, and we’ll give you 10% off your next project with us.

Ta-ta for now.