Clear Direction, Stronger Pitches, Better Decisions: The Role of Influencing Strengths in Agencies
A Deep Dive Into the Influencing Domain of CliftonStrengths
CliftonStrengths is a tool that helps you understand how people persuade, motivate, communicate, and drive action. It organizes these talents into four domains: Executing, Influencing, Relationship Building, and Strategic Thinking. If you're looking for the full breakdown of all four, you can learn more about each CliftonStrength here.
The Influencing domain determines whether your agency can actually move people. That includes rallying clients behind a strategy, inspiring the team during tough stretches, speaking persuasively, and confidently steering decisions. These strengths show up in pitches, client presentations, conflict moments, and anywhere your agency needs to be convincing.
There are eight strengths in this domain:
Activator
Command
Communication
Competition
Maximizer
Self-Assurance
Significance
Woo
Here’s how these strengths show up in day-to-day agency operations and how to use them to prevent client misalignment, weak pitches, and leadership gaps.
1. Activator
Team members with the Activator strength turn ideas into movement. They hate waiting and thrive on quick starts.
In an agency, this strength keeps projects from dying in planning purgatory. They get momentum going when everyone else is still wordsmithing the brief.
When used well:
Client kickoffs happen fast, teams stop over-planning, and clients see action instead of excuses.
When mismanaged:
They launch without thinking, skip critical details, and drag teams into motion before clarity is established.
How to leverage them:
Use them to jumpstart campaigns, energize stalled projects, and keep meetings from becoming endless debates.
2. Command
The Command strength brings clarity and decisiveness. People with this strength take charge when others hesitate.
In an agency, this strength is essential when clients waffle, teams get foggy, or decisions get stuck in committee.
When used well:
Projects move forward, expectations get reset quickly, and clients trust the agency’s leadership and decisions.
When mismanaged:
They bulldoze, dominate discussions, and create tension instead of alignment.
How to leverage them:
Use them in escalation moments, ambiguous situations, or client conversations where someone needs to confidently draw a line.
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3. Communication
The Communication strength brings the message to life. They translate complexity into something people understand and want to act on.
In an agency, this is gold, especially when you need to pitch, present, simplify data, or get a client to buy into your thinking.
When used well:
Clients lean in, teams work well together, and presentations bring clients to tears.
When mismanaged:
They talk too much, dominate airtime, and become the human megaphone instead of the storyteller.
How to leverage them:
Use them in pitches, weekly client updates, internal announcements, and anywhere clarity is lacking.
4. Competition
Colleagues with the Competition strength want to win and want the agency to win.
In an agency environment, they push quality, elevate performance, and ensure your work stands out against competitors.
When used well:
Benchmarks improve, teams push themselves, and creative and strategic excellence rise.
When mismanaged:
They compare excessively, get resentful, and turn collaboration into a scoreboard.
How to leverage them:
Use them to set performance standards, drive new business energy, and help the team celebrate real progress.
5. Maximizer
Maximizers fine-tune strengths. They take what is good and turn it into exceptional.
In an agency, they prevent mediocrity from slipping into client-facing work.
When used well:
Campaigns improve, deliverables are on time, and quality rises across the board.
When mismanaged:
They over-polish, stall timelines, and frustrate teams who just need something shipped.
How to leverage them:
Use them in high-stakes deliverables, pitch decks, creative refinement, or anything where excellence matters.
6. Self-Assurance
Self-Assurance projects confidence and steady conviction.
In an agency, confidence sells. Clients follow leaders who sound like they know what they’re doing.
When used well:
They calm nervous clients, help teams make decisions, and give direction when things feel uncertain.
When mismanaged:
They dismiss feedback, act unilaterally, and take unnecessary risks.
How to leverage them:
Use them in client renewals, strategy presentations, and moments where a confident voice is needed to anchor the conversation.
7. Significance
Individuals with the Significance strength want to make an impact and be recognized for meaningful work.
In an agency, this translates into producing work that clients notice and talk about.
When used well:
Standards go up, thought leadership grows, and the team is driven toward visible achievements.
When mismanaged:
They chase applause, resent being invisible, and make decisions for attention rather than impact.
How to leverage them:
Use them in brand-building initiatives, flagship accounts, and projects that require a public-facing presence.
8. Woo
WOO, or “Winning Others Over,” thrives on connecting with people and loves building rapport quickly.
In an agency, they shine in networking, business development, client onboarding, and team morale.
When used well:
Clients feel welcomed, prospects feel comfortable, and the team feels energized.
When mismanaged:
They chase novelty, avoid depth, and become social butterflies without follow-through.
How to leverage them:
Use them in pitches, client hospitality, recruiting, and relationship-driven interactions.
Why This Matters for Client Retention
Influencing strengths affect how your agency shows up, persuades, and leads. When these strengths are missing or misaligned, your agency becomes passive and forgettable.
Here’s what happens:
Presentations fall flat
Clients don’t trust your recommendations
New business suffers
Teams lack direction
Difficult conversations get avoided
Confusion spreads faster than clarity
Clients end up leading the agency instead of the other way around
Retention dies when your agency can’t confidently influence the conversation. Renewal depends on trust, clarity, persuasive communication, and decisive leadership. All of that lives in the Influencing domain.
If you want to keep clients long term, you need people who can communicate powerfully, move people toward decisions, and lead your agency through uncertainty.
Struggling to get your team communicating and influencing effectively?
Stop guessing and start measuring. Book an Agency Talent and Culture Audit today.
