Getting Started With The CliftonStrengths Assessment For Marketing Agencies
Why Your Agency’s “Scaling Problem” is Actually a People Problem
In the agency world, we’re always looking outward: manipulating SEO algorithms, crafting high-converting copy, and architecting flawless funnels. But when your agency’s growth stalls, scope creep becomes the norm, or your best creative talent walks out the door, it’s rarely a technical failure.
It’s a human operating system failure.
Most agency owners try to fix these issues with "vitamins"- a new project management tool or a generic corporate training. At Learn to Scale, we provide the "painkillers." As your Fractional Agency People Officer, I use the CliftonStrengths framework to diagnose exactly where your team’s engine is misfiring and how to tune it for high-performance growth.
The CliftonStrengths assessment, a tool developed in 1999 by Dr. Don Clifton while at Gallup, helps individuals identify their unique blend of strengths within four distinct categories: Executing, Influencing, Relationship Building, and Strategic Thinking. As a product of the Positive Psychology movement, this assessment wants to focus your energy towards being at your best, rather than compensating for your shortcomings.
As a CliftonStrengths practitioner for over 15 years, this framework is amazingly effective for small marketing agencies to help figure out who to hire, how to keep them, and how to deliver outsized high-quality results that makes clients think you’ve got dozens of team members when it’s really just one person performing at their best.
Join me for a brief tour through these four strength domains to see how each can help your marketing agency blow the socks off clients and your own revenue projections.
Executing Domain: The Delivery Engine
The Executing domain is a billable hour engine. They thrive when taking action and accomplishing tasks, such as:
Achiever: Individuals with Achiever possess an inherent drive and a passion for setting and reaching ambitious goals. Achievers get that last-minute client dashboard issue fixed!
Arranger: Those strong in Arranger possess an ability to organize and adjust plans to ensure successful execution. An Arranger can make the most out of a small ad budget.
Responsibility: Responsibility signifies reliability and commitment, showcasing an individual's accountability in leadership roles. You can trust that an Account Manager with Responsibility will see things through to the end.
The Agency Reality: Without strong Executing talents, your agency suffers from missed deadlines and "half-baked" client deliverables.
The Fix: These team members are the "Do-ers." They turn your visionary strategies into tangible results, ensuring precision and reliability in your creative workflows.
Influencing Domain: The Growth Catalyst
You’ll be winning more pitches and retaining more clients with the Influencing domain. Strengths in the Influencing domain center around making decisions, both for yourself and for clients, such as:
Activator: Activators thrive on initiating change and inspiring others, converting ideas into tangible actions. If you need someone to onboard new clients, get an Activator on the job.
Communication: This strength emphasizes the power of effective expression and the ability to engage and motivate others through clear communication. Communicators have an uncanny ability to translate thoughts into words.
WOO (Winning Others Over): Individuals with Woo possess remarkable social skills and the ability to form connections effortlessly. That person at the bar who bought everyone drinks? Probably a WOO.
The Agency Reality: If your team lacks Influencing strengths, great ideas die in internal meetings and clients aren't "wowed" by your pitches.
The Fix: These are your "Agents of Change." They sell your vision internally and externally, rallying the team around new initiatives and convincing clients to trust your expertise
Relationship Building Domain: The Cultural Glue
Building strong relationships and fostering a cohesive team is a non-negotiable when running a service business like a marketing agency. These are some of the strengths that are critical for your agency to survive and thrive:
Empathy: Empathy involves understanding and connecting with others on an emotional level, a significant trait in providing support and creating trust. Not every problem is solved through logic: people with the Empathy strength can use emotion to get to consensus.
Developer: Developers have an innate ability to recognize and nurture the potential in others, aiding in their growth and development. Great mentors and coaches tend to have this strength.
Harmony: Agency team members with Harmony focus on creating a balanced and conflict-free environment within a team, emphasizing unity and collaboration. A team in crisis can be mended with a strong Harmony leader.
The Agency Reality: A lack of this domain leads to high turnover, "backchannel" gossip, and teams that feel like a group of strangers eating lunch alone at their desks.
The Fix: These team members are the "Glue." They foster psychological safety and forge the strong connections required to survive the high-pressure environment of agency life.
Strategic Thinking Domain: The Visionary Compass
Strategic Thinking is a strong skillset for agencies, emphasizing planning and identifying possible solutions. Whether you provide fractional-CMO services or are planning a content calendar, these are some Strategic Thinking strengths that you need:
Analytical: The Analytical strength signifies critical thinking and problem-solving skills based on data and evidence. Complexity is delicious to your Analytical SEO specialist.
Futuristic: Futuristic individuals envision the future and set long-term goals, inspiring their teams towards success. Coming up with an inspirational vision is easy for Futuristic team members.
Strategic: Strategic individuals are skilled at creating effective plans and finding optimal solutions for challenges. You’ll see a Strategic colleague get from Point A to Point B more effectively than anyone else.
The Agency Reality: Without Strategic Thinking, your agency stays stuck on "side trips" that waste time and money, never actually reaching your long-term growth goals.
The Fix: These are the "Masterminds." They see through the chaos of daily operations to spot patterns and navigate complexities, ensuring you aren't just "working hard," but "learning fast".
Go Deeper Into Each Domain
The four domains of Executing, Influencing, Relationship Building, and Strategic Thinking is the big-picture perspective for thinking about leadership strengths. Each domain has 8-9 specific strengths that highlight certain preferences and behaviors. Understanding how a specific strength operates opens up deep reflective questions about how you can achieve success.
Do you dig our leadership images? View all 34 here.
Stop Guessing. Start Scaling.
Your agency doesn't have a sales problem; it has a people problem. If you’re ready to stop spinning your wheels and start building a high-performance creative team that’s ready to scale, let's look under the hood.
Ready for a diagnosis? Book an Agency Talent & Culture Audit today. We’ll uncover the invisible "people problems" holding your agency back and map out a repeatable playbook for sustainable growth.
This post was featured in the Boston Startup Hub.
