I used to believe that efficiency wins. Lower costs mean higher margins. If something can be automated, it should be—and right away.
I chased systems, shortcuts, and scale before I fully understood what I was giving up in the process.
Rory Sutherland, the Vice Chairman of Ogilvy UK, calls this the “doorman fallacy.” It’s the idea that removing something that looks inefficient on paper must be good for business. A doorman simply opens the door for you, and that can be replaced with technology. The thinking goes: they don’t directly produce revenue, so cut them. Except the doorman creates reassurance, status, trust, and a sense of care—all the things spreadsheets and finance bros don’t capture, but customers absolutely feel and love.
I’ve lived this firsthand. Compare QuickBooks support to that of their competitor, FreshBooks. I started with FreshBooks and loved them. When I called to ask a question, they answered. Not just quickly—several times they literally picked up before it even rang. Their service was incredible.
Now compare that to QuickBooks’ call line. It’s practically nonexistent. They steer you to a community forum and make it nearly impossible to find a phone number answered by a human. And when you do reach someone, the results are bottom-shelf at best. Very different experience. (And yes, I only switched to QuickBooks after I outgrew FreshBooks.)
Or look at how we handle clients. We could send automated reports and call it a day. Instead, we hold video meetings to walk through performance, talk strategy, answer hard questions, and make clients feel confident about where they are and where they’re going. Those meetings are expensive and certainly “inefficient” if you only measure cost. They’re priceless if you measure retention and growth.
Now look at what’s happening in the digital marketing industry. Agencies are racing to replace strategists, specialists, and account managers with AI. Every time I hear a marketer talk about their “AI employee,” I vomit a little in my mouth. AI… employee… give me a break.
Everyone wants to become an AI outsourcing automation shop. And yes, it solves a problem. It gets cheaper. It gets faster—when it works correctly. But it also creates new problems at the same time, and not good ones.
Clients do not buy marketing because they want automation or because they want cheap. If you come across those kinds of prospects, do me a favor and keep them for yourself—I don’t want them. They make terrible clients.
Good clients buy marketing because they want results and confidence, which they get from human strategists. AI can generate output, but it cannot sit across from a client, read the room, challenge bad assumptions, or build conviction in a strategy. It cannot replace customer service, judgment, or accountability. When you remove those, you’re not innovating—you’re killing value.
I was once focused on efficiency at all costs. Today, while simultaneously running multiple multimillion-dollar agencies, I optimize for results first, experience second, and efficiency third.
Now, I don’t want you to think I’m anti-AI. I’m not. We approve of it and use it widely—but we use it intelligently, and only where it makes sense.
The agencies that win won’t be the cheapest or the most automated. They’ll be the ones that use AI as leverage, not as a replacement for trust, culture, and strategy.
Subscribe to this newsletter at businessofagency.com to learn how to build a profitable agency that values results over shortcuts—and creates leverage without losing the human edge.
I hope that gives you something to think about.
~ Erik