Can we be completely hands-off? What if we want to be involved in every decision and approval?

So, you’re almost ready to work with TwoTone creative and you’re wondering, “How involved does my team need to be?”

Maybe you’re hoping to hand over the keys to all your marketing and let us run with it. You have an organization to manage to run after all. You don’t have time to review every line of copy or debate if a button should be blue or green.

Or maybe you’re thinking the exact opposite:

“Wait, you want us to hand over everything? We want to be involved in every decision.”

That’s okay too. There’s no “right” way to work with us, but we should definitely talk about what things could look like. 

Some of our clients want to be deeply involved. Others want us to take the reins. The best partnerships aren’t one or the other. They establish who owns what from the very beginning.

We’ll need your approval on projects, but we won’t need your team to become project managers (we have those). The best partnerships find the balance between collaboration and ownership.

There’s No “Right” Way to Work Together

All of our clients are different.

Some want to be closely involved with the creative process. Looped in on every decision, see concepts, and provide feedback every step of the way.

Others want something closer to:

“Here are our goals. You’re the experts. Let us know what you recommend.”

Both approaches can work. Problems don’t necessarily come from being too involved or too hands-off. Problems can come when there is too much or too little involvement for what a project actually needs.

At TwoTone, we do need some level of your involvement. You know your business, customers, goals, and industry better than we ever will. However, we don’t need you to become a marketing expert or manage our projects (hint: that’s kind of why you hired us).

The goal is to make sure you’re involved where your involvement actually matters.

What Does Being “Hands-Off” Actually Mean?

Let’s make one thing clear. Hands-off does not mean disappearing. And we’re not going to disappear on you either.

We want your involvement in some capacity. You know your business better than we ever could. You know your customers, your industry, and what makes your company different. That knowledge matters. We need that perspective when we’re making decisions that are going to shape how customers see your business.

On the other hand, we don’t need a check-in on every step of the process.

You don’t need to tell us how to approach an SEO issue. You don’t need to rewrite every piece of copy or approve every comma.

The goal is to do the best work, quickly and efficiently. Too much involvement can push a one-month project to next quarter.

When you work with TwoTone, you’re hiring a team with diverse areas of expertise. Our job is to take ownership of the things you’ve trusted us with so we can look at your challenges through our expert lens.

You should know what’s happening. You will have opportunities to give feedback and make improvements based on your knowledge. But you should also give us ownership and let us do the work.

Hands-off means giving us ownership, not giving up communication.

What if We Want to Be Involved in Every Decision?

That’s okay too. 

It’s your organization after all. We understand that handing over ownership of any part of your communications can feel like handing over the key to your house.

You will always have a say in how you are represented and your messaging strategy. Wanting to be involved doesn’t mean you don’t trust your agency. The key is making sure that involvement is structured.

During the onboarding process, we will determine who has ownership of what. What projects do we handle, from copywriting to design to execution? What projects do we simply take your copy and design from there? Who from your organization needs to approve certain projects?

These questions are helpful for an efficient process. What’s not helpful is having six different people independently sending feedback or changing direction without consulting each other first. That’s how a simple home page becomes a six-week philosophical debate about button colors.

We’ll always need approval on projects before your customers or clients see them, because you know your business. So we ask that you keep approval in the right hands. One to three points of contact for a project is the sweet spot. 

That way, you can deliberate amongst your leadership team and come to us with feedback that everyone agrees on. That’s how our team keeps things running smoothly.

You can be highly involved while still giving TwoTone ownership over what we do best.

→ Why a Point of Contact Matters

Even if you want to be involved in everything, having one primary point of contact—or a small group—is extremely helpful.

You (and we) don’t want feedback coming from six different people with six different ideas. That’s not because we don’t want to hear from your team. It’s because clear communication helps us do better work.

Your point of contact can gather internal feedback and make sure we’re working with one clear direction. It makes everyone’s lives easier.

What Decisions Should You Be Involved In?

Not every decision carries the same weight. 

A lot of decisions require your authority and expertise. Others are the decisions you hired us to make.

So, where should your team be involved?

1. Big-Picture Strategy

Your business goals drive the marketing strategy we develop in the onboarding and discovery process. Once we understand your goals, we’re not going to develop a random strategy that completely misses the mark. This is where we need your expertise.

You need to be involved in discussions regarding:

We need to understand where your business is—and where you want to be—so we can do our best work. Our team can’t consult a crystal ball for this information, so we’ll need your wealth of knowledge to craft a strategy that will work for you.

2. Brand Defining Decisions

You know your business. You know how you want to be represented.

You may know exactly how you want your business to show up to others, but have no idea how to get there. That’s why we’re here.

We’ll need your involvement in decisions on:

Your perspective really matters in these areas.

We bring the expertise to develop the direction. You bring the knowledge of your business to say, “Yeah, that’s us.”

3. Approvals

Sometimes projects just need a final “Yes.” Other times, they’ll need your feedback to better meet your needs. That’s why we need someone you can trust to handle approvals.

We won’t harp on you to approve every little detail. We don’t expect (or want) you to act as a secondary project manager either.

We need your feedback, but we also need room to use our creative expertise.

There’s a difference between:

“This doesn’t sound like us because our customers use different terminology.”

And:

“I don’t like this. Change it.”

The first gives us context we couldn’t know without you. The second doesn’t give us any information we can use to make it better.

The best feedback helps us understand why something isn’t working.

When no one from your team is involved, we don’t have access to that valuable feedback. When too many people are involved, feedback can get less clear. It’s about finding the sweet spot.

We’ll figure out how to best handle the approval process during onboarding. But just know that we’ll need someone from your team to provide feedback from time to time.

The Approval Process: Decide How it Works Before We Start

Here’s the easiest way to make all of this work:

Talk about it before we start.

During onboarding, we will determine how your team wants to work with ours.

This includes establishing:

This looks different for every client. Maybe your CEO wants to approve major decisions and your marketing director handles day-to-day approvals. Maybe you want us to take ownership of everything and only be looped into major strategic decisions. 

At the end of the day, our projects are done for you. That means we operate with your needs and goals and top-of-mind, always.

We can work with you, no matter how involved you want to be.

So, Can You Be Completely Hands-Off?

Technically? You can be very hands-off. But completely absent is never the goal.

The strongest agency partnerships aren't ones where the client disappears for six months and reappears asking why the logo changed. They're collaborative without being burdensome.

We need your knowledge. Your perspective. Your feedback. When they’re relevant. Beyond that, our job is to take ownership of the work you hired us to do.

If you want to be involved every step of the way?

That’s okay too. We can work with that.

The important thing is knowing where your involvement adds value—and where our expertise adds value. 

You won’t have to manage us. But it won’t feel like you’ve handed over your business and lost your voice in the process.

You bring the business knowledge. We bring the marketing knowledge. Together, we determine what needs to happen. And we own it.

There isn’t a magic formula for how involved a client should be. What matters is creating a partnership where both teams know when to step in, when to step back, and who owns each decision.

We’ll make recommendations. We’ll take ownership of the work. We’ll make sure you’re involved where your input matters most. We’ll create a process that helps you achieve your goals together.

If you're looking for a creative agency that can meet your team where you are and work with you at a level of involvement that makes sense, let's talk.

Book a Discovery Call with TwoTone Creative today.